12/10/10  Select Either Or

They say there's a right way and a wrong way to do things, yet there's more than one way to skin a cat. Which pithy bit of folksy wisdom do we go with? I guess all we can do when we find ourselves on the horns of a dilemma is follow the advice of Yogi Berra, "When you come to a fork in the road, take it."

11/11/10  Miss Auntie Christie

"The young people think the old people are fools—but the old people know the young people are fools."

      The above is dialog spoken by Miss Jane Marple from The Murder at the Vicarage by Agatha Christie. How do we attribute the quote? One might be inclined to attribute Agatha Christie as she wrote it. Yet that would imply she agreed with the sentiment of the quote, even though she might not. Authors put words in the mouths of their own creations they'd never agree to themselves. I mean, if some character said "I love killing people" you wouldn't quote the author as saying "I love killing people", would you?

      Which means we'd need to attribute the quote to the fictional Miss Marple. Though in the story Miss Marple was herself quoting her Great Aunt Fanny. So then, which fictional character gets the credit? How many degrees of separation need we include? What if Miss Marple's aunt were repeating a quote from someone else or just some old saw?

      On the other hand, what if Miss Marple were quoting someone, but didn't agree with the sentiment of the quote herself. Attributing the quote to her would be wrong in that case. Though one wonders, can you libel or slander a fictional character? I guess the correct attribution would be...

—Jane Marple quoting her Great Aunt Fanny in The Murder at the Vicarage by Agatha Christie.

      All that aside, is the sentiment in the quote accurate? Well, old people should have a better perspective on the young, what with having once been young themselves. On the other hand, the young have never been old.

10/16/10  Grumpy on Dopey

“Democracy is just a fancy word for pooling a country's ignorance and unleashing it wholesale on its citizens.”

—Norton I, Emperor of the United States (AKA Joshua Abraham Norton)

      How much stock we should put in the ideas of a "lovable old humbug", as Mark Twain called him, is hard to say. Still, the sentiments are not all that different from those of famous curmudgeon, or joyous libertarian if you'd rather, H.L. Mencken.

“Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance. No one in this world has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people. Nor has anyone ever lost public office thereby.”

      Does any of that sound familiar, the second sentence in particular? Let's rephrase it as you may have heard one time or another,

“Nobody ever went broke overestimating the vulgarity of the American people.”

      Or perhaps you've heard it as,

“Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the general public.”

      Whether these are misquotes or paraphrases of Mencken or just other things the man wrote I couldn't say. People sometimes repeat themselves with variations on a theme. I know I have.

9/14/10  News From the Front Yard

      The fescue and rye forces have suffered almost total collapse in the battle of the grasses in the southern theater of operations (STO) of the ongoing lawn wars. From curb to stoop the crabgrass army and its allies have routed the turf grasses at every turn. The turf grass leadership blamed the defeat on a hot dry, summer, though lack of logistical support in watering or fertilizer fairly doomed any hope of fescue and rye forces holding their ground.

      Said Commander Colon, "We admit fatigue and budgetary concerns have hampered our efforts this year." Critics quickly seized on the statement to mean the leadership was just plain lazy and cheap. Colon countered that there was no reduction in mowing from years prior. But such efforts only amount to a delaying action which in the end hasn't rescued the situation.

      Then came the Commander's bombshell. "In light of the ongoing situation, we are announcing a change of strategy. Instead of a full frontal grass advance on all fronts, we are counterattacking with patches of bushes, wildflowers and ground cover." Which wags interpreted as bushy weeds, tall weeds, and mowed weeds.

      Critics further accused the leadership of sinking to using the weedy tactics of the enemy and that the so-called 'change of strategy' is nothing more than code for surrender. Replied the Commander, "While some might say that, I say it's time we had a winning strategy. Let's face it, the other side was winning."

      Or as the old saying goes, If you can't beat 'em, join 'em.

      Or as W.C. Fields said, “If at first you don't succeed, try, try again. Then quit. No use in being a damned fool about it.”

8/9/10  Pig Sty

"Beauty is only skin deep, but ugly goes right to the bone."  —Dorothy Parker

      OK. Rather amusing. But is it true? If we take our cue from the real estate game it would be. That's because a house that can't be made to look good by slapping on a coat of paint, a house that's just plain ugly with awkward architecture, ungainly features, oddly done additions, slap-dash improvements is said to have "bad bones." That's not good for the old "curb appeal" as they say.

      To make such a structure attractive would require more than a simple make-over, more like cosmetic surgery. This brings up another saying entirely, "Like putting lipstick on a pig." Which is a lot like the old saw about making silk purses out of sows' ears. But let's not get carried away with pig stories.

      So then, what can you do with a house with bad bones? My solution, trees. Or really big bushes. Plant these everywhere. Any kind will do, but evergreens work best. Just be sure you can't see the house for the trees. Like the poet said, there's nothing lovelier. No lipstick required.

      I have lot's of other gardening and home selling advice, but that will have to wait for another entry another time.

7/8/10  A Pig Walks Into a Bar...

      Do these old expressions make sense?

Make a beeline.
Sweat like a pig.
Lie like a dog

      A beeline is supposed to be straight and fast. Have you ever watched bees? They don't go all that straight and fast as far as I've observed. More like a zig-zag meander. Though if you them upset them and they swarm maybe it's a different story. In which case you make a beeline out of there lickety-split.

      Next, pigs don't sweat. Or so they say. That's why they wallow in the mud, to cool off. To be honest, I don't know what animals sweat like people. Dogs pant and horses lather. Is that sweat? I dunno. I also don't know the difference between a pig a hog and a boar. Though I guess none of them sweat.

      In my experience, outside of tall tales and jokes dogs don't talk. So how could they lie? Besides, dogs don't have a reputation for dishonesty. A dog is man's best friend, right? That's why we name some Fido. That's from the Latin fidelis, "faithful". All the same, I'll conclude this entry with a talking dog joke.

A guy sees a sign in front of a house, "Talking Dog For Sale". He rings the bell, and the owner tells him the dog is in the backyard. The guy goes around the house and into the backyard and sees a chihuahua sitting there.

"Because he's a liar. He didn't do any of that stuff."

6/3/10  Sorry, I Misquoted Myself

      Folks who speak a good deal in public are bound to make the occasional gaff. Politicians are no exception to the outspoken sometimes tying their tongues and logic in knots. Still, you have to wonder about the thinking behind the following statements:

"Things are more like they are now than they have ever been."  —Gerald Ford

"The streets are safe in Philadelphia — it's only the people who make them unsafe."  —Frank Rizzo, mayor of Philadelphia.

"There are two kinds of truth. There are real truths, and there are made up truths."  —Marion Barry, mayor of Washington

"We've got to act wisely and otherwisely."  —Allan Lampart, mayor of Toronto

      One imagines mayor Rizzo could make the streets of every city safe, just keep people indoors. But then things wouldn't be more like they are now than they have ever been otherwisely. A truly made up truth if ever there were one. Still, even if what I'm saying doesn't make sense, I can always use one politician's out:

"I stand by my misstatements."  —Dan Quayle

5/14/10  Clever Fool

"The only way to rid yourself of temptation is to yield to it."  —Ocsar Wilde

      An epigram, a paradox, irony? Whatever it is, it's the kind of thing Wilde was wild for. He used them a lot. As in "I love talking about nothing, father. It's the only thing I know anything about."

      Many wits like to play at this game, and half-wits, too. Being one or the other I'll give it a go with the following. I'll start with my own line, or epigram, or whatever. That's followed by a snippet from Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest which forms a sort-of reply.

"Imitation is the sincerest form of plagiarism."

Jack: Is that clever?

Algernon: It is perfectly phrased! and quite as true as any observation in civilized life should be.

Jack: I am sick to death of cleverness. Everybody is clever now-a-days. You can't go anywhere without meeting clever people. The thing has become an absolute public nuisance. I wish to goodness we had a few fools left.

Algernon: We have.

Jack: I should extremely like to meet them. What do they talk about?

Algernon: The fools? Oh! about the clever people, of course.

Jack: What fools!

4/12/10  What Would Scooby Do?

"Never try to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and it annoys the pig."  —Robert Heinlein

      Many a quote or old saying involves animals and trying to get them to do things. Often the futility of getting dumb beasts to do things they can't or won't do. Though it might not be the beast is so dumb, rather trying to get said creature to behave against its nature is foolish. Take for instance these two old saws...

You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink.

You can't teach an old dog new tricks.

      I'm fairly sure you can't teach a dog no matter its age to sing, like a pig or a person. At least not well, in key, or with the right lyrics. Though I have seen dogs howl along to music, though I wouldn't classify such vocalizations as singing. Which recalls the story of Dr. Johnson's reaction to certain dog tricks...

"The question the spectacle of a dog walking on its hind legs brings to mind is not how well is it done, but why."

3/25/10  Material World Weary

"Too many people spend money they haven't earned, to buy things they don't want, to impress people they don't like."  —Will Rogers

      Sound like someone you know? Would that be someone in the mirror? Is it an impressive mirror? Did you really want that mirror? Did you buy it with a credit card? Are objects in the mirror bigger or smaller than they appear? What's with all the dumb questions?

      I suppose there is a larger lesson here, but I'm not sure what. Maybe buying stuff is more fun than owning stuff. Once the novelty wears off it's just stuff underfoot you have to clean or store or whatever. Why do you think there are so many yard, rummage and garage sales? Just a way of trying to get back a bit of money we shouldn't have spent on things we don't want which don't impress anyone any more.

      Consider how many folks have closets, cabinets, and attics jam-packed with stuff they don't use or need or maybe even want any more. Now-a-days people store so much junk in the garage they can't get the car in there. We have an entire industry based on owning more stuff than we have places to put it, self storage.

      Face it, this is the age of junk drawer overflow. And all that dusty old detritus isn't going to turn heads at Antiques Roadshow, is it? Still, we buy more and hold onto it all because, as my pack-rat grandpa used to say, "It might come in handy some day." Sure, if you can find it or get to it even if you know where it might be in there somewhere.

      In the end, junk was once goods that became no good.