Doodle on

"I have an opinion,

And a theory too, in the bargain.

I'll serve you with a doctrine,

or a dogma, if you care

A judgement is only too easy to come by

and Philosophies a dime! a penny!

But if it is hard facts you want, dear sirs

you believe in tooth fairies."

Indeed!

To My Valentine

In the spirit of the season, I present to you...

Ogden Nash

More than a catbird hates a cat,
Or a criminal hates a clue,
Or the Axis hates the United States,
That's how much I love you.

I love you more than a duck can swim,
And more than a grapefruit squirts,
I love you more than a gin rummy is a bore,
And more than a toothache hurts.

As a shipwrecked sailor hates the sea,
Or a juggler hates a shove,
As a hostess detests unexpected guests,
That's how much you I love.

I love you more than a wasp can sting,
And more than the subway jerks,
I love you as much as a beggar needs a crutch,
And more than a hangnail irks.

I swear to you by the stars above,
And below, if such there be,
As the High Court loathes perjurious oaths,
That's how you're loved by me.

History of a Boy

"Don't talk about it, Tom. I've tried it, and it don't work; it don't work, Tom. It ain't for me; I ain't used to it. The widder's good to me, and friendly; but I can't stand them ways. She makes me get up just at the same time every morning; she makes me wash, they comb me all to thunder; she won't let me sleep in the woodshed; I got to wear them blamed clothes that just smothers me, Tom; they don't seem to any air git through 'em, somehow; and they're so rotten nice that I can't set down, nor lay down, nor roll around anywher's; I hain't slid on a cellar-door for - well, it 'pears to be years; I got to go to church and sweat and sweat - I hate them ornery sermons! I can't ketch a fly in there, I can't chaw. I got to wear shoes all Sunday. The widder eats by a bell; she goes to bed by a bell; she gits up by a bell - everything's so awful reg'lar a body can't stand it."

"Well, everybody does that way, Huck."

"Tom, it don't make no difference. I ain't everybody, and I can't stand it. It's awful to be tied up so. And grub comes too easy - I don't take no interest in vittles, that way. I got to ask to go a fishing; I got to ask to go in a swimming - dern'd if I hain't got to ask to do everything. Well, I'd got to talk so nice it wasn't no comfort; I'd got to go up in the attic and rip out awhile, every day, to git a taste in my mouth, or I'd a died, Tom. The widder wouldn't let me smoke; she wouldn't let me yell, she wouldn't let me gape, nor stretch, nor scratch, before folks." Then with a spasm of special irritation and injury: "And dad fetch it, she prayed all the time! I never see such a woman! I had to shove, Tom, I just had to. And besides, that school's going to open, and I'd a had to go to it; well, I wouldn't stand that, Tom. Looky-here, Tom, being rich ain't what it's cracked up to be. It's just worry and worry, and sweat and sweat, and a-wishing you was dead all the time. Now these clothes suits me, and this bar'l suits me, and I ain't ever going to shake 'em any more. Tom, I wouldn't ever got into all this trouble if it hadn't 'a' ben for that money; now you just take my sheer of it along with your'n, and gimme a ten-center sometimes - not many times, becuz I don't give a dern for a thing 'thout it's tollable hard to git - and you go and beg off for me with the widder."

"Oh, Huck, you know I can't do that. 'Tain't fair; and besides if you'll try this thing just a while longer you'll come to like it."

"Like it! Yes - the way I'd like a hot stove if I was to set on it long enough. No, Tom, I won't be rich, and I won't live in them cussed smothery houses. I like the woods, and the river, and hogsheads, and I'll stick to 'em, too. Blame it all! just as we'd got guns, and a cave, and all just fixed to rob, here this dern foolishness has got to come up and spile it all!"

-Mark Twain
The Advetures of Tom Sawyer (1876)

On a Blank Note

On an existential trip (yet again), the scriptor of this blog has hit a blank wall...All weasel words have temporarily been suspended.

With great respect to the huge piles of unread books lying next to the bed (under the table, over the chair, in the bag and overflowing out of the cupboards) the scriptor will instead be picking up random books and quoting verbatim...anything and everything...

Inconvenience caused should be enjoyable...I guess.

Notes from Underground

"I swear to you that to think too much is a disease, a real, actual disease. I should like to tell you now, whether you want to hear it or not, why I couldn't even make an insect of myself. I tell you solemnly that I have wanted to make an insect of myself many times. But I couldn't succeed even in that.

Oh, if only it was out of laziness that I do nothing! Lord, how much I should respect myself then! I should respect myself because I had something inside me, even if it was only laziness; I should have at any rate one positive quality of which I could be sure. Question: what is he? Answer: A lazy man; and it really would be very pleasant to hear that said of me. It wold mean being positively defined, it would mean that there was something that could be said of me. 'a lazy man!' - that us a name, a calling, it's positively a career! Don't laugh, it's true. Then I should be by right a member of the very best club, and have no other occupation than nursing my self-esteem...And I should choose for myself a career: I should be a lazy man and a glutton, but not a simple one, rather one who, for example, was in sympathy with all that is 'best and highest'. How do you like that idea?

...Afterall, the direct, immediate, legitimate fruit of heightened consciousness is inertia, that is the deliberate refusal to do anything. I have mentioned this before. I repeat, and repeat emphatically: all spontaneous people, men of action, are active because they are stupid and limited."

Fyodor Dostoevsky