Optimism

Or Being Crazy
Havelock Ellis: "The place where optimism most flourishes is the lunatic asylum."

Brave New World 2008

O, wonder! How many goodly creatures are there here! How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world, That has such people in't! Shakespeare The Tempest (V, i)

What Kind Of Dream?

Edgar Allan Poe: "Those who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night."

Party Favor

Or, Thought for the day
There's no use being Frank Zappa any more.

Found Treasure: Rosalie Sorrels

Rosalie Sorrels Every once in a while on the Internet you stumble across a treasure that you'd never even heard the name of and this is one of those for me, a singer that I must have gone to a great deal of trouble to totally miss! Listen to her song, ."Travellin' Lady". I swear, if the God of Folk music is a woman, Sorrels certainly sounds like the voice of the Goddess--or at least the archangel that introduces them!

Come Together?

William Ralph Inge "A nation is a society united by delusions about its ancestry and by common hatred of its neighbors."

Happy Trails To You!

All I can do is hope that everybody everywhere, of all sexes, all colors, all affiliations, who's ever had anything to do with these goddamn soulless robotic phone calls WILL SLOWLY DIE IN HELL!

Studs Terkel Is Gone

I never paid all that much attention to Terkel, but I've heard him talk now and then. Lately I've listened to him on the Internet even more now that he's died. Well, he had to die some time, didn't he, and he didn't exactly die young. 96 is a pretty good age. I'm sorry he couldn't live to see the end of the Presidential election like he wanted. But, really, there is no good time to die, I'd imagine. He always said that his epitaph would be that "curiosity didn't kill this cat!" As far as I could see, he always had curiosity, though, and it hadn't stopped even in his ninety-sixth year! An amazing and likable man! He interviewed a lot of "ordinary" people in his years. Some of the people that he interviewed were celebrities, though he said his attraction to them was that they were people he "celebrated" for things he admired about them. Mere "celebrities", he said, were creatures of no particular definition at all. For the same reason, I mention him here as a man to be celebrated more than as a mere celebrity who thus fits into this Category of post! He was pretty much articulate right up to the end. Great men should always live this well, this long!

Magnifier on Microsoft Mouse

When I had to buy a new mouse the other day, I was only vaguely aware of it having an additional button (new to me). It's on the top left edge (center) of the mouse and it turns on and off a magnifier. The magnification is of only one power, though the box itself can be continuously adjusted from small to nearly as large as the screen. It reminded me of a conversation I had long ago when I was griping about small print and various people advised me about the View-Text sizing. I do sometimes use the View to enlarge things, but the magnifying button is pretty cool when I encounter the Internet equivalent of "fine print" in legal documents or medicine labels where it's just a small message, not the whole screen, that's way too fucking small. The button is very useful, though it is hard to get used to and not be turning it on and off without intending to do so! I'm sure there's web sites and magazines that have reported this and other technical crap to the max, but apparently I never go there! I had no idea there was such a button. Not a bad thing, though! See the Microsoft Comfort Optical Mouse 3000 if you're curious. Or see the magnifier (shown at its smallest size) imposed over a photo of this post below:

I Saw You

I dreamed I saw you in a passing car Going another way, And it was oh so many years later And still I hadn't forgotten. It might not have been you, but it hardly matters, does it? Whether it was or not, it prodded me, it pierced me, It made me bleed and sweat and weep and pray As I had not done for years, Whether I should have done or not— But that part, too, doesn't matter. We are past it. It was like some last sad song of youth That I'd heard now just once too often, Sung by the most ethereal, soulful country songstress Softly crooning those old Beatles love songs That stung us awake and left us alive but lopsided, Not intact, but fragmented like this— It then left our hearts in the dirt for eternity... I never knew it would be so long When you went away, Not until this last time that your image passed me by like a ghost in a transparent dream.