Kubla Khan

One of the greatest lines from Coleridge: "To such a deep delight t'would win me . . ." The "delight" is great of course, but it's the "t'would," a word we never use anymore, that does it. T'would. Ahhhh. T'would that I could. (By the way, you can ruin the lyrical second stanza of KUBLA KHAN by singing it to the tune of MAC THE KNIFE.)

Oh yeah, William James also said, "If you want to be cheerful, ACT cheerfully." This is either fantastic, wondrous advice or total insanity.

pain

Ok, so my lower back is out again because I had to shovel snow during the blizzard. Pain, who needs it? Our Advil, who art in the medicine cabinet . . . The great psychologist William James had this to say about it: think of pain as somewhere else in the room, not really a part of you. This is wise, I believe. James also asked, "Do we run because we are afraid, or are we afraid because we run?" Great stuff. And he wrote a fantastic book called THE VARIETIES OF RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. Everyone should read James. He was the brother of the novelist, Henry James, of TURN OF THE SCREW fame.

readers

I'm amazed. Some people are actually reading this. I thought is was tooting a horn in a vacuum. And, Meredith, glad I can help you get through the day. More soon.

poem

And here's a flash poem for you:

I saw the campus philosopher,
a radical Marxist touting praxis,
in the return line at Walmart:
in his hands, a toiler plunger,
defective I presume.

cuisine for thought

One of the wisest Indian sages, Khrisnamurti, had this to say about time: "Time is sorrow." (And yet, I would add, time is also joy -- though in the long run, I agree with Khrisnamurti)>

Before I get to Val's story, which will be in many installments, let me list a few of the irritants that we all must endure each day. Some years ago, the Surgeon General declared that it is not the Vesuvius-like stressors that wreck you (by producing massive amounts of the evil chemical cortisol in your body; no, it's the accumulation of minor little irritants that take the true toll. Cortisol Unleashed!

1. Telephone menus (solution: don't use the phone)
2. Cell phones with buttons too small for your fingers (solution: glue on claws)
3. Slow talking telephone robots (solution: some say press O and you will get a human, but I've found it usually doesn't work. Don't use the phone.)
4. Courtesy callers (solution: get on the NO CALL list)
5. Steel-like plastic packaging that requires a blow-torch to open (solution: buy a blow-torch)
6. The COST of throw-away razors; the COST of printer ink cartridges; hell, the COST of everything (solution: there is none)
7. PDF formatting (detestable--solution: avoid it or pay someone to do it for you)
8. Medical commercials on TV that make you utterly paranoid (solution: don't watch TV)
9. Eight-year lightbulbs that burn out in six months (solution: keep returning them to where purchased)
10. Lost socks and coat hangers (where do they go? solution -- go barefoot and thrown your clothes in a heap on the floor

MORE TO COME. CHEERS!

Valentino

I want to tell the story of my friend Valentino (Val) who is not a writer and who has lived with the horror of losing his young daughter for a long time now. It's all true, and I will tell the story as it was told to me. I will also use this blog for generalized venting. I am apparently good at venting, so why not put it to use?

But how do you find it on Google?

Just checking this out, a test to see if I'm doing it right. Lou