• Speaking from experience, a perfectionist should live in a small house with a tiny yard or better yet an apartment. For every mortal, there exists a horizon of perfectability beyond which lies insanity.
• An item in News on Japan asks, why did Japanese people stop performing seppuku? “Seppuku, a highly ritualized form of suicide that involved cutting one’s own stomach, was once part of the bushido samurai code, and considered an honorable way to die and, until the 20th century, was quite common. So what happened? Why did this practice die out?” Evidently, News on Japan has not heard of Darwin.
• One of these is the biggest waste of time in the Free World. Can you guess which it is? (A) Shaving. (B) Raking leaves. (C) Reading internet comments. Answer below.
• I love the Yiddish word schmutz. It refers to that unidentifiable organic-based debris on your face or clothes that you didn’t know was there but that you need to remove. What I like about schmutz is that it sounds both disgusting and insignificant at the same time.
• I grew up in the 1950s and 1960s, the era of brands. My parents had a CBS, Pepsi and Miracle Whip house. Others lived in an NBC, Coke and Hellman’s mayonnaise house. Before I got married, I thought Miracle Whip was mayonnaise. It was the same color.
• My wife was interested in a spoonful of my ice cream one evening and asked what flavor it was. I told her “Lizard Claw Delight.” To my surprise, that did not dissuade her.
• Dinner conversation: I asked my wife what the spouse of one of our friends did for a living and she answered, “He does dog fencing.” I said, “Like En garde, Rover?”
• If I had thirty million dollars to spare and inside connections with mass media big-shots, I would create a television awards show called The Palettes. Artists in various genres would vie for honors such as Most Expressive Portrait, Most Pretentious Installation, Starkest Abstract, Least (or Most?) Minimalist, Most Inscrutable Work (Any Genre) and Outrageous New Artist with the Most Important New York Times Review. It would be broadcast on PBS from a third-floor loft in a converted warehouse with a leaky roof in Soho in the dead of winter. The award trophy would be a Pollock-spattered radiator.
• Help me God to see
but when I do not,
the blame lies with me.
American Christianity.
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A tip of the old fedora to Sydney Harris?
And “schmutz” is indeed a useful and felicitous word.
Indeed, Rob, the 27th tip-of-the-hat in the series. Thanks for visiting.