{"id":11057,"date":"2015-08-12T00:05:49","date_gmt":"2015-08-12T04:05:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/?p=11057"},"modified":"2022-08-01T07:43:03","modified_gmt":"2022-08-01T11:43:03","slug":"thoughts-at-large-27","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/2015\/08\/thoughts-at-large-27\/","title":{"rendered":"Thoughts at Large: 27"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u2022 Speaking from experience, a perfectionist should live in a small house with a tiny yard or\u00a0 better yet an apartment.\u00a0 For every mortal, there exists a horizon of perfectability<\/em> beyond which lies insanity.<\/p>\n

\u2022 An item in News on Japan<\/em> asks, why did Japanese people stop performing seppuku<\/a>?\u00a0 “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.\u00a0 So what happened?\u00a0 Why did this practice die out?” Evidently, News on Japan<\/em> has not heard of Darwin.<\/p>\n

\u2022 One of these is the biggest waste of time in the Free World.\u00a0 Can you guess which it is?\u00a0\u00a0 (A)\u00a0Shaving.\u00a0 (B) Raking leaves.\u00a0 (C) Reading internet comments.\u00a0\u00a0 Answer below.<\/p>\n

\u2022 I love the Yiddish word schmutz<\/em>.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 What I like about schmutz<\/em> is that it sounds both disgusting and insignificant at the same time.<\/p>\n

\"The\u2022 I grew up in the 1950s and 1960s, the era of brands.\u00a0 My parents had a CBS, Pepsi and Miracle Whip house.\u00a0 Others lived in an NBC, Coke and Hellman’s mayonnaise house.\u00a0 Before I got married, I thought Miracle Whip was<\/em> mayonnaise.\u00a0 It was the same color.<\/p>\n

\u2022 My wife was interested in a spoonful of my ice cream one evening and asked what flavor it was.\u00a0 I told her “Lizard Claw Delight.<\/span>”\u00a0 To my surprise, that did not dissuade her.<\/p>\n

\u2022 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.”\u00a0 I said, “Like En garde<\/em>, Rover?<\/em>”<\/p>\n

\u2022 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<\/em>.\u00a0 Artists in various genres would vie for honors such as Most Expressive Portrait, Most Pretentious <\/em>Installation<\/em>, Starkest Abstract, <\/em> Least (or Most?) <\/em>Minimalist, Most Inscrutable Work (Any Genre) <\/em>and Outrageous New Artist<\/em> with the Most Important New York Times Review.<\/em>\u00a0 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.\u00a0 The award trophy would be a Pollock-spattered radiator.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Help me God to see
\nbut when I do not,<\/span>
\nthe blame lies with me.<\/span>
\nAmerican Christianity.<\/span><\/p>\n

_________________________________<\/p>\n

* The biggest waste of time in the Free World: Footnotes.<\/h5>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u2022 Speaking from experience, a perfectionist should live in a small house with a tiny yard or\u00a0 better yet an apartment.\u00a0 For every mortal, there exists a horizon of perfectability beyond which lies insanity. \u2022 An item in News on … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11057","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-thoughts-at-large"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11057","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11057"}],"version-history":[{"count":42,"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11057\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28291,"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11057\/revisions\/28291"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11057"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11057"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11057"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}