Wasted
This is a repost from 2013. Over the last few years, quote debunking has become a hobby of mine. This particular item is cited by Quote Investigator®. … There is a tasteful graphic going around. It features a quote, “Time you enjoy wasting was not wasted.” John Lennon is blamed for this thought. Wikiquotes does not have this quote, at least by Mr. Ono.
An obvious comment is that being wasted is something Mr. Lennon knew. Keith Richards says this is not quite the case. On pages 261-262 of “Life”, Mr. Richards describes how Mr. Lennon would try to keep up on the drug intake, but wound up in the loo, studying the porcelain.
There was a facebook exchange about this quote. “Wikiquotes does not show this quote. I searched using wasted, wasting, and time.” ~ “Luther,the way I look at these quotes is : I like the idea they express, rather than being overly concerned with the veracity of the attribution.” … This is one of the kinder things a quote debunker will hear. People do not like to be told that Santa Claus does not exist.
If the idea is so cool, why do the quotemongers need to attribute them to a famous person? You can find some pastoral image for the background, throw the quote up, and be inspired. Is it an authoritarian impulse to find a wise man to give credit for the cleverness? Can’t it stand on it’s on?
John Lennon spoke about being more popular than Jesus, and caught some flack as a result. Would John really want to be used as justification for someone else’s clever thought? The sense here is that all he wanted to do was play rock and roll. Let someone else be the spokesman for a generation.
Pictures are from The Library of Congress. Russell Lee took the featured photograph in October 1938. “Princesses at the National Rice Festival, Crowley, Louisiana. There were thirty of these chosen from different communities throughout the rice section, the Queen being chosen from them.”
Plastic
There was a much praised video about a Plastic Bag, that winds up in the Pacific Trash Vortex. The bag has a voice (supplied by uberkraut Werner Herzog), and goes looking for it’s “maker” (an unknown actress.) Today’s version: Plastic Bag (sottotitoli in italiano – voce di Werner Herzog)
The bag has a remarkable existence. First, it is used to carry tennis balls, then dog food, then to pick up the by product of dog food. This is remarkable in itself… the typical kroger bag, if it doesn’t get thrown away on arrival at home, will not be used for more than one chore. But this is a special bag.
After the secondary canine duty, the bag is thrashed. Somehow, it escapes from the municipal destination, and begins a wind propelled odyssey in search of “my maker.” After a while, it is on the beach, and the wind takes it into the ocean. It floats in the sea, has pieces bitten off my non nutrition conscious fish, and heads off for a legendary garbage nirvana.
Before long, the bag is in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.” The GPGP is a bit north of Hawaii, and west of California. The bag movie was filmed in Wilmington, N.C. You should not think about this too long. At any rate, the bag is not happy in the GPGP, and moves on to greener pastures.
The next day, I go to a site called LISTVERSE. The letterman of the day is “top ten places you don’t want to visit”. Number ten on the list is the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. GPGP is either the size of Texas or twice the size of the lower 48. It is a collection of debris, largely plastic, from the world. It is held in place by something called a gyre, which is a place where swirling ocean currents bump up against each other. Greenpeace has a neat little visual that illustrates this. … LISTVERSE is still publishing content in 2025.
Plastic is a petroleum by product, and has many benefits to our world. It’s durability is one of them, and also one of it’s negatives. (The fact that plastic is so cheap to make is another.) A plastic bag cast off into the environment simply does not disappear. Fish eat them, thinking it is good food, and die of starvation. (Does this affect the food chain?) While the film about the plastic bag is an exaggeration, the fact is that plastic is forever, and ever.
Pictures are from Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library The featured photograph was taken April 21, 1969. “Mendel College for Fabric Knowledge” The poster is from Treehugger.com. This is a repost.
Egyptian Sphinx
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this is what I did last week. This post has 928 words, and 6 pictures. The picture/word value count is -5,072. The featured picture is from 1942. “Brooklyn NY Red Hook housing project. Boys playing chess at the community center.” · This report says that the death toll in Syria is over 7k. Many of the deceased are Greek Orthodox Christians. This report says that the militias are backed by Türkiye. This could get interesting · “Trying to determine what is going on in the world by reading newspapers is like trying to tell the time by watching the second hand of a clock.” Ben Hecht – A Child of the Century · ” But there is plenty of anger from the left as well. For example, any post supportive of Israel is immediately attacked by nasty pro-Hamas accounts.” Israel is a monkey wrench into the entire left-or-right paradigm · Arthur Rothstein took the featured picture in June 1942. “Brooklyn NY Red Hook housing project. Boys playing chess at the community center.” · @marcorubio We will be revoking the visas and/or green cards of Hamas supporters in America so they can be deported · Steps to pair a Bluetooth device, Press the Home button on your Roku remote, Select Settings, Select Remotes & devices, Select Pair Bluetooth device, On your Bluetooth device, turn on Bluetooth and put it in pairing mode, Wait for your Roku device to scan for Bluetooth devices, Select your Bluetooth device from the list of available devices · Jack Delano took the featured photograph in June 1941.“Mr. John Gentry, an old resident of Greene County, Georgia.” · “THE AMERICAN CATHOLIC Politics & Culture from a Catholic Perspective.” · I was repeating a post about CS Lewis, who I still may get around to reading some day. It was about a screed Ayn Rand … who I am much less likely to read … wrote in the margins of a CSL book. The original post was lost to digital antiquity, so I googled the phrase “Ayn Rand Really, Really Hated C.S. Lewis.” One result was from “THE AMERICAN CATHOLIC Politics & Culture from a Catholic Perspective.” On top of the page was a youtube intermission, “C.S. Lewis vs The New Atheists” by Peter S. Williams (Book Promo 1)” Cartoon images of CSL and Richard Dawkins have a jolly good debate about the existence of God. · Ayn Rand Rants Against CS Lewis · C. S. Lewis died November 22, 1963, the same day as President Kennedy and Aldous Huxley. Mr. Lewis probably never imagined there would a cartoon video of CSL debating the existence of God with Richard Dawkins. · Right now on twitter, “boycotting” is a trending topic. People are expressing their displeasure with Elon Musk by boycotting Tesla. Now, I wonder how many of these boycotters were actually going to buy an expensive electric vehicle. You don’t know, bro simp. Is simp short for simpson, and what does Bart have to do with any of this? Will those kids ever grow up, or are they frozen in time like all cartoon characters? Maybe Lisa Simpson is a tit fluctuating dyke by now, along with Bari Weiss and Rachel Madcow. A new spokesperson for some big government agency … · using haiku reductions as writing prompts seemed like a good idea. · “Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper. Truth itself becomes suspicious by being put into that polluted vehicle.” Letter from Thomas Jefferson to John Norvell, June 11, 1807 · To your request of my opinion of the manner in which a newspaper should be conducted, so as to be most useful, I should answer, “by restraining it to true facts & sound principles only.” Yet I fear such a paper would find few subscribers. It is a melancholy truth, that a suppression of the press could not more compleatly deprive the nation of it’s benefits, than is done by it’s abandoned prostitution to falsehood. Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper. Truth itself becomes suspicious by being put into that polluted vehicle. The real extent of this state of misinformation is known only to those who are in situations to confront facts within their knowledge with the lies of the day. I really look with commiseration over the great body of my fellow citizens, who, reading newspapers, live & die in the belief, that they have known something of what has been passing in the world in their time; whereas the accounts they have read in newspapers are just as true a history of any other period of the world as of the present, except that the real names of the day are affixed to their fables. General facts may indeed be collected from them, such as that Europe is now at war, that Bonaparte has been a successful warrior, that he has subjected a great portion of Europe to his will, &c., &c.; but no details can be relied on. I will add, that the man who never looks into a newspaper is better informed than he who reads them; inasmuch as he who knows nothing is nearer to truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods & errors. He who reads nothing will still learn the great facts, and the details are all false. · Russell Lee took the featured photograph in February 1940. “Pomp Hall, Negro tenant farmer. Creek County, Oklahoma.” · In 2019 Fordham University hosted a symposium on Flannery O’Connor, supported by a grant from The Flannery O’Connor Trust. FU looked at her work, using “techniques from whiteness studies and critical race theory.” · Designed in 1996 by Matthew Carter. Georgia is the serif companion to the first Microsoft sans serif screen font, Verdana. It was designed specifically to address the challenges of on-screen display and hand-instructed by leading hinting expert, Monotype’s Tom Rickner. Georgia was jokingly named after a tabloid headline ‘Alien heads found in Georgia.’ · It has been a great day so far. I have had this thing with my feet, and I learned the best thing for it is to go walking. This has evolved into a half hour every morning, usually on a path across from the house. Recently this has been going well, with no problems on most days, including today. I first noticed this issue on March 13 of last year, so today is a milestone. · On the left, the old Village Voice culture has faded. But the so-called anti-woke side can’t be said to be much better. Israel, again, is the instructive example. If critics of Israel are guilty of rhetorical excess, Israel’s supporters are prepared to match or even exceed them. In fact, it’s those who are most supportive of Israel who have adopted many of the same pathologies as the woke, treating debate and ideas themselves as mortal threats and defaulting, whenever possible, to their identity concerns. Standpoint epistemology dominates everywhere. · I knew 2 things on October 7. Israel would exponentially over-retaliate. I also knew there was going to be an incredibly toxic debate. This has been true beyond my worst nightmare. · alex_Cole855 is located in Washington – Spokane County – Cheney. · I can’t wait to find a nice, secluded walking path somewhere nearby. I hate walking on pavement/sidewalks. Prefer woods. · yes i am very very fortunate, in that there is a school a block away, and a cut through path between two streets is across the street from the house … There is a nature preserve .44 miles away also … the idea of driving somewhere to walk is sort of silly, although it is the only option for a lot of people … in my case, my feet prefer uneven dirt or gravel walkways over concrete or asphalt … there is also the danger and inconvenience of sharing the road with automobiles · i used to walk up peachtree to LA fitness, and I almost get hit several times by crossing side streets in front of stopped drivers making right turns · one side of peachtree is a wall beside the marta line, and I cleared out a path behind some trees planted there, which was cool … it cut down hostile road crossings 5 times to only one · Jack Kerouac was staying with Neal Cassady. Neal thought that Jack was smoking too much marijuana. The featured picture today: “Band in an Irish-American restaurant O’Reilly’s at Third Avenue and Fifty-Fourth Street.” · The featured photograph was taken August 3, 1954. “Fred Hand family” · gsu · @RichardHanania @tracewoodgrains Instead of arguing about who the “real racists” are, we should consider whether the concept of “being a racist” is real. · I have one about the roof but its over your head. There’s nothing like a good joke… and that was nothing like a good joke. A rabbi, nun, lawyer, mime, and horse all walk into a bar. The bartender says, “What is this, some kind of joke?” · @existentialcomics.com What Hegel failed to grasp is that the world ideological spirit of the age would eventually be controlled by a YouTube algorithm designed to sell ads.The feature photograph was taken May 27, 1958. “Proud Rebel premiere” · Several movies had their World Premiere in Atlanta. Some are not seen kindly today, while others are not seen at all. The featured photograph was taken May 27, 1958. · Pictures today are from The Library of Congress Arthur Rothstein took the featured photograph in June 1942. “Queens NY Nursery school at the Queensbridge housing project. Drinking tomato juice” · selah
World Premieres In Atlanta
Several movies had their World Premiere in Atlanta. We will look at a few today. Pictures are from Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library. The feature photograph was taken May 27, 1958. “Proud Rebel premiere” This is a repost.
As some of you may know, Gone With The Wind had it’s world premiere at the Lowes Grand Theater on December 15, 1939. The Lowes Grand site is the current location of the Georgia Pacific building. There is a vacant lot next door, on top of some MARTA paraphernalia. This lot was the site of the Paramount Theater, another movie palace that did not survive.
The GWTW premiere was a big deal. Ten year old Martin Luther King Jr. sang with his church choir. Clark Gable requested a private meeting with Margaret Mitchell, who became the envy of every woman in America. When Mr. Gable checked out of his hotel, a lady was going to be given his room. The clerk asked for a minute to change the sheets on the bed, and the lady said, no, I want to sleep on the same sheets as him.
It was the golden age of movies, and the next year Atlanta hosted the first showing of Who Killed Aunt Maggie. The premiere was at the Rialto, on October 24, 1940. The review at IMDB said it was an enjoyable mystery, even if it was a cliche fest. It is not often seen today.
In 1946, Song Of The South had it’s premiere at the Fox Theater. SOTS is a controversial item today. It was based on the Uncle Remus stories. These stories were told by the rural black people that Joel Chandler Harris knew, while growing up near Eatonton GA. You Must Remember This devoted six episodes to Song of the South. one two three four five six
The female lead in SOTS was Ruth Warrick. Miss Warrick was a versatile talent. Her first movie role was in Citizen Kane, as Kane’s first wife. She was in many movies, before moving to television. She was perhaps best known as Phoebe Tyler, in the soap opera All My Children. Wikipedia tells a story about her, that is ironic for the female lead of Song Of The South.
“In July 2000, she refused to accept a lifetime achievement award from the South Carolina Arts Commission because she was offended by legislators’ decision to move the Confederate flag from the state Capitol dome to another spot on the grounds in response to a boycott of the state by flag opponents. A lifelong supporter of African-American rights, she felt the flag should be removed completely, and commented, “In my view, this was no compromise. It was a deliberate affront to the African-Americans, who see it as a sign of oppression and hate.”
In 1949, the Paramount had the first screening of The Gal Who Took The West. The female lead was Yvonne De Carlo, who later achieved immortality as Lily Munster. In November 1951, the spotlights returned to Lowes Grand for Quo Vadis.
The last film in the GSU picture collection is The Last Rebel. This western had it’s premiere at the Rialto, May 27, 1958. The movie was a return to Atlanta glory for Olivia De Havilland. The film is the story of a man, whose wife dies in a fire during the War Between the States.
In 1974, Ringo Starr produced and acted in Son of Dracula. The movie had it’s world premiere at the Cherokee Plaza Theater. Cherokee Plaza is a shopping center on Peachtree Road, just east of the Atlanta city limits. The theater was torn down during a renovation, and the space is currently the produce department at Krogers.
A local radio station hired a band to play in the parking lot at the premiere. At some point, a long limousine pulled up to a stage, and Ringo Starr and Harry Nilsson got out. Both were wearing sunglasses, even though it was after dark. Ringo got on the stage, waved a wand at the crowd, and said “I am turning you into frogs”. He went inside to see the movie, the crowd went home, and the movie was mercifully forgotten.
In 1981, I went to a supper in an apartment building (now a vacant lot) across Peachtree from First Baptist Church. There was a commotion down the street at the Fox, and I went to see what it was. Sharkey’s Machine had it’s World Premiere that night.
Why Did The Cow Cross The Road?
Why did the cow cross the road? The chicken was on vacation.
Knock knock. who’s there? boo. boo who?. Don’t cry it’s only a joke…
It’s six of one, half a dozen of the other.
A man walks up to a horse and says, “Why the long face?”
Two pretzels were walking down the street. one was a salted.
“He who laughs last thinks slowest.”
“Raise your hand if you’re here.”
Two nuns walk into a bar; the third one ducks.
Q: What did the radio say when it was dropped? A: “Ow. That hertz.”
What did the ranch say to the refrigerator door? “Close the door, I’m dressing”
Why don’t blind people skydive? It scares the heck out of their dogs…
What did the fish say when it ran into a wall? dam.
“I see.” said the blind man as he peed into the wind… “It’s all coming back to me now.”
What’s the last thing to go through a bug’s mind when it hits the windshield? Its butt.
You can tuna guitar, but you can’t tuna fish.
What do a duck and a bicycle have in common? They both have wheels… except the duck.
What’s brown and sounds like a bell? DUNGGGGG.
What’s brown and sticky? A stick
When people ask the mortician what he does for a living, he says he is a “boxer”.
What did the shy pebble say?… I wish I was a little boulder! .
What do you call an arrogant criminal falling out of a tower? Condescending.
Two guys walk into a bar… you would think the second guy woulda ducked.
A woman walks into a bar holding a duck. Bartender says, “What’s with the pig?”
Woman says, “It’s a duck.” Bartender says, “I was talking to the duck.”
Why do flamingos always lift one leg when they’re standing?
Cause if they lifted both, they’d fall over!
Q: How many Surrealists does it take to change a lightbulb? A: To get to the other side.
Did you get a haircut? Actually, I got them all cut.
One mushroom said to another mushroom, “Hey – you’re one Fungi!”
What do you call an arrogant criminal falling out of a tower? Condescending.
A dyslexic man walked into a bra …
Q: What do you call a midget, psychic, prison escapee? A: A small medium at-large.
A mule walks into a bar. The bartender says, “Hey, buddy, why the long face?”
“Because my dad is a jackass.”
I have one about the roof but its over your head.
Shall I tell you the one about the skunk? Never mind, it stinks!
There’s nothing like a good joke… and that was nothing like a good joke.
A rabbi, nun, lawyer, mime, and horse all walk into a bar.
The bartender says, “What is this, some kind of joke?”
When’s the best time to eat reindeer meat? …. When you’re hungry.
These stories are borrowed from 22 WORDS. Visit @22Words at your own risk. Pictures are from Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library. The featured photograph was taken August 3, 1954. “Fred Hand family” This is a repost.
Jean-Louis Lebris de Kérouac
This is a repost from 2008, inspired by Jack Kerouac: An Appreciation. JKAA appeared in KIKO’S HOUSE, a blog I read in 2008. Kiko’s was the retirement project of Shaun Mullen, an journalist who was “born to blog.” People said things like that when W was president. Kikos published its last post 12/11/2019, the day before Shaun Mullen died. Chamblee54 is still going, which makes writing about Jean-Louis Lebris de Kérouac much easier.
Over the years, I keep lists of posts. While writing this feature, I learned that I never compiled one for JLLK. I knew there was an extended book report covering “On The Road,” and vaguely remembered doing one for “The Dharma Bums.” The next step was to use Google Advanced Search, which does not work for “Dharma site: chamblee54.wordpress.com.” If you substitute bums for dharma, you are referred to something about Charles Bukowski. I did a GAS search for Kerouac, and found a series about “Satori in Paris” which I had totally forgotten. I also found a story about starting work on “The Dharma Bums” and used it to track down the posts.
From “The Dharma Bums Part Four” … This chapter by chapter thing is not working. The idea is to use this as a springboard for improvisation, to say whatever comes up. This does not seem to be happening. Tdb is a worthwhile read, the first time. Reading it twice, while taking notes, is not a good idea. … While in Corte Madera, there are a lot of wild parties. It is the sort of boho thing the rest of America tittered about…. Dwight Eisenhower got reelected. He is not mentioned in tdb, but his buddy Richard Nixon is. We know how that story turned out.
JLLK published BELIEF & TECHNIQUE FOR MODERN PROSE in the Summer 1958 edition of Evergreen Review. … 6. Be crazy dumbsaint of the mind 7. Blow as deep as you want to blow 8. Write what you want bottomless from bottom of the mind 9. The unspeakable visions of the individual 10. No time for poetry but exactly what is 11. Visionary tics shivering in the chest 12. In tranced fixation dreaming upon object before you 13. Remove literary, grammatical and syntactical inhibition 14. Like Proust be an old teahead of time 15. Telling the true story of the world in interior monolog
From Kerouac … I read OTR, and found it entertaining but not life changing. I get the sense that Kerouac and Cassidy could be real jerks. … OTR was published in 1957, when I was three years old and living on a street of always pregnant stay at home moms. … I suspect that if Jack Kerouac had not written his books that someone else would have, and maybe survived fame in better shape. … At one time, Kerouac was staying with Neal Cassidy (his uncredited co author) and his family. Mr. Cassidy thought that Mr. Keruac was smoking too much marijuana.
I saw Allan Gurganus (no middle name) at the Dickhater Book Festival in 2014. I knew AG was from Rocky Mount NC, and that JLLK once spent a winter there. This was described in “The Dharma Bums.” AG would have been about seven years old. I wanted to ask AG about it in the Q&A, but I did not get called on. After the talk was over, I managed to talk to AG in a hallway. “Yes, it really did happen. The place where he used to go meditate was my grandfather’s property.”
The pictures today are from The Library of Congress Marjory Collins took the featured photograph in February 1943. “New York, New York. Band in an Irish-American restaurant O’Reilly’s at Third Avenue and Fifty-Fourth Street, on Saturday night.” Chamblee54 has published expanded book reports about “Satori in Paris” 031211 032211 032911 040711 · “The Dharma Bums” 111713 113013 122213 011314 · “On The Road” 060119 061119 062519 062719 071019 071419 073019 · selah
Was Flannery O’Connor Racist?
How Racist Was Flannery O’Connor? appeared in The New Yorker on June 22, 2020. (Note the date) I had long been a fan of Mary Flannery O’Connor, and knew I could not un-read those stories. While researching a book report about a story collection, Everything That Rises Must Converge, I took another look at the cancellation.
The article begins by telling the Flannery story. Soon, a description of a movie, Flannery, yields a false note: “Erik Langkjær, a publishing sales rep O’Connor fell in love with, describes their drives in the country.” According to Flannery: A Life of Flannery O’Connor by Brad Gooch, Mr. Langkjær was far from a boyfriend. It is another piece of the puzzle.
“I was not really in love; I simply enjoyed the company of women during my lonely travels in the South. Although Flannery was both conventional and religious, we eventually became so close that she, while the car was parked, allowed me to kiss her. At that moment, her disease revealed itself in a new way: there was no strength in her lips. I hit her teeth with my kiss, and since then I’ve thought of it as a kiss of death. … When I later read one of Flannery’s short stories, ‘Good Country People,’ I noticed that the main character was a travelling Bible salesman. I didn’t sell bibles, but I used to call my binder with the records of the publishing firm ‘my bible.’ Also, the salesman in the story is named Manley Pointer, which has an obvious erotic connotation.”
Right after this paragraph, there is a break. “FEATURED VIDEO Protests of George Floyd’s Killing Transform Into a Global Movement” The article soon gets down with cancellation.
“Everything That Rises Must Converge was published in “Best American Short Stories” … O’Connor declared that it was all she had to say on “That Issue.” It wasn’t. In May, 1964, she wrote to her friend Maryat Lee, a playwright who … was ardent for civil rights.”
“About the Negroes, the kind I don’t like is the philosophizing prophesying pontificating kind, the James Baldwin kind. Very ignorant but never silent. Baldwin can tell us what it feels like to be a Negro in Harlem but he tries to tell us everything else too. M. L. King I dont think is the ages great saint but he’s at least doing what he can do & has to do. Don’t know anything about Ossie Davis except that you like him but you probably like them all. My question is usually would this person be endurable if white. If Baldwin were white nobody would stand him a minute. I prefer Cassius Clay. “If a tiger move into the room with you,” says Cassius, “and you leave, that dont mean you hate the tiger. Just means you know you and him can’t make out. Too much talk about hate.” Cassius is too good for the Moslems.” (James Baldwin probably agreed with MFO about “the Moslems.”)
“That passage, published in “The Habit of Being,” echoed a remark in a 1959 letter, also to Maryat Lee, who had suggested that Baldwin … could pay O’Connor a visit while on a subsequent reporting trip. O’Connor demurred: “No I can’t see James Baldwin in Georgia. It would cause the greatest trouble and disturbance and disunion. In New York it would be nice to meet him; here it would not. I observe the traditions of the society I feed on—it’s only fair. Might as well expect a mule to fly as me to see James Baldwin in Georgia. I have read one of his stories and it was a good one.” …
“After revising “Revelation” in early 1964, O’Connor wrote several letters to Maryat Lee. Many scholars maintain that their letters (often signed with nicknames) are a comic performance, with Lee playing the over-the-top liberal and O’Connor the dug-in gradualist, but O’Connor’s most significant remarks on race in her letters to Lee are plainly sincere. … May 3, 1964: “You know, I’m an integrationist by principle & a segregationist by taste anyway. I don’t like negroes. They all give me a pain and the more of them I see, the less and less I like them. Particularly the new kind.” Two weeks after that, she told Lee of her aversion to the “philosophizing prophesying pontificating kind.” Ravaged by lupus, she wrote Lee a note to say that she was checking in to the hospital, signing it “Mrs. Turpin.” She died at home ten weeks later.”
“Fordham University hosted a symposium on O’Connor and race, supported with a grant from the author’s estate.” (The panel discussion included Karin Coonrod.) “The organizer, Angela Alaimo O’Donnell” … (who wrote) “Radical Ambivalence: Race in Flannery O’Connor.” … takes up Flannery and That Issue. Proposing that O’Connor’s work is “race-haunted,” she applies techniques from whiteness studies and critical race theory …” In other words, The Flannery O’Connor Trust gave money to Fordham University, so they could examine MFO, using “techniques from whiteness studies and critical race theory.” There is something deeply rotten about this.
Perhaps this cancellation business is what MFO foresaw in a 1963 letter to Betty Hester. MFO mentions her disdain for Eudora Welty’s “Where is the Voice Coming From?” … “What I hate most is its being in the New Yorker and all of the stupid Yankee liberals smacking their lips over typical life in the dear old dirty Southland.”
Eudora Welty is not the only author MFO did not like. MFO wrote to Maryat Lee on 31 May 60. “I hope you don’t have friends who recommend Ayn Rand to you. The fiction of Ayn Rand is as low as you can get re fiction. I hope you picked it up off the floor of the subway and threw it in the nearest garbage pail. She makes Mickey Spillane look like Dostoyevsky.”
“On July 28, 1964, Flannery wrote her last letter. This note to Maryat Lee, written in a “shaky, nearly illegible hand” … is in response to an anonymous crank call Lee received and reveals O’Connor’s deep concern for her friend’s well being: “Cowards can be just as vicious as those who declare themselves – more so. Dont take any romantic attitude toward that call. Be properly scared and go on doing what you have to do, but take the necessary precautions. And call the police. That might be a lead for them. Dont know when I’ll send those stories. I’ve felt too bad to type them. Cheers, Tarfunk” MFO died August 3, 1964 at Baldwin County Hospital.
We don’t know what MFO read by James Baldwin. It might include a 1962 piece in The New Yorker, Letter from a Region in My Mind. Included in those 22,147 words is this gem: “But white Americans do not believe in death, and this is why the darkness of my skin so intimidates them.” This might be a good time to remember the words of Alice Walker: “Take what you can use and let the rest rot.”
Ms. Walker is included in Flannery. “Alice Walker tells of living “across the way” from the farmhouse during her teens, not knowing that a writer lived there: “It was one of my brothers who took milk from her place to the creamery in town. When we drove into Milledgeville, the cows that we saw on the hillside going into town would have been the cows of the O’Connors.” Ms. Walker, who was well aware of MFO’s racial attitudes, adds “She also cast spells and worked magic with the written word. The magic, the wit, and the mystery of Flannery O’Connor I know I will always love.”
A lot of what is said here is taking MFO seriously, in spite of her racial attitudes. This is where I differ with The New Yorker. I am a cracker who likes to enjoy stories, not take them seriously. As a Georgia native, I am well aware of the many “shades of gray” produced by a black and white society. Racism is not a yes/no binary. MFO wrote great stories, in spite of, or maybe because of, her racial attitudes. To paraphrase Alice Walker, take what you need, and let whiteness studies and critical race theory rot.
Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. Russell Lee took the featured photograph in February 1940. “Pomp Hall, Negro tenant farmer. Creek County, Oklahoma.”
The New Improved Atheists
SING EAT CHECK IT OUT! · DUNNO READY ROUGH OUT THERE…? · WHATEVER HOOKUPS
I was repeating a post about CS Lewis, who I still may get around to reading some day. It was about unkind comments that Ayn Rand … who I am much less likely to read … wrote in the margins of a CSL book. The original post was lost to digital antiquity, so I googled the phrase “Ayn Rand Really, Really Hated C.S. Lewis.” One result was from “THE AMERICAN CATHOLIC Politics & Culture from a Catholic Perspective.” On top of the page was a youtube intermission, “C.S. Lewis vs The New Atheists” by Peter S. Williams (Book Promo 1)”
REPUBLIC TRICKY! · RIGHT! ANTI-DEMOCRACY · NEED TO KEEP SOMETHING!
I foolishly clicked on a facebook post by Transcendental Meditation®. TM® had been “liked” by a fbf, triggering fb’s algorithm . When I copied the url … I keep a list of sites that I visit … a popup screen appeared. “What’s the main reason you’re leaving this page?” My options included “I need more details before deciding, The content was unclear or confusing, I’m interested but not ready to book yet” When I finished pasting the url onto my document, there was a second popup ad. “Mariam A Real Live Person” opened a chat window on my page. “Can I help you?
Animal scribe rant · strategy Nazi nation · exterminate fest
I was trying to focus on a task, but Yahweh got in the way. I was going to say God, but “Yahweh” rhymes with “got in the way”. The conflation of God with Yahweh is one of our problems. People make a big deal about whether you do, or do not, believe in dog spelled backwards. When you phrase it as “do you believe in Yahweh,” it becomes less imposing. The truth is, Yahweh was a minor deity that looked over metallurgy. Through a miracle of BCE marketing, Yahweh became THE LORD. She was now the only game in town.
strong ass feminine · evolution kind of trans · beyond anything?
The original goal of this format was to use haiku reductions as writing prompts. The first three colors of this rainbow were random drabbles, inserted under an unrelated reduction. A strong ass feminine would not do that. Using ass as an all purpose extra syllable is a part of american english that I find bizarre. One time, I saw a letter signed by some someone called “University of Michigan student with nappy ass hair.” If her posterior is covered by nappy hair, keeping her clothes on is a good idea. Maybe this is devolution, not evolution, slouching towards trans identity.
RENT UNIVERSITY · JOKE SCHOOL WHERE LOW DANCING COULD · INTERPRET WIPE OUT
There is an old joke. You don’t buy beer, you rent it. I used to drink pitchers at a place in the control tower at PDK, and the men’s room was 45 steps down the hall. This may be why the airport management told them to ditch the hippie beer joint and have a civilized place where they sell sandwiches. That was 1977. In 1982, I went in one night, after arriving at the gas station a minute after the quit selling beer. As soon as I walked in the room, everyone looked around, and shouted STRANGER. I drank my beer and …
you don’t know bro simp · tit fluctuates lesbian · aligned with fluid
@IonaItalia An important statement of our principles at @Quillette, by my boss, editor-in-chief @clairlemon … “Heterodox” does not mean a fucking thing. @Quillette is a self proclaimed “Heterodox” defender of what they call liberal values. @Quillette is also an unapologetic defender of Israel’s campaign of mass annihilation against her neighbors. At the same time, @Quillette supports the military industrial complex in a proxy war against Russia in Ukraine. I left this comment in the thread … OTOH, Israel is destroying her neighbors, with American support. The crimes against Palestinian/Lebanese/Syrian humanity are staggering. @Quillette defends this. Liberal shmiberal
THE ORCHESTRAL TWIST · AMERICA ULTIMATE · ERADICATION
This is going to be the featured picture today. It is a reduction of a reduction. A haiku reduction is where we take some unspecified block of text, and eliminate enough characters to create a 5-7-5 enviornment. A featured picture … the image that will appear on facebook, twitter, and bsky … is (measured in pixels) starts with an image 720×720. This a square, like many of the people we know. You take a chunk out of the middle, measuring 720×405. This is a 9/16 format, which is favored by many electronic devices. Is this an ORCHESTRAL TWIST, or ULTIMATE ERADICATION?
C.S. Lewis
There was a facebook link to a feature, Ayn Rand Rants Against CS Lewis. It turns out to be verbatim droppings from Ayn Rand’s Marginalia : Her Critical Comments on the Writings of over Twenty Authors. If you are interested in details, there are the links. 55% of the comments were one-star.
Miss Rand has read more C.S. Lewis than I. There was a copy of a CSL work at a yard sale once, which I invested a quarter in. I read as far as the appearance of a pig named trufflehunter. Maybe it was a bad day for books, but I put CSL down, never to make another attempt.
There was a sixth grade english teacher at Ashford Park named Mrs. Ruff. Lots of people talked about how sweet she was, but I was not impressed. One day, between handing out mimeographed copies of poems to be memorized, Mrs. Ruff started to talk about Narnia. It was a fantastic and amazing story. With a hint of primness, she told the class that Narnia was really about Jesus.
This is a repost, with pictures from The Library of Congress. Jack Delano took the featured photograph in June 1941.“Mr. John Gentry, an old resident of Greene County, Georgia.”
Don’t Waste Banana Peels
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book bird · Akashinga: The Brave Ones · annie jacobsen · eichmann · arendt
tm · oscar wilde wallpaper · famous last words · ww1/ww2 · phil johnson
joe mccarthy · proxitok · tosdr/tiktok · martyr made · fcf · kkk
edmund pettus · a common farmer · midwesterners · lois reitzes · stone mountain · freddie styles
katie’s lament · epitaph on a tyrant · john rechy · rainbow history project · isherwood
eric hoffer · eric hoffer · nabokov · potp1238 · Oreos
Field Negro · joel baxley · attack of the clones · 112 · john oliver fb · carl dean · blankonblank
frenzied fiction · TEDxAtlanta 2025 · ukraine nukes · Blocked and Reported · blank on blank
Russell Lee took the featured photograph in June 1940. “Sunday school in the Farm Bureau building. Pie Town, New Mexico” · This week’s monday morning reader has a palindrome title, and samples from the worst poem ever written. The featured photograph: “Sunday school in the Farm Bureau building. Pie Town New Mexico” · @jessesingal @kittypurrzog the story about 500 million plastic straws a year sounds like a straw man argument · The first monday night of the month is Little 5 PoetryBash, which means leaving the McMansion City comfort zone, and stepping into the brave new world of L5P … except that neither one of us is brave, nor new. · Palindrome of the day: DOGE GOD · New York 1943_000_086 New York 1943 lucinda sans unicode no antialiasing Lucinda Bright Semi Bold loc · “I had nothing to do with killing Jews. I’ve never killed a Jew. And I’ve never ordered anyone to kill a Jew.” · @martyrmade “Massacre” is the word we use when people without an air force engage in mass killing. · Russell Lee took the featured photograph in October 1941. “FSA rehabilitation borrower who is a dairy farmer with one of his cows, Tillamook County, Oregon” · The Oreo was invented in 1912, and has become a cherished snack. The featured picture: “FSA rehabilitation borrower who is a dairy farmer with one of his cows, Tillamook County, Oregon · In 1977, Christopher Isherwood gave a 42 minute interview. It is included in The Friends Radio tape collection at Rainbow History. This is the first time I have ever heard Mr. Isherwood’s voice. What I heard was not surprising. · Jack Delano took the featured photograph in April 1941. “Singing “Trying To Make a Hundred, Ninety Nine and a Half Won’t Do” during the collection at a Negro church service in Heard County, Georgia.” · Pointing out hypocrisy is always the easiest argument to make. The fact that “irony” often exists does not make hypocrisy harping any less annoying. · Russell Lee took the featured photograph in May 1938. “Making a purchase at cooperative store. La Forge project, Missouri” · This is a few snapshots from my life in 2022. The featured picture was taken in May 1938. “Making a purchase at cooperative store. La Forge project, Missouri” · OTOH, Israel is destroying her neighbors, with American support. The crimes against Palestinian/Lebanese/Syrian humanity are staggering. @Quillette et al defend this. Liberal shmiberal · This is a repost from 2019. Pictures are from The Library of Congress. Russell Lee took the featured photograph in April 1941. “Scene at bar. Southside of Chicago IL.” · Can we quit saying “Karen” “Karen” is misogynistic. “Karen” is understood to mean white women, aka racist. · @wildethingy [the pearly gates] St Peter: How many social media followers do you have? Karen: Why? Saint Peter: it’s how we judge people worthy now. Karen: oh no. I don’t have any! Saint Peter: perfect. Welcome to heaven. · The current discourse is simply too horrible to spend time discussing. It is time for some recreational debauchery, and David Bowie is the ideal vehicle. The featured picture was taken on the Southside of Chicago in 1941 · Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. Arthur Rothstein took the featured picture in June 1942. “Brooklyn NY Red Hook housing project. Boys playing chess at the community center.” · selah
A David Bowie Book
David Bowie: A Life was sitting on the biography shelf at the Chamblee library. It is an “oral biography.” Dylan Jones gets the blame, and the copyright. He took a bunch of interviews, and curated salient passages into a narrative. It is a fun book to read, full of sex, drugs, and rock and roll.
The Amazon one star reviews beg to differ. Guitar Gregg “I thought this would be biography not assorted comments. Very few comments from David Bowie. Who cares what Debora Harry or hundreds of “Joe blows” have to say? No pictures? 500 pages? Too much too little. Buy his cd’s instead.” worst read ever “Belongs in the fire … worst read ever!”
I enjoyed DBAL. At some point, the lurid tales of depravity got too quotable. I started keeping a list. In this book report, we will use this list, until the list, or the reader’s attention span, is exhausted. There may be another installment. Part one was published last week.
“There’s one instance — probably included just so it would be cited — about someone calling Bowie’s room in New York with an offer of a still-warm corpse. “The town had never seen anything like David before,” says onetime groupie Josette Caruso. “And he obviously looked like such a freak that some sick people thought he might be into necrophilia.” (He wasn’t.) (Page 142)
Page 146 “He (Lou Reed) had an auteur complex, and Bowie didn’t fit into that. Lou was also a prime member of the awkward squad. He could lose a charm competition with Van Morrison.” In 1972 David had gone through years of struggle, and was starting to make it. After the Ziggy Stardust tour, he was hot. At this time, David wound up helping two struggling artists, Lou Reed and Iggy Pop
The Elton John/Rolling Stone article was published during one Iggy phase. “May 1975 — It’s four in the morning, Hollywood time, and David Bowie is twitching with energy. … Bowie clutches his heart and beams like a proud father watching his kid in the school play. His whisper is full of wonder. “They just don’t appreciate Iggy.” he is saying. “He’s Lenny fucking Bruce and James Dean. When that adlib flow starts, there’s nobody like him. It’s verbal jazz, man!” … Bowie and Iggy never did make it back into the studio. Pop slept past the booked time, called up drunk several nights later and when Bowie told him to “go away” — meaning “hang up” — Iggy did just that. Now he’s disappeared. “I hope he’s not dead,” says Bowie, “he’s not a good act.” Iggy will show up later in this story.
Page 151 has stories from the Ziggy tour. In Seattle, the entourage went to a gay bar, and someone invited David to a party. When the next day came, and the tour needed to go to the next city, David was nowhere to be found. When he finally called the hotel, all he knew was that he was in a house, with a lot of trees around it. A hotel employee talked to David on the phone, and they managed to figure out where he was.
Page 155 Lori Mattox was a fifteen year old rock fan in 1972. “We got to the Beverly Hilton, and all went up to Bowie’s enormous suite. … We were getting stoned when, all of a sudden, the bedroom door opens and there is Bowie in this beautiful red and orange and yellow kimono … “Lori, darling, can you come with me? … Of course I did. Then he escorted me into the bedroom, gently took off my clothes, and de-virginized me.”
There is a lot of text about David’s sex life. The boy got around, in spite of, or because of, his open marriage with Angela. Apparently, nature was generous with David. While performatively gay during this era, David made plenty of exceptions with ladies. DBAL is an entertaining book.
Page 176 Ava Cherry was a girlfriend who stuck around. “… and yes, we did have some fun together. We were staying at the Sherry-Netherland one night in New York, where David had given a party for Rudolph Nureyev. At the end of the party, everyone was gone apart from me and David and Mick, (Jagger) so it just ended up with the three of us sleeping together.”
Page 263 87 pages later, David has burned out on American rock stardom, and is living on top of an auto parts store in Berlin. This is the phase which produced Low and Heroes, two creative, though non commercial, efforts. Iggy Pop is back in the picture. Longtime assistant Coco Schwab never left. Iggy Pop : “There’s sevent days in a week: two for bingeing, two for recovery, and three more for any other activity.” Coco Schwab “I remember one elevated subway ride where you ride into East Berlin with no checkpoints and then back out with Absinthe into the west. Trust Jim (Iggy) to find that one.”
Page 277 David meets Adrian Bellew, who is in Frank Zappa’s band. David is talking to Adrian about doing a tour with David. At some point, the two go to a restaurant, where they run into Frank Zappa. “…David tried to strike up a conversation with Frank, saying “This is quite a guitar player you have here” And Frank said, “Fuck you, Captain Tom.” David persisted, and said “Oh come on now, Frank, surely we can be gentleman about this?” And Frank said, “Fuck you, Captain Tom.” … so David said, “So you really have nothing to say?” To which Frank said, “Fuck you, Captain Tom.”
This is a repost from 2019. Pictures are from The Library of Congress. Russell Lee took the featured photograph in April 1941. “Scene at bar. Southside of Chicago IL.”
Common Sense Quote
This is a repost from 2022. … 0312 – We’re going to conduct a facebook experiment. I posted a video from Dr. John Campbell. He discussed some reputed side effects of the Pfizer vaccine. Soon, Facebook sent me an admonition. “… The post includes information that independent fact-checkers said was partly false. …” The suspicion here is that Facebook has a problem with Dr. Campbell.
On to today’s experiment. I’m listening to another video from Dr. Campbell. He admits that he made some errors in his interpretation of the Pfizer data. He goes on to say “you can’t put solid footsteps into fresh air you need solid ground.” This is just a common sense quote. My plan for today is to make a video segment of the CSQ, and post it on Facebook. Lets see if the fact-checkers have a problem with it. As of March 19, Facebook has been silent.
0314 – I was through with Blocked and Reported, and making great progress on my picture. It was time to go out. I had two destinations. One was the gym. The other was the library. I had a book, The Santa Suit, to return. Think — inside the work — outside the work.
TSS is not a great book. Perhaps that was what was needed. With the book I am starting, quotables lie on every page. The desire to go in depth may prove irresistible. However, I read to have fun. Sometimes a trifle like TSS is what I need. Just read a story, without provoking great thought. The fact that TSS is easy to read indicates that the author worked like hell. Easy writing makes tough reading.
0318 – I’ve stumbled onto this podcast series about the shooting of Martin Luther King, The MLK Tapes. The shooting was quickly blamed on James Earl Ray. He was supposed to be a racist/white supremacist, and most people believed he was guilty. It turns out that there were serious problems with the government’s case. The podcast series is downright fascinating. It’s not something I’ve really thought about a whole lot. I just accepted the conventional wisdom, and went on with my life.
In episode 3, the case was going to trial. Mr. Ray’s lawyers were confident of an acquital. The government was not going to have that. For some reason, Mr. Ray fired his first lawyer. A gentleman named Percy Foreman took over. Soon Mr. Ray entered a guilty plea.
In the show, people talk about how worthless Percy Foreman was. I was curious if Mr. Foreman was still alive, so I googled him. A legal document turned up. JB Stoner was lawyer number three. Mr. Stoner was an extreme racist, even by Georgia standards. He ran for Governor in 1970, and made a spectacle of himself. At one point, Mr. Stoner sued a TV station, to allow an ad with the n-word.
There are many stories that could be told about JB Stoner. The candidates were speaking at the Governor’s Honors program. Mr. Stoner was going through his routine, when three students starting walking up the aisle. A young black man, with a blonde on each arm, walked up the aisle to the front of the hall. The man who won the Governor’s race, Jimmy Carter, was laughing so hard that tears came out of his eyes. … Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. Russell Lee took the featured photograph in May 1938. “Making a purchase at cooperative store. La Forge project, Missouri”
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