Winston Churchill Said What
Another ghastly meme has surfaced on facebook. It has a large fuchsia quote mark for illustration. There is a quote from a famous man. The left side has a quote mark. The right side has a question mark, but no quote mark. The margins are much larger on the top, and left side, than on the right side, and the bottom. That this visual atrocity supports funding for the arts is a cruel irony.
Perhaps instead of the arts, the government funding should go for fact checking. The quote is generally considered to be bogus. For the record, here is the quote. “When Winston Churchill was asked to cut arts funding in favour of the war effort, he simply replied, “then what are we fighting for?” The quote is not in the Churchill archive, which is either fifteen million documents, or fifteen million words. The authorities use the figures interchangeably.
The Telegraph has an article debunking the meme. It has a splendid sentence: “But that anecdote does not so easily play into the screeching rhetoric of today’s 140-character political ding-dongs.” There are also some lovely quotes from Mr. Churchill.
In 1937, Mr. Churchill spoke before the Peel Commission It was discussing “partitioning British mandated Palestine into Arab and Jewish states.” At the time, Mr. Churchill was a minor figure in British politics, disgraced by his blundering in the Great War. The quote: “I do not agree that the dog in a manger has the final right to the manger even though he may have lain there for a very long time. I do not admit that right. I do not admit for instance, that a great wrong has been done to the Red Indians of America or the black people of Australia. I do not admit that a wrong has been done to these people by the fact that a stronger race, a higher-grade race, a more worldly wise race to put it that way, has come in and taken their place.”.
Winston Churchill is quite the quote magnet. This is somehow fitting for a man whose most famous speech was read, on the radio, by an actor. There is a page on the internet devoted to times when he was falsely accused of saying something inspiring.
One of these stories is notable. “The only traditions of the Royal Navy are rum, sodomy and the lash… Churchill’s assistant, Anthony Montague-Browne said that although Churchill had not uttered these words, he wished he had.” Pictures today are from The Library of Congress.
Poetry Saves Time
There is another Marilyn Monroe story floating around. “Someone told me that Marilyn Monroe once remarked that she enjoyed reading poetry “because it saves time.” I like this quotation so much that I’ve never dared to confirm it; I’d feel disenchanted to learn it was bogus.”
Poetry Daily seems to think the quote is legitimate. “That great aesthete and reader Marilyn Monroe once said: “I read poetry because it saves time.” In the age of Twitter, and other tweet-like utterances from all sorts of birdies, not to mention attention deficit disorder on an epidemic national scale, it’s refreshing to find poetry that both saves time and enlarges it. “
PG applied the wikiquotes test. Miss Monroe said in Look Magazine, March 5, 1957, “I’ve been on a calendar, but never on time.” Many people who worked with her agree.
Wikiquots also has a telegram, sent to Bobby and Ethel Kennedy. Marilyn was widely rumored to be seeing Bobby. This was a few weeks before her untimely death. “”I am involved in a freedom ride protesting the loss of the minority rights belonging to the few remaining earthbound stars. All we demanded was our right to twinkle.” (Telegram from Marilyn Monroe declining a party invitation from Bobby and Ethel Kennedy. June 13, 1962.)
A google investigation into the poetry quote led to Did Marilyn Monroe really say all those philosophical quotes? This is in DataLounge, where you “… get your fix of gay gossip, news and pointless bitchery.” The question on top of the thread was “I notice that the must fucked up of my female friends absolutely worship Marilyn Monroe, and are forever quoting her. What’s up with that, and are all those quotes real?? by: Mrs. Johnstone”
There are 148 comments in the thread. Some say Marilyn was an airhead, and some say she was bright. There are some quotes, many of which are probably made up. There is a letter, supposedly written to Albert Einstein. Shelly Winters says the two might have had a special relationship.
“Were I to pursue physics instead of my first love, acting, I would attempt to solve these problems by understanding the reason for these discrete energy states, which are probably due to the fact that standing waves only exist at discrete frequencies. My theory would predict that energy exchanges will be discrete, as observed;… But as I said, I want to be an actress.”
Once, on the set of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, Marilyn Monroe and Jane Russell discussed embryological parallelism. Marilyn Monroe: Ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny. Jane Russell: I was about to say the same thing.
One of the comments had a link to a fun story. Film legend Marilyn Monroe went to bed with fellow actress Joan Crawford – but the lesbian sexual experience only reaffirmed her attraction to men. Monroe left Joan gasping for more liaisons, much to Marilyn’s chagrin. Monroe described the encounter herself in conversations taped by her psychiatrist Dr. Ralph Greeson, recordings which were obtained by the Los Angeles Times newspaper from former prosecutor John Miner, who helped investigate her death. Monroe said, “We went to Joan’s bedroom… Crawford had a gigantic orgasm and shrieked like a maniac. “Next time I saw Crawford she wanted another round. I told her straight I didn’t much enjoy doing it with a woman.”
This is a repost. Pictures are from The Library of Congress. HT to Andrew Sullivan.
Positive Fascism
PG had a few minutes to spare this morning. He dived into the innertubes, and found Staying committed sucks…REALLY??? The post made him think. He decided to leave a fast comment. If you want your comment to be noticed, be one of the first ones to go up.
The post is about the downside of positive thinking. It starts with a woman, who says her husband has discovered, a bit too late, that he really does not enjoy practicing law. The hypothesis here is that Hollywood glamorizes the legal profession, and does not tell anyone about the boring aspects.
Chamblee54 I would say more, and perhaps will later. Now, I have to get on the road to my job.The problem of what I call “positive fascism” is not exclusive to Hollywood. Many people like to glorify the positive, and deny that anything non wonderful exists. Jesus worshipers are some of the worst. The trouble is, when the going gets dull, many people think it is a sign of weakness. If their role model does this without boredom, it must be something wrong with me. This is a problem.
Biochicklet Snarky man under the bag. I was raised without a religion and I know legions of atheists. Singling out a religious group is really unfair. The topic is commitment and hard work to have something of great value. If you want to pick a fight, please come see me. I am a positive fascist.
The Culture Monk Ellen, LOVE the comment. I think its my favorite of week.
There are a couple of obvious points. The gravatar image of PG has a paper bag over his head. There is no indication whether the blogger is male or female. How did Biochicklet correctly guess the gender?
Second, Culture Monk talks about his Christianity in almost every post. A frequent theme is Christians who make Jesus look bad. It was highly fair to include that observation in this comment.
PG is writing this after a hard day in the real world. A couple of things happened today to cloud any cheerfulness he might feel … those who know PG IRL will know what these are. A lengthy discussion of positive fascism, and the belief paradigm that spawned it, will have to wait. (Or is it positive fascism that facilitated the belief paradigm? Maybe they are one and the same.)
There is a story, though, which illustrates the point, and will not take too long to tell. A friend of PG became acquainted with some people in a Christian group once. We will call this group “The Light.” They were faith healers, with a nifty catch 22. If you were cured of your illness, hallelujah. (Thank you spell check.) If you were not cured, it was because you did not believe enough.
This is a repost. Pictures are from “The Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library”. The video is from “The Way,” which worships the same G-d as “The Light,” and participates in the same economy. Biochicklet, Chamblee54, and Culture Monk are still producing.
Was Mohandas Gandhi A Racist?
A meme appeared on facebook, “GHANDI’S 7 DANGERS TO HUMAN VIRTUE.” Below the misspelled name were seven concepts, written in all caps. This got PG thinking.
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (M.K. Gandhi) “was born was born on October 2, 1869, at Porbandar, a small town on the western coast of India.” At some point the title Mahatma was applied, and is often used as though it was his name. Exact transliterations between languages using different alphabets is tricky. What is the “correct” spelling of this man’s last name? Most sources today use Gandhi.
Another term, Gandhiji, turns up in the research. “‘Ji’ in Hindi or Urdu is a suffix used after the names of respectable persons and elders like father and mother. It is used every day by millions of Indians to address their elders.Hence Gandhiji is but Mahatma Gandhi,father of our nation,addressed reverently and respectfully. We call mother mataji. Mata means mother.”
The quote in the meme is real. It is found on page 135 of Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi Vol. 33. It was in an article found in Young India on October 22, 1925.
“SEVEN SOCIAL SIN The same fair friend wants readers of Young India to know, if they do not already, the following seven social sins: Politics without principles, Wealth without work, Pleasure without conscience, Knowledge without character, Commerce without morality, Science without humanity, Worship without sacrifice. Naturally, the friend does not want the readers to know these things merely through the intellect but to know them through the heart so as to avoid them.”
The next entry in the collected works is interesting. “79. THAT ETERNAL QUESTION However much I may wish to avoid it, the Hindu-Muslim question will not avoid me. Muslim friends insist upon my intervention to solve it. The Hindu friends would have me discuss it with them and some of them say I have sown the wind and must reap the whirlwind.”
The meme had comments. Lloyd Lachow Gandhi was intensely racist. Joanne Gibson Gandhi was not intensely racist. Fighting racism was his first cause. John Janiga Gandhi racist??? John Taylor Lloyd, were you born an idiot, or did you have to work at it?
This looks like a job for Mr. Google. When you type the phrase “Is Gandhi,” suggested searches include “sill alive” and “on netflix.” This does not help if you want to know if someone is racist.
Mr. Gandhi lived in South Africa from 1893-1915. During this time he was offended at the treatment of Indian nationals, which led to a decision to fight for Indian rights. Unfortunately, these rights were not to be extended to the native South Africans.
… there’s no doubting that Gandhi had little time for black people. During his 21 years in South Africa, he repeatedly expressed contempt for the native population, claiming they were no better than the “untouchables” of Indian society. One speech in particular stands out. In 1896, he was quoted as referring to black South Africans as the “raw kaffir, whose occupation is hunting and whose sole ambition is to collect a certain number of cattle to buy a wife with, and then pass his life in indolence and nakedness.” For those of you who aren’t up on your South African slang, “kaffir” is a direct equivalent of our N-word. Another time, he complained about finding himself in a “kaffir” prison, claiming Indians were “above” natives, who “are troublesome, very dirty and live like animals.”
There is the story of the Durban Post Office. “The first major accomplishment of the Natal Indian Congress was to further entrench racial segregation into South African society during a time of massive racial strife. At the time, the Durban, South Africa post office had two doors. One was for whites and the other for Indians and black natives. Gandhi was so disgusted at having to share a door with blacks that he initiated a campaign for the creation of a third door. … A year later, after the issue had already been resolved, Gandhi chose to expound upon his reasons for raising it in the first place. In his August 14, 1896 letter, “The Grievances of the British Indians in South Africa: An Appeal to the Indian Public,” he called being “put on the same level with the native” a “disability.”
Pictures today are from “The Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library”.
Rumi Said What?
The other day, PG was fumbling through facebook, and there was a lovely quote. “I am not this hair, I am not this skin, I am The Soul that lives within. Rumi.” The poem seemed like good words to paste in front of pictures. PG is squeamish about copyrights, and decided to see if the translation belonged to anyone. Veteran readers should know where this is going.
Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Balkhī, also known as Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Rūmī, has become popular with the meme crowd. Mr. Google says: Born: September 30, 1207, Vakhsh, Tajikistan Died: December 17, 1273, Konya, Turkey. With his name abbreviated to four easy to pronounce letters, translations of his poems are popular. Often, the words are pasted on beautiful pictures.
Some killjoys say that this is wrong. “Yet this popularization has had a price, and the price is a frequent distortion of Rumi’s words and teachings … The English “creative versions” rarely sound like Rumi to someone who can read the poems in the original Persian, and they are often shockingly altered– but few know this, and the vast majority of readers cannot but believe that such versions are faithful renderings into English of Rumi’s thoughts and teachings when they are not.”
Lets look at the quote that started this story. It has such a perfect rhythm, and such a catchy rhyme. What relation to the original does this have? Does anyone know the name of the original poem?
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad could tell you a few things about the difficulty of translating Farsi into English. This is even more true when the translator has an agenda. On Fox News, some are trying to lead to war. Those translating a thirteenth century poet are trying to create peace. While the meme motives may be more noble, their integrity in using languages is equally suspect.
The killjoy article has some examples of Rumi poem “versions,” with footnotes. One is “Not Christian or Jew or Muslim, not Hindu, Buddhist, sufi, or zen. Not any religion or cultural system.” The comment: ” …is especially absurd. There is no evidence Rumi knew much more about Judaism or Christianity than what is said in the Qur’an– not to speak of other religions.” (The source article goes into more detail about this quote, and about the specific so called translators.)
Pictures for this repost are from The Library of Congress. Spell check suggestion for Rumi: Rum.
Famous Latin Phrases
It looks like the last internet quiz of 2014 is Can You Translate 12 Famous Latin Phrases? Latin is special to PG. After sliding through eight levels of education with minimal effort, PG took first year Latin in ninth grade, and flunked. The first teacher to give you an F will always be special.
A few point from that class came in handy today. Et is something like and. The first person singular of a verb usually ends in o. Est is version of the dreaded to be verb. “Dum Spiro Spero” comes out “while i breathe i hope.” It has nothing to do with Spiro Agnew.
The production is an advertising gimmick. Sponsors include Columbus By Palomino RVs, Create A Custom Mascot, Online Surveys by Google, and 2-for-1 Europe Cruising. One wonders how many Ford Focus drivers copped a deal because of this quiz.
Each of the twelve “classic” mottoes had three possible answers. If you are good at multiple choice testing, you should be able to figure out most of the answers. An example is number eight. The phrase is “Errare Humanum Est.” The possibilities were “to err is human, erosion of humanity, erase human failure.” Those who choose erosion of humanity automatically fail.
Here are the twelve phrases. “Carpe Diem, Semper Fidelis, In Vino Veritas, Amor Vincit Omnia, Veritas Vos Liberabi, Aere Perennius, Volens Et Potens, Errare Humanum Est, Dum Spiro Spero, Cogito Ergo Sum, E Pluribus Unum, Novus Ordo Seclorum.”
PG got ten of the twelve correct the first time. He missed “Aere Perennius” and “Novus Ordo Seclorum.” The last page ads include Bible Trivia Quiz, and Tracfone. PG uses one of those products. The pictures are from “The Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library”.
Stella Young
Writer and comedian Stella Young died Saturday evening in Melbourne, Victoria. The disability activist was 32. “Young was born in Stawell, country Victoria, with osteogenesis imperfecta, a genetic disorder that causes bones to break easily.” She spent most of her life in a wheelchair.
Ms. Young gave a TED talk, I’m not your inspiration, thank you very much. There was a chamblee54 response, Inspiration Porn. PG has a similar view about people who try to make your life better with their happytalk. Good intentions are sometimes not enough.
Somebody posted 17 things Stella Young wanted you to know. Here are a few.
I started calling myself a disabled woman, and a crip. A good 13 years after 17-year-old me started saying crip, it still horrifies people. I do it because it’s a word that makes me feel strong and powerful.
I dance as a political statement, because disabled bodies are inherently political, but I mostly dance for all the same reasons anyone else does: because it heals my spirit and fills me with joy.
These images … are what we call inspiration porn. And I use the term porn deliberately because they objectify one group of people for the benefit of another group of people.
That quote, ‘the only disability in life is a bad attitude’, the reason that’s bullshit is … No amount of smiling at a flight of stairs has ever made it turn into a ramp. No amount of standing in the middle of a bookshelf and radiating a positive attitude is going to turn all those books into braille.
While [Peter Singer] may see value in the life I’m living now, and may even treat me as an equal, he still believes that on the balance of things, parents and doctors should be given the choice to end lives like mine before they get tricky. For me, and for many other people with disabilities, it’s personal.
I’ve been an atheist for a long time – ever since I first heard that there was only a stairway to heaven.
Pictures are from “The Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library”.
The Toni Morrison Video
There was a quote on facebook. “[A] racist white person […] doesn’t understand, that he or she is also a race that’s also constructed, its also made and also has some kind of serviceability. But when you take it away, if I take your race away and there you are all strung out and all you’ve got is your little self. And what is that? What are you without racism? Are you any good? Are you still strong? Are you still smart? Do you still like yourself?” – Toni Morrison
PG saw this, and was not happy. This week saw another unpopular opinion from a legal institution. Much noise has been made. The nation is on fire, and producing more heat than light. It seems like the concept of a peaceful, unified “post racial” america keeps getting further, and further away. Facebook rhetoric is part of the problem.
The most polite thing that PG could say was “What is the source of this quote?” An hour later, the response was “Google it, sir.”
This is a problem. If you are going to put content on the internet, you should show the source. This is the rule when you write a term paper. You show the source of your information. It is too easy to misrepresent people, and to take things out of context. You should allow people to see the facts. When you post your comment, you copy a link to where you got your information. It is easy.
After a bit of digging, PG found the source. It is a video. Ms. Morrison was a guest on the Charlie Rose show. The website for the show has archival videos, and a horrible search engine. The best anyone can say for a date is sometime in 1998.
There is almost no way to know when the interview took place, or to see the complete interview. The video starts with Ms. Morrison saying “Yes I do Charlie, but let me tell you, that’s the wrong question.” It would be very helpful to know what that “wrong question” was.
A few months ago, the video began to circulate. A blogger named Keyamsha produced a transcript, for which this slack blogger is grateful. The facebook quote is not quite what Ms. Morrison said.
Before the quoted part, Ms. Morrison talks about “the people who do this thing, who practice racism” The race of “the people” is not specified. Apparently this is the attitudes of individuals, and not institutional systemic oppression. It is noted that “It has just as much a deleterious effect on white people and possibly equal as it does Black people.”
We get then to the facebook quote. Here is the full paragraph. “That’s right. He always felt superior. And that was a form, you know, of defense of racism. And if the racist white person, I don’t mean the person who is examining his consciousness and so on, doesn’t understand, that he or she is also a race that’s also constructed, its also made and also has some kind of serviceability. But when you take it away, if I take your race away and there you are all strung out and all you’ve got is your little self. And what is that? What are you without racism? Are you any good? Are you still strong? Are you still smart? Do you still like yourself? I mean these are the questions…part of it is…yes [puts hand over her heart] “victim,” how terrible it’s been for Black people.”
The printed transcript does not really convey the message of the video. It seems to this slack blogger that Ms. Morrison sees the pity talk of liberal white people as being part of the problem. There has been plenty of oppression porn the last few days. Oh, the poor oppressed People of Color! They have such tough lives. This victim talk might not be the best way to approach the problem. Would you want people to label you a victim, and have pity? (Toni Morrison: “I’m not a victim. I refuse to be one.”)
While discussing this video, you should keep in mind that it is a tv show appearance sixteen years ago. You cannot expect someone to get every word perfect. It does not help matters when no one seems to know what the question was.
That said, there is a problem with the phrase “racist white person.” If you were to say “criminal black person” there would be an uproar. If you are not a racist, then you should not mind her saying that, right? Lets try the other phrase out. If you are not a criminal, then you shouldn’t mind the reference to criminal black people. Lets see how that works out for you. Maybe you should not use a pejorative adjective, along with an ethnic designation. Just because someone is a member of a privileged community does not make it ok to insult them.
There might be a reason for specifying the color of the racist person. Lets take a look at the lines before the quoted paragraph. Toni Morrison: … I always knew I had the moral high ground. All my life. I always thought those people who said I couldn’t come in the drug store, or sit in front of the place or couldn’t go to the park… Charlie Rose: You were morally superior to them because they were… Toni Morrison: I did. I thought they knew, that I knew that they were inferior to me, morally. I always thought that. And my parents always thought that. Charlie Rose: You said your father was racist because he thought he was superior.
Maybe she said “racist white person” because she was distinguishing rwp from a racist black person, her father. When she talks about the problems of racism, she meant the attitudes of black people towards white people, in addition to the attitudes of white people toward black people. Maybe the concept that black people could not be racist had not become popular in 1998.
When you take this into consideration, it changes the meaning of the quote. The statement should be heard in context, including the mystery question. When you put an abbreviated quote on facebook, beginning with the insulting phrase “racist white person,” you do more harm than good. Pictures are from “The Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library”.
Your Racism
Last night, in anticipation of the Grand Jury presentation, chamblee54 published Freedom Lies Bleeding. Here is the text: grand jury renders opinion ~ national hissy fit begin again ~ when justice is popularity contest ~ freedom lies bleeding in street.
There was a comment. Anonymous said, on November 25, 2014 at 2:28 pm (Edit) Thanks Luthor… you’re racism never disappoints! The name was misspelled. The spell check suggestion is Author.
There is both style, and substance, to consider here. Is Freedom Lies Bleeding racist? Who knows? The definition of racism is growing, in carcinogenic fashion, as we speak. Some say it is systemic institutions of oppression. Some say it is jokes about toothpaste flavor. Maybe the best definition is that racism is anything that you do not like.
The poem was directed at the concept of mob rule. As President Obama said, “We are a nation built on the rule of law, so we have to accept this decision was the grand jury’s to make.”
A few years ago, O.J. Simpson was accused of murder. Many people thought he was guilty. After a long trial, he was found innocent. Should popular opinion have overruled the jury? No, it should not. The jury saw the evidence, and heard the arguments. The people can protest and debate, but they cannot take the place of a jury.
Is a dependence on a system of law and order racism? Anonymous seems to think so. Is they qualified to make this judgment? If racism is anything that you don’t like, then Anonymous is qualified to make the call. Maybe they knows something we don’t.
There is the style of the comment to consider. While Anonymous did not give their name, there was an I.P. address. The IPA is connected to a .edu server. Apparently, this is a workplace computer. Leaving insulting comments from your employer’s computer does not reflect well on the institution.
Anonymous is entitled to an opinion. However, leaving a name calling comment does not speak well for this individual. The six words say more about Anonymous than they do chamblee54. Pictures today are from “The Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library”.
Stop Getting Racisted At
Once upon a time, cigarettes were advertised on television. One new brand was a cigarette for women, Virginia Slims. The ability to kill yourself with tobacco was presented as being a privilege. Some wondered why women would want to take up this filthy habit.
Today, African Americans have the “privilege” of using the n-word. What a deal. A nasty word, which degrades both the speaker, and the spoken of. Why would anyone want to use that word?
Apparently, millions of people do. Recently, an individual named Piers Morgan wrote a piece in an English newspaper about the n-word. Mr. Morgan calls those six letters “a grotesque, odious, evil stain on the English language. It symbolises everything multi-cultural America has fought so hard to move on from – white-run, imperialist, violent, sexually malevolent barbarism.” As the lady in Ferguson, MO, said, “I CANNOT BELIEVE I STILL HAVE TO PROTEST THIS SHIT!!”
@aamer_rahman In other news today: White Guy Blames Black People for Centuries of Racism. Lol #PiersMorgan #GotItAllFiguredOut
@DakShepard God, please let me live free from the need to tell POC what they should do to stop getting racisted at. Please let #PiersMorgan, too. Amen.
@tariqnasheed So #PiersMorgan is running the ol “the-reason-we-practice-white-supremacy-is-because-Black-people-use-the #NWord ” con game I see
@kim_tastiic #PiersMorgan is liberalism personified. ‘Nuff said..
@Adam_M_Ali#PiersMorgan’ “article” confirming the ignorance of Whiteness to the INTERNAL discourse within the Black community, it’s now dictating to.
@Virtuous_Queen_Show me the statistical data and research that proves eliminating the Nword will dismantle racism n inequalities. @piersmorgan #PiersMorgan
@BriannaChevonneShow positive black families on prime time tv and not the Good Times struggling ones…then you’ll be equal…NOT! #PiersMorgan
Sometime between the last cigarette commercial, and the first dark skinned POTUS, America was charmed by “The Bill Cosby Show.” Here was a “positive black family on prime time tv.” As @BriannaChevonne could have told you, we are equal…NOT!
Bill Cosby has been interesting. PG grew up listening to the comedy albums. Mr. Cosby earned lots of money selling Jell-O, and with a hit tv show. Mr. Cosby, it is whispered, is a mean, crotchety old bastard. There are also those troubling stories about sexual assault.
Asking for “public input” is always a risky business. This is even more true when the beloved entertainer is accused of rape. This didn’t stop Bill Cosby Inc. from putting out the Cosby Meme Generator. People were invited to paste comments onto charming pictures of America’s favorite funnyman. What happened could have been predicted. Thus was born #cosbymeme. The spell check suggestion for #cosbymeme is #cosmetology. You can’t make this up.
@NarcoVelvet I will now be participating in the #CosbyMeme fun. Because I cannot even believe this is being allowed to happen right now.
@Dukeweiser Cmon Bruh At least his app asks for consent. #CosbyMeme ”
@elonjames I think Bill Cosby still thinks he’s America’s Dad and not America’s creepy Uncle who’s not allowed to visit anymore… #CosbyMeme
@InsaneBHawksFan @_poeia “I put the bibity bopity in her drink and then my boopity doopity in her poopity.” -Bill Cosby #cosbymeme
@ritchtp #fact more Blacks wrote a #CosbyMeme than were employed to write a cosby show.
Pictures are from “The Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library”.
Eighty Percent
It is a T shirt treasure, and a coffee cup classic. “Eighty percent of success is showing up.” This gem is blamed on Allan Steward Konigsberg, better known as Woody Allen. The percentage goes up and down, and life is sometimes substituted for success.
The quote was recently featured at WIST, or Wish I’d Said That. This quote site is known for giving a source, unlike the sites featuring purring platitudes in front of a cultural kitten. The current top offering is “Bach almost persuades me to be a Christian.” Virginia Woolf attributes the baroque comment to Roger Fry who was not afraid of the author.
Getting back to Mr. Allen and success statistics. He accepts full responsibility for the remark. In 1989, notorious conservative columnist William Safire asked Mr. Allen about whether he said life or success. The answer was rather surprising.
“The quote you refer to is a quote of mine which occurred during an interview while we were discussing advice to young writers, and more specifically young playwrights. My observation was that once a person actually completed a play or a novel he was well on his way to getting it produced or published, as opposed to a vast majority of people who tell me their ambition is to write, but who strike out on the very first level and indeed never write the play or book.”
In other words, you don’t just show up empty handed. If you have an idea, you have to employ the writing formula, ass + chair. You have to turn the tv off, leave the beer in the refrigerator, sit down, and push buttons on the keyboard.
The second part of today’s entertainment is an encore presentation, Inspiration Is For Amateurs. Pictures are from The Library of Congress.
PG was listening to an interview with a fiction writer. Someone said “Inspiration is for amateurs.” PG has always been more impressed by action than beliefs, and this phrase made sense. This repost is a good excuse to post some more pictures from The Library of Congress.
The phrase is from a painter named Chuck Close. His output is expensive, and widely enjoyed. A spinal injury left him paralyzed, but did not stop him from producing. Here is the full quote:
“The advice I like to give young artists, or really anybody who’ll listen to me, is not to wait around for inspiration. Inspiration is for amateurs; the rest of us just show up and get to work. If you wait around for the clouds to part and a bolt of lightning to strike you in the brain, you are not going to make an awful lot of work. All the best ideas come out of the process; they come out of the work itself. Things occur to you. If you’re sitting around trying to dream up a great art idea, you can sit there a long time before anything happens. But if you just get to work, something will occur to you and something else will occur to you and something else that you reject will push you in another direction. Inspiration is absolutely unnecessary and somehow deceptive. You feel like you need this great idea before you can get down to work, and I find that’s almost never the case.”
A man once made pottery. It was said that the man only worked with passion, and that if he didn’t feel this passion he did not work. When PG heard that, his thought was that if PG worked that way, he would never finish anything. Most of the sticker pictures take a while to finish. PG always gets tired of the picture before it is through. The idea is to go to the studio, start to do stuff, and before long the enthusiasm will return. Any image requires a certain amount of time with the belly pressed against the work table, or the digital equivalent.
The formula for writing is ass plus chair. A teacher once said to not stare at the blank page, waiting for a bolt of lightening. Start to write something, and the ideas will start to sputter out of the pipeline.
It is not enough to have a bright idea. You have to work the problems out. Sometimes, you spend more time finding out what does not work, than what does. You have to do it wrong before you can do it right. Genius is ninety nine percent perspiration and one percent inspiration. If any cliches have been overlooked, please add them to the comments.
One thing that is helpful is to be focused. The internet can be a problem. When you should be thinking about your product, it is very tempting to see the latest on Facebook or Twitter.
Chamblee54 
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