Mon 26 Aug 2019
Posted by PJ under dreams and dreamtime, quote of the day, truth
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Random quote of the day:
“Truth is a dream, unless my dream be true.â€
—George Santayana, Sonnet V
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Key and Peele, Celine Dion, or Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.
Fri 23 Aug 2019
Posted by PJ under hearts, love, quote of the day, salvation
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Random quote of the day:
“If you can love someone with your whole heart, even one person, then there’s salvation in life. Even if you can’t get together with that person.â€
—Haruki Murakami, 1Q84
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Key and Peele, Celine Dion, or Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.
Thu 22 Aug 2019
Posted by PJ under being human, quote of the day
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Random quote of the day:
“I have lived on all the planets: life is a joke on none.â€
—Jules Renard, The Journal of Jules Renard, February 1902 (ed. & tr. by Bogan & Roget)
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Key and Peele, Celine Dion, or Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.
Wed 21 Aug 2019
Posted by PJ under lies, politics, portalville, satire, truth
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1. Let me thread you a story…(1-12)
2. Howdy, folks. I know it’s been a long time since you’ve heard from me—and I’m not a’tall sure anyone has a mind to listen to an old country narrator like me any more—but sometimes a person has to be tellin’ stories, even if they’s talkin’ to themselves.
3. Truth is, I fell into a pit of despair over the way of things in the larger world, and the state of things in Portalville itself. All the stories in the world, no matter how sarcastic, didn’t seem to make a lick of sense to anyone so I figured, why bother?
4. The other problem is when you’re a confabulator and things happenin’ in the real world is more confabulous than what a storyteller could come up with and still be believed, it does somewhat take the gunpowder outten your musket.
5. Still, like I said, I got that need to tell stories whether anyone believes ‘em or not. Like that time President Turps joined forces with Portalville’s former mayor and minor god of chaos, Belial Covfefe. Covfefe got voted out of office here in Portalville fair and square—
6. once townsfolk got wise to his evil ways—but he kept screamin’ that the whole thing was rigged even as he packed his bags and left in a huff. Turns out, he became one of them political consultants on President Turps’ re-election committee.
7. Said he’d learned from his mistakes here in Portalville and if President Turps wanted to be re-elected he, Covfefe, would show him the way. Before you knew it, the president had him a revolvin’ set of heads on his shoulders.
8. Whenever anyone called him out as a liar to his face, which nervy journalists and late-night TV show hosts sometimes had the balls to do, he’d swivel another head around and that one would get all riled & declare, “I never said any such thing. These are all just fake truths.â€
9. All’s he had to do was keep track of which head told which lie & switch to a new head that had no part in the lyin’. Trouble was, you can only fit so many heads on one pair of shoulders and the president told so many lies he soon ran out of heads to do his denying for him.
10. So the president started sproutin’ little bitty heads out his rear end—but that wasn’t telegenic. Folks didn’t want to see footage of that process. For a time the news was filled with shots of the back of the president’s drawers with these tiny muffled voices comin’ out.
11. Had to shove them microphones so close to his pants that people finally said, “Enough!†‘Course, they’s always folks what believe anything the president tells ‘em without regard to common sense. Even if it is comin’ out his rear end.
12. You can read the entire sage (so far) of Portalville at https://pjthompson.dreamwidth.org/1672524.html
Wed 21 Aug 2019
Posted by PJ under art, crime and punishment, quote of the day
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Random quote of the day:
“Crime is art for lazy people.â€
—CeeLo Green, Everybody’s Brother
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Key and Peele, Celine Dion, or Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.
Tue 20 Aug 2019
Posted by PJ under art, boxes, projects
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I was having a conversation with my friend
Mainly, I said to my friend, I’m feeling shame about this. I did complete my mission of folding one box a day for a year but all the little boxes are now sitting in a large box waiting for me to do something with them. I’ve had several ideas, but whatever I produce to incorporate them all is going to be rather large so I haven’t had the drive or the will for the next phase.
I had thought to weave them all together with fine copper wire, even bought some wire and started that process—and it promised to look quite smashing! But I soon realized that 1) it would take an entire wall to display, and 2) I don’t currently have a large enough workspace to incorporate that process.
Then I bought a small airplane propeller (like one does) with the idea of hanging them from it and suspending it from the ceiling. But again, so many small boxes and not enough room to work on it. I hung the propeller on the wall instead.
(In case anyone is wondering about the rocks in that basket—because sometimes people do—I found these lovely slate grey pebbles and these lovely snow-white pebbles and they looked so lovely sitting side by side that I filled the basket with them sitting side by side. 😉 My cleaning people gave me the side-eye the first time they saw them, but they didn’t say much. They have long-since given up questioning my many odd decorating choices. And they’ve been much happier since I told them not to bother dusting the mantelpiece.)
After the propeller debacle, I remembered that I had an old Japanese-style three pane folding screen covered in rice paper which had been damaged (the rice paper) in the Great Rat Invasion. (Apparently, rice paper is tasty?) It was composed of many small wood-framed rectangles. I thought I could remove the rice paper and display the boxes in the rectangles. It would be compact enough for display, plus I wouldn’t need to lay it flat to work on it. I got most of the rice paper off—though not as much as I remembered (as I saw when I photographed it) (Did I mention what a pain in the butt it is to cut out hundreds on small rice paper squares?) (It was one large sheet of rice paper, but glued thoroughly to each square so I couldn’t remove it all at once.) (And it occurred to me just now that I might have been able to steam it off, but oh well.) The problem with the screen was that there were only 200-something rectangles and 365 boxes, plus some of the boxes were bigger than the rectangles. So that stalled.
But that idea may be coming back around again. I think I can come up with a work around. It’s just a question of my ambition coming back around again.
So many projects, so little ambition.
Tue 20 Aug 2019
Posted by PJ under promise, proverb, quote of the day
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Random quote of the day:
“A promise is a cloud; fulfillment is rain.â€
—Moroccan proverb
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Key and Peele, Celine Dion, or Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.
Mon 19 Aug 2019
Posted by PJ under books, paranormal, review
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Christine Wicker’s book, Lily Dale: The Town That Talks to the Dead covers some of the same territory as Spook by Mary Roach—although I think, at the end of the day, Wicker’s book was more genuine. I liked reading both, and Roach is very funny, but she went into her skeptical deep dive exploration of the paranormal with the goal of mocking. She did quite a lot of that in Spook, sometimes to funny effect, but other times to her detriment as a reporter.
Wicker also went in skeptical but was genuinely interested in exploring the lives of the people she encountered. She approached them with respect and a reporter’s eye towards following where the story led, rather than leading the story. I won’t say she became a true believer by the end of the book, but she did emerge from the story changed by what she’d experienced.
Even Roach had to admit that she could not come up with rational explanations for everything she encountered. Yet she clung to the rock of her disbelief like any true acolyte of scientism. And that’s fine with me. I don’t require anyone to drink the Kool-Aid. Some people need to disbelieve no matter the evidence to the contrary, just as some need to believe despite rational explanations. As Ms. Wicker said so eloquently in her quote of the day, below.
See my full review of Christine Wicker’s book here.
Mon 19 Aug 2019
Posted by PJ under belief, paranormal, quote of the day, seeing, skepticism
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Random quote of the day:
“Even when believers earnestly explain how things are and disbelievers earnestly listen, disbelievers go away unchanged because facts are the least of their differences. It’s perception that separates them. That’s how it is, and that’s how it has always been. Those who must see to believe don’t believe enough to see. And those who believe enough to see won’t stop believing, no matter what they see.â€
—Christine Wicker, Lily Dale: The Town That Talks to the Dead
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Key and Peele, Celine Dion, or Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.
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