afewparagraphs

[afewparagraphs]

Talking Turkey (Well, Beer Really...)

"Welcome, welcome Englishmen! Do you have any beer?" Sub-Chief Samoset of the Abenaki tribe is supposed to have happily exclaimed when he first met the Pilgrim Fathers. Of course, that was in March, not November, but the same sentiment has endured down to this very day.

May you and yours enjoy each others company in a similar spirit on this Thanksgiving Day.

[afewparagraphs]

I Vote For McIntire!

What if they gave an election and nobody came?

That's what happened in McIntire, Iowa the other day (well, really back in august but "the other day sounds more folksy"). It was a special election, too!... http://www.afewparagraphs.com/2017/10/i-vote-for-mcintire.html

[afewparagraphs]

Fancy a piece of sea pork?

That time when a repulsive blob washed against you while you're cooling your feet in the surf... http://www.afewparagraphs.com/2017/10/fancy-piece-of-sea-pork.html

[afewparagraphs]

Comfortably Celebrating Independence

Here in the ever propagating city of Conglomeration, Texas the "feels like" temperature is 257 ° F and the humidity is approximately what it will be here when climate change makes the Gulf of Mexico deluge the state.

As a result only the most hard bitten patriots will dare to venture out to the fireworks tonight. Many will sacrifice their lives to do so, bursting stoically into flame (but being instantly put out by the humidity) as they salute the country.

My little family and I used to risk our lives in this way in order to teach our children that freedom isn't free and that America has some darn good patriotic songs. Fortunately we were saved at least once by a tumultuous rainstorm that lowered our body temperatures just below ignition temperature for spontaneous human combustion.

Nowadays though, being older, "wiser," and having taught the kids all the lessons we've got, we opt -- as we do for almost everything else -- to live vicariously by way of the Internet. Sitting in our comfortable chairs (several of which we bought on the Internet), cool, pre-conditioned air swirling gently about us, we plan to watch real, live fireworks streaming electronically into our home from somewhere. Hopefully it's cooler there.

"There" being Orlando, Florida. If you would like to share this experience Disney World will be livestreaming their famous fireworks show tonight for free! Please note: If you are reading this too much into the future I can't guarantee anything.

So how do you do it? According to Disney,

Join us minutes before the fireworks start at 9:00 p.m. ET to learn more about nighttime spectaculars at Walt Disney World Resort. How can you catch the live stream? Visit the Disney Parks Blog on July 4 and a fresh blog post containing the live stream feed will be ready and waiting at the top.

So we'll be at https://disneyparks.disney.go.com/blog/   just before 8:00 PM Texas time tonight, corn dogs and ice cream at the ready, chromecasting the extravaganza onto our giant TV and reveling in nice, comfortable patriotism.

And if this doesn't work, I'll be right back here posting a grumpy blog post.

Image courtesy of Disney

[afewparagraphs]

Weekly Dose of Religiosity

Posted originally on A Few Paragraphs http://ift.tt/2rEuvCd

[afewparagraphs]

Father's Day & the Empty Chair

The Chair

Last year my father passed away and so this Father's Day will be the first one where he isn't sitting in The Chair. Actually, last year he probably sat mostly in his wheel chair since The Chair was somewhat difficult to get in and our of by then. But he was still with us and could have occupied The Chair if he so chose. But this year it's an Empty Chair. And that feels a bit weird.

The Chair

My dad always had The Chair, though it appeared in several guises through years. But it was always a recliner, and always leather -- or in the earlier days, when he wasn't earning a lot, Naugahyde. Some of my earliest memories are of him sitting in The (fake leather) Chair giving me a sip of his Coke out of a huge, icy glass. None of us boys (there are three of us) ever sat in The Chair, unless we were deliberately provoking him to see what he'd do. It was quite definitely a symbol of authority. In a patriarchal way our entire family revolved around That Chair, even when we lived a thousand miles away. It's not that he sat there and hurled thunderbolts at anybody; he just had this constant, even, presupposition that all of us would do what he said and things would go the way he wanted them to. And he was usually correct about that.

What I Learned

The interesting thing I learned when he passed away was that he meant more to me than I ever suspected. I always loved him in my self-centered way and I never doubted that he loved me. But I was much more like my mother. Our interests were much more the same, we were both highly intuitive people, it was easier for me to talk to her, and we both liked staying up late into the night watching TV. My father was far more business-like, more strictly logical, wasn't the most talkative person in the world, went to bed at 9:00 on the dot, and seemed to gain his greatest satisfaction from playing a good round of golf. My brothers loved golf too but I could never get into it, although I tried (a little). They had this camaraderie with him from playing countless games on the golf course that I did not. He tried to reach out, reading Discover magazine and watching the Science Channel so he could talk about my nerdy interests. And I did get to spend more time with him when he was experiencing his final illnesses. But I always assumed that my mother's death would have the biggest impact on me, and her passing did hurt me very much. I had to give a "spiritual eulogy" at her funeral and it was very hard to get through. I had to do the same thing at my dad's funeral and I remember thinking, "Well, at least this won't be as hard as mom's eulogy was." But it was my father's funeral that I broke down at. I barely made it through. I honestly didn't expect the emotion that welled up.

Waves

Since then there have been several times when waves of sadness, of missing him being in That Chair will hit me out of nowhere. Sometimes with no connection at all to what I'm actually doing. My belief is that to deal with grief I need to embrace it and let it happen. So when these waves hit I try to let them flow and just observe what is happening inside me. Over time this has decreased. I don't think I've had a sudden onrush of emotion like that in months. But Father's Day with the Empty Chair will be an interesting test. Posted originally on A Few Paragraphs http://ift.tt/2rry76B

[afewparagraphs]

Weekly Dose of Religiosity

Posted originally on A Few Paragraphs http://ift.tt/2sQiqH9

[afewparagraphs]

RIP Batman

RIP Adam West

This is the end of an era for me. This is the day that Batman died. And by Batman I mean Adam West, who just passed away at the age of 88. During the psychedelic 60s when I was a 2nd grader in a flyspeck of a town in New Jersey, one of my favorite comic books suddenly came to life in brilliant color on the TV. Batman back then wasn't a dark and foreboding fellow riven with anger down in his batcave, brooding over the senseless deaths of his parents. Instead, he was a detective armed with gadgets who dressed in a blue, light grey, and yellow costume vaguely reminiscent of a bat. He was on good terms with the cops who were constantly calling him via bat-signal or beeping red bat-phone to solve the alarmingly frequent super-villain crimes of Gotham City. Batman at this point in his life wasn't scary or particularly mysterious (though no one knew who he was), just a super-hero, like Superman over in Metropolis, who was probably his best friend. I owned quite a few of their comics.

ZAP!

Then one Wednesday night (January 12, 1966 to be precise) all of that world abruptly appeared in our TV.  Even the sound effect balloons -- POW!, ZAP! -- translated over, and the theme song was unforgettable. Batman and his trusty sidekick Robin tried to stop the Riddler's perfidious crimes in this episode. And I sat there mesmerized. But then, at the very climax of the story, with Batman drunk (they spiked his orange juice) and Robin kidnapped and about to be operated on -- it ended!!  Instead we got this:

WILL ROBIN ESCAPE?

CAN BATMAN FIND HIM IN TIME?

IS THIS THE GHASTLY END OF OUR DYNAMIC DUO?

ANSWERS...TOMORROW NIGHT! SAME TIME, SAME CHANNEL!

ONE HINT--THE WORST IS YET TO COME!

Whaaaat???  I suffered the whole next day! Until finally, after the longest Thursday in history, we tuned in to find Robin not dissected after all (only used to make a rubber Robin mask for special guest star Jill St. John to wear) and Batman all sobered up. Being 7 years old I took this all as straight adventure, never quite catching that it was being played so seriously that it was hilarious to the adults. The utterly straight-arrow Batman played against the surreal atmosphere of the late 60's (which even a kid could pick up on) was such a disjunction that Batman and Adam West became the hottest thing on television.

The Grey Ghost

Batman was such a vivid cultural event that, even though Bat-fever quickly drifted away like smoke, Adam West radiated it for life. Try as he might he never really escaped it. I remember reading in the 70s and 80s how he raged against being typecast. But eventually he learned to embrace being the 1960s Batman, attending conferences and appearing with the super-cool 60s Batmobile. In 1992, West appeared in an animated Batman episode called Beware the Grey Ghost, portraying an actor who once had great fame as a TV superhero, but now was unable to find work. According to Wikipedia, the producers almost canceled the film because they felt it was close to Adam West's actual life, but West insisted on playing the character. One has to wonder if it was a sort of catharsis for him. Posted originally on A Few Paragraphs http://ift.tt/2s8K18v

[afewparagraphs]

Weekly Dose of Religiosity

Next week's sign: "Go to church or I'll use the force to crush your throat!!" Posted originally on A Few Paragraphs http://ift.tt/2ohRdyF

[afewparagraphs]

Last of Her Kind

Emma Morano -- last of her kind

I haven't been posting recently due to over-busyness (see the previous post),  but this is just too epic to miss: the last surviving human from the 19th century has passed.

Requiescat In Pace Emma Morano, and farewell 1800s.

Posted originally on A Few Paragraphs http://ift.tt/2oKZmKF

[afewparagraphs]

It’s about time.

[afewparagraphs]

Production Note

Stuff I gotta do

Image by Tom Ventura

Due to being deluged with various financial things (like doing a couple of income taxes, etc), I'm going to have to suspend my usual daily stream of drivel for a little. I'll be back as soon as I can. In the meantime there is plenty of older blather you can shake your head at if you take a mind to. Pleonic Posted originally on A Few Paragraphs http://ift.tt/2ngH84e

[afewparagraphs]

My Neighbor, Sasquatch

**Native Texan?**

As we all know, Bigfoot is a cosmopolitan citizen of the world. But for some reason very few people can imagine him living in Texas.

This, however, is a major misconception. According to the Texas Bigfoot Research Conservancy he (or she) sometimes hangs out close to where I live.

Their files hold the report of an September 2006 meeting between Sasquatch and one of my fellow Texans. Back then at least, the mysterious creature was spending his time in the swamp behind the Addicks Flood Control Reservoir. The anonymous witness was taking an early morning ride along the reservoir bike trail with his wife and son, he suddenly saw a big, hairy monstrosity resting in a pipeline crossing. He also reports that Sasquatch was very stinky.

The Bigfoot Conservancy made a detailed study of the event and were converted from initial skeptics (it is next to the thriving metropolis of Conglomeration, Texas, after all) to true believers.

Now, in April of last year torrential rainstorms filled Bigfoot's possible marshy home to overflowing, possibly endangering him and any family he may have. There have been no reports of man-ape corpses being discovered or of any Sasquatch home invasions. We can only hope that Bigfoot made it to high ground and lives today in more hospitable surroundings.

Posted originally on A Few Paragraphs http://ift.tt/2oCcQJH

[afewparagraphs]

The Ins and Outs of Belly Button Lint

Your navel hard at work

Now for a cultural reference that Star Wars nerds like me will recognize: Remember the Sarlacc from Episode VI -- the ravenous creature in a huge desert pit lined with inward-facing spines that swallowed hapless victims (like Billy Dee Williams) alive?

Well, that's how your navel gathers lint.

An Austrian researcher named Georg Steinhauser devoted 3 years to studying belly button fuzz and and here are his in-depth findings: You belly hair scrapes it off your shirt and sucks it remorselessly down into your omphalos.

"The hair's scales act like a kind of barbed hooks," Dr. Steinhauser proudly reported. "Abdominal hair often seems to grow in concentric circles around the navel."

Posted originally on A Few Paragraphs http://ift.tt/2n7F66t

[afewparagraphs]

In Praise of Ebooks

eBook

Image by Kelson

I am so glad to be living here in the future. There are so many things I wished for -- or would have wished for if I'd have had sufficient imagination -- that now are an ordinary part of my life. The one I want to sing the praises of today is eBooks. I love, love, love eBooks. I have always been a book-a-holic, since my earliest days, and before I could read I insisted that my mom read to me (which, fortuitously, she was quite willing to do). And not just fairy tales; I made her read from the Encyclopedia Americana and a companion series for kids called "Wonder Books," which were filled with questions and answers: What happened to the dinosaurs? Were the labors of Hercules? What's it like on the Moon? Books, I perceived fairly early on, were a door to other worlds, to meeting other people ancient, modern, and imaginary. As Mrs. Pleonic can attest, anyplace we live gets filled up with books. Right now though, all those books are in a storage facility waiting to be liberated. The way our stuff is wedged in there it's no simple chore to go down and pull out a book to read. In fact, it's so hard that I never try it. But there are eBooks. When they first became popular I wanted nothing to do with them because I'm a Luddite. An actual book filled with actual paper and actual ink was the only true, honest way to read. "An elegant way to read, from a more civilized age," you know. EBooks won me over, though. They became easier on the eyes. They learned to imitate turning the page and flipping back. Many of them -- the one's I most want to read, at least -- are free. They're sort of like cats: adapting to us so we'll feed them. And most of all I can take my entire library with me on a SD card. Right now I'm walking around with (at last count) 4000+ books on my tablet!  And counting. I understand that, according to some statisticians, eBook sales are leveling off and real books are staging a come back. And I still pick one up now and then, even though we have absolutely no room for them. But -- 4000+ books!  There's just something about sitting in the doctors office reading Quantum Mechanics: The Theoretical Minimum one minute, then being able to turn to Uncle John's Trumphant 20th Anniversary Reader the next. Posted originally on A Few Paragraphs http://ift.tt/2o2sw7H

[afewparagraphs]

Weekly Dose of Religiosity

Hidden benefits!

Posted originally on A Few Paragraphs http://ift.tt/2nZA7ny

[afewparagraphs]

Smurfette the Temptress

The embodiment of evil

Image from Smurfsfanon Wiki

In the Israeli town of Bnei Brak they are very modest and there are laws to keep it that way. There, the majority of citizens are Ultra-Orthodox Jews, so they do what they can to prevent sordid images from defiling their eyes, particularly lust-inducing sexy images. As a result, local regulations prohibit signs and billboards from containing pictures of any women who might, "incite the feelings of the city’s residents." In the past this has included Jennifer Lawrence and Tinkerbell (who wasn't modeled after Marilyn Monroe, incidentally, but was curvaceous enough to be banned). And most recently, Smurfette. I totally respect their zeal, by the way, but... Smurfette? Yup. Following the letter of the law, the regular billboard ad for Smurfs: The Lost Village, which includes Smurfette, was edited to show only Brainy, Clumsy, and Hefty Smurfs. That way her Smurfalicious charms won't lead any innocent bystanders astray. They do have a point though: Originally, the Smurfs were entirely stag, but then in 1966 their arch-enemy Gargamel created Smurfette artificially to lure all the real Smurfs to their doom. Luckily, wise old Papa Smurf transformed her into a real, live girl Smurf, thereby changing her hair color from black to blonde. She still leads all the male Smurfs to their doom: Every last one of them (except Papa Smurf I presume) has a crush on Smurfette. But now it's a good kind of doom. Posted originally on A Few Paragraphs http://ift.tt/2ojD6bo