Archives for February 2007

The following is an excerpt from Willard R. Espy’s book The Game of Words. I was saving it for opening day of professional baseball, but in honor of my blogging friend Wes Kenney’s return to wearing zebra stripes umpiring I am sharing it today.

It was originally published by Cleveland Amory in Saturday Review to recognize the many varieties of spoken American. I recommend reading it out loud, and for the main section using intonation that you would expect from an announcer.

“After an introduction listing the major league baseball teams (in one league the Allanna Brays, the Pissburgh Pyruss, the Los Angeles Dahjers, The Sane Louis Carnals, the Monreal Espos and the Cincinnaai Res; in the other, the Ballimore Orioles, the Washinton Senaturs, the Deetroy Tigers, the Cleeland Indians, and the Minnesota Twins) the story, which I judge to be jotted down from a television announcer’s report begins:”

Each mannijer signs the car showing his lineup for the day and joins the daily huddle arown home plate to learn the groun rules . . .

(As the batteen order appears before us on the screen, we are told that certain named players are in leff, senner an rye feels. Others are at the traditional spots of firss, secun an thirr base, an shorestop.)

The pisher no longer goes inna wineup, but a stresh. The firss pish is stry one, followed by ball one. Then stry two, ball two, ball three–the full coun. The ba–er fouls one inna the stanns an the cown remains aa three an two. Finally he flies deep to the senner feeler who makes a long run anna fine runnen catch up againssa wall, beyonna warneen track.

Another ba–er goes to one an one, then pulls one downa leff feel line, where the feeler plays it offa wall an fires to secun. But the ba–er, with a hook sly, slies in safely at secun with a double. He calls for time while he duss off his suit, or at leass his pans.

The game moves along. It develops into a real pishers ba–l.

The nex ba–er grouns to shore, anna runner on firss slies inna secun, to break up the du-ul play.

Three weeks from necks Sa-arday is Ole Timers’ day, so get your tickus early at onea the many convenion box offices. Come ow an see baseball’s grays, including several memmers of the Hall a Fame.

Wes, you may not be umpiring for professional baseball anymore, but you’ll always be a Hollow Famer for me.

Gerry Spence. How To Argue and Win Every Time. NY: St. Martin’s Griffin, 1995. 320 pages.

Some years ago I read How To Argue and Win Every Time. It was a somewhat interesting book, but I did not realize how many passages I had noted until I was going through my notes this week. All of the following quotes come from this book.

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I have learned more from my dogs than from all the great books I have read. (page 19)

At last, genius is not some fortunate arrangement of brain cells. Genius is energy, only directed energy. Genius is preparation. (page 128)

When I answer the iconoclastic urge, when I attack cherished beliefs, confront tradition, when I flaunt my ideas in the face of political correctness, I create hordes of enemies, like one who pounds on a beehive with a hammer. To be renounced is the price one pays for one’s personhood. It is the price paid by the advocate. Rejection is the bed the iconoclast has prepared for himself. (pages 144-145)

But I argue that it is not nice to be nice. It is nice to be respected. It is nice to be right. It is nice to be real. It is nice to be loving and caring. It is nice to be committed and courageous. But it is not nice just to be nice. (page 145)

To excel in the art of domestic argument, one must master the art of losing. (page 221)

Sadly, more homes are destroyed by wrong argument than by bombs, and more people are homeless in their homes than homeless on the streets. (page 226)

Home is a fifty-fifty proposition: the husband tells the wife what to do and the wife tells the husband where to go. (page 226)

We live our lives on the crest of the moment. (page 228)

Suppose you have never seen an automobile before. One day you are shown one. You are told that this is a machine that weighs more than two tons. It has the capacity to hurl itself down a road in excess of sixty miles per hour creating hundreds of thousands of foot-pounds of energy. Suppose you are told that you will be required to drive this machine down a narrow roadway at sixty miles an hour and that oncoming like machines will be speeding at you at a similar speed. You are told that if you let the steering wheel veer to the left but an inch, and hold it there for more than a second, two at most, your vehicle will cross over the line and strike, head on, the oncoming vehicles. In such a head-on crash the likely result will be the death of all occupants in all cars. You are advise that some who drive these automobiles at the very moment you are also driving will be blind drunk, some nearly blind, some blind and drunk, some inexperienced, some aged, quite a few will be crazy, countless will exhibit the mental capacity of a demented slug, some will be asleep, some will be awake but sleeping, some will be ill, and most can, at any moment, be guilty of such negligence that a Sherman tank would be at risk. Under such circumstances, would you not conclude that to get into a car and drive it on any highway would exhibit the approximate intellect of a multilobular water organism? (page 205)

A few days ago I shared with my writer friends an excerpt about the difficult craft of writing taken from one of the books written by Tom Huff (a.k.a Jennifer Wilde). Here is an excerpt from one of Tom’s other books, Angel In Scarlet, which is good advice for us all.

“Would you like me to read to you?” I asked.

“Not–not this afternoon, Pumpkin. I’d rather just–chat for a while. It’s been a long time since we’ve had a really good talk.”

“We’ll have lots of them,” I promised. “You’re getting so much better you’ll be–why, any day now you’ll be in your study, working on your history again. You’ll be able to finish it at last.”

He shook his head, and a sad smile rested briefly on his lips. “I fear not, Pumpkin.”

“You will, I assured him. “I know you will.”

“I’m never going to finish it. I never started it.”

“But–“

“Dreams,” he said quietly. He shook his head. “I had such dreams, my darling, but I fear I hadn’t the determination, the stamina, the will. All those years shut up in my study, and what do I have to show for them? Notes. Thousands and thousands of notes. I realized a long time ago it–it was too late, but I continued to pretend. I continued to dream.” He paused, gazing thoughtfully at the fire. After a moment he sighed. “Dreams aren’t enough,” he added.

“Father–“

“Remember that, he told me, and there was quiet urgency in his voice. Dreams aren’t enough. You must follow them through. And you will, Pumpkin. You have character and intelligence and spirit and you’ll never be satisfied with hollow self-delusions. You’ll never use your dreams as an escape, as I did, You’ll look life in the eye. You’ll never make–compromises.”

“You didn’t either,” I protested. “You–you were a marvelous teacher who inspired hundreds of boys. You–you’re loved and respected by everyone in the community. You made a great contribution.”

“I settled for less, my darling. I gave up. I gave in. That’s something you must never do.”

At one time I published a weekly Accidental Tourist in which I shared a little bit of everything that I picked up around the internet — inspiring blog posts, weird news, fun links, etc. But as Michele recently said, life interfered with my blogging. I don’t make the rounds nearly as much as I formerly did. In fact, I am happy if I get to my Back Atcha links a few times each week.

However, I know I am missing out on some great blog posts and other items. So, I thought you might help me construct an Accidental Tourist post using Mister Linky.

Please select your own blog post that you like best from this week and share it using the widget below. Feel free to also share any other item that you found around the net.

Well, I said any, but please use discretion and do not link to anything irreverent or disrespectful of others.

Okay, share your best stuff!

[Please link to the specific post you want us to see. Don’t link to your main blog page because this kind of link makes it hard to find the item after you’ve added new content to your blog. I have added the first few just to get us started.]

UPDATE: This posting is now complete, — the widget has been removed and the shared entries have been converted into permanent links. If you wish to add a link, please go to the most recent Accidental Tourist posting by clicking HERE.

Here are the links shared:

1. Sage (A book review of Andy Catlett)
2. Wes (Oreo Personality Test)
3. Cory Miller (How Christians are using blogs.)
4. BP (16th century Baptist identity)
5. Ted Olson (Christian oath-taking)
6. Paul L (Free book giveaway)
7. John S. (accountability group for Baptist bloggers)
8. 9/10ths Full of Penguins
9. Kevin (Weekend One Sentence Movie Reviews)
10. Free Coffee
11. Nick Kennicott
12. LA Holmes
13. Peter (Life- From inside my head)
14. Semicolon (Saturday review of books)

We even tried taking him to a clinic, though I had no faith at all in psychologists. Their fictional explanations of human behavior seemed pretty lame, and their cure rate was a joke–a plumber or barber who performed at the same level as a psychotherapist would be out of business in a month. I took time off work to drive Scotty to the clinic every week during August, but Scotty didn’t like it and the therapist told us nothing more than what we already knew–that Scotty was lonely and morose and a little bit resentful and a little bit afraid. The only difference was that she had fancier names for it. We were getting a vocabulary lesson when we needed help.
~ Orson Scott Card, in Maps in a Mirror: The Short Fiction of Orson Scott Card. NY: ORB, 1990. page 111

Never mind the question of why anybody would ever become a writer at all. The sheer arrogance of thinking that other people ought to pay to read my words should be enough to mark all us writers as unfit for decent society. But then, few indeed are the communities that reward proper modesty and disdain those who thrust themselves into the limelight.
~ Orson Scott Card, in Maps in a Mirror: The Short Fiction of Orson Scott Card. NY: ORB, 1990. page 135

I am fifty-three years old. I have been doing this for about thirty years.There are 66 books in the Bible, and I have preached through about a third of them. That means that if the Lord lets me preach until I’m 116, I should be able to wrap this up. Of course, I would then have to start over again, in order to go back and fix all the screwy things I said when I was in my twenties.
~ Douglas Wilson, in Credenda Agenda (HT: Soli Libri)

“Ain’t you thinkin’ what’s it gonna be like when we get there? Ain’t you scared it won’t be nice like we thought?”
“No,” she said quickly. “No, I ain’t. You can’t do that. I can’t do that. It’s too much–livin’ too many lives. Up ahead they’s a thousan’ lives we might live, but when it comes, it’ll on’y be one. If I go ahead on all of’em, it’s too much. You got to live ahead ’cause you’re so young, but–it’s jus’ the road goin’ by for me.”
~ Characters Al and Ma Joad in John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath. NY: Viking Press, 1939 [1967 reprint]. page 127

Power does not corrupt. Fear corrupts, perhaps the fear of the loss of power.
~ John Steinbeck

Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
~ Lord Acton

Power corrupts the few, while weakness corrupts the many.
~ Eric Hoffer

Power does not corrupt men; but fools, if they get into a position of power, corrupt it.
~ George Bernard Shaw

Power corrupts, but lack of power corrupts absolutely.
~ Adlai Stevenson

Access to power must be confined to those who are not in love with it.
~ Plato

Politicians cannot be pure, by definition. Their motives are always mixed. Ambition, power, public adulation, always figure in somehow. Means get confused with ends.
~ Robert Reich, in Locked in the Cabinet. NY: Vintage, 1997, page 10.

Confession is the next thing to innocency.
~ Publilius Syrus

Rule your desires lest your desires rule you.
~ Publius Syrus

To ask a favor is a kind of slavery.
~Publius Syrus

Though ambition in itself is a vice, yet it is often the parent of virtues.
~ Quintilian, in Institutio Oratoria, Bk. 1

Most of the time we are only partially alive. Most of our faculties go on sleeping because they rely on habit which can function without them.
~Marcel Proust.

Speak the truth and shame the devil.
~ Francois Rabelais, in Gargantua and Pantagruel, Bk. 5 (Also found in Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra’s Don Quixote, Pt. II, Ch. 31)

One half of the world knoweth not how the other half liveth.
~ Francois Rabelais, in Gargantua and Pantagruel, Bk. 2, Ch. 32

Man has found remedies against all poisonous creatures, but none against a bad wife.
~ Francois Rabelais, in Gargantua and Pantagruel, Bk. 4, Ch. 65

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And, on a friend’s blog there has been some discussion regarding the use of the word idiot. So, I offer this quote as a friendly salute to those involved:

Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress, but I repeat myself.
~ Mark Twain

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Looking for more quotes. Check out the quotes that Wayne has posted HERE.

R.L. Stine, Monster Blood II (Goosebumps). NY: Scholastic, 2004. 144 pages

R.L. Stine, Monster Blood III (Goosebumps). NY: Scholastic, 2007. 144 pages.

Monster Blood II and III continue the adventures (and misadventures) of Evan and Andy and the mysterious substance known to them as Monster Blood.

In Monster Blood II, Evan becomes a bit of a smart-alec so it is difficult to really feel too sorry for him and the troubles that plague him at his new school. In fact, Evan’s behavior is criminal at one point so I was glad that I was reading it with my son so I could discuss with him the error of Evan’s ways. Most of Evan’s problems are brought on by his own indiscretions, however, there is a new bully that you will love to hate. Conan Barber, a.k.a. Conan the Barbarian, is just as bad as he is big. Nevertheless, the problems Evan brings on himself, and those provoked by Conan, are nothing compared to the trouble that arises when Andy tries to help out with a little dose of Monster Blood. Andreaaaaa!

Monster Blood III introduces a new character, Kermit. He is smart, he is in fact a genius, and he is Evan’s weaselly cousin. Whichever direction Evan turns it seems that there is someone out to get him, — Conan, Kermit, his Aunt Dee, and eventually the police. What is worse than having Monster Blood turn you into a giant? Try being a feathered, blue giant. I think Monster Blood III is probably the best of the trilogy. It is full of action and animus.

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GO HERE for an explanation of how I came to be reading the Goosebumps books with my eight-year old son.

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52/07 – A Book Odyssey

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On Monday’s I always share a collection of quotes, most of which I pick up during the normal course of my personal reading. I enjoy quoting other people.

However, it is even more fun to be quoted. This morning I discovered that someone quoted me over HERE at Wikipedia. I am bibliographic citation number 43.

Okay, I’ve had my five minutes in the sun, now back to being part of the teeming masses languishing away in anonymity.

Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s Dictionary. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2002. 440 pages.

I like words but I don’t make it a habit to sit around reading dictionaries. And, with a title like The Devil’s Dictionary I am certainly careful in regard to who observes me with the book, lest I give someone the wrong impression.

However, I read The Devil’s Dictionary from cover to cover. I don’t necessarily recommend that approach to others, — for most it would be a bit of an overload. However, I do recommend that you own a copy and sample it from time to time. The book has long been in the public domain and you can get a very cheap copy if you shop around.

Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914) was more than a professional cynic–he was a master of acerbic wit. It was as a newspaper columnist that he became famous, but he published across genres and his short stories are widely regarded as among the finest of the nineteenth century.

While I am personally one of the sweetest people you will ever meet (my Mother tells me this is true), for some reason I find I enjoy reading the literary works of curmudgeons and iconoclasts, (Mark Twain, Oscar Wilde, H.L. Mencken, Thoreau, etc.). Ambrose Bierce, satirist and social heretic, is without question a member of that company.

The Devil’s Dictionary, originally titled The Cynic’s Word Book, is comprised of about 1600 wickedly clever definitions in which Bierce skewers… well, you and me. He is a caricaturist only he uses the written word rather than an artist’s pencil.

You will find below some excerpts from the book. If you read the book, prepare to be offended. Bierce’s satire and social criticism is not all good natured. There is a reason why he was nicknamed Bitter Bierce.

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CHRISTIAN, n. One who believes that the New Testament is a divinely inspired book admirably suited to the spiritual needs of his neighbor. One who follows the teachings of Christ so far as they are not inconsistent with a life of sin.

HISTORY, n. An account mostly false, of events mostly unimportant, which are brought about by rulers mostly knaves, and soldiers mostly fools.

IRRELIGION, n. The principal one of the great faiths of the world

NATURALISM, n. An accurate representation of human nature, as seen by toads.

OPERA, n. A play representing life in another world, whose inhabitants have no speech but song, no motions but gestures and no postures but attitudes. All acting is simulation, and the word simulation is from simia, an ape; but in opera the actor takes for his model Simia audibilis (or Pithecanthropos stentor) — the ape that howls.

PATIENCE, n. A minor form of despair, disguised as a virtue.

PHILOSOPHY, n. A route of many roads leading from nowhere to nothing.

UNDERSTANDING, n. A cerebral secretion that enables one having it to know a house from a horse by the roof on the house. Its nature and laws have been exhaustively expounded by Locke, who rode a house, and Kant, who lived in a horse.

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Other books written by Ambrose Bierce include:

• Cobwebs from an Empty Skull (1874)
• Tales of Soldiers and Civilians (also known as In the Midst of Life) (1891)
• The Monk and the Hangman’s Daughter (1892)
• Can Such Things Be? (1893)
• Fantastic Fables (1899)
• Collected Works (1909)
• Write It Right (1909)
• A Horseman in the Sky, A Watcher by the Dead, The Man and the Snake (1920)

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52/07 – A Book Odyssey

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