I Found a Penny Today, So Here's a Thought

"It's fun to be foolish ... that's the joy of living!"  Irene Dunne and Douglas Fairbanks Jr. in Joy of Living.  From The Film Daily, 1938.

"Insight into the unknown?"  From UFO Newsclipping Service, 1981.

John Maus says the greatest evil is to be a bureaucrat and tell someone, "If I made an exception your case, I'd have to make an except for everybody, so I'm not going to make an exception in your case."  Maus says the way not to be evil is to make those exceptions.  Plus, here's his idea of genuine radicalism: regardless of your belief system, "Be a sweet dude, act as if everything will be counted, as if there will be a fullness of time."

What a great pre-apology for causing offense: it's not you, it's your next-door neighbor the author was eviscerating.  From Needles and Pins by Mina Deane Halsey, 1909.

"A soft blanket and a gay disposition are the essentials." From The Campus newspaper of Middlebury, 1964.

RSVPing while hallucinating ... it's our new video:

"Don't be afraid to use a good idea just because it's already been done" (Mike McShaffry).  Yes, it's an elephant wearing green clothes, just like Jean de Brunhoff's famous Babar. Audcious!  

What a concise way to communicate a title, year, edition number, publisher, city, editor's name, and ten major contributors.  That's sixteen units of information!  From Wheels by Edith Sitwell, 1916.

It's not "coffin coffee" unless it's brewed until the aroma could wake the dead.  From Entire Dilemma by Michael Burkard, 1998.

You've heard that dabbling in the occult is dangerous because it's not a game, but it turns out that it actualy is a game.  "The Game of Bewitchments," from Fairy Prince by Eleanor Abbott, 1922.

That's how my folks were as I was growing up -- if I indicated that I had something important to say, they encouraged me to put it on a record.  Alas, my vast record collection was destroyed by Hurrican Matthew, and now I hardly know what I think.  From Time and Tigers by D. R. Amato. 

This sort of science is rarely taught anymore ... and look at the state of the world.  "Why the butterfly is not a flower," from The Bluebird's Garden by Patten Beard, 1915.

Good news -- it won't and actually cannot ever happen again.  From It Never Can Happen Again by William de Morgan, 1909.

We double-checked this Charles Kingsley quotation, and it is untrue.  (Yesterdays sneers and frowns certainly can come again!)  But we snagged it for the hand lettering.  From Mary Washington's 1916 yearbook.

"I still live, but like 666, by the aid of drugs.  Pain, pain, pain!  But, before I die, I must tell all.  I mustn't wander - must conserve all my energies to tell all."  From Secrets of the Kaula Circle by Elizabeth Sharpe, 1936.

"To save the world just vote for Joe the space bee, present leader of the Inter Galactic Bumblebees."  From The Gateway, 1974.

If Wordsworth had said this to me, I'd have invited him to absent himself from my presence (using only words from The Dictionary of Ugly Words) so that my reading could continue undisturbed and my growth continue to double.  From Mary Washington's 1916 yearbook.

"The only trip we are ever going to take is to hell."  From Dark Shadows episode 797.

Let no one say our posts don't offer clarity.  From Clarity by John Ramsey, 1985.

As you see, one of these books is from the mirror world.  There's an easy way to determine which world you are in: look at the cover of the book you're reading; in the mirror world, the author's name is less important than the title.