From Prof. Oddfellow's sketchbook:

The colour of her costumes change from white in the carefree beginning, to grey when the forces of tragedy gather momentum, until at last sable black with all its dark meaning appears. First, in an all- black velvet dress and large black hat that she wears for her journey to the country. Then, when it seems that she is to be happy, white again in cannily picturesque lawn dresses with only a black cloak to remind you her fate is sealed; black again after her renunciation — shimmering black net with sequins, but black. For her death, so that you are not too miserable and may find solace in something, a white gown, ecclesiastical in feeling with its monk’s cowl, sending you to religion, there to take courage to bear it.
—Cecilia Ager, Camille, 1937. From American Movie Critics: An Anthology From the Silents Until Now, edited by Phillip Lopate, 2006.

Which is funnier: Tom and Jerry cartoons or ambassadors trying to out-dance and out-gobble one another at parties and conferences?

Clue:  This is according to an author of speculative fiction

Answer:  Ambassadors trying to out-dance and out-gobble one another at parties and conferences.  (The answer is in black text on the black background.  Highlight it to view.)

Citation:  Emerald, Revolution, the Greatest (2006), p. 463

"The One God can wait.  The One God is TIME.  And in Time, any being that is spontaneous and alive will wither and die like an old joke.  And what makes an old joke old and dead?  Verbal repetition."
—William Burroughs, The Western Lands

From Prof. Oddfellow's sketchbook:

Next election, I'm voting for Munchausen by proxy.

From Prof. Oddfellow's sketchbook:

 

"No writer is above language.  Writers are language.  Each is his own language."  —Anthony Burgess, Earthly Powers

Certainty #44:

"You can't tell where you are, or why you're there, and the only certainty is overwhelming ambiguity."
—Neil Campbell, American Cultural Studies, 2004

William Keckler suggests that:


See his full discussion here.

William Keckler is a sick puppy.

And a sonic dust bunny himself.

But he loves this.

We were gobsmacked by this astonishing review of our interactive adventure "100 Ways I Failed to Boil Water":

I found this at Craig Conley's site. I can see I'm going to have to allow myself some serious play time with this blog.

Conley is the type of genius I like--where there's room for charm to co-exist with the genius, and where part of the expression of that genius is charm.

Plus, his type of genius is always producing things, not talking about producing things or lamenting not producing things or explaining why it is not producing things.

I would negatively contrast him with the MENSA guy who poisoned his neighbor and her family who was featured on TRU TV's Forensic Files the other night. MENSA seems to exist only for creeps, boors and bores. Hey, I was invited to join MENSA AND the Triple Nine Society (the next decimal point over, which presumably gives the Society the right to piss on MENSA members) because I qualified after a superevil intelligence test they gave me when I was a (t)wee lad, and I had the good sense even then to realize patting oneself on the back is a waste of time. Besides, there are much better places to pat oneself if one must, indeed, pat.

When they told me how remarkable my intelligence score was, I knew one thing instantly....I was going to have a lot of brain cells to kill.

And I am proud to say, several decades later, that I have accomplished that goal.

See? Attainment over patting.

Okay, enough of a detour into Me-ville.

Many of the things Conley creates are fun and engaging and smart and poke reality in its stomach or give reality a "Hurt's Donut" on the back of its neck.

I'll share a lighter piece with you.

Here is "100 Ways I Failed to Boil Water" by Craig Conley and some other guy who is not Craig Conley.

I was trying to think who Craig reminds me of today, and I think I decided he's a bit Sal Mineo, a bit Dave Gahan from Depeche Mode, a bit Jon Cryer in the golden years and some other people who haven't yet emerged from the shadows where people are used to compose other people.

In other words, he's good people.

And he's also himself. Obviously. If you visit his blog, you'll see just how much he is himself. Trust me.

I am enjoying some dried papaya chunks right now and they are heavenly.

I like to talk about food.

Food is, like, epistemological. Almost. Lots of things are "epistemlogical...almost."

Gertrude Stein thought food was VERY epistemological in Tender Buttons.

Conley's blog also features a great series of visual puzzlers where a little "something something" is used to cipher out various celebrated literary moments in English and in other languages. BLOG search ABECEDARIAN (see my blogroll) for Basho's celebrated frog poem if you want to see what I'm talking about. These images take literary touchstones and force you to re-examine what's going in the representation by thinking about it visually. I can't explain more.

For once, I am at a loss for words. It's rare with this mouth, but it happens.

This is weird, because there's a Jungian synchronicity in my search terms today where somebody searched "death is not something." I think I'm remembering that correctly.

I remember that striking me as very French. But then there's Wittgenstein with his "The moment of death is not lived through." Which is just as funny, actually.

When is philosophy not funny, really?

I guess when it leads to death camps or things like the Soviet terror state under Josef Stalin.

Here. Enjoy a very funny confessional....

Failure has never been so amusing.