Found 98 posts tagged ‘list’ |
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Go Out in a Blaze of Glory –
October 8, 2022 |
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Thanks to Elephant Bitterhead for saying, "I LOVE these lists. They are poetic, profound, funny, sad, everything at once. They remind of tarot or the I Ching. Whatever you need, it's in there somewhere."
The only solution is to:
- sprout a pair of wings
- phase out the signal
- make the bucket bigger
- turn the machine off and leave it alone
- sedate them
- involve the community
- be disconnected and re-dial
- destroy the system and start all over again
- lighten the load
- make your home appear to be untenanted
- replace the damaged piece
- overthrow it and then poof...that's it
- abandon the dogmatic idea
- re-write the subroutine with higher precision
- grin and bear it
- prove them wrong
- drop the notion of total divine inspiration
- invent something different
- make the best of the material at hand
- limit the amount of information available
- accept the defeat and wait quietly for the positive forces to lead you
- reboot the system
- stop talking altogether and uses sign language
- do a backup for yourself
- travel off somewhere away from everyone
[Tidbits gathered through the course of our research. See the remarkable collection, entitled Bullet Lists.]
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Puzzles and Games –
September 25, 2022 |
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Play a variant of Clue / Cluedo with this floorplan and list of items that poltergeists moved during a two-week period (between the new moon of June 25th, 1923, and the full moon of July 9th), as reported in Quarterly Transactions of the British College of Psychic Science.
- key
- raw potato
- dishcloth
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thimble
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candlestick
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night-light
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brooch
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curtain ring
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ball of wool
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steel pliers
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breakfast handbell
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teapot spout
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china powder box
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cheese knife
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glass-cutter
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teapot lid
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sixpence
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cup and saucer
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silver cigarette case
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box of matches
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thimble
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cottons
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milk jugs
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lemon squeezer
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glass inkpot
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chain necklet
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ink pen
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bread and bread-board
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apron
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tobacco pipe
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small doll
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safety pins
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counterpane
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shoes
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silver salt spoon
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looking glass
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soap dish
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comb
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hairpins
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magazine
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pillow
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chair
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rubber ball
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ornamental plate
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I Found a Penny Today, So Here's a Thought –
February 1, 2022 |
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Things that can be tideless (besides water):
- gloom
- Milky Way
- loveless marriage
- foamless weirs of age
- rainbow-colored memories of Italy
- ethers
- heart of cold crystal
- dream (as well as dreamland)
- man
- abyss of human illusion
- eternal remembrance
- depths
- breath
- long days of calm delight
- harmonies
- night
- grief
- time / waste of years
- the absence of life
- drought
- laboratory
- inactivity
- heart
- Hades
- astral orbit
- soul
- unbelief
- morning
- spell
- mist
- stupor
- ecstasies
- summer
- pain
- time of peace
- air
- worthless rock on a dying evening
- childhood
- planet
- skyline
- God's omnipotence
- the past
- truth
- music
- now
- blood
- woe / misery
- dateless silence
- England's green
- love
- moment of death
- glory
- thought-waves
- mental estuaries
- deep blue sky
- wastes of life
- pitiless whirlpool
- nothingness
- the mid-1870s
- the horse of one's opponent
- dawning power
- the inner midnight of oneself
[Tidbits collected through the course of our research]
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I Found a Penny Today, So Here's a Thought –
September 5, 2021 |
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You've heard that life begins after forty, but this headline from The Instructor, 1953, suggests the opposite: "Life begins before forty."
Life begins after ...
- death
- coffee
- sunset
- a reset
- puberty
- analysis
- midnight
- retirement
- five o'clock
- high school
- you get fired
- you say "I do"
- business hours
- the question mark
- the transfiguration
- the day of judgement
- weapons are returned
- the introductory chapters
- one's second cup of coffee
- putting your house in order
- spending days lying under a pear tree
- one enters a state of superconsciousness
[Snippets gathered through the course of our research]
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Synonyms for a monocle:
glass wafer
patch of crystal
third eye
eyeglass
one-eyed eyeglass
eyepiece
pendulum
ribbonless, ingrowing affair
his disguise
magic ring
ring of invisibility
shiny object
shiny bauble
magnifying glass
disk of crystal
the glass
the token of ceaseless interrogation
Picadilly window
glass onion
“The monocle is everything. Man. A crystallization. A gel. A micella. God.” —Blaise Cendrars, Dan Yack (1927, translated by Nina Rootes, 1987) “The monocle at his eye was like a veil to hide the soul, a defence against inquiry, itself the unceasing question, a sort of battery thrown forward, a kind of field-casemate for a lonely, besieged spirit. It was full of suggestion. It might have been the glass behind which showed some medieval relic, the body of some ancient Egyptian king whose life had been spent in doing wonders and making signs—the primitive, anthropomorphic being.” —Gilbert Parker, The Right of Way (1901) [snippets collected through the course of our research]
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I Found a Penny Today, So Here's a Thought –
April 1, 2021 |
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The only way forward is:
- politely but firmly to refuse.
- to forget the past.
- to first move backward.
- not to capitulate.
- to default and exit.
- acknowledgement and acceptance.
- to find the means to get out.
- through dialogue and reconciliation.
- to restore momentum.
- partnership.
- a lasting ceasefire.
- to disrupt.
- to depoliticize and demystify.
- mutual respect and understanding.
- to find a path that starts in the middle.
- to start walking.
[Tidbits gathered through the course of our research. See the remarkable collection, entitled Bullet Lists.]
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I Found a Penny Today, So Here's a Thought –
January 26, 2021 |
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All you need is...
- a plunger
- a mirror and a good flashlight
- a piece of paper
- a spirit of adventure
- a quart of paint
- one unsuspecting subject
- a sheet you can spread under a tree
- a fertile mind
- desire and a little practice
- a piece of string about four feet long
- a flat playing area
- someone to trust
- a library card
- a bit of imagination and a sewing machine
- a little olive oil and diced garlic
- time
- fifty lucky breaks
- a good lawyer
- a good laugh
[Tidbits gathered through the course of our research. See the remarkable collection, entitled Bullet Lists.]
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I Found a Penny Today, So Here's a Thought –
January 22, 2021 |
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Nothing changes until …
- we hit some kind of bottom.
- someone starts to dream.
- a complete power-down of the system.
- the soul changes.
- behaviors change.
- the players pick up the pieces and start a new game.
- the data is artificially changed.
- you actually quit.
- we ask ourselves questions.
- we shine a light on the issue.
- you make your voice heard.
- we get sick of ourselves.
- it’s changed in everyone’s memories.
- it becomes what it is.
- the next version comes out.
- a small cat appears.
[Tidbits gathered through the course of our research. See the remarkable collection, entitled Bullet Lists.]
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I Found a Penny Today, So Here's a Thought –
December 15, 2020 |
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I Found a Penny Today, So Here's a Thought –
December 1, 2020 |
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There’s nothing to worry about because …
- it will automatically shut itself off
- this is the new normal
- all the testimonies have been shredded
- you’re in capable hands
- you’re not one of “them”
- all this is part of your dream
- you can change your will as often as you like
- nothing has been lost—just as nothing will be gained
- you yourself are the eternal energy of the universe playing hide-and-seek with itself
- things are much better than they used to be
- it is so enormously complex that nobody is going to figure it out
- Mother Nature will intervene somehow
- you don’t plan to do anything about it anyway
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Puzzles and Games –
July 21, 2020 |
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50 Yearbook Motifs Bingo
Invite partygoers to bring an old yearbook. Participants trade yearbooks. Call out a motif, a point going to the first person to find and display a matching photo. Game ends with the first paper cut. The 50 motifs listed here are the very most common running themes in yearbooks, so this is a game more about speed than luck.
- skull (human or animal)
- same photo duplicated within yearbook
- person studying at the end of library shelves corridor
- human pyramid
- woman hugging a tree
- man sunbathing
- mop or yarn wig
- person in a trash can or dumpster
- Groucho glasses with mustache
- man being thrown into a body of water
- toilet or urinal, unoccupied
- person sitting on toilet
- parking ticket on automobile
- fraternity brother being paddled
- “artistic” double-exposure photo
- person donating blood
- men in comedy drag
- burning building
- kitten or cat
- racial stereotype costume
- man asleep on a park bench or common room sofa
- picket/protest sign
- group of men wearing ties but no pants
- face and/or body covered in shaving cream
- car bashed with sledgehammer
- man holding snake
- sign on a door
- mud-covered buddies embracing
- adult wearing a diaper
- pie in the face
- man on the phone
- person behind bars or otherwise caged
- candle- or torch-wielding hooded figure
- thespian man applying makeup in a mirror
- reading an upside down book
- man wearing only a towel
- clock tower
- student holding vinyl record
- two or more men in bed together
- effigy
- camera-shy person holding hand or book to face
- man shaving
- face painted as skull
- single face or scene reduplicated by kaleidoscopic lens
- silhouette
- man sticking hotdog or banana into his mouth while staring at the camera
- streakers
- athlete’s wounded foot being bandaged
- men kissing
- person posing next to a tombstone
- skeleton with a cigarette in its mouth
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I Found a Penny Today, So Here's a Thought –
June 2, 2020 |
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Modeling One’s Life After Dark Shadows: Studiedly Stoddard
A significant contribution to the
burgeoning field of Stoddard studies.
Tips on how to conduct oneself, based upon the character of Elizabeth Collins Stoddard:
- Always look your best, even if your husband isn’t buried in the basement.
- Plant your feet firm on the deck when a gale blows. Hold your head up high and damn the devil, because you don’t know how to run scared.
- To clarify what you have heard and slow down the episodes of your life, repeat the last word spoken by whomever is talking to you. For example: “How are you today?” “Today?”
- Do your hair very high, and add a bow most of the time.
- Say you don’t care about money, but if anyone tries to take yours, hit him in the head with a poker.
- Your makeup matters, even if your wrinkled lips smear the lipstick. It will matter more once you go to color.
- Hold back your tears. Choke back your emotion. Crying reveals your weakness, and no head of a cannery can afford emotion. Think of the dead fish you have to put out of your mind every day. If overwhelmed by feeling, let one or two tears escape, and dab them away delicately with a lace hanky. Loud sobbing is okay if alone in your room late at night, or when in the locked basement room.
- Write your death date in the family Bible in pencil or erasable ink. You never know, do you?
- Wear a tasteful suit or dress, though you will not go out. You never know who will need to speak to you in the drawing room.
- Practice social distancing: work from home, limit guests to two at a time, and isolate them in the drawing room.
- Almost always, face the open window, your back to the guest, assuring fresh air.
- Always add the family jewels. Pearls or a brooch, or both. Think Queen Elizabeth without the purse.
- Speaking to people, always say, “I need to speak with you.” This sets them on edge, giving you an advantage as they contemplate the cause of your need. Then, ask them to step into the drawing room. Close the doors. You have thus taken command of both space and time and lent importance to even the simplest statement. Then say, "Thank you, but I don’t wish to discuss it.” They are completely at your mercy, having no idea what just happened.
- Always maintain that your marriage was one of the worst mistakes in your life.
- The cue you’re looking for may be outside the drawing room window.
- Keep yourself separate from the town. Class distinctions are important. Granted, the occasional trip to the jail to bail out your daughter will be required, but never, ever, enter The Blue Whale. The dancing is atrocious.
- Never hand over the key you keep on a chain around your neck.
- It helps to have a narrator summarize your day as you begin each new one. It cuts through a lot of doubt as to what happened yesterday. And a diary takes a lot of time. Be aware that the narrator may change, affecting your day.
- Prohibit anyone from loitering near the locked room in the basement.
- Secure some lacy bed jackets. A full robe is so cumbersome when you are being served tea in bed.
- Plan for a bell to be installed in your mausoleum just in case you’re buried alive.
- Always avoid the question.
- Try to read only family genealogy, the occasional magazine, or newspaper headlines (but only when a close friend has disappeared).
- Decline sherry if it is offered, unless it is the only thing to keep you from fainting.
- There is dignity in defending one’s house guests to the death.
- Allow only one person to informally call you ‘Liz.’ That is Roger, your brother, but even he should reserve such casual address for the most intimate situations. Only answer to Mrs. Stoddard. Even to yourself.
- Be tortured by the presence of death. Others can’t see it, of course, but if they look into your eyes, they’ll know that you, somehow, can see it.
- Stay fit by strolling to Widow’s Walk. Do not go there if you are feeling dizzy.
- When you don’t know what to say, scan the room for a prompt. It gives you a desperate look and buys time for your response.
- Remind younger siblings and staff that you are the matriarch. Collinwood (or your address) belongs to you. You are in control until little David (or your own male heir) comes of age.
- Limit phones in the house to two. Place them within feet of each other. No need to take calls when you are trying to rest. The ghostly widows calling you to your death are enough disturbance at night.
- Hands should be kept at your center, lightly clasped, or folded. This communicates your resolve to take no action of any kind in any situation. Neutrality and inaction equal power and class.
- If you don’t want people to know you are menopausal, avoid opening and closing windows during storms and while there is a fire in the fireplace. It’s a dead giveaway you are having hot flashes.
- Most importantly, whatever it is, don’t talk about it. Especially not over the phone. Or if it’s late. But it you must, always go into the drawing room and close the doors. For God’s sake, not the hall!
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The headline reads, "When the whichness of the what is really only a well-drained drip" (The Gateway, 1970). While reminding ourselves of the origin of "the whichness of the what," we encountered these variations:
The whichness of the what and abstract ain'tness of the not, and the correctness of the is.(Norris Clarion Sprigg, Sprigs of Poetry, 1907)
The Whichness of the What, as compared to the Thatness of the Thus.
(G. E. Farrow, The Wallypug of Why, 1895)
The whichness of the what and the whitherness of the wherefore.
(Elsie Lincoln Benedict & Ralph Paine Benedict, How to Analyze People on Sight, 1921)
The whichness of the what and whereforeness of the why.
(The Evening Statesman, 1903)
The whichness of the what—the howness of the when—the whereness of the whatever.
(The Gateway, 1930)
The whichness of the what of which nothing is any whicher.
(Eben Leavitt, 1938)
The Whyness of the Wherefore and the Whichness of the What.
(Georgetown Daily, 1909)
The whichness of the what and all that sort of thing.
(Buffalo Morning Express, 1919)
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I Found a Penny Today, So Here's a Thought –
April 17, 2020 |
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The moon is actually …
- an egg that won't hatch for a long time.
- a big TV.
- older than the earth.
- not made of green cheese but rather mozzarella.
- a small planet.
- darker than the sky.
- a hollow alien spaceship.
- smaller than any star.
- a god.
- constructed of styrofoam.
- Hell.
- more strongly bound to the sun than to earth.
- silver.
- an oval.
- falling like a stone.
- a rather poor reflector.
- semi-transparent.
- orbiting within Lucifer’s atmospheric envelope.
- rather pleasant.
- anything but a boring place.
- making our day a little bit longer every thousand years.
- the place of departed spirits.
- a museum world.
[Tidbits gathered through the course of our research. See the remarkable collection, entitled Bullet Lists.]
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I Found a Penny Today, So Here's a Thought –
March 31, 2020 |
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100 Ways We Failed to Reduce Vinegar
1. Couldn't handle the fumes.
2. Couldn't risk evaporation (high price per ounce).
3. Balked at our pretentious refinement (chichi).
4. It somehow turned back into wine.
5. Cultural appropriation.
6. Always feel irritated when told to "simmer down."
7. A bout of acerophobia.
8. Wouldn't know how to drizzle it, anyway.
9. Gave up after an hour.
10. Watched the pot.
11. No clear advantages.
12. Couldn't be bothered.
13. Pot cracked.
14. Couldn't get the cork out.
15. Milkman called.
16. Forgot dinner-guests.
17. Couldn't afford the time.
18. Reached the bottom of the barrel.
19. Couldn't risk scalding.
20. Forgot to add vinegar.
21. Stove temp. too low (211°).
22. Couldn't justify taking the trouble.
23. Mistook steam for bubbles.
24. Recipe didn't call for it.
25. Feelings of uneasiness.
26. Can catch more flies with honey.
27. No time to gather firewood.
28. Hired careless servant.
29. Voices said not to.
30. Didn't have two sticks.
31. At triple point.
32. No amount of wishful thinking.
33. Utilities deliquent.
34. Too busy watching paint dry.
35. Resisted overcooking.
36. Forgot to remove the pot's lid.
37. Indifference.
38. Wasn't trying to.
39. Adverse vapor pressure.
40. Where to begin?
41. Too busy bleeding turnip.
42. Trickle-down economics.
43. Don't know how.
44. Raw food diet.
45. Global cooling.
46. Don't care for glazes.
47. Forgot to pre-heat.
48. Hot flashes.
49. Plastic spoon melted.
50. Pot not compatible with induction cooktop.
51. Couldn't take the heat.
52. A series of intangibles.
53. Already let off my steam.
54. Can't follow simple instructions.
55. Enthusiasm dwindled.
56. Not on my fad diet.
57. Doubted thermodynamics.
58. Prefer Green Goddess dressing.
59. Customary admonitions.
60. Old-school environmentalist.
61. Lost the recipe.
62. Failed minimum requisites.
63. No aptitude.
64. It was already drizzling outside.
65. Still in rehearsals.
66. Failed Home-Economics.
67. Doctor's orders.
68. Just married.
69. All fingers and thumbs.
70. Rolling blackouts.
71. Wrong place and time.
72. Kettle fit for dungheap.
73. A general conspiracy.
74. Better things to do.
75. Inauspicious horoscope.
76. God's will.
77. Gone fishin'.
78. Not enough energy.
79. High altitude.
80. Not on the Sabbath.
81. Stage 3 restrictions.
82. Too many cooks.
83. The clock stopped.
84. Peer pressure.
85. Afraid of nutrient loss.
86. Spring fever.
87. Blew a fuse.
88. Burned midnight oil.
89. Blasted whirly-gigs.
90. Sour grapes.
91. Eating out more often.
92. Absentee charwoman.
93. Ex-husband got the kitchen.
94. Don't eat boiled vinegar.
95. Perfectionism.
96. Viscous cycle.
97. Bout of blennophobia.
98. Nothing to go with it.
99. Tried to cut back.
100. My salad days were over.
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I Found a Penny Today, So Here's a Thought –
March 12, 2020 |
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A cat never:
- acknowledges itself beaten.
- gives in totally.
- makes an apology.
- scratches without a good reason.
- feels ashamed of itself.
- forgives an injury.
- eats a cat.
- thinks it belongs to anybody.
- has nothing to do.
- has tender mercies.
- forgets being scruffed by its mother.
- can be over-indulged.
- leaves a home it has chosen.
- outgrows a love for play.
- tells a secret.
[Tidbits gathered through the course of our research. See the remarkable collection, entitled Bullet Lists.]
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