Found 112 posts tagged ‘bullet list’ |
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I Found a Penny Today, So Here's a Thought –
September 11, 2019 |
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The best thing to do right now is to:
- get yourself a cookie
- proceed antisystematically and aphoristically, or lyrically, or musically
- keep together
- turn to page 8 and get an idea
- lay low for a bit and let the heat die down
- hold the nerves in, keep cool and let the fish take the line for a run
- bite the bullet and show up
- rest for a little bit
- keep quiet
- get away from the monkeys
- sit down, relax, have some lunch
- go for a swim
- build a fort
- give these people a chance
- get out there as quickly as possible
- just watch what he does
- learn how to cope on your own
[Tidbits gathered through the course of our research. See the remarkable collection, entitled Bullet Lists.]
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There's a precursor to the TV show phenomenon of "Jumping the Shark" (of course named after the Season 5 episode of Happy Days in which Fonzie waterskied over a shark and thus outed the writers as having run out of ideas). It's what we might call "Unchaining the Monkey." Of the classic sitcoms we revisit, Bewitched lasted the very longest before throwing in the towel amd ushering in a chimp. That show made it deep into Season 5 before giving up. The worst offender, though the one show with the very best excuse, was Gilligan's Island, which made it only two episodes before going ape. But at least the jungle island setting made the casting seem less desperate. Frankly, the most painful offender of this bunch is Hogan's Heroes: a chimp supposedly having escaped from a zoo nearby the German prisoner of war camp is dressed up and becomes history's most reliable courier of the Underground resistance movement. It's tearfully unfunny.
Classic sitcoms in order of ability to delay the monkey:
- Gilligan's Island - "Voodoo Something to Me," Season 1, Episode 3
- The Addams Family - "Morticia Joins the Ladies League," Season 1, Episode 6
- The Munsters - "Come Back, Little Googie," Season 1, Episode 25
- Green Acres - "Horse, What Horse?" Season 1, Episode 29
- I Dream of Jeannie - "Fly Me to the Moon," Season 3, Episode 1
- Hogan's Heroes - "Monkey Business," Season 3, Episode 29
- The Beverly Hillbillies - "The Gorilla," Season 5, Episode 6
- Bewitched - "Going Ape," Season 5, Episode 22
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Indubitably (?) –
September 2, 2019 |
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Nothing can go wrong if:
- there are backup systems.
- you don't get caught.
- you do it right.
- the eternal truths are stated loudly.
- you figure things out carefully.
- gold is near.
- you keep your head and listen to me.
- fate is on your side.
- you don't panic.
- you devise a strategy.
- we all stick together.
- you just treat X and Y as constants.
- we operate strictly according to plan.
- you practice what you have learned.
- your harness is sound.
- these people don't get elected.
- everything goes right.
- you just return to Paradise Island.
[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 –
July 5, 2019 |
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Sometimes a full moon ...
- casts eerie shadows across tombstones.
- can create a rainbow at night.
- appears twice in the same month.
- peeks around the clouds.
- moves through the earth's shadow.
- looks so big and bright and magical.
- dances through gaps in dark clouds.
- makes all the difference in the world.
[Tidbits gathered through the course of our research. See the remarkable collection, entitled Bullet Lists.]
Illustration from Full Moon by P. G. Wodehouse, 1947.
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This May Surprise You –
June 6, 2019 |
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A dozen things talking skulls have said:
"There is no use for you to cry, for you are with me now, and you must begin to clean me."
—told by storyteller White Sun, whose grandfather was the medicine-man of the Kitkehahki (The Pawnee Mythology, collected by George Dorsey, 1906).
"Is it just today or yesterday that I have been here?"
"I was dreaming. ...I dreamt that I threw my own body down. I dreamt that I was bounding about, merely a skull."
—Yana Texts by Edward Sapir, 1910
"There is as much fire beneath our feet and heads as the sky is distant from the earth."
"Shall I remain a skull for ever, or shall I take my own true form?"
"Why do you spurn me? I once was living, I now am rolling in the dust; your fate will be like mine."
—Smoke by Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev, 1883
"Tongue brought me here; tongue will bring you here too."
"I have fully enjoyed valuable treasures in my life time—and even after I died."
The skull spoke. Muffled. Sepulchral. "Trick or treat!"
"Foolishness killed me, and cleverness has killed you."
—Research in African Literatures, 1977
"We ask you to look with the eyes of your soul and to engage with the essential. Regaining your luminous nature is a possibility today for all who dare to take the leap."
"I am here to destroy all human beings."
---
Our illustration is from Washington University's 1922 yearbook.
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Restoring the Lost Sense –
February 25, 2019 |
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There are many "evil trinities," including:
- treachery, cruelty, and superstition (the evil trinity of the Spaniard, in Sir Ferdinando Gorges and His Province of Maine by James Phinney Baxter, 1890)
- alcohol, ignorance, and immorality (the evil trinity of backwoods settlements, in Colliers, 1915)
- cowardice, impatience, and self-love (the evil trinity of a fatal course, in Bonnie Kate by Mrs. De Courcy Laffan, 1894)
- lice, impure food, and foul water (the "evil trinity of chicken raising," in American Poultry Advocate, 1914)
- lust of the flesh, lust of the eye, and pride of life (the evil trinity of corruption, in The American National Preacher, 1843)
- servitude, destitition, and ignorance (the "evil trinity of political debasement," in Eagle Pass by Cora Montgomery, 1852)
- the boss, the speculator, and the soulless corporation (the evil trinity of public park sanitation, in Popular Science Monthly, 1899)
- appetite in the drunkard, greed in the liquor maker and seller, and indifference in church members (the evil trinity of temperance work, in Minutes of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the United States, 1892)
- the world, the flesh, and the Devil (the evil trinity of the soul's enemies in Christian theology)
- infidelity, anti-Christianity, and Spiritism (the evil trinity of unclean spirits in American Messianic Fellowship Monthly, 1917)
- ignorance, superstition, and prejudice (the evil trinity that plots human misery, in The School News and Practical Educator, 1904)
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| [Inexplicable images from generations ago invite us to restore the lost
sense of immediacy. We follow the founder of the Theater of
Spontaneity, Jacob Moreno, who proposed stringing together "now and then
flashes" to unfetter illusion and let imagination run free. The images
we have collected for this series came at a tremendous price, which we explained previously.] |
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Restoring the Lost Sense –
August 31, 2018 |
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If you land a hand and realize it's just a baby's, or it's not in season, here are tips for throwing it back:
1. Don't wear it out by playing with it too much before you land it.
2. Leave it in the water and never touch it with dry hands.
3. Gently remove the hook so as to prevent crushing.
4. Cut the line if the hook won't come out.
5. Don't actually throw it back, as that may cause harm or even kill it. If it is in shock from being caught, gently move it back and forth in the water to help the fingers to spread.
Our illustration is from Lustige Blätter, 1908.
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| [Inexplicable images from generations ago invite us to restore the lost
sense of immediacy. We follow the founder of the Theater of
Spontaneity, Jacob Moreno, who proposed stringing together "now and then
flashes" to unfetter illusion and let imagination run free. The images
we have collected for this series came at a tremendous price, which we explained previously.] |
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This May Surprise You –
May 1, 2018 |
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Books are alive and have souls. We found these proofs:
"Undoubtedly books have souls" (Joseph Jewell Barton).
"Literature … is alive—not in a vague complementary sense, but alive tenaciously" (E. M. Forster).
"Only an honest book can live" (John Burroughs).
"Literature is alive. I am literature; it's not merely dead authors with beards. It's alive" (Azouz Begag).
"Words have souls, and books have souls, and books, indeed, contain the most valuable essence of human souls" (The Open Court, 1894).
It's been said that "it's an author's passion, whatever its form … that makes a pulse beat in the printed page and keeps a book alive through its readers long after the writer is dust" ("The Book" by Barbara W. Tuchman).
It's been said that "the jumping out of planes, car chases and evil people in general is what I think keeps a book alive" (Scorpia, in a book review).
It's been said that "richness and impact characterize the lasting works" so that fifty years after their first appearance they still grip the human mind, immersing it in a rich created world. (Kathryn Cave.)
It's been said that "It is the revelation that keeps a book alive to the reader" (Adrianne, "The Book and the Real World").
It's been said that references to famous quotations, events, and artworks is what keeps a book alive (Christchurch City Libraries).
It's been said that "It's the critical culture that keeps a book alive" (Yamini Deenadayalan).
It's been said that "it's word of mouth that really keeps a book alive" (Laura Lam).
It's been said that "What keeps a book alive is future books talking about it" (Tom Vanderbilt , "Why Is Literary Fame So Unpredictable?").
It's been said that "What keeps a book alive is not the judgment of critics, not the label of 'classic' attached to it in school-rooms, but the unaffected delight it continues to give to the hearts of men" (H. W. Boynton, "Reading New Books").
It's been said that "it is teaching that keeps a book alive" (Nicholas Birns).
It's been said that "It is only the good opinion of the few that keeps a book alive" (Max Beerbohm).
It has been said that it is the "calling for fresh copies of it after the old copies are worn out" that keeps a book alive (Leon Henry Vincent, The Bibliotaph).
It's been said that "humor that survives from other days" keeps a book alive beyond its own generation (Ladies' Home Journal).
It's been said that "credibility among [the author's] scientific peers" is what keeps a book alive in the minds of readers (Cheryl Knott).
It's been said that "a popular adaptation keeps a book alive" (Thomas S. Hischak).
Previously, we saw that the moment a work is published it appears in another world (either heavenly or hellish. Bad books are tormented in Hell.)
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I Found a Penny Today, So Here's a Thought –
July 13, 2017 |
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At autumn's edge ...
In the photo, note that it's autumn on the right side of the road and summer on the left. The painted line on the road marks autumn's edge.
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Colorful Allusions –
June 12, 2016 |
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The Top Ten Unpaintable Blues:
The far mountains of Bertraghboy Bay, Ireland.
"In the intense cold of late evening the further shores of Bertraghboy Boy seemed to catch and hold the last of the sunlight, the seawrack below high-water line glowing orange, the walled fields above burnished green, the far mountains an unpaintable blue." ( The Crying of the Wind) The New Mexico desert sky.
"I awoke in the desert of New Mexico to behold golden sand, golden grass, green-gold sage brush, golden wastes, vast, craggy, creviced, cliff-sided buttes rising turret-like, a wide domain bounded by purple mountains and unpaintable blue sky." (Robert Jackson, Montreal Gazette) Twilight in the California desert.
"Strewn from the western desert's wild wings across the unpaintable blue of the twilight sky stream rose-red pennants, tender yet resplendent—not the washed out hue of other sunset skies but the soul satisfying glory of color the desert sky alone can show." ( The Desert and the Rose) The mountains of Moab.
The shore of ancient Kamiros, Rhodes.
The Azorean ocean.
"Then there is the intense blue of the Ocean. I have never seen such deep, completely unpaintable blue before. It is so different from the opaque grayish waves that hit the coast of Holland." (Pieter Adriaans, " Painting on the Azores") Someone other than Brittany's irises.
"She can't see any tiger gold or unpaintable blue in Brittany's irises." ("Full Moon on a Sunday Night," Part One)
The sky over Portland, Oregon.
" The air is crisp and the sky is unpaintable blue." (Scott Conary)
The Huxtable kitchen.
"[I]n all its badly-hung, unpaintable, powder-blue glory." (Andy Peters)
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Restoring the Lost Sense –
July 19, 2015 |
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"There ain't a lighter hand at a pudden, though I say that shouldn't." From Lettice Lisle by Lady Verney, 1870.
So the lighter the hand, the lighter the pudding. But also:
- "The more devastating the criticism, the lighter the hand has to be." (Lester B. Lave, quoted in "A Life that Mattered")
- "The lighter the hand, the more berries in the pan." (Fedco Seeds)
- "The lighter the hand, the lighter the biscuit." (Convivial)
- "The lighter the hand of the sawyer, the better the saw operates." (Luke Miner, "Sawing Lessons: Kierkegaard's Concluding Unscientific Postcript")
- "The lighter the hand, the flakier the crust." (Food Network)
- "The lighter the hand of the [tattoo] artist on the needle, the less pain you'll have during the procedure." (Beth Asaff, "Pain of Getting a Tattoo in Different Places")
- "When applying a concealing makeup, the lighter the hand, the better." (The Sturge-Weber Foundation)
- "The lighter the hand of the guiding adult, the more motivated and spontaneous the play is likely to be." (Anne Burke, Ready to Learn: Using Play to Build Literacy Skills in Young Learners)
- "The lighter the hand, the closer you can wear [perfume] to your nose." (Perfume Interview with Judith of Unseen Censer, Part I)
- "For the lighter the hand becomes, the deeper you will go." (Marjor Mark Cunningham, "Intro to Hypnosis")
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| [Inexplicable images from generations ago invite us to restore the lost
sense of immediacy. We follow the founder of the Theater of
Spontaneity, Jacob Moreno, who proposed stringing together "now and then
flashes" to unfetter illusion and let imagination run free. The images
we have collected for this series came at a tremendous price, which we explained previously.] |
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Given our substantial research into esoteric tomes, we're sometimes consulted for strange and unusual magical spells. An award-winning quarterly magazine of art and culture based in New York [name withheld for reasons of discretion] once asked us for a spell to cast over their printing press. Most recently, a winner of two Gertrude Stein Awards in Innovative American Poetry [name withheld in a nod to our lost age of privacy] asked us for no fewer than thirteen different spells:
- A spell which finds and locates the source of (malicious) gossip and renders the "first tongue" of this gossip chain either serpent-like (i.e. forks the tongue) or like that of some other loathsome beast.
- A spell which will allow a refrigerator to enchant the food in it, so that when you eat the food you see the food's history (such as the worker picking the grapes. This would be quite grisly when it came to lunch meat and we realized it had a "family life.")
- A spell which will render water capable of transmitting its memories. When an enemy steps into a tub of "blissful" water, suddenly he or she is overcome with a thousand television stations of water memory, all the way back to the time of the dinosaurs.
- A spell that turns pussy willows back into the cats they once were.
- A spell which allows you to enter into a painting or use a painting, drawing, etc. as an avenue of escape.
- A spell to send snow back upwards into the sky—a reverse snowstorm spell.
- A spell whereby you can have birds carry a message to other birds to so on to other birds in order to reach someone far away.
- A spell which makes someone the reverse of a money magnet, so money is always figuratively (and literally) flying away from him or her.
- A spell to make someone fall in love with his or her own reflection. For example, a teenager cannot concentrate in class but must constantly seek a reflective surface to the point of madness. Good for a stuck up kid in school, beauty queen hex, etc.
- A spell whereby planes flying overhead will drop valuable things into your yard or on your roof, like a form of tribute from airplane.
- A spell to turn pancake batter into quicksand, so when the person eats the finished product, the pancake inside the person slowly causes the person to implode into himself/herself, vanishing throughout the day in a very geometrically weird way.
- A spell on cookies to make them like online cookies; they drop without the eater's consent and glow, leading you to the person you are trailing and to whom you have given the bewitched cookie.
- A spell to make tornados play music. Needles appears within and the tornado is turned into an old school record player even as it grinds away at a landscape.
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Restoring the Lost Sense –
January 19, 2014 |
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He pulled out a drawer at random—Schedule K-36, Minor Social Offenses—and ran his embittered eye over a card. It was marked Conversational Felonies, and began thus:
Arguing
Blandishing
Buffoonery
Contradicting
Demurring
Ejaculating
Exaggerating
Facetiousness
Giggling
Hemming and Hawing
Implying
Insisting
Jesting
Each item also referred to another card on which the penalty was noted and legal test cases summarized.
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| [Inexplicable images from generations ago invite us to restore the lost
sense of immediacy. We follow the founder of the Theater of
Spontaneity, Jacob Moreno, who proposed stringing together "now and then
flashes" to unfetter illusion and let imagination run free. The images
we have collected for this series came at a tremendous price, which we explained previously.] |
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Original Content Copyright © 2025 by Craig Conley. All rights reserved.
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