House

HOUSE, n. A hollow edifice erected for the habitation of man, rat, mouse, beetle, cockroach, fly, mosquito, flea, bacillus and microbe. House of Correction, a place of reward for political and personal service, and for the detention of offenders and appropriations. House of God, a building with a steeple and a mortgage on it. House-dog, a pestilent beast kept on domestic premises to insult persons passing by and appal the hardy visitor. House-maid, a youngerly person of the opposing sex employed to be variously disagreeable and ingeniously unclean in the station in which it has pleased God to place her.

2007 Update: A love more powerful than wanderlust when mortgaged.

There are seven loves a boy will know
Along his life's great curve
Each one, like lye, corrodes the soul
And, like alcohol, preserves.

The first of these is love of kind:
Of mother and father and cousin.
It's milk is milk and does remind
To wash after each stranger he does in.

The second love is love of self,
Learned at the onset of speaking,
Enobling even the commonest whelp
And debasing the neighboring king.

The third affection he will know
Is love of competition.
Whether gifted well to run and throw
Or slander and sedition.

The fourth love is known as romance
And lasts until he's jaded.
It once began at High School Dance
But starts now when he's first graded.

The next we find, if life is kind
Is love of property:
A house, a car, a spouse, his mind.
It's adored that comes unmoored and takes his dignity.

He may yet age and then grow fond
Of rectitude and right;
A pious fish in empty pond,
Bubbling righteous spite.

The love to which man comes at last
Is for silence, even death:
Released from tales of his past
And recounting of his debt.

-- Omar Kháyyam Boone

Two Fables

The Elephant and the Orangutan

At the annual conference of the Pan-Phylum Prehensility Society of Southeast Asia, an elephant delivered a much-anticipated keynote address, entitled Magnitude and Manipulation: The Pachyderm Approach. He began by exclaiming "Flexibility is queen of the evolutionary arts! Not only can the elephant's trunk bend in any direction at any point but it handles liquids, solids and gas!" In the second row, an Orangutan drummed on her desk with twenty fingers and toes, and wondered what life would be like with a tail.

PREHENSILE, adj. Adapted for self-expression and theft.

The Two Monks

Once upon a time, two monks named Abba Abercrombie and Abba Nelson crossed paths in the desert, days from any stream or spring. Abba Abercrombie offered Abba Nelson the last of his water. Abba Nelson gratefully drank, and asked Abba Abercrombie how to repay the kindness.

"It is a greater kindness to accept hospitality than to give it. It is I who is in your debt." Abba Abercrombie explained.

"But, if you had been thirsty and I had water would you have taken the last of it?" Abba Nelson inquired, worried that he had left his new friend in jeopardy.

"No, brother," the holy man answered, "for I was taught that where kindness kills, it is better to steal." and he left with the younger monk's food and his debt repaid.

CONSIDERATION, n. The mental manufacture of fellowship and alibi.

Hibernate

HIBERNATE, v.i. To pass the winter season in domestic seclusion. There have been many singular popular notions about the hibernation of various animals. Many believe that the bear hibernates during the whole winter and subsists by mechanically sucking its paws. It is admitted that it comes out of its retirement in the spring so lean that it had to try twice before it can cast a shadow. Three or four centuries ago, in England, no fact was better attested than that swallows passed the winter months in the mud at the bottom of their brooks, clinging together in globular masses. They have apparently been compelled to give up the custom and account of the foulness of the brooks. Sotus Ecobius discovered in Central Asia a whole nation of people who hibernate. By some investigators, the fasting of Lent is supposed to have been originally a modified form of hibernation, to which the Church gave a religious significance; but this view was strenuously opposed by that eminent authority, Bishop Kip, who did not wish any honors denied to the memory of the Founder of his family.

2007 Update: To conserve one's potential by resting and working.

Halcyon

HALCYON (ALCEDO), n. The Kingfisher. Halcyon days are days of tranquility and calm; so called because fr a few days in the season of storms, when the kingfisher was rearing its young, the gods used to curb the fury of the elements. So at least, the simple ancient was pleased to believe. It was an abominable superstition, altogether beneath contempt, and not at all comparable to the Christian belief that at midnight on Christmas eve the weather is moderated in deference to the birds and beasts which wake at that hour to worship the Savior.

2007 Update: HALCYON, adj. At ease, peaceful, as the life available to someone who has 10% more than you have managed to scrabble together so far.

The Bath

Episode 27 of The Meditations of Diogenes The Cynic. Thanks to the Nutmeg Endowment for Refugee Development for sponsoring this week's reading.

To hear the story sit still by the waterside.


This week, in The Prattler, "The Last Refuge."













It's rude to read over a flower's shoulder.

Redundant

REDUNDANT, adj. Superfluous; needless; de trop.

The Sultan said: "There's evidence abundant
To prove this unbelieving dog redundant."
To whom the Grand Vizier, with mien impressive,
Replied: "His head, at least, appears excessive."
—Habeeb Suleiman

Mr. Debs is a redundant citizen.
—Theodore Roosevelt

2007 Update: Redundant.

Rubbish

RUBBISH, n. Worthless matter, such as the religions, philosophies, literatures, arts and sciences of the tribes infesting the regions lying due south from Borealis.

2007 Update: British garbage or American pretense.

My Country (Má Vlast)

Millions of people at work, crime and play,
Our interests conflict, sometimes hard.
One man's need for hedges can get in the way
Of observing the next fellow's yard.

We whine and protest and sneer at each other,
Our leaders, our parties, our parents.
We turn to our sisters to turn on our brother

And give glory to outrage and nonsense.

Some say in complaining that loyalty's measured;
Some say in supporting our vermin.
Some would make war before taking pleasure.
Some take pleasure and then give the sermon.

But I's born to this nation, made one under God,
And let my heart always be loyal.
For bigotry's heavy when carried abroad
And home's where the common are royal.

Patriotism has one definition
And has held this one meaning forever:
Whatever the folly, crime or sedition,
To be fools, thieves and scoundrels together.


GROUSE, v.t. To magnify miniscule ills for the greater good, the essential duty of the patriot and the believer.
PETTY, adj. Noble.

Happy Independence Day to all Americans, foreign and domestic.

Reasonable

REASONABLE, adj. Accessible to the infection of our own opinions. Hospitable to persuasion, dissuasion and evasion.

2007 Update: Possessed by polite demons.

Reading

READING, n. The general body of what one reads. In our country it consists, as a rule, of Indiana novels, short stories in "dialect" and humor in slang.

We know by one's reading
His learning and breeding;
By what draws his laughter
We know his Hereafter.
Read nothing, laugh never —
The Sphinx was less clever!
—Jupiter Muke

2007 Update: The balance of what one has read, is to read or claims knowledge of. In essence a combined literary savings and credit account in which the balances connote, rather than material wealth, intellectual authority, moral superiority and the tendency to drink.

I'll be traveling this week so posting times may be less regular than the regular irregularity.