Category Archives: Uncategorized

How To Avoid Dropping Dead Like a Dunderhead

I have recently been revisiting my obsession with Mark Twain. So, inevitably I had to re-post this old post and pretend it is good. I even edited it so that it no longer claims that Twain died before he was born. (I sometimes get my 8’s and 9’s mixed up.)

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Pony party

If it is inevitable that I will surely drop dead some day, and if it is likely that it will come sooner rather than later, then I hope to go out with a bit of style and leave something behind that speaks not only to my own children, but to anybody searching for truth and beauty, people of the future that I will never know who are living beyond the confines of my little life.  What makes me think that I can do it?  Well, I’m a writer… and Mark Twain did it… and I don’t have to be vain or loopy or maniacal or delusional to make the same thing happen.

On this day one-hundred-and-five years ago, April 21, 1910, Mark Twain left the world of the living.  He caught a ride on Halley’s Comet (It deposited him on Earth in 1835, appearing in the sky when he was…

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Mark Twain

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Mark TwainMark Twain, real name Samuel Clemens, is my hero. He lived a long and difficult life, but he lived it with grace and humor… most of the time…well, some of the time. I would very much like to be just like him… ‘cept I ain’t dead yet and have no plans on that score… but I would like to also be like him in having something important to say that can be said to somebody who isn’t even born yet, a hundred years or more from now, the way that Mark Twain spoke to me.

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September 20, 2018 · 2:07 am

The Surrealist

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Yes, I admit it.  I am a Surrealist.  I also hope that it is not too terrible a thing to be.  Because I truly think that everyone who was raised by television, and lived through the revolution where computers took over human life, is one too.

definition from Merriam-Webster;

Simple Definition of surrealism;

a 20th-century art form in which an artist or writer combines unrelated images or events in a very strange and dreamlike way

Full Definition of surrealism;

the principles, ideals, or practice of producing fantastic or incongruous imagery or effects in art, literature, film, or theater by means of unnatural or irrational juxtapositions and combinations

  • rooster riding
  • There is a certain satisfaction to be had in knowing for certain how to define oneself.  I learned about Surrealism in high school art class back in the early 70’s.  I saw and admired the works of Salvador Dali, Rene Magritte, and…

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Things You Probably Ought to Know about Mickey

I reblogged this because the world needs more warnings about the incredible dangers we face in the near future. And also because I thought it was funny.

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As Mickey’s go, the one who is writing this is a moderately interesting example of the breed.  Still, there are things you probably ought to be made aware of.  A sort of precautionary thing…

First of all, this particular Mickey is an Iowegian.  That means he comes from Iowa, the State where the tall corn grows.  It is a prime reason why his jokes are corny and his ears have been popped (oh, and he does actually have two, unlike the picture Paffooney where only one is showing).  His fur is not actually purple.  If anything now, it is mostly silver-gray.  But the Paffooney is a magical portrait, and purple is the color of magic.  He has a goofy, and sometimes fatal grin.  You may not be able to prove that he has ever actually grinned someone to death, but it is likely he could always dig somebody up.

Another…

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Butts and Nolts

Old posts contain old ideas… but sometimes they are still a little bit funny.

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“Don’t you actually mean nuts and bolts?” someone is surely going to say.  Oh, yes, I misspelled that little item on purpose.  This is another inane post about the writing process and trying to improve my “brand” with my blog.  It is something I have no earthly idea how it works or how to go about it.  So I often have to go back and think about the nuts and bolts of how you put this stuff together and try like heck to figure out what I am doing wrong.

Dumb Luck Doofy Fuddbugg here is an example of what a “Nolt” is.

So, the problem is, while the blog as a whole has been gaining momentum, my blog traffic is down for this month.  People are not viewing and reading my actual stuff and nonsense as much as they were in the other months besides February.  So I have to…

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The Insufferable Superiority of Dead Guys

The quest for wisdom never ends, unless it ends in folly. If it has to end like that, at least I hope it will be the Ice Follies. I love ice-skating.

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I may have stupidly revealed this secret before, but since it is already probably out there, here it is again; I have been on a lifelong quest to find and learn wisdom.

Yep, that’s right.  I have been doing a lot of fishing in the well of understanding to try and find the ultimate rainbow trout of truth.  Of course, it is only incredibly stupid people who actually believe that trout can survive living in a well.

So I have been looking at a lot of what passes for wisdom in this world, and find that for the most part, it consists of a bunch of words written by dead guys.

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Boris Pasternak qualifies.  He is a dead guy.  At least, he has been since 1960.  Pasternak is a Russian.  His novel Doctor Zhivago is about the period in Russian history between the beginnings of the revolution in…

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September 11, 2018 · 7:06 pm

Over the Rainbow

oz1

Here is a notion that I find disturbing, compelling, and totally fascinating.  The world portrayed to us through history, current media, and what is assumed to be common knowledge of the facts is all warped and incorrect.  The people who make the world go round, like Glinda the Good Witch, Dorothy, and the Wizard in Oz are all lying to us.

What?  You thought I was talking about something more than the Wizard of Oz?  Well, you were right.  You cannot consider the real meaning of the story Frank L. Baum wrote without realizing that it has more than one meaning.

giphy

You understand that in this story we are talking about a girl who becomes an interdimensional traveler.  She visits a dimension which contains the Land of Oz (a place you cannot find anywhere on a map of the Earth) first by means of an interdimensional Kansas tornado, and later, after learning how to use them properly, finds her way back to her own dimension by magic-heel-clicking ruby slippers.

Not only that but after she learns of the whole rulership of Oz by witches and wizards, she allows herself to be recruited as an assassinator of evil witches by a supposed “good witch”.  Again, she kills the first one by accident, then learns by trial and error how to kill the second one despite the witch’s winged-monkey minions.

Wizard

Nothing in Oz is, of course, really what it seems to be.  The Scarecrow, representing the rural farm worker, has been convinced he is an idiot know-nothing who doesn’t even have a brain.  Yet, in the story, his were the plans that led the group to successfully overcoming obstacles.  The Tin Man, representing the modern factory worker, has been told he doesn’t have a heart.  Yet he is the one with the most empathy, willing to make any sacrifice necessary for the benefit of those he loves.  And the Lion, symbolizing the military, is told he is cowardly, and he believes it, though he is willing to face grave danger and bravely takes on Dorothy’s enemies in spite of his paralyzing fear.

And we all know the Wizard, the man behind the curtain, is a humbug and a con man, trying to deceive others to stay in control of every situation and potential problem.  (I am actually surprised his face is not orange and he doesn’t have tiny hands for signing executive orders,)

So I believe I have definitely shown there is a conspiracy behind the whole Wizard of Oz thing.  It becomes obvious if you match up the signs, symbols, and clues.  But the biggest thing of all is the obvious evidence of making everybody wear green sunglasses in the Emerald City.  The cover-up is the greatest giveaway that there is when something odd is going on in Oz that they don’t want you to know about.  It is the biggest clue that George W. Wizard is actually the instigator behind 9/11.  The Scarecrow is also behind the back-engineering of alien spaceships at Area 51.  The Tin Man is behind the chemtrails in the sky that are trying to undo the damage of global warming.  And the Lion led the assassination team of CIA shooters who killed Kennedy.  I know it all sounds crazy.  But still… if we are willing to believe little Kansas girls can ride tornadoes into otherworldly dimensions…

wizard-of-oz-munchkins

And we all know who really voted Trump into office in 2016.

 

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Metaphor and Meaning

I am ill today. I am in bed, grinning at the walls like a plate of moldy spaghetti. What does that mean? I guess you have to read this to find out… and then curse me for being so obtuse.

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Image

 

In this week’s Paffooney remix, I have pictured the little boy crooner Francois Martin on the main street of Norwall.  Why have I done such a foolish thing?  Why have I drawn a boy singing silently a song that only I can hear in my silly old head?  In fact, why do I label them Cantos instead of Chapters?  Of course, the answer to these rhetorical questions is metaphorical.  I look at my writing as being poetry, or, more accurately, as music rather than mere prose.  It is a metaphor central to my being, writing is putting the inner music of my mind down on paper.

Here is a secret to powerful writing.  Connect ideas with metaphors.  A metaphor is a direct comparison of two unlike things to create an analogy, an echo of an idea that gives resonance to a notion.  Sorry, I’m an English teacher.  It’s in…

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Stuff That Works

Time has passed and I still don’t know what I am doing as a blogger, so I re-posted this list of stuff I like to do for no good reason. Make of it what you will,

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What makes people visit your blog and maybe even click “like”?  I should tell you up front, I have no idea how best to navigate the crazy internet.  I want to.  I have a book to promote.  I have ideas and experiences to share.  I am a writer and I would like to make something more than excessive heartache out of being one.  But how you actually go about it is still a mystery.

Ima mickey

I know what I surf the internet for.  I like artwork, especially original artwork.  That is why I try to post as much of my own stuff as I can.  I am an amateur artist, self-taught with a little bit of college art classes, contact with real artists, and a lot of TV Bob Ross.  I surf to find other artists whose stuff catches my eye.  I post about artists like Loish, Maxfield Parrish, Paul Detlafsen…

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September 3, 2018 · 3:21 pm

Wizarding Ain’t Easy

Timely thoughts about wisdom that I think all the time.

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wizzyme A wizard selfie taken at Mad Ludwig’s Castle in Bavaria.

My quest to become a wizard began when I was but a kid reading comic books.  It got a boost when I became a middle school English teacher and realized the fundamental truth of the universe, human beings know practically nothing at all… about anything.  The only path to wisdom is the way of the fool.

So, I embraced it.  It made it so much easier to teach and manage a classroom full of teenybumpers to realize the only thing that works when they laugh at you and make fun of you, is to be able to laugh at yourself and make fun of them right back.

I learned along the way that things that hurt you and make you suffer cause wisdom to happen.  You walk under a ladder and the painter accidentally drops a paint bucket on your…

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