Tuesday, October 25, 2016

A Good Day For Lists: 35 Items of Greater or Lesser Insignificance

I've been recently bitten by the David Foster Wallace bug. That is, I keep finding myself drawn to reading more of his work. Impressive is an understatement. Pow! Blam! Ouch.

Wallace liked lists. Or so I've been led to believe. Here's a list of miscellaneous observations, notes to myself of things to read or do, and ideas to ponder. There's always more to do than there is time, so a list is all we end up with in the meantime.

1. Game 1 of the World Series is tonight featuring the Chicago Cubs and the Cleveland Indians, the two teams that have gone longest without winning a World Series championship.
2. Today is World Pasta Day.
3. Who comes up with these things? World Pasta Day?
4. Why is it called the World Series when it only involves a competition North American teams?
5. Blog topic: young bull, Death in the Afternoon, good and bad bulls.
6. Last Friday's Fall Art Show at Goin' Postal was a lot of fun for a lot of people.
7. Blog Idea: Series of blog posts featuring the songs on Dylan's Oh Mercy album, beginning with "Political World."

We live in a political world
Love don't have any place
We're living in times
Where men commit crimes
And crime don't have any face

8. Trivia: Teddy R changed name of Executive Mansion to White House
9. Worth re-reading: How To Lie With Statistics
10. Don't forget to pay your bills.
11. Learn more about Will Rogers.
12. Einstein was a pacifist who became a non-pacifist because of Hitler
13. Item 13 is now removed and has been replaced with this sentence.
14. What are your goals for the next 30 days? Do you have goals or do you simply drift?
15. Submissions are now open for the Water-Stone Review through December 1. They are seeking original, unpublished creative fiction, essays, poetry.
16. In 2009 the richest man in Asia had 168 cars. The average income in India at that time was $500 a year.
17. Jay Leno had more cars than the richest man in Asia.
18. I'm curious how much money the DAI raised last Friday in their Make Your Mark fund raising event.
19. A million square miles of land was added to U.S. as a result of the Mexican War.
20. WikiLeaks: No one likes what Mr. Assange did yet everyone seems glad to have found out about what's been going on underneath Washington's skin.
21. Most dangerous jobs in America #1: Crack Dealer #2: Logging
re: crack dealers... 1 in 4 killed who serve four years on job
22. Fear of being shunned causes people to avoid honesty; takes courage to speak honestly
23. “A hard day’s work never really killed anyone, but why risk it?” ~Ronald Reagan
24. The great virtue of capitalism is that it decentralizes power and minimizes coercion. One nation’s gain does not necessitate another nation’s loss, and it doesn’t discriminate; it is open to anyone.
25. The Man by Irving Wallace made an impression on me as a teen in the Sixties, a novel about the first black U.S. president and the special challenges he would experience.
26.  "Never be afraid to trust an unknown future to a known God." ~Corrie ten Boom
27. In Muslim culture hypocrisy is not as serious of a vice as here because it is better to uphold ideals we fail to live up to than to just give up and say “anything goes.”
28. Blog Entry idea: Great Gatsby and Lady Chatterley’s Lover both have as a theme the difference between good adultery and bad adultery.... A noble adultery and ignoble....
29. Blog Exploration: Do the strong stay strong forever or do they weaken over time (eg. Buddenbrooks)
30. Blog Exploration: What if our brain lost its "sort" function.
31. Life can only be understood backwards, but must be lived forwards." ~Kierkegaard
32. In the "good old days" New York City had 40,000 horses that generated 400 tons of manure a day, 20,000 gallons of urine and nearly 200 carcasses. (19th century stat.)
33. “The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.” ~Eleanor Roosevelt
34. What are you doing today that will make a difference tomorrow?
35. Another verse from Political World:

We live in a political world 
Wisdom is thrown in jail 
It rots in a cell 
Is misguided as hell 
Leaving no one to pick up the trail

The times are most definitely a-changin'.

"The future depends on what you do today." ~Mahatma Gandhi

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