| The Rat | |
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Thursday, October 28, 2004
( 8:44 PM ) The Rat The historical definition of Belgian has been loosely interpreted. —Schott's Original Miscellany, 153n # Posted by The Rat @ 8:44 PM Tuesday, October 26, 2004 ( 5:56 PM ) The Rat FOOD FIGHT IN TAIWAN'S PARLIAMENT. One only wishes there could have been a few of these syphilis lunchboxes at the scene. # Posted by The Rat @ 5:56 PM ( 5:29 PM ) The Rat MEANING OF DREAM OBVIOUS TO EVERYONE ELSE. Via the Onion. # Posted by The Rat @ 5:29 PM Sunday, October 24, 2004 ( 1:29 AM ) The Rat YOU KNOW YOU NEED one of these. Via Eve. # Posted by The Rat @ 1:29 AM Thursday, October 21, 2004 ( 8:19 PM ) The Rat NICE. # Posted by The Rat @ 8:19 PM ( 4:31 PM ) The Rat The past absconds with our fortunes... —Ashbery # Posted by The Rat @ 4:31 PM Wednesday, October 20, 2004 ( 3:40 PM ) The Rat KEYCHAIN REMOTE CONTROL TURNS OFF MOST TVS. # Posted by The Rat @ 3:40 PM Tuesday, October 19, 2004 ( 4:59 PM ) The Rat TIBETAN TEEN GETTING INTO WESTERN PHILOSOPHY. Via the Onion. # Posted by The Rat @ 4:59 PM ( 11:13 AM ) The Rat The art of losing isn't hard to master; so many things seem filled with the intent to be lost that their loss is no disaster. Lose something every day. Accept the fluster of lost door keys, the hour badly spent. The art of losing isn't hard to master. Then practice losing farther, losing faster: places, and names, and where it was you meant to travel. None of these will bring disaster. I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or next-to-last, of three loved houses went. The art of losing isn't hard to master. I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster, some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent. I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster. —Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident the art of losing's not too hard to master though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster. —Elizabeth Bishop # Posted by The Rat @ 11:13 AM ( 1:49 AM ) The Rat "I make a pretty damn fine tuna casserole. In fact, if I were a young, eligible female, I'd be telling myself, 'Stay cool. If I play my cards right, I could have this any day of the week.' ...And don't tell me you're going to put that on the blog, because you've said that before, and it was only an idle threat." —TCB, about five minutes ago # Posted by The Rat @ 1:49 AM Monday, October 18, 2004 ( 5:45 PM ) The Rat CHECK ONE OF THE FOLLOWING: 1) The Rat needs to get out more. 2) These new cloud stamps are cool. # Posted by The Rat @ 5:45 PM Sunday, October 10, 2004 ( 9:31 PM ) The Rat THE IN-N-OUT BURGER SECRET MENU. Easily the most—if not the only—useful thing I've ever linked to off this blog. # Posted by The Rat @ 9:31 PM Sunday, October 03, 2004 ( 1:57 AM ) The Rat A JUNE 28, 1999, COLUMN wherein Florence King argues that the draft should be reinstated in order to bring back a particular kind of masculinity. Easily one of my favorites of her columns for NR. You can get your own STET, Damnit! The Complete Misanthrope's Corner, 1991 to 2002 by clicking here. My beaux were part of the palely loitering bohemian crowd, all arty intensity and nascent alienation, the kind of boys drill sergeants love to get hold of, the kind of whom fathers say, "It'll do him good." When I saw them again a few years later it was obvious that they had been gotten hold of and that it had done them good. Not that they had learned to love the Army; on the contrary, they hated it. But they had lost the palely loitering look and their bohemian petulance had been replaced by jaunty cynicism. I thought of them when I read the ruminations of editor Max Perkins on the self-image of the untested male: "A man who wends his life with his knees crooked under a desk is not more than half a man, and we all know it. And Dr. Johnson said, when they were running down the military, 'If a general walked into this room now we'd all be ashamed.' And if a good workman, a mechanic, walked into a boardroom at a directors meeting, the directors would all feel ashamed. And if old Zimmerman, foreman at our press, a man like Adam Bede, in a striped apron, walked into our directors meeting we'd all feel ashamed. And that is true and must mean something, but what, I don't know." Nothing in female psychology can compare to this. The career woman and the Mommy Tracker, the bluestocking and the sexpot, are well aware of their differences but the reaction they rouse in each other is mutual contempt, not shame. You will never find a woman executive watching busy diner waitresses with envious admiration the way male executives watch construction workers at a building site. It's the Adam Bede syndrome, the overcivilized man's need to prove himself the equal of earthy men that was satisfied to a large extent by universal military service. # Posted by The Rat @ 1:57 AM ( 1:37 AM ) The Rat The deepest of all human anxieties is to be at the mercy of one's own impulses. —Anna Freud (quoted by Florence King in another column) # Posted by The Rat @ 1:37 AM |
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