Tag archives: humor
Inspiration is a very positive word and concept in our culture. Nobody doesn’t want to be inspired. The word, in its origin, conveys a “breathing in” – but not so much of sucking air into your own lungs (though that is never a bad idea) as of being breathed into by some benevolent power which […]
Some may find it hard to believe, but there was a time in living memory when most writing depended on liquid ink. If you had a good pen, good paper, and good ink, writing by hand could provide a certain satisfaction which you can’t obtain with a ball-point, let alone with any kind of typewriter […]
Did you ever eat at a restaurant where your breakfast came so fast you barely had time to unwrap your utensils? Well, it wasn’t in Ketchikan, Alaska! I was on my eighth coffee refill, babbling on about the anxieties of airline travel, like when you get to your gate and they announce your airplane is […]
One surprising thing I have discovered lately is that everybody has a philosophy of life, and that most people, if you ask them, are quite willing to share theirs with you. Why does this surprise me? Somehow, I had assumed that having a philosophy requires deep thinking, which not everybody is capable of, or even […]
The ability to make fire is one characteristic which distinguishes Man from animals. Yet I must admit that, although I’ve always heard stories about the primitive methods by which this can be done, I deserve to rank with the animals – because I still don’t know how. In the days when even intelligent people smoked […]
Those of you who’ve seen the 1967 movie The Graduate may or may not remember it very well, but if you were asked to quote a single word from it, I think I know what it would be. There’s a scene towards the beginning of the film where the hero, Benjamin Braddock (Dustin Hoffman) is […]
It doesn’t take much to make me happy. One of my simplest joys is finding a coin in the street – usually a penny, but sometimes something larger, and, once in a great while, a paper dollar or more. I bring these treasures home, and put them in a row on top of a bureau. […]
We don’t watch much TV, so we have a bare-bones cable package. We get the basic networks, some Spanish-speaking soap operas that involve a lot of yelling and scantily-clad women, and about 16 shopping channels all with excited people that probably “just barely” failed their screen tests for action shows, but who now dramatically sell […]
This may or may not need explaining, because it seems so intuitively obvious – but there appears to be a universal preference for smoothness, as opposed to roughness. The first example which jumps to mind is SKIN. Nobody wants to have, see, or feel, a skin with pimples, warts, or any other kind of bumps. […]
“Adventure!” There’s something exciting about the very word – which advertisement-writers well know. You can have Travel Adventures, Romantic Adventures – even Restaurant Adventures. In fact, dining out in different eating establishments may be all some people need to satisfy their adventurous yearnings. But there’s an age factor at work here. The younger you are, […]
Used to be that a chat was something you had over the backyard fence with your neighbor: “And then she said… and then he said… then they said…” Or maybe someone you ran into at the A&P: “Wow, that’s a lot of beer. Having the Elks Club over?” Or maybe with your new girlfriend’s […]
Is there such a thing as Fate, or Destiny? If so, apparently, I wasn’t destined to believe in it. On the other hand, I’m not a big fan of Free Will either. Within limits, it seems, we can make small choices. But overall, there’s simply too much going on for you or me to have […]
You’ve probably heard the joke about the marriage broker who’s been telling his client all the attractive features of a prospective bride, but then adds, “There’s one more thing I’ve got to tell you: She’s just a little bit pregnant.” In at least this one respect, being “OK” is like being pregnant. You can’t be […]
Perhaps you have come across this recommended method for making a sculpture of an elephant: You just get a big block of rock, and chip away everything that doesn’t look like an elephant. More poetically, some great sculptor is said to have explained that the image he wished to create was already sleeping there inside […]
Recently, I was describing my gym experience to some friends. “You go to the gym?”“On a regular basis.”“Really? Then you must be doing sit-downs instead of sit-ups.”“Do people get upset when you hog the five-pound weights?”“Who wakes you up when you fall asleep on the exercise mat?” It was about then I began to regret […]
Most people would agree that courage is an admirable quality. The word came originally from the Latin word for “heart” – as in Richard, Coeur de Lion, or “Richard, the Lion-heart.” Dan Rather, once a leading TV news “anchor-man,” used to sign off with that single word, “Courage!” (His predecessor and mentor, Walter Cronkite, would […]
From those marooned by Shakespeare’s Tempest to Coleridge’s becalmed “Ancient Mariner” (“as idle as a painted ship upon a painted ocean”) to the imperiled baby rocking in the tree-top, to the tornado which blew Dorothy from Kansas to Oz – the wind, or lack of it, has wound its way through our culture in any […]
In the past, before technology invaded every aspect of our lives, you sometimes you got a lot of “personality” at the check-out stand. “Well how are you today? My sciatica is acting up. Not easy standing here all day. My new daughter-in-law has a desk job. Makes more money in a week than I make […]
Most people have probably forgotten why we call psychiatrists “shrinks.” (I had a friend who used to call them “trick-cyclists.”) But the term “shrink” is really a contraction of “head-shrinker,” and comes from the notion that, dealing with our heads as they do, they are like the natives of primitive tribes, who used to shrink […]
Isn’t it remarkable that the vast majority of all the games we play involving physical activity are focused upon an object, usually round, which we call a “ball.” It can be small as a marble, or large as a bowling ball, light as a ping-pong ball, or heavy as a “medicine ball,” a sphere, as […]
