(Couple of days late ‘cuz I forgot!)
Let’s see what happens when your host (me) has nothing to say, and instead it’s open mike night. Step right up, speak your mind, tell a story, sing a song, whatever.
1/5/2025
Anything goes #9
19 responses to “Anything goes #9”
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(Just finished this one)
Bill Bryson Is An Entertaining Writer
The author Bill Bryson writes fascinating books which are educational as well as entertaining and I listened to most of them last winter. He does in depth looks at many aspects of human life, history, and geography through his intense research and interviews with experts. He travels the world, and the United States, and tells about what he sees, and for the reader it’s an educational and often humorous experience, and I recommend all of his books.
One is called The Body and yup, he goes through every system and organ, traces the history of anatomical discovery by scientists, often self-taught, as well as doctors and self-educated laymen who made the first and later discoveries. A continuing theme, in this and his other books is that often the true discoverer, or inventor, of something often doesn’t get the recognition or credit, personal or financial. You may cringe at the early medical techniques, his basic message being that you, especially women, would have been better off by not going to a doctor back in the olden days. (But hey, killing off all those thousands of people accidentally out of ignorance and inexperience lead to many discoveries and treatments which did work, so what a tradeoff, eh?)
In The Body there was an astounding process illustrated by Bryson which I’ll attempt to describe as an example of how amazing our bodies are: When a baby is breastfeeding it will inject certain enzymes (or something like that) into the mothers body through her breasts, which will then interact with the chemical makeup of the mother’s milk and transforms the milk to optimize the particular baby’s health. (I should have just quoted Bryson at length, but you get the idea: read or listen to the book.)
In his book Shakespeare: The World as Stage, Bryson investigates The Bard’s work and life and comes to the conclusion that the conspiracy theories are most likely wrong, it was Shakespeare who wrote his plays, and not someone else. (Bryson has lived in Great Britain for many decades and his book about growing up in Iowa, The Thunderbolt Kid,” is an amusing and entertaining read. He also has travel books about Australia, hiking the Appalachian Trail, exploring England, and many others.
His book The History of Everything was the only one which included chapters beyond my comprehension, as he got into the beginning of the universe, black holes, quarks, and really went deep, too deep for me at times.
(Our local library has all the Bryson books on CD, also a selection of his books, and the rest can be ordered free of charge.)
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Thanks, Eel.
A Short History of Nearly Everything is the only Bryson I’ve read, and it was so long ago I can’t hardly remember it. I remember reading it to the end, though, which is a longer relationship than me and most books.
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A late season video. If you haven’t season this 30 minute gem before Doug, I hope you enjoy this my favorite christmas vid. ( I don’t do Christmas and I love this.)
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Tom
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The cheesy badness, as intended, nicely captures the most pious bits from Jesus Christ Superstar and Godspell etc and makes ’em funny. “Don’t crucify yourself.” Wanna show this to my Christian brothers and see how quick they storm out of the room. They’d hate it, so you’ve successfully made this grumpy old man smile for half an hour with several LOLs.
*Amazing* that BBC made this and put it on broadcast TV. Never in America, that’s for sure.
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There was a time about 15 years back where the was a group of actors/comedians and it seemed like they could put on whatever they wanted. Simon Pegg, Matt Berry, Dylan Moran, Richard Ayoade, Chris Morris and more. It was glorious.
Here’s a bit more of what came out of it.
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The first one’s dang funny, and the second one could give me a hospital phobia. Man, that’s dark.
Always get a second opinion, they say, but insurance won’t cover it…
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This doesn’t fit with this conversation, but doesn’t fit anywhere else either. . .
I Hope That I Get Old Before I Die
by They Might Be Giants
Sometimes I feel like being wispy
And once in a while I feel like being dry
But we’re doomed and we’re drowned
By this feeling we surround
So I hope that I get old before I dieOhhhhh
It’s a long, long rope they use to hang you soon I hope
And I wonder why this hasn’t happened
Why, why, why
And I think about the dirt that I’ll be wearing for a shirt
And I hope that I get old before I dieClear off the kitchen table darling
For on the kitchen table I must lie
I’m just tired, for my wife served the banquet of my life
And I hope that I get old before I dieOhhhhh
It’s a long, long rope they use to hang you soon I hope
And I wonder why this hasn’t happened
Why, why, why
And I think about the dirt that I’ll be wearing for a shirt
And I hope that I get old before I diejtb/tmbg
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Excellent as poetry. Here’s a link for those who want to dance.
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Holy Shit. TMBG is coming to Seattle in June for three days. Maybe for the last time. Last time I went to a concert I paid fifteen bucks and had to buy dinner. This is closer to three hundred, the approximate value of my van. I’ve been a fan for 40 years or so, but I don’t think I can swing it.
jtb
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Unlike the Grateful Dead, they’re not allowing a live, free, uninterrupted broadcast of the concert on local non-commercial radio?
Stupid question, and of course I know the answer. There’s no money in it, so it can’t be done. Which is not really a criticism of They Might Be Giants, so much as a fond remembrance and tribute to the Dead.
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Yeah, TMBG doesn’t get much of that 300. The Johns live half a state apart in middle class houses with their basements for studios. They’re not starving, but they’ve been doing this for 40 years. Both pretty normal, married once, still married, and both treat music as a job and neither is particularly qualified to do another job. I should add that if you tried to trade a million bucks for their careers they’d turn it down. They’re pretty serious about creating music.
John
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The Dead only happened once. Their walk-away pay was close to zip (the songwriters got paid). Their musical cousins (Grace Slick & company) ended up in the Disco business. They made a little scratch.
jtb
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There’s a new shortcut I’ve accidentally discovered, either on Firefox or WordPress, where if you hit exactly the right combination of keys it immediately closes the browser. This could be a real time-saver if I was playing computer solitaire at work, but I don’t work any more, don’t like computer solitaire, and don’t like newly-discovered accidental shortcuts.
There were two paragraphs typed before making this discovery, and I don’t even know which keys made those paragraphs vanish. I barely even remember what was typed and then short-cutted away. These two new paragraphs are probably more coherent.
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TRUMP AND OBAMA were seen happily chatting and laughing together at the funeral for Jimmy Carter. If these guys don’t buy into the story that they are on opposite sides of a ferocious battle of existential importance between two wildly different ideologies, then why should you?
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Are they supposed to mud wrestle?
John
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That would be entertaining, yes.
I wouldn’t be allowed in the same building with Donald Trump, but if I were, I wouldn’t sit next to him, wouldn’t chat with him, and mos def wouldn’t laugh at his jokes.
Trump is a frickin’ *monster*, a clear and present danger to democracy in America and human life on Earth. To Obama and the rest of the Democratic Party hierarchy, though, Trump is just another member of that big club George Carlin spoke of.
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My Old Man always told me “Always treat people like ladies and gentlemen, not because they are, but because you’re a gentleman.” Yeah, that sounds pretty old fashioned now, and I suppose it is. If Obama decided NOT to act like Trump, that seems like a good decision. Obama is not a power player in the Democratic Party. He’s just a former President who has been, in the words of Jimmy Carter (who hasn’t been mentioned on this blog) “Promoted to Citizen”. Obama and the Mrs have spoken out against Trumpism and all it stands for. I have no idea what they’re doing behind the scenes. Putting a tack on Trump’s chair wouldn’t unelect him.
John
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I’d like someone to give a damn.
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