In The Guardian, Alastair Harper tries to explain the strong association between the First World War and literature.

First, and possibly foremost, was the arrival of a new sort of soldier to chronicle the battlefield. Historian John Terraine puts it eloquently: “There was a very large, highly-motivated middle-class element. By definition, that element was reasonably, sometimes very well, educated. Its sensitivities were recognisably cultivated. It was, generally speaking, highly articulate. And in the shock of the experience that it was about to undergo we may find, in my opinion, the true seat of the British trauma.” Before 1914, of those who described war, painted it and wrote poetry about it, very few had seen battle themselves. Now a generation of the literary middle class had, and found it by turns mundane, draining and horrific.

This statement may be true of British wars, but I’m not sure it holds up when you look at the American Civil War.  Although the British “literary middle class” did not witness war first hand until 1914, its counterpart in the U.S. had had  that experience 50 years earlier.  Like World War I in Great Britain, the American Civil War required the mass mobilization of men.  As evidenced by the wealth of Civil War diaries and letters in research institutions, these soldiers were often highly literate, and many have become famous for their war poems, short stories, and memoirs.  The first example that comes to mind is Ambrose Bierce, a Union officer, who depicted the war in a sardonic tone that would have been more appropriate among the writers of the First World War than it was among his contemporaries.  Another is Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., also a Union officer and later a Supreme Court Justice, who wrote eloquent prose about his experiences during the Civil War.  Both Bierce and Holmes were wounded in battle.  Walt Whitman, arguably the most American of all poets, did not enlist in the military during the Civil War, but he served as a nurse and personally witnessed much death and suffering.  Bierce, Holmes, and Whitman are only the beginning of a long list of literary Americans, both North and South, who reported the war in verse and prose.

Afghanistan, the site of a major motion picture film starring Cary Grant, Victor McGlaglen and Douglas Fairbanks Jr. A supporting actor was G. Din whose heroics were recorded for posterity and DVD by poet R. Kipling who also wrote Gone With the Wind.

Alaska. Home of S. and T. Palin. “Four and twenty blackbirds baked in Alaska.”

Ambrose Bierce, a friend of Pancho Villa and Noah Webster.

Ahmedinajad. An Iranian fool. Knowledgeable enough to be  dangerous. Oily.

Beck, Glenn. “Barbie” brought to life. A figment of my imagination.

Bierce, Ambrose. (See Ambrose Bierce.)

Berlin Wall. Site of H. Dumpty’s famous fall.

Bias. Republican conversation.

Birthers. See above. 

Bridge to nowhere. Sarah Palin.

Bush, George H. W. A fool. Considered erudite by party standards.

Bush, George W. A fool and villain. A foolish fool fond of fool naming and hiring. Sees and hears no evil when surrounded by fools hearing not nor seeing evil. See also Alfred Neuman.

CIA. Cooking school with vast array of courtesans.

Crayola, the invention that allows financial notables to discern Profit (Black) from Loss (Red). Said to be responsible for current economic woes.

Cheney the Hun.  Former vice president and author of famous dictum, “Shoot first.”

China. Democrats lost. Republicans found. Owns California and Oregon.

Cholesterol, a popular aphrodisiac of the masses.

Democrat Party. A national organization of Dither and Despair according to Lumbering Slumbering Bumbling Lovingly Chinned Limbaugh, a court jester and villain.

Dow Jones and DisneyWorld. Figments of your imagination.

Devil’s Island. A potential repository for recidivistic Democrats.

Diversity. An illusion of Republican Chairman Michael Steele,

Europe. One of the seven continental glaciers now rapidly disintegrating owing to Climate Warming. (See Figment of Imagination, Lafayette, Napoleon, Baguette, Truffle and Gigi.)

Fox News. News organization invented by Roger Ailes. (Also authored “Prices Lowered on Aisle One” and George W. Bush.)  The know nothings of yesteryear returned from Sleepy Hollow secure within and well rested.

Fixation. The thought process that identifies the Republican opposition as real.  

Florida. A state of denial.

Fort Hood. Mega army base in Texas. Home of Major Nidal Malik Hasan, firm believer in Islamic family values and slated to become Cheney Chief of Staff succeeding Lizzie Borden.

Gingrich, Newt. Man of a thousand competing personalities now suffering from multi-marriage syndrome. Family values historian.

Giuliani, Rudy. Former fourth string quarterback of Notre Dame. President of the United States.

GOP. Grand Old Party whose first president was Abraham Lincoln, a major embarrassment to 2009 citizen thoughts and deeds. (See also Machiavelli, Prince of Darkness and Macbeth. “Out, out damned spot.”) Believed to have been created by Joseph Heller and/or Major Major.

Hawaii. Birth state of Nelson Mandela.

Health Care Reform. (Translation from Sonnets of The Republican.) “Why? American health is improving, wonderful and getting better day by day, month by month, Ponzi by Ponzi. ‘We doan need no damn health.’ ”

Hood, Fort. (Texas) Where Hasan, Major Nidal Malik should not have been based in a million billion years. (See also Major Major and Nossarian.)

House of Representatives. Thought provoking group of 535 members whose Republican minority is studiously dedicated to avoiding serious debate. Invented NO! (Senate Republicans are considering lawsuit.) See Overweight, Chicken dinner, Political Donation, IRS and Federal Prison.

Iran. Similar to Iraq but spelled differently. George W. Bush wanted to invade until told by CIA army was occupied elsewhere.

Iraq. A country about to murder and maim all of us unless invaded.

Irony. A word unknown to majority of Republicans. Also to minority of Republicans.

John Boehner. Tanning parlor Impresario.

Klu Klux Klan. Republican splinter group.

Litmus Test. 2 + 2 = 5.

In next week’s lecture we will tackle Palin, Puberty, Voting Twice, Texas, Taxes and Three Car Garage. Reservations, Ronald Reagan and John Wayne will be honored.

Note: Republican Party is a registered trademark of Democratic National Committee. Also Antonin Scalia.

Warren Langer

 

http://warrenlanger.wordpress.com

Título: Um Incidente na Ponte de Owl Creek
Autor: Ambrose Bierce
Género: Contos
Tamanho: 480
Formato: Pdf

De pé sobre uma ponte ferroviária no norte do Alabama estava um homem a olhar para as águas que corriam a uns cinco metros abaixo. As suas mãos estavam atadas atrás das costas. Presa numa viga de madeira, logo acima da sua cabeça, uma corda dava-lhe o nó no pescoço e pendia até a altura dos seus joelhos. Ele e os seus executores – dois soldados e um sargento do Exército Federal – estavam sobre um estrado formado por tábuas dispostas sobre os dormentes dos trilhos. Um pouco afastado, na mesma plataforma, estava um oficial armado e cada extremidade da ponte era guardada por um sentinela…

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Cheltuielile cresc pentru a atinge valoarea veniturilor. (C. Northcote Parkinson)

Pentru fiecare greşeală pe care o comit amatorii, există întotdeauna o versiune mult mai sofisticată a acesteia pe care o comit experţii (Amos Tversky)

Corporaţia: o entitate ingenioasă, creată pentru a obţine profit individual fără responsabilitate individuală (Ambrose Bierce)

Several years ago I was given a book: The Cynic’s Dictionary, by Aubrey Dillon-Malone.  It is a wonderful collection of alternative definitions . . . “gems of epigrammatic cynicism from some of our greatest wits” (from the inside from cover). And, considering my previous profession (law enforcement), I can really relate to the jaded negativity (of course, I’ve been retired over two years now and am slowly recovering from my own cynicism).

Here are some cynical definitions of cynic and cynicism.  Enjoy!

CYNIC
“Someone who, when he smells a flower, looks for a coffin.” (H.L. Mencken)

“A sentamentalist afraid of himself.” (Lambert Jeffries)

“A blackguard whose faulty vision sees things as they are, not as they ought to be.” (Ambrose Bierce)

“Someone who found out there wasn’t any Santa Claus when he was ten, and is still upset about it.” (James Gould Cozzens)

CYNICISM
“Intellectual dandyism.” (George Meredith)

“The intellectual cripple’s substitute for intelligence.” (Russell Lynes)

“An unpleasant way of telling the truth.” (Lillian Hellman)

Peter Haining (ed) – Summoned From The Tomb (Digit, 1966)

Introduction – Peter Haining

Robert Bloch – Hell On Earth *
Washington Irving – Guests From Gibbet Island
Bram Stoker – The Judges House
J. S. Le Fanu – The Bully Of Chapelizod
Ivar Jorgensen – The Curse  *
Alexander Pushkin – The Coffin-Maker
Clive Pemberton – “Purple Eyes” *
Ambrose Bierce – A Watcher By The Dead
August Derleth – The Whippoorwills In The Hills
Edgar Allan Poe – Hop-Frog

A “Screaming Shuddering Spine-chilling TEN horror classics by the great masters of suspense” no less, including three stories (*) which didn’t make it into the later, much expanded hardback (Sidgwick & Jackson, 1973).  Groovy graveyard cover artwork too!

See also the Summoned From The Tomb thread on the Vault of Evil forum.

Anon – A Century Of Thrillers: From Poe To Arlen (Daily Express, 1934)

James Agate – Foreword

Wilkie Collins – The Traveller’s Story of a Terribly Strange Bed
Wilkie Collins – Mad Monkton
Wilkie Collins – The Biter Bit
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle – The Adventure of the Speckled Band
Mary Shelley – The Mortal Immortal
Micheal Arlen – The Gentleman from America
R. H. Barham – The Leech of Folkstone
R. H. Barham – Jerry Jarvis’ Wig
R. H. Barham – The Spectre of Tappington
R. H. Barham – Singular Passage in the Life of the Late Henry Harris, Doctor of Divinity
Mrs Henry Wood – The Ebony Box
A. J. Alan – My Adventure at Chiselhurst
A. J. Alan – The Hair
Edgar Allan Poe – The Gold Bug
Edgar Allan Poe – The Cask of Amontillado
Edgar Allan Poe – The Murders in the Rue Morgue
Edgar Allan Poe – The Mystery of the Marie Roget
Edgar Allan Poe – The Pit and the Pendulum
Edgar Allan Poe – Berenice
Edgar Allan Poe – William Wilson
Edgar Allan Poe – The Masque of the Red Death
Nathaniel Hawthorne – Roger Malvin’s Burial
Nathaniel Hawthorne – Dr Heidegger’s Experiment
Nathaniel Hawthorne – The Grey Champion
Sir Walter Scott – Wandering Willie’s Tale
Sir Walter Scott – The Two Drovers
W. W. Jacobs – The Monkeys Paw
J. S. Le Fanu – Sir Dominick Sarsfield
J. S. Le Fanu – Mr Justice Harbottle
J. S. Le Fanu – Green Tea
Oscar Wilde – The Birthday of the Infanta
Charles Dickens – The Trial For Murder
Charles Dickens – The Story of the Bagmans Murder
Charles Dickens – No 1 Branch Line, The Signalman
Elizabeth Gaskell – The Squires Story
J. S. Fletcher – The Lighthouse of Shivering Sand
Anthony Trollope – Malachi’s Cove
Lord Lytton – The Haunted and the Haunters
Frederick Marryat – The Story of the Greek Slave
Algernon Blackwood – The Woman’s Ghost Story
Algernon Blackwood – Secret Worship
Mrs Oliphant – The Open Door
Ambrose Bierce – The Suitable Surroundings
Ambrose Bierce – One of the Missing
Ambrose Bierce – The Affair at Coulters Notch
Ambrose Bierce – A Tough Tussle
Ambrose Bierce – A Horseman in the Sky

One of the evil clones i mentioned on an earlier Century post.  According to E. F. Bleiler (The Guide To Supernatural Fiction,  Kent State Universtity Press, 1983)

“The CENTURY volumes were one of the results of Depression newspaper wars in Great Britain in the 1930’s. Books of enormous size, they were given as premiums for subscriptions, then taken over by commercial publishing (Hutchinson’s mostly).”

And to think these days we’re happy with the occasional Belles of St. Trinians DVD ….

Anon – A Century Of Thrillers: Second Series (Daily Express, 1935)

Somerset Maugham – The Taipan
Donn Byrne – Tale Of The Piper
George Eliot – The Lifted Veil
M. R. James – Number 13
M. R. James – Rats
M. R. James – Count Magnus
G. K. Chesterton – The Queer Feet
H. G. Wells – Pollock And The Porrah Man
A. J. Alan – My Adventure In Norfolk
Sax Rohmer – Tcheriapin
J. S. Fletcher – The Ivory God
Daniel Defoe – The Apparition Of Mrs Veal
E. F. Benson – The Thing In The Hall
Guy De Maupassant – Night
Guy De Maupassant – The Drowned Man
Guy De Maupassant – Who Knows?
Nathaniel Hawthorne – Young Goodman Brown
Oscar Wilde – The Ballad Of Reading Gaol
Edgar Allan Poe – The Tell-Tale Heart
Edgar Allan Poe – The Fall Of The House Of Usher
Edgar Allan Poe – The Black Cat
Edgar Allan Poe – Ligeia
Bram Stoker – The Squaw
Sir A. T. Quiller-Couch – A Pair Of Hands
O. Henry – The Last Leaf
W. W. Jacobs – The Well
Charles Dickens – The Haunted Man And The Ghost’s Bargain
Ambrose Bierce – Moxon’s Master
Ambrose Bierce – The Middle Toe Of The Right Foot
Ambrose Bierce – The Damned Thing
W. F. Harvey – The Beast With Five Fingers
F. Marion Crawford – The Upper Berth
F. Marion Crawford – Man Overboard!
N. A. Temple Ellis – Diver’s Drops
Sydney Parkman – The Cards
Ashton Wolfe – The Knights Of The Silver Dagger
Frederick Marryat – The Werewolf
J. S. LeFanu – Shalken The Painter
J. S. LeFanu – Carmilla
J. S. LeFanu – The Familiar
Wilkie Collins – Gabriel’s Marriage
Mrs. Gaskell – The Sexton’s Hero

Anon [Dorothy M. Thomlinson?] (ed.) – A Century Of Ghost Stories (Hutchinson, 1935)

Many thanks to Richard Humphreys who kindly provided this enchanting dust-jacket scan.

J. Sheridan Le Fanu – The Familiar
J. Sheridan Le Fanu – Green Tea
Cecil Binney – The Saint And The Vicar
Sir Walter Scott – The Tapestried Chamber
Anthony Gittins – Gibbet Lane
Mrs Gaskell – The Old Nurse’s Story
M.R. James – The Residence At Whitminster
M.R. James – A Warning To The Curious
Sir Edward Bulwer- Lytton – The Haunted And The Haunters
Walter De La Mare – The Green Room
Miss Braddon – Eveline’s Visitant
Edith Wharton – Afterward
Ambrose Bierce – The Middle Toe Of The Right Foot
F. Marion Crawford – Man Overboard!
Shane Leslie – In A Glass Dimly
Shane Leslie – The Lord-In-Waiting
Bram Stoker – Dracula’s Guest
E.F. Benson – Expiation
E.F. Benson – Pirates
Algernon Blackwood – The Woman’s Ghost Story
Percival Landon – Thurnley Abbey
Oliver Onions – The Rosewood Door
Vernon Lee – The Virgin Of The Seven Daggers
Mrs Oliphant – The Library Window
Ann Bridge – The Song In The House
Violet Hunt – The Operation
Ex-Private X – The Sweeper
Ex-Private X – The Running Tide
W.L. George – Perez
——————–
R. H. Barham – The Spectre Of Tappington
Amelia B. Edwards – The Phantom Coach
Nathaniel Hawthorne – The Grey Champion
Nathaniel Hawthorne – Young Goodman Brown
Wilkie Collins – The Dream Woman
Frederick Marryat – The Werewolf
Charles Dickens – The Story Of The Bagman’s Uncle
E. Nesbit – John Charrington’s Wedding
Edgar Allan Poe – Berenice
Frederich Von Schiller – The Ghost-Seer
Alan Cunningham – The Haunted Ships
Ludwig Tieck – The Klausenburg
R. S. Hawker – The Bothanon Ghost
George Eliot – The Lifted Veil

A Century Of Ghost Stories (1936) is a much extended edition of the previous year’s Fifty Years Of Ghost Stories which includes only the stories listed above the dotted line (i.e., from Le Fanu’s The Familiar through to W. L. George’s Perez).

Detail from cover of 50 Years Of Ghost Stories provided by All Things Horror

Dorothy L Sayers (ed.) -  Great Short Stories of Detection, Mystery and Horror: 2nd Series (Gollancz, July, 1931)

Help! Cover Wanted!

Dorothy L. Sayers – Introduction

1. Detection & Mystery (25 stories by Sayers, M. P. Shiel, H. C. Bailey, Robert Barr, Mrs. Belloc Lowdnes & Co.)

2. Mystery and Horror:

A.J. Alan – My Adventure in Norfolk
Stacy Aumonier – Miss Bracegirdle Does Her Duty
R. H. Barham – The Leech of Folkestone
Max Beerbohm – A.V. Laider
E.F. Benson – The Room in the Tower
J.D. Beresford – Cut-Throat Farm
Ambrose  Bierce – The Damned Thing
Algernon Blackwood – Secret Worship
Mrs. E. Bland  (Edith Nesbit) – No. 17
Douglas G. Browne – The Queer Door
A.M. Burrage – The Waxwork
Wilkie Collins – Mad Monkton
Alan Cunningham – The Haunted Ships
Clemence Dane – The King Waits
Walter de la Mare – The Tree
S.L. Dennis – The Second Awakening of a Magician
Charles Dickens – No.1 Branch Line: The Signalman
Ford Madox Ford – Reisenberg
Violet Hunt – The Prayer
W.F. Harvey – The Beast With Five Fingers
Holloway Horn – The Old Man
W.W. Jacobs – The Well
Edgar Jepson – The Resurgent Mysteries
J.S. Le Fanu – Mr. Justice Harbottle
E. Bulwer-Lytton – The Haunted and the Haunters
Arthur Machen – The Great Return
Frederick Marryat – The Story of the Greek Slave
John Masefield – Anty Blight
John Metcalfe – The Double Admiral
Mrs. Oliphant – The Library Window
Barry Pain – Rose,  Rose
Eden Phillpotts – The Iron Pineapple
Edgar Allan Poe – Berenice
Sir A. Quiller-Couch – The Roll-Call of the Reef
Naomi Royde-Smith – Mangaroo
Saki – Sredni Vashtar
Mary Shelley – The Mortal Immortal
M. P. Shiel – The Primate of the Rose
Henry Spicer – Called to the Rescue
Hugh Walpole – The Enemy
H. G. Wells – The Inexperienced Ghost
Edward Lucas White – Lukundoo

Dorothy L. Sayers – Great Short Stories of Detection, Mystery & Horror (Gollancz, September 1928)

Margaret Oliphant – The Open Door
Charles Dickens – Story of the Bagman’s Uncle
Charles Collins & Charles Dickens- The Trial for Murder
M. R. James – Martin’s Close
Oliver Onions – Phantas
Robert Hichens – How Love Came to Professor Guildea
Saki – The Open Window
Arthur Machen – The Black Seal
Sax Rohmer – Tcheriapin
W. W. Jacobs – The Monkey’s Paw
A. J. Alan – The Hair
E. F. Benson – Mrs. Amworth
Ambrose Bierce – Moxon’s Master
Jerome J. Jerome – The Dancing Partner
Robert Louis Stevenson – Thrawn Janet
R. H. Benson – Father Meuron’s Tale
Marjorie Bowen – The Avenging of Ann Leete
J. F. Sullivan -  The Man With A Malady
William Fryer Harvey – August Heat
Morley Roberts – The Anticipator
Joseph Conrad – The Brute
May Sinclair – Where Their Fire Is Not Quenched
Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu – Green Tea
J. D. Beresford – The Misanthrope
John Metcalfe – The Bad Lands
Alfred M. Burrage – Nobody’s House
Arthur Quiller-Couch – The Seventh Man
N. Royde-Smith – Proof
Walter de la Mare – Seaton’s Aunt
Michael Arlen – The Gentleman From America
R. Ellis Roberts – The Narrow Way
Traditional – Sawney Beane
Bram Stoker – The Squaw
Violet Hunt – The Corsican Sisters
Barry Pain – The End of A Show
H. G. Wells – The Cone
Ethel Colburn Mayne – The Separate Room

The first of three epic volumes in this classic series; stories listed are the Mystery & Horror content only.  Series II and III to follow ASAP

Edmund Crispin [Robert Bruce Montgomery] – Best Tales of Terror 2 (Faber and Faber, 1965)

Help! Cover Wanted!

Edmund Crispin – Foreword

Ambrose Bierce – Moxon’s Master
M. R. James – A Warning to the Curious
William Hope Hodgson – The Voice in the Night
John Metcalfe – Time-Fuse
Lord Dunsany – The Electric King
Nugent Barker – Curious Adventure of Mr. Bond
W. F. Harvey – The Dabblers
John Keir Cross – “Happy Birthday, Dear Alex”
Ray Bradbury – The Small Assassin
H. Russell Wakefield – The Frontier Guards
Elizabeth Bowen – The Cat Jumps
Anthony Boucher – They Bite
L. P. Hartley – The Two Vaynes
Kit Reed – Tell Me, Doctor – Please

In the last analysis, ability is commonly found to consist mainly in a high degree of solemnity.

More Quotes by Ambrose Bierce

In the last analysis, ability is commonly found to consist mainly in a high degree of solemnity.

More Quotes by Ambrose Bierce

Ah yes…such a fantastic quote by Ambrose Bierce, who is best known for The Devil’s Dictionary. Now, after finding his definition of painting, I’m going to have to read more of his work.The guy was a genius.

My daughter and I just wrapped up an amazing, art intensive weekend. This is the third such time we’ve rented a cabin at a state park and loaded it with almost every conceivable art material out there. Okay, that’s not quite true. But be assured that we had baskets of collage materials; scissors, acrylic paints; brushes; markers; colored pencils; drawing pads; matte medium; a wide assortment of stretched canvas; work tables; lamps; work stools; a laptop loaded with photos and classical music;  etc. etc. etc.

That’s right…we take nothing to chance. We know we’re going to need lots of light. So we not only take the extra lamps, but extra bulbs…just in case. Wouldn’t you?

It doesn’t take us long to get all of the cabin furniture out of the way, and replace it with our own ‘work’ furniture. So in the space of just a few minutes, the space becomes ours.  As working artists, it’s not the amount of time we have, but the ‘un-interrupted time’ that lends itself so well to that creative drive. We have the fridge & pantry well stocked; we have all the supplies we could ever want/need and we know our time is our own. Period. Amazing feeling, that.

This was the first time to this particular state park and the cabin exceeded our hopes. We had a whole wall of north facing windows! Absolutely an artist’s dream lighting situation. But of course the lamps took us well into the wee morning hours of creativity.

So after two full days & three nights of working….we hated to see the weekend come to an end. But we’re so stoked now, that we want to schedule another one soon. Of course we’ll be working in our respective home studios in the mean time…but it’s just not the same. Not.

So here you have a sample of our hard work. And I should mention, that the cabin had a flat screen TV with an endless channel selection. And we never had it on.

"Fort Garland: The Red Chair" by Lela Bouse-McCracken 12x12 Mixed Media

"Temporarily" by Alison Fowler: 24x24 Mixed Media

Ambrose Bierce, he of The Devil’s Dictionary and “An Occurrence At Owl Creek Bridge”—which has lured adolescent writers into the dream sequence/surprise ending dead-end for over a century now—was also a book critic. A critic who produced the single greatest review ever. One sentence, nine words:

“The covers of this book are too far apart.”

I never thought I’d read another critique of such brisk majesty. One that communicated everything you could possibly need to know about the work of art or product in question. One forged from a hardy dram of contempt, then quenched by the critic’s unwillingness to waste more than a breath spewing his disdain.

Too many critics spend their reviews trying to impress the reader with their own wit and/or comprehensive grasp of the medium in question. Nowhere is this more grating than in the no-man’s-land of the Amazon customer review. I don’t require your five-paragraph summary of Victorian erotica leading into how it relates to the current crop of urban vampire novels. Really—is this the best use you’ve found for your M.A. in English Lit? If so, I would suggest you make a career one-eighty and seek your destiny as, oh, a soldier of fortune.

But sometimes—sometimes!—a reviewer produces a work both pleasingly brief and achingly poignant. And today, the National Evil found a critique every bit the equal of Bierce’s classic. Maybe superior, as this one requires less than half the words Bierce required. Without further ado:

“Pubic hair in packaging.”

Need I (or the reviewer) say more? (To be fair, now, the product in question wasn’t sold by Amazon itself, but by a third-party vendor.) Evil won’t reveal the identity of the item—I leave it to you to find this little miracle for yourself.

In the meantime, however, here’s the logical follow-up. Say you found a pube in your packaging. How much would the product you ordered have to be worth for you NOT to return it in horror and disgust?

So it’s been four days since the injury and even though I’m still having my anxious moments. I am feeling more positive about the potential to be back playing. I have definitely torn my LCL, but won’t know about my ACL for two weeks because there is too much swelling to get an MRI. An LCL is manageable… ACL not so much. ACL = minimum of 9 months of rehab… which means no baseball in the spring. Every time I think of that I feel a pain in my heart. The baseball field is the only place I have where I can be free from everything. In the past, no matter how bad things got, the baseball field was always my sanctuary. It would break my heart to watch my senior year float by without that final chance to be out there.

*Sigh* my plan was to make this blog positive. But I am taking the Ambrose Bierce approach- Patience:  A minor form of despair disguised as a virtue.  Before I leave the house everyday I put the smile on and say things like “I’ll take it as it comes.” But really I am willing my knee to be okay and thinking about all my options.

My knee WILL be okay. There is no other option.

Until next time…

Before Justin’s rough-tongued dad Sam on Twitter, before even H.L. Mencken or W.C. Fields, there was Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914?), whose Devil’s Dictionary from 1911 is a byword for that distilled realism called cynicism by those arrested souls still drugged by the innocent narcotic idealism of the cradle (and yes, he’s catching; Ambrose Bierce: A Family Company). Those familiar with the almost-Newtonian proverbial tendency of the mask of comedy to play Chang to its conjoined brother Eng of crippling grief in the lives of its adepts will be less than shocked to read: “Disillusionment and sadness pervaded the latter part of his life. In 1913 he went to Mexico, where all trace of him was lost.” In the hope that by wearing his savage raiment my own straw might be taken for steel, I leave on your table a bit of Tabasco from Bierce, for when next life’s takeout proves too bland to be endured without tongues of fire, YEAH., and the sweat and the sniffling of the damned eternal , to go with the shaken abdominals, already:

“Marriage. The state or condition of a community consisting of a master, a mistress and two slaves, making in all, two.”

“The world has suffered more from the ravages of ill-advised marriages than from virginity.”

“Incompatibility. In matrimony a similarity of tastes, particularly the taste for domination.”

“Love. A temporary insanity curable by marriage.”

“Architect. One who drafts a plan of your house, and plans a draft of your money.”

“Speak when you are angry and you will make the best speech you will ever regret.”

“Acquaintance. A person whom we know well enough to borrow from, but not well enough to lend to.”

“Acquaintance: a degree of friendship called slight when its object is poor or obscure, and intimate when he is rich or famous.”

“Life. A spiritual pickle preserving the body from decay.”

“Learning. The kind of ignorance distinguishing the studious.”

“Litigant. A person about to give up his skin for the hope of retaining his bones.”

“Laughter — An interior convulsion, producing a distortion of the features and accompanied by inarticulate noises. It is infectious and, though intermittent, incurable.”

“Knowledge is the small part of ignorance that we arrange and classify.”

“Impiety. Your irreverence toward my deity.”

“Insurance: An ingenious modern game of chance in which the player is permitted to enjoy the comfortable conviction that he is beating the man who keeps the table.”

“Impartial. Unable to perceive any promise of personal advantage from espousing either side of a controversy.”

“Alien. An American sovereign in his probationary state.”

“Historian. A broad-gauge gossip.”

“Happiness is an agreeable sensation, arising from contemplating the misery of others.”

“Habit is a shackle for the free.”

“Confidante. One entrusted by A with the secrets of B confided to herself by C.”

“Genealogy. An account of one’s descent from an ancestor who did not particularly care to trace his own.”

“Ambition. An overmastering desire to be vilified by enemies while living and made ridiculous by friends when dead.”

“Alliance. In international politics, the union of two thieves who have their hands so deeply inserted in each other’s pockets that they cannot separately plunder a third.”

“The gambling known as business looks with severe disfavor on the business known as gambling.”

“A funeral is a pageant whereby we attest our respect for the dead by enriching the undertaker.”

“To apologize is to lay the foundation for a future offense.”

“Edible. Good to eat and wholesome to digest, as a worm to a toad, a toad to a snake, a snake to a pig, a pig to a man, and a man to a worm.”

“Fidelity. A virtue peculiar to those who are about to be betrayed.”

“Faith. Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel.”

“Experience. The wisdom that enables us to recognize in an undesirable old acquaintance the folly that we have already embraced.”

“Experience is a revelation in the light of which we renounce our errors of youth for those of age.”

“Egotist. A person of low taste, more interested in himself than me.”

“Education is that which discloses to the wise and disguises from the foolish their lack of understanding.”

“Duty. That which sternly impels us in the direction of profit, along the line of desire.”

“Opiate. An unlocked door in the prison of Identity. It leads into the jail yard.”

“Dog. A kind of additional or subsidiary Deity designed to catch the overflow and surplus of the world’s worship.”

“Divorce. A resumption of diplomatic relations and rectification of boundaries.”

“Consul. In American politics, a person who having failed to secure an office from the people is given one by the Administration on condition that he leave the country.”

“Destiny. A tyrant’s authority for crime and a fool’s excuse for failure.”

“Deliberation. The act of examining one’s bread to determine which side it is buttered on.”

“Forgetfulness. A gift of God bestowed upon debtors in compensation for their destitution of conscience.”

“Age. That period of life in which we compound for the vices that remain by reviling those we have no longer the vigor to commit.”

“Consult. To seek another’s approval of a course already decided on.”

“Absurdity. A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one’s own opinion.”

“Abstainer. A weak man who yields to the temptation of denying himself a pleasure.”

“Before undergoing a surgical operation, arrange your temporal affairs. You may live.”

“An accident is an inevitable occurrence due to the actions of immutable natural laws.”

“Miss: A title with which we brand unmarried women to indicate that they are in the market. Miss, Misses (Mrs.) and Mister (Mr.) are the three most distinctly disagreeable words in the language, in sound and sense. Two are corruptions of Mistress, the other of Master. If we must have them, let us be consistent and give one to the unmarried man. I venture to suggest Mush, abbreviated to MH.”

“Convent. A place of retirement for women who wish for leisure to meditate upon the sin of idleness.”

“Patience. A minor form of despair disguised as a virtue.”

“Peace, in international affairs, is a period of cheating between two periods of fighting.”

“Philanthropist. A rich (and usually bald) old gentleman who has trained himself to grin while his conscience is picking his pocket.”

“All are lunatics, but he who can analyze his delusion is called a philosopher.”

“Irreligion. The principal one of the great faiths of the world.”

“Eulogy. Praise of a person who has either the advantages of wealth and power, or the consideration to be dead.”

“Admiration; is our polite recognition of another’s resemblance to ourselves.”

“Pray. To ask the laws of the universe to be annulled on behalf of a single petitioner confessedly unworthy.”

“A prejudice is a vagrant opinion without visible means of support.”

“Nominee. A modest gentleman shrinking from the distinction of private life and diligently seeking the honorable obscurity of public office.”

“Insurrection. An unsuccessful revolution; disaffection’s failure to substitute misrule for bad government.”

“Religion. A daughter of Hope and Fear, explaining to Ignorance the nature of the Unknowable.”

“Revolution is an abrupt change in the form of misgovernment.”

“Saint. A dead sinner revised and edited.”

“Erudition. Dust shaken out of a book into an empty skull.”

“Backbite. To speak of a man as you find him when he can’t find you.”

“Success is the one unpardonable sin against one’s fellows.”

“Beauty. The power by which a woman charms a lover and terrifies a husband.”

“Bigot, one who is obstinately and zealously attached to an opinion that you do not entertain.”

“Bore — a person who talks when you wish him to listen.”

“Corporation. An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility.”

“Calamities are of two kinds: misfortune to ourselves, and good fortune to others.”

“To be positive: to be mistaken at the top of one’s voice.”

“Heaven lies about us in our infancy and the world begins lying about us pretty soon afterward.”

“Take not God’s name in vain; select a time when it will have effect.”

“Think twice before you speak to a friend in need.”

“Appeal. In law, to put the dice into the box for another throw.”

“Trial. A formal inquiry designed to prove and put upon record the blameless characters of judges, advocates and jurors.”

“They say that hens do cackle loudest when there is nothing vital in the eggs they have laid.”

“Bride. A woman with a fine prospect of happiness behind her.”

“Compromise. Such an adjustment of conflicting interests as gives each adversary the satisfaction of thinking he has got what he ought not to have, and is deprived of nothing except what was justly his due.”

“The Senate is a body of old men charged with high duties and misdemeanors.”

“Conservative. A statesman who is enamored of existing evils, as distinguished from a Liberal, who wishes to replace them with others.”

“A coward is one who in a perilous emergency thinks with his legs.”

“Abscond. To move in a mysterious way, commonly with the property of another.”

“The covers of this book are too far apart.”

1. “On the stage he was natural, simple, affecting. ‘Twas only that when he was off was he acting.” Oliver Goldsmith

2. “I didn’t attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying that I approved of it.” Mark Twain

3. “My parents only had one argument in forty-five years. It lasted forty-three years.” Cathy Ladman

4. “Those are my principles, and if you don’t like them… well, I have others.” Groucho Marx

5. “The gambling known as business looks with austere disfavor upon the business known as gambling.” Ambrose Bierce

Great stuff from Matthew Rose in the WSJ.

Ambrose Bierce would surely approve.

(Hat tip: Anina Bennett, on Facebook.)

“MONDAY, n. In Christian countries, the day after the baseball game.”

From The Devil’s Dictionary

Maybe Bierce’s definition should be updated for the 21st century:

“MONDAY, n. In American, the day after the football game.”