The world’s popularity was gained by this image when in 1970 the brothers from Spain made up a motto “Have a happy day!”. The smile with that motto became popular and one could see it printed on the T-shirts, coffee mugs, match boxes and even the post stamps. Nobody had a single idea about the copyright. In 1971 the French businessman Franklin Loufrani has registered the yellow smile as his trademark in more than 80 countries and made his financial capital with the help of this simple symbol. Harvey Ball didn’t sue Franklin Loufrani as the last wasn’t the only one who struggled for the copyright for the yellow smile. Harvey was a happy man who was delighted that he gave the smile to the world. Harvey Ball was proud of his creation and admitted that it was the first art work that brought so much happiness being that simple. Harvey Ball registered his creation as a trademark but all the income was donated to the child rehabilitation centers all over the world.

According to the statements of psychologists a smile not only expresses the positive emotions but also creates the happy atmosphere. Harvey Ball has lived a long and happy life. He is the example of the human who shared his smile with all the humankind and required nothing for that.

“The catch phrase for the day is

‘Do an act of kindness.
Help one person smile.’  “
– Harvey Ball

September 11, 2012

Governor Luis Fortuno Burset, La Fortaleza, San Juan, Puerto Rico, (surreally) USA

Re: Wine And Cheese Miracles, a/k/a, Wannabes;  A Global Land Use Plan

Dear Governor Fortuno:

Greetings.  …  Kiko Aviles, … Moca’s mayor, graciously offered, … to bring Crew musings  to your behest.  …   Art and his critter pals gratefully agreed.  One more piece of a vast puzzle, fallen, … neatly, … in place;   …  for Wannabes, wants to be, … self-fulfilling, … prophesy.

Enrique, … ‘Kiko,’ … Aviles, … Moca’s Mayor, … is a rarity.  …  Political lines he’s crossed, … and Moca’s Populares, … cross them for him.  …  That he’s beloved, … is a direct result, … of governmental, … spiritual, … outreach.  …  For Mocanos, … he’s, … warrior.

To that end is, … highlighting Arthur’s seemingly, … ever being on, … or near, … ends,…. of proverbial ropes.  …  Today, … on the verge of eviction morrow, Yogi’s “ … it’s like déjà vu, all over again …” makes crystal clear, dramatic evidence, … of His Kingdom.

An eviction, … evident of Kingdom?  …  Might that not stretch poetic license, … far too dramatically?  …  Nope.  …  Nor redundant, … is it, … (when first stated, anyway), … a fact that’ll be reiterated:  …  The Council stress, … too, … the fact that:  …  Mortals know not, … of things, … when.

“The Council emphasizes also:  … t he Crew ne’er ever heard, much less saw, Almighty God.  …  We imagined the call.  …  We imagined it all.  Thoughtful, profound critters, … are plot devices, … intended to allegorically, … tell tales.  …  We mean no offense;  …  none at all.”

But, like MacArthur and Arnold he said, “I’ll be back.”  He’d told neighbors already that he’d be, “… dying there, … some day.”  …  He’ll just have to buy it back, at auction.  Humbly he prays:  “Lord Almighty, return me ASAP, if it is to be that, with ‘Kikos’ help, … productive, … we’ll make it.”

When Art returns, … God willing, … the rustic wooded property would be ideal to, … inaugurate, … some fine day, … a proposed Mocano Center For Permaculture Studies.  …  It’s an idea past due, given that we’re prone to, … slight, … entrepreneurial, … bravado.

Pithily nutshelled, … this is about whether to be, … or not to be;  … about getting there, … from here;  …  about possibly, … our last, … and likely, … best chance of righting ship.  But we shall only do so if, by purposefully uniting, … wannabe wannabes, … forge, … destinies. 

Wannabes … means to be , … clarion call.   Its Roll Call of Nations and territories (most of them, anyway) … are a snapshot, … and meant to be, … ust so, of real, surreal states. Mt. King’s surreal summit, reveals blue prints that brightly paint, … yellow-bricked roads; … to bright, … destinies.

That info, … at chapters one through twelve, is a closely guarded secret, … obviously.   A Crew counseled Art:  …  Pray and commemorate.  ….  Then pray again.  Then act.  Do to kin what you’d wish for you.  Know that Karma, ironically, … works. …  Then ask, … as is, … your wont, … anyway.

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　          Today, 10-9-12, (fittingly, the day after Columbus Day ) is the date of the first wave of transmittals of this letter dated 9-11-12 to USA and Puerto Rico (often hereinafter, PR) movers and shakers.

          Fittingly too, this past Friday, 10-5-12, was International Smile Day.  Any connection between the two?  Maybe.

          International Smile Day, along with an iconic ‘smiley’ face, are amongst Harvey Ball’s legacies to civilization.  Columbus too has left an important legacy.  The link between the two that The Council would stress is that Columbus’ legacy is historical;  Ball’s is historic.

          Just twenty-eight days to go before surreal general elections in the USA and PR;  and just seventy-three days to go before a scientifically (demonstrably) real, cyclical, galactic realignment.

          This hybrid poetic letter to every inhabitant of Earth purports to dovetail cosmic, geological and socio-anthropological history (politics) with socio-political current events (politics) to save us from ourselves, at least temporarily, by even more politics.  To wit:  　

“Featured are: Nuclear politics, … the revenge of cost-cutting Tea Parties vocal, … global tweaks on Occupy Wall Street primal screams and its soon to be reprise;  the Mayan calendar thing;  …  and statuses; personal, national;  …  and yes, … territorial.”

          Wannabes subject matters are vital.  Its length, expected to come in at less than 300 pages is remarkably brief.  The format it adopts, including the Roll Call of Nations at Chapters 5-8 compellingly addresses, … and appeals to, … a global audience.          

          The targeted audience is therefore, as broad as can be.  Each leader of the nations is (in verse) addressed.  A UN free (to delegates) book distribution is anticipated.

          Human institutions are roasted;  deservedly so.  They feed us lies.  We gorge ourselves.  Wannabes’ aim is to be a clarion call.  A grave danger confronts us all.  We must proactively act, not sheepishly await, our fates.

          Pragmatic counter-measures are a matter of congruency of thought, as when, on the proposed GCD (Global Citizenship Day), an international Space Lab Crew wave to us from orbit;  … and we, … wave back.

          Finally, it’s got a colorful cast of characters, all the better with to make a motion picture, … for kids of all ages.  Animal Planet with an Attitude, anyone?

          We may yet be true to principles we so overwhelmingly espouse, but by our actions, omissions to act and skillful lip-service, so routinely negate. That’s long been pandemic, but now that voodoo economics are back in vogue;  …  houses of cards teeter.

          It’s the contagious enthusiasm of our kids via that yet somewhat new medium, the internet, that may infect the rest of us and somehow save the world.  Would that it does.  The irrepressible enthusiasm of kids is the active ingredient of Wannabes’ elixir.  

          The success of the several facets of the enterprise, book, movie, website and the global cooperative depends most on those standing to inherit a mortally wounded planet.  That the groundswell’s point of origin be PR, is a, … sumptuously delicious irony.           

          The entire enterprise, as outlined within the manuscript as a whole, envisions an ongoing war on ignorance.  Such a war might turn the tide against lesser included wars, against, for example, terrorism, drugs, hunger, poverty and even, indeed, slavery.

          It’s a war wherein the enemy’s battle plan has us divided into isolated pockets, each, surrounded.  The prognosis;  bleakly near hopeless.  It’s a war that would have calmer heads prevail.  …  It’s a war we don’t even know we’re fighting.

          The pragmatic alternative going forward;  a purposeful alteration of our course, born simply of a collective will to do, … so surreally, … really is a no-brainer.

          The pseudonym I’ve adopted to write under is one borne of familiarity with Mr. Salmon Rushdie’s story.  Keenly aware that what’s been written, notwithstanding its pluralistic intent and tolerant tone, may be deemed controversial by some and blasphemous by others, the author wishes to remain, for a while at least, … anonymous.

“What will the Pres, Gov, and JF do? … Only their mutual God, better than they, knows for sure. … But a less than omniscient Crew did see:  …  Wannabe first team wagers hedged with safety bets on a second team too, may well show the Pres, … Gov, … and Jay, … ‘The Way’, … Holy.”

          Just twenty-eight days to go before surreal general elections in the USA and PR.  Just seventy-three days to go before a scientifically real cyclical galactic alignment.  Seemingly, not even remotely enough time;  but He works in mysterious ways.

Sincerely,

Arthur Everman　

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When Art returns, God willing, to Moca, his foreclosed wooded property would be apt to, inaugurate, … some fine day, … a proposed, … Mocano Center For Permaculture Studies.  …  It’s an idea past due, … given that we’re prone to, slight, … entrepreneurial, … bravado.

More importantly, … we’re prone to, existential issues, … slight.  But most fortunately for this woe begotten planet, … one of its recently named folks, chachomanopapa, Inc. (COMPAI or also CMP), … an exporter may be, … of dreamscapes, … so retro-visionary.

That dear Emily once, … not long ago, … wrote poetry she christened, … her letter to the world, … that had never written to her, … presupposed, … that she too, … previously, … hadn’t ever gotten around to, … writing to, … the world.  …  A Zoo Crew; … Emily, … reprised.

Presumably, … few replied to Emily’s heartfelt, vibrant verse.  … Unprecedented verse, … but verse though, … not responded to.  … Wannabes, … standing on Emily’s shoulders and with a Sheriff’s help, aspires to her goal, … reprised;  and get answered, … quickly, …and, … world widely.

The ninety-nine, … the legatees of many ninety-nines, … through time immemorial, … those gifted, … with wisdom, … choose sharing this world, … to live, … in peace, … with one percent.  …  To obviate internecine strife (as usual), … long live, … the insightful:  … “Live, … and let, … live!”

Scripture and the power of ones that they tout, … are the titular letters and numbers, … that by His Grace, … blesses mankind, … including apiece, … also, such human wisdom as may be otherwise helpful;  they’re “The Way”, to prosper.   Only prosperity, … promises, … peace.

The Council’s archetype plan:  …  Forging the destiny of one … happily, … hapless lush (moi), … as example, … for an incipient global
movement towards global citizenship, … and such other holistic means we might hatch, … for the GCD, … world inaugural.

GCD, … Global Citizenship Day;  …  the inaugural one, … is purposefully
co-opting, … Mayan calendar, … commemorative celebrations, … on December twenty-first and second.  …  That Friday through Saturday, calls for, … thoughtful prayer, … palliative.

Renewable destinies;   …  the vision nutshelled.  …  History’s so replete with true tall accounts, … of forgeries of fate;  …  destinies well may be ably forged.  …  It is apt then, … that a trans-species, trans-cultural, trans-national, trans-doctrinal, … band of brothers, … gainsay, …

… the powers that be, … with a cogent plan, … that more efficaciously uses wisdom’s knowledge, … (education), and people, … (numbers, letters, … hearts and minds;  the power of ones) and, … the virtually free airways of His Kingdom;  to connect us, … quickly, … safely, … better.

GCD Weekend One, … the virtually concerted groundswell envisioned, … shrewdly shall co-opt, … the Mayan calendar commemorative observance, … on December twenty-first and second, to, … in union, … respectfully
call for, … beyond prayer, … acts, … proactive.

Initially, Art’s nutshelled big idea was, … by rhyme-less prose letters to two children (Ussammah and Dubbya), … and with “carbon” copies to, … many, … mimic Nelson’s Commission, … utilize an abundant resource, our children, …,

… and a cheap, … and handy tool, … e-mail to … … illume with revelatory spotlights first Puerto Rican lands, then middle eastern lands, then subsequent lands to, … at long last, … give peace a fighting chance to be, … more than a pipe dream.  Even if we’re destined to never band together like insects, … we ought at least …

… struggle to do so.  …  After all, all of life itself is a jihad, … a struggle, … be it a lone sperm’s lonely quest, … to be the first, … and last to cross a threshold, … or a mouth’s last gasp for air.  But knowing the bee’s reason to be empowers ours.  … To know hence, … ask, … “What’s passed?”

Arthur’s unusually bold.  …  Asking, “Who am I, … not to ask help of my friends and clans, … (an odd mix of prospects, … and suspects), … of them he asked:  …  “What to do when humanity needs to progress and surreal rocks block progress?” and;  … “Shouldn’t rocks, … be moved, … with levers?” … he asked.

“With metaphysically outsized levers, … far less friends are required, to move outsized stones.  …  Ideally, … this reprised entreaty, … to Arthur’s most immediate brethren, … Borincano movers and shakers, … hopes for an outsized, … call:  …  Fannie Mae’s, … calling off, … the Marshall.”

This boulder’s huge. … It’ll take a globe-full of Govs, their citizens, and their, … handy levers, … to roll it, … even an inch.  …  But if we ably, … roll it an inch, while not quite a cinch, we shall take, as Neil Armstrong once memorably quipped, … “… a giant leap, … for humanity.”

Tapping into scriptural resources, … reveals their consistently pluralistic messages.  …  So doing casts off blinders; … so doing permits peering past constraining paradigm matrices;  …  so doing calls for their holistic expansion;  …  and, … doing is believing.

Big picture unveilings, … (like motion picture premiers), … before, …. on and beyond 12-21-12, … are unfettered humanity’s paramount imperative, … going forward.  …  We’re living illusorily; beyond means; … beyond sense.  …  Let’s get a grip, … wisely.

Dreams that subsist through to development are, accordingly, … as incomprehensible mixes, … of past and present, … glorious testament, … to His Majesty.  …  And so, intermittently, … Arthur drank corrosives;  and when able, in bursting fits, … with friends, … did testament.

For Art, the intestate layman turned lawyer, … turned lush, … turned lyrical philosopher, learned, … invaluable truths, … not in school, … but asleep.  In an otherworldly realm between life and death, answered was Arthur’s plaintive prayer:  What if, … from “what if”, … rich harvests, … we reap?

And what if, … from the corollary, … “to be or not to be”, … we similarly, … reap?   And what if, … come GCD, … wide awake, … we await the galactic crossings, … that’ll take place, on about that date.  What if awake, not asleep,  we cast, … unprecedented ‘votes’, … that date.

The time’s ripe. … The long awaited signs;  a trio:  Tree, thief, and tryst, mysteriously, … seemingly, … triggered events;  …  one was that Kiko, … duly, … called Art, a common citizen, this past Sunday, promising, at or about, one twenty three, (three days post, … felled tree), … to notice you, … too.   

Acculturation, … the modification of the culture, … of individuals, … or groups, … through prolonged contact, … with different cultures has, up until recently, … been a rare phenomenon.  …  The internet’s potential to acculturate, … surely, … is treasure.

Acculturation’s a natural process, … not readily appreciated in the absence of an expansive perspective, … as, … for example, from atop, … the top-most paradigm matrix.  …  From there, … irrelevant is difference, and indifference, … abominable.

Council member meetings over the years since 2004, … suggest that the Scriptures, the internet, … our will, … our numbers, … and our letters, … united, … may be both remedy, … and means of transmission, … of that larger picture, whereby brotherhood, … we better foster.

The sublime fact of the matter then, … is that whether or not, … you act sapiently going forward, … where individual destinies are purposefully forged, … ipso facto, … so may be forged, … a collective destiny;  transcendence too; … just much more, … grandly.

It’s surreal that Wannabes be the subject of this letter to your Honor on nine eleven anniversary;  …  the horror, … sparking Art’s epic quest.  Poetically beyond pales, three letters evolved into one final, … first ten pages, … of Wannabes’ letters.

This third letter then, … addressed to you, and dated eleventh, … joins letters dated sixth and tenth, … (while being evicted). … The three meld into, … an intro to Vision, … and Wannabes’ messages;  …  of God’s mercy, … and His wrath;  one to each nation;  …  territories too.

Fannie Mae says Thursday.  Not a single day more;  not for any reason. … Man o man;  with no heart nor soul, … Art knows, … all too well, there’s no appealing to her compassion. If the world ends tomorrow, Art’s yeoman duty: … quit;  …  vacate.  …  Get lost, … (pray tell), … too.

Thursday. Not a single day more; not for any reason, not even , … the end of the world.  Damn! … That’s really, … placing a really, … surreal world in context.  Nothing may delay (certainly not ends of worlds), Art’s quitting of his world;  Fannie Mae’s property;  … Art’s, … former world.

An eviction, … evident of Kingdom? … Might that not stretch poetic license, … far too dramatically? … Nope. … Nor redundant, … is it, … (when first stated), … a fact that’ll be repeated hereinafter: … The Council stress, … too, … the fact that, … mortals know not, … of things, … when.

These mysterious cosmic forces, since the beginning, in motion at His bidding, collide and glance off one another, … ebb and flow, … and sometimes eddy, … like PR, (somewhat, … more or less), in place.  All this spinning around, … is for you, … to well understand:

Don’t commiserate when looking past what’s passed, is critical to the future. The Crew know pain and vengeance; … no long term gain in them.  …  Best vet transcendental issues now.  Know now what Crew didn’t know then;  when others slew our beloved families, … and our pets.

Imagine:  Convening upon Mt King’s slopes to pray for productive and healingly apt answers to man’s woes, the Zoo Crew mysteriously rode cosmic ripple effects to wine and cheese tasting conventions, … courtesy, … of Abba, … He who rules, … so lovingly. 

Understand: An epic so grand in scope; so profound of theme; written to His wannabe children, … asking them to please, … use a radically love-borne paradigm, one that He’s already revealed, doesn’t just happen.  Wannabes are not born, … but made, … most surreally.

The ‘surreality’ of this all’s well encapsulated by Winston Churchill’s seemingly cryptic remark re Russia way back when;  …  it’s really as good as any characterization of God’s plan for us;  …  and the seemingly … disordered, … order of all things, … really. 　

The stories in parallel of Buzz, Kong, Lou, Job, Nerd and Art, the Crew, The Council, the Sexiest Six on the planet, … are ordinary, … as to be extraordinary.  Six champion drunks, … by their brethren betrayed lost, …  homes being foreclosed.  …  Yet, … each sleeps, … blithely.

Mysteriously signaling, three signs in an eighth month came.  If from leftists far right [Pres (lol), … Gov (lol), … Kiko, … and, … Jay], … within thirty days, … ere November sixth don’t answer, write Romney and Populares.  Someone might do right things:  …  Wannabes, … must win, … going, … both ways.

“The Council emphasize:  Ne’er a one of the Crew ever heard, much less saw, Almighty God.  …  We imagined the call.  …  We imagined it all.  Thoughtful, profound critters, … are plot devices, … intended to, … allegorically, … tell tales.  …  We mean no offense;  …  none at all.”

Wannabes … means to be , … clarion call.   Its Roll Call of Nations and territories (most of them, anyway) … are a snapshot, … and meant to be, … ust so, of real, surreal states.  Mt. King’s surreal summit, reveals blue prints that brightly paint, … yellow-bricked roads;  …  to bright, … destinies.

What’s at chapters one through twelve, again, is a closely guarded secret, … obviously.  A Crew counseled Art:  …  Pray and commemorate. …  Then pray again.  Then act.  Do to kin what you’d wish for you.  Know that Karma, ironically, … works.  …  Then ask, … as is, … your wont, … anyway.

It behooves us Governor (PR, you, Kiko, Jay and Art) to collaborate.  … Were we to begin uniting on (the governor’s reelection), … a corollary thing, … to accomplish core things, … this blueprint to yellow brick roads may be, … how stars, … may teach us, … to shine brightly. 

Again, we dreamt, … how Lou, in his best English, pitches his artful ruse at ritzy, high end GOP confabs.  …  Starry-eyed bigwigs, … wide-eyed, … listen raptly as Lou reveals how independence, … like a thief, … in the dark of night, … stole up on PR.  …  Prompted, … all chanted: …

… “U!S!A!, FIFTY STATES!”, over and over again.  Then anew, Lou anew enthralls, and anew, … entranced listeners, … clap, … toast, … chant and swill;   …   Get the freaking picture?  Political board rooms, not town halls are where, … ‘fat’ is cut, … pols mull polls, … poll blue bloods, … and the people, … roll.

Governor, it doesn’t take much to fire imaginations, whether for well, … or for ill.  …  Imagine then, … when nee mental midgets start, … reading critically; for what’s happened to Luce and yourself these past few days was, … for PR, …. akin to, … two kicks, … to ‘SPIC’, … shins.

Or a forehand slap to a cheek, followed by an even harder backhand slap, … to the other cheek.  That necks of some red necked Maine Yankees are as red as those of southern red necks past’s no surprise to the Crew, but it may, too, … open eyes, … reveal hearts, … and minds … free.

“They never even knew what hit ‘em!”.  …  So crow politicos when politically, … outflanked is opposition; … whatever or whomever;  …  an in-party rival, … opposition parties, … or even the people, … the very same folks, … Louie, … duly swore, … to honor.

Mind you Honorable Governor, … Mister Luis Fortuno, … most respectfully:  Consider:  …  The vice versas, … of perception and reality, …explains lots of things beyond dreams, … and prophesies, … and a holy happenstance like, … a felled, … dead, … but wise, … tree.

The sage tree’s overall lesson to the Crew, … on a not, … unusually, … windy day, … resonated three days with the Zoo.  …  As if time’s chime, … it resounded profoundly within them.  …  Three days later still, … epiphanies followed.   …  Revelation:  …  In. … verse, … sublime.

The sage tree’s overall lesson to the Crew, … on what turned out to be, … a normally breezy day, … resonated thrice.  …  As in time, … with time’s chime, a gong-clanging dead tree softly whispered, pouring insightful secrets.  In turn, we turn over to you, … memories, … in time.

Memories in time are yet still, … perhaps, … in time.  The sage tree’s overall lesson to a Crew, … blew them away, …on, … metaphysically, … a tempest of a day.  Thrice it resonated in time.  Mysterious, … that a felled dead tree cue;  … but thought, … stretches license, … poetically.

So malleably elastic, … is poetic license, … that it even allows for metaphysical interpolation of many diverse things, … that albeit, … effectively invisible, … are too, … evident;  …  for, … increasingly, … wannabes, … need to be.

So malleably golden, … is poetic license, …that it also allows for mathematical interpolation, … of values sought, but that ne’er shall be found, so long as we don’t do more to nurture treasures;  …  to infuse men, … with, … acumen accrued. 　

So pliable and shapeable is poetic license, …that it allows for wide doors, through which wannabes, … may peer through, … or walk through, … to be, … truly, … all they ever, … could have dreamed of being.  Wannabes wants to secure.   …   To wannabes everywhere:  …  Let’s, … builders be.

Some time has passed.  It passes still.  …  And come an inaugural December GCD, … that time hence, … shall be, … now.  …  Unprecedented omens may transpire then.  …  Imagine then, unprecedented moments,  … on twelve twenty-one, … when we all;  …  wave to, … astral, … spacemen.

Such a GCD light show, … as if an exclamation point shall be, … on Rick and Tony’s messages, … on purpose and change;  …  the central Big Threes’ message, … “Do unto others as you’d have them do unto thee.”;  … and Wannabe’s:  …  Time, … to concertedly, … forge destinies.

Louie, Louie, Louie, Lou … ie; promulgate this plea.   Implement this plea. Wannabes, (the wine and cheese miracles), … aims to forge destiny. …  It’s congruent with your biz APPs.  And where your ‘Tus Valores Cuentan is, it squarely fits too; … ready to, … forge destinies.

So given that, … what story graces the front pages of mags, rags and video replays of media machines everywhere?  …  It’s “Where’s Arthur?”, … reminiscent, … of once upon another mindless time, … when folks whiled time away, asking, … “Where’s Waldo?”.  …  Don’t mind, … where’s, … Arthur.

Ever look for a hat, … already on your head?  Or glasses, … on bridges, … just under eyes?  …  Or otherwise, … not clearly observe, …. what you look for?   A change of perspective often brings into view what’s unsuccessfully, … sought for.   In looking for hats, … don’t God, … overlook.

To wit, Wannabes wanting to be a self-help book; … self-help, … ever admirable, is stunted, … without God’s help.  …  To wit, … The Sexy Six, … once giddy with mission, … yet nearly came to physical blows as uncontainable pressure mounted.  …  Publish;  …  to fixes, … fix.

That one, … and only, … conflict, … remarkable for its singularity (given our focus), was remarkable, … moreover, … for ha-ha silliness.  The Zoo Crew vehemently argued over, … of all things, … who was the more artistic, … Madonna, … or Lady Gaga.

In the aftermath of that near dust up of a fracas, … the Crew poignantly learned that evolving to the transcendence the Council implores is going to take far more than just a gaggle of six animated poets, … and Art’s correspondence.

Consider what ought be your Maker’s terrifically wicked sense of humor.  … We assume He’s the One behind the series of fateful events underlying overall results we’ve come to know as The Miracle, … The Miracle Of The Wines, … And The Cheeses.

What else?  Evicted, near dirt broke and plumb out of time, a Zoo Crew’s frenetic appeal, is to Mother Earth’s (Mom’s) denizens, … directly, … and to sympathizers (amongst them, … a publisher, at long last).  …  What’s surreal?   What’s real?  …  Both, … comprise, … reality.

Preoccupation with Arthur’s whereabouts ought not distract so. Dreaming and scheming, we planned this, … to a ‘T’.  …  The proof is in the pudding. … Art won’t comment until Thanksgiving Day.  Renaissance II, … the global one’s, coming.  Hold on, … to hats.  …  We’ll soon be transcending. 

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“… perchance to dream …” of what was, ought, may and shall be.  The illustrious literati of history:  Plato, Aristotle, Socrates, …Shakespeare, Shaw, et. al., in occidental lands and their eastern peers, Lao-zi, Kong-fu-zi, Muhammad, … Buddha, … Gandhi, … et. al., … see.  

                                Billi, “Buzz” Ard, the Fly, 

The proverbial fly on the wall is near everywhere. …  What’s the all seeing, all hearing Buzz, … Ard seen, … and heard, … over the ages?  Kisses, hugs and sighs;  merciless eviscerations, beheadings, rapes;  shrill, blood-curdling screams;  … Buzz the fly’s been, … on all, … man’s stages.

Hung, “Kong” King, the Ape,

Kong, the ape; as dysfunctional as necessary to ruin whatever is planned;  a big fan of royalty and all its trappings, … Kong,abhors change, revels in political incorrectness and limits, … what’s ‘needlessly’ planned to meals, … TV Guide, … wine, … and song.

Lou, “The Lip” Lippi, the Lemming, 

Lou the lemming is the Arthur Everman of animal worlds.  He’s filled with sorrow.  Best being, … all things, … to men, … as convenient. …  He’s heard the Word, and of opiates of masses;  … fate’s loneliness and his sad morrows do fuel, … a powerless, … irrelevance.

Imso, “Job”, Stateless, the Chupacabra,

Job, the chupacabra is a shy, … God knows what. …  Afraid of ubiquitous shadows, … of good doctors, … whom might yet help; … of life, … love, … and, … dreams.  If anything (save blood-sucking) need getting done, what better day then, than tomorrow?  For dreams, … lose steam, … when stymied are, … dream, … teams.

Abraham Solomon, “Nerd” al-Nerdi, the Sheep, 

Abe, the sheep:  Abe is surely the geekiest sheep alive;  … a missing link, all too rare.  But from Abe to Art, … not a clue to review.  … Dreams are like that.  Of course, getting credit matters not to those whom seek where treasures are.  What matters is, … treasures are, … where hearts are.　

　and Arthur, “Art”, Everman, 

Ah, Arthur: Less than heroic looking, nonetheless, Art, like some heroes, is a dreamer;  but like all too many, … dreamers, … a dreamer of pipes. … For dreams, being dreamy, oft dissipate before life’s onslaught, as if, … they never were.  Yet visions may, … when in time, … become ripe.

A God-sent Crew, signs, and friends newly found thereby augur that the Crew’s visionary reprise, … may distinguish this plan, … from Art’s solo plan, … eight years past.  Similar but distinct, as God’s day, from his night. If you ask Art, truly, He’s (really) planned, … we may, … surreally, … plan.

That both, … actual reality, … and an ethereal, … ‘surreality’ are seemingly climaxing simultaneously, … are scrumptiously sweet ironies. …  Of three self-fulfilling prophesies, … two are, … on way.  … One’s done. … Letters and numbers, … are.

One down and two to go.  As planned, it was as if, surreally: …  Just write it, … and they shall come. …  Then in rushing flow, … January morrows flowed into August, the prophesized month.  Of a sudden, three signs in a wink.  A date was set within, … a most narrow, … window.

How narrow?  …  Dreamt formulas midpointed the difference between a solar minus a lunar month, … times eighteen days, … between third and first signs (altogether, the crash, dash and flash), from the first sign in the pm of August 6^th:  Prime time, … to act, … or not: … September, … fifth.

In incremental steps, the first, … of some important movers and shakers were to be recruited. …  Barack, Luis, Jay;  … first team wannabe starters are hereby forewarned that, Romney, Ryan and Rush, on call for tryouts, shall be comp; …  A-plan, … counts on, … so spurring, … A-threes.

Plan-A counts on, … but can’t rely upon A’s. …  Able second team starter wannabes, … in a pinch, … might do, … most ably. …  Plan C, …. anarchy, … for obvious reasons, … we ought avoid.  C has been done before.  A reprise would be, … like eye sticking. … It makes for eyes, … sticky.

So, in incremental steps, … beginning 9-6:  One; …  Cued, by correspondence copies, … were first teamers;  … thirty-three days hence, … Al‘s … wannabe, … seconds.  …  Two: … Advised too were, … local and international press.  …  Three:  Global coop; … Wannabes, … the, … movie.

Perhaps Wannabes, the movie, may follow the lead of Invisible Children and Jason Russell.  Russell’s “Move” video sequel to “Kony, 2012″ begs folks:  march in Washington 11-17.  … Demand that despot Kony, … get his due, … past due. 

That bold plans, … boldly planned and executed, … augur possible victory, … even sometimes, … against odds, … seemingly insurmountable, … are among history’s best lessons.  …  A naked Jew’s escape, … from a Nazi prison camp, by ‘becoming’, … corpse, … is one such jewel.

Indeed, history’s revelatory.  It teaches:  Yon dreams and means, … end planning’s key.  We intuitively know that we may consciously forge our destinies. … See von Bismarck’s story;  there, … a master planner, … artfully shows, … when to act; … when to lie low; … grandly.

When to act;  …  when to lie low. … Von Bismarck and other great marksmen keenly sense larger pictures.  …  To win, … one must shrewdly, … and cunningly know, when to finger triggers, and when to linger; not fingering, the trigger; … safely.  It’s vital, … we act, … or not, … accordingly.

Eureka!  Holy Scriptures, … Rick’s tome re our individual purposes, … Tony’s on near instantaneous, … positive changes in … conduct, … Mandela’s example, … a coop model and the Zoo Crew’s dreamy story on kinship, … augur, … we may act, … akin.

Sensing sales, prospective publishers ought be hot to trot.  But one alone is sought.  The Crew, antsy to publish already, … say:  …  It hath cometh, … to pass.  …  What will Pres, Gov, and Jay do?  On which side of the issue are they?  The times fly. …  Elevenths months too, … doth cometh.

A “Nuevo Trato,” is called for;  …  something akin to FDR’S, … to sweeten the pot before November tea parties, …blast the USA, … and PR, … to austerity.  …  “Nuevo Trato,” sounds fresh to island ears;  …  and its not, too late; … for “Deal II?”;  …  What say you, … Hussein?

Sorry, … Barry.  …  We couldn’t resist.  …  No public official, … Art has ever written to, … ever duly dignified Art, … with a response.  …   Not a one.  No wonder, … no man is a prophet, … in his own land.  Wannabes, written bi-directionally, … forces, … response.

That bi-directionality, (more accurately, … multi-directionality), … force response, … is to be expected. …  For better or worse, … reactivity, … is a trait we share with all life forms.  …  So, just as the squeaky wheel gets grease, …, even a mousy, … squeaker, …

… may be perceived to frighteningly resound; … as might a lion’s roar, … in the still of night.  …  Such sounds, … may terrify villages, … entirely. …  Or, … alternatively, … as actually intended: … Might annoying squeaks, … be of service, … towards forging, … our destinies?

For Art, the intestate layman, turned lawyer, turned lush, … turned lyrical philosopher, … learned, … invaluable truths, … not in school, … but asleep. …  In an otherworldly realm between life and death, answered was Arthur’s plaintive prayer:  What if, … from “what if”, … rich harvests, … we reap?

And what if, … from the corollary, … “to be or not to be”, … we similarly, … reap?  And what if, … come GCD, … wide awake, … we await the galactic crossings, … that’ll take place, on about that date.  What if awake, not asleep, we cast, … symbolic votes, … on said date.

That is to say that if a meager force of six, armed with pens (not swords), taste victory, … what then might a few billion do, … if we answered calls, …and got minds right?  By forging a global destiny, … we’d forge our own. Accordingly, that’s Wannabes vision, … in a nutshell.

What a freak it’ll be if (God willing) multitudes of Mom’s live-in kids (His kids really), on reading this tell (friends and) family, … of no dearthof events GCD;  …  like a crew viewing from space, … waves of candles alit, really, … surreally, … alit; … waves, … from, … His, … Earth.

And what a freak! … It actually can be that if (God willing), we might someday soon celebrate the actual setting of a date (on some future GCD perhaps), when bygones are bygones. … and we collectively soon … move toward, … a brave, …, … new world order.  …  Right On!

Louie, Louie, Louie, Lou … ie;  promulgate this plea.  Implement this plea. Wannabes, (the wine and cheese miracles), … aims to forge destiny.  It fits with your biz APPs. …  And where your ‘Tus Valores Cuentan’ is, … it squarely fits too;  …  ready to, … well forge, … destinies.

And what a freaking freak it shall be if (God willing) throngs of Mom’s resident kids (His kids truly), on reading this tell, … (friends and) family of PR too, or what’s abuzz at COMPAI;  talk turned biz, the world’s biz, is PR’s biz;  Real, … destiny;  …  surreally, … holy.

Heed The Council, puny Earthlings.  The power of prayer, the power of One, has been ‘proven’ herein in a most public way.  …  Some shall go into naysay mode.  …  It’s of no consequence. … The negative publicity has  been great for coffers, … of those who, … wanna know.

Don’t take anecdotal words for it;  read too, The Forgotten Factor.  The landmark study, scientifically, … evidences, … the power of prayer.  An immediate application:  …  We’d well forge our destinies, … if we’d pray. … Theism, … and science, … marry, … hither.

To go the rest of “The Way”, ever mindful that no mortal can know of whens and wheres, pragmatic, … we’ll be. …  Take shortcuts to prosperity. …  Simplify things.  Abnegate, … nationality.  Accent, … humanity. …  And what others built;  … build, … atop it, … opportunity.

Divine thought, … at first individually, … then collectively, … may set in motion. … forces, … far greater, … than those, … that may be mustered by, … any lone individual.  …  We have learned but not yet mastered, … said incisive lesson.  Best, … we act forthwith,… and not, … by and by.

Heads and hearts are crushed routinely upon life’s byways.  It is, as they say, just par for the course.  With signs’ comings, … a tree, … a thief, … and a tryst, a plan’s time has, … at last come.  …  It’s Art’s (tweaked, … and reprised) plan for peace.  …  Pray.  …  Then sow and reap;  …  with Holy, … twists. 

Hear us, silly Earthlings.  Madness, … that of just plain people and nations alike, a zoo of peoples, … and His mysteries, … crossing ages, … are clues. …  Nazcan lines, … pyramids, … ancient prophets, … mysteries all, … clue you to do, … what a, … homo sapiens’, … got to do.

Dear lector’s oblivious now, … but coming soon to towns everywhere, … may be one of Puerto Rico’s (PR), and the world’s most cleverly named folks, … chachomanopapa, Inc., (CMP, or also COMPAI);  … exporters, … of, a dreamscape, … so retro-visionary.

A Crew conjured COMPAI to communicate (like heroine Emily), … with everyone.  They’d left Margaritavilles, … to Jimmy, … and their fates. …  Their unlikely return from, … most notably, … forty years … under deserts’ searing suns, hint, … faith, … and prayer, … sometimes do, … forge fate.

Faith rewarded;  prayers answered;  a Crew’s not only alive and well, … and returneth, … from the desert’s, … duly alcohol desiccated Ville, but there saw (as if astrologically Saul-to-Paul-like-thunder-stricken) resplendence:  Through deserts’ ways, … “The (one) Way’s”, … path, … pointed.

A path thru fractured communities, … the yellow brick road blue-printed and highlighted herein, paves, paints and marks with signposts a narrow path already thrice blazed.  Signposts clearly read, “The Way”, not “Mecca”, nor even, revered “Jerusalem”.  …  It is, … a path, …to wealth. 

Spiritual, … not, earthly wealth. …  That’s not to say, however, that we ought not aspire to material wealth, … in our all too brief forays, … as bit players, … upon earthly stages.  …  However, that’ll require, … not getting mired in issues, … quagmires, … that lead us, … astray.

There is no shame in making money.  …  For crying out loud, if one does it honestly, … your ’bro, … you’ll feed.  …  But if you make it miserably, … as ye reap, … so … sow.  …  Know ye indubitably: By making amends, … communities, you’ll sow.  …  Humans:  …  Forge …. your … due … destinies. 

Money, it’s often been said, is the root of all evil and makes the world go round.  Both are demonstrably untrue.  …  Certainly much evil, … is done incident to money.  …  However, it needs it not.  And if anything makes the Earth go round, … it is love, … and not vile evil, …

… nor, … the ephemeral currencies of nations. … So, … to the extent,… that it may be used to accomplish, … noble purposes, … it may well be used to do so, … as the Scriptures do attest. …  To that end then, … let all who agree that there is strength in numbers, … then swell …

… our numbers to those surpassing those of even the largest of colonies of ants; …  that agree that our largely congruent, … and only somewhat discordant Scriptures, … be savored in complimentary accompaniment of one another, … much like the tasty …

… but distinct, … flavors within a single dish; … and that agree that their harmonious combination, … a focusing of forces, … would far go toward the accomplishment of His purpose;  …  if so agreed, … do be ambitious. …Make Mother Earth,… smarter, … smaller, … and safer.

Chachomanopapa’s every two syllables are the Spanish diminutives for, … boy, brother and father, … fashioned, … into a single word.  The transcendences we undergo from boys to fathers and from girls to mothers, … mirror lives;  …  our challenging, … crucibles.

Chachomanopapa’s meant to both noun and verb be;  …  to be both that place on the net where we’re reborn, … learn, … earn, … and, … transcend to views that come to view, from atop the mountaintop from atop which Dr. King, … (who can forget) dreamt of a world, … more like, … His Kingdom, … come.

Not retro-visionary enough, … fast enough; … to save a home from foreclosure.  A Marshal and co-author Art agreed he’d be out, … ’freely’, … by September 10^th, … in order to suffer not, … the indignity of a, … Lanzamiento (a throwing);  …  bruising an ego, … bruised already.

Art’s home has, for nigh on twenty years been heaven on earth.  …  A spectacular valley features a fresh water pool below and heavily forested mountain ridges above.  …  Insect bird feeders flit about.  …  Hawks patiently patrol, … for chicks that momma hen, … don’t heed.

An Indian mongoose import, egg in mouth, was once spotted;  and so, … similarly, a hawk spotted, … lifting, … and quickly dropping, … a wide, … hen;  …  extraordinary, ordinary events.  Better, … Arthur’s neighbor’s cows; … daily visited, … Art’s, … (Fannie Mae’s), … cooling shade.

Not retro-visionary enough, … fast enough; … to save a home from foreclosure.  But, perhaps, … just in the nick of time, … macrocosmically, … to save a planet.  However implausibly, … that’s what’s planned.  Getting out of this rut, and onto, … crests of waves, … ‘net surfingly’. 

Fates of trees, thieves and trysts are illuminating.  A tree now feeds kin where it nearly fell once, … on fatty heads.  …  But its lessons were many; … one of them is ontology.  We ne’er know neither form, … nor from, … of epiphanies.  …  Quite a legacy;  …  really;  …  surreally. 

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World Smile Day

Did you know today is World Smile Day?  Did you even know that we had a World Smile Day?  In the era of special days for practically every day of the year (can you image what that calendar would look like…maybe I should make it and become a millionaire!)  Back to the story…

You see that cute bright yellow smiley face?  Well Harvey Ball created the smiley face back in 1963 and it has become an international symbol of good will and cheer.  That smiley face has been used all over the place, I would venture to guess that the little yellow of sunshine was the catalyst for what we use all the time – the emoticon.  So after a while Harvey got concerned because his smiley face started showing up on all kinds of things and became a commodity.  Wanting to bring back the original meaning of the smiley face, Harvey came up with World Smile Day in 1999 (are you all singing that Prince song?    that sure popped into my head).

So take time today to smile…randomly…at everyone…for any reason.

Smile ya later!

Cathy

A smile is happiness you’ll find right under your nose.
~Tom Wilson

It’s time for another edition of Favorite Quote Friday!  Each week since the beginning of this blog, I have brought you some of my favorite quotes from authors, motivational speakers, and others.   For a while now I have thought that Favorite Quotes Friday should have its very own blog.  Well, my babies, it’s going to happen!  Stay tuned for details about when and where Favorite Quotes Friday is moving to.

Now on to today’s post…

“Improving the world, one smile at a time”

Ball posing with a selection of Smiley merchandising (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Today is World Smile Day.  This day was created by the late Harvey Ball (1921-2001), the Massachusetts artist who created the iconic yellow smiley face in 1963.  Ball wanted people to use the first Friday of every October for random acts of kindness that will hopefully bring smiles to people’s faces.

Shortly after Ball’s death, the Harvey Ball World Smile Organization was set up to honor him and continues to sponsor activities that promote acts of kindness.

Things YOU Can Do to Make Someone Smile

Below are a list of 10 simple things you can do to lift someone’s spirits and even put a smile on your face.  Why don’t you take some time out today and pick one (or even all) of these things.  You will thank yourself for it.  I promise you.

• Volunteer to read to or even just talk to a resident at a retirement a retirement home.
• Bake cookies (or muffins, or fudge, or pies, etc.) and give them to your neighbors.  Be creative with it—put them in a gift basket or a pretty tin, or something homemade.
• Volunteer to rake leaves or clean the house of an elderly neighbor or family member.
• Pay the grocery bill of the person standing in front of you at the supermarket.
• Send your best friend a handwritten letter telling them how much you appreciate their friendship.
• Volunteer to babysit a family member or friend’s children so they and their spouse  can have a “date night.”
• Buy a stuffed toy for a sick child in the hospital.
• Compliment a random stranger on the street.
• Volunteer at a soup kitchen/food pantry.
• Smile at someone, anyone, and tell them to have a nice day.

Find Happiness Right Under Your Nose!

Have you ever felt lousy and depressed all day long, thinking things are never going to improve for you…only to have your mood change in an instant when you felt a smile creep up on your lips?  I know it can’t be just me!

Actor/standup comedian Tom Wilson is right.  A smile is happiness you’ll find right under your nose.   There’s no excuse to be a deadpan Debbie Downer all the time.  If you do nothing but sit around and be negative, it stands to reason you will never find happiness.  Ever.  You have to pull yourself up by your bootstraps and smile in the face of adversity.

If you want to find happiness, just look under your nose and turn up the corners of your mouth.  Then go out and do one of the things I have listed above, and keep on smiling while you are doing it!  Smile until it feels like your face is going to break off into a million pieces…then relax for a minute, rub your cheeks, and then start smiling again.  People might look at you like you’re an escaped patient from the mental hospital, but who cares?

Happy World Smile Day!

Related articles

• The smiley emoticon turns 30 (ibnlive.in.com)
• don’t worry….. smile and be happy (randomthortz.com)

According to http://www.worldsmile.org/ “The Harvey Ball World Smile Foundation was established in 2001 to honor the name and memory of Harvey Ball, the artist who in 1963 created that international symbol of goodwill, the smiley face. Harvey Ball believed that each one of us has the ability to make a positive difference in this world and he lived according to that belief. He knew that any effort to improve the world, no matter how small, was worthwhile. And he understood the power of a smile and a kind act. In furtherance of that philosophy the Harvey Ball World Smile Foundation focuses on small, grass-roots charitable efforts that otherwise receive little attention or funding.”

Celebrate life with a smile … pass it along!

October (Photo credit: ccrrii)

Happy Monday and Happy October, everyone!  *sniffs the air*  MMM…I love a new month smell, don’t you?  October is especially pleasant because the days are shorter and autumn is in full swing.  The leaves turn brilliant colors and then fall dead from skinny tree branches.  And pretty soon, adults and children alike will build bonfires and dress up in bizarre costumes to get money and candy…and loads of attention.

The freaks come out at night in October, my babies….

This day, October 1, also marks the beginning of a brand new Ultimate Blog Challenge!  If you haven’t already signed up, I highly urge you to do it.  You will meet a lot of fantastic people and will discover all sorts of things about yourself and your blog.  Sign up and participation is easy!  All you have to do is register at the site, post new content at least 31 times throughout the month, and share what you posted.  That’s it!

This month I am determined to finish this challenge.  I participated in July this year and with less than a week to go in the challenge, my computer died and I began a months-long battle with AT&T so I was unable to finish it.  That made me so mad!  But I am keeping my fingers crossed that no bad things happen this month.  I want to accomplish just this one little thing, dammit.  *shakes threatening fist at the Internet Gods* DO NOT mess this up for me, you guys!

Now that I have that out of the way, I think I should tell you what my theme is going to be for the month of October.  Ladies and gents, I want you to think  of this post as the beginning of “The 31 Flavors of October.”  What is that, you ask?  Basically it’s my highly unoriginal way of telling you that I am going to blog about something different every day in October.  There are all kinds of weird observances going on each day this month, and I am going to post about them all.

Just to give you a little taste of what I am talking about, the following list is what I will be blogging about this week:

October 2:  International Day of Non-Violence

The United Nations established this day in 2007 to observe Mahatma Ghandi’s birthday and to continue spreading his message of non-violence.

October 3:  German Unity Day

This year marks the 22nd anniversary of German reunification!

October 4:  World Pet Day

If you pet lovers needed a day to officially recognize your pet, well you have it.  Mark your calendars, folks, and go out and buy Fido a little pressie.   Also, check with your local churches, kids.  A lot of them bless your pet on this day.

October 5:  World Smile Day

Harvey Ball created the iconic “Smiley Face” nearly 50 years ago in 1963.  On this day, let’s celebrate that cheerful little mug by smiling at strangers and performing random acts of kindness.  It’s the least we can do to honor dear Harvey’s memory.

October 6:  National German-American Day

October is a HUGE month for Germans, don’t ya know?  There’s Oktoberfest,  German Unity Day, German Thanksgiving, and this day for us German-Americans.  Get out those lederhosen and dirndls and start practicing that ländler so you can be as good as Captain von Trapp and Fräulein Maria in the Sound of Music.

Can you tell I’m excited about all the German stuff happening this week?   I love being German.

October 7:  You Matter to Me Day

Is there someone in your life who matters to you?  Have you let them know how much they matter to you?  If you haven’t (or even if you have!) take one second out of your day today and let them know “You matter to me.”

And that, my babies, is a little taste of what you can expect from the 31 Flavors of October.  There is much more to come, so please stay tuned!  Please let me know what you think by leaving a comment below, and if you want to keep up-to-date with what’s going on with this blog, please feel free to subscribe via RSS or e-mail.  I would love to have you!

Related articles

• October Sees Auto Sales Increases; German Brands Lead The Way (newcarquotesonline.com)
• SCHEDULE: What to expect on MyLIFEin24Hours this whole month of October! (mylifein24hours.wordpress.com)
• German American Club to host Oktoberfest (azstarnet.com)
• Awaiting October (citygirlvibe.com)

Smiley face / 2011 / oil on canvas / 41×31cm
I wanted a poster of smileys. However, I do not find new and vintage are too expensive, I can not buy it. If so, I decided to draw on their own. Was able to be incomplete. Learned that by the arrangement of the eyes and mouth, the impression will change considerably.Salute to Mr. Harvey Ball!

988 The city of Dublin was founded on the banks of the river Liffey.

1212 The most severe of several early fires of London burns most of the city to the ground.

1452  King James III of Scotland  was born (d. 1488).

1460 Richard Neville, 16th Earl of Warwick defeated  the king’s Lancastrian forces and took King Henry VI prisoner in the Battle of Northampton.

1499  Portuguese explorer Nicolau Coelho returned to Lisbon, after discovering the sea route to India as a companion of Vasco da Gama.

1509  John Calvin, French religious reformer, was born  (d. 1564).

1553 Lady Jane Grey took the throne of England.

1584 William I of Orange was assassinated by Balthasar Gérard.

1645  English Civil War: The Battle of Langport.

1778 American Revolution: Louis XVI of France  declared war on the Kingdom of Great Britain.

1789 Alexander Mackenzie reached the Mackenzie River delta.

1802 Robert Chambers, Scottish author and naturalist, was born  (d. 1871).

1804  – Emma Smith, Inaugural President of the Women’s Relief Society of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, was born (d. 1879).

1806 The Vellore Mutiny, the first instance of a mutiny by Indian sepoys against the British East India Company.

1821 The United States took possession of its newly bought territory of Florida from Spain.

1830 Camille Pissarro, French painter, was born  (d. 1903).

1850  Millard Fillmore was inaugurated as the 13th President of the United States.

1859 Big Ben rang for the first time.

1864  Austin Chapman, Australian policitian, was born (d. 1926).

1871  Marcel Proust, French writer, was born (d. 1922).

1875  Mary McLeod Bethune, American educator, was born (d. 1955).

1903 John Wyndham, British author, was born (d. 1969).

1909 Donald Sinclair, British hotel manager, inspiration for Fawlty Towers, was born  (d. 1981).

1913  Death Valley, California hit 134 °F (~56.7 °C), the highest temperature recorded in the United States.

1921 Belfast’s Bloody Sunday: 16 people were killed and 161 houses destroyed during rioting and gun battles in Belfast, Northern Ireland.

1921 Harvey Ball, American commercial artist, was born (d. 2001).

1925 Meher Baba began his silence of 44 years. His followers observe Silence Day on this date in commemoration.

1925 Scopes Trial: The so-called “Monkey Trial” began with John T. Scopes, a young high school science teacher accused of teaching evolution in violation of the Butler Act.

1931 Alice Munro, Canadian writer, was born.

1938  Howard Hughes set a new record by completing a 91 hour flight around the world.

1940 Tom Farmer, Scottish entrepreneur, was born.

1940 World War II: the Vichy government is established in France.

1940  World War II: Battle of Britain – The German Luftwaffe began attacking British convoys in the English Channel thus starting the battle (this start date is contested).

1941 Jedwabne Pogrom: the massacre of Jewish people living in and near the village of Jedwabne in Poland.

1943 World War II: The launching of Operation Husky began the Italian Campaign.

1947 Arlo Guthrie, American musician, was born.

1947  Quaid-i-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah was recommended as the first Governor General of Pakistan by then Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Clement Attlee.

1951 Korean War: Armistice negotiations began.

1954 Neil Tennant, British musician (Pet Shop Boys), was born.

1962  Telstar, the world’s first communications satellite, is launched into orbit.

1966 The Chicago Freedom Movement, lead by Martin Luther King, held a rally at Soldier Field in Chicago, Illinois.

1967 New Zealand adpoted decimal currency.

1968 Maurice Couve de Murville became Prime Minister of France.

1973  The Bahamas gained full independence within the Commonwealth of Nations.

1973 – National Assembly of Pakistan passed a resolution on the recognition of Bangladesh.

1971  King Hassan II of Morocco survived an attempted coup d’etat, which lasts until June 11.

1976 The Seveso disaster in Italy.

1976   One American and three British mercenaries were executed in Angola following the Luanda Trial.

1978  President Moktar Ould Daddah of Mauritania was ousted in a bloodless coup d’état.

1980 Alexandra Palace burned down for a second time.

1985  Greenpeace vessel Rainbow Warrior was bombed and sank in Auckland harbour.

1991 Boris Yeltsin began his 5-year term as the first elected President of Russia.

1991  The South African cricket team was readmitted into the International Cricket Council following the end of Apartheid.

1992 In Miami, Florida, former Panamanian leader Manuel Noriega is sentenced to 40 years in prison for drug and racketeering violations.

1997 Scientists reported the findings of the DNA analysis of a Neanderthal skeleton which supported the “out of Africa theory” of human evolution placing an “African Eve” at 100,000 to 200,000 years ago.

1997 – Partido Popular (Spain) member Miguel Ángel Blanco was kidnapped in the Basque city of Ermua by ETA members, sparking widespread protests.

1998 The Diocese of Dallas agreed to pay $23.4 million to nine former altar boys who claimed they were sexually abused by former priest Rudolph Kos.

2000 A leaking southern Nigerian petroleum pipeline explodes, killing about 250 villagers scavenging gasoline.

2000  EADS, the world’s second-largest aerospace group is formed by the merger of Aérospatiale-Matra, DASA, and CASA.

2002  At a Sotheby’s auction, Peter Paul Rubens’ painting The Massacre of the Innocents sold for £49.5million (US$76.2 million) to Lord Thomson.

2003 A bus collided with a truck, fell off a bridge on Tuen Mun Road, Hong Kong, and plunged into the underlying valley, killing 21 people.

2005  Hurricane Dennis slams into the Florida Panhandle, causing billions of dollars in damage.

2006 Pakistan International Flight PK-688 crashes in Multan, Pakistan, shortly after takeoff, killing all 45 people on board.

2008  Former Macedonian Interior Minister Ljube Boškoski is acquitted of all charges by a United Nations Tribunal accusing him of war crimes.

2011 – Russian cruise ship Bulgaria sunk in Volga near Syukeyevo, Tatarstan, leading to 122 deaths.

Sourced from NZ History Online & Wikipedia

Photo by E. Medline

If I hold a finch in my hand, will it make me incandescent, like a candle? Did this bird actually descend from the dinosaurs, in the same way amoebas propelled themselves from the sea to meet the worms?   

Photo by E. Medline

What a bunch of show-off warbling granivores, electrifying their plumage because they crave attention, preferring conspicuous conceit to old-fashioned camouflage. Even the more muted females eclipse the other birds currently in flight. Goldfinches could be mistaken for pet budgies that escaped the cage, so strange do they seem in these drab parts.  Yes, in these parts, too much brightness can seem unnecessary and vapid, like the smiley face. “I made a circle with a smile for a mouth on yellow paper, because it was sunshiny and bright,” said Harvey Ball, inventor of that iconic symbol.

Photo by E. Medline

If we hold a finch in our hands, will the world flare like a firework, dripping willow trails? Did this bird actually descend from the dinosaurs, in the same way black-and-white television got all classy and became high definition?     

Le parentesi spezzavano i periodi senza particolari meriti, facendo da sentinelle  a una puntualizzazione che non doveva debordare all’esterno di un concetto, il punto e virgola era un vezzo elitario usato con vigile parsimonia perché oggettivamente misterioso e oscuramente elegante, nessuno ha mai realmente capito come posizionarlo, complici le differenti scuole di pensiero sul suo opinabile uso, finché dopo la terza media non ci abbiamo messo collettivamente una pietra sopra e così sia. Tracce di esso si ritroveranno solo nei temi di maturità, dove per darci un tono, gli abbiamo disperatamente trovato una collocazione, perché  nel tema di maturità almeno un maturo punto e virgola ci stava tutto.

Dal quel momento in poi, del punto e virgola, non si ebbero più notizie.

Tuttavia, contro ogni pronostico, l’anatroccolo della punteggiatura avrebbe fatto una rentrée spettacolare nelle nostre vite, arrivando verso il  2012 a spodestare ufficialmente il semplice punto dalla chiusura del 50 % degli statement brevi scritti internazionali, e lo avrebbe fatto grazie a un’ insolita alleanza con l’altra cenerentola della letteratura, la parentesi tonda. La manovra partì addirittura dagli anni 60 e in tre ventenni si posteggiò perfettamente nelle nostre abitudini.

Perchè questi due elementi uniti   ;  +  ) 

- punto e virgola più parentesi – non sono altro sono la verticalizzazione metabolizzata del leggendario Smiley giallo di Harvey Ball che, un tempo sorridente e spensierato, un giorno si era coricato su un fianco e stilizzandosi aveva finito col farci l’occhiolino alla ricerca di una certa complicità  ;)

A poco a poco, anche le persone più isospettabili e restiee,  hanno iniziato in questi ultimi anni a usare  ;)  a chiusa di ogni periodo contenente una certa ironia. La cosa è continuata per vario tempo, finchè il punto e virgola e la parentesi non hanno guadagnato una visibilità senza precedenti  e noi siamo finiti con l’assuefarci al  nuovo simbolo  delegandogli in toto il tono dei nostro discorsi scherzosi. Senza che ce ne rendessimo veramente conto, gli abbiamo così conferito il potere di rendere ironiche frasi che già di per sé stesse lo erano, lo abbiamo reso garante ufficiale dell’ironia di ogni nostra frase, depositario ultimo della temperie scherzosa di quanto stiamo affermando.

Ma con l’assuefazione a  ;)   è subentrata presto una paura paradossale…la più ironica delle nostre frasi senza  ;)   rischia ultimamente di non sembrare più ironica e adesso, per  timore che le nostre affermazioni possano risultare abrasive , abbiamo psicologicamente bisogno di uno “smoothening effect”, siamo convinti di doverle sempre addolcire  con un  ;)   giustapposto in poppa per non turbare l’interlocutore, affinché non ci sia nessun fraintendimento.

Finché  ;)    non è  divenuto clamorosamente il nuovo punto. E Il tutto, come dicevo, è accaduto con un manovrone partito inconsapevolmente negli anni 60 dal Massachuttes.

ECCO LA MIA RICOSTRUZIONE STORICA DI COME SONO ANDATE LE COSE. L’ho scritta in una fredda domenica primaverile, quando ricevuta una email dal mio amico Cesare terminante con uno  ;)  stavo per rispondere a tono chiudendo anch’io con un altro  ;),  onde blindare la percezione della mia risposta ludica e fargli capire che avevo capito allineando le complicità. Tipo l’applauso che scatta nelle sitcom quando l’attore va in battuta. La gomitatina ammiccante. Quando mi sono detto…millenni di storia dell’ironia spazzati via da una strizzata d’occhio coricata per un assurdo timore di risultare abrasivo. E dal momento che timori di questo tipo a lungo andare riducono un uomo a una mammola, mi sono fatto coraggio, ho inviato la mia ironia senza sottotitoli per i non udenti e, soddisfatto, mi sono rinchiuso in cucina ripercorrendo la storia della nostra nuova debolezza onde esorcizzare una volta e per tutte la mia agghiacciante dipendenza da  ;)

Brace yourself.

 COME ABBIAMO DELEGATO L’IRONIA A UN EMOTICON e ci siamo indeboliti caratterialmente

1. 1963: Il debutto dello Smiley Giallo  Il primo Smiley giallo fu disegnato nel 1963 dall’artista americano Harvey Ball, assunto dalla State Mutual Life Assurance Company del Massachussetts per disegnare una faccia buffa da utilizzare su spille, poster e calendari da scrivania. Lo scopo era quello di tirare su il morale di 100 impiegati che, demotivati in seguito alla fusione con un’altra compagnia di assicurazioni dell’Ohio, avevano bisogno di stimoli visivi per rispondere sorridenti al telefono e comunicare una certa sicurezza ai clienti. In 5 minuti Harvey, uomo di indole raggiante,  disegnò la faccina gialla sorridente,  guadagnò 45 dollari e poi assistì divertito al big bang di quello che in cuor suo sapeva essere il proprio autoritratto: agli inizi degli anni 70 lo Smiley sarebbe infatti divenuto un’icona pop internazionale.  

2. 1982: Lo Smiley si corica.  Scott Elliott Fahlman, scienziato americano della Carnagie Mellon University di Pittsburgh, propose nella bacheca del bollettino online universitario l’uso di  :)  e  di  :(   per aiutare la gente a distinguere i post seri da quelli scherzosi. Quei bollettini erano i precursori  degli odierni newsgroups e il professor Fahlman, impreparato visivamente di fronte alla prima marea di discorsi su un piccolo schermo,  decise che bisognava dare un immediato ordine interpretativo ai vari statement onde non dare adito a equivoci: unire i due punti a una parentesi concava o convessa ponendo il nuovo simbolo a fine concetto avrebbe dunque facilitato le cose…Del resto, non era altro che coricare e decolorare il famosissmo Smiley già assimilato dalla cultura popolare: i più avrebbero capito. Nascevano gli gli emoticon.

3. 2003: Skype come cavallo di troia egli emoticon. la gente inizia a sentire il bisogno di creare nuove faccine espressive e stilizzazioni delle stesse per riassumere ogni stato d’animo umano. Si trova il nome per la nuova moda e saranno appunto chiamati dalla fusione di emotion e icon. Nel 1992 sono appena 1 milione i computer connessi a internet in tutto il mondo e gli emoticon sbarcano con successo nei forum e nell’ instant messaging, dove iniziano ad essere usati su scala massiccia.  La cosa riscuote successo tra i giovanissimi ma uno zoccolo durissimo e consistente vede la moda come infantile e non ne comprende l’uso. Fino all’arrivo di Skype. Nell’Agosto del 2003, Skype inizia a scalzare le compagnie telefoniche mondiali con la sua gratuità e inserisce in basso a destra una finestra con ben 72 emoticon differenti, un esercito pimpante che va dal classicissimo  Smiley, all’orsetto che abbraccia, senza contare  invenzioni come ✫(◠‿◠)✫ …__/\__… Gli emoticon troveranno in questa nuova linea telefonica free of charge il loro cavallo di troia definitivo…Poi, una sera di 5 anni fa, l’epifania collettiva: scopriamo che che inserendo  ;)  nella slot dei messaggi skype e spingendo avvio,  ;)   si trasforma in  La stilizzazione del professor Fahlam si era trasformata davanti ai nostri occhi in una variante ruffiana della creatura di Ball, il nostro cervello metabolizzava definitivamente la sintesi e ci spingeva a utilizzare  ;)  anche nello scritto. Perché  ;)    e erano divenute  la stessa cosa. Per sempre.

4. 2012: Morte dell’ironia (così come è stata concepita per millenni)  Scissa nello scritto dal tono di voce, l’ironia ha sempre trovato nel contesto gli spazi del suo significato, ma nell’era della dittatura psicologica degli emoticon, per arrivare a destinazione ha ultimamente il bisogno fisiologico dell’ affrancatura di uno Smiley che strizza l’occhio, la variante ruffiana dell’originale.  Ha vile necessità di un inutile assist per trasformare un rigore. Perchè senza la nostra ironia ha adesso la sensazione di non arrivare più a destinazione. Gli scambi epistolari brevi si sono dunque ridotti in questi ultimi anni  a delle pacche sulle spalle senza fine: una sfiancante  reazione a catena di mutue strizzate d’occhio gratificanti che ci ha indebolito nel carattere, reso meno sicuri di ciò che vogliamo dire e accattoni in termini di  consensi immediati…E la cruda realtà è che mi sono reso amaramente conto che quando chiudo un messaggio con , se la risposta del mio interlocutore non termina pure con penso che ci sia un problema e mi preoccupo. Viceversa, se ricevo un messaggio con mi sento misteriosamente obbligato a siglarlo con un altro per garantire l’allineamento di qualche presunta complicità. 

Adesso, se un uomo si preoccupa di una cosa simile, abbiamo un problema, è sulla buona strada per divenire una mammoletta.

Con questo scritto, dichiaro solennemente a tutte le vestali degli emoticon che d’ora in avanti, scarterò il dalle chiuse di ogni discorso scritto. E ciò per ritornare un uomo forte e coraggioso.

Anzi, lasciatemi sparare dei colpi a salve come il cannone del Gianicolo:  ;)  ;)  ;)  ;)  ;)  ;)  ;) onde nausearmi e inflazionarli davanti ai miei occhi.

E adesso un ultimo                            

Ma non vi lascio soli: ho elaborato per voi un efficacissimo

ESERCIZIO PER ESORCIZZARE  ;)  DALLE NOSTRE VITE

Fissate  ;)  e immaginate  Virgilia Raffaele che fa l’imitazione di Belen Rodriguez quando da sorridente e solare inclina di scatto la testa a sinistra miagolando con voce roca e suadente un ruffianissimo  ” Ma dai…!”  Fatto? Rifatelo una seconda volta. = “Ma dai….!” Ancora una volta, è importante che pronunciate il “Ma dai…” con cadenza argentino/milanese. Coraggio:  ;)  ” Ma dai…!”. Ecco, adesso siete liberi. Provate a utilizzare quel simbolo senza sentirvi assurdi.

Tuttavia, mi riserverò per sempre e a mia discrezione la gioia di usare  (solo su skype ) gli altri 71 emoticon, con una decisa e virile predilezione per il primo ed autentico smile di Harvey Ball e il conto alla rovescia che si trasforma in un ciak.

In memoria di Harvey Ball, che incarnò sino alla morte la ragione della sua missione sul pianeta:

ricordarci di sorridere senza strizzare l’occhio a nessuno.

Da un uomo che non ammicca più ma sorride e basta.

Manuel de Teffé

P.S.

Foto della tomba di Harvey Ball, scattata da C. Shenette in onore dello World Smile Day, 7 ottobre 2011

Link all’articolo in pdf  La dittatura degli emoticon

As it may have come across in my other letters, I’m quite a kid. I try my best to keep in touch with my inner child by sticking to some of my childish convictions. Not that I throw a tantrum whenever we go grocery shopping and I can’t have chocolate (not that often anyway).

But after rain has fallen when the worms comes up from the earth and get toasted from the now shining sun, I can’t help but to help them. I have to help them across the pavement, back onto the grass.

It’s been a rainy summer here in Denmark, so this task was more or less impossible. But the snails, oh my God; the snails. To avoid crushing their houses and taking their lives, I jump around and do a little dance that if I weren’t wearing a hoodie would look like I was doing some African tribal dance.

I imagine them saying “thank-you for your troubles” for each jump, and always wonder why I seem to be the only one bothering? Am I?

Love,
Nadia.

PS. Happy World Smile Day! Do an act of kindness. Help one person smile!

988 The city of Dublin was founded on the banks of the river Liffey.

Flag

1212 The most severe of several early fires of London burns most of the city to the ground.

 1452  King James III of Scotland  was born (d. 1488).

1460 Richard Neville, 16th Earl of Warwick defeated  the king’s Lancastrian forces and took King Henry VI prisoner in the Battle of Northampton.

1499  Portuguese explorer Nicolau Coelho returned to Lisbon, after discovering the sea route to India as a companion of Vasco da Gama.

1509  John Calvin, French religious reformer, was born  (d. 1564).

1553 Lady Jane Grey took the throne of England.

1584 William I of Orange was assassinated by Balthasar Gérard.

1645  English Civil War: The Battle of Langport.

1778 American Revolution: Louis XVI of France  declared war on the Kingdom of Great Britain.

1789 Alexander Mackenzie reached the Mackenzie River delta.

1802 Robert Chambers, Scottish author and naturalist, was born  (d. 1871).

1804  – Emma Smith, Inaugural President of the Women’s Relief Society of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, was born (d. 1879).

1806 The Vellore Mutiny, the first instance of a mutiny by Indian sepoys against the British East India Company.

1821 The United States took possession of its newly bought territory of Florida from Spain.

1830 Camille Pissarro, French painter, was born  (d. 1903).

1850  Millard Fillmore was inaugurated as the 13th President of the United States.

1859 Big Ben rang for the first time.

 1864  Austin Chapman, Australian policitian, was born (d. 1926).

1871  Marcel Proust, French writer, was born (d. 1922).

1875  Mary McLeod Bethune, American educator, was born (d. 1955).

1903 John Wyndham, British author, was born (d. 1969).

1909 Donald Sinclair, British hotel manager, inspiration for Fawlty Towers, was born  (d. 1981).

1913  Death Valley, California hit 134 °F (~56.7 °C), the highest temperature recorded in the United States.

1921 Belfast’s Bloody Sunday: 16 people were killed and 161 houses destroyed during rioting and gun battles in Belfast, Northern Ireland.

1921 Harvey Ball, American commercial artist, was born (d. 2001).

1925 Meher Baba began his silence of 44 years. His followers observe Silence Day on this date in commemoration.

1925 Scopes Trial: The so-called “Monkey Trial” began with John T. Scopes, a young high school science teacher accused of teaching evolution in violation of the Butler Act.

1931 Alice Munro, Canadian writer, was born.

1938  Howard Hughes set a new record by completing a 91 hour flight around the world.

1940 Tom Farmer, Scottish entrepreneur, was born.

1940 World War II: the Vichy government is established in France.

1940  World War II: Battle of Britain – The German Luftwaffe began attacking British convoys in the English Channel thus starting the battle (this start date is contested).

1941 Jedwabne Pogrom: the massacre of Jewish people living in and near the village of Jedwabne in Poland.

1943 World War II: The launching of Operation Husky began the Italian Campaign.

1947 Arlo Guthrie, American musician, was born.

1947  Quaid-i-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah was recommended as the first Governor General of Pakistan by then Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Clement Attlee.

1951 Korean War: Armistice negotiations began.

1954 Neil Tennant, British musician (Pet Shop Boys), was born.

1962  Telstar, the world’s first communications satellite, is launched into orbit.

1966 The Chicago Freedom Movement, lead by Martin Luther King, held a rally at Soldier Field in Chicago, Illinois.

1967 New Zealand adpoted decimal currency.

1968 Maurice Couve de Murville became Prime Minister of France.

1973  The Bahamas gained full independence within the Commonwealth of Nations.

1973 – National Assembly of Pakistan passed a resolution on the recognition of Bangladesh.

1971  King Hassan II of Morocco survived an attempted coup d’etat, which lasts until June 11.

1976 The Seveso disaster in Italy.

1976   One American and three British mercenaries were executed in Angola following the Luanda Trial.

1978  President Moktar Ould Daddah of Mauritania was ousted in a bloodless coup d’état.

1980 Alexandra Palace burned down for a second time.

1985  Greenpeace vessel Rainbow Warrior was bombed and sank in Auckland harbour.

1991 Boris Yeltsin began his 5-year term as the first elected President of Russia.

1991  The South African cricket team was readmitted into the International Cricket Council following the end of Apartheid.

1992 In Miami, Florida, former Panamanian leader Manuel Noriega is sentenced to 40 years in prison for drug and racketeering violations.

1997 Scientists reported the findings of the DNA analysis of a Neanderthal skeleton which supported the “out of Africa theory” of human evolution placing an “African Eve” at 100,000 to 200,000 years ago.

1997 – Partido Popular (Spain) member Miguel Ángel Blanco was kidnapped in the Basque city of Ermua by ETA members, sparking widespread protests.

1998 The Diocese of Dallas agreed to pay $23.4 million to nine former altar boys who claimed they were sexually abused by former priest Rudolph Kos.

2000 A leaking southern Nigerian petroleum pipeline explodes, killing about 250 villagers scavenging gasoline.

2000  EADS, the world’s second-largest aerospace group is formed by the merger of Aérospatiale-Matra, DASA, and CASA.

2002  At a Sotheby’s auction, Peter Paul Rubens’ painting The Massacre of the Innocents sold for £49.5million (US$76.2 million) to Lord Thomson.

2003 A bus collided with a truck, fell off a bridge on Tuen Mun Road, Hong Kong, and plunged into the underlying valley, killing 21 people.

2005  Hurricane Dennis slams into the Florida Panhandle, causing billions of dollars in damage.

2006 Pakistan International Flight PK-688 crashes in Multan, Pakistan, shortly after takeoff, killing all 45 people on board.

2008  Former Macedonian Interior Minister Ljube Boškoski is acquitted of all charges by a United Nations Tribunal accusing him of war crimes.

Sourced from NZ History Online & Wikipedia

But if I write that I saw a “happy face” nowadays, almost no one is going to think I mean a smirking statue, a cheerful child, or a giggling grownup.

THIS is what will pop into virtually everyone’s mind who reads the term.

So the question is, as the old song put it, “How long has this been going on?” If you are under 40, you may assume that the ubiquitous, iconic “happy face” has been a fixture in western civilization for oh, maybe a century or more.

Surely second grade teachers in your grandparents’ day scribbled such happy faces next to the A or B+ in the margin of a math paper, even if “stickers” hadn’t been invented yet.

No, they didn’t.  And therein lies a happy-face history lesson.

My earliest memories of the canary yellow, minimalist happy face are connected to hearing my two year old daughter, just learning to untangle spoken English into usable words, squealing “Oppy Cee! Oppy Cee!” in about 1972.  (It was quite a while before she mastered the letter F.) She was absolutely obsessed with the icon, and freaked out whenever she saw one—which was just about every day, just about everywhere. For in 1972 the relatively new fad was at its peak.

It had started out with just happy face buttons and happy face bumper stickers.

But once merchandisers realized the power of the image, they rendered it in a thousand different ways, in print and 3-dimensional objects.

You knew it had “arrived” when it even showed up on the cover of Mad Magazine.

So where did Mr. Oppy Cee come from?

In 1963, the State Mutual Life Assurance Company in Worcester, Massachusetts, had a morale problem. A recent company merger had left employees on edge and glum.  So local free-lance graphic artist Harvey Ball was hired to come up with a simple smiling face logo for a little in-house happiness campaign, which would have posters and desk cards—and buttons for employees to wear to remind them to smile.

Harvey’s first draft was simply a cheerful yellow circle with a smiling mouth. But when he turned it upside down, he realized that turned it into a frown. Not wanting to accidentally give a wrong impression, he added two dots for eyes to make sure the smile stayed smiling.

In a 1996 interview, Harvey commented about his original Happy Face,  “There are two ways to go about it. You can take a compass and draw a perfect circle and make two perfect eyes as neat as can be. Or you can do it freehand and have some fun with it. Like I did. Give it character.”

And that’s what separates Harvey Ball’s Original, Classic Smiley Face from all the Smiley-Come-Latelies who came along later.

What makes a classic happy face, as created by Harvey Ball, like this hand-drawn, autographed one that was dashed off in his later years by the master himself with black and yellow marking pens?

Harvey’s character-laden happy face has always had one eye smaller than the other. As you look at him, the eye on your left is distinctly smaller than the eye on the right. There MUST be corners on the mouth, that indicate cheeks. And those corners are also not mirror images of one another.

In addition the Harvey Happy Face doesn’t have a mouth that is an arc of a circle—it is a more oval curve. The HHF has a much bigger “chin” than most other happy faces—the mouth is significantly higher on the circle than in most cookie-cutter happy faces. And it would never, never, ever have nostrils, or lips, or eyebrows! A HHF always consists of a circle with just five “strokes”—2 for eyes, one for mouth, and 2 for the mouth corners. If you were around in the early 1970s and old enough to have an independent memory of those days, just seeing the REAL Happy Face should bring back a flood of memories.

It’s impossible to miss the Harvey Happy Face in a Police Line-up!  It’s got character.

Sadly, the standardized, geometrically perfect happy faces of the merchandisers took over so early that even my daughter (now 40) didn’t remember what the REAL Happy Face looked like. He’s been kind of lost in the shuffle these days.

Or would be if it wasn’t for the Harvey Ball  World Smile Foundation!

Before his death at age 79 in 2001, Harvey Ball started the World Smile Corporation. The corporation sponsors an annual World Smile Day, and licenses goods with the Harvey Ball Happy Face on them. Sales raise money for the non-profit Harvey Ball World Smile Foundation, that supports children’s causes.

World Smile Day has its own website:

As is well known by now throughout the world Harvey Ball, a commercial artist from Worcester, Massachusetts created the smiley face in 1963. That image went on to become the most recognizable symbol of good will and good cheer on the planet.

As the years passed Harvey Ball became concerned about the over-commercialization of his symbol, and how its original meaning and intent had become lost in the constant repetition of the marketplace.  Out of that concern came his idea for World Smile Day®. He thought that we, all of us, should devote one day each year to smiles and kind acts throughout the world.  The smiley face knows no politics, no geography and no religion.  Harvey’s idea was that for at least one day each year, neither should we.  He declared that the first Friday in October each year would henceforth be World Smile Day®. Ever since that first World Smile Day® held in 1999, it has continued every year in Smiley’s hometown of Worcester, MA and around the world.

After Harvey died in 2001, the Harvey Ball World Smile Foundation was created to honor his name and memory.  The Foundation continues as the official sponsor of World Smile Day® each year.

This website was created to provide information about  World Smile Day®, Harvey Ball and Smiley.  Browse the archives to learn more about past World Smile Day® events, Smiley and his creator – Harvey Ball.  And be sure to join the celebration this year on Friday, October 7th, and “Do an act of kindness. Help one person smile”!

For more Happy (Face) Talk, see the fascinating article by graphics art guru Gene Cable, who married a Happy Face junky, on the CreativePro.com site:

And don’t forget … even YOU can change the world…

One smile at a time.

Buttons. From my personal collection.

If you followed the links in the post back on World Smile Day, you might recognize these as the original smiley face design drawn by Harvey Ball back in 1963.  We’ve seen a lot of variations of the smiley face on this blog so far, and there are plenty more to come, but this classic image still seems special, I think.  There’s a certain loopy, honest feeling to those lopsided eyes and that extra-wide, dimpled grin, isn’t there?

I don’t know how I wound up with two of them, but here they are, a happy pair.

"Damn guess what I forgot." From the band Summer Camp's blog. (Click photo to visit their blog.)

I love the band Summer Camp.  But somehow, I almost love their blog more–each post is simply a photo, always retro, always nostalgic, and always named with the title of one of Summer Camp’s songs.

There’s a lot of awesomeness in this photo:  the guy’s shirt, his haircut, his house….  But look closely at the little girl’s t-shirt.  Is that a classic Harvey Ball smiley face I see?  Why yes!  Yes it is.

And that makes this photo glorious. 

48 BC Battle of Dyrrhachium: Julius Caesar barely avoids a catastrophic defeat to Pompey in Macedonia.

988 The city of Dublin was founded on the banks of the river Liffey.

Flag

1212 The most severe of several early fires of London burns most of the city to the ground.

 1452  King James III of Scotland  was born (d. 1488).

1460 Richard Neville, 16th Earl of Warwick defeated  the king’s Lancastrian forces and took King Henry VI prisoner in the Battle of Northampton.

1499  Portuguese explorer Nicolau Coelho returned to Lisbon, after discovering the sea route to India as a companion of Vasco da Gama.

1509  John Calvin, French religious reformer, was born  (d. 1564).

1553 Lady Jane Grey took the throne of England.

1584 William I of Orange was assassinated by Balthasar Gérard.

1645  English Civil War: The Battle of Langport.

1778 American Revolution: Louis XVI of France  declared war on the Kingdom of Great Britain.

1789 Alexander Mackenzie reached the Mackenzie River delta.

1802 Robert Chambers, Scottish author and naturalist, was born  (d. 1871).

1804  – Emma Smith Inaugural President of the Women’s Relief Society of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was born (d. 1879).

1806 The Vellore Mutiny, the first instance of a mutiny by Indian sepoys against the British East India Company.

1821 The United States took possession of its newly bought territory of Florida from Spain.

1830 Camille Pissarro, French painter, was born  (d. 1903).

1850  Millard Fillmore was inaugurated as the 13th President of the United States.

1859 Big Ben rang for the first time.

 1864  Austin Chapman, Australian policitian, was born (d. 1926).

1871  Marcel Proust, French writer, was born (d. 1922).

1875  Mary McLeod Bethune, American educator, was born (d. 1955).

1903 John Wyndham, British author, was born (d. 1969).

1909 Donald Sinclair, British hotel manager, inspiration for Fawlty Towers, was born  (d. 1981).

1913  Death Valley, California hit 134 °F (~56.7 °C), the highest temperature recorded in the United States.

1921 Belfast’s Bloody Sunday: 16 people were killed and 161 houses destroyed during rioting and gun battles in Belfast, Northern Ireland.

1921 Harvey Ball, American commercial artist, was born (d. 2001).

1925 Meher Baba began his silence of 44 years. His followers observe Silence Day on this date in commemoration.

1925 Scopes Trial: The so-called “Monkey Trial” began with John T. Scopes, a young high school science teacher accused of teaching evolution in violation of the Butler Act.

1931 Alice Munro, Canadian writer, was born.

1938  Howard Hughes set a new record by completing a 91 hour flight around the world.

1940 Tom Farmer, Scottish entrepreneur, was born.

1940 World War II: the Vichy government is established in France.

1940  World War II: Battle of Britain – The German Luftwaffe began attacking British convoys in the English Channel thus starting the battle (this start date is contested).

1941 Jedwabne Pogrom: the massacre of Jewish people living in and near the village of Jedwabne in Poland.

1943 World War II: The launching of Operation Husky began the Italian Campaign.

1947 Arlo Guthrie, American musician, was born.

1947  Quaid-i-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah was recommended as the first Governor General of Pakistan by then Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Clement Attlee.

1951 Korean War: Armistice negotiations began.

1954 Neil Tennant, British musician (Pet Shop Boys), was born.

1962  Telstar, the world’s first communications satellite, is launched into orbit.

1966 The Chicago Freedom Movement, lead by Martin Luther King, held a rally at Soldier Field in Chicago, Illinois.

1967 New Zealand adpoted decimal currency.

1968 Maurice Couve de Murville became Prime Minister of France.

1973  The Bahamas gained full independence within the Commonwealth of Nations.

1973 – National Assembly of Pakistan passed a resolution on the recognition of Bangladesh.

1971  King Hassan II of Morocco survived an attempted coup d’etat, which lasts until June 11.

1976 The Seveso disaster in Italy.

1976   One American and three British mercenaries were executed in Angola following the Luanda Trial.

1978  President Moktar Ould Daddah of Mauritania was ousted in a bloodless coup d’état.

1980 Alexandra Palace burned down for a second time.

1985  Greenpeace vessel Rainbow Warrior was bombed and sank in Auckland harbour.

1991 Boris Yeltsin began his 5-year term as the first elected President of Russia.

1991  The South African cricket team was readmitted into the International Cricket Council following the end of Apartheid.

1992 In Miami, Florida, former Panamanian leader Manuel Noriega is sentenced to 40 years in prison for drug and racketeering violations.

1997 Scientists reported the findings of the DNA analysis of a Neanderthal skeleton which supported the “out of Africa theory” of human evolution placing an “African Eve” at 100,000 to 200,000 years ago.

1997 – Partido Popular (Spain) member Miguel Ángel Blanco was kidnapped in the Basque city of Ermua by ETA members, sparking widespread protests.

1998 The Diocese of Dallas agreed to pay $23.4 million to nine former altar boys who claimed they were sexually abused by former priest Rudolph Kos.

2000 A leaking southern Nigerian petroleum pipeline explodes, killing about 250 villagers scavenging gasoline.

2000  EADS, the world’s second-largest aerospace group is formed by the merger of Aérospatiale-Matra, DASA, and CASA.

2002  At a Sotheby’s auction, Peter Paul Rubens’ painting The Massacre of the Innocents sold for £49.5million (US$76.2 million) to Lord Thomson.

2003 A bus collided with a truck, fell off a bridge on Tuen Mun Road, Hong Kong, and plunged into the underlying valley, killing 21 people.

2005  Hurricane Dennis slams into the Florida Panhandle, causing billions of dollars in damage.

2006 Pakistan International Flight PK-688 crashes in Multan, Pakistan, shortly after takeoff, killing all 45 people on board.

2008  Former Macedonian Interior Minister Ljube Boškoski is acquitted of all charges by a United Nations Tribunal accusing him of war crimes.

Sourced from NZ History Online & Wikipedia

Harvey Ball este parintele lui Smiley, celebra fata zambitoare ( ), deschizatoare de  drumuri pentru toate “emoticon-urile” ( EMOTional ICON ) fara de care nu mai putem scrie nici-un mail, nici-un articol pe blog si nici nu mai putem comunica la fel de eficient pe mess 8) ! In anul 1963, compania de asigurari “Hanover Insurance” din Massachusetts ( fosta “The State Mutual Life Assurance Company of Worcester” ) a cumparat o alta companie americana, “Guarantee Mutual Company of Ohio”; ca urmare a acestei achizitii, moralul personalului angajat al firmei din Ohio a scazut brusc ( ) datorita nesigurantei fata de politica de resurse umane a noii firmei. Harvey Ball a primit de la ”Hanover Insurance” o comanda in care i se cerea sa rezolve aceasta problema: in zece minute, fata zambitoare atat de nelipsita astazi, dupa aproape 50 de ani, a fost gata ! Autorul ei a primit doar 45 de dolari ( nu si-a inregistrat niciodata drepturile de autor al nastrusnicului cerculet si a marturisit: “Hey, I can only eat one steak at a time, and drive one car at a time !” – poate de asta a si reusit sa creeze ceva atat de durabil ! ) si  a intrat in istorie ! Smiley ( botezat asa de jurnalistul francez Franklin Loufrani )  a aparut dintr-o data pe gulerele angajatilor, pe birouri sau pe peretii firmei, amintindu-le sa nu uite sa zambeasca in timp ce-si duc la indeplinire sarcinile de serviciu ! Pana in 1971 se vandusera peste 50 de milioane de fete zambitoare, iar Smiley isi incepuse vasta cariera internationala ! La inceputul anilor ’70, fratii Bernard si Murray Spain au infiintat asociatia ”Have a Nice Day” , careia i-au asimilat simbolul lui Ball si pentru care si-au inregistrat drepturile de autor. In 1999, Harvey Ball a pus bazele companiei “World Smile Corporation”, care organizeaza in prima vineri a lunii octombrie “World Smile Day”, cu sloganul: ”do an act of kindness — help one person smile   !” Veniturile obtinute cu ocazia acestei festivitati sunt folosite de organizatia caritabila “Harvey Ball World Smile Foundation”, care este implicata in activitati de sustinere si ajutorare a copiilor cu probleme. Evolutia micului Smiley ( hranit consistent cu tehnologie IT ) este prea binecunoscuta de catre toti internautii – mai jos veti gasi cateva mostre ( editura “O’Reilly Media” a publicat un volum pe aceasta tema in 1997, “Smileys” de David Sanderson ):

( doua puncte, paranteza mica inchisa ): FATA ZAMBITOARE

 ( doua puncte, paranteza mica deschisa ): FATA INCRUNTATA

 ( punct si virgula, paranteza mica inchisa ): FATA CARE  FACE CU OCHIUL

( doua puncte, litera D mare de tipar ): FATA FOARTE ZAMBITOARE

8) ( cifra opt, paranteza mica inchisa ): FATA ZAMBITOARE CU OCHELARI

( doua puncte, litera P mare de tipar ): FATA AMETITA

( asterisc, semnul matematic mai mic, bara verticala, doua puncte, acolada deschisa, paranteza mica inchisa, acolada inchisa ): MOS CRACIUN !

Crestinii au asimilat si ei fata zambitoare a lui Smiley cu indemnul “SMILE, GOD LOVES YOU !” . Faptul ca Dumnezeu ne iubeste pana intr-acolo incat Si-a sacrificat propriul Fiu pentru rascumpararea noastra este un motiv de indreptatita bucurie: putem incepe fiecare noua zi cu un zambet stralucitor pe buze pentru ca suntem inca in viata, pentru ca dragii nostri ne sunt alaturi si pentru ca bucuria noastra poate dura dincolo de moarte: “Bucurati-va intotdeauna in Domnul ! Iarasi zic: bucurati-va !” ( Filipeni 4:4 ) . De-a lungul anilor, acest indemn crestin s-a demonetizat ( ca orice initiativa reusita care-si pierde prin omisiune, directia ) si a ajuns o simpla incantatie matinala ( sau la vreme de necaz ) cu scopul de ne linisti alergarea noastra prin aceasta lume – si uitam de prea multe ori ca viata de credinta este o permanenta lupta cu victorii si esecuri, pe care trebuie s-o purtam zambind fie ca am cules toti laurii, fie ca suntem raniti de moarte; si tot de prea multe ori uitam ca Dumnezeu este si Drept si Judecator, iar Dragostea Lui are un pret: deplina noastra capitulare ! Precum MonaLisa lui da Vinci, ar trebui sa plangem cu o jumatate de chip pentru nimicnicia noastra si sa suradem cu cealalta pentru maretia Rascumparatorului ! Deci: “SMILE, GOD LOVES YOU !” . Aici si Acolo !

( acesta este cadoul Marianei pentru gandurile mele despre surâs )