laughorisms

My brand is slipping, which is not the same as my slip is showing, or maybe my ahem! is hawing -- or thrice versa. For someone asserting identity as The Laughorist, I've been remiss (missing and then missing again, Miss) in supplying and crafting laughorisms, i.e., humorous aphorisms. (Well, that is slightly unfair to myself, because faithful visitors here know I'm tirelessly quipping and whipping up whirls of words in witty ways.)

To wit, here is my take today at some laughorisms.

• Happy Meals are all alike; every Unhappy Meal is unhappy in its own "Have It Your Way."
• In the long run, we are all stockings.
• It was the breast of times; it was the wurst of times.
• Not every good screed goes unpublished.
• Life is short, Monopoly long.
• The mass of men leave lines of quiet perspiration.
  

drip drop

where did that pendulous drop of moisture go, the one blogged about yesterday?

fear the beard?

Is there a difference between growing a beard and simply not shaving?

A look in the mirror presents the unkempt appearance of an unshaven social misfit, though that sounds unduly harsh. (Can you be harsh, but not unduly harsh?)

Unkempt. The second syllable sounds so German, and it is by way of Old English, we are told by etymologists (not entomologists; stop bugging me!).

Uncombed.

Can you comb a beard, when you come right down to it?

So, you can be kept kempt, Kokonuts.

Carry on.

Laugh, or else.

focus

It has been said the whole universe is found in a drop of water.

I saw it today.

Extending my arm out the car window to send out some cards (hand-written communication? how quaint!), under the lower-right lip of the mailbox's mouth, one plump drop of rain held itself suspended (or was held suspended), waiting, frozen but melted, pausing, seemingly still.

unlocking the doors

After I parked at the Wegmans [yeah, I miss that apostrophe too], I decided not to press the lock activator on the key fob for the 2006 Honda Civic. Why lock it? It is an insidious habit. What is there to take? Why is it so important? What is so scary in suburban DeWitt, aside from its suburbanness? My act of civic bravery, or common sense, was not based on the fact that it is not my car (my wife's). It was a statement, a statement not clearly articulated. What was in there, besides some CDs? (Oh, what about that nifty portable battery charger? Hunh? Hunh?) Sure, "they" could steal maps and insurance cards. Good luck with that. We never seem to have the right maps, so welcome to 'em. Who are "they" anyway? And why would "they" single out this car? Are they on a crime spree? Were they waiting just for me? How many of them are "they"? What are their eating and sleeping habits?

I looked at the headlines of The Post-Standard and The New York Times. Too ominous. I decided not to buy a Sunday paper, though I was grateful that my browsing informed me of an interfaith event tomorrow at the Zen Center for the people in Japan. I'd like to go. Will "they" be there?

I bought five-seed four-grain bread, or is it four-seed five-grain, sliced. I used self service. I inserted a five-dollar bill and got seventy-five cents of change. The prompts on the computer screen assume plastic or something else. I used neither paper nor plastic. I decided not to wear the sunglasses I had worn over my regular glasses on the way in. Way too dorky.

Miraculously, I found the car fairly easily and was pleased to find the door unlocked. Still. Thinking this might be worth a blog post, I had written "unlocked" on the church bulletin shortly after exiting the unlocked car. You can move this paragraph closer to the top if you prefer. I had thought "unlocked" might be a nice metaphorical theme to follow, to muse about. Now I'm either not so sure or too lazy or both.

Maybe it's just the rusty taste of fraudulence in my mouth, maybe that's what's putting me off from pondering on and on, like they sing in The Journey song. Fraudulence about what? C'mon. Locking your car door in DeWitt, New York? Give me a break. Puhleez. What's the big deal?

Ever hear this one: fear knocked on the door, faith answered. Do I have that right? Maybe it's fear locked the door. I opened it. Faith was there. No. I'm not sure it is either one. On Cayman Brac most, maybe nearly everyone, keeps the doors unlocked: house, car, truck. Doors unlocked. The Doors were a good band, but they were more unhinged than unlocked.

arrested

My eye caught this billboard ad:

Caption:

"We know where you're coming from."

Profile of a person, with a shadow of a soldier in the background.

Arresting and provocative.

Kokonuts vs. Kokonuts

I have just read about Daniel Bejar and Daniel Bejar in The New Yorker. One is a musician, another an artist. The artist has made himself look like the musician and as an "art" project in real time in real life is playing on the same-name identity. His project is called Googleganger, with those two dots over the a.

All of which got me thinking.

Who, after all, is Pawlie Kokonuts?

And if I used my real name, would it really be me?

Who is me?

This is what employers and education officials don't seem to get. They warn people to be careful about their online identity and online representations, but who is who? And what is what? What is real? Why can't anything online be considered the mere fictional fabrications of a virtual persona?

This is nothing new in literature, going back to Truman Capote's non-fiction novel "In Cold Blood," and the same with many works by Norman Mailer. Frederick Exley wrote "fictional memoirs," featuring a character named Frederick Exley. But he wasn't Frederick Exley the author, was he?

So, who is who? And what's what?

Deep questions.

Less Than An Hour

More than the blink of an eye but less than an hour. The bagel with cinnamon and raisin. $1, for one day old, toasted. Two pats of Land O' Lakes butter. I can't open the packet of butter. A half-inch or so square, the kind of butter a diner or coffee shop gives you, the kind often, but not always, sitting in a container with some ice. I cannot finesse my fingertips to bend the corner of the square to roll back the foil covering. Is it age? Is this a sign of a budding neurological impairment that is simmering within me? Is it butter-packet-opening faulty design? I try using my teeth. I want to rip, smash, destroy the butter package, a la Tony Soprano, because of the horror of those earlier questions. It opens. Magic. The bagel has cooled to the point of losing that magic moment; the butter sits there, unmelted. I refuse to open the second package of butter. Calories? Revenge? I force-spread the butter onto two sides of the bagel. I Skype with my brother for more than 19 minutes. I eat the bagel, now cold, crunchy, a day old, with ice tea.

staggering

According to Reuters,

"Analysts believe the powerful earthquake moved Japan's main island eight feet, shifted the Earth on its axis four inches and unleashed a devastating tsunami."

Staggering beyond imagination.

Lord, have mercy on Japan, all its people, and all their loved ones around the world.

Humbling, to say the least.

snowMarch

blindwhite particulate crystalline settling aftermath do the numbers
paths buried cars hidden ground missing depth guessing wonders
chunk block rock tock tick smack snow snew sown strown
alabaster albino vanilla creamy lumen beachtide flake wake

no question about it, or is there?

The Planet* gave me some space for words and musings, mostly questions.

Thanks, period.

* as in Planet Valenti

My Winter Vacation

jet engines tropical breezes cirrus clouds Cayman Brac jerk chicken Stella Maris curly-tailed lizards lapping waves engines of the sea kingfish cumulus emerald turquoise snorkeling sea eggs fine sand starlit Milky Way Cayman Brac sandals Pollard Bay caymanite ironshore booby babies rolling Caribbean Sea purposeless glad sea Sister Islands blue tang irrational fear floating brain coral conch Mexican Train toast tea Cross Road United Baptist soldiers hermit crabs almond trees coconuts Caymanian Compass Peter's Cave Skull Cave Spot Bay Stake Bay West End Spotland Plantation Tibbetts destroyer wreck coral reef Brac Reef bluff road Christopher Columbus Park seamen's shrine Cat Head Bay blow holes aloe groves loaves of fish what a dish Buccaneer's Inn reef cove thatch palms hammocks sway the Bight the light Temple Beth Shalom Bamboo Bay Cotton Tree Bay what the hay Cayman Brac coral reef dildo cactus dung lighthouse dap me up give me dap jerk chicken mockingbird Cayman Brac parrot tambourine prayers hymns One Love flat sea conch shells algae Grand Cayman SPF30 football soccer cricket Gaelic bluff balmy breeze almond trees gruntfish synagogue surprise Miami mon one love Cuban Coral Isle projects Philadelphia Cayman Brac rhymes with back not with Bach one love where the pix why not this words instead