Zen master Yogi

Random quote of the day:


"You can observe a lot by watching."

—Yogi Berra






(As Yogi himself once said, "I really didn't say everything I said," so you have to be careful with some of the Yogisms. However, since he used this one as the title of one of his books, I think it's safe to call this a genuine quote from the Zen master.)




( Illustrated version. )

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Siegfried and Roy, Leonard Maltin, or the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.

Sir John

From the notebooks, May 17, 1998:



Sir John

In concession to my appetite, I had the donut.
I thought about your last remark
on the subject of my thighs
but since I had decided
I didn’t love you any more,
I ate the donut anyway.

Sir John Falstaff, I do believe,
was involved in my conception.
I know not how he came there—
my mother was a virtuous woman—
but somehow he is in my blood,
urging me on to donuts.
And the likes of you.

I do not love you any more.
You are a flaccid quiver
bereft of arrows.
Still, I will admit,
that when your quiver
is well-stocked, I find
I have a taste
for fletchery
(and ol’ Sir John laughs riotously
at my succumbation).

Still, I will admit,
that for every donut
and indiscretion
Sir John goads me to,
he is also there in appreciation
of poetry and music,
fine wine and fine food,
good conversation—
a deep, abiding love
for well-turned phrases
(yes, and ankles, too)—
of the subtle play
of art in life and life in art
(be it high or be it low).

Ah, Sir John, father
of my temperament
and all my gusto:
I cannot separate
the glutton from the gourmet,
the punster from the poet,
the horse's ass from the hero,
without doing
some terrible injustice
to his soul's wit,
and—why, yes—
my own.

And so, the likes of you,
uncharitable towards my thighs,
must take my thundering
loveliness as it is
or someone’s else’s arrows
will find the mark
through the donut hole
of love.

The world's worst earworm?

Actually, this involves both dejá vu and an earworm, so I thought it worth noting. I was driving home from Home Depot Saturday (after picking up more edging materials for the mosaic) (ahem) when Maxwell's Silver Hammer came on the radio. I was driving up a slight hill on Manchester Boulevard as it crosses La Tijera when it hit the chorus, "Bang, bang, Maxwell's silver hammer came down upon her head," and, you know, I joined in for my own rousing rendition. And I had this moment of bright, shiny clarity, realizing that several months ago driving at this exact same place on Manchester I'd done the same exact thing at the same point in the song.

It may be fun to sing along with that chorus, but Maxwell's Silver Hammer? A really stupid song. And I had it stuck in my head for two days after that. Really bad song to be stuck in one's brain.

What the universe was trying to tell me by this bit of synchronicity, I have no idea. Gosh, do you suppose it was all just random but weird coincidence?