Sometimes it just doesn't stick.
There is, or was, a fable-like story about a great king of ancient Hoosamania (I'm paraphrasing here to get past the first part of the story) who asked his top smart-guy for a phrase that was always appropriate (you're probably with me now, right?). And the Smart-Guy thought for a minute, then snapped his fingers and said, "This too shall pass." According to the story, the smart-guy was probably all puffed up about this because it was a big hit at the party, and the king liked it and gave the guy a raise or a goat or something, and the people all clapped. Well, obviously this smart-guy wouldn't be working much today.
To me, the line kind of falls dead, on the floor, and wavy cartoon "stink lines" rise from it while simply-drawn house-flies buzz in a circle over it. It's not untrue or bad, it just doesn't have that pizazz. It's a testament to some major boring something. that the story has lived as long as it has, especially considering all the other really boffo lines that have come out of smart-guys from the past. I'm speaking in general here.
I'm not claiming to be smarter than the smart-guy or anything like it. No indeed, it's just that given the benefit of a modern classical education in one Kansas's (ss's) finest public school systems, plus all the television I could possibly hold and I'm talking Golden-Age quality television here, I'm used to a snappier kind of sound-bitey word-porn.
I suppose that some of you are shaking your head at my derisive treatment of the old-timey people, but hey, I'm just saying that we don't need to live in the past, we can do better. Like Temple Grandin said so well, "Nature is cruel, but we don't have to be." I think that includes sayings, nostrums, adages, maxims, (minums), axioms, proverbs,
and aphorisms.
My motto is, "If you wouldn't put it on a T-Shirt, don't Say It." As a matter of fact, I think I'll put that on a t-shirt. When I say t-shirt, I'm including modern equivalents, such as memes, tropes, figurative and literal metaphors and face and animal painting. Oh, and blog-titles. Right?
I think that covers it for now.
More later,
I'm not claiming to be smarter than the smart-guy or anything like it. No indeed, it's just that given the benefit of a modern classical education in one Kansas's (ss's) finest public school systems, plus all the television I could possibly hold and I'm talking Golden-Age quality television here, I'm used to a snappier kind of sound-bitey word-porn.
I suppose that some of you are shaking your head at my derisive treatment of the old-timey people, but hey, I'm just saying that we don't need to live in the past, we can do better. Like Temple Grandin said so well, "Nature is cruel, but we don't have to be." I think that includes sayings, nostrums, adages, maxims, (minums), axioms, proverbs,
and aphorisms.
My motto is, "If you wouldn't put it on a T-Shirt, don't Say It." As a matter of fact, I think I'll put that on a t-shirt. When I say t-shirt, I'm including modern equivalents, such as memes, tropes, figurative and literal metaphors and face and animal painting. Oh, and blog-titles. Right?
I think that covers it for now.
More later,
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