harikari.com

Tonight I was thinking about how I haven’t posted anything on this site for over a week.  Master Harikari told me once that I should post something every day even if it’s something as simple as say, “How long has it been since you’ve listened to Bone Machine by Tom Waits?  I thought so… go listen to it now.”

So why no posts?  Too damn busy with work and kids and books and stuff to do. 

But tonight, while not listening to my son read a chapter from a very bad book, a Neil Young song came up in the CD mix, and the song made me start thinking about something I had read recently in a George Washington biography.  Here’s the passage covering a May 27, 1754 massacre described in James Ellis’s book, His Excellency – George Washington:

As Washington sought to understand the translation of this diplomatic message, Tanacharison, who apparently spoke fluent French and therefore grasped Jumonville’s point before Washington did, decided to take matters into his own hands.  He stepped up to where Jumonville lay, in French declared, “Thou art not yet dead, my father,” then sank his hatchet into Jumonville’s head, split his skull in half, pulled out his brain, and washed his hands in the mixture of blood and tissue.  His warriors then fell upon the wounded French soldiers, scalped them all, and decapitated one and put his head on a stake.  All this happened under the eyes of the shocked and hapless commanding officer, Lieutenant Colonel Washington.

Now that sounds like a scene out of a horror movie that my twelve-year-old daughter would want to watch.

Anyway, so what was the Neil Young song that got me sidetracked?  “Pocahontas” from Rust Never Sleeps, arguably Neil Young’s best album ever.  So go listen to that album and then Bone Machine.

Thank me later.

I was wandering around the neighborhood with my daughter on Saturday and we went into the local bookstore. While she perused the children’s fiction section, I was scanning the shelves of new books and The Future Dictionary of America caught my eye. The back jacket describes the book as “a brilliant, acerbic and provocative imagining of the American language sometime in the future, when all or most of our country’s problems are solved and the present administration is a distant memory.” The book includes contributions from almost 200 writers and artists and also comes with a CD, compiled by Barsuk Records, featuring new songs and rarities from R.E.M., Sleater-Kinney, Elliott Smith, Tom Waits, David Byrne, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, They Might Be Giants, Death Cab for Cutie, and many others.

So yes, I bought it. I had to.

The most amusing definition I’ve read so far is:

O’Reilly [oh-riy'-lee]
v. to misstate the truth and refuse to apologize or correct your error. Usually used to refer to the actions of children. Don’t O’Reilly me, mister. I saw your room and it is not clean.

In 2028, in the popular child-rearing book How to Raise Honest Children, the problem of O’Reillying was formally discussed for the first time in academia, elevating the term from its colloquial origins. The authors of How to Raise Honest Children pointed to the dangers of allowing a child to lie without correction, noting that it is not enough to ignore the child or cease listening to the child. Since children who do not receive attention will only find another ear to tell their tales. Children often long for the approval of their audience; when a parent does not pay attention to a child that O’Reillies, it is possible the child will change their lies to meet the pre-conceived notions of their new audience. The danger is when the listeners themselves are uninformed or prejudiced. The authors warned that a child that is still O’Reillying by the time s/he finished secondary school is likely to continue for the rest of their life; it is important to catch an O’Reillier at an early age.

The authors recommend spending lots of time with the child, correcting the child when the child misstates facts and making sure the child understands. They recommend against forcing the child to change their opinions, noting that a healthy society contains many disparate ways of looking at the world. If, for example, the child says there should be more wild animals in the city it is not imperative the adult correct the child. If, however, the child quotes a study on the subject that does not exist, then it is important that the parent explain to the child the difference between reality and unreality. The adult should explain the importance of supporting opinion with fact. The book even goes so far as to state that no facts are better than wrong facts. Suggested punishments include grounding and cessation of television and phone privileges, while noting the importance of positive reinforcement, such as “I love you, but not when you O’Reilly.”

– by contributing author, Stephen Elliott.

Check out the McSweeney’s website for more details and some definitions included in the book. There are more here.

Mark Twain was born on this day in 1835.

In honor of this great American writer, I thought I should post a few quotes.

On Lying a Nation into War:

Statesmen will invent cheap lies, putting blame upon the nation that is attacked, and every man will be glad of those conscience-soothing falsities, and will diligently study them, and refuse to examine any refutations of them; and thus he will by and by convince himself that the war is just, and will thank God for the better sleep he enjoys after this process of grotesque self-deception.
- “Chronicle of Young Satan”

On Democracy:

We adore titles and heredities in our hearts and ridicule them with our mouths. This is our democratic privilege.
- Mark Twain’s Autobiography

On Drinking:

Never refuse to do a kindness unless the act would work great injury to yourself, and never refuse to take a drink– under any circumstances.
- Mark Twain’s Notebook

For hundreds more quotations, articles, photos, and graphics, visit this page.

I will be on the road over the Thanksgiving holidays, so I may not be able to post much of anything until Sunday or Monday.

I leave you with this piece by William S. Burroughs:

A Thanksgiving Prayer

Thanks for the wild turkey and
the passenger pigeons, destined
to be shit out through wholesome
American guts. Thanks for a continent to despoil
and poison.

Thanks for Indians to provide a
modicum of challenge and
danger.

Thanks for vast herds of bison to
kill and skin leaving the
carcasses to rot.

Thanks for bounties on wolves
and coyotes.

Thanks for the American dream,
To vulgarize and to falsify until
the bare lies shine through.

Thanks for the KKK.

For nigger-killin’ lawmen,
feelin’ their notches.

For decent church-goin’ women,
with their mean, pinched, bitter,
evil faces.

Thanks for “Kill a Queer for
Christ” stickers.

Thanks for laboratory AIDS.

Thanks for Prohibition and the
war against drugs.

Thanks for a country where
nobody’s allowed to mind their
own business.

Thanks for a nation of finks.

Yes, thanks for all the
memories– all right let’s see
your arms!

You always were a headache and
you always were a bore.

Thanks for the last and greatest
betrayal of the last and greatest
of human dreams.

Hunter Stockton Thompson was born July 18, 1939 in Louisville, Kentucky.

Here are a few quotes from the doctor:

America… just a nation of two hundred million used car salesmen with all the money we need to buy guns and no qualms about killing anybody else in the world who tries to make us uncomfortable.

In a nation ruled by swine, all pigs are upward mobile.

If I’d written all the truth I knew for the past ten years, about 600 people – including me – would be rotting in prison cells from Rio to Seattle today. Absolute truth is a very rare and dangerous commodity in the context of professional journalism.

The Edge… there is no honest way to explain it because the only people who really know where it is are the ones who have gone over

More here..

HST took his own life on February 20, 2005.

Today is Ian McEwan’s 57th birthday. Here are a couple of quotations from this great novelist:

By measuring individual human worth, the novelist reveals the full enormity of the State’s crime when it sets out to crush that individuality.

Politics is the enemy of the imagination.

And here’s a quote from his latest novel, Saturday. This is the voice of Theo, the 18-year-old son of the book’s main character, Henry Perowne.

When we go on about the big things, the political situation, global warming, world poverty, it all looks really terrible, with nothing getting better, nothing to look forward to. But when I think small, closer in – you know, a girl I just met, or this song we’re going to do with Chas, or snowboarding next month, then it looks great. So this is going to be my motto – think small.

Now go read his books!