Tag: Funny

As we get into traditional weddings season

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Celebrities get the headlines, of course. What makes them so special?

“Hollywood marriages are two constructed images colliding,” said bandleader Artie Shaw, reflecting on his ex-wives. He married eight times, in addition to 11 serious girlfriends. So much for expertise.

Let’s turn to ten others.

  1. “Experts on romance say for a happy marriage there has to be more than a passionate love. For a lasting union, they insist, there must be a genuine liking for each other. Which, in my book, is a good definition for friendship.” ― Marilyn Monroe
  2. “Men marry women with the hope they will never change. Women marry men with the hope they will change. Invariably, they are both disappointed.” ― Albert Einstein
  3. “A girl can wait for the right man to come along but in the meantime that doesn’t mean she can’t have a wonderful time with all the wrong ones.” ― Cher
  4. “I am a very committed wife. And I should be committed, too ― for being married so many times. ― Elizabeth Taylor
  5. “You would think that a rock star being married to a supermodel would be one of the greatest things in the world. It is.” ― David Bowie
  6. “Husbands and wives should have separate interests, cultivate different sets of friends and not impose on the other … You can’t spend a lifetime breathing down each other’s necks.” ― Paul Newman
  7. “You never really know a man until you divorce him.” ― Zsa Zsa Gabor
  8. “When you first get married, they open the car door for you. Eighteen years now … once he opened the car door for me in the last four years ― we were on the freeway at the time.” ― Joan Rivers
  9. “For marriage to be a success, every woman should have their own bathroom. The end.” ― Catherine Zeta-Jones
  10. “Huh, celebrity marriages. They never last, do they?” ― Donkey, in Shrek

 

More wisdom on the practice of writing

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Again, I’ll argue that this round of insights is applicable to much more than serious writing.

  1. “I would write a book, or a short story, at least three times ― once to understand it, the second time to improve the prose, and a third to compel it to say what it still must say. Somewhere I put it this way: first drafts are for learning what one’s fiction wants him to say. Revision works with that knowledge to enlarge and enhance an idea, to reform it. Revision is one of the exquisite pleasures of writing.” ― Bernard Malamud
  2. “My own experience is that once a story has been written, one has to cross out the beginning and the end. It is there that we authors do most of our lying.” ― Anton Chekhov
  3. “There are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.” ― Somerset Maugham
  4. “Not that the story need be long, but it will take a long while to make it short.” ― Henry David Thoreau
  5. “No author dislikes to be edited as much as he dislikes not to be published.” ― Russell Lynes
  6. “You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you.” ― Ray Bradbury
  7. “Exercise the writing muscle every day, even if it is only a letter, notes, a title list, a character sketch, a journal entry. Writers are like dancers, like athletes. Without that exercise, the muscles seize up.” ― Jane Yolen
  8. “Find your best time of the day for writing and write. Don’t let anything else interfere. Afterwards it won’t matter to you that the kitchen is a mess.” ― Esther Freud
  9. “I go out to my little office, where I’ve got a manuscript, and the last page I was happy with is on top. I read that, and it’s like getting on a taxiway. I’m able to go through and revise it and put myself ― click ― back into that world.” ― Stephen King
  10. “Substitute ‘damn’ every time you’re inclined to write ‘very;’ your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be.” ― Mark Twain

 

As seen from my second-floor apartment window on Main Street back in Fostoria

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment
  1. Municipal parking lot: park all day, 25 cents.
  2. Cadillac/Oldsmobile used car lot.
  3. Brick Mansard house turned into offices.
  4. Footlighters Playhouse in the old Methodist church.
  5. Three boarding houses.
  6. Tri-County Glass.
  7. Back of the roller rink.
  8. Ray coming to work at 5:30 a.m. at Dell’s Restaurant.
  9. Fruths’ Hardware, Penney’s with Emergency Corps bingo games upstairs, Firestone office (repairs around the corner), the old Sohio gas station turned into a second-day bakery outlet.
  10. Police cars, firetrucks, trees, assorted traffic.

Plus the sign for St. Vincent’s below me

~*~

The corner restaurant in more recent times. 

Prime signoffs

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Formal letters may be an endangered species, say apart from legal actions, but you may still find a need for a snappy closing line for other written transactions.

Here are a few of note.

  1. Cheerio, luff, and all that. Alternatively,” Luv ya,” or, “Love & hugs.”
  2. Cheers or beers.
  3. Whoops!
  4. Too’s yours. (Knockoff on “toujours.”)
  5. Tally-ho. Also, “Tally-ho-ho-hon.”
  6. Warm fuzzies.
  7. Taa-taa. Also, “Too-da-loo” or “Tou-da-lahjh.”
  8. Keep sizzlin’. Or, “Keep smilin’.”
  9. Hippity-hop.
  10. Tootles.

“Laters!” got misappropriated.

 

Forget ‘sincerely’

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 2 Comments

Letter writing may be a dead art, thanks to email, texting, and online job application forms, among the changing means of communication, but one of the challenges of on-paper correspondence had been in selecting an appropriate closing line, which went right above your signature. (Few youths today, I’m told, actually have signatures. Ahem.)

As one bit of advice noted, “sincerely” is for lawyers, better to be too warm than too distant.

Here are some alternatives, should the occasion arise.

  1. Thank you for your time. Alternatively, “Thanks for your time” or “Thanks again.”
  2. Good wishes, always. Or even, “Always,” or, “All the best, always.”
  3. Toujours.
  4. Enthusiastically.
  5. Only the best or betters.
  6. Stay well.
  7. Cheers!
  8. Thanx and g’day.
  9. Let’s go!
  10. Onward!

Gee, now I’m wondering about “Truly.” Or even, “Actually.”

 

Some of this applies to readers, too

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

More advice and observations from novelists and other writers.

  1. “You just have to go on when it is worst and most helpless ― there is only one thing to do with a novel and that is go straight on through to the end of the damn thing.” ―  Ernest Hemingway
  2. “We have to continually be jumping off cliffs and developing our wings on the way down.” ― Kurt Vonnegut
  3. “The best advice on writing was given to me by my first editor, Michael Korda, of Simon and Schuster, while writing my first book. ‘Finish your first draft and then we’ll talk,’ he said. It took me a long time to realize how good the advice was. Even if you write it wrong, write and finish your first draft. Only then, when you have a flawed whole, do you know what you have to fix.” ― Dominick Dunne
  4. “Editing might be a bloody trade, but knives aren’t the exclusive property of butchers. Surgeons use them too.” ― Blake Morrison
  5. “Half my life is an act of revision.” ― John Irving
  6. “I’m all for the scissors. I believe more in the scissors than I do in the pencil.” ― Truman Capote
  7. “It is perfectly okay to write garbage ― as long as you edit brilliantly.” ― C. J. Cherryh
  8. “I’ve found the best way to revise your own work is to pretend that somebody else wrote it and then to rip the living shit out of it.” ― Don Roff
  9. “Only kings, presidents, editors, and people with tapeworms have the right to use the editorial ‘we’.” ― Mark Twain
  10. “So the writer who breeds more words than he needs, is making a chore for the reader who reads.” ― Dr. Seuss

Among the wonders of nature

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

When it comes to flowers, wild or cultivated, just consider …

  1. “Those who dwell, as scientists or laymen, among the beauties and mysteries of the earth, are never alone or weary of life.” — Rachel Carson
  2. “Everything that slows us down and forces patience, everything that sets us back into the slow circles of nature, is a help. Gardening is an instrument of grace.” — May Sarton
  3. “In the spring, at the end of the day, you should smell like dirt.” — Margaret Atwood
  4. “Just living is not enough. One must have sunshine, freedom, and a little flower.” — Hans Christian Andersen
  5. “Colors are the smiles of nature.” — Leigh Hunt
  6. “The earth laughs in flowers.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson
  7. “The fairest thing in nature, a flower, still has its roots in earth and manure.” — D. H. Lawrence
  8. “Deep in their roots, all flowers keep the light.” — Theodore Roethke
  9. “The sun, with all those planets revolving around it and dependent on it, can still ripen a bunch of grapes as if it had nothing else in the universe to do.” — Galileo Galilei
  10. “Live in each season as it passes; breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit, and resign yourself to the influence of the earth.” — Henry David Thoreau

 

Newfoundland is really out there

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

It’s a remote land of icebergs, northern lights, puffins, and moose, the easternmost part of Canada. Now, for a few details.

  1. Although the province also includes Labrador, making it larger than California, the usual focus is on the island itself, the world’s 16th largest, ahead of Cuba, Iceland, or Ireland. The island aka “The Rock” sits at the mouth of the St. Lawrence River, creating the world’s largest estuary.
  2. It has the only verified Viking settlement in North America, around the year 1001, possibly with Leif Erikson. The UNESCO World Heritage Site is on the northern tip of the island and includes restored sod buildings; for a sense of the size of the island, it’s an 11-hour, 20-minute drive from St. John’s. Legend has Irish Monk St. Brendan arriving in the 6th century, and Englishman John Cabot may have landed in 1497. Portuguese fishermen were also prominent explorers.
  3. Newfoundland was an independent country before joining the Canadian confederation in 1949. It’s one reason it’s not considered a Maritime Province like Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island.
  4. It has its own time zone, a half-hour ahead of Atlantic, although, strangely, it appears a half-hour later, as in “9 a.m. Atlantic, 9:30 Newfoundland.”
  5. Getting there can be convoluted. Flying from the U.S., for instance, generally takes nine hours; driving, 36. There are two ferry routes from Nova Scotia – the shorter one runs six- to seven-hours; the longer one, 16 hours.
  6. Just 12 miles away, off the southwestern coast of Newfoundland, are the islands of St. Pierre and Miquelon, technically part of France and a vestige of what was once New France.
  7. The Newfoundland dog and Newfoundland pony are symbols of the province.
  8. As for those striking North American puffins, 95 percent of them live in Newfoundland and Labrador, a good reason it’s the official bird of the province.
  9. Between 400 and 800 icebergs a year typically get as far south as St. John’s. Hamlets further north, such as Twilingate, get even more.
  10. It’s pronounced NEW-fundlund. Its people, informally, are Newfies – and Canadians second.

While we’re at it, do note that the Rock has some eye-raising town names. Here’s a sampling, without explanation or commentary:

  1. Dildo.
  2. Goobies.
  3. Tickle Cove.
  4. Blow Me Down.
  5. Come by Chance.
  6. Witless Bay.
  7. Cow Head.
  8. Gander.
  9. Placentia.
  10. Botwood.

St. John’s, the provincial capital and largest city, is not to be confused with St. John, New Brunswick. Both are significant seaports.

 

So I wasn’t losing my eyesight or my mind, after all

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Back when I had an hour commute home after working an evening shift at the paper, there were a few nights when I was mesmerized by what I saw in my headlights while driving the country highways in heavy rain. As the drops splashed from the shiny black pavement, they seemed to turn into frogs that were hopping wildly. That part was freaky enough, but all of the ones I saw were leaping in the same direction, say from right to left. Hundreds of them. Thousands of them. There was no way to avoid them, either. Naturally, it was difficult to see at 60 miles an hour, and I was always anxious to get home, have a martini, and hit the sack promptly.

Why one direction? Something to do with the wind? Maybe just the angle of my headlights, so I didn’t pick up on just as many hopping in the other direction?

A few miles later, I would encounter another flock (officially, a group of frogs is called a knot, a colony, or an army, go figure) all flying in the other direction, left to right.

The phenomenon didn’t appear every time I had a heavy-rain midnight, but it did happen enough times over the decade to repeat the show, something I didn’t connect to springtime.

Turns out, as a recent Sunday Afternoon presentation at the Eastport Arts Center prompted, I wasn’t hallucinating. Didn’t need my eyes checked or a pair of glasses for driving. And wasn’t losing my mind. Frogs, toads, and salamanders have a Big Night (or two) in early spring when heavy rain, an inch or more, combines with thawing ice and snow to signal the amphibians to leave their winter shelter and return to emerging ephemeral vernal pools for breading. The high, shrill chirping chorus of peepers soon fills the night air for a few weeks after.

The temporary shallow ponds are fishless, and thus free of predators in the amphibian-breeding forest wetlands. With their job done around the time summer rolls in, the pools dry up for another year.

How about another serving of spuds?

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

This is what happens when I dig up too much for a single Tendrils. To wit:

  1. “You can’t really be good at cooking unless you can cook a potato.” ― Julia Child
  2. “Potatoes are the one food that makes everybody happy.” ― Rachael Ray
  3. “All food starting with p is comfort food: pasta, potato chips, pretzels, peanut butter, pastrami, pizza, pastry.” — Sara Paretsky
  4. “Potatoes are the ultimate comfort food, especially when they come with gravy.” ― Trisha Yearwood
  5. “Few people sufficiently appreciate the colossal task of feeding a world of billions of omnivores who demand meat with their potatoes.” — Jonathan Safran Foer
  6. ”Preparing food is one of life’s great joys, but a lot of times, parents ask their kids if they want to cook with them and then tell them to go peel a bag of potatoes. That’s not cooking — that’s working!” — Guy Fieri
  7. “If you want to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe. But if you want to make mashed potatoes, you need just a potato and a little salt.” ― Carl Sagan
  8. “People have been cooking and eating for thousands of years, so if you are the very first to have thought of adding fresh lime juice to scalloped potatoes try to understand that there must be a reason for this.” — Fran Lebowitz
  9. “World hunger will not be solved by finishing the garlic mashed potatoes on your plate.” — Geneen Roth
  10. “Potatoes are proof that God loves us.” ― Benjamin Franklin