Tag: Humor

LET’S CAST AN IMAGINARY MOVIE

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

In the (imaginary) movie version of my new novel, What’s Left, who would you cast as Cassia’s great-grandmother Dida and her sister Athina?

A large Queen Anne-style house with a distinctive witch’s hat tower something like this is the headquarters for Cassia’s extended family in my new novel, What’s Left. If only this one were pink, like hers.

LUCKY WINNER

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 2 Comments

As I said at the time, back in the days before those e-mails from Nigeria or other wealthy countries filled my spam filter:

I’d just received another three or four packages in the mail informing me I’m the lucky winner of prizes worth millions and millions of dollars if I only respond promptly.

What I still want to know is why these folks get the cheap third-class mailing rate — the one that costs about a third of what children have to pay to send correspondence to their pen pals or their grandparents.

If they’re so fabulously rich that they can offer to give such wealth away, why don’t they relieve the U.S. Postal Service of some of its burden—rather than piling on it? From the looks of it, they should be able to deliver by Express Mail — or even come directly to our doorsteps.

Or is that why it’s called third class?

(As I said then:) The postal rate increases are so reflective of federal government thinking these days. It’s another case of soaking the average citizen and giving the richest clients the biggest breaks.

Very truly yours …

 

ANYONE ELSE PLAYING BINGO?

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 2 Comments

Leave it to Stephen Colbert to come up with a way of staying awake through the Republican National Convention telecasts. It’s a set of unique BINGO cards you can download and play.

Seriously.

Just look at one and see if his team isn’t covering the bases. Invite your buddies or strong-arm some of the family to sit down and watch the show together. Gee, maybe it’s the one way of making a party out of this political party’s Cleveland circus.

SETTING UP FOR A ‘QUIRKY QUEER QUAKER PERFORMANCE ARTIST AND SCHOLAR’

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Peterson Toscano, an extraordinary “Quirky Queer Quaker Performance Artist and Scholar” with bizarre and wonderful stories to share, is coming to my corner of New Hampshire next weekend — and it’s good reason to be excited.

I’ve heard him present the Bible half-hours at Friends General Conference and New England Yearly Meeting and can say he’s both insightful and original in his exploration of Scripture. It’s a matter of encountering a passage for the first time, no matter how often you’ve read it or heard it or think you have. I’ve also seen him delivering his comedy routines to teenagers, not the easiest of audiences, and he’s had them hanging on every word.

His topics will likely range from climate change (from a social justice point of view) and environmental awareness to human rights and gender outlaws in the Bible to coping with privilege or our most tragic losses – and back again. He’s both outrageously funny and a delightfully original thinker. Who would want more?

He’ll appear in the Dover Friends Meetinghouse Saturday at 4 p.m. with his “Everything Is Connected (a collection of stories – many weird, most true)” as a late-afternoon event that’s free to all. We’re hoping this fits in between busy rounds earlier in the day and those of the evening to come – giving folks a shot of humor and hope along the way.

Other performances are at 6:30 p.m. Saturday in Portsmouth, and Sunday at noon in Rochester and in the evening in Concord.

If you can attend any of them, great! Obviously, I’m a big fan. But why not amuse yourself and sample him in his own voice? For starters, let me suggest:

Hope to meet you there, if you can. Meanwhile, we need to get him back from Wisconsin and Maine … en route to Massachusetts.

HELPING THE UNDECIDEDS

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

That expensive Bush mailer with the fist-sized cardboard box that popped out now popped up again up in a conversation after the primary election. (For my description, see Open Up, Jeb, Just Open Up Right.)

The box was a hollow die with a candidate’s name on each of the six sides. The theme was there’s too much at risk to simply roll the dice when we go to the polls. But that’s not how the message always came across.

As one acquaintance explained, “When my girlfriend opened that up, she looked at the side that was face up and said, ‘Now I know who I’m voting for.'”