“Sell your cleverness and buy bewilderment.”

- Damon Runyon

Ben has been on a bit of a G.K. Chesterton binge of late, so this is for him, via The Writer's Almanac:

It's the birthday of the novelist and essayist G.K. (Gilbert Keith) Chesterton, (books by this author) born in London, England (1874). He's remembered today for his detective novels about the bumbling, crime-solving priest Father Brown, but during his lifetime he was primarily known as an essayist. He wrote constantly, about politics, society, literature, and religion. He was one of the first critics to argue that Charles Dickens was a great novelist, after the decline of his reputation in the early 20th century. He was one of the first people to argue that the influence of religion on public life would be replaced by the influence of advertisements.

Enjoy.

Uncle Ben has finished his gruesome semester, the Mall Diva has the WHOLE weekend off of work, and my brain could stand to dwell on more trivial matters for at least one night so you can expect the three of us at Keegan's for the Thursday Night Pub Quiz. Rumor is that the patio is open as long as it doesn't snow again tomorrow. On top of that Chief reports that Barb Davis White, candidate for Congress in Minnesota's Fifth District, will be there as well. Trivia question: what is the name of the incumbent she will try to beat out?

Hope to see you there.

There's a meme going around that somehow or another has missed me so far (as far as I know). The "Message to the World" meme states: You have 150 characters to send a message to the world. Punctuation doesn't count.

Ok, take a memo, Ms. Jones...

TO: World

FROM: The Night Writer

DATE: Today and forever

RE: Need I remind you

"He has shown you, O man, what is good;
And what does the LORD require of you
But to do justly,
To love mercy,
And to walk humbly with your God?"

Micah 6:8

I'm not going to meme anyone else with this, but I will offer this assignment: Try to imagine what the blogosphere, not to mention the daily newspaper, cable news networks and nightly news, would look like if everyone followed this instruction for one day. Submit your descriptions in a comment below, or on your own blog. Extra points for writing sample scripts or articles demonstrating these elements.

My body aches all over and I've felt lethargic all day and barely able to keep my eyes open. Not from strong drink, mind you, but as part of the "come down" from the last few days of work. And yes, those days did include both days of the past weekend as I prepared for a sudden request on Friday to do a 30-minute presentation on Monday afternoon. That also happened to be the Monday immediately before one of our big marketing conferences of the year that my assistant and I have been working on for several months. I finished that late last night and came home and basically crashed — but never walked away from the wreck today for some reason or other.

I wanted to write something but found it hard to get motivated, so I decided to just do some browsing tonight for some laughs. Lately that means heading over to Are We Lumberjacks, and Rodger didn't disappoint. First he suggested that polar bears have got it coming after he found proof that they aided the Nazis in WWII.



Then he helped me decide what I want for Father's Day:

Bug Bat Swats Flies With Endless Love, Electricity

The scenario has happened countless times before. A pesky fly interrupts a dinner party. Brad, the club's resident tennis pro and notorious alcoholic, takes to his feet, Prince racket in hand, and smites the beast violently into a wall with a few tottering swings. OK, so it doesn't happen exactly like that, but you get the idea. Fly swatter, tennis racket or bare hands, the end result is the same. Boring. Enter the misnamed, but nevertheless brilliant, Bug Bat.

The Bug Bat is shaped like a tennis racket, but the similarities end there. Anything that touches the strings on the racket face receives a powerful electric shock. Gizmag got their hands on one and said the shock is enough to sting your finger if you touch it, and packs more than enough juice to end the life of an insect. Fittingly, the insect's death is punctuated with the satisfying crack of an electrical discharge. And a smile. Your smile.

The rechargeable Bug Bat retails for about $20 (or $3, if you happen to live in Bangkok).

Man, that's just what I need around the house. Having one of those might even put me in the mood to get another cat!

Ah, I'm feeling lighter. Maybe I'll post more thoughtful stuff tomorrow.

Katie is pulling the plug on Yucky Salad With Bones. Why? Well, like her header says, "for no good reason."

I started this thing what, about 4 years ago, for no other reason than I thought it would be fun. I never paid any attention to how many hits I got, not because I'm some counterculture goth girl or anything, more due to the fact that other issues were more pressing, like the kitchen was on fire or a kid was hanging off a precarious ledge or something. Oh let's see, the other day I got home from a run to find them all out in the front yard, trying to dislodge an arrow from a second story shutter by heaving various heavy objects at it. Hmm. Nothing like coming home to find the troops throwing rocks and footballs at the windows.

But I wanted to make a formal goodbye, so long and thanks for all the fish. Really, I can't tell you how much I appreciated y'all reading.

Stay classy, San Diego.

Obviously the woman has issues, which is what made it such a fun blog to visit anyway, even if the name never made sense. But what did you expect from someone who'd name her kid Finbar? Still she made me laugh. Hard. So hard that peanut butter would come out of my nose, that's how hard. Who now will give us those riveting, streams-of-subconscious reviews and endless paragraphs about the Oscars and American Idol, who will stand Culture Watch and bring back the report? People like me laugh easily in our homes at night because we want people like her on That Wall. There's probably some Irish blessing to use in a time like this, something about 'may the blogs rise up to meet you' or 'may you be in heaven 30 minutes before Technorati knows you're dead' but I'm not Irish, or Katie, so then Adieu and bonne chance to the Salad. Not that I'm French, either, but using those words saves me from having to type what I really want to say but don't usually allow on this blog, which is "Damn."

I found the link to Square America, described as "A gallery of vintage snapshots & vernacular photography", while browsing commenter Charlie's blog, Virile Lit:

I've been loving Square America for some time now and want to urge you to check it out. It's a web site wherein the curator chronicles the history of the U.S. in snapshots he has obtained by combing resale stores, estate sales, and other dusty archives for random, found photographs he then assembles into themed web-based exhibits. The results are simply fascinating. Text doesn't even enter into it, only the images and you.

It's a fabulous site that sucks you in as you browse the casual, even amateurish, old snapshots that still can't help but communicate a sense of time and place. Beyond that, I often found myself thinking, "I almost know these people — and I know I've seen those curtains before." Cruise on over and spend a few minutes going back a few decades.

The second Manival blog carnival is up and hosted this week by A Good Husband. Following Uncle Ben's advice, I submitted last week's post about the discussion (or lecture) from our last Fundamentals in Film class to the carnival, and it was accepted.

There are some other very interesting-looking posts in this week's collection that I'm looking forward to reading. In particular, "Is It More Important to Be a Good Dad or a Good Husband", "Thou Shalt Get a Job", "7 Reasons Atticus Finch is a True Gentleman" and "Man Up: The Art of Marital Conversation" plus several more.

Check it out, and if you'd like to submit a blog post to next week's Manival you can use this carnival submission form.