Archive for the ‘Personal’ Category

Shoehorn

by Harry Haller at 5:47 pm | 1 Yowl

We went to Barnes and Noble to look at books and magazines, but mainly to get away from the house for a bit. Classics on the cheap: How long has it been since I read A Tale of Two Cities? Or Heart of Darkness?
Later we walked around the mall. When my knees tired we sat [...]

Good night, Mr. Cronkite

by Harry Haller at 9:05 pm | Be the first

Walter Cronkite is dead at 92. It will take several days for me to get enough distance from the event to write about it. It feels as bad to me as the day John Lennon died. In a very real way Cronkite’s passing represents for me the death of any sort of integrity in television [...]

Tumblarity: 0

by Harry Haller at 9:50 pm | 8 Howls

It’s hard to be my friend.
Years ago I remember hearing a motivational speaker talk about friendship. He asked everyone in the audience to hold up both hands with ten outstretched fingers representing their ten best friends. “Now,” he said. “Which of those friends, if you called them at 3 a.m. and said ‘Come quickly, I [...]

Spank me, with a bias to the left

by Harry Haller at 12:14 pm | Be the first

I am relatively new to the blog Weird Things, which touts itself as “exploring science, the strange and the unknown,” but it’s a fascinating read. Two items grabbed my attention this morning.
The first, “spank me baby, it’ll bring us closer,” looks at the world of S&M with an eye to dispelling the notion of rough [...]

Bring Out Your Dead!

by Harry Haller at 8:00 pm | Be the first

Let’s have dinner with dead historical figures. The idea is to select guests from history you believe would make engaging conversation. The following would receive my invitation:

Jesus of Nazareth
Siddhartha Guatama (Buddha)
William Shakespeare
Niccolò Machiavelli
Thomas Jefferson
Mary Harris “Mother” Jones
Karl Marx
Ernesto “Ché” Guevara
Jane Austen
Charles Darwin

Imagine Darwin, Jesus and Buddha discussing the existence of God and the creation of [...]

Dogs and Cats

by Harry Haller at 3:32 pm | Be the first

Why is it every friendly mutt dog on earth looks like he’s panting, “IloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyou”? And why is it the most tame cat looks like it is saying, “I tolerate you. If you die, I might eat you. Isn’t it about time you fed me again? Oh, and while you’re at it, clean my damned litter [...]

I Love You

by Harry Haller at 4:05 pm | Be the first

Let’s be clear: I write because I love the written word. I blog because I believe the Web has the potential of democratizing society in as powerful a way as the Gutenberg press helped democratize the society of its day. I’d like to be a part of the process.
I participate in social networks because people [...]

The Abominable Snow Rabbit

by Harry Haller at 10:00 am | Be the first

This is one of my all-time favorite Chuck Jones cartoons: Daffy Duck and Bugs Bunny take a wrong turn on their way to Florida and wind up in Nepal instead, encountering an Abominable Snowman who might have stepped off the pages of a John Steinbeck novel. Bugs had an abysmal sense of direction and was [...]

Hair Revival Gets Times Nod

by Harry Haller at 4:52 pm | 1 Yowl

Ben Brantley’s stellar review of Diane Paulus’s “thrilling” revival of “Hair” makes me wish I lived in New York right now:

That there’s nothing of the museum — or, worse, of the vintage jukebox — about Ms. Paulus’s production isn’t because she’s reinterpreted or even reframed it. She does what Bartlett Sher did for “South Pacific” [...]

Femlin

by Harry Haller at 9:15 am | 1 Yowl

Whenever I think of Playboy magazine, two things immediately spring to mind.
No, not those two things.
First is the ubiquitous black-tied rabbit logo and second are the stars appearing on or near the letter “P” in the publication’s masthead.
“Listen, man,” a buddy whispered conspiratorially during study hall. “Those stars represent the number of times Hugh Hefner [...]

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