Lydia, The Tatooed Lady
Oh Lydia, Oh Lydia
Now have you met Lydia
Lydia the tattooed lady
She has muscles men adore-so
And a torso even more-so
Oh, Lydia, Oh Lydia
Now have you met Lydia
Lydia the queen of tattoo
On her back is the battle of Waterloo
Beside it the wreck of the Hesperus too
and proudly above waves the red white and blue
You can learn a lot from Lydia
There's Grover Walen unveilin' the Trylon
Over on the West Coast we have Treasure Island
There's Captain Spaulding exploring the Amazon
And Lady Godiva--but with her pajamas on
She can give you a view of the world in tattoo
If you step up and tell her where
Mon Paree, Kankakee, even Perth by the sea
Or of Washington crossing the Delaware.
Oh Lydia, Oh Lydia, now have you met Lydia
Lydia the queen of them all
She has a view of Niagara which nobody has
And Basin Street known as the birthplace of jazz
And on a clear day you can see Alcatraz!
You can learn a lot from Lydia!
--Lydia the queen of tattoo!
Lydia, oh Lydia, have you met
Lydia, the queen of them all!
She once knocked an admiral off of his feet,
The ships on her hips made his heart skip a beat.
And now the old man is in command of the fleet,
For he went and married Lydia!
- E.Y. Harburg
Harburg Discusses Lydia
Air Force Cadence
Irene's her name
She's one of the best.
So every night
I give her the test.
She looks so pretty.
So sleek, so slim.
The moon is bright
the lights are dim.
I've seen her stripped.
I've seen her bare,
I've felt her over everywhere.
I handled her just as gentle as I could.
And when I got in her
I knew she was good.
I rolled her over on her side
Then on her back I also tried.
She's just one big thrill
the best in the land.
She's an F-16
in the Air Combat Command.
Mauss On Gift-Giving
In a gift economy, however, the objects that are given are inalienated from the givers; they are "loaned rather than sold and ceded". It is the fact that the identity of the giver is invariably bound up with the object given that causes the gift to have a power which compels the recipient to reciprocate. Because gifts are inalienable they must be returned; the act of giving creates a gift-debt that has to be repaid. Gift exchange therefore leads to a mutual interdependence between giver and receiver. According to Mauss, the "free" gift that is not returned is a contradiction because it cannot create social ties.
Carl Spackler (Bill Murray) On The Afterlife
So I jump ship in Hong Kong and make my way over to Tibet, and I get on as a looper at a course over in the Himalayas. A looper, you know, a caddy, a looper, a jock.
So, I tell them I'm a pro jock, and who do you think they give me? The Dalai Lama, himself. Twelfth son of the Lama. The flowing robes, the grace, bald... striking.
So, I'm on the first tee with him. I give him the driver. He hauls off and whacks one -- big hitter, the Lama -- long, into a ten-thousand foot crevice, right at the base of this glacier. And do you know what the Lama says?
Gunga galunga...gunga -- gunga galunga.
So we finish the eighteenth and he's gonna stiff me. And I say, "Hey, Lama, hey, how about a little something, you know, for the effort, you know." And he says,
Oh, uh, there won't be any money, but when you die, on your deathbed, you will receive total consiousness.
So I got that goin' for me, which is nice.
The Colour Of Perfect Darkness
Eigengrau is perceived as lighter than a black object in normal lighting conditions, because contrast is more important to the visual system than absolute brightness. For example, the night sky looks darker than eigengrau because of the contrast provided by the stars.
-Edited from Wikipedia
Erica Barnett On Single-Gear Bicycles
After trying a few different fixed-gear bikes, I eventually graduated to the Bianchi Pista—a stunningly gorgeous silver bike with one fixed gear, no brakes, and handlebars so low you have to look up to see the street.
"You might want to try this one on the sidewalk," Tamura told me. It was by far the scariest bike I've ever ridden—the experience of stopping by pushing back against the pedals is the most counterintuitive thing a longtime free-wheel biker could ever experience—but the power and control was indescribable.
I have to admit it—I want one. But I also know that, for riders like me (those who don't have lightning-quick reflexes and quads of steel) they're incredibly dangerous.
Gil Scott Heron On Change
will not be televised, will not be televised.
The revolution will be no re-run brothers;
The revolution will be live.
- From The Revolution Will Not Be Televised
erikh On Small-L Libertarians
I'm a social libertarian. What that means is that I believe government and authority should act only to counter the forceful tyranny that would exist in their absence. As a libertarian, I believe that governments should leave people alone to do what they will.
Unlike big-L Libertarians, though, I also believe that the tendency of power, and more specifically money, to collect in the hands of pompous greedy nazi warlords should be controlled.
aarthur001 On Mortal Sins
Provided that you are a Christian, you can only go to hell if you commit a mortal sin and don't repent of it.
A mortal sin has 3 parts, all of which have to be present in order for it to be a mortal sin. If any one of the three is missing, then it is venial (less serious) sin or no sin at all. The 3 parts are as follows:
1. The act in itself has to be a grave matter I.e. something that violates the ten commandments (as outlined and expanded in the Gospels). This is what most people mean when they say 'that's a mortal sin.'
2. You have to have knowledge that the act is a mortal sin and have sufficient time for reflectiontion (a second can be enough time depending on the action).
3. You have to have full consent of your will. No one can be forced to commit a mortal sin, they have to choose to do it. If they don't, then it's a venial sin or no sin at all. You can't be held responsible for the mortal sin if your will is impared.
Note: There can also be other mitigating factors that lessen the gravity of an action in particular circumstances; There could be psychological factors to consider as well as the habitual nature of some grave sins.
Only things that meet all of the above criteria can cause people to go to hell. Furthermore, no sin is unforgivable except refusing to accept God's mercy and forgivness. (Jesus refers to that phenomenon as 'blasphemy against the Holy Spirit.') People can repent of any sin at any time in their life, even at the moment of death.
Drinking Was Involved
Jason: Is that French? What language are you speaking?
Peter: I'm speaking English. Why, what language are you hearing?
Henry James On Priority
Three things in human life are important. The first is to be kind. The second is to be kind. The third is to be kind.
Nightmares Are Just Practice
The dream world [is] a hellscape of danger, teeming with threatening events far more sinister than in waking life.
[...]Threat dreams [are] the norm, accounting for a staggering two-thirds of all dreams. Revonsuo discovered that we grossly underestimate the number of nightmares we have. As it turns out, we have 300 to 1,000 threat dreams per year—one to four per night.
[...]The dreaming brain, explains Revonsuo, scans emotional memories. When it detects a memory trace with a strong negative emotion, it constructs a nightmare around that theme. The more traumatic the event, the more intense the nightmare. The brain's system for detecting threats is sensitive and flexible: Anything the brain tags with a strong negative charge gets thrown into the threat bin and dredged up at night.
Sometimes this system works well: Dreaming about a boy running in front of our car better prepares us should that danger crop up in real life. But sometimes the modern world throws the threat-detection mechanism out of whack: Watching horror movies can trigger nightmares about vampires, ghosts, aliens, or zombies. Such "nonsense nightmares" don't rehearse any useful threats; they're like an allergic reaction, says Revonsuo. Just as our immune system can mistake pollen for a pathogen and mount a defensive campaign, the threat-detection system misperceives horror movies and deploys its defenses by generating a nightmare.
-Heavily edited from Dreams: Night School by Jay Dixit, Psychology Today
Gretchen Rubin's 21 Phrases For Fighting Right
Please try to understand my point of view.
Wait, can I take that back?
You don't have to solve this--it helps me just to talk to you.
This is important to me. Please listen.
I overreacted, I'm sorry.
I see you're in a tough position.
I can see my part in this.
I hadn't thought of it that way before.
I could be wrong.
Let's agree to disagree on that.
This isn't just your problem, it's our problem.
I'm feeling unappreciated.
We're getting off the subject.
You've convinced me.
Please keep talking to me.
I realize it's not your fault.
That came out all wrong.
I see how I contributed to the problem.
What are we really fighting about?
How can I make things better?
I'm sorry.
I love you.
Orwell On Probable Cause
It was terribly dangerous to let your thoughts wander when you were in any public place or within range of a telescreen. The smallest thing could give you away. A nervous tic, an unconscious look of anxiety, a habit of muttering to yourself -- anything that carried with it the suggestion of abnormality, of having something to hide. In any case, to wear an improper expression on your face (to look incredulous when a victory was announced, for example) was itself a punishable offence. There was even a word for it in Newspeak: facecrime, it was called.
--1984 by George Orwell
LithiumX On Self-Imposed Limits
I have a theory. Most people, meaning the vast majority who have no significant neural defects, only believe they can't handle culture.
People are conditioned, not by government but by their peers, to believe that science, history, technology, and literature are beyond them. In school, I constantly saw ghetto kids slowly gain an understanding of computers (under my tutelage), then desperately hid it from their peers (to whom any form of academic achievement by one of their own had racial overtones).
Later I saw that most people seem to feel that anything beyond them was simply beyond them, not understanding that no one learns "geek" subjects without effort. Some people have a stronger sense of wonder, a more powerful curiosity, that drives them to learn and grow more than others, but I really don't believe there is much that is beyond the average person, if they only paid enough attention to develop an interest in higher culture.
People like to be comfortable. They like to have limits, no matter what they say. Regrettably, most people will accept imaginary limits of their own making rather than risk the crushing reality of the real thing, a choice that cripples them worse than any failed undertaking ever could.
Zebra_X (13249) On Supersonic Flight
Ken On Accents
Sergeant-Major: Tell me soldier - did you come here to die?
Private: No, sir! I came here yester-die.
African Schoolground Song Heard By PTate in MN
White person, white person, if you'd just eat more pepper, you wouldn't look so inside out.
Old Friend Of Howard A. Rodman On Advance Forces
Artists are to realtors as missionaries are to slave traders.
