john devore is pretty great

Image: thefrisky.com

I wish I could write like John DeVore. Why? Because he’s really funny and always writes about how awesome both the sexes are. He’s consistently like, “Damn, all women are fine, especially if they have curves and watch Sex and the City!” and then he’s like, “Being a man is the best. I may be in touch with my feminine side, but that doesn’t mean I’m not going to go wrestle a shark with my bare hands today.”

I usually can’t stand to read relationship articles because they’re either preachy, boring, dramatic, or simply filled with bad ideas. I make sure to read every new article by DeVore though, because he’s hilarious and I find he usually hits the mark. If he wrote a book I would buy it in a second. He’s Dave Barry-esque, but with a practical side.

“It’s almost a narcotic effect, when one of these graceful women wraps their legs around you, holding you close, yielding and demanding surrender at the same time. It’s … sensual? Did I really just type that? Surely, there’s a more testosterone-friendly way of saying “sensual.” Like, “slow boner?” Oh, well.”

———————

Men don’t have “guilty pleasures.”  We own, nay, celebrate what’s bad for us. Our obsessions are points of pride, not shame. You’ll never see a guy wolf down a small mountain of waffles with a side of pig and squeal, “OMG, I can’t beliiiiieeeeve I ate everything! Tee! Hee!”

He’s also a guest on Red Eye, my favourite show ever, which is awesome.

Anyways, I hope he writes a book.

Medea by Euripedes

image: Hanged-man on DeviantArt

I’m not really reading these Greek myths in order at all.

After Medea helped Jason retrieve the Golden Fleece by killing her brother (haven’t read that myth yet, don’t know why he needed a fleece, but he needed it. he was cold?) she fell in love with Jason and left her home country to marry him. She had two of his children, then he decide to have a second marriage.

And, as they say, hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.

Nurse:
Jason deserts my mistress and his children
And seeks royal alliance, marrying
The daughter of Creon, ruler of this land,
While poor Medea is left wretched and dishonored
To cry, “You promised,” and remind him of the hand
He pledged in faith… (17-22)

Medea:
My father, my country, how shamefully
I left you, and killed my own brother. (152-153)

At other times a woman is timid,
Afraid to defend herself, frightened at the sight
Of weapons; but when her marriage is in danger
There is no mind bloodthirstier than hers. (240-243)

So Medea, also a sorceress, decides to kill Jason’s new wife by giving her poisoned gifts – a golden robe and crown.

Messenger:
The golden circlet twining round her hair
Poured forth a strange stream of devouring fire (1120-1121)

The flesh dropped from her bones like pine-tears, torn
By the unseen power of devouring poison, (1134-1135)

She then kills her two sons in order to hurt Jason, but only after much deliberation. She loves her sons, but she hates Jason more.

Medea:
Did you think you could desert my marriage bed,
Make me your laughingstock, and still live happy?
I tore your heart from you, and you deserved it. (1286-1287, 1292)

And so she leaves Corinth on a chariot drawn by snakes. The end.

Bacchae by Euripedes

image: Classic Stage Ireland

Alright, so Dionysus is the god of wine and crazyness. His father was Zeus and his mother a mortal woman named Semele, who was from a city called Thebes. Semele died because Zeus revealed himself as a god to her, and being mortal she could not live in the presence of a god. Anyways, so Semele’s sisters gossiped, saying that Semele was lying and that Dionysus wasn’t really the son of Zeus.

So Dionysus disguises himself as a mortal and returns to Thebes, demanding that the Thebians worship Dionysus (also known as Bacchus), but they refuse. So he makes the women of the city go mad and worship him anyways.

Dionysus:
This town must learn,
even against its will, how much it costs
to scorn God’s mysteries and to be purged.
So shall I vindicate my virgin mother
and reveal myself to mortals as a God,
the son of God. (48-53)

Chorus:
Bacchus will lead the dancing throngs to the mountain,
the mountain, which is home to that mob of women,
who rebelled against the shuttle and loom
answering the urge of Dionysus. (136-141)

So the former king of Thebes, Cadmus, and a blind seer, Tiresias, believe that they should also answer the call of Dionysus and partake in revels, so they help each other dance even though they are very old. But Pentheus, Cadmus’ grandson and present King of Thebes is outraged at all the revelry going on and demands that the stranger encouraging the worship of Dionysus be brought to him.

So the guards capture Dionysus, who comes without struggle, and bring him to Pentheus. Also, a herdsman reports that the women, including Pentheus’ mothers and sisters, tore apart his cattle limb from limb.

Herdsman:
Everywhere you looked,
ribs and cloven hooves
were flying through the air.
And from the pine branches
dangled lumps of flesh that dripped with blood. Majestic bulls,
one minute aiming their horns with all their furious pride,
the next were stumbling to the ground,
overwhelmed by the swarming hands of girls,
their bones stripped clean of all their flesh,
faster than you could blink your royal eyes. (901-910)

The herdsman then reported the matter to PETA. I’m kidding.

Anyways, Pentheus and Dionysus talk for awhile, and somehow Dionysus convinces Pentheus to spy on the women dressed as a woman. If he is dressed as a man they will surely tear him to bits. So Dionysus leads him to the women, but instead of helping to bring them back, he delivers Pentheus into the hands of the women, who promptly rip him to shreds. Pentheus’ mother puts his head on a stake and parades him into town, where Cadmus looks on in horror. The spell is lifted and the women realize what they have done. Dionysus then banishes them all from Thebes and they leave.

Dionysus:
Hear me all! I speak to you now as Dionysus,
a God revealed to mortal eyes.
I came back to this land of my virgin birth,
to suffer the indignities that only human folly can invent.
I was mocked at, chained, thrown in prison. Men like Pentheus
who abuse their power in defiance of the Gods
shall ever rediscover the inexorable terror of divine justice.
Now you, his kin, were made to kill a tyrant that you gloried in.
You are unclean. And you shall go your separate ways,
leaving Thebes forever, to rid it from the curse of your pollution.
Had you been willing to be wise when you had all,
today, instead of losing all, you would be thriving allies
of the son of Zeus, your friend. (1800-1812)

The end.

Micromegas by Voltaire

I picked up The Best Known Works of Voltaire around a month ago from a pay-what-you-will donation shelf. I read Micromegas and am about halfway through Candide. I don’t quite understand the ending of Micromegas…but nevertheless, there still were some interesting things said.

Micromegas, 120, 000 ft high, is an inhabitant of the star Sirius. After being banished for basically being a philosopher he travels the universe and visits many other planets and stars. He makes friends with an inhabitant of Saturn, and together they continue to explore and discuss philosophy.

The opening conversation between Micromegas and the inhabitant of Saturn is as follows: The Saturnian speaks how even though his people have seventy-two senses, they still feel restrained by their lack of comprehension and that “their imagination transcends their wants.”

“I sincerely believe what you say!” cried Micromegas, “for though we Sirians have near a thousand different senses, there still remains a certain vague desire, an unaccountable inquietude incessantly admonishing us of our own unimportance…”

Micromegas then asks how long Saturnians generally live (15,000 years), and receives the reply: “Lack a day! A mere trifle!”

“It is the very same with us,” resumed the other, “The shortness of life is our daily complaint, so that this must be a universal law in nature.”

“Alas!” cried the Saturnian, “few, very few on this globe outlive five hundred revolutions of the sun (these, according to our way of reckoning, amount to about fifteen thousand years). So, you see, we in a manner begin to die the very moment we are born: our existence no more than a point, our duration an instant, and our globe an atom. Scarce do we begin to learn a little, when death intervenes before we can profit by experience. For my own part, I am deterred from laying schemes when I consider myself as a single drop in the midst of an immense ocean.”

After this conversation, the two philosophers decide to travel together and eventually come to earth. At first they believe the Earth to be uninhabited, especially the Saturnian, because they cannot see any life present. However, upon closer observation, they notice a whale in the ocean and then a ship. Eventually, they establish communication with the humans on the vessel (“O ye invisible insects, whom the hand of the Creator hath deigned to produce in the abyss of infinite littleness! I give praise to his goodness, in that he hath been pleased to disclose unto me those secrets that seemed to be impenetrable.”).

Micromegas and the Saturnian engage in philosophical discourse with the inhabitants of Earth asking them what they believe the soul is – to which the humans reply quoting their various authorities such as Locke, Mallebranche and Aristotle.

What ends the discourse is the claim of the last sailor, who asserts that the two visitors’ “fashions, their suns and their stars, were created solely for the use of man.” This puts Micromegas and the Saturnian in such fits of laughter that they accidentally dropped the ship and had to search for a good while to find it again. Micromegas says that before he leaves earth, he will write them a “choice book of philosophy which would demonstrate the very essence of things. When the secretary of the Academy of Sciences at Paris receives the book and opens it, he finds that the pages are blank.

“Ay, ay,” said he, “this is just what I suspected.”

And thus it ends. Like I said, I’m not going to pretend I understand the ending, but it was an interesting short story anyways.

Dave Barry in Cyberspace

Can words explain how much I love Dave Barry? This book was written in 1996, thus bringing a wave of nostalgia. Windows 95? Chatrooms? Webdings?? Remember when they were all a big deal? I do.

Seriously though, do “chatrooms” exist anymore? What gong shows they were.

Here’s a taste of Dave’s brilliance:

“Q. Wow! How can I get on the web?
A. It’s easy! Suppose you’re interested in buying a boat from an Australian company that has a web page featuring pictures and specifications of its various models. All you have to do is fire up your World Wide Web software and type in the company’s web page address, which will probably be an intuitive, easy-to-remember string of characters like this:

http//:www.fweemer-twirple~.com/heppledork/sockitomesockitome@fee.fie/fo/fum

Q. What is I type one single character wrong?
A. You will launch U.S nuclear missiles against Norway.

Q. Ah.
A. But assuming you type in the correct address, you merely press Enter, and there you are!

Q. Where?

Meditations by Marcus Aurelius

Soo…I’m loving this. The world needs more stoic philosophy and less…non-stoic philosophy. Right. Anyways, a few of these quotes put into words exactly the way I feel about some things, like this:

“Do not act as if thou wert going to live ten thousand years. Death hangs over thee. While thou livest, while it is in thy power, be good.”

…and this:

“As a horse when he has run, a dog when he has tracked the game, a bee when it has made the honey, so a man when he has done a good act, does not call out for others to come and see, but he goes on to another act, as a vine goes on to produce again the grapes in season.”

Also, I’ve come to realize all my blog posts are pretty much excerpts and quotes. Umm…you know, that’s okay though…I talk far too much in real life so it’s nice to let other people say things for once =P

Oh, and these are not just quotes…they’re POWER QUOTES. RAAAARRR!!!

“…the busybody, the ungrateful, arrogant, deceitful, envious, unsocial. All these things happen to them by reason of their ignorance of what is good and evil.”

“…For we are made for cooperation, like feet, like hands, like eyelids, like the rows of the upper and lower teeth. To act against one another is then contrary to nature.”

“Thou must now at last perceive of what universe thou art part, and of what administrator of the universe thy existence is efflux, and that a limit of time is fixed for thee, which if thou dost not use for clearing away the clouds from thy mind, it will go and thou wilt go, and it will never return.”

Prince Caspian by C.S Lewis

I’m seeing the movie tomorrow, so I figured I would read the book beforehand so I would readily be able to complain.

I’m sorry, it’s how I roll. I really don’t know what to expect…

Anyways, I’ve read the Narnia series twice before, the last time being about three years ago. Prince Caspian never quite made it onto my favorites…and now that I read it again, some things just seem odd. Maybe because I’m older and am reading too much into things I shouldn’t? Most likely.

I would mainly like to know what’s up with everyone gallivanting around with Bacchus and Silenus all the time. Edmund says something like, “That Bacchus seems like a chap who might do anything. I wouldn’t want to run into him and his girls without Aslan around.” Hmm.

Bacchus is the Roman god of wine and Silenus is one of his followers, and one of them is usually riding a donkey, I think (Fantasia, anyone?). And then some “wild girls” are with them, frolicking about.

I don’t quite understand…I think Lewis might saying that if we drink wine while God is far from our hearts or minds, anything could happen. But wine is also a reminder of Jesus’ sacrifice, and a gift for celebration – so if enjoyed within these bounds then it’s all good? Basically what Edmund said: don’t meet Bacchus without Aslan?

It just seems strange to be referenced at all in a children’s book.

Anyways, these are my favorite parts…I doubt half of them will show up on film. I remember the main thing I disliked about The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe movie was all the little lines they changed and left out – the “deep magic” and “emperor’s magic” completely disappeared! And they replaced it with something retarded like “true sacrifice.” Uh huh.

Yeah. Anyways – here’s what I hope doesn’t end up on the cutting room floor:

“And we beasts remember, even if dwarfs forget, that Narnia was never right except when a son of Adam was king.”
-Trufflehunter, the badger

“I don’t like the idea of running away.” said Caspian.
“Hear him! Hear him!” said the Bulgy Bears. “Whatever we do, don’t let’s have any running. Especially not before supper; and not too soon after it either.”

Paradise Lost by John Milton: Book 1

Paradise Lost was written by John Milton and published as 12 books in 1667. Here are some notes from Book 1, with the lines numbered for reference.

It starts off with Milton calling on the Holy Spirit to help him tell the story:

14. What in me is dark,
Illumine; what is low, raise and support
That, to the height of this great argument,
I may assert eternal providence,
And justify the ways of God to man.

Milton then begins his epic. The setting is in hell after Satan and his angels have been thrown out of Heaven.

62. Yet from the flames
No light, but rather darkness visible.

Satan addresses his angels. Even still he is prideful and even more hardened against God. He believes that he and his legions are still capable of overcoming God and claiming Heaven for themselves.

Present Concerns: Ethical Essays pt. 2

I think this is making it onto my favs list, every essay is so excellent! It’s really cool reading his opinions on the current events and issues of his day.

Here’s the first post I did on this book, and I’ll just continue giving a few quotes from each essay. I don’t summarize, because he states things more clearly and eloquently in one sentence than I could explain to you with a paragraph.

Modern Man and His Categories of Thought: “The effect of removing this [classical] education has been to isolate the mind in its own age, to give it, in relation to time, that disease which, in relation to space, we call Provincialism.”

“Where God gives the gift, the “foolishness of preaching” is still mighty. But best of all is a team of two: one to deliver the preliminary intellectual barrage, and the other to follow up with a direct attack on the heart.”

Talking About Bicycles: Lewis discusses four periods of enchantment in relation to riding bicycles. The first stage is un-enchantment. As a toddler, a bicycle was just another strange machine in an adult world. As a boy who could now learn how to ride and experience the freedom that came with it, he became enchanted. Soon, dis-enchantment came, when riding was not always freedom, but peddling up-hill “to and from school, in all weathers.” After many years came the re-enchantment, where the bicycle brought him back to those first feelings of joy and freedom, giving him an almost greater joy than what was originally experienced. Lewis quotes Owen Barfield saying that “Each great experience (enchantment) is ‘a whisper, which memory will warehouse as a shout (re-enchantment).’”

On Living in An Atomic Age: “For really, the naturalistic conclusion is unbelievable. For one thing, it is only through trusting our own minds that we have come to know Nature herself. If Nature when fully known seems to teach us (that is, if the sciences teach us) that our own minds are chance arrangements of atoms, then there must have been some mistake; for if that were so, then the sciences themselves would be chance arrangements of atoms and we should have no reason for believing in them.”

Present Concerns: Ethical Essays

Again I am reminded just how much I really love C.S Lewis. Love, love, love. This book is a collection of essays much like Fern-Seed and Elephants: and Other Essays on Christianity, only the subjects are more political. Here we get to see what Lewis thought of political and social equality, modern education, satirical cartoons, etc. So far it reveals Lewis to be quite the conservative, which rocks. I’ve only read about halfway, so I’ll give a brief description of each essay I’ve read or a quote from it.

The Necessity of Chivalry – “The knight is a man of blood and iron, a man familiar with the sight of smashed faces and the ragged stumps of lopped-off limbs; he is also a demure, almost a maidenlike, guest in the hall, a gentle, modest unobtrusive man.”

Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy = DONE

I finished it.

FINISHED IT!

And it was amazing. A bit excruciating at times, but overall totally worth it. I learned some new words…like apiary (a collection of managed bee colonies), sated (fed beyond capacity or desire), dilettante (one with superficial interest in the arts), insouciance(carefreeness), and succor (relief or aid in times of trouble).

Man, I love Google.

And here is officially the best quote of the entire book, in my opinion. Maybe top 3 but no others come to mind right now. Again, this pearl is brought to us by Konstantin Dimitrich Levin, who is possibly the best character in all the books I’ve read. And I thought nothing could top John Kelly.

“Was it through reason that I arrived at the necessity of loving my neighbor and not throttling him? I was told it as a child, and I joyfully believed it, because they told me what was in my soul. And who discovered it? Not reason. Reason discovered the struggle for existence and the law which demands that everyone who hinders the satisfaction of my desires should be throttled. That is the conclusion of reason. Reason could not discover love for the other, because it is unreasonable.”

Tolstoy = master.

Excerpt

“Vronsky meanwhile, despite the full realization of what he had desired for so long, was not fully happy. He soon felt that the realization of his desire had given him only a grain of the mountain of happiness he had expected. It showed him the eternal error people make in imagining that happiness is the realization of desires.”

-from Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

Almost halfway there…Page 335.

Another interesting thing about this book is not only do you see the characters do very normal everyday things, you hear their normal everyday conversations. Again using Levin as an example, not every single conversation will be about the primary obstacle in the story, his love for Kitty. He will do accounting and discuss the value of a wood, debate the zemstvo institutions with his brother, and converse about farming techniques and the emancipation of the serfs with other landowners. It’s what a reality show would be like if you showed all the “boring” stuff in between the primary dilemmas.

I’ve come to the conclusion that I really like Levin, he’s so awesome. I said earlier that I saw a lot of myself in him, but that’s not quite true anymore. He’s very different…a bit darker.

Anyways, here are some interesting quotes from Vronsky’s conversation with his friend Serpukhovskoy.

Mostly Levin…and I miss Tom Clancy

Well, last post on Anna Karenina I was at 114, now I’m at 283. I see what others mean when they say Tolstoy’s characters are not exaggerated, but very real and normal, doing normal every day things. For instance, he spends almost ten pages describing Konstantin Levin’s day mowing fields with the peasants. Ten pages!

I think this could be why everyone considers this to be such a great novel, because it is “real,” down to the details.

I have a hard time deciding whether I like Levin or not. I think I do…but he seems at times to be too self absorbed. In one conversation his older brother, who hold a position in office, tries to convince Levin to think of the common good, while Levin only wants to be concerned with what will affect him directly.

Are they arguing about beurocracy* somewhere in there too? To me, when I hear “zemstvo” which means an “elective provincial council for purposes of local administration” I think “beurocracy.” I could be wrong. But if I’m right and that is what they are talking about, I agree with Levin, ‘cause beurocracies** suck.

Anyways, here are some excerpts I thought were interesting. The first is Levin’s thoughts on his older brother. The second is Levin’s reasoning against participating in the zemstvo, and the third is…just Levin.

Dave Barry’s Complete Guide to Guys

What the heck is up with guys? Why are they the way they are? How do they think? DO they think?

Well, for answers…you could buy this month’s edition of Glamour magazine, the annual Man Issue. Over 2, 000 guys answer questions such as, “How would you feel about being with a woman who makes a lot more money than you do?” and “How much is too much cleavage?”

But these are all “Yes or No?”, “Alba or Biel?” poll questions. Sure, we have the answers, but why are these the answers we got?

Look no further than Dave Barry’s Complete Guide to Guys. Delve into the male psyche from the developing stages of childhood (“…boy toddlers will imagine that they are large meat-eating dinosaurs and stomp around the house in their disposable diapers trying to bite the dog.”) all the way to being a full grown guy (“As guys grow older, and produce more testosterone, they become less mature. This is especially true when they’re in control of automobiles.”).

Here is an excerpt:

Fern-Seed and Elephants: and other essays on Christianity by C.S Lewis

I have been slowly pecking away at this book for a few a months now, picking it up, reading some, putting it down, forgetting about it for a few months…finding it again and reading the rest. So now I’m finally done and it was pretty fantastic, with the exception of the essay Historicism, which I could not understand to save my life.

The book contains a total of eight compositions; here are some quotes to give you an idea about the content of each:

The “Ridiculous” and the “Real”

I’ve progressed to page 114 and it still holds my interest. Good show, good show.

I really love this line when Anna returns home to Petersburg from Moscow: “And the son, just like the husband, produced in Anna a feeling akin to dissapointment. She had imagined him better than he was in reality. She had to descend into reality to enjoy him as he was.”

It’s almost a shameful feeling to relate to…but doubtless we’ve all felt that way about another person at some point, and someone has felt it about us. It’s a grass-is-greener effect. Count Vronsky held such great appeal and thus dulled the image of her husband and son.

Also, this passage was prime, regarding Count Vronsky and his friends:

“In his Petersburg world, all people were divided into two completely opposite sorts. One was the inferior sort: the banal, the stupid and, above all, ridiculous people who believed that one husband should live with one wife, whom he has married in church, that a girl should be innocent, a women modest, a man manly, temperate and firm, that one should raise children, earn one’s bread,  pay one’s debts, and other such stupidities. This was an old-fashioned and ridiculous sort of people. But there was another sort of people, the real ones, to which they all belonged, and for whom one had, above all, to be elegant, handsome, magnanimous, bold, gay, to give oneself to every passion without blushing and laugh at everything else.”

(emphasis added)