"Stuff is eaten by dogs, broken by family and friends, sanded down by the wind, frozen by the mountains, lost by the prairie, burnt off by the sun, washed away by the rain. So you are left with dogs, family, friends, sun, rain, wind, prairie and mountains. What more do you want?"
Federico Calboli
Friday, January 06, 2012
Code
Reader Bruce Douglas thinks this bumper sticker could effect better manners--?
Close as my own rusty Latin might have had it but more "modern"-- the Duel.
My biggest reservation to Bruce's tongue in cheek suggestion is that mad- dogging bangers would dominate before the civilized re- learned violent martial skills-- some readers here, male AND female, being ahead of the curve perhaps...
One concept I'm sure we could use more of, even in our modernity, would be to have honor and principles that one might actually die/kill to defend. It seems we've outsourced that sort of thing.
...Which allows me to again repeat once more(hey, that's redundant) the quote from the original Robert Howard Conan story "Tower Of The Elephant" that I like so well(this might be somewhat paraphrased): "Civilized men are more discourteous than barbarians, because they can be impolite without getting their skulls crushed, as a general rule". I have a bumper sticker on my truck that offers a continual and general apology instead of provoking conflict, and purty much covers everything for me(and yet enough to give people pause): "Please forgive me; I was raised by wolves"....L.B.
....and actually, if someone from around where I live saw a bumper sticker in Latin with a fancy illustration like that, they'd likely jump to the conclusion that it was a car owned by some rich furriner, and therefore likely profitable to break into!...L.B.
The solution to Steve's reservations would be to legalize dueling, but only with rapiers or short swords. That would put 99.9 percent of today's citizens on an equally ignorant footing to start with.
As someone in the .01 percent (amateur), I'd have to move quickly to challenge the half-dozen or so people I've fantasized running through.
Gee, I guess I'm definitely in the .01 percent. I fenced with both foil and saber in college and competed in the nationals. I think I could get back in dueling shape pretty fast.
This reminds me of a phone prank I pulled on a professor who taught a fencing course at the college I went to(in the days before dang phone I. D., etc. RUINED that entire category of pranking....)--in my bestest hillbilly accent(no real hard stretch for me anyway!) I called and wuz in-kwirin' 'bout his class, tellin' him az how I'd had LOTS uv speeriunce puttin' up fences fer cows an hawgs an chikinz an such awreddy, so's ah wuz jist a wundrin' if'n ah kood go ahead an start at thuh ADVANCED level--I really had him going fer awhile--he kept inanely saying over and over--TRYING to be polite, but having a hard time doing it--"Are you SERIOUS?", and I went into a whole speil about being a top 4-H-er, and belonging to "Young Farmers Of America" etc. etc.--he bought it for the longest, until I started blowing snot through my nose I was laughing so hard! I finally let him off the hook, and let him know, yes, it WAS a joke!...L.B.
10 comments:
My Latin is rusty, but I take it this says: "Renew courtesy, bring back Trial by Combat."
Close as my own rusty Latin might have had it but more "modern"-- the Duel.
My biggest reservation to Bruce's tongue in cheek suggestion is that mad- dogging bangers would dominate before the civilized re- learned violent martial skills-- some readers here, male AND female, being ahead of the curve perhaps...
One concept I'm sure we could use more of, even in our modernity, would be to have honor and principles that one might actually die/kill to defend. It seems we've outsourced that sort of thing.
...Which allows me to again repeat once more(hey, that's redundant) the quote from the original Robert Howard Conan story "Tower Of The Elephant" that I like so well(this might be somewhat paraphrased): "Civilized men are more discourteous than barbarians, because they can be impolite without getting their skulls crushed, as a general rule". I have a bumper sticker on my truck that offers a continual and general apology instead of provoking conflict, and purty much covers everything for me(and yet enough to give people pause): "Please forgive me; I was raised by wolves"....L.B.
....and actually, if someone from around where I live saw a bumper sticker in Latin with a fancy illustration like that, they'd likely jump to the conclusion that it was a car owned by some rich furriner, and therefore likely profitable to break into!...L.B.
The solution to Steve's reservations would be to legalize dueling, but only with rapiers or short swords. That would put 99.9 percent of today's citizens on an equally ignorant footing to start with.
As someone in the .01 percent (amateur), I'd have to move quickly to challenge the half-dozen or so people I've fantasized running through.
I have a little list,
They never will be missed...
I took fencing in elementary school and college, so would I have to buy a bumper sticker which said "I am the .01%" ?
En Garde!
Gee, I guess I'm definitely in the .01 percent. I fenced with both foil and saber in college and competed in the nationals. I think I could get back in dueling shape pretty fast.
This reminds me of a phone prank I pulled on a professor who taught a fencing course at the college I went to(in the days before dang phone I. D., etc. RUINED that entire category of pranking....)--in my bestest hillbilly accent(no real hard stretch for me anyway!) I called and wuz in-kwirin' 'bout his class, tellin' him az how I'd had LOTS uv speeriunce puttin' up fences fer cows an hawgs an chikinz an such awreddy, so's ah wuz jist a wundrin' if'n ah kood go ahead an start at thuh ADVANCED level--I really had him going fer awhile--he kept inanely saying over and over--TRYING to be polite, but having a hard time doing it--"Are you SERIOUS?", and I went into a whole speil about being a top 4-H-er, and belonging to "Young Farmers Of America" etc. etc.--he bought it for the longest, until I started blowing snot through my nose I was laughing so hard! I finally let him off the hook, and let him know, yes, it WAS a joke!...L.B.
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