Dec

24

News and notes: Elkin, day 1.

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» It is now legal to deer hunt in Elkin city limits. Two groups of people have come to my parents front door to ask if they could hunt in their side yard - which has some trees, but isn’t a forest by any stretch of the imagination. Yeehaw!

» I traveled with Winston all the way to my Mom’s house - the furthest we’ve gone so far - and he acted like I was taking him to a kill shelter. He hid under the bed, he fought when I picked him up to put him in the car and he wined all the way out of Charlotte. But now what he’s here, he’s playing with Bubbles (Mom’s dog) and having a great time. I dread the ride back.

» I’ve been working on my personal website whilst I’ve been at Mom’s house. It isn’t going well. I blame the absence of Starbucks for my creative slump. How do these people live with nothing more than Folgers?

Dec

23

Yes Virginia…

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Something that makes me feel warm and happy every year at Christmas time:

DEAR EDITOR: I am 8 years old.
Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus.
Papa says, ‘If you see it in THE SUN it’s so.’
Please tell me the truth; is there a Santa Claus?

VIRGINIA O’HANLON.
115 WEST NINETY-FIFTH STREET.

VIRGINIA, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age. They do not believe except [what] they see. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds. All minds, Virginia, whether they be men’s or children’s, are little. In this great universe of ours man is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect, as compared with the boundless world about him, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge.

Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus. It would be as dreary as if there were no Virginias. There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The eternal light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.

Not believe in Santa Claus! You might as well not believe in fairies! You might get your papa to hire men to watch in all the chimneys on Christmas Eve to catch Santa Claus, but even if they did not see Santa Claus coming down, what would that prove? Nobody sees Santa Claus, but that is no sign that there is no Santa Claus. The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see. Did you ever see fairies dancing on the lawn? Of course not, but that’s no proof that they are not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world.

You may tear apart the baby’s rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived, could tear apart. Only faith, fancy, poetry, love, romance, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, Virginia, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding.

No Santa Claus! Thank God! he lives, and he lives forever. A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay, ten times ten thousand years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood.
Published in the New York Sun, September 21, 1897

Merry Christmas everyone!

For those of you that didn’t get a Christmas card, I apologize - but postage is expensive. I’ll be thinking of each of my friends over the next couple of days and wishing you all safe and happy holidays.

Dec

20

Same ‘ole, same ‘ole.

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Some things in life never change. Seasons come and go. Weather happens. Clothes come in and out of fashion. People get old. Many, many things are constant.

One thing that shouldn’t be but is: people disappoint me.

Left and right. Every turn. Damn near every day. Hurried people driving cars zoom through red lights and hit pedestrians, robbers gun down innocent people, business people walk past homeless people without a glance. Neighbors make too much noise for close quarters, lovers end their love, rich people refuse to help poor people.

I challenge you to do something: tell someone you appreciate them. And mean it.

Dec

18

Apple key.

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I just realized that Apple removed the  (Open Apple) symbol from their new keyboards (like the one I have at work). I’m a little sad to see it go.

Dec

13

Bark.

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Dear Neighbors in NoDa,

I wanted to take a moment and let you know how much I enjoy spending time with you. I don’t care what other people say. I don’t think you’re posing as Avant Garde folk simply as a means of getting the attention that your petty-bourgeoise parent’s didn’t lavish you with. I understand that you’re making Bohemia, and I applaud you for it.

But I have one quick thought:

The next time your dog — be it a Rottweiler, Doberman or German Shepherd — isn’t on a leash and makes a lunge towards my small, adorable, well-behaved, leashed dog, I will not take two seconds to think about clobbering it’s head in with a rock. I’m sure your dog is wonderful and treats you well. Or maybe it’s a monster…It doesn’t really matter. Bringing an animal in from outside and naming it Oswald or Petunia or whatever-you-want does not, I repeat DOES NOT, make it capable of rational thought. Scolding an angry dog does very little good when he is using my dog’s leg bones as toothpicks.

On a side note, you may not have noticed that we live in apartments and don’t have a yard. Or a herd of buffalo to hunt. Although Rottweiler’s add a certain amount of “Street Cred” to your image, I’m not sure that thugging up NoDa with not-very-smart, aggressive, over-powered dogs is a very good idea. Just a thought.

I’m serious, by the way, about the rock. You’ve been warned assholes.

Yours very truly,
David

edit:
Lindsey made a fair point in her comment. I will only clobber the dog if really threatened. Scouts honor. I will, however, clobber the dog’s owners on the head with a rock the next time I see a vicious horse that isn’t on a leash.

Dec

3

Before he discovered sunshine.

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A Van Gogh has been donated to the Portland Museum of Art after hanging in a family’s home since 1950. But it’s not your everyday, run-of-the-mill Van Gogh. No sunflowers, no one-eared portrait. It’s a dark oil-on-canvas depicting an Ox Cart, probably hauling dung. As Curator Bruce Guenther explains “[it is] brown and black and grey and green … and it’s filled with an atmosphere”. NPR’s Susan Stamberg explains that “Van Gogh made it [in Nuenen, a Dutch village] before he went to Arles and other towns in southern France and discovered sunshine”.

Read more here.

Dec

2

Bargain basement grammar.

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Advertising professional 1:
“Where could I buy some prepositions at? I know! Best Buy!”

Advertising professional 2:
“But you don’t need any more prepositions! Where will you put them at?”

Advertising professional 1:
“I don’t know. I’ll throw them in somewhere”

an actual ad:
bad grammar

Dec

1

Breaking the law.

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Judge Robert Restaino in Niagara Falls, New York jailed the entire gallery of his courtroom (46 people, some of whom were not already defendants) when a cell phone rang and no one admitted to it being theirs.

They were taken to cells and ordered to post bail at $1,500. Fourteen people who couldn’t post bail were taken to another prison in handcuffs before the judge released them later that day.

He later explained that he was dealing with stress in his personal life.

What an asshole.

(from BBC News)