Hello, readers. Welcome to another Wednesday Words, a series of bits and pieces of quotes or anything that catches my imagination that I hope catches yours.
Today let’s celebrate a little humor, a vital ingredient—in my view—in a recipe for sanity. The following are a couple of samples from my waaayyback files, a book recommendation, and a link to one of my favorite Monty Python routines.
From an article about comedians and Buddhism, published in Shambhala Sun magazine, November 2013, comes the following. BTW, the magazine has since changed its name to Lion’s Roar:
Wise Fools
Unflinching honesty. Insightful observation. Outside-the-box thinking. Today’s great comedians may not know much about Buddhism but they practice some of its most important principles.
… When thinking about Buddhism and comedy, it’s easy to think “Zen.” The diamond-like one-liners of Steven Wright, for example, have often been noted for their koan-like concision. And, like the Zen view itself, Wright’s world is boundless. Anything can happen. “I went into a place to eat,” he has quipped. “It said ‘breakfast anytime.’ So I ordered French toast during the Renaissance.”
Utils of pleasure
Now this from an absolutely NOT famous, wannabe comedian—an excerpt from my journal kept for a Basic Writing class, OSU, 1987.
April 31, 1987
Economics is one of those topics that I have to really liven up with my imagination or else I’ll get bored stiff. In class, we’ve learned that economists use a unit of measurement for the satisfaction a person receives from a good or service. They use a term called UTIL to do this. For example, I could say that writing in my journal gives me 3 utils, or that amount of happiness. Anyway, the class got a kick out of this term UTIL and the idea behind it. The whole theory inspired the following poem I composed for our instructor, Mr. Gabriel.
Each activity yields one util.
Utilizing Utils
There was a man named Gabriel
Who ate an apple strudel
For him it had one util
So he gobbled down a noodle
And soon began to doodle
Along with that did yodel
While petting his fat poodle.
Then how many utils
Did he have in total?
A novel
“Catch-22 is the only war novel I’ve ever read that makes any sense.” ~ Harper Lee
Yes, Catch 22, published in 1955, is darkly funny. Reading it (for me) is like reading a really long M*A*S*H script. It’s “One of the most bitterly funny works in the language … Explosive, bitter, subversive, brilliant.” ~ Robert Brustein, The New Republic.
Monty Python
Monty Python – Spanish Inquisition
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Thanks for reading!
Until next time, best wishes from your writer on the wing,
Charlene
P.S. – My posts about fundamentalism, cults, and The Way International™
For my posts about fundamentalism and/or cults—especially The Way International,™ click the Blog link at the top of any page of my website here. Some of them are also on Blogspot: Charlene Lamy Edge Speaks about The Way International
Kathleen Brandt
Did you see that Pope Francis is publishing a joke book? No joke! (Pun intended.) He wrote an op-ed in NYT about it.
Candy Dawson
Thank you for the utils today! May the holidays be merry!
Candy Dawson
Thank you for the utils today! May the holidays be merry!
John Arnett
If you or any of your readers can access a humorous linguistic column that Richard Lederer writes weekly for a San Diego newspaper, you won’t be disappointed and your spirits will be lightened. My sister who lives in San Diego sends me a digital version of his column every week
Charlene
Thanks for chiming in here, folks. Keep laughing for sanity!