Owned Miscellany

Over the summer, I had the grand opportunidad to live in California while I was attending a Paleography seminar at the Huntington Library in San Marino. As part of that class, we read some miscellany that included some random 17th century guy's scribbled jokes and "amazing stories," much like the old Spielberg produced show. I was inspired to start collecting observations--my own--of everyday life. I had forgotten I did this until I was cleaning out my computer the other day and found them. I include a week's worth because they nicely represent a moment in time. If I were on twitter, I suppose this is the kind of thing I would write, but the twitter medium requires me to have followers, and as you well know from this blog, that is not much of a motivation for me. Here they are, in the same order that I wrote them over the span of a week. Some are banal, others are really banal, and still others are banalest. Feel free to use them for your own twitter feed, but the price of that is tagging it with #jameslambertisthemasterofdisaster. And now, a peak into how my noggin makes connections:

If you work in an artifact preservation job, you probably have an NPR voice.

Nodding while someone else is talking is interrupting.

Politics totally trumps religion for divisiveness.

Liberals always seem smug and conservatives always seem angry.

Local politics trumps national politics.

Those that get heavily involved in their community usually don’t seem angry nor smug.

Everything local is better—politics, conversations, love, friends—with one exception: music

The Mormon Stories community has a curious lack of joy—the kind that rejoices, not the kind with frivolity.

Questions with name drops aren’t questions at all. They are like the vocal version of nodding.

Those that remember scholars’ names have an unfair advantage in the job market.

Those that remember scholars’ names usually overvalue the contribution of scholars.

Those that remember historical names like to start sentences with “Now, was she the daughter of Lady Anne Clifford?”

Marriage gets harder and more valuable each year—like a diamond? No, like petrified wood.

Sideline reporters at the Olympics take what they know from professional sports and use those techniques: it highlights the broken personality of professional sports when those tactics are used on Olympic athletes.

Stand-up comedians overvalue each other, which makes them competitive.

Stand-up comedy is considered “important” right now. That is weirder than you think.

Extroverts claim they are introverts just as much as introverts claim they are introverts. Nobody claims she is an extrovert, even though she is.

If you have made a claim to be an introvert, you are an extrovert.

I was an introvert this morning, but an extrovert in the afternoon. I couldn’t afford the decision in the evening because of the kids.

Introvert and extrovert seem like dangerous labels to me.

Labels help us make sense of the world, which is why the world of superheroes is so appealing.

Origin stories never get old because they feign truth, but they are usually lies. Most stories that explain something are lies.

Stories are the only way to explain something, but the story needs to go on forever, in every direction, which means it no longer is really a story.

Our lives don’t have stories, just happenings, but when we make those happenings into stories, we become much happier.

Pictures memorialize by decluttering the memory.

Pictures take interesting stories and make them into uninteresting events.

Perhaps in 400 years, they’ll look back at pictures of thousands of people on the beach, and wonder what the fascination was. I wonder that myself. I think it is just the permeability of sand.

Surfing doesn’t make any sense.

The Amish think it is funny that we ride mowers and go to the gym for exercise. I wonder what they think about the beach.

Cuddling has a short shelf life.

We have banalled ourselves to death: the perfect example is an action movie.

When misanthropes are kind, the chill of first love flashes.

Why are there misanthropes?

The sacred can’t fight back, unfortunately.

Lyrics are the worst thing that happened to music, but music is the best thing that happened to poetry.

Poems are never universal, which is why they are sacred.

Some people like poetry, some people say they like poetry but really don’t, and some people say they don’t like poetry, but all people are poetic.

Poetry is the art of revision, not its fact.

Public art, libraries, and universal access to education are the primary reasons I would rather be a modern than an ancient.

If a small bag of peanut m&ms was placed next to a big bag of peanut m&ms and they were both placed on the table in front of you, which bag would you open?

What if there were a small bag, a medium sized bag, and a big bag?

Trying to express joy involves much more nuance than expressing sorrow.

It takes many articulations to actually convince someone that you think she is beautiful, but only one to convince the person that she’s not.

The more ways you can articulate beauty to its object, the better both lives will be.

Slower music is always better enjoyed alone.

Faster music is always better in enjoyed in groups.

Marriage is like being born again—baptized in the blood of the Other: you need to have a friend, get a calling, and to be nurtured by the good word of conversation.

Finding the books is much more fun than reading them.

Is it any coincidence that book fetishes have increased in the last ten years of English departments?

The hypertext offers little that is not in the text itself.

There is nothing new under the sun, except people.