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Quote of the Day: The Process Is the Product
A few days back, I discovered a couple of promising quotes that I thought would work for my upcoming Quote of the Day post.
Dogs never bite me. Just humans. — Marilyn Monroe
And:
A dog is the only thing on earth that loves you more than he loves himself. — Josh Billings
The Monroe quote brought to my mind one of my favorite words, “toothsome.” I could work that neatly into a post on Hollywood’s blonde bombshell. After all, Marilyn was, if anything, terribly toothsome. But then I ran out of ideas. It’s hard to build an entire post out of Marilyn Monroe’s toothsomeness. Besides, the topic was likely to get me into trouble with the lassies on Ricochet.
The second quote, about how lovable dogs are, would write itself. I often sneak Bob the dog into a variety of my posts anyway, and this quote was like an invitation.
I declined that invitation. You see, I’ve begun to feel a bit self-indulgent about posting Bob stories and photos in what is essentially a political site. Besides, I know you have cute dogs, too. So the dog quote was out.
So there I was, all out of ideas with one day left before my post was due. The Arahant, the boss man of the Quote of the Day feature, was going to come down hard on me if I didn’t come up with something on my scheduled day.
Then I remembered a recent post by Mrs. @She, which consisted of a photo of a woman wearing a chicken hat, accompanied by a mere twenty-three clever words. That chicken hat post was a big hit.
I could do that! I could find a quirky subject and write a few words about it. So I took a little walk around the house to look for a quirky object or two to use for a post. Aha! There they were, my two little statues sitting on my fireplace mantle. I had carved them a few years back when I was selling things made out of wood at a local Portland craft fair. These two were left over. They’re not as quirky as a woman wearing a chicken hat, but they might be quirky enough.
I stared at them, hoping that I would be as inspired as Mrs. She was when she first laid eyes on the lady with the chicken hat.
Aha, I was beginning to get a glimmer of an idea. Now all I needed was a quotation. No problem. Using Google, I found a promising quote by Philip Pullman from his book, Lyra’s Oxford.
Everything means something.
That seemed sufficiently broad in scope so that I could fit, well, everything in the world into it.
So if everything means something, I can call the little girl enjoying the rain “The Trump Years.” I can see it: The cloud is Trump, and the rain represents the shower of blessings that are the result of Trump’s policies: fewer regulations, no wars, a stronger Mexican border, lower unemployment, a rousing economy, and so forth. The little girl is America. Damn, this was going well!
I can call the second statue “The Coming Biden Years.” The ball represents Biden’s policies. Our resistance to Biden’s policies is the fragile string holding up the ball. Unless we can keep it together, the string will snap and the falling ball will crush America with higher taxes, porous borders, higher energy prices, and socialism!
So there you have it: I’ll use my toaster oven as the subject of my next post. A toasted bagel can symbolize. . . .
Postscript: It’s now 1:15 a.m. on November 18, my Quote of the Day day, and I’m still working on my post. I was just notified in a text message by the Arahant (4:15 a.m. his time) that my day had come. Does the man ever sleep?
Published in General
I’ve been trying to avoid posting anything political.
Thanks, Kent, for a lighthearted look at dealing with writer’s block and deadlines. I always enjoy your wood crafts as well as your word crafts. With the server switch being accomplished here at R>, I am sure that Arahant has found his voice again and will send along an approving comment.
Those are both excellent.
Jose, I’m a solid conservative, but I’m not very political. On its surface, that sentence may not seem to make sense. But I suspect you know what I mean.
Thanks, JoelB. The server switch lasted over an hour, so I was chomping at the bit while waiting for Ricochet to come back on line.
Thanks, Aaron. I miss woodworking, but not enough to do anything. After 50 or so years of woodworking, I finally burned out. I go out to my shop every now and then to see if inspiration kicks in. It hasn’t so far. I don’t think it ever will.
Josh Billings.
Jimmy, Josh Billings must have been an avid dog lover. At least he has some great dog quotes.
A very quotable man. “To bring up a child in the way he should go, travel that way yourself once in a while.” He was so clever that he made a good share of his living giving humorous lectures. He’s often compared to Mark Twain. They were contemporaries.
Exactly.
See? Someone who isn’t lazy could use that for a Quote of the Day.
Since you are ashamed of Bob here’s Jack
Hi Jack. I wish I could see you better, but black dogs and cats often suffer the fate of obscurity.
Here’s stripy dog, doing what she does best. I hope there’s enough contrast in this photo.
Hey BDM
Conservatism is about knowing there is more to life than politics. Progressivism tells us that everything is politics.
As I was going through this, I was reminded of the first time I saw Doyle & Debbie at the Ann Arbor Folk Festival years ago. As they abruptly left the stage after an abbreviated version of their show, the MC came back on stage, stared at the audience for a minute with her mouth hanging open, before recovering enough to ask, “What the hell was that?”
Kids, don’t try this at home. Yes, do sign up for the Quote of the Day and provide us with interesting quotations. That’s easy enough. But don’t think you can do Quote of the Day as Kent does. He is unique. Each Quote of the Day is like a walk through a large park with the dog leading you. The dog knows where he is going, and eventually, he’ll get you both there, but there is an interesting smell on this tree over yonder and does anyone else smell a squirrel nearby? Instead of one quotation, we got three of them. We had dogs, Marilyn Monroe, the chicken-hat conversation, woodworking projects, politics and history, and it all came together beautifully. I have no idea how he does that.
If you would like to participate in the Quote of the Day series, our sign-up sheet for November awaits. There are two more openings this month the 26th and 29th.
If, on the other hand, you want to share with Ricochet the thanks you have to give, you might consider Group Writing, for which the theme this month is: Cornucopia of Thanks.
There’s a meme going around recently, roughly
“Want to find out who loves you more, your dog or your wife?
Lock them both in the trunk of the car for an hour. Then when you open the trunk, which one is happy to see you?”
I love this post! A man of many talents. I especially love the whimsy in your writing. The art pieces are perfect. Thanks, Kent.
Thanks, Susan, but where were you when I was trying to sell them in the Tuesday Market in Portland? My little whimsical statues were a drag on the little whimsical statues market, which almost crashed after being being associated with my little statues.
Great post and wonderful carvings, Kent. The only thing that could have made it better is if you would have surrendered to the urge and posted a picture of Bob.
Thanks Old Buckeye. Next time.
That difficulty would be a substantive issue if her toothsomeness were a deficient testimony to itself that could be remediated by the right entire post or even the right fragment of a post.
Luckily not.
Yeah man, sausage and politics.
I wonder why dogs like the taste of me better than they liked Marilyn Monroe?
One Amish dog just got a taste of my shoe, though, and didn’t get any of me.
Except speaking from experience, if you invest in a steak or two, you certainly can buy the wag of a dog’s tail.
I think you can see enough of this black cat.
Not nearly enough. I’m sorry, RushBabe, but your black cat looks like a generic black cat. All of his personality is gone. Here is one of the last photos I took of my now deceased black cat Ebbie.