Waking Ambrose

Gratitude in Odd Years

2009-11-25T03:55:00.000-08:00

Given two knees to bend in prayer

And two lips with which to shape the air

Two hands to fold, two eyes to close-

So evenly appreciation shows.

For gratitude's an even state,

A grace to grace reciprocate,

A gift that we give in reflection

Of fortune smiling our direction.

The fourth Thursday in November

We appoint the day that we'll remember

Over second servings, to raise some cheer

For blessings we received this year.

How puzzling, then, the mystery-

That troubles come ennumbered three

And juggling, each of us must labor

To praise those that plague our neighbor.

And so since we pray annually,

And count our blessings manually,

Some ambivalence is fine

For thanksgiving given in aught-nine.

ODD, adj. Indivisible by two, as a second portion.

Trinity

2009-11-24T05:07:00.000-08:00

TRINITY, n. In the multiplex theism of certain Christian churches, three entirely distinct deities consistent with only one. Subordinate deities of the polytheistic faith, such as devils and angels, are not dowered with the power of combination, and must urge individually their claims to adoration and propitiation. The Trinity is one of the most sublime mysteries of our holy religion. In rejecting it because it is incomprehensible, Unitarians betray their inadequate sense of theological fundamentals. In religion we believe only what we do not understand, except in the instance of an intelligible doctrine that contradicts an incomprehensible one. In that case we believe the former as a part of the latter.

2009 Update: A Christian formulation for one being in three persons. Examples include the divine trinity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit; the earthly trinity of sinner, neighbor and pagan and the ecclesiastical trinity of the Fellowship Committee.

Tope

2009-11-23T06:00:00.000-08:00

TOPE, v. To tipple, booze, swill, soak, guzzle, lush, bib, or swig. In the individual, toping is regarded with disesteem, but toping nations are in the forefront of civilization and power. When pitted against the hard-drinking Christians the abstemious Mohammedans go down like grass before the scythe. In India one hundred thousand beef-eating and brandy-and-soda guzzling Britons hold in subjection two hundred and fifty million vegetarian abstainers of the same Aryan race. With what an easy grace the whisky-loving American pushed the temperate Spaniard out of his possessions! From the time when the Berserkers ravaged all the coasts of western Europe and lay drunk in every conquered port it has been the same way: everywhere the nations that drink too much are observed to fight rather well and not too righteously. Wherefore the estimable old ladies who abolished the canteen from the American army may justly boast of having materially augmented the nation's military power.

2009 Update: To seek temperance in the bottom of a bottle. To be lush in view of the withered. To err among accountants or sin before the prim.

The Reformation of Wolfshausen

2009-11-21T04:52:00.000-08:00

Teil Sechs-Und Vierzig

To hear Jamie Dawn and Taylor do this week's reading, cross the Jordan with Joshua and the Israelites. (Caution: Walls may come tumblin' down.)

To read this week's episode, follow the strangers appearing to Abram.

The story so far is here.

Gold-Bug

2009-11-20T04:43:00.000-08:00

GOLD-BUG, n. In political matters, a miscreant who has the wickedness to know that legislation cannot maintain a permanent relation between the values of two metals, even by the luminous device pf binding them together in the same coins. A miller who grinds the faces of the poor and takes the whole grist for toll. A hideous monster that disturbs the Bulletin's repose by sitting astride Deacon Fitch's stomach, picking the bones of "the debtor class" and blaspheming the dollar of our fathers.

2009 Update: A politician whose crusade for purity leads him at last to the dollar, who reads Austrian treatises in the original Texan and who turns to smelted stone for wisdom and temperance.

Gastric Juice

2009-11-19T06:47:00.000-08:00

GASTRIC JUICE, n. A liquid for dissolving oxen and making men of the pulp.

2009 Update: The humor that controls intelligence in a man, gravity in a woman and affection in a dog.

Lighter together

2009-11-18T05:35:00.000-08:00

Building fence alone's a discouraging thing,

Sinking posts and stringing bob wire.

A horseman afoot with no friend to bring

Comes slowly across deserts burnt by wind instead of fire.

Staples bend, hammers drop, no spare hand to retrieve 'em

Marks are made too far and light for two eyes to perceive 'em

Lies are invented and repeated with no ear there to believe 'em

And gates go in too woody and wide for two arms to achieve 'em.

So if your vision is of a new Earth

And you have a mission to pursue

My advice, for what it's worth,

Is there's more lasting work to do.

When the weather sours and breezes rise as they do each November-

Douse your campfire and take some time to spit on ev'ry ember,

Pack up your bedroll, your come-along and jug, if you remember,

And head for town and find you a committee needs a member.

-Elko Smithers

HIGH-MISSION, adj. Low effort.

Gnu

2009-11-17T03:59:00.000-08:00

GNU, n. An animal of South Africa, which in its domesticated state resembles a horse, a buffalo and a stag. In its wild condition it is something like a thunderbolt, an earthquake and a cyclone.

A hunter from Kew caught a distant view
Of a peacefully meditative gnu,
And he said: "I'll pursue, and my hands imbrue
In its blood at a closer interview."
But that beast did ensue and the hunter it threw
O'er the top of a palm that adjacent grew;
And he said as he flew: "It is well I withdrew
Ere, losing my temper, I wickedly slew
That really meritorious gnu."
—Jarn Leffer

2009 Update: A beast with a goat's beard, the hooves of a deer and the shoulders of a boar which is absent from mythology because it lacks the lust, cowardice and malice that make such animals exotic to fabulists.

Grape

2009-11-16T05:03:00.000-08:00

GRAPE, n.

Hail noble fruit! — by Homer sung,
Anacreon and Khayyam;
Thy praise is ever on the tongue
Of better men than I am.

The lyre in my hand has never swept,
The song I cannot offer:
My humbler service pray accept —
I'll help to kill the scoffer.

The water-drinkers and the cranks
Who load their skins with liquor —
I'll gladly bear their belly-tanks
And tap them with my sticker.

Fill up, fill up, for wisdom cools
When e'er we let the wine rest.
Here's death to Prohibition's fools,
And every kind of vine-pest!
—Jamrach Holobom

2009 Update: The fruit of a tangled vine, by a tangled vine and for a tangled line.

The Reformation of Wolfshausen

2009-11-14T05:18:00.000-08:00

Teil Fünf-Und Vierzig

To hear the Bear and the Crow read this episode, click on the happy evangelist.

To read this week's episode, follow Thomas Didymus' finger.

The story so far is here.

Cackle

2009-11-13T06:07:00.000-08:00

CACKLE, v.i. To celebrate the birth of an egg.

They say that hens do cackle loudest when
. There's nothing vital in the egg they've laid;
. And there are hens professing to have made
A study of mankind, who say that men
Whose business is to drive the tongue or pen
. Make the clamourous fanfaronade
. O'er their most worthless work; and I'm afraid
In this respect they're really like the hen.
Lo! The drum-major in his coat of gold,
. His blazing breeches and high-towering cap,
Imperiously pompous, "bloody, bold
. And resolute"-an awe-inspiring chap!
Who'd think this hero's only warlike virtue
Is that in battle he will never hurt you?

2009 Update: To argue as the fowl argues or laugh as the witch laughs, or to contemplate as Lou Dobbs contemplated.

Cane

2009-11-12T04:59:00.000-08:00

CANE, n. A convenient article for admonishing the gentle slanderer and the inconsiderate rival.

2009 Update: A portable foundation with which to reinforce the rigidity of the elderly, or upon which to erect an upright child. A mobile martyrdom, Crux mobilis.

TLP, Decider

2009-11-11T05:50:00.000-08:00

A morning is for glory,

Late morn for glory past,

When a man can sit upon his couch

And be thoughtful at last.

But quiet, cautious contemplation

Serves only as a provocation

To the kind of woman whose vacation

She spends spreading aggravation.

Do the Roosters out in Pennsyltucky

Arise to Lucy's crowing?

Do the clouds break when she thunders

And the winds gust when she's blowing?

Here in LA, the sky is brightening,

The weather's clear, the morals heightening.

The burdens of the times are lightening

But I won't relax while Lucy's tightening.

BOSSY, adj. Minutely gracious.

Cudgel

2009-11-10T05:03:00.000-08:00

CUDGEL, n. A medicine for external application to the head and shoulders of a fool.

2009 Update: A heavy club which, the likeliest weapon of Friar Tuck, has since obsolesced in favor of theology.

Coenobite

2009-11-09T04:38:00.000-08:00

COENOBITE, n. A man who piously shuts himself up to meditate upon the sin of wickedness; and to keep it fresh in his mind joins a brotherhood of awful examples.

O Coenobite, O coenobite,
Monastical gregarian,
You differ from the anchorite,
That solitudinarian:
With vollied prayers you wound Old Nick;
With dropping shots he makes him sick.
—Quincy Giles

2009 Update: A contemplative who leaves town and home in search of community.

The Reformation of Wolfshausen

2009-11-07T04:57:00.000-08:00

Teil Vier-Und Vierzig

To hear Weirsdo telling this week's story, hide in the breadbasket.

To read this week's episode, watch from over in the haystack.

The story so far is here.

Eulogy

2009-11-06T04:21:00.000-08:00

EULOGY, n. Praise of a person who has either the advantages of wealth and power, or the consideration to be dead.

2009 Update: A brief review of the virtues from a life well and fully lived.

Epigram

2009-11-05T04:59:00.000-08:00

EPIGRAM, n. A short, sharp saying in prose or verse, frequently characterize by acidity or acerbity and sometimes by wisdom. Following are some of the more notable epigrams of the learned and ingenious Dr. Jamrach Holobom:

We know better the needs of ourselves than of others. To serve oneself is economy of administration.

In each human heart are a tiger, a pig, an ass and a nightingale. Diversity of character is due to their unequal activity.

There are three sexes; males, females and girls.

Beauty in women and distinction in men are alike in this: they seem to the unthinking a kind of credibility.

Women in love are less ashamed than men. They have less to be ashamed of.

While your friend holds you affectionately by both your hands you are safe, for you can watch both his.

2009 Update: Refined babble.

Those who seek shall surely find what they who lie unsought express in rhyme.

-Anonymous

Anthropogenic Global Whining

2009-11-04T05:33:00.000-08:00

Whether the science from gleaning of data

Is right that the world's getting warmer

Or the others are right that the science won't matter

If we cede all our plans to the former:

It's summery here in C.A. in November

And might be for Christmas, the worse.

So I'm starting my day, hoping to remember

To drive in to work in reverse.

DISCOMFORT, n. Heaven's first gift to the good and wisdom's middle curse on the industrious.

Excursion

2009-11-03T04:35:00.000-08:00

EXCURSION, n. An expedition of so disagreeable a character that steamboat and railroad fares are compassionately mitigated to the miserable sufferers.

2009 Update: A brief circular journey for the satisfaction of curiosity and the broadening of the mind. In the American midwest, a visit to the casino.

Experience

2009-11-02T04:42:00.000-08:00

EXPERIENCE, n. The wisdom that enables us to recognize as an undesirable old acquaintance the folly that we have already embraced.

To one who, journeying through night and fog,
Is mired neck-deep in an unwholesome bog,
Experience, like the rising of the dawn,
Reveals the path that he should not have gone.
—Joel Frad Bink

2009 Update: The sensory engine that pulls us from mistaken to misunderstanding.

"What is the price of experience? Do men buy it for a song or wisdom for a dance in the street? No! But a pamphlet can be had for mutterings or a slow limp!"
-Blake

Happy Birthday to Eamon!

The Reformation of Wolfshausen

2009-10-31T08:50:00.000-07:00

Teil Drei-Und Vierzig

To listen, poke the bat ar right.

To read this week's episode, click the snow over Hessen.

The story so far is here.

Deshabille

2009-10-30T06:33:00.000-07:00

DESHABILLE, n. A reception costume for intimate friends varying according to locality, e.g. In Borrioboola Gha, a streak of red and yellow paint across the thorx. In San Francisco, pearl ear-rings and a smile.

2009 Update: Casual or careless garb. According to the lexicographer, the antonym for nudity.

And a very happy birthday to sister AP3. May Facebook fete you as warmly as the blogosphere remembers.

Dragon

2009-10-29T04:20:00.000-07:00

DRAGON, n. A leading attraction in the menagerie of the antique imagination. It seems to have escaped.

2009 Update: A genus comprising greater variety in character than either canis or barber. The key traits include a leathery and scaled hide, moral dubiousness, destructive expression and appointment as opposed to election.

Advice to my nephew, Eamon, before his second birthday

2009-10-28T05:06:00.000-07:00

Monday's your birthday, make of it the most.

Pull a toy under Murphy and feed him your toast

Bite your mom's ankle, spill your dad's beer,

Frustrate your brother til I hear him scream from here.

Put Bapu's camera into your juice.

Grab Ganny's flowers and pull each petal loose.

Some days are good and some days are bad.

The best days are days you make everyone mad!

EXPEDITION, n. A long and demanding mission, such as the journey from infancy to propriety or from the cradle to a vase.