Coriolanus, Lemon Chicken Recipe, Jimmy Stewart

 How do you lose a sixteen-inch screw?
I gotta run money, gotta get up, it's the first of the month.
Throwing a hot dog in a hallway, you don't know where it goes.
Gorilla snot with a stitched catty backseam, but it's all about stockings.

Jimmy Stewart, in The Naked Spur, is how I want my son to be. He is a tragihero, but he gets the girl at the end, bullet-legged and all.

My lemon chicken has reached perfection. The secret, my friends, is to add the chopped dill and rosemary when the chicken has a small pink spot in its middle. Then you flip it and let it fry for, say, two minutes.

Sometimes Daniel Adler just don’t feel like biking seven mile, especially when he wake up real dehydrated, and it’s lightly snowing. Better to just read on the subway,
Why did you wish me milder? Would you have me false to my nature? Rather say I play the man I am, Coriolanus, III.ii.14-16.
Shaw said that this tragedy is Shakespeare’s best comedy. I did a Drunk History of it last night.

2010 Classic Literature Round Up

One of my more rececnt posts about George Bernard Shaw has caused a bit of a maelstrom. Indeed, I was wrong, or at least misreading the quotation. It seems as though experience is not valuable for its capacity or breadth, but for its quality. This goes back to Nietszche. The Superman stands on the subway platform and feels the rush of wind whip his hair, he knows the pulse of the city, paces the heartbeats of the individuals in the cramped cars. The ordinary man waits for the doors to open.

Anyway, enough of my metamodernist rehashings. Post postmodernism has been very good to me this year. Some notes I'd like to make on the close of 2010.

As much as I hate Sarah Palin, refudiate is a cool word.

Here are my top three books of classic literature that I read this year:

1. Sentimental Education: A superb bildungsroman in the French style. Flaubert's masterpiece.
2. White Noise: Talk about post postmodernism. This book is entertaining, funny, and profound. A must read for anyone who enjoys classic literature.
3. War and Peace: A sprawling masterpiece, this book is a great way to learn about the Napoleonic wars, but it's clear that Tolstoy's best moments are domestic descriptions. That's why Anna Karenina is better.

That's it guys! Hope you have fun tonight, and I'll write you next year.

The Value of Experience

"Men are wise in proportion, not to their experience, but to their capacity for experience."
-George Bernard Shaw, The Revolutionist's Handbook and Pocket Companion, "Man and Superman"

Unless I am wrong, which I often am, this means that the wisest men are the men who are most willing. Which means that those who have tried the most drugs, had the most lurid sexual adventures, and have lived most unlawfully are the wisest. Surely this is not what Shaw meant? Or is it?

Central to the Shavian paradigm is the idea that man wants to better himself. So all of the experience that can, and does, benefit man will also enlarge his wisdom, right? Take hard drugs for example. The willingness to encounter alternate states of mind must be worth something, but not to the point of detriment. Robbing banks would be applauded by Socialist Shaw, but if it endangered your life, which it most likely would unless you were a professional, the act would be condemned.

It seems then that we, and I, Daniel Adler especially, have to strike a balance between breaking down our most rational thoughts and fears, and understanding what will harm our being in the long run. In other words, as long as you try what comes your way at least once, you won't be lame.

Your JFK Flight Status is: Cancelled

It is snowing in New York. There are 50 m.p.h. winds and an expected foot through tonight. Luckily, I am in the warm confines of my great uncle's house, where we are drinking malbec and eating crab cakes with remoulade and brussels sprouts (the crisp browned leaves and healthy vitamins make it a personal favorite. They grow on stalks, and are not baby cabbages, btw.) It isn't helping much, because I'm getting really fat as you can see.

My baby girl is in L.A. and was supposed to come home today, but when she checked her JFK flight status, her flight was cancelled. Now she's coming home Tuesday or maybe even later. This is actually a southeaster, so if you're thinking about flying to the Philadelphia airport, you're out of luck.

Meanwhile, I'm reading George Bernard Shaw's "Man and Superman," which is supremely dope. The introduction alone outlined the difference between the men who act as artists by modeling the great writers and studying how to write, but lack the creative passion that separates the artist from the amateur. Shaw goes on to mention that David Copperfield and Hamlet are lesser characters than those allegorical figures in Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress, because they are mere puppets through which the authors enact their own thoughts and feelings. While these characters are some of their most interesting, they are not representative of a cohesive philosophy or religion, and thus, come up short. These notions sprawl through my mind at present like the clouds that pour the tiny flakes that blanket the tarmac at JFK airport.