Be Not Procrastinacious!

Sagacious Ben

Benjamin Franklin offers some sage advice:

"Have you somewhat to do tomorrow; do it today."

I agree with the bourgeois advice from the frank Franklin, and offer my own, similar advice:

 "Have you somewhat to do today; do it yesterday."

See? I have learned from the man!

Franklinly Speaking, You are my everything . . .

Ben in Love?
Yes, at times . . .

Benjamin Franklin offers an unusual gradient of values:

"Poverty wants some things, Luxury many things, Avarice all things."

Franklin may be using "wants" in the sense of "lacks."

Let me add a detail to Franklin's words:

"Love wants but one thing . . . because it is everything."

I've heard-tell that Franklin would agree . . .

Blazing a Trail of Glory!

The Generous Sun

Benjamin Franklin wrote another maxim:

"The Sun never repents of the good he does, nor does he ever demand a recompence."

Am I alone on this point, namely, that even to think of repenting for having done good suggests a moral flaw?

Franklin on: Let's Forget about Tomorrow!

An Embarrassed Franklin?

Benjamin Franklin wrote words that he didn't always follow:

"To-morrow, every fault is to be amended;
but that To-morrow never comes, thank God,
for there'd be no end to amending."

Actually, that is not all from the hand of Mr. Franklin,
for I added my bit, a couple of copper coins
that I also call "my two cents."

Benjamin the Orator

Franklin on the Orator

Benjamin Franklin once orated:

"Fear to do ill, and you need fear naught else."

Okay, yeah, but there's always danger . . .

and let's not forget the 'naughty' else,

which might not rise to the status of ill,

but which might ought be avoided, anyway.

Not Doggerel, but Caterwaul!

Bob Snider

He beat me to it . . .

In Part, I am 'Write'

Portly Franklin

I meant partly, for Benjamin Franklin almost wrote:

Be neither silly, nor cunning, but wise, in the use of the comma, economize!

(And shun to exclamationize!)

Franklin's Name Belied His Aim

Benjamin Franklin

An Edge Over You

Sitting under a tall tree pine, Benjamin Franklin did once opine:

"Necessity never made a good bargain."

(Except for with the other guy, of course.)

And forget not young man Newton, too, who made the universe anew!

He felled the apple what caused the fall and re-fused heaven and earth for all!

Shedding a Coat

Benjaminerisms:

Even Franklin

 had his

Bad Hair Days

Benjamin Franklin wrote the following "speciesist" remark:

The Wolf sheds his Coat once a Year, his Disposition never.

Which is good, albeit speciesist, because a 'disposition' would be damned hard to clean up!

Franklinish Irony

Money

"He's a Fool that cannot conceal his Wisdom."

Said the man who grew rich selling this very same sort of folksy wisdom compiled in Poor Richard's Almanack, which he published annually from 1732 to 1757, a quarter of a century, all told.

Undecidable Country?

Dam Nation

The Neitherlands: Neither above sea nor below water.

Franklin was very smart!

Lucky Franklin

He even wrote his own autobiography!

Franklinly Speaking . . .

Lucky Franklin

Having been poor is no shame, but having been twice poor likely is!

Benjamin Franklin spreads the word

The Word

Franklin: Do not do what you would not have known.

Fool: I would not have known had you not told me, but could you give an example?

I see, said the blind man . . .

Well-Digger Done
Cross Eyes
if
Double Image
Desired

"Well done is better than well said," said the welldigger well, his work well done.

The Wisest American?

Benjamin Franklin

Early to bed and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise enough to ignore this bit of clever nonsense.

Aspiration, Aspersion, Asp

An Asp

Here's the main rebel angel, but he seems also meant for more than mere rebellion, given his grand title "Lucifer," the Light-Bearer:

(Isaiah 14:12) How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations! (13) For thou hast said in thine heart, "I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north: (14) I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High."

The asp aspires higher than mere serpent or mere snake, and moreover, the asp is venomous. Henceforth is that old serpent, Satan, to be called by us an asp as well as the more familiar "Satan," which means, "The Adversary," and is thus another aspersion cast upon him! Consider these lines from Milton's Paradise Lost 4.835-837:

Think not, revolted spirit, thy shape the same,
Or undiminished brightness, to be known
As when thou stood'st in heaven upright and pure.

Such is his transformed aspect (though the word is not used), from the Latin term "aspicere," meaning "to look at."

None of these speculations is scholarly, merely pre-scholarly rambling . . .

Some dogmas . . .

Dinosaur in the Ark

. . . are beyond catastrophic.

Lighthouse Cliché

Lighthouse

There's a venerable old prosaicism what says a platitude's nothing more than a flat attitude with a shibbolethic bromide as its lighthouse cliché.

He who laughs last . . .

Joke?

. . . didn't get the joke.

Wisdom Gained from Pain?

E. C. Dowson

Roses Riotously Flung

Fling them all if fling ye must, but go on them not bare of foot.

(Sigh, Nada.)

A Dyslexic Reading of Isaiah 2:4:

The Letter T
on
a
Shopping
Bag?

"[He] hammers words into plowshares."

(He has to spell it out for us?)

Only if God's a monster . . .

Not
Just
Desserts

. . . will we get our just deserts.

Once Upon a Time . . .

Not the Father

. . . there was a father who insisted on discipline, which he applied with a belt that obediently slipped with ease from the loops of his jeans and folded over on itself one fold for even greater ease in handling, and when he was concentrated on instilling discipline through the belt that he liberally applied, he did not appreciate his word being "sputed."

One day, the wash that had been hung out in the basement to dry was discovered to be still wet and lying upon the very dry and dusty basement earth and therefore even dirtier than before its washing.

The father glanced at the fallen clothesline and the dirtied sheets, then turned to his older son and asked: "Did you knock down the wash?"

The little boy of about five years replied: "No."

The father turned his fierce attention onto his younger son and asked:  "Did you knock down the wash?"

The little boy of about four years replied: "No."

The father posed this second child a second question: "Did you do it on purpose?"

Confused, the four-year-old replied: "Yes?"

Instantly, the father's fierce face turned cruel as he pulled his belt from its loops, and the little boy, turning terrified, protested, "I didn't know what 'on purpose' meant! I didn't know what 'on purpose' meant!"

But it was too late. He knew what he had done. And it wasn't going to change a thing.

DepthFool is right . . .

Frosty the Criminal

"Do you want to build a Yentl?"

sounds suspiciously like

"Papa can you snow man?"

. . . or somesuch.

Higher Math

Four Me?

At higher repetitions of 2 + 2, the answer approximates 4.

Or: 2 + 2 = 4, for higher values of 2?

I never had a head for math . . .

Let Me Restate, "Nonbeing is not Being"

Ambiguity
Namebiguity

Since yesterday's post, I have seen a better way to express the ambiguity in the following statement:

"Nonbeing is not Being."

Possibly, the statement means:

"'Nonbeing' is not 'Being.'"

The concept "Nonbeing" and the concept "Being" are in this case opposites. But possibly, the statement means:

"'Nonbeing' is 'not Being.'"

The concept "Nonbeing" and the concept "not Being" are in this case identical.

This is trivial, of course, but my mind is second-rate.

"Nonbeing is not Being"

Ambiguity

I have just noticed an ambiguity in the following statement:

"Nonbeing is not Being."

Possibly, it means:

"Nonbeing is not 'Being.'"

"Nonbeing" and "Being" are in this case opposites. But possibly, it means:

"Nonbeing is 'not Being.'"

"Nonbeing" and "not Being" are in this case identical.

Trivial, of course, but my mind is second-rate.

Being . . . or Non-Being.

Shakespeare

That is the question. Or is that two questions?

Nonbeing as the Absence of Being

Bill Vallicella

About three years ago, my friend Bill Vallicella broached the topic of nonbeing and even used the expression "absence of being," so maybe I owe him a footnote, and perhaps this big quote will suffice:

You may recall Sartre's example of the absence of Pierre in the cafe. That is a determinate absence: the absence of Pierre. But the absence of everything that exists is also determinate. Even the absence or nonbeing of everything that could exist seems to be a determinate or definite nonbeing parasitic upon what is or what could be.

But then we are not succeeding in thinking pure nonbeing.

The Parmenidean conclusion is nigh: absolute nonbeing is utterly unthinkable and (this is a further step) impossible. Being is; Nonbeing is not.

And yet it seems that absolute nonbeing is something 'positive' as contradictory as that sounds just as evil is 'positive' in a way that makes trouble for the view that evil is just *privatio boni.*

Just as we cannot dismiss evil as a mere absence of good, we seem not to be able to dismiss nonbeing as a mere absence of Being.

And so I cannot decisively lay the follow(ing) specter: that of absolute nothingness as a threatening 'power' that cannot be domesticated or shown to be wholly negative by sheer thought.

Enter Heidegger und das Nichts.

Bill, unlike me, capitalizes: "absence of Being." The capital of "B" is correct, I think, for this is not the absence of a particular being like Pierre. This is Being itself!

Bill, however, seems to differ from me in the degree to which he distinguishes nonbeing, or nothingness, from Being. His "nonbeing" would seem to have a wee bit of Being in it. Or maybe even a lot of Being?

I wonder if that is logically possible . . .

Kostelanetz on Poetry

Serpent Swallowing Tail

In Dichtung Yammer for an "Exchange with Richard Kostelanetz on His Poetry" (May 4, 2018), Thomas Fink asks Kostelanetz, "Why might one call your poetry 'poetry'"? Kostelanetz replies:

"What else to call such inventions with words when no other category is more appropriate, though from time to time I've heard the dismissive 'not poetry,' which I don't mind as much as others might, since I appreciate the distinguished tradition of work dismissed as 'not art' in the 20th century. 'Word games,' I've been told, though from time to time I've argued as a critic that some so-called word games, such as palindromes or tongue-twisters, represent inventive High Folk Poetry that is esthetically formalist because of its compositional rules. I suppose some of the more challenging crossword puzzles would count as well, though I don't do crossword puzzles or play Scrabble, among other popular recreations with words. (My mother was an ace at the word game called Anagrams, which she said she never lost. I know I never beat her.)"

I think that this explains why Kostelanetz nominated my One Line Poems for a Pushcart Prize. I was playing with format and meaning, and he noticed. If only my poems had won a Pushcart Prize, I'd be more generally noticed, and my writing would begin to be read, but such thoughts lead to a "what-if" game that has no end . . .