With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.
The good life, as I conceive it, is a happy life. I do not mean that if you are good you will be happy - I mean that if you are happy you will be good.
Too much sanity may be madness and the maddest of all, to see life as it is and not as it should be.
I enjoy paying taxes. With them I buy civilization.
July 16, 2005 - 2:19 a.m.
It is amazing how much better I’m feeling tonight that when I posted last night. I’ll go into what I did to help myself latter, lets just recap my day for now.
I met Lisa this afternoon to go hat shopping. I’m Lisa’s shopping genie. I bring shopping luck, and some knowledge too. The hat she bought with me a few years ago for FRFF a few years ago is now falling apart [it was actually made of paper] so she needed to buy a new one. We went to the same neighborhood we went to last time the Lower East Side aka the Bargain District. I wasn’t exactly sure where the stores we wanted were so we wandered around a bit. We started at the Delancy St stop on the F train at Essex St. It was hot and muggy and I noticed the coffee shop on the corner sold egg creams so I went in while Lisa took a call on her cell. The Lower East side is the home of the egg cream so I was really in the mood. They didn’t make it the traditional way, the seltzer came from a can, it should come from a fountain under pressure. It came out pretty well anyway and was cheap, only $1.25. I guess I should tell say how an egg cream is made for the benefit of Mr. Kite, I mean the gentiles from outside of NYC. You mix chocolate syrup, preferably U-Bets with milk and Seltzer. There are two basic ways of making it, you can add the chocolate after you mix the milk and seltzer, which makes the head white or you can add the seltzer last which makes a brown head. This was a brain head egg cream.
When I came out of the shop Lisa was still on the phone and when she hung up we started walking. She asked me what I was drinking and when I told her she had to go back and get one herself.
We walked down to Canal street then back up to Delancy and started walking up towards Houston. When we were on Rivington we passed a candy store with a soda fountain that looked like they’d make real traditional egg creams so I ordered another to make a comparison. I was right, this one was made perfect and with a white head. I prefer brown but it was still superior. I’ll have to try and remember where it is so I can get more this summer.
On Orchard street we found a place with hats on display and while Lisa was trying on one I found the perfect one for her. It was purple, her favorite color, big, floppy, and crushable for easy packing. The guy wanted $12 for it but Lisa didn’t want to spend more than $10. I said, How about $10 and he said no. Lisa said she’d think about it and as we walked away he said, “Ok you can have it.” You have to bargain in the bargain district.
We ended up getting it in much less time than we planned. I was going to the Met game and she was going to the Seaport for a Beats Goes On show in the evening. We both decided to go home and not go directly to our destinations.
Oh, I almost forgot, I bought halvah at Russ & Daughters, they have the best in the world.
Tonight I went to the Met game with Alan and Larry. You know what that means, The Mets lost, 2-1 this time. My curse is amazing. Alan and I never even think of predicting Met victories when I’m there. It really doesn’t matter if you win or lose, as long as you have fun. I had a great time hanging out with my friends. Alan mentioned that he has hated Curt Schilling ever since Schilling appeared at a Bush campaign event last year. The right wing shits behind us heard this and it set them off talking like Rush Limbaugh dittoheads. The stupidest thing they said was that anyone who didn’t like Bush hated this country. I don’t like Bush because I love this country. If I hated it he’d be the man I’d want for the job. They repeated every right wing cliché totally unencumbered by the thought process. I think that to some degree they were trying to get our goats but we just thought it was hysterical. At one point when they said something particularly offensive I turned around and thanked them telling them we thought they were very amusing.
After the game Alan took the LIRR home and I drove Larry back to his house. On the way we talked bridge, Larry is my guru. It is nice to be the student not the teacher for a change.
Last night after I updated I needed to do something to center myself. Usually I use music but last night I tried poetry, it was a good choice. I went to Poets.org. I’m going to try to link to all the poems I read and give my reactions to some of them.
- Yeats: Always a favorite, I love his drama and prose too.
- Shakespeare:
- Whitman: I always thought I should like Whitman but couldn’t get into him when I tried reading Leaves of Grass. I had more success reading individual poems.
- I Hear America Singing
- Songs of Myself I, II, VI, LII - I really connected with these.
- Songs of Myself X
- When I Heard the Learned Astronomer – I couldn’t disagree with Walt more.
- I Hear America Singing
- Robert Frost: I always thought Frost was a bit wimpy. Maybe I’m growing soft but I appreciated him much more than I used to. I have read this poem many times but it has been years since the last time.
- Emily Dickinson: I just started reading her recently. I didn’t think I’d like her work but I do
- George Gordon, Lord Byron: Everything he wrote was good.
- From Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage
- She Walks in Beauty – No poem is more beautiful
- From Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage
- Edgar Allan Poe: The first poet I read
- A Dream Within A Dream
- Annabel Lee
- The Bells – A poem I love simply for the sound, it is almost music.
- A Dream Within A Dream
Wow I read a lot of poems. If you had asked I’d have said half a dozen but I count, 17. Hey that’s my favorite number. No wonder it made me feel better. Of course I’m sure I forgot some that I read.
Now I don’t expect you to read all of them but try and read at least one by each poet. It is good for your soul.
The International Jewish Banking Conspiracy - October 07, 2008
On the Road to Westchester County - October 06, 2008
Inside the Madison Square Studio - October 05, 2008
I'm a Bosniac and I'm debating like I've never debated before - October 03, 2008
Islands in the Stream of Consciousness - October 02, 2008
Email me: GordonLew at gmail
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 License. Horvendile July 16, 2005
