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.
The only way to find the limits of the possible is by going past them into the impossible.
November 20, 2009 - 6:51 p.m.
I got home a bit late from school and was really tired so I took a nap. By the time I woke up it was so late I decided to not update today. Then I thought about how sad my Gentle Readers would be so I'm writing. It helps that I might not have time to update tomorrow morning. I'm playing a lunchtime game of bridge with Roy. Then tomorrow night I'm going to the Common Ground Coffeehouse to see John Elliott and Anthony da Costa. I'm going to see John. Anthony is clearly stalking me. I saw him Wednesday and last Saturday and I'm seeing him with John on Sunday too. How do I get a restraining order?
Why am I spending so much time seeing Anthony and John? Because they are too of the finest singer/songwriters in the country. They're as good as Richard Shindell or Dan Bern and I can see them in my friends' living room. If you are anywhere near Hastings go see them at the Common Ground on Saturday night. That means you.
I was so good. I finished grading my classes' tests last night. That's pretty good getting them back in two days. I can't do my usual complaining; the median grade in one class was 70 and in the other 76. Part of that is because the test was easy. I compared it to the test that I gave a year ago and I dropped so much from it; systems of three equations in three unknowns, determinants, Kramer's Rule, and word problems with rational expressions. All but the last I've dropped from the curriculum, the word problems I've moved on to the last test. I always found that the third test came right on the heels of the second. This way we'll have a larger gap between them.
What I can complain about is the test itself. They did fine without understanding much. I don't think they deserved to do as well as they did. Still it was an improvement. Grading the test did not take its usual toll on my soul. Most people didn't make horrendous mistakes.
I'm feeling guilty tonight. After much debate I decided to go see Amy Speace tonight. It's her last full band show in quite a while. That means missing Anthony and John who are doing yet another show tonight but I'm seeing them twice and don't feel guilty about that. What I feel guilty about is not seeing Oliver Steck at the Knitting Factory in Brooklyn. He isn't listed as playing there because he isn't the headliner. He's a sideman. Yes if it wasn't for Amy's show I'd be trekking out to Brooklyn to see a sideman. Why? Oliver is the coolest person on earth. He really is. Don't believe me ask Carey. She'll tell you. Oliver used to be Slaid Cleaves's sideman. He plays the guitar, accordion, and trumpet, you know, the usual folk accompanist instruments. That's where Carey and I met him. We chose him as our leader and founded Oliver's Army. We made t-shirts. We made them for Slaid and Oliver. We made them for our friends. They've been worn on the west coast of Canada. It says "Private Goovie" on the back of Carey's and "Private Horvendile" on the back of mine. Oliver is of course a general! Oliver took a vacation from music and went to clown school. Oliver sings Slaid's "One Good Year" in the style of Frank Sinatra. Oliver is the living embodiment of good neuro. Watch him.
I haven't seen Oliver in years. That's why I feel guilty missing him. If he were the headliner I wouldn't hesitate I'd be there. He told me he'd give me more notice next time he comes to the area. You can come with me and experience the Zen of Ollie.
There's SEX in this entry! - November 26, 2009
Beyond Harry Potter - November 25, 2009
Big Fun on Long Island - November 24, 2009
Elliott and da Costa are Phrosty - November 22, 2009
I Gave Speace a Chance - November 21, 2009
Email me: GordonLew at gmail
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 License. Horvendile November 20, 2009
