Greed

I have heard it said, many times, that the problem with today's world is that people are too materialistic--that it is money that is ruining the morals of our country and its people.  Well, that may be true, but until now, I saw no means of rectifying the situation.  Money, as the saying goes, makes the world go round.  And if, in this day and age, people feel helpless to control their lives except by the getting and spending of money, it would seem that their is no panacea for the problem. 
But just like John Goodman's character in Raising Arizona, I would rather light you a candle than curse your darkness, and finally, I have a candle to light.  If you want to end materialistic thinking, force people to move.  Not just once or twice in a lifetime, but maybe every other year.  And no hiring anyone.
In moving, you are forced to touch everything you own.  Not only must you touch it, but you must wrap it, pack it, and lift it as well.  If anything can cure you if your materialism it is this.  You will not buy things in stores that catch your eye, because you know that you will need to move them.  All of those bobbles you  have been collecting over the years, things that have been in storage since you first bought them, items that you thought lost long ago--all will need to be moved, in 103 degree temperature.
You will feel the mockery of the things you own when you move.  The DVD remote that you replaced only a week ago will show up.  The games you played as a child (missing their pieces) are in a box somewhere.  Boxes will require  only one other thing, two inchesxthree inchesxthree inches, before they can be closed.  In vain you will search for such proportions and then just after you've given up and you've sealed your collection of phone books, then will there emerge a puzzle (which you're sure is incomplete) that is just the right size.
Do you know how many blankets you own?  Move.  Do you know how many framed pictures you have?  Move.  Do you know how many bottles of lotion are waiting, unopened and waiting to scent your dry bits?  Move.
I say move.  You may find that you will never need to buy another thing again.  Except, of course, bubble wrap.

What to read

Quite often, I am pressed upon to answer certain calls concerning literature.  Let me first explain how this works.  It is a very hard task indeed to say something new about a book that you and someone else have both read.  Thus, though there is no argument that you have in fact read the book, you are unable to show off the one really good thing about reading and that is that people who are smart read.  And vise versa, people who read are smart.  And therefore, people who read the most are smartest.
Nonetheless, your prowess in this category cannot be upheld if someone else has read the same ammount as you and so invariably you must read books that no one else has read.  For instance, "have you read Harriet Prescott Spofford?"  See how intimidating that is.  You, in fact, have not read Harriet Prescott Spofford.  So, I follow up with, "well, her poetry does not, in fact, compare with that of Marie De France."  And to this you must agree.  You haven't read either.  Furthermore, I'm already two ahead of you.
This happens to me a lot.  Not the getting ahead part, but the number of gibberlings who bring up the four books that they've read in their life with a tone of shock and amazement that I have never read a single one of these authors.  "Surely you've read Bakhtin?  No.  What about Dreyfus?  No.  Have you read much Wittgenstein?"  There's always at least one philosopher.  Thus, one wonders at the actual value of books, especially books that everyone has read.  What's the point of reading Macbeth, when you know that you will get no such clout, but will probably be met instead with the phrase, "oh, I read that in High school."  Thus, I have come to a conclusion, while moving my books in 102 degree heat, as to a way that value may be placed on books.
First things first, books are made from trees.  No, I am not about to make some kind of ecological plea:  no trees=no books.  That's not my point.  My point is instead, that things that are made out of trees are made of wood.  Good so far.  And what do we know about wood (besides that it floats).
That's right.  It's frickin' heavy.
Now some of you will mention that books are also made out of ink, and that ink really isn't all that heavy.  But there you have committed a falacy, the fallacy of composition in fact, because though ink isn't heavy and books are made out of ink, one cannot forget the wood.  So, that a box full of books is as heavy as an equal volume of wood plus the weight of the ink.
Now, having worked out what a volume of wood 2'x2'x2' might be (somewhere in the neighborhood of eighty pounds, I'd guess), you realize that a box full of books is a heavy thing--in the order of heavy that will drop your intestines out your butt. 
Finally we have arrived at a value system for literature then.  What are you willing to put in those boxes?  What are you glad you packed?  What do you wish you'd left behind?  And when you look into a box, just before dry lifting it, though you need not admit it to anyone, does it not break your heart that you may thank Harriet Prescott Spofford for this Hernia, and not William Shakespeare.  All so that you can say, "Well, have you read 'The Amber Gods and other stories'?"  "No, well then aren't I smarter than you with my dislocated vertebrae."

Dave's not here

Well, it has been what...a long time since my previous blog, which wasn't nearly as head scratching cool as I'd hoped it would be.  Blogging, for those of you who do not know is much like any other thing that you hope to do once a day and end up only doing twice a month.  There's this thought like if you'd only make it a habit, you wouldn't have to think of something to say. But you're just too damned lazy to make it a habit. 
It isn't like I hadn't thought of things to say.  It's just that when I do, I'm no where near my computer.  And then when I get near my computer, I'm too busy checking my e-mail.  Inevitably, someone will have sent me an e-mail, I'll reply by telling them my strange observation, and then I don't feel like writing it again, so I don't blog.  There's this feeling like if you're going to blog, it really ought to be something important.  However, I've very few observations to make and as such can only say this...
It's good to not be unemployed.  Many of you will probably already know that I worked in a woodshop sanding funeral urns.  Does that sound like fun?  Well, it was actually less fun than that.  Sanding urns is a job that requires the bare minimum of mental activity, which brings us to Dave.  Now, I want to clarify.  Some of you will hear mention of Dave and wonder who, or what, I am talking about.  I do believe that the easiest way to demonstrate Dave is to give a quick lesson in Dave-bonics.  Here goes:
Eimsteim- that scientist guy who thinks he's so smart.
Corporate-  person responsable for a crime.  In English, "culprit"
Deheaded-  to lose one's head literally
Molestators-  someone who touches a child.  There is no direct translation of this word into commen English.  I suppose what Dave is going for here is molester, but then there is no comprehension of the ultimate cunnundrum for Dave:  "if I hug my kid, does that make me a child molestator?"
Irabians-  Catch all term for people of the middle East.
Now that we have that under our belt, we might better understand a simple question of Dave's:  "Why should child molestators be deheaded I mean you don't have to be Eimsteim to know that we're all children of God and so we're all corporates."  True dat.
I will miss Dave and his enlightening conversations about how we never went to the moon and how he'd shoot everyone who owns guns.  
Luckilly I have found something new to keep me occupied, as has Max (I can hear him right now), and that's called moving.  Many people think that Chico is the hottest place on Earth, but that's only partly true, because clearly my garage is part of Chico, but I don't think any spot in town is as hot as my garage, but still I press on, packing away things that were packed away a year ago, but who's boxes have since caved.  Think of me, folks, as you stand 'neath the air conditioning sipping water.  
Still could be worse, I suppose.  I could be listening to stories of giant chickens living in North Carolina and how a holes a hole.  Ah, the pearls of wisdom I will miss.