Nobody asks to be a hero, it just sometimes turns out that way.

People ask me, why do you do it man? They don't understand, it's about the men next to you. That's all it is.

-Blackhawk Down

When a guy has an orgasm, how much comes out?
A quart or so.
-Fast Times

Ellen - What are you looking at?

Clark - Oh, the silent majesty of a winter's morn. The clean, cool chill of the holiday air. An asshole in his bathrobe, emptying a chemical toilet into my sewer...

Eddie - Shitter was full.

--Christmas Vacation

#1 from me

From Sixteen Candles:

The Prom Queen: "You know what I liked most? Waking up in your arms."

The nerd: "These things?!"

"did you kiss her back?"

"of course i did. she's your sister... it would have seemed rude not to..."

-some dumb sitcom. (as opposed to all the smart ones i normally watch...)

#2

First, I do not anymore in any way hold to this quote, opening paragraph of Ch. 4 from Edward Gibbon's "The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire;" but for a few years back in the mid 90's or so, it was one of those literary monuments you find--rather stumble upon in certain classic books, tucked away, though the history is very rich throughout, and aside from its male dominant, anthropomorphic view (the first volume was published in 1776)....

I was for a time very interested and focused on history (lesser so, now), steeped in pretty deep for several years, particularly upon Western civilization.....

"If a man were called upon to name that period in the history of the world, wherein the condition of mankind was most prosperous and happy, he would without hesitation, named that which elapsed from the death of Domitian to the accession of Commodus.

In case anyone doesn't know, but has seen the movie Gladiator (ahhhh, its ok), Commodus was the son of Marcus Aurelius, the emperor who died early in the movie....

Ahh, well, might as well get out a #3, though not so "entertaining," either, and as I have never been able to track down where exactly I saw it first, yet undoubtedly it is from, either "The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy," or "The Age of Constantine the Great," both by Jacob Burckhardt, published ca. 1870's.

....and though, again, I don't really value it as a truth, so much, anymore--sort of humorous, though:

"There is nothing more dangerous to the safety and welfare of the state than a young man with leisure."

--though, he he, arguably, it could go, especially nowadays, for both sexes--

"Your mother sews socks in Hell!"


-woman possessed by the devil, Transylvania Twist

"Too many guys think I'm a concept, that I will complete them, that I will make them alive.
I'm just a fucked up girl who's looking for her own piece of mind. Don't assign me your's."

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

#5
Loving this book:

Lucien Leuwen, by Henri Beyle (Stendhal), ca 1830's; chapter 17:

Rich depth far besides romance, particularly on politics and customs of Parisian and provincial France in post-Napoleonic France:

At a ball (for current or relative reality's and times sake, I inserted [ * ] ):
____________

Madame de Chasteller had moved away to take a turn round the room. Monsieur de Blancet had returned to his post and offered her his arm with a frustrated air; one saw he was dreaming of giving her his arm as a husband. Chance led Mme de Chasteller to the side where Lucien was standing. Finding him once more under her eyes, she felt a pang of impatience with herself. What? She had taken the trouble of watching so often a creature as vulgar as this, whose sublime merit consisted, like that of the heroes of Ariosto, in being a good horseman! She began conversing with him, and tried to stir him up, to make him talk.

At Mme de Chasteller's remarks Lucien became a new man. By the noble look which had deigned to fall on him, he though himself freed from all the commonplaces which it bored him to utter, which he uttered so badly, and which, at Nancy, still form the essential basis of conversation of people meeting for the eigth or tenth time. All at once he ventured to talk, and at length. He talked of whatever might interest or amuse this beautfiul woman who, still leaning on the arm of her tall cousin, deigned to listen to him with astonished eyes. Without losing a shred of its sweetness or its respectful tone, Lucien's voice cleared, grew rich. Bright and witty ideas were no more lacking than lively and picturesque words in which to paint them. In the noble simplicity of the tone he ventured to adopt spontaneously with Mme de Chasteller, he let appear, without permitting the slightest thing that might shock the most scrupulous delicacy, that shade of delicate familiarity which becomes two souls of the same range, when they meet and recognize one another amid the masks of that ignoble fancy-dress ball we call the world. Thus would angels talk who, after leaving heaven on some mission, met by accident below.

The noble simplicity is not, it is true, without some affinity with the simplicity of language authorized by old acquaintance; but by way of corrective every word seems to say: "Pardon me for a moment: as soon as it pleases you to put on the mask again, we shall once more become entire strangers to each other, as is fitting. Do not fear that I shall claim acquaintance tomorrow, and deign to amuse yourself for a moment without thinking any more of it."

Women [or vice versa] are slightly terrified, in general, by this kind of conversation; but, in detail, they do not know where to stop it. For at every moment the man [or vice versa] who seems so happy to be talking to them implies: "Souls of our range ought to ignore considerations which are made only for the vulgar herd, and you doubtless think with me that..."

But in the midst of his brilliant eloquance, one must do justice to lLucien's lack of experinece. It was no stroke of genius that had suddenly inspired him to this tone, so apt for his ambition; he thought everything this tone seemed to say: and thus -- only for a reason by no means complimentary to his adroitness -- his manner of speech was perfect. It was the illusion of a naive heart. In Lucien there was always a certain horror of anything low which raised itself, like a wall of brass, between expereince and himself. He averted his eyes from all that seemed to hiim too ugly, and he exhibited, at twenty-three, a naivety which a young Parisian of good family already finds most humiliating at sixteeen, in his last year at school. It was by pure accident that he had adopted the tone of a man who knows. Certainly he was no expert in the artr of manipulating a woman's heart and creating sensations in it.

This tone, so odd, so seductive, so dangerous, was merely shocking and almost untillegible to M. de Blancet, who nevertheless attempted to join in the conversation. Lucien had taken possession, authoritatively, of the whole of Mme de Chasteller's attention. Terrified as she was, she could not prevent herself from approving many of Lucien's ideas, and occasionally replied in almost the same tone; but, without exactly ceasing to listen with pleasure, she ended by falling into a deep amazement.

To herself she said, in order to justify her rather approving smiles: "he talks of whatever is going on at the ball and never of himself." But, in fact, by venturing to entertain her with such indifferent matters Lucien was really talking about himself and assuming a position which was no mean one with a woman of Mme de Chasteller's age and one, above all, accustomed to so much reserve: no one else occuped such a position.

At first Mme de chasteller was astonished and amused by the change she was witnessing; but before long she stopped smiling and grew alarmed in turn. "What a way of speaking he dares to employ with me, and I'm not at all shocked, I don't feel in the least offended! Good heavens, this is no good, simple youth...as I was fool enough to think! I'm dealing with one of those clever, attractive and extremely artful men one reads about in novels. They know how to please, but precisely becasuse they're incapable of loving. Here is M. leuwen before me, happy and gay, absorbed in playing a likeable part, no doubt; but he's happy solely because he feels he is talking well...It looks as if he had resolved to begin with an hour of profound rapture verging on stupidiity. But I know just how to break off all relations with this dangerous man, this clever actor."

........

Here's to stinking rich!

Yay!

Here's to Kevin.

Kevin!

Stinking Kevin!!!


Time Bandits

Another nonword quote, one I'm glad I haven't forgotten, that I ask you to imaginate with me:

It was 1990 or so.

Here in Reno we have a few public access cable stations (which i do not have anymore, no more cable for me).

Often on these stations there would be continuous live feed footage of the earth from a space shuttle circling the earth.

One time there was footage of a space shuttle mission to repair the hubble, I think. I seem to recall this was a well publicized, "very important" mission:...

Imagine the shuttle bay arm extended mostly straight out of the back bay...

Some part of the lower screen is darkish, what with the shuttle bay, shuttle tail, and outer space beyond.

Most of and the top 4/5 portion of the screen is extremely bright with the earth, its clouds, continents, etc.

Out at the tip of the arm extended there is a person in a space suit latched to a control module atop the arm.

I can't recall how long, but I seem to remember watching him doing all too very little it would seem from a tv viewer while on the end of this arm, from time to time adjusting the arm extension just barely--out, down, up--in centimeters--testing, readying,...(I can't recall exactly)? Nothing (like the Hubble) was at the end of the arm.

At one point in this long interval, while mostly gazing in wonder, daydreaming at the earth as it slowly rolls by, amid some occasional chatter of mission control and the cockpit, I notice that the person too has been gazing out on the earth.

A moment later he slowly as it is space revolve turns around to the camera direction (toward we, the earth audience) with his arms extended in a sort of a modest "hey,..welcome," as he then turns around motioning somewhat forcefully toward the earth, extending his arms out like "Hey! tuduh! look at this!"

Also from Lucien Leuwen, ch. 41:

....on the way to the Green Huntsman [a tavern-haus], Mme de Constantin noticed a picture in the carriage. It was a fine St Cecilia, engraved by Perfetti, which Leuwen had once given to Mme de Chasteller. She begged the proprietor to hang the picture over his bar.

Mdm de Chasteller:
"Perhaps I shall want it back some day. --And I shall never, " she added in a low voice as she moved away with Mme de Constantin, "have the weakness to address one word to M. Leuwen so long as that picture hangs there. It was here that this fated preoccupation bagan."

Mdm de Constantin:
"No more of that FATED please! Love is no duty, thank heaven, it's a pleasure; dont let us take it tragically. When your age and mine add up to fifty, then we can be as gloomy, as rational and doleful as you like; we'll adopt that grand argument of my father-in-law's: "It's raining -- bad; it's fine -- even worse!" You were getting bored to death, pretending indignation with Paris when you aren't angry at all. Comes a handsome youth..."

Mdm de Chasteller:
"But he's not so good-looking..."

Mdm de Constantin:
"Comes a youth (of some descrition), you fall in love, you're absorbed, boredom disappears, and you call this love FATED!"

You're 32 years old, and you've achieved nothing. Jesus Christ was dead and alive again by 33. You better get crackin'.

Confessions of a Dangerous Mind

Vivian invites Elle to her party but tells her "It's a costume party." Elle shows up as a bunny complete with leotard, and little furry bunny tail to see that she's the only one there wearing a costume.

Vivian: Nice costume.
Elle: You too. Except when I dress up as a frigid bitch, I try not to look so constipated.

From the Boys from County Claire:

"Well when you got the music, you have friends for life…that’s why I’m never lonely."

"'Reguard without ill will despite an offence.' That's webster's definition of forgiveness." -Antoine Fisher