Present Imperfect

Bowler v. Sailor | January 27, 2005

I forget why I was there in the first place, but Style.com recently ran this mini-feature on dandies through the ages. Oh, how I love the dandy concept! Behold how Beau Brummell, the original dandy, eschewed frippery in favor of wit and austerity. And check out the expression on his face. Don't you love it when someone's features are so small and dainty it looks as though they're just meeting on the face for a little tea party?

Then there's Nick Foulkes, whose scarlet socks alone compel me to purchase his book on Count d'Orsay.

Oh, look! an entire site devoted to dandyism.

Also, I've been thinking a lot about Popeye lately. The other night, I woke up at about 3 a.m. and told Eric something was bothering me. Luckily, he was awake, too, so he didn't mind when I asked him whether he thought Popeye was retired or AWOL. I mean, he's a "sailor man," apparently, but you never see him in the company of other sailors. What's that about? Was he honorably discharged or was he tossed out of the military for his unnerving addiction to canned spinach? And, as a sailor, shouldn't his food of choice be oranges or lemons or something higher in vitamin C — you know, to combat the scurvy?

A coworker indicated to me that there was a World War II-era Popeye strip in which he's making off-color remarks about the Japanese, so I assumed he had served a tour of duty in the Pacific theatre and was then released from service. But my extremely limited research indicates that Popeye first appeared in 1929, unemployed and loitering on "the docks." That doesn't sound good, does it?

People Called Romanes They Go the House | January 18, 2005

The next time you run across lorem ipsum text, spare a thought for Cicero, whose "The Extremes of Good and Evil" was on everybody's must-read list during the Renaissance but is now used as placeholder text. I hereby dedicate today's post to a nifty translation I found at this brilliant site. Somebody give that guy a job.

But I must explain to you how all this mistaken idea of denouncing pleasure and praising pain was born and I will give you a complete account of the system, and expound the actual teachings of the great explorer of the truth, the master-builder of human happiness. No one rejects, dislikes, or avoids pleasure itself, because it is pleasure, but because those who do not know how to pursue pleasure rationally encounter consequences that are extremely painful. Nor again is there anyone who loves or pursues or desires to obtain pain of itself, because it is pain, but because occasionally circumstances occur in which toil and pain can procure him some great pleasure. To take a trivial example, which of us ever undertakes laborious physical exercise, except to obtain some advantage from it? But who has any right to find fault with a man who chooses to enjoy a pleasure that has no annoying consequences, or one who avoids a pain that produces no resultant pleasure?

On the other hand, we denounce with righteous indignation and dislike men who are so beguiled and demoralized by the charms of pleasure of the moment, so blinded by desire, that they cannot foresee the pain and trouble that are bound to ensue; and equal blame belongs to those who fail in their duty through weakness of will, which is the same as saying through shrinking from toil and pain. These cases are perfectly simple and easy to distinguish. In a free hour, when our power of choice is untrammelled and when nothing prevents our being able to do what we like best, every pleasure is to be welcomed and every pain avoided. But in certain circumstances and owing to the claims of duty or the obligations of business it will frequently occur that pleasures have to be repudiated and annoyances accepted. The wise man therefore always holds in these matters to this principle of selection: he rejects pleasures to secure other greater pleasures, or else he endures pains to avoid worse pains.

Seen by millions, read by few: Cicero, I raise my mug of tea to you.

I'm Twelve! | January 16, 2005

Top Five Strictly Platonic Fantasies
(in reverse order for maximum suspense)
by Bronwyn Jones

5. Someone collapses in a crowded public space and I am able to save his or her life via my cunning (and, so far, imaginary) knowledge of CPR.

4. I know kung fu!

3. I am offered an insane deal on The Best House Ever by its exasperated former owners because — horrors! — it's haunted! I perform a quick exorcism (that does not involve a priest falling down a long flight of stairs) and/or come to a friendly arrangement with the spectral inhabitant and live there happily ever after.

2. At a rock show, the lead singer of a band I love asks for someone in the audience to come on up and sing backup. After much coaxing from my friends, I reluctantly take the stage. Impressed with my flawless harmonies, the band decides I am indispensable and takes me along on their world tour.

1. Magic is totally real and I'm awesome at it.

Funny, now that I've typed all that out, it seems awfully shallow, banal and childish.

I'm so glad I didn't write anything about how I envision myself when I'm fifty, living in an English cottage by the sea, walking my ethereal black Irish Wolfhound across windswept moors. Also, I collect rocks.