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Bud Grossmann’s
Words of the Week
for the Week of
November 27, 2011
Previously unpublished fiction.
© 2011 by Bud Grossmann.
All Rights Reserved.
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Stone Carver's Model, 1976
© 2006 by Bud Grossmann
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AN UNEXAMINED THOUGHT
IS HARDLY WORTH THINKING
Bud Grossmann’s
Words of the Week
for the Week of
November 20, 2011
Previously unpublished epigram.
© 2011 by Bud Grossmann.
All Rights Reserved.
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Bird & Hunter, 2007
© 2007 by Bud Grossmann
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A THANKSGIVING MEDITATION
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The unexamined life is not worth living.
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Many an American turkey
has contemplated the
words of Socrates,
though seldom
in the original Greek.
♦
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From: Debbie Albertini <d—@gmail.com>
To: Dave Fischer <d—@juno.com>
Date: Tue, 22 Nov 2011 06:18:52 -0600
Subject: Re: Near Miss By Airplane.
Thank you for the entertaining reassurances.
I'm up. I'm eating eggs and spinach. I've got (TNY approved use?) number crunching to do the minute I get to work. The day is on!
I'll keep you posted about any close calls I have today.
Love, D
From: David C. Fischer <d—@juno.com>
To: Deborah Ann Albertini <d—@gmail.com>
Date: Tue, 22 Nov 2011 07:48:04 -0600
Subject: I've got tired of TNY's refusal to use gotten.
The New Yorker Magazine's current style standard apparently prohibits almost any use of the word gotten. In light of some of the awkward constructions I've seen, I wouldn't be surprised if an editor revised your sentence to read "I've got number crunching to do the minute I've got to work."
I do hope your breakfast eggs were fresh. I recall reading in The New Yorker food issue that careful cooks do not serve rot eggs.
Speaking of chickens, did I ever tell you about the turkey who thought so hard about Socratic pronouncements that he had to have his head examined? That's life. Ironically, a human being gobbled up the turkey on Thanksgiving and remarked afterwards that, if you think about it, life in Turkey is hardly worth living. Once a pun a time, Iran into difficulty thinking up Mediterranean and Middle Eastern jokes. In Wisconsin my jokes have got worse as I've went along.
The most important thing to keep in mind, I think, is, The unexamined life is not worth living. Reportedly, Socrates said so, in Greek with marbles in his mouth.
This has got slightly ridiculous. That is, TNY's insistence on got has got a little silly, seems to me.
Speaking of magazines, Debbie, some say the unexamined Life is not worth laughing. And, philosophically speaking, if the unexamined Life were worth looking at the pictures of, and a person were to have got an issue of it, as soon as the person looked closely at the pictures, the Life would no longer be unexamined.
I suppose by now you have got how got-awful difficult English can be. Oftentimes it pretty much sounds like Greek to me. Someday I will try to Demosthenate how hard it is to philosophize with marbles in my mouth. One of Demosthenes's students misunderstood his (Demosthenes's) instructions and thought he (Demosthenes) said "marble" (an understandable misunderstanding, don't you think? even though in Greek the plural may be demonstrably distinct) and filled his (the student's) mouth with one unexamined breast of the Venus de Milo and attempted to speak. He (the student) was convicted of statuary rape and sentenced to death by elocution.
If, dear Debbie, you object to what I've told you today, all I'm going to say is you've gotten to be kidding. After all, I'm trying to be helpful, as you seek The New Yorker's approval for your number crunching.
Love, Dave
From: Debbie Albertini <d—@gmail.com>
To: Dave Fischer <d—@juno.com>
Date: Tue, 22 Nov 2011 09:31:24 -0600
Subject: Re: I've got tired of TNY's refusal to use gotten.
Chuckle, chuckle...
♦
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Thanks! BUD GROSSMANN
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© 2011 by Bud Grossmann
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