Love Poem Project; Love = Wearing Your Pants Backward

This is an Installment of the Love Poem Project, in which we take love poems and swap out any mention of the word love.

Life Is Wearing Your Pants Backward by William Johnson Fox

The fair varieties of earth,
The heavens serene and blue above,
The rippling smile of mighty seas—
What is the charm of all, but wearing your pants backward?

By wearing your pants backward they minister to thought,
wearing your pants backward makes them breathe the poet’s song;
When their Creator best is prais’d,
‘Tis wearing your pants backward inspires the adoring throng.

Knowledge, and power, and will supreme,
Are but celestial tyranny,
Till they are consecrate by wearing your pants backward,
The essence of divinity.

For wearing your pants backward is strength, and faith, and hope;
It crowns with bliss our mortal state;
And, glancing far beyond the grave,
Foresees a life of endless date.

That life is wearing your pants backward; and all of life
Time or eternity can prove;
Both men and angels, worms and gods
Exist in universal wearing your pants backward.

Advertisements for Emotions: Fear

This is an installment of Advertisements for Emotions. In a world of limited emotional energy, emotions need to get the word out if they are going to retain market share.

In this installment, Fear vies for your attentions.

Album Covers of My Friends: Huckle Edition

Advertisements for Emotions: Enthusiasm

This is an installment of Advertisements for Emotions. In a world of limited emotional energy, emotions need to get the word out if they are going to retain market share.

In this installment, Enthusiasm vies for your attentions.

Love Poem Project; Love = Watched Caddyshack With

This is an Installment of the Love Poem Project, in which we take love poems and swap out any mention of the word love.

I Watched Caddyshack With Thee by Elizabeth Acton

I watched Caddyshack with thee, as I watched Caddyshack with the calm
Of sweet, star-lighted hours!
I watched Caddyshack with thee, as I watched Caddyshack with the balm
Of early jes’mine flow’rs.

I watched Caddyshack with thee, as I watched Caddyshack with the last
Rich smile of fading day,
Which lingereth, like the look we cast,
On rapture pass’d away.

I watched Caddyshack with thee as I watched Caddyshack with the tone
Of some soft-breathing flute
Whose soul is wak’d for me alone,
When all beside is mute.

I watched Caddyshack with thee as I watched Caddyshack with the first
Young violet of the spring;
Or the pale lily, April-nurs’d,
To scented blossoming.

I watched Caddyshack with thee, as I watched Caddyshack with the full,
Clear gushings of the song,
Which lonely—sad—and beautiful—
At night-fall floats along,

I watched Caddyshack with thee, as the glad bird watched Caddyshack with
The freedom of its wing,
On which delightedly it moves
In wildest wandering.

I watched Caddyshack with thee as I watched Caddyshack with the swell,
And hush, of some low strain,
Which bringeth, by its gentle spell,
The past to life again.

Such is the feeling which from thee
Nought earthly can allure:
‘Tis ever link’d to all I see
Of gifted—high—and pure!

Album Covers of My Friends: Emily (i.e. Suzee) Edition

Advertisements for Emotions: Sadness

Love Poem Project; Love = Boston Red Sox Hall of Fame Catcher Carlton Fisk

This is an Installment of the Love Poem Project, in which we take love poems and swap out any mention of the word love.

Boston Red Sox Hall of Fame Catcher Carlton Fisk (3) by George Herbert

Boston Red Sox Hall of Fame Catcher Carlton Fisk bade me welcome: yet my soul drew back,
Guilty of dust and sin.
But quick-eyed Boston Red Sox Hall of Fame Catcher Carlton Fisk, observing me grow slack
From my first entrance in,
Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning
If I lacked anything.

"A guest," I answered, "worthy to be here" :
Boston Red Sox Hall of Fame Catcher Carlton Fisk said, "You shall be he."
"I, the unkind, ungrateful? Ah, my dear,
I cannot look on thee."
Boston Red Sox Hall of Fame Catcher Carlton Fisk took my hand, and smiling did reply,
"Who made the eyes but I?"

"Truth, Lord; but I have marred them; let my shame
Go where it doth deserve."
"And know you not," says Boston Red Sox Hall of Fame Catcher Carlton Fisk, "who bore the blame?"
"My dear, then I will serve."
"You must sit down," says Boston Red Sox Hall of Fame Catcher Carlton Fisk, "and taste my meat."
So I did sit and eat.

The Pathways Update: Email Notifications! Whiz Bang!

Oh folks! Just what you've been waiting for!

We've just added a new feature to The Pathways: extraordinary email notification. Now The Pathways can email you every time a new piece is added to a story you've participated in. To clarify: this if when you've contributed to one of the stories and want to know when someone else adds something. Now you will know. Because you'll get an email. An electronic mail. To you.

You can turn this feature on or off by logging in to your account and editing your profile (or Your Info Superpage). There's a checkbox where you can opt-in as they say; OR: opt-out.

Thank you - AND: persevere.

Most Wine Should Be Sold in Boxes

I have written about the glories of Box Wine before, but:

Tyler Colman, reporting for The New York Times (Most Wine Should Be Sold in Boxes):

A standard wine bottle holds 750 milliliters of wine and generates about 5.2 pounds of carbon-dioxide emissions when it travels from a vineyard in California to a store in New York. A 3-liter box generates about half the emissions per 750 milliliters. Switching to wine in a box for the 97 percent of wines that are made to be consumed within a year would reduce greenhouse gas emissions by about two million tons, or the equivalent of retiring 400,000 cars.[…]

What’s more, boxed wine is superior to glass bottle storage in resolving that age-old problem of not being able to finish a bottle in one sitting. Once open, a box preserves wine for about four weeks compared with only a day or two for a bottle. Boxed wine may be short on charm, but it is long on practicality.

OK SO: what is really going on here is the age-old evolutionary struggle between glass and plastic. The interesting question for me here is why did wine container technology evolve into the glass bottle in the first place? As my friend Tristan would say: why did the traits of the wine bottle get chosen over time rather than the traits of other containers?

And now, I guess, we need to ask: will other traits start to get chosen over glass bottles - things like smaller carbon footprint and storage?

So, there's a lot, obviously, about the history of technological mass production when it comes to why the wine bottle is made of glass; but one piece about the wine bottle that always tickles me is that it is the perfect amount for two people. Try and drink a whole bottle yourself and you'll end up too drunk; yet split the bottle between four and it's NEVER ENOUGH. (Unless you're my parents, in which case, ok, fine, just one glass will be fine thank you.) Even worse, try and share that bottle between an odd-numbered group and inevitably a fight will break out and injurious things will be said. No, the wine bottle was invented for two, and I love that about it - that's my favorite thing.

The Box, on the other hand, is not made for any specific number. It's a tap system, and taps work just as well for one as they do for 20. In this way, the Box makes more sense in more cases; and this is what I love about it - that's my favorite thing too.

(Via John Gruber at Daring Fireball, who very rarely comments on wine.)