In order that all men be taught to speak truth, it is necessary that all likewise should learn to hear it.
Samuel Johnson
*******************
Hello Linda
*******************
"The best class room is a park bench, with you on one end and your teacher on the other." Bate
One day I interviewed a man who was engaged in a fruitless campaign to be elected President of the United States. It was pointless because he was a Republican running against the entrenched and very popular incumbent Republican President. I was only a local broadcaster but I was asked to interview this man for the Associated Press. I had made up what I thought was a formidable list of questions to ask him, but I never got to ask him any of them, except for the first one, "Why do you want to be President?"
It was a beautiful, warm day in Autumn, we sat on the back porch of a country house in northern New England, staring out at the mountains and the trees, and he spoke non stop for 2 hours. He covered every topic I thought to ask him about and more, while I recorded him on my little Sony cassette recorder.
I listened in amazement to a clearly passionate man talk about the country, his ideas and beliefs and what he would do if elected. I learned more about him, how his mind worked, how he came to his conclusions and what America really meant to him. Even though he was younger than I and I wasn't convinced of his politics, I felt as if I was in the presence of a fascinating professor.
The Associated Press wanted a one paragraph report. I couldn't possibly condense what he had to say into a single paragraph. So I didn't try. I didn't even listen to the tape. I wrote subjectively about my experience, my impressions of him and of the interview. The AP published it.
Observation, attention, watching, listening are the best tools for learning anything, and how easy it is to ignore them, to form opinions based on nothing substantial, and go off with a conceit of ignorance to face a life we don't understand.
Join me on the back porch. Let's talk.
DB - The Vagabond
Never give up.
*************************
Showing posts with label Samuel Johnson. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Samuel Johnson. Show all posts
Thursday, April 12, 2012
Thursday, July 22, 2010
Snap Them Up
To be happy at home is the ultimate result of all ambition.
Samuel Johnson
*********************
Living alone as I do it isn't hard for me to be happy at home. I keep excellent company with myself. I agree with almost everything I say. I don't bitch at myself for dishes in the sink or leaving my dirty socks on the floor. And whenever I come home everyone here is glad to see me.
Sometimes I even do domestic things like clean and cook. Yesterday I baked some cookies. I haven't done that in a long time, but a friend is having a birthday in a few days so I thought to do something nice for her. I originally thought about buying her a yacht. Then I considered a grand piano or a new car. But as I'm a little short of cash I settled on cookies. I made "Homicide by Chocolate" chip cookies and "Grand Slam Gingersnaps." I make everything from scratch. There is no Betty Crocker in my kitchen (such as it is).
I am always amused at the directions I get in some recipes that say "set your mixer at medium speed" or some other such nonsense. I just translate: "set your elbow at low speed and you wrist at medium speed."
GRAND SLAM GINGERSNAPS
------------------------------------
Flour - 2 cups, plus a tad more
Sugar - 2 cups
Crisco - 1 cup
Eggs - 2
Molasses - 1/3 cup
Margarine (or melted butter if you're Danish) 1 Tablespoon
Ginger - 1 teaspoon
Cinnamon - 1 teaspoon
Baking Soda - 1/2 teaspoon
Vanilla - 1 teaspoon
Salt - 1/2 pinch
A bowl of sugar.
Lightly grease 3 cracked and wrinkled aluminum cookie sheets, being careful not to cut yourself. Don't measure out the Crisco until you've measured the other ingredients, unless you have another cup measure. It's very messy.
Combine the flour, baking soda, ginger, cinnamon and salt in a bowl or any large container. Do it with a whisk, that way you won't have to sift the flour. (I haven't sifted flour in many decades, but suit yourself.) Mix well.
Into another container, bowl, wash tub or bucket, put the sugar. Now you can measure out the Crisco. Add it to the sugar and mix them together, or get your 12 year old to do ti. When they are well combined add 2 beaten eggs and mix some more. Then add molasses, vanilla and margarine. Keep mixing until you have a dull looking, nondescript light brown goo. Dip you finger in and taste. Just the finger. No spooning it out.
Now add the dry stuff from the other container and start the real mixing job. Where's that kid? After a while and a lot of work the alchemy takes place and suddenly you have gooey cookie dough.
Form into balls about the size of ping pong balls by rolling the sticky mess you have in you hand in the sugar bowl covering each of them all around with sugar. Then place them on the cookie sheet, 12 at a time. Then lick your fingers. I cook them at 320 for 10 minutes but I have a small 20th Century oven. You'll have to find what's right for you.
After they're done place the sheets out on the fire escape to cool.
When they're cool scrape them off the cookie sheet, eliminate the overcooked and slightly burned ones and serve.
Bon appetit
DB
*********************
WEEKEND PUZZLE
It has been suggested that I start the weekend puzzle on Fridays to give busy people more chance to consider it. So here it is.
Here are some well known issues as if they were reported by the modern news media. What are they?
1. Last night while the occupants were asleep an intruder entered the house somehow and left behind some suspicious looking boxes. The FBI is investigating.
2. Instead of remaining by the river two youngsters stupidly thought they would try their luck further up. They both toppled off a cliff, which served them right. The boy is listed in serious condition. Doctors have not as yet reported on the girl.
3. Responding to complaints police found a man in the middle of town hiding under a tree and making a horrible noise banging pieces of metal together.
4. Police report that a mad man came speeding through the city in the middle of the night shouting at people to load their rifles.
5. Parents in this community are very distraught. An itinerant worker, in a dispute over wages, has been kidnapping their children. Amber alerts have gone out all around the area. None of the children have yet been located.
6. There was a standoff between the two gangs at the stream. Witnesses say it might have ended peacefully except that one idiot shot off his rifle. A fight ensued.
Good luck.
Leave your answer on dbdacoba@aol.com in case others don't get to it until later.
DB
Samuel Johnson
*********************
Living alone as I do it isn't hard for me to be happy at home. I keep excellent company with myself. I agree with almost everything I say. I don't bitch at myself for dishes in the sink or leaving my dirty socks on the floor. And whenever I come home everyone here is glad to see me.
Sometimes I even do domestic things like clean and cook. Yesterday I baked some cookies. I haven't done that in a long time, but a friend is having a birthday in a few days so I thought to do something nice for her. I originally thought about buying her a yacht. Then I considered a grand piano or a new car. But as I'm a little short of cash I settled on cookies. I made "Homicide by Chocolate" chip cookies and "Grand Slam Gingersnaps." I make everything from scratch. There is no Betty Crocker in my kitchen (such as it is).
I am always amused at the directions I get in some recipes that say "set your mixer at medium speed" or some other such nonsense. I just translate: "set your elbow at low speed and you wrist at medium speed."
GRAND SLAM GINGERSNAPS
------------------------------------
Flour - 2 cups, plus a tad more
Sugar - 2 cups
Crisco - 1 cup
Eggs - 2
Molasses - 1/3 cup
Margarine (or melted butter if you're Danish) 1 Tablespoon
Ginger - 1 teaspoon
Cinnamon - 1 teaspoon
Baking Soda - 1/2 teaspoon
Vanilla - 1 teaspoon
Salt - 1/2 pinch
A bowl of sugar.
Lightly grease 3 cracked and wrinkled aluminum cookie sheets, being careful not to cut yourself. Don't measure out the Crisco until you've measured the other ingredients, unless you have another cup measure. It's very messy.
Combine the flour, baking soda, ginger, cinnamon and salt in a bowl or any large container. Do it with a whisk, that way you won't have to sift the flour. (I haven't sifted flour in many decades, but suit yourself.) Mix well.
Into another container, bowl, wash tub or bucket, put the sugar. Now you can measure out the Crisco. Add it to the sugar and mix them together, or get your 12 year old to do ti. When they are well combined add 2 beaten eggs and mix some more. Then add molasses, vanilla and margarine. Keep mixing until you have a dull looking, nondescript light brown goo. Dip you finger in and taste. Just the finger. No spooning it out.
Now add the dry stuff from the other container and start the real mixing job. Where's that kid? After a while and a lot of work the alchemy takes place and suddenly you have gooey cookie dough.
Form into balls about the size of ping pong balls by rolling the sticky mess you have in you hand in the sugar bowl covering each of them all around with sugar. Then place them on the cookie sheet, 12 at a time. Then lick your fingers. I cook them at 320 for 10 minutes but I have a small 20th Century oven. You'll have to find what's right for you.
After they're done place the sheets out on the fire escape to cool.
When they're cool scrape them off the cookie sheet, eliminate the overcooked and slightly burned ones and serve.
Bon appetit
DB
*********************
WEEKEND PUZZLE
It has been suggested that I start the weekend puzzle on Fridays to give busy people more chance to consider it. So here it is.
Here are some well known issues as if they were reported by the modern news media. What are they?
1. Last night while the occupants were asleep an intruder entered the house somehow and left behind some suspicious looking boxes. The FBI is investigating.
2. Instead of remaining by the river two youngsters stupidly thought they would try their luck further up. They both toppled off a cliff, which served them right. The boy is listed in serious condition. Doctors have not as yet reported on the girl.
3. Responding to complaints police found a man in the middle of town hiding under a tree and making a horrible noise banging pieces of metal together.
4. Police report that a mad man came speeding through the city in the middle of the night shouting at people to load their rifles.
5. Parents in this community are very distraught. An itinerant worker, in a dispute over wages, has been kidnapping their children. Amber alerts have gone out all around the area. None of the children have yet been located.
6. There was a standoff between the two gangs at the stream. Witnesses say it might have ended peacefully except that one idiot shot off his rifle. A fight ensued.
Good luck.
Leave your answer on dbdacoba@aol.com in case others don't get to it until later.
DB
Sunday, November 23, 2008
Joyful Journey 11/23/08
Let me see something tomorrow which I never saw before.
Samuel Johnson
************************
Whenever she came across something new, whether she liked it or not, my grandmother would declare with a loud voice "Well, now I've seen everything." As if there was nothing left in the world to experience, she would make that definitive judgement. But she said it so often that we knew she still had "everything" to see. And so did she. She never stopped looking into things, no doubt to discover something she hadn't seen.
One thing she knew, that I didn't at the time, was how easy it is for us to take the new things for granted. We know we are probably going to see something tomorrow which we have never seen before but we have an automatic "so what" attitude about it. If we stop to observe and consider it, it merely slows us down on our rush to get somewhere else where we may not see anything new, or anything at all.
It has been said that it is not good to allow oneself to be distracted from one's purpose by dallying with things that don't concern one. My answer to that is that I live in the world among human beings and therefore the world and humans are my concern. As Jacob Marley says in Dickens; Christmas Carol "Mankind was my business."
I once heard a homily from a priest who advised his congregation to meddle in other people's lives when they felt they should. I disagree with that. Mind your own business is a tried and true moral with teeth. But being a careful observer of the human scene and putting a hand in to help when help is obviously needed should be an obligation, like the New Yorker who jumped onto the subway tracks to keep a fallen man from being run over by the train, or the injured Greek athlete who dove into the sea to save men from a sinking car. But bustling around unasked in other people's affairs deserves a good slap on the mouth.
Somewhere in my files is a quote from some wise one who says that the purpose of every object is to be observed. Lessons can be learned form everything we come across in life if we are willing to take the time to consider them.
Sometimes the new thing we come to see and consider is right in front of us. I talked with a violinist one day who said that even if you have played the same Beethoven quartet 200 times there is still something to be discovered in it. I found that to be true as an actor. A great play has discoveries to be made no matter how well you know it or how good you are at playing it.
If you go to work tomorrow, or even if you don't, why not look for something you've never seen before? I will also. But i won't say "Well, now I've seen everything," because I will know I haven't, and that's a joyful thing.
DB - Vagabond Journeys
Samuel Johnson
************************
Whenever she came across something new, whether she liked it or not, my grandmother would declare with a loud voice "Well, now I've seen everything." As if there was nothing left in the world to experience, she would make that definitive judgement. But she said it so often that we knew she still had "everything" to see. And so did she. She never stopped looking into things, no doubt to discover something she hadn't seen.
One thing she knew, that I didn't at the time, was how easy it is for us to take the new things for granted. We know we are probably going to see something tomorrow which we have never seen before but we have an automatic "so what" attitude about it. If we stop to observe and consider it, it merely slows us down on our rush to get somewhere else where we may not see anything new, or anything at all.
It has been said that it is not good to allow oneself to be distracted from one's purpose by dallying with things that don't concern one. My answer to that is that I live in the world among human beings and therefore the world and humans are my concern. As Jacob Marley says in Dickens; Christmas Carol "Mankind was my business."
I once heard a homily from a priest who advised his congregation to meddle in other people's lives when they felt they should. I disagree with that. Mind your own business is a tried and true moral with teeth. But being a careful observer of the human scene and putting a hand in to help when help is obviously needed should be an obligation, like the New Yorker who jumped onto the subway tracks to keep a fallen man from being run over by the train, or the injured Greek athlete who dove into the sea to save men from a sinking car. But bustling around unasked in other people's affairs deserves a good slap on the mouth.
Somewhere in my files is a quote from some wise one who says that the purpose of every object is to be observed. Lessons can be learned form everything we come across in life if we are willing to take the time to consider them.
Sometimes the new thing we come to see and consider is right in front of us. I talked with a violinist one day who said that even if you have played the same Beethoven quartet 200 times there is still something to be discovered in it. I found that to be true as an actor. A great play has discoveries to be made no matter how well you know it or how good you are at playing it.
If you go to work tomorrow, or even if you don't, why not look for something you've never seen before? I will also. But i won't say "Well, now I've seen everything," because I will know I haven't, and that's a joyful thing.
DB - Vagabond Journeys
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