“Don’t point that finger at me unless you intend to use it.”*
by chuckofish
Woohoo, three-day weekend coming up!
I have no Big Plans but daughter #1 will be driving in from mid-MO.
We’ll barbecue, because…
Maybe we’ll have a dance party…hopefully with the wee babes!
No doubt we’ll watch a movie…
Maybe we should watch a Neil Simon movie and toast him since he died this week at 91. The Odd Couple (1968) is always a solid choice and funnier than you remember.
I can’t take it anymore, Felix, I’m cracking up. Everything you do irritates me. And when you’re not here, the things I know you’re gonna do when you come in irritate me. You leave me little notes on my pillow. Told you 158 times I can’t stand little notes on my pillow. “We’re all out of cornflakes. F.U.” Took me three hours to figure out F.U. was Felix Ungar!
Murder By Death (1976) is also quite funny–a satire of all those Agatha Christie-type mysteries featuring all the famous detectives you can think of. As I recall, David Niven and Maggie Smith steal the show as “Dick and Dora Charleston”.
We can all relate to Truman Capote’s character, Lionel Twain, when he says:
You’ve tricked and fooled your readers for years. You’ve tortured us all with surprise endings that made no sense. You’ve introduced characters in the last five pages that were never in the book before. You’ve withheld clues and information that made it impossible for us to guess who did it. But now, the tables are turned. Millions of angry mystery readers are now getting their revenge. When the world learns I’ve outsmarted you, they’ll be selling your $1.95 books for twelve cents.
[Here’s an interesting article about Neil Simon and his influence on American society.]
Well, whatever you choose to do this long weekend, I hope you have a good one! Take a real break from your work and remember:
When we start being too impressed by the results of our work, we slowly come to the erroneous conviction that life is one large scoreboard where someone is listing the points to measure our worth. And before we are fully aware of it, we have sold our soul to the many grade-givers. That means we are not only in the world, but also of the world. Then we become what the world makes us. We are intelligent because someone gives us a high grade. We are helpful because someone says thanks. We are likable because someone likes us. And we are important because someone considers us indispensable. In short, we are worthwhile because we have successes. And the more we allow our accomplishments — the results of our actions — to become the criteria of our self-esteem, the more we are going to walk on our mental and spiritual toes, never sure if we will be able to live up to the expectations which we created by our last successes. In many people’s lives, there is a nearly diabolic chain in which their anxieties grow according to their successes. This dark power has driven many of the greatest artists into self-destruction.”
―
*Oscar Madison in The Odd Couple
dual personalities 