Journal Entries
Let's have a smile for an old engine driver
Posted Jun 26, 2002
I am possibly the only person in the history of the world to consider having my nose augmented.
Lots of people have had their noses reduced, straightened and tweaked (and in the case of our beloved founder, broken and permanently rendered nonfunctional). The Nose Job has entered the language as among the most popular forms of cosmetic surgery. But I am prepared to lay money that anybody who has had the size of their nose changed has had it reduced.
Now I should probably mention at this point that I am not serious about this: it was a momentary reflection, that's all. But there is a reason.
I want to be Pete Townshend.
As has been observed more than once, the job is taken, but all that separates me from infinite Mod cool is a hooter like the front of a Boeing 747.
I mention this merely because cosmetic surgery -- tweaking, inflating, straightening, curving, and engorging -- seems to be the order of the day, and as it gets cheaper and within the financial reach of the ordinary person, more and more of these ordinary people are having it done.
Now most people are aiming for some rather strange ideal of beauty, and a very few are aiming for a specific location (looking like Elvis or environs). I would have been aiming for infinite Mod cool, because I am peculiar.
But here's the important thing. Having an enormous snozzle would seems to make you a probable candidate for tweaking and nasal curtailment, but Pete Townshend didn't. He just got on and wrote brilliant music. He decided that instead of looking like someone cool, he'd make it be cool to look like him.
It can be cool to look like anyone. It can be cool to look like you. Why change what is cool?
Now where did I put my chest expander and Charles Atlas book?
Discuss this Journal entry [12]
Latest reply: Jun 26, 2002
I bring greetings
Posted Jun 25, 2002
It is interesting how "hello" can be shortened to both "hi" and "'lo", depending on mood. This may appear, at first sight to be some kind of manic-depressvie's charter, but greetings are very odd things anyway.
"Aloha", the greeting on Hawaii, means "hello", "goodbye" and "I love you". Most other languages wish you a good day, or afternoon or morning. English preserves "good morning" and "good afternoon", but "hello" is still the universal greeting, and very odd it is too -- it actually originates simply as a means of getting someone's attention.
The answer for the universality of hello belongs to the Bell Telephone Corporation. Originally, the greeting over the telephone (used by Bell) was "Ahoy! Ahoy!" The person could also say "Are you there?" Thomas Edison found both of these too cumbersome and one day shouted "hello!" instead. This was adopted as a convenient universal greeting which did not require reference to the time of day, an important point in a country the size of America.
Of course it's a little unwieldy, since it basically means the same thing as "oi!"
With this in mind, I can't think of any better way to close an opening entry with gentleness and thought than:
Hello, goodbye, I love you.
Discuss this Journal entry [79]
Latest reply: Jun 25, 2002
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Andrew Wyld [kt:'Burning Pestle', kp:'Mutamems, Ideodiversity', Zaph.]
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