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Sadly, George Carlin will no longer grace us with his words, dirty or otherwise, having died last night at the curmodgeonly age of 71. As Carlin himself told us, just because you're paranoid doesn't mean life isn't out to get you:
And now, ladies and gentlemen, that we've enjoyed some good times this evening, and enjoyed some laughter together, I feel it is my obligation to remind you of some of the negative, depressing, dangerous, life-threatening things that life is really all about—things you have not been thinking about tonight, but which will be waiting for you as soon as you leave the theater, or as soon as you turn off your television sets: anal rape, quicksand, body lice, evil spirits, gridlock, acid rain, continental drift, labor violence, flash floods, rabies, torture, bad luck, calcium deficiency, falling rocks, cattle stampedes, bank failure, evil neighbors, killer bees, organ rejection, lynching, toxic waste, unstable dynamite, religious fanatics, prickly heat, price fixing, moral decay, hotel fires, loss of face, stink bombs, bubonic plague, neo-Nazis, friction, cereal weevils, failure of will, chain reaction, soil erosion, mail fraud, dry rot, voodoo curses, broken glass, snake bites, parasites, white slavery, public ridicule, faithless friends, random violence, breach of contract, family scandals, charlatans, transverse militias, structural defects, race riots, sun spots, rogue elephants, wax buildup, killer frost, jealous co-workers, root canals, mental fatigue, corporal punishment, sneak attacks, peer pressure, vigilantes, birth defects, false advertising, ungrateful children, financial ruin, mildew, loss of privileges, bad drugs, ill-fitting shoes, widespread chaos, Lou Gehrig's Disease, stray bullets, runaway trains, chemical spills, locusts, airline food, shipwrecks, prowlers, bathtub accidents, faulty merchandise, terrorism, discrimination, wrongful cremation, carbon deposits, beef tapeworm, taxation without representation, escaped maniacs, sunburn, abandonment, threatening letters, entropy, nine-mile fever , poor workmanship, absentee landlord, solitary confinement, depletion of the ozone layer, unworthiness, intestinal bleeding, defrocked priests, loss of equilibrium, disgruntled employees, global warming, card sharks, poisoned meat, nuclear accidents, broken promises, contamination of the water supply, obscene phone calls, nuclear winter, wayward girls, mutual assured destruction, rampaging moose, the greenhouse effect, cluster headaches, social isolation, Dutch elm disease, contraction of the universe, paper cuts, eternal damnation, the wrath of God, and paranoia! Thank you all, very much. Thank you very much and good night, y'all. See ya now...
I'm not a big sports fan, but even I couldn't fail to note the passing of Yankees great Phil Rizzuto. I never saw him play, but his voice was plenty familiar from many afternoons watching baseball on TV with my grandfather--part of the soundtrack of my youth. Not just because of baseball, per se, of course: in my book, Rizzuto's best performance will always be as the announcer on Meat Loaf's "Paradise by the Dashboard Light"!
Wikipedia provides an appropriate quote for the occasion, attributed to Rizzuto on hearing about Pope Paul VI's death at the end of a game: "Well, that kind of puts the damper on even a Yankee win."
A bit late with the news, but... Robert Anton Wilson's own personal eschaton was immanentized on January 11, 2007. A memorial is planned for February 18 in Santa Cruz.
What can I say about RAW that hasn't already been said more surrealistically by someone else? Perhaps the greatest tribute I can offer is simply that he, in the words of Eric Cartman, "warped my fragile little mind". Praise Eris!
Betty Friedan has died.
Billy Preston is in the hospital.
It looks like snow tomorrow.
Finally, a reason to fly out of Newark: Bob.
I wasn't sure what, if anything, I wanted to say about HST's recent death. Then I read this excerpt from an interview and knew I had to share it...
Jim is in rare form tonight, broadcasting his madness across the WCNI listening area and playing old Jean Shepherd radio show transcriptions.
He's making me hungry for clam strips, too.
The USPS has created a new stamp honoring the 50th anniversary of R. Buckminster Fuller's geodesic dome. Way to go! (And just in time--my supply of Audrey Hepburn stamps is almost gone...) [via metafilter]
Gary Becker holds multiple appontments at the University of Chicago and is the 1992 winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics.
Nancy Folbre currently chairs the Department of Economics at UMASS-Amherst. She is the author of Family Time: The Social Organization of Care and The Invisible Heart: Economics and Family Values, amongst other books and articles.
Ronald Reagan died at his home yesterday morning. The Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation offers this fitting epitah:
"Whatever else history may say about me when I'm gone, I hope it will record that I appealed to your best hopes, not your worst fears; to your confidence rather than your doubts. My dream is that you will travel the road ahead with liberty's lamp guiding your steps and opportunity's arm steadying your way."
Requiescat in pace, Mr. President.
[ via myway]
William Fisher is the Hale and Dorr Professor of Intellectual Property Law at Harvard.
This month at The NeoFiles, RU Sirius interviews Clay Shirky. [via boingboing]
There's a short interview with Robert Anton Wilson in The NeoFiles.
Nobody plays a blonde Republican sex kitten better than Emily Procter.
A Democrat I would actually vote for (if I lived in Redondo Beach): Senator Debra Bowen.
Elliot Noss is that increasingly-rare beast: the CEO of a decent-sized company (TUCOWS) that gets it. (I'm a customer, BTW, and a happy one.)
Clay Shirky writes about Networks, Economics, and Culture. Recommended: "A Group Is Its Own Worst Enemy". [via blogosphere.us]
Henry Jenkins teaches Comparative Media Studies at MIT.
Robert Anton Wilson is the co-author of The Illuminatus Trilogy, perpetrator of The Principia Discordia, a genuine Pope, and an all-around trippy dude.
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