a thread for mundane ironists

[b]Billie Holiday

The only reason they’re out there is to see me fall into the damn orchestra pit. [/b]

Anyone know if that ever happened?

New Orleans is the only city in the world you go in to buy a pair of nylon stockings they want to know your head size.

Anyone know if that’s actually true?

If I don’t have friends, then I ain’t nothing.

Believe it or not, I used to have them myself.

In this country kings or dukes don’t amount to nothing. The greatest man around then was Franklin D. Roosevelt, and he was the President; so I started calling Lester the President. It got shortened to Pres.

Then P-Daddy.

I can’t stand to sing the same song the same way two nights in succession, let alone two years or ten years.

Or, for any number of oldie acts today, the rest of their fucking lives.

Love is like a faucet, it turns off and on.

When it’s not dripping.

[b]Annie Lennox

Each individual is as individual as their fingerprints, and I think that’s extraordinary. [/b]

Not counting all those who are pretty much the same.

The world is a heartbreaking place, without any question.

True. And then, ironically, to make matters worse, you die.

Humankind seems to have an enormous capacity for savagery, for brutality, for lack of empathy, for lack of compassion.

Let’s turn this into philosophy.

When you’re that successful, things have a momentum, and at a certain point you can’t really tell whether you have created the momentum or it’s creating you.

Most of course will never know.

You become really ugly when you become very superficial and self-obsessed.

Like that isn’t already the American way.

Music is an extraordinary vehicle for expressing emotion - very powerful emotions. That’s what draws millions of people towards it.

This is actually really true.

[b]Jan Mieszkowski

British philosophy: We’re sorry about Ayer.
French philosophy: We’re sorry about Sartre.
German philosophy: We’re sorry about Habermas.
American philosophy: We’re sorry.[/b]

Is it even possible to understand this?

[b]Would have thrived on Twitter:
Pascal
Hume
F. Schlegel
Nietzsche
Wittgenstein

Strictly Tumblr material:
Plato
Leibniz
Rousseau
Kant
Husserl[/b]

Is it even possible to understand this?

Aristotle: I never promised you a good life!
Kant: I never promised you a rational life!
Nietzsche: I never promised you a real life!
Beckett: You’re dead. I promise.

No as a matter of fact, Sam, I’m not. But point taken.

Plato: A good idea is worth dying for
Kant: The idea of the good is worth dying for
Beckett: Dying sounds like a good idea

Or it will eventually.

Philosophy begins when you give up
Descartes: certitude
Kant: dogmatism
Kierkegaard: hope
Nietzsche: philosophy

And in exactly that order.

[b]When I read your work, I feel like I’m

Plato: bathed in sunlight
Aristotle: infused with wonder
Descartes: paralyzed by doubt
Marx: taking to the streets
Heidegger: losing my language
Nietzsche: losing my mind
Sartre: on my 10th espresso
Žižek: lost in a Walmart parking lot[/b]

How about my work, here?

[b]Brad Thor

As Dietrich Bonhoeffer said, ‘Silence in the face of evil is itself evil. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act’. [/b]

Their evil of course.

Snyder had scaled the rocky heights of the American political landscape by adhering to a simple mantra: Do unto others before they do unto you.

That’s how it works alright. Then double it.

They had one mantra, and it came straight from the founder of the OSS, Wild Bill Donovan. If you fall, fall forward.

And then all the way to the bank.

Being happy boils down to three things. Something to do. Someone to love. And something to look forward to.

Well, he thought, from the bottom of the barrel, that explains a lot.

The funny thing about believing you can do no wrong is that you quickly begin doing nothing but wrong.

Right, like there are never any exceptions.

Harvath shrugged as his phone chimed. That’s social media for you. There’s a reason the intelligence community loves it so much.

And not just the Russians.

[b]Nina Simone

It was always Marx, Lenin, and revolution - real girl’s talk. [/b]

By all means, tell me more.

The Beatles are lucky, very lucky. But what has happened to them has nothing to do with them, in a sense. They came along at the right time. Attention was focused on them. They’ve had the chance to grow in almost any direction they wanted. Very lucky. They are not exceptionally talented.

Two words: John Lennon.

Once I understood Bach’s music, I wanted to be a concert pianist. Bach made me dedicate my life to music, and it was that teacher who introduced me to his world.

I know what you’re thinking: Who’da thunk it?

Jazz is not just music, it’s a way of life, it’s a way of being, a way of thinking. . . . the new inventive phrases we make up to describe things - all that to me is jazz just as much as the music we play.

Just never sunk in for me.

I think the rich are too rich and the poor are too poor. I don’t think the black people are going to rise at all; I think most of them are going to die.

Not unlike with white people. Only more so.

I’m sorry that I did not become the world’s first black classic pianist. I think I would have been happier.

That would be Andre Watts. Said to be “the first Black concert pianist to achieve international super stardom”.
youtu.be/KJ8pzu14FmI

[b]Existential Comics

fyi anyone who spells “bourgeoisie” right on the first try is a cop[/b]

A little help with this one please.

[b]Guide to being a real man:

• make your own decisions.
• don’t let things upset you beyond your control.
• lift weights.
• eating steaks rare for some reason has something to do with it.
• bottle up all your emotions deep inside until they burst out at random as misdirected anger.[/b]

Uh-oh. I’m not even close then.

“I’m neutral in respect to unions”
– someone who is against unions.
“I don’t think we should talk about race”
– someone who is racist.
“I’m not political”
– someone whose politics aligns with the current ruling class.

And, believe it or not, not just in the red states.

…oh shit you guys I totally forgot about the complete game of the week six 2006 Monday Night Football matchup of the Bears vs Cardinals, in which the Bears overcame a 23-3 deficit while scoring zero points on offense and committing two turnovers.

No, really, this is actually quite insightful.

I’m socially liberal, but fiscally conservative, which means that I hate poor black people because they are poor, not because they are black.

Cue Phil Ochs?

actually according to the ancient Greeks, who invented Western Civilization, everyone should fuck each other all the time

Talk about a double entendre!

[b]Roger Penrose

We have a closed circle of consistency here: the laws of physics produce complex systems, and these complex systems lead to consciousness, which then produces mathematics, which can then encode in a succinct and inspiring way the very underlying laws of physics that gave rise to it.[/b]

Or as closed as some can think up.

There are considerable mysteries surrounding the strange values that Nature’s actual particles have for their mass and charge. For example, there is the unexplained ‘fine structure constant’ … governing the strength of electromagnetic interactions.

Let’s connect the dots between that and “I”.

Quantum mechanics makes absolutely no sense.

Let’s connect the dots between that and “I”.

…our present picture of physical reality, particularly in relation to the nature of time, is due for a grand shake up…

Cue Ecmandu?

With thought comprising a non-computational element, computers can never do what we human beings can.

What the hell, let’s all agree that settles it and move on.

Do not be afraid to skip equations. I do this frequently myself.

Right, like we’d know the ones to skip.

[b]Dan Savage

I always kind of divided the gay guys I met up into two groups when I first started coming out. There were the guys who thought there was something fundamentally wrong with them and hated themselves and were so burdened with shame and internalized homophobia. It just really paralyzed and shredded them. And then there were guys like me who thought, “I’m fine, everybody else is crazy. My church is sick and the family’s crazy, but me? I’m fine.” [/b]

So, how does this comport with your experience?

I waver between a cop-out agnostic and principled atheism.

You know, whatever that does.

A certain tiny percentage of everyone is gay.

Not counting those who are less than zero.

One man’s piss-soaked sadomasochistic orgy is another man’s poetic ecstasy.

Let’s call it conflicting goods.

I’m an agnosto-theist. I cross myself on airplanes. I pray when I’m sick. When you’re sick I’ll keep you in my thoughts; when I’m sick, I’m entreating a higher power.

You know, when no one is watching.

I wouldn’t say that holidays are manufactured by corporations, but they’re certainly exploited and mined by them.

Could that actually be true?

[b]tiny nietzsche

a selfie made out of dust and a broken heart[/b]

I know: been there, done that.

respect my ambiguity

he died doing what he loved, returning fire into a hurricane

My guess: the steroids.

oh fuck. I’m the abyss

And trust me: Not just here.

girl with the crayon tattoo

In production they tell me.

fatalism is killing me

Well, that’s only natural.

[b]Pythagoras

Numbers have a way of taking a man by the hand and leading him down the path of reason. [/b]

If only in the either/or world.

As long as man continues to be the ruthless destroyer of lower living beings he will never know health or peace. For as long as men massacre animals, they will kill each other.

They will kill each other anyway.

If you have a wounded heart, touch it as little as you would an injured eye. There are only two remedies for the suffering of the soul: hope and patience.

Them and opioids.

Know thyself and thou wilt know the universe.

It is better to be silent, than to dispute with the Ignorant.

Me, I prefer to torment them myself.

If you’re asked: What is the silence? Respond: It is the first stone of the Wisdom’s temple.

Would you like to know my response?

[b]Wanda Sykes

I’m a black, gay woman. I think the only way to make the GOP hate me more is if I sent them a video of me rolling around on a pile of welfare checks. [/b]

Let’s confirm that.

If you don’t believe in same-sex marriage, then don’t marry somebody of the same sex.

Right, like that’s the way it will ever work.

As soon as you say ‘I do,’ you’ll discover that marriage is like a car. Both of you might be sitting in the front seat, but only one of you is driving.

I ended up in the trunk myself.

I don’t like the saying keep your friends close and enemies closer. I want my enemy on a different planet.

Not counting Pluto of course.

I don’t understand why people really get upset about something that doesn’t affect them at all.

It’s probably in the Bible.

I hope his kidneys fail, how about that? He needs a waterboarding, that’s what he needs.

Pick one:
1] Rush Limbaugh
2] Rush Limbaugh
3] Rush Limbaugh

[b]so sad today

i’m hungry but not sure if i deserve to exist: the musical[/b]

What, another one?

nothing makes me more tired than doing literally anything

Not much that doesn’t cover.

recovering from being alone by being alone

Right, like there’s any other way.

look, i hate myself as much as the next guy

A bad mood let’s call it.

my gift to humanity is not having kids

I once thought that would be mine. You know, whatever that means.

if you need me i’ll be in the bathtub for the rest of my life

In fact, I’m imagining that right now.

[b]Daniel Silva

Do unto others before they have a chance to do unto you.[/b]

But only good things of course.

…there was nothing more dangerous, he thought, than a patient man.

Let’s come up with examples.

The strongman and the “corporate state”—by another name, fascism—are all the rage. Western-style democracy and the global institutions that created an unprecedented period of peace in Europe are suddenly out of vogue.

At least until we elect Bernie Elizabeth.

We dare to fight back, and the terrorists accuse us of being the real terrorists.
It’s their secret weapon, Mikhail. Get used to it.

Next up: The kernal of truth.

…there was once a time when human beings did not feel the need to share their every waking moment with hundreds of millions, even billions, of complete and utter strangers. If one went to a shopping mall to purchase an article of clothing, one did not post minute-by-minute details on a social networking site; and if one made a fool of oneself at a party, one did not leave a photographic record of the sorry episode in a digital scrapbook that would survive for all eternity. But now, in the era of lost inhibition, it seemed no detail of life was too mundane or humiliating to share. In the online age, it was more important to live out loud than to live with dignity. Internet followers were more treasured than flesh-and-blood friends, for they held the illusive promise of celebrity, even immortality. Were Descartes alive today, he might have written: I tweet, therefore I am.

Or: I post therefore I am.

She believed that “British cuisine” was an oxymoron.

Ouch?

[b]Oswald Spengler

At the beginning a man was wealthy because he was powerful — now he is powerful because he has money.[/b]

And, every once in a while [these days], a woman.

One cannot learn how to be creative by reading Marx. Either one is creative or one is not.

What the hell does reading Marx have to with that, he wondered.

Scientists are wont to assume that myths and God-ideas are creations of primitive man, and that as spiritual culture “advances”, this myth-forming power is shed. In reality it is the exact opposite, … this ability of a soul to fill its world with shapes, traits and symbols - like and consistent amongst themselves - belongs most definitely not to the world-age of the primitives but exclusively to the springtimes of great Cultures. Every myth of the great style stands at the beginning of an awakening spirituality. It is the first formative act of that spirituality. Nowhere else is it to be found. There - it must be.

So, what do you think…maybe?

Suddenly all those individuals who yesterday felt that “we” meant only their families, their professions, or perhaps their communities, become men of the nation. Their emotions and thoughts, their egos, that “something” within them, all are transformed: they have become historical.

And then, as likely as not, for the reactionaries, it all gets divided into races.

In place of a true-type people, born of and grown on the soil, there is a new sort of nomad, cohering unstably in fluid masses, the parasitical city dweller, traditionless, utterly matter-of-fact, religionless, clever, unfruitful, deeply contemptuous of the countryman and especially that highest form of countryman, the country gentleman…

Any true-types here perchance?

That there is, besides a necessity of cause and effect — which I may call the logic of space — another necessity, an organic necessity in life, that of Destiny — the logic of time — is a fact of the deepest inward certainty.

When it’s not the deepest inward mystery. But point taken.

[b]Philosopnhy Tweets

“No one is more hated than he who speaks the truth.” Plato[/b]

This may well be the very first “general description”.

“One of the most misleading representational techniques in our language is the use of the word ‘I’.” Ludwig Wittgenstein

And that’s before you get to my “I”.

“Nothing is so difficult as not deceiving oneself.” Ludwig Wittgenstein

So, what’s your take on that, Mr. Objectivist?

"Human behavior flows from three main sources: desire, emotion, and knowledge.” Plato

In that precise order, one suspects.

"A wise man speaks because he has something to say; a fool because he has to say something.” Plato

A fool like me, right? And then over and over and over and over again.
On the other hand, I’m onto you too.

“People will do anything, no matter how absurd, to avoid facing their own souls.” Carl Gustav Jung

Fortunately for us, however, that can mean practically anything.

[b]Bob Dylan

I started writing songs after I heard Hank Williams. [/b]

Next up: I started writing songs after I heard Bob Dylan.

I find C major to be the key of strength, but also the key of regret. E major is the key of confidence. A-flat major is the key of renunciation.

Anyone here know if that’s actually true?

The Duke John Wayne was a massive figure. He looked like a heavy piece of hauled lumber, and it didn’t seem like any man could stand shoulder to shoulder with him.

Of course, others formed different opinions: youtu.be/xMUGDWvA9CI

Well, you always know who you are. I just don’t know who I’m gonna become.

Would you like me to explain that to you?

every pleasure’s got an edge of pain
pay your ticket and don’t complain

Or, if you can, sneak the fuck in.

Some formulas are too complex and I don’t want anything to do with them.

And, most times, science being the least of it.

[b]Blake Crouch

If you go in with fear, fear is what you’ll find.[/b]

Right, like we’re always able to control these things.

If memory is unreliable, if the past and the present can simply change without warning, then fact and truth will cease to exist. How do we live in a world like that?

Tell him, Mr. Objectivist.

When your world falls apart, cling to the familiar.

Unless that makes it worse.

Like standing on a beach as the tide sucks the sand beneath my feet back out to sea, I can feel my native world, and the reality that supports it, pulling away. I wonder: If I don’t fight hard enough against it, will this reality slowly click in and carry me off?

Sure. But only if you’re lucky. Like, for example, I was.

In some environments, safety and truth are natural born enemies.

Let’s note some.

So we all embark wondering what lies over the horizon, what’s around the next bend. And isn’t that, in the end, what drives us?

Crazy for example.

[b]Philosophy Tweets

“To seek is to suffer. To seek nothing is bliss.” Bodhidharma[/b]

In other words, after the bills are all paid.

“Leisure is the mother of philosophy” Thomas Hobbes

No, really, think about that.

"There are three types of lies – lies, damn lies, and statistics.” Benjamin Disraeli.

Always important to bring this back around.

"I have heard that one can conquer the empire on horseback, but one cannot govern it on horseback.” Kublai Khan

You know, back then.

“If this is the best of possible worlds, what then are the others?” Voltaire

Our own for example

"Reserve your right to think, for even to think wrongly is better than not to think at all.” Hypatia of Alexandria

Clearly with exceptions!!!
[size=50]Right, Kids?[/size]

[b]Fiona Apple

If I respect myself and believe in what I’m doing, no one can touch me. [/b]

I’ll need to know what she’s doing of course.

Home is where my habits have a habitat.

My recliner in particular, he noted.

I don’t care how people remember my albums. I do them for my own reasons.

Or, here: I don’t care how people remember my posts. I do them for my own reasons.

You can live your whole life in your brain and not experience what’s around you. You go crazy that way.

Not counting me of course.

I stand by everything I’ve ever said, apologies included.

Can you say that?

Because for whatever reason, even though I want to stay home all the time and be left alone, I want to tell the world who I am now.

Sounds a lot like me, he thought.

[b]Neal Stephenson

Other people - store clerks, burger flippers, software engineers, the whole vocabulary of meaningless jobs that make up Life in America - other people just rely on plain old competition. Better flip your burgers or debug your subroutines faster than your high school classmate two blocks down the strip is flipping or debugging, because we’re in competition with those guys, and people notice these things. What a fucking rat race that is.[/b]

Okay, but at least it’s our rat race.

They made data a controlled substance.

And we know who they are, right?

Unless you are as smart as Johann Karl Friedrich Gauss, savvy as a half-blind Calcutta bootblack, tough as General William Tecumseh Sherman, rich as the Queen of England, emotionally resilient as a Red Sox fan, and as generally able to take care of yourself as the average nuclear missile submarine commander, you should never have been allowed near this document.

What’s that make Don Trump then?

You have responsibilities, now, Bob. You must lose this naive understanding of violence! You are embarrassin’ me in front of the lads! You can’t play by their rules or they’ll win unfailingly! You don’t engage in courtly play-fightin’ with one such as this. You get a great friggin’ tree-branch and keep hittin’ him with it until he dies.

Good advice for the Democrats too, isn’t it?

There are only two industries. This has always been true…There is the industry of things, and the industry of entertainment…After people have the things they need to live, everything else is entertainment. Everything.

Or, as I call them, distractions.

What would the engineer say, after you had explained your problem and enumerated all of the dissatisfactions in your life? He would probably tell you that life is a very hard and complicated thing; that no interface can change that; that anyone who believes otherwise is a sucker; and that if you don’t like having choices made for you, you should start making your own.

For, among other reasons, all practical purposes.