Things I Wikipedia

This fellow named Seuss, not a surgeon was he
Yet he still could sense sickness, I think you’ll agree
Corruption and malice, oppression and greed—
He found people’s wrongdoings grievous, indeed.

While pondering this, the Doc had to admit
That he did not like it. Not one little bit.
Thus driven, he did what he figured was best:
He’d tell a few tales, and let us do the rest.

All his books—they were popular! Flew off the shelves!
For in all of his characters, we saw ourselves
And although he sleeps soundly now, deep in his grave
I still thank him for teaching me how to behave.

(Ed. Note: Not actually a Wikipedia post, but I wanted to share this anyway.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feminine_rhyme

A feminine rhyme is a rhyme that matches two or more syllables, usually at the end of respective lines, in which the final syllable or syllables are unstressed.

Oh like, I dunno, say… MISS NANCY / AUNT FANCY ?!!!

I can’t stop myself!!!

I am inordinately fascinated by other people. *

That doesn’t mean I like them. I’m just driven by an obsessive interest in how other people live: how they fill their hours, what scandals and drama weigh them down, what lifts their hearts up, what they eat for breakfast. Whether or not they’re gay, aggressively gay, closeted gay, or somewhere in the middle. I’m the kind of person who will look through your medicine cabinets not because I’m trying to find anything scandalous, but because I’m curious as to how you organize your toiletries. Because maybe there’s a better way out there that I’m unaware of. Or maybe I’d like to assess precisely how anal you are. Or maybe I’m going to find your Valtrex and blackmail you.

No, seriously, I don’t give a shit about your Valtrex. I’m more interested in banal details like whether or not your Q-Tips are accessible.

This warped obsession with human details means I spend more time than I should reading about other people. As soon as I start in on an article, everything falls apart. Do I know who this guy is? Ok, but do I *really* know who he is? Of course not. What other movies has he been in? How’d he get famous in the first place? What’s his real name? Ooh, there’s mention of an ex-wife… what’s her name? What’s her story? Who wrote this article, anyway—what’s his deal? And so on. And once I’m balls-deep in Wikipediaty, there’s no stopping me. Links lead to other links that lead to other links and so on and so forth for hours and hours… staring at my computer screen until my head feels like it’s going to explode.

That thing people say about curiosity killing the cat? Substitute “cat” with “productivity,” and you’re spot on.

Recent Biographical Wikipedia Articles I Have Accessed:

J. Edgar Hoover : “[historian David K. Johnson] views Rosenstiel as a liar who was paid for her story, whose ‘description of Hoover in drag engaging in sex with young blond boys in leather while desecrating the Bible is clearly a homophobic fantasy.’”

Sandra Bernhard (Quote): “My father was a proctologist and my mother was an abstract artist, so that’s how I view the world.”

Tupac Shakur : “Shakur’s body was cremated and some of his ashes were later mixed with marijuana and smoked by members of the Outlawz.” 

Wyclef Jean : “Although his birth date was widely given as October 17, 1972, papers filed for his run as a candidate for the presidency of Haiti, disclosed that he was, in fact, born in 1969.”

Avril Lavigne (Quote): “I won’t wear skanky clothes that show my booty, my belly or my boobs. I have a great body.”

Coen Brothers : “Joel then spent four years in the undergraduate film program at New York University where he made a 30-minute thesis film called Soundings. The film depicted a woman engaged in sex with her deaf boyfriend while verbally fantasizing about having sex with her boyfriend’s best friend, who is listening in the next room. Ethan went on to Princeton University and earned an undergraduate degree in philosophy in 1979.His senior thesis was a 41-page essay, ‘Two Views of Wittgenstein’s Later Philosophy’.”

Prahlad Jani : “After fifteen days of observation during which he reportedly did not eat, drink or go to the toilet, all medical tests on Jani were reported as normal and researchers described him as being in better health than someone half his age. The doctors reported that although the amount of liquid in Jani’s bladder fluctuated and that Jani appeared ‘able to generate urine in his bladder’, he did not pass urine.”

Otto Van Bismarck (Quote): “One day the great European War will come out of some damned foolish thing in the Balkans.”

Alia Shawkat : “In October 2009, it was announced that Shawkat, Har Mar, and fellow Whip It co-star Page would produce and write a show for HBO called ‘Stitch N’ Bitch.’”

Carl Sandburg : “In Neshaminy School District of lower Bucks County resides the secondary institution Carl Sandburg Middle School. Located in the lobby is a finished split tree trunk with the quote engraved lengthwise horizontally: MAN IS BORN WITH RAINBOWS IN HIS HEART AND YOU’LL NEVER READ HIM UNLESS YOU CONSIDER RAINBOWS”

Kemp Muhl : “She is dating Sean Lennon, with whom she is involved in a musical project, titled ‘The Ghost of a Saber Tooth Tiger’.”

Aimee Crocker : “The breakup of Aimée’s first marriage became a national scandal. Porter and his brother, Sydney, kidnapped daughter Gladys in Los Angeles, while Aimée and her mother attended a wedding. Charges and countercharges made daily news during the custody battle, and courthouse proceedings attracted a crowd of hundreds. In spite of Porter’s reputation as a notorious gambler, in spite of his kidnapping charge and a weapons charge, and in spite of the Crocker millions, the little girl’s mother would not be awarded custody. Aimée, it seems, had the worse reputation.”

Lotta Crabtree : “Lotta’s mother served as her manager and collected all of Lotta’s earnings in gold, carrying it in a large leather bag. When this became too heavy, it was transferred to a steamer trunk.”

Bernie Ecclestone : “He was then married to Slavica Ecclestone (née Slavica Radić) for almost 25 years. Radić was born in the town of Rijeka in Croatia in the Federal People’s Republic of Yugoslavia in 1958. She is a 6’2” (1.88 m) former Armani model who is 28 years his junior, and 11.5 inches (29 cm) taller than her husband.”

Roseanne Barr : “At 16, Barr was hit by a car that left her with a traumatic brain injury. Her behavior changed so radically that she was institutionalized for eight months at Utah State Hospital.”

Vladimir Nabokov : “During the 1940s, as a research fellow in zoology, he was responsible for organizing the butterfly collection of the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard University.”

Lash LaRue: “A role as the villain in a pornographic western, Hard on the Trail, led him to repentance as a missionary for ten years, as he had not been informed of the adult nature of the film and would not have consented to appear in the film.”

* Not necessarily by Justin Bieber.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reepicheep

Reepicheep is a fictional character from C.S. Lewis’, Chronicles of Narnia series. He appears in Prince Caspian, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, and also in The Last Battle. He is a large, talking mouse who carries a rapier, and wears a red plume tucked in his golden circlet. He is an experienced warrior, utterly fearless, and faultlessly courteous, particularly to noble ladies. He is also pugnacious and quick to defend any affront to his honor.

Eddie Izzard voiced Reepicheep in the 2008 movie The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian. Simon Pegg took over the role for The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader.

I woke up with “Reepicheep” stuck in my head a few days ago. I had an inkling I knew where it was from, but needed to be *absolutely sure*…

Clearly, I wasn’t not under the influence of alcohol. But I love Eddie Izzard, so maybe it was subliminal.

Also, peep these open tabs:

The HSC

The Fourteenth Amendment

Intel-based Macs: Resetting the System Management Controller [Ed. Note: I have a Dell Laptop}

Crayola: Products

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Li_Bai

Many of the Classical Chinese poets were associated with drinking wine, or more precisely, alcoholic beverages. In fact, Li Bai was part of the group of Chinese scholars during his time in Chang’an, called the “Eight Immortals of the Wine Cup”, as mentioned in a poem by fellow poet Du Fu. However, Li Bai is of special note in this respect. As Burton Watson put it, “[n]early all Chinese poets celebrate the joys of wine, but none so tirelessly and with such a note of genuine conviction as Li [Bai].

Li Bai (aka Li Po, among other Westernized spellings) is one of the most prolific and well-known Chinese poets of the Tang Dynasty. Famous for his technical prowess and “glorification of alcoholic beverages (and, indeed, frank celebration of drunkenness),” Li Bai penned such works as “Drinking Alone in the Moonlight,” translated below:

A pot of wine, under the flowering trees;
I drink alone, for no friend is near.
Raising my cup I beckon the bright moon,
For her, with my shadow, will make three people.

The moon, alas, is no drinker of wine;
Listless, my shadow creeps about at my side.
Yet with the moon as friend and the shadow as slave
I must make merry before the Spring is spent.

To the songs I sing the moon flickers her beams;
In the dance I weave my shadow tangles and breaks.
While we were sober, three shared the fun;
Now we are drunk, each goes their way.
May we long share our eternal friendship,
And meet at last on the paradise.

I, too, am a poet who frankly celebrates drunkenness, having penned such works as the following haiku:

I drink to forget
how stupid I act while drunk
oops, infinite loop

Mr. Li, I pour a little out for you now. May you rest easy in the everlasting bender of paradise.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodnight_Moon

In 2005, publisher HarperCollins digitally altered the photograph of illustrator Hurd, which had been on the book for at least twenty years, to remove a cigarette. Kate Jackson, editor in chief for children’s books, said “It is potentially a harmful message to very young kids.” HarperCollins had the reluctant permission of Hurd’s son, Thacher Hurd, but the younger Hurd said the photo of Hurd with his arm and fingers extended, holding nothing, “looks slightly absurd to me.” HarperCollins has said it will likely replace the picture with a different, unaltered photo of Hurd in future editions. In response, a satirical article demanded the removal of other potentially dangerous objects in the book, such as the fireplace and balloon (a choke hazard for young children).

Goodnight, Marlboro Lights.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wizard_Rock

Top bands in this genre include Harry and the Potters, Draco and the Malfoys, Voldy and the Horcruxes, Wingardium Leviosa, The Remus Lupins, the Whomping Willows, Justin Finch-Fletchley and the Sugar Quills, Gred and Forge, Tonks and the Aurors, Swish and Flick, Oliver Boyd and the Remembralls, Ministry of Magic, The Moaning Myrtles, The Parselmouths, and Kingsley and the Shacklebolts. Although most listeners of the genre are fans of Harry Potter, some bands have attracted listeners outside of the books’ fanbase.

In contrast to mainstream bands that have some songs incorporating literary references among a wider repertoire of music (notably Led Zeppelin to The Lord of the Rings), wizard rock bands take their inspiration entirely from the Harry Potter universe.

In preserving the promotion of reading, too, bands like to perform in libraries, bookstores, and schools. The bands have also performed at the fan conventions.

In late 2004, Matt Maggiacomo invited Harry and the Potters to play at an all-Harry Potter show at his Rhode Island home. That night, Maggiacomo made his debut as The Whomping Willows, and his friends, Mehlenbacher and his brother, Brian Ross, played for the first time as Draco and the Malfoys.

What is this I don’t even

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_%C3%A0_clef

…a novel describing real life, behind a façade of fiction.

Oh, ok, so it’s a more pretentious way of saying “satire.” I got it. *Ed. Note: Pic is Unrelated

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Clan_of_the_Cave_Bear

Ever get a cocky message from someone on one of those dating websites who references something obscure in their profiles along the lines of “Extra points if you know what _____ is… without Googling it! ;)” and then you Google it because really, that’s obnoxious, and then you find out it’s a character in a book you used to make fun of your 6th grade friend for reading and that was made into a shitty ’80s movie with Daryl Hannah?

Yeah, me either.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ana%C3%AFs_Nin

“In 1947, at the age of 44, she met and began living with Rupert Pole (1919–2006), sixteen years her junior. On March 17, 1955, she married him at Quartzsite, Arizona, returning with Pole to live in California.[8] Guiler remained in New York City and was unaware of Nin’s second marriage until after her death in 1977.”

Pioneer of confessional diaries, female erotica, and empowered sexuality. Nin: Makin’ it cool to be a lady, since 1903.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walt_Whitman

“In the body of the text he calls himself ‘Walt Whitman, an American, one of the roughs, a kosmos, disorderly, fleshly, and sensual, no sentimentalist, no stander above men or women or apart from them, no more modest than immodest.’”

“Modernist poet Ezra Pound called Whitman ‘America’s poet… He is America.’”

“Geologist John Peter Lesley wrote to Emerson, calling the book ‘trashy, profane & obscene’ and the author ‘a pretentious ass.’”

——

Whitman is one of my favorite poets. He was unabashedly open about sexuality and challenged the notion that heterosexual, monogamous relationships were the only socially acceptable way to enjoy sex without being some sort of deviant. He’s also rambling, intensely introspectively self-involved, and pretty much awesome. Except for advocating temperance… but I’ll forgive him that.

One of my favorites:

I too am not a bit tamed—I too am untranslatable;
I sound my barbaric yawp over the rooftops

Oh, and for you young’uns, if you’ve never seen Dead Poets Society, I suggest you Netflix it. Whitman’s poem O Captain! My Captain! features prominently. And Robin Williams is not shout-y/slapstick-y/obnoxious-y. And, it’s fantastic. And, you might cry.

P.S. I write poetry, I’m not gonna lie. Do any of you write? Care to share a link or a sample of something?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-help

Is it considered “self-help” if my therapist makes me read a self-help book?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mr._Belvedere

I had no idea he had such a distinctive pedigree.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._E._Cummings

The battle of the cases.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Struwwelpeter

One of the most-read books of my childhood. Twisted and terrifying. This tells you a lot about my psychology…

Difficult to spell, though.