“Folks are about as happy as they make their minds up to be.” – Abraham Lincoln
In other words, how you look at life is all about attitude—the half-full, half-empty kind of assessment. Therefore I suppose, contrary to yesterday’s blog, I could look at August with a half-full view.
So in response to Part 1’s low down assessment, here’s the up beat one.
Elena Kagan was confirmed as Supreme Court Justice. Supremely delightful.
No cavities at the dentist yesterday and I only jumped out of the chair once during the prophy.
My brother hit me up for just a small loan this month.
A new Friday Night Lights DVD is coming out next week! Can’t wait.
I also learned something interesting about Mark Twain…
Last week during the Steinbeck Festival luncheon, another of my tablemates was a former high school teacher who taught Steinbeck for many years, like Grapes of Wrath and the students’ favorite, Of Mice and Men. The teacher is now a teacher of teachers, instructing educators how to use Apple technology.
After the yikkety-yakking about Steinbeck had run its course, the conversation turned to Mark Twain. The Teacher’s Teacher had also taught Twain for many years and was a Twain aficionado. He mentioned that UC Berkeley’s Bancroft Library houses the second largest collection of Twain’s papers in the U.S., including thousands of letters he wrote. (I looked up info on visiting the Twain Project Reading Room. Add that excursion to my To Do List!)
Teacher’s Teacher also said that Twain gave UC Berkeley 5000 unedited pages of his autobiography—written during the last year of his life—with strict instructions NOT to publish his memoirs until 100 years after his death. The 100 years is up. The first of three volumes will be published this November. Talk about a “Can’t wait” event!
Should be amazingly interesting and insightful. But the creepy part is the commentary so far from scholars who have read parts of the autobio. Twain slashes and burns his way across friends, acquaintances, a landlady, an ex-lover, Theodore Roosevelt, politics, patriotism, Christianity, and God. One historian is quoted as saying the first volume is “400 pages of bile.”
Oh dear. Well, let’s hope it’s at least funny bile.
Teacher’s Teacher remarked that Twain ended up as most satirists do: they start out as optimists and turn into frustrated cynics. At the end of his life, Twain was an embittered man.
Oh dear #2. I’m an optimistic satirist. And I’m basically happy. I hope to avoid the cynical road Twain traveled down. Maybe being an unknown writer will keep me off it!
Lastly, in tying up the Dog Days of Summer blog theme, here’s another tidbit of info: the origin of the word CYNIC comes from the Greek word cyniko meaning “doglike.”
How can man’s best friend be a creature that “believes that only selfishness motivates human actions…” (Dictionary.com)
Do dogs know something we don’t? Any dog whisperers care to comment?
