Paper-wrapped, waxy goodness.

Have I ever told you how seriously I take crayons? Probably not. Here goes: I fucking love Binney-Smith and their glorious little sticks of waxy creativity. We're talking about Crayola God damned crayons.  We make pilgrimage to their giant-ass factory in Easton, PA at least twice a year, and it is worth every penny of admission. The original. Unequalled.

If you're an adult who does not wax (heh) nostalgic at the whiff of a freshly opened box of Crayolas, become inspired by the very names of the colors or get giddy and smile at the sight of that big honkin' green-and-yellow box (64 colors, with built-in sharpener!), then get the fuck off my sidebar, because you have no fucking soul.

Crayons retain their magic, no matter how old you are. Want to liven up a party? Throw out some butcher paper, a few coloring books and several boxes of crayons. Adults and children alike will gravitate, and eventually, you will see an 80-year-old Gramma drawing flowers next to a 4-year-old drawing robots across from the twins coloring in their "Scooby Doo" books. No one can resist the call of the crayon; it transcends age, race, and language. Crayons are an Objective Good; a universal uniter.

Want to creatively enhance a room? Do what Dino did: leave a basket of crayons on the toilet tank and let your guests know that they can gleefully deface and graffiti up your potty walls. You're providing a creative outlet AND reading material for your guests! It rocks! (My contributions are varied, but I like the ceiling piece the best.)

I'd be willing to bet that if you laid a shit-tonne of paper and crayons at a G-8 meeting, a UN Security Council meeting, or Congressional gathering, you would see more Shit Getting Done, because no one can be a crab-ass, contentious motherfucker with a fistful of crayons.

They need to be real Crayolas though. Don't cheap out and buy the weak-sauce, pale imitations like RoseArt or other generic crap. God, I hate cheap-ass, shitty crayons. They lack style and substance. Their labels are boring and their color names lack originality; they are too waxy and they leave a pale, pussified streak of color on the page. If you buy crap crayons, there's a seat reserved for you on Hell's Amtrak, and guess what? It's probably in the cigar car.

That's right, I said it: you'll smoke a turd in Hell for buying cut-rate crayons.

Go out and buy s box for yourself today. Grab some good paper, as well, and maybe a coloring book. Indulge yourself in the sheer potential that an unopened box of crayons and a fresh pad of paper contain.

Then go out and buy a couple of boxes of the good shit for Donors Choose, your local church or even your local food bank.

Christmas in August.

For the first week of Fall '10, my campus gave to me:

One scowling RA.
Two sobbing mothers..
Three jammed parking lots.
Four cases of alcohol poisoning.
Five ambo runs!.
Six thongs found on or around the quad.
Seven jocks a'hazing.
Eight passed-out sorority sisters.
Nine pissed-off maintenance dudes.
Ten confiscated handles of vodka.
Eleven referrals to alcohol counseling.
Twelve puking frosh.

Ah, college! Where the flower of higher education blooms eternal!

Waxing poetic on a Wednesday

Dustbury calls my attention to this article, which bemoans the "sidelining" of poetry. One of Second Terrace's paragraphs called to me: 

          "This is distressing, because – I think – poetry is the threading of meaning, and thus a little bit of poetry is necessary to the work of belief. And if you think that there is no work to belief, then you will never be able to read a poem."

All of this gives me an excuse to post one of my favorite poems, by Marianne Moore. It pretty much sums up my feelings on poetry, which has been eulogized at least once per generation. I particularly like the line about "imaginary gardens with real toads in them," because poetry is the imaginary garden, and the toads are the critics and poets who take themselves entirely  too seriously.

"Poetry"

I, too, dislike it: there are things that are important beyond
      all this fiddle.
   Reading it, however, with a perfect contempt for it, one
      discovers in
   it after all, a place for the genuine.
      Hands that can grasp, eyes
      that can dilate, hair that can rise
         if it must, these things are important not because a

high-sounding interpretation can be put upon them but because
      they are
   useful. When they become so derivative as to become
      unintelligible,
   the same thing may be said for all of us, that we
      do not admire what
      we cannot understand: the bat
         holding on upside down or in quest of something to 

eat, elephants pushing, a wild horse taking a roll, a tireless
      wolf under
   a tree, the immovable critic twitching his skin like a horse
      that feels a flea, the base-
   ball fan, the statistician--
      nor is it valid
         to discriminate against "business documents and

school-books"; all these phenomena are important. One must make
      a distinction
   however: when dragged into prominence by half poets, the
      result is not poetry,
   nor till the poets among us can be
     "literalists of
      the imagination"--above
         insolence and triviality and can present

for inspection, "imaginary gardens with real toads in them,"
      shall we have
   it. In the meantime, if you demand on the one hand,
   the raw material of poetry in
      all its rawness and
      that which is on the other hand
         genuine, you are interested in poetry.

"Do you expect me to talk, Goldfinger?"

There's always a lot of debate over who was the best Bond. This debate reignites every few years, as a long-in-the tooth actor bows out of the role and the search for a new man to embody suave, brutal sophistication begins. My list is as follows:

1. Sean Connery
2. George Lazenby
3. Pierce Brosnan
4. Daniel Craig
5. Roger Moore
6. Timothy Dalton

Who was the best Bond ever? is a no-brainer: Sean Connery, who turns 80 today.

(I would do naughty things to this man, were I unmarried. Yes, even now.)

Best Bond flick? It's a toss-up between "Thunderball," or "Diamonds are Forever." (Though I liked "Never Say Never Again...")

Give me your own fave Bonds in the comments!

Historicity.

Dustbury offers a post on the top two historical markers. I counter with this one:

More on Sir Jeffrey Hudson HERE.

Move-in day!

• Housekeeping cleans the public areas of the school. They clean the hallways, common bathrooms and lounge rooms, classroom buildings and administrative offices**. They are not around to straighten your rooms or make your beds. (**They do not clean faculty offices, ever.) If you seriously imply that Queenie B., Head of Dorm Housekeeping, ought to do your laundry, she will flatten you ,and no one will see a thing.
• No one really goes in to your dorm room except you and those you invite in. The exceptions to this are: your RA may do a Health & Safety inspection if they think you're up to something, maintenance may enter (after giving 24 hours' worth of notice) or if Security gets a hot tip on illicit material or activity. Yes, the Safety officers will make fun of your porn collection and give you the side-eye when you pass the entry booths.
• You will never, ever see a Prof in the dorms unless he or she is on the Judicial committee, and playing witness as they move someone's crap out after they've been summarily ejected. This rarely happens. we do not want to see you in your natural environment, just as you do not want to see us uncaffeinated.
• You will never, ever see an Administrator n the dorms, unless the Apocalypse is nigh.Any pictures you may have seen were publicity photos, taken during the high summer season, when no one was present in the dorms at all, and Housekeepers in Tyvek had been through to air out and disinfect the premises.
• Yes, the dorms smell funny. It's a combination of age, body funk, weed smoke, alcohol fumes, old make-up, perfume, dirty jock straps, aerosolized hormones and desperation. You will get used to it. Open a window and buy a shitload of Glade plug-ins.
• This is not Baby's First Apartment. Look at all the shit you brought. Now send half of it home. You will not spend nearly as much time in your room as you might think; you will not have to cook for yourself. You need clothes, personal grooming items and linens -- that's about it.
• If you bring a Margaritaville Machine or a blender, you're asking for room inspections. Ditto for any paraphernalia that is taller than you or has a bowl that can comfortably seat a toddler.

Make friends, be responsible and for God's sake, go to class.

RTWT.

This man -- this eloquent, well-spoken man -- has composed a masterpiece.

Epic in sweep, Homeric in invective.

I have tears in my eyes.

Bravo, sir.

(It's NSFW at all.)