Let Oscar winner Anthony Quinn tell you what the hell love is

A face that says "romance": Anthony Quinn on the cover of his 1969 LP.

I don't know who was asking for it, but in 1969, Mexican-American actor Anthony Quinn, star of Zorba the Greek, recorded a spoken word album entitled In My Own Way... I Love You for Capitol Records. By that point, he'd already won two Academy Awards, so I guess he could do whatever the hell he wanted. I mean, who was going to say no to Anthony Quinn? The 12-song collection, also featuring the Harold Spina Singers, contained Quinn's gravely-voiced, philosophical musings about love, which he recited over a lush musical background. I'm guessing the album was supposed to set the mood for a romantic evening. If you were some high-powered advertising executive, say, and you'd just brought home some cutie from the typing pool back to your penthouse apartment, you'd put In My Own Way... I Love You on the hi-fi, pour some drinks, dim the lights, and wait for the magic to happen. And what did you get for your money? Well, you'd get tracks like "What is Love?" It takes Mr. Quinn quite a while to get around to answering the title question, and his winding path takes him through such diverse topics as peanut brittle, the New York Yankees, and "snitching a drag on a cigarette." My favorite part is when he just starts listing women's names. I can't tell you how many times I've amused myself by imitating this very passage. What eventually is revealed is that Anthony Quinn is, hands down, the manliest man who ever manned. Take a listen.

You might be the new Jesus and not even know it

Lookin' good, Mr. J! Lookin' good.

I heard this theory once that you should treat everyone you meet as if he or she were the Messiah. I don't believe in the Messiah, but it's an interesting idea anyway, even if it's hopelessly impractical. And, hey, I'm wrong about a lot of shit. I might be wrong on the "Messiah" thing, too. Maybe another one's just around the corner, waiting to fix everything that's wrong with the world. Think of all the people you encounter on a daily basis. Think, furthermore, of all the people you've ever encountered in your whole life. That fat kid in your third grade glass. The barista who served you coffee yesterday. The homeless guy you pretend not to see on your way to work. Any of these folks could be the Messiah. Imagine if one of them turned out to be the Savior of All Mankind, and you were shitty to them, as if they didn't even matter. Then wouldn't you feel like a dope?

Perfect example: In the train station parking lot today, there was this woman -- Caucasian, late middle-age, dark hair, sort of dressed up, if you're trying to picture her --  who walked in front of my car as I was leaving. Not directly in front, I should point out, but close enough that we could see each other's faces. I slowed down, of course, but the woman must have thought I was still going to run her over because she kept waving at me with a distressed look as if I didn't see her. A guy I'm presuming was her husband was with her, and I'm sure she complained about me to him immediately afterward. ("Harry, did you see that? That guy was a maniac! He almost killed me! Good thing I waved!") In truth, I was burned out at the end of another unsatisfying work week and just wanted this lady to get the fuck out of my way so I could get out of that goddamned parking lot and go home. She got to wherever she was going, and I left, cursing her under my breath because she delayed me getting back to my shitty apartment by five seconds. What if this woman were the Messiah? Maybe she is.

But, then again, maybe I'm the Messiah and just don't know it. Wouldn't that be wild? The real Joe Christ. (Much respect to the late filmmaker who went by that name.) I don't have any magic powers, though, and I haven't as yet been inclined toward any world-saving activities. If I'm the new Jesus, I'm a crappy one. Sorry about that.

Hot off the presses! I'm (sort of) in a new book!

I am one of the many contributors to the new book Lebowski 101, edited by Oliver Benjamin.

Here's what you need to know: Oliver Benjamin, a Los Angeles-born journalist now based in Thailand, is the founder of Dudeism, an uber-casual, non-jugmental philosophy based on the laid-back teachings of Jeffrey "The Dude" Lebowski, a fictional pot-smoking ex-hippie played by Jeff Bridges in the Coen Brothers' 1998 movie The Big Lebowski. Dudeism has its own website and an official publication called The Dudespaper. Some months ago, Oliver asked if I would contribute an essay to a Dudeism book, and I happily agreed. The resulting volume, Lebowski 101: Limber-Minded Investigation Into the Greatest Story Ever Blathered, is now available on Amazon, and it includes a piece I wrote called "A Pox on Both Your Houses, Man: The Two Very Flawed Families of The Big Lebowski." If that sounds like something which would interest you, by all means check it out.

Here's a link to the book's Amazon page.

Joel and Ethan's America: Coast to coast with the Coen Brothers

My preliminary attempt at mapping the feature films of the Coen Brothers.

With the imminent release of Joel and Ethan Coen's next feature, Inside Llewyn Davis, I thought it was a good time to discuss an aspect of the brothers' career which has thus far escaped critical notice. Taken in total, their films provide a portrait of our nation from one coast to the other. Their America is a skewed, surreal and often dangerous place populated by misfits, outlaws, rebels, big shots, and fiercely independent eccentrics. 

While American society becomes more and more homogeneous over time, most Coen films heavily emphasize the local customs, accents, and attitudes of the places where they are set. In a sense, the filmmakers have a vested interested in preserving the so-called "old weird America" before it's obliterated by television, the Internet, and nationwide retail and restaurant chains.

I believe that the brothers are fascinated with American iconography above all other themes and have used their movies to explore various American archetypes which loom large in our collective imagination. It goes without saying that a Coen film will be "weird" to one extent or another, but the particular flavor of "weird" depends on where the film is set and which American subculture is being satirized, venerated, or simply observed in the script. 

Marge Gunderson and the Dude may be contemporaries, for example, but they do not lead similar lives and would probably not have much to say to one another if they were seated side-by-side on a long bus trip. Meanwhile, Ed Crane's America is not Norville Barnes' America. Geographically, sure, it's the same place but philosophically, it's not even close.

To better understand the Coen Brothers' attitude toward their homeland (or certain sections of it, anyway), I have organized their films geographically.

THE SOUTHWEST (Texas, Arizona, and Arkansas)

M. Emmet Walsh and Dan Hedaya in the relentless Texas heat of Blood Simple.

Films: Blood Simple, Raising Arizona, True Grit, No Country for Old Men

More than any other region of the country -- even their native Minnesota or their adoptive California -- it is the Great American Southwest where the Coen Brothers have done their most potent myth-making. For them, this is a spooky and merciless place where guns, drugs, and money hold sway and where Revenge is often the law.

Their first feature, Blood Simple, famously begins with a monologue by sleazy private eye Loren Visser (M. Emmet Walsh) who explains life in Texas to us: asking your neighbors for help is useless, he says, because "down here, you're on your own." Visser's cynical speech is accompanied by a series of eerily beautiful but foreboding shots of Texas, all composed as meticulously as a Mark Rothko canvas. We see highways, farmers' fields, oil derricks, and a drive-in theater, but not a human being in sight. This sets up a pattern the Coens will repeat in The Hudsucker Proxy and The Big Lebowski: introduce the place first, minus the people, while an off-screen character narrates, and then let the camera "find" the movie's protagonist after a few minutes. The Texas we see in this movie is a desolate, barren, and hopeless place with plenty of wide open stretches where people can commit horrible crimes without police interference.

A little over two decades later, the Cones returned to the Lone Star State for No Country for Old Men, a downbeat crime drama which makes Blood Simple look like a carefree romp in comparison. Here, the law maintains a token presence, represented by Tommy Lee Jones' grizzled Sheriff Bell, but is ultimately impotent against a new breed of pitiless super-criminals like Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem). "The crime you see now, it's hard to even take its measure," Sheriff Bell wearily tells us.

Raising Arizona: Bounty hunter Leonard Smalls is armed and unafraid.

True Grit and Raising Arizona are rather more optimistic than the Coens' two Texas films. How could they not be? In these movies, at least, the guilty are duly punished and the heroes are (more or less) satisfied at the end. But even here, the protagonists are often at the mercy of violent, ruthless men --Randall "Tex" Cobb's Leonard Smalls in Raising Arizona and Josh Brolin's treacherous Tom Cheney in True Grit -- who are motivated solely by greed and who will gladly kill to further their own ends. These men have no permanent home and do not fear the law, so our heroes must face them and defeat them without help. One blogger, by the way, has actually written an article comparing Leonard Smalls and Anton Chigurh. Give it a read, won't you?

And while you're at it, I invite you to compare and contrast the opening scenes from No Country for Old Men and Blood Simple. Though the films were released 24 years apart, the stories in them occur only four years apart. No Country takes place principally in West Texas, along the Mexican border, while Blood Simple is set somewhere in Central Texas. Both films begin with thoughtful, contemplative  monologues, but one of our narrators is an honorable man and the other an opportunistic swine. The question to consider here is: are these men being pessimistic or realistic when they describe the Texas they know?

THE SOUTHEAST (Mississippi)

George Clooney and pals seem about to be lynched in O Brother, Where Art Thou?

Films: O Brother, Where Art Thou?, The Ladykillers

When it comes to covering the American Southeast, also known as the Deep South or the Old South, the Coen Brothers' attitudes are clearly rooted in nostalgia, folklore, and Hollywood romanticism than in any sort of reality. The Coens' South is a quaint, dusty, sepia-toned place where hobos carry bindlestiffs, freshly-baked pies sit cooling on windowsills, and there is nothing more sacred than Sunday service. And music, of course, is everywhere. It's just part of the atmosphere, flowing from every home and generating itself spontaneously in nature.

The Coens have described O Brother as a "hayseed comedy," and term applies just as well to their remake of Ealing Studio's The Ladykillers. Although the former is set during the Great Depression of the 1930s and the latter in the mid-2000s, Mississippi seems not to have changed much in the ensuing seven decades. 

In fact, take out the references to rap music (or "hippity hop") and a few other modern-day trappings like convenience stores, and The Ladykillers could take place simultaneously with O Brother. Both films are farces about groups of inept criminals led by motor-mouthed "gentlemen thieves" who never limit themselves to one- or two-word utterances when they could accomplish the same goal with 50 words. Like George Clooney's Ulysses Everett McGill, Tom Hanks' Professor Dorr uses his eccentric vocabulary and serpentine sentence structures to dazzle and disorient those around him. To put it simply, these fellas sure can talk.

As I said earlier, another thread which connects these films is their heavy use of traditional regional music. One group of thieves (in O Brother) actually does form a band along the way, while the other (in The Ladykillers) merely poses as one. It's possible that the Coens made these films simply for the opportunity to use old bluegrass and gospel recordings on the soundtrack. O Brother indeed created a chart-busting, Grammy-winning sensation with its companion album consisting of vintage 78s, field recordings, and songs newly recorded (most notably "Man of Constant Sorrow") in the style of days long past. 

Hurt by the film's critical and commercial failure, The Ladykillers soundtrack LP did not manage to do for old-time gospel what O Brother had done for bluegrass. The album is no less astonishing, though, and the music itself manages to raise the stakes of the film's plot. The Ladykillers is a dark comedy in which inept crooks are regularly killed off, but the religious music on the soundtrack constantly reminds us that the characters' actions may have far-reaching consequences in the Next World.

THE EAST COAST (New York, Washington D.C.)

Paul Newman enjoys a Monte Cristo against a backdrop of skyscrapers in The Hudsucker Proxy.

Films: The Hudsucker Proxy, Miller's Crossing [possibly], Burn After Reading, Inside Llewyn Davis

The Coens don't often head out East, but when they do, they tend to include a few common elements: men in well-tailored suits, rapid-fire dialogue peppered with brisk comebacks, copious alcohol consumption, and winner-take-all scenarios in which no quarter is asked or given. After all, it's a jungle out there. If you study the image above, you'll notice a distinct visual change from the Coen films set in the Southwest and Southeast. This being NYC in winter, the temperature has dropped considerably, and the film's color scheme has skewed to a blueish-gray hue in sympathy. 

Until Inside Llewyn Davis, which centers around the Greenwich Village folk scene of the 1960s, The Hudsucker Proxy was the Coen Brothers' one-and-only true "New York movie." Woody Allen and Martin Scorsese have basically spent their whole careers in the Big Apple, but the Coens visited the place with great hopes in the 1990s, met with financial ruin there, and didn't return for two decades. Now they're giving the place a second chance.

From what I've seen in the trailer, Llewyn Davis is considerably more realistic than the completely fantastical, dreamlike New York of Hudsucker, a highly-stylized screwball comedy which is arguably the only Coen film to employ elements of the supernatural. The magical character of Moses the Clock Man (Bill Cobbs) is very much a precursor to the Stranger, the genial cowboy portrayed by Sam Elliott in The Big Lebowski. In a way, Moses and the Stranger are East Coast and West Coast variations on the same role. Both are folksy storytellers who narrate their respective movies and watch over all the other characters like benevolent gods. (Perhaps it's telling of the difference between New York and LA that Moses intervenes when the hero, Norville Barnes, is in real trouble, but the Stranger simply watches from the sidelines.) Just as the Stranger kicks off Lebowski by giving us his personal take on Los Angeles, Moses welcomes us to The Hudsucker Proxy with a speech about the perils and pleasures of New York:

Elsewhere in the Coen filmography, we have a couple of hard-to-categorize outliers. Miller's Crossing is the duo's Prohibition-era gangster film, and it takes place in an undisclosed urban locale referred to only as "the city." I have arbitrarily placed the film in New York due to the presence of both Irish and Jewish gangsters, but the story could just as well be occurring in Chicago, Boston, or Philadelphia. It was shot in New Orleans, but no one in the film has any hint of a Louisiana accent so I have ruled it out as a setting. Wherever it takes place, Miller's Crossing is a handsome film which lends its various mob bosses, thugs, and gun molls a sense of old Hollywood glamour. It is interesting that the film, unlike most crime sagas, mixes urban and pastoral settings. The title location, for instance, is a forest clearing where bodies are dumped and executions carried out. Despite its grim function, the crossing still looks sumptuous and inviting due to the rich cinematography of Barry Sonnenfeld.

Burn After Reading, on the other hand, does not portray its setting, Washington D.C., in such a flattering manner. This is a cold-blooded comedy of errors whose inept, unsympathetic characters routinely betray, threaten, and deceive one another. Fittingly, they inhabit what seems to be a godless, indifferent, and comfortless universe. This being our nation's capital, there are a number of massive government buildings which figure into the plot (including CIA headquarters and the Russian embassy), but these are portrayed in an unappetizing manner -- they're imposing rather than impressive -- and they must share screen time with such shabby, work-a-day locations as an unremarkable apartment, a blandly ugly gymnasium, and an uninspiring movie multiplex. There are some more photogenic neighborhoods in Burn After Reading, but these are inhabited by some of the movie's nastiest characters.

THE UPPER MIDWEST (Minnesota)

A storm approaches at the end of A Serious Man.

Films: Fargo, A Serious Man

It took a while for the the Coen Brothers to get back to their Minnesota roots, but when they did, they did so in a big way. Interestingly, Ethan Coen's 1998 short story collection, Gates of Eden, contains a fair amount of commentary on his family's home state. Minnesota, in fact, may be called one of the book's primary motifs. One character, for instance, uncharitably describes Minneapolis as a "strange frozen city where people's breath hovers about them, where fingers tingle and go dead, where spit snaps and freezes before it hits the ground." Another narrator is more forgiving:

The city had not much serious crime. It was dotted with scenic lakes. The people were polite. Many owned boats. In the summer they engaged in water sports; in the winter they skied. The solid northern stock seemed immune to the great miseries and grand passions upon which crime traditionally feeds.

Minnesota is the setting for two of the Coen Brothers' most accomplished and fulfilling works: Fargo and A Serious Man. As anyone who has seen these films can confirm, the characters indeed experience "great miseries and grand passions" and are nowhere near "immune" to these emotions, even though they maintain the outward stoicism for which the region is famous. (An old joke: "Did you hear bout the Norwegian who loved his wife so much he almost told her?") 

The perceived nothingness of the state, the utter blankness of Minnesota, is what makes the plots of Fargo and Serious all the more shocking. "A lot can happen in the middle of nowhere" went the tagline for the former. When local police chief Marge Gunderson (Frances McDormand) arrives at the site of a grisly roadside shooting, she guesses that the suspects are not from Brainerd. She's right, of course, but Jerry Lundegaard (William H. Macy), the hapless car salesman whose kidnapping scheme is the catalyst for the whole movie, actually is from Brainerd. Evil lurks behind the blandest of facades.

The two films work as a diptych: Minnesota in winter, Minnesota in spring. Fargo gives us seemingly endless terrain blanketed in snow, while Serious lets us see what the place looks like after it's thawed out. Ironically, the lack of snow only serves to emphasize the featureless desolation of the land. A Serious Man largely takes place in a newly-built suburban community, and the lack of trees and vegetation gives the place an unsettling starkness. Struggling with the TV antenna on his roof, ineffectual college math prof Larry Gopnik (Michael Stuhlbarg) is at least as pitiful as Jerry Lundegaard, who loses his composure while scraping the ice from his car window in a dismal parking lot after a business meeting with his father-in-law doesn't go as he'd hoped. Note how the high camera angle at the beginning emphasizes Jerry's laughable insignificance.

What separates Fargo from A Serious Man is ethnicity. Fargo takes us into the world of "Swedes, Poles, and German Lutherans" (Ethan's words again) which comprise much of the population there. The film's two most-noticed details were the characters' heavy Minnesotan accents (with frequent repetitions of "yah" and "you betcha") and their unflagging, almost superhuman politeness (a tradition dubbed "Minnesota Nice"). 

The use of dialect was the most controversial aspect of the film upon its initial release, with some critics dismissing the film entirely based on that one aspect of the production. However, a great many more were charmed by the accent and found themselves imitating it after seeing the film. It's tough not to. The accent was certainly exaggerated for the film, a point which irked some native Minnesotans, but I feel it was done with affection. This was how the people of Minnesota must have sounded to Joel and Ethan growing up. Which brings us to that other Coen Brothers film set in their home state...

More bad news for Larry Gopnik in A Serious Man.

A Serious Man is very explicitly about the experience of being Jewish in Minnesota in the 1960s, surrounded by skeptical Midwestern Protestants on all sides. It's a world the Coens obviously knew first-hand, and it comes up again and again in Gates of Eden. Some of the details in this movie, such as the sister who spends all of her time in the bathroom, were first described in Ethan's book. Ethan also wrote with great humor about the drudgery of attending Hebrew school with its glowering, humorless rabbis and arcane lessons. 

It's no surprise that A Serious Man is the brothers' most openly religious film. The plot is essentially the Book of Job translated to LBJ-era American suburbia: a decent and devout family man, the previously-mentioned Larry Gopnik, suddenly faces a series of familial, professional, legal, and financial setbacks. Towards the end, just as his fortunes seem to be improving somewhat, a whole new set of problems descend upon him and the film ends on a note of dread, with many of Larry's issues left unresolved.

Many viewers and critics intuited that God is personally and unfairly punishing Larry in this film, but that notion presupposes the very existence of God, which I don't necessarily think is a given in the Coen world. Larry might just be having a string of rotten luck. It's up to the viewer to decide whether or not these events have any theological significance. But what we can safely say is that poor Larry Gopnik is denied the solace afforded to Marge Gunderson at the end of Fargo. She can take comfort in her loving husband and soon-to-be born child, while he can only pray for the best to a God who may or may not be listening and who may not even exist.

THE WEST COAST (California)

The Big Lebowski's Tara Reid at home in the land of fruits and nuts.

Films: The Big Lebowski, Intolerable Cruelty, Barton Fink, The Man Who Wasn't There

And now, from the Land of a Thousand Lakes, we travel two-thousand miles westward to the "Land of a Thousand Flakes," as Mad magazine once put it. A mere thousand seems like an awfully low estimate, though, especially from what we see of California in the Coen Brothers' movies. The rest of the country sees the state as a place where America's most shallow, greedy, deluded, and debauched individuals have gathered to take advantage of one another. 

The Coens tend to reinforce this idea through their work. Intolerable Cruelty takes place in a number of locations, including Las Vegas, but the film's main action centers around Los Angeles and gives us all the typical targets we'd expect from such a story: conniving lawyers, unfaithful husbands, gold-digging wives, bitter divorce cases, iron-clad prenuptial agreements, ridiculous reality television shows (America's Funniest Divorce Videos), and pets who are treated like spoiled children. In Gates of Eden, Ethan gives us a distinctly Jewish-American spin on the topic as he describes the fate of a Hebrew schoolmate:

For the next several months, Michael was a model student, if somewhat robotic, until his family moved to California, where (it was common knowledge) all meshuggenehs end up.

Of all the characters in the Coen canon, there are two whose lives somewhat mirror those of the brothers themselves. One is Barton Fink (John Turturro) and the other is Bunny Lebowski (Tara Reid). Both Barton and Bunny travel to the Golden State in order to work in the exciting field of motion pictures: he as a writer, she as a starlet. Like the Coens, Barton is a nerdy, socially awkward Jewish writer, while Bunny (the former Fawn Knutsen of Moorhead, MN) is another transplanted Minnesotan*. Unlike Joel and Ethan, however, these two fail to find success in Hollywood. 

Having conquered Broadway, Barton is assigned to write a "Wallace Beery wrestling picture" and struggles to complete a first draft while getting embroiled in a gruesome homicide case. His move from New York to Los Angeles, a blatant cash-grab suggested by his unscrupulous agent, seems ill-advised from the start. The actual transition is suggested by an ominous shot of a wave crashing against a rock on the shore of the Pacific Ocean. 

Like A Serious Man, Barton Fink can be interpreted as a biblical parable. The dilapidated hotel where Barton lives may be Hell, while his neighbor (John Goodman) and boss (Michael Lerner) make pretty good stand-ins for Satan and God. Like "Hotel California" by the Eagles, Barton Fink makes a case for Los Angeles as a kind of Inferno or Purgatory. Meanwhile, in The Big Lebowski (whose protagonist hates "the fuckin' Eagles"), the only screen work Bunny can get is in a cheaply-produced pornographic film called Logjammin'. The former high school cheerleader winds up a drug-addicted trophy wife who owes a hefty sum of money to the film's Hugh Hefner-esque producer, Jackie Treehorn (Ben Gazzara). To summarize, then, the Coen Brothers do not present Hollywood as a place where people's dreams come true.

Customer service: Minnesota-style vs. California-style

The Big Lebowski is the Coen Brothers' definitive "California movie," and it serves as both a tribute to and parody of the so-called Land of Fruits and Nuts. While fans across the country and around the world have embraced the laid-back lifestyle of the film's hero, the Dude (Jeff Bridges), the film offers a panoramic view of Los Angeles and its surrounding communities. Those with an intimate knowledge of SoCal culture must experience an extra level of enjoyment when they watch this film. With the Dude as our informal tour guide, we travel to stuffy Pasadena, ultra-casual Venice, ritzy and exclusive Malibu, scuzzy Simi Valley, and humble North Hollywood, where a former television writer wheezes his days away in the iron lung which keeps him alive.

Of course, we have an assortment of California kooks on hand, too, many of whom have convinced themselves they they are somehow part of the art world, music world, or movie industry. The Dude's shy, chubby landlord, Marty, gives an interpretive dance recital and (in classic Hollywood fashion) asks his constantly-in-arrears lodger to attend and give him "notes." Then there are the Nihilists (led by Peter Stormare): three washed-up German techno musicians who, in their desperation, have cooked up a ransom scheme which they hope will net them $1 million. (It won't.) 

Much higher up in the food chain is Maude Lebowski (Julianne Moore), a woman whose inheritance from her mother has allowed her to live the life of a bohemian artist in a stylishly-appointed loft where she drizzles paint onto a giant canvas while dangling nude from a harness. Her dear friend, the fey, giggling Knox Harrington (David Thewlis) is supposedly a "video artist" but seems more apt to be a trust-fund-draining layabout. And we haven't even gotten to the film's most celebrated supporting characters: belligerent Vietnam vet Walter (John Goodman), leering pedophile Jesus Quintana (John Turturro), and perpetually bewildered surfer and bowling prodigy Donny (Steve Buscemi).

Before we leave Lebowski, it's worth pointing out that it was the follow-up to the critical and commercial triumph of Fargo. Since the films had several key cast members in common (Buscemi, Goodman, Stormare, and others), the public might have been expecting a quasi-sequel or continuation. The Coens, however, let us know within the first few minutes of The Big Lebowski that we're not in Brainerd anymore. While Fargo was peopled by impossibly cheerful cashiers, waitresses, parking lot attendants, and even prostitutes, Lebowski gives us California's brand of customer service. Apart from the Dude, the first human being we see in the film is an obviously-bored Ralph's checkout girl (Robin Jones) who glares with disgust at our hero as he writes a $0.69 check for his half and half.

* The Big Lebowski's theme music is "The Man in Me" by Bob Dylan, another Minnesota-born Jew who left his home state and, like Bunny Lebowski, adopted a new name (his real moniker is Robert Zimmerman) and a new persona to go with it.

Northern California noir: Frances McDormand and Billy Bob Thornton in The Man Who Wasn't There.

We find a very different California in The Man Who Wasn't There, a James M. Cain-inspired noir tale set in 1949 and presented in gorgeous black-and-white. Our protagonist -- you'd be hard pressed to call him a hero -- is Ed Crane (Billy Bob Thornton), an impossibly reserved and tight-lipped barber who lives with his adulterous bookkeeper wife (Frances McDormand) in the quiet suburban community of Santa Rosa. We're a long way from Los Angeles -- a good 427 miles north of the Dude's slovenly bungalow.  These aren't the crackpots and showbiz wannabes of the Coens' other California flicks. These are solid, practical-minded folks, much closer in spirit to the characters in Fargo and A Serious Man.

But just as with those films, the sedate setting of The Man Who Wasn't There is no deterrent to "great passions and grand miseries." Just like Jerry Lundegaard and phony millionaire Jeffrey Lebowski before him, Ed Crane tries to raise some cash through a scheme which directly endangers his own wife. In this case, he plans to blackmail Doris' lover (James Gandolfini) and use the proceeds to go in on a dry-cleaning business. This being a Coen film, the plan backfires spectacularly and the plot goes off on unexpected tangents involving Beethoven, UFOs, and Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle. Moody and haunting, The Man Who Wasn't There ranks among my very favorite Coen films.

So there you have it folks!

We've managed to cover the United States from the Atlantic to the Pacific through the films of Joel and Ethan Coen. As the map at the beginning shows, there's still plenty more territory for the boys to cover. They've yet to do a film set in the Great Plains, the Pacific Northwest, New England, or anywhere in the Midwest besides Minnesota. Much of the Southeast and Mid-Atlantic regions remain untouched as well. Still in all, their feature films function as a kind of prism through which we can view this wonderful, terrible country of ours -- distorting some of its features and bringing others into sharper focus.

The Shaggs: The only true "teenage" music I've ever heard

The Shaggs: (from l to r) Betty, Helen, and Dot Wiggin

One of the great ironies/injustices of popular culture is that the music specifically marketed to teenagers is getting progressively more polished and "perfect" with each advance in technology, while the teenagers themselves remain -- as always -- bumpy, lurching, and awkward. There's an odd disconnect between the relentlessly smoothed-out, robotic, studio-crafted pop being released by a group like One Direction and the messy, utterly human vulnerability of that group's fans. Teenage music bears no resemblance whatsoever to teenage life. A yawning chasm exists between the two.

Mick: Handsomely un-handsome

This gap is nothing new, exactly. Past teen idols, like Frank Sinatra and Elvis Presley,  must have seemed superhuman to their fans, too. But Frank and Elvis both exuded a raw, quite human sexuality that largely eludes today's teen pop stars, who are "sexy" only in quotation marks and present a only a sanitized abstraction of carnal appeal to their fans, without any of that messy fluid exchange ruining it.

It's interesting that, during the 1960s, the British Invasion allowed a new type of entertainer to capture the teenage imagination. The Beatles and The Rolling Stones were not conventionally handsome in the Sinatra/Presley tradition. They had big noses, big lips, bad teeth, and cheekbones that jutted in at odd angles. I was just watching a documentary about the Stones last night called Crossfire Hurricane, and it was fascinating to see the Stones in their 1960s prime via newsreel footage. They looked sort of gawky and malformed, with carelessly floppy hair and sallow complexions, and yet they were driving their female fans into a state of erotic frenzy. At last, the weirdos had won! 

But it didn't last. The 1970s brought a new generation of generically handsome, neutered teenage idols (David Cassidy, Bobby Sherman, Donny Osmond) who set the precedent for those to come. And now, I guess, we have Justin Bieber, the platonic ideal of the safe, boring, utterly harmless pop star, a kind of life-sized Ken doll for the girls of Young America to play with for a few years. Kind of a pity.

All of this brings me back to the topic of the Shaggs.

I couldn't possibly tell you the entire saga of this astonishing all-female 1960s singing group composed of sisters from a working class New Hampshire family. You'll have to rely on this quirky but affectionate New Yorker article by Susan Orlean for the details. Here's an overview: in 1968, a Fremont, NH mill worker named Austin Wiggin decided to fulfill the deathbed prophecy of his mother, who proclaimed that Austin's then-teenage daughters would be famous. Austin pulled the girls out of school and forced them to become a rock band, even though the girls had no musical inclination whatsoever and definitely did not want to become performers.

Only one of the daughters, Dot, had any enthusiasm whatsoever for her dad's dream, so she was elected to be lead singer and songwriter of the resulting group, dubbed The Shaggs in honor of the Wiggin sisters' shaggy hairdos (and supposedly, the shagginess of the family dog). Despite their total lack of aptitude and success, The Shaggs soldiered on for 7 years, playing local gigs for audiences who either tolerated them politely or heckled them outright. The band finally ended in 1975 when Austin died, and the Wiggin girls -- no longer kids by then -- went on to lead very ordinary, non-musical lives.
 

The Shaggs' lone, infamous LP

Before the group's sad, drawn-out death, however, The Shaggs recorded and (barely) released one extraordinary album: 1969's Philosophy of the World. Though only a handful of copies were originally pressed, the utterly strange LP went on to become a cult favorite with avant garde rock musicians (including Frank Zappa and NRBQ) and influential critics who discovered it years after it was recorded. The album has been reprinted several times over the years and has also been released on CD and MP3.

For completists, there's even a collection of Shaggs rarities, live recordings, and outtakes called The Shaggs Own Thing, plus a hip indie-label tribute album called Better Than the Beatles. Even better, the strange, vaguely sad story of the Shaggs was the basis for a charming off-Broadway show, The Shaggs: Philosophy of the World, which I have seen and enjoyed. The musical tours quite a bit, and I was fortunate to catch it at Chicago's Lookinglass Theater a few years back.

But what about the original music itself? What's it like to listen to The Shaggs? Many listeners find it torturous, verging on unlistenable. For three demure New Hampshire girls, The Shaggs make a powerful racket, clanging away at their out-of-tune instruments with abandon. In particular, drummer Helen Wiggin seems to be in a world all her own. Throughout the album, there are lots of what music teachers would call "wrong notes," and the three ladies cannot seem to agree on a collective tempo, key, or time signature. Susan Orlean was right when she described their melodies as "squashed and bent." The album sounds like it was left out in the sun on a hot day and melted.

If Philosophy of the World weren't from 1969, you'd guess it to be some kind of primitive punk music, but the rawness of the music is at odds with the sweet simplicity of the lyrics. The Shaggs sing about looking for a lost cat ("My Pal Foot Foot"), the importance of obeying one's parents ("Who Are Parents?"), praising Jesus ("We Have a Savior"), and how nice it is to have a radio ("My Companion"). Austin Wiggin seems like he was a dictatorial parent who did everything in his power to keep the world away from his girls and vice-versa, so maybe the transistor radio was one of Dot Wiggin's few links to the outside world. Another recurring theme on the album is the foolishness of straying too far from one's home. "Little Sports Car" ends with Dot and her sisters singing, "I learned my lesson never to roam, never to roam, never to roam."

The late, great Crow's Nest in Crest Hill, IL

The main appeal of Philosophy of the World, to me, is that it provides a rare glimpse into the brain of a genuine teenager, without the interference of grown-up producers or executives. It's like an adolescent's diary brought to musical life, and for once the lurching, awkward bumpiness of the music matches the emotions of the singer. Nowhere is this more true than on the album's title cut, which is the first Shaggs song I ever heard.

"Philosophy of the World" was included on a 2000 compilation of so-called "outsider music" I purchased at a great, now-defunct record store called the Crow's Nest near my home in Joliet, IL. As I drove home from the Crow's Nest, I popped the disc into my car's CD player, and that song came blaring out of the speakers. I was entranced. I was hooked. I knew I had to get every last bit of Shaggs music out there. Fortunately or unfortunately, there's not much. Once you own Philosophy of the World and The Shaggs Own Thing (both of which have been combined onto a single CD simply called The Shaggs), there's not much to get, other than the tribute album. Although many people would struggle to get through even a single Shaggs song, I've listened to their entire catalog many times -- and none more so than this track:



P.S. - The rarities compilation is well worth checking out, too. It contains some later studio recordings by the group, some of which demonstrate that the Wiggins had been indeed practicing their instruments at least a little. One song in particular I love is "You're Something Special to Me," which contains a lyric that summarizes my own mindset: "Please don't speak unkind words to me. That would make me unhappy." Very simple, of course, but very true as well. If "Philosophy" was too much for you, maybe this will be more your speed.

The BastardTron 9000

A cybernetic superguru for the Information Age

Dateline: Nepal

There it sits, perched serenely upon silken pillows in its lofty mountain temple: the BastardTron 9000, the most sophisticated artificial-intelligence droid ever created. A full decade of research and development, encompassing many thousands of man-hours and, it is whispered, perhaps a trillion dollars, has gone into its production. Scores of programmers, engineers, clerics, philosophers, mathematicians, poets, and noted academics of every discipline have contributed to its final form. The governments of 17 different countries, including the United States, Germany, Russia, and China, have lent financial and technical support. Luminaries ranging from Noam Chomsky and Stephen Hawking to Deepak Chopra and Dr. Phil were seen entering the heavily-fortified BastardTron Labs in Rouen, where the magnificent machine was created, its every stage of development shrouded in secrecy, cloaked in gossip and innuendo.

The purpose of the BastardTron 9000, according to its chief engineer and namesake, the French robotics whiz Guillaume du Bastard, was to be a sort of Cybernetic Superguru for the Information Age, replacing the monks, swamis, fakirs, and holy men of the past. Embedded within the circuits, wires, and gears of this mighty automaton would be housed the sum total of Man's knowledge of his world, the universe, and the very mysteries of Life Itself, including the endlessly complex dynamics of interpersonal relations. At last, they reasoned, the Seeker of Truth would finally have a place to go to find real answers to the most perplexing questions of existence.

Unfortunately, the thing turned out to be a complete bastard.

A tedious post containing nothing but quotes and one-liners

Satirical sculpture by Chinese artist Chen Wenling

The Internet is nothing if not a playground of guilty pleasures. And one of mine, I will admit, is browsing through those long lists of haphazardly-collected one-liners and (often incorrectly attributed) quotations from famous comedians, politicians, writers, etc. I think the beauty of these lists is that they allow you to feel profound and witty without actually having to do any real thinking yourself. They're thoughts ready to think! All the heavy lifting, so to speak, has been done for you. And so, dearest readers, that is what I am offering you today -- a smorgasbord of borrowed ideas and predigested notions, several of which have appeared on bumper stickers and t-shirts. I have at least tried to offer these quotes in an organized, readable fashion and have even corrected a few egregious spelling and attribution errors.

Ready? Good. Now let's begin.

Redd Foxx

Health nuts are going to feel stupid someday, lying in hospitals dying of nothing. - Redd Foxx 

Everybody lies, but it doesn't matter since nobody listens. 

Capital punishment turns the state into a murderer. But imprisonment turns the state into a gay dungeon-master. 

The web brings people together because no matter what kind of a twisted sexual mutant you happen to be, you've got millions of pals out there. Type in "Find people that have sex with goats that are on fire," and the computer will say, "Specify type of goat."

- Richard Jeni 

 RELIGIOUS WARS: People murdering each other over who has the real imaginary friend. 

There are three possible parts to a date, of which at least two must be offered: entertainment, food, and affection. It is customary to begin a series of dates with a great deal of entertainment, a moderate amount of food, and the merest suggestion of affection. As the amount of affection increases, the entertainment can be reduced proportionately. When the affection IS the entertainment, we no longer call it dating. Under no circumstances can the food be omitted. 

- Miss Manners' Guide to Excruciatingly Correct Behavior 

 If order = chaos, and chaos = order, then what the hell did I order? 

Thank you. We're all refreshed and challenged by your unique point of view. You sound reasonable... Time to up the medication. 

Yes, I am an agent of Satan, but my duties are largely ceremonial. 

I'm not being rude. You're just insignificant. 

I like you. You remind me of when I was young and stupid. 

I can see your point, but I still think you're full of shit. 

How about never? Is never good for you? 

I'll try being nicer if you'll try being smarter. 

Ahhh...I see the fuck-up fairy has visited us again.

I'm out of my mind, but feel free to leave a message. 

Get the facts first. You can distort them later. 

- Mark Twain

Jimi Hendrix

 I'm the one who's gonna have to die when it's time for me to die, so let me live my life the way I want to. 

- Jimi Hendrix 

I do not take drugs. I am drugs.

 - Salvador Dali, Diary of a Genius, 1966 

 If the doors of perception were cleansed 

Everything would appear to man as it is... infinite

For man has closed himself up 

Till he sees all things through narrow chinks of his cavern 

- William Blake 

 The difference between us and Helen Keller is that she knew she was deaf and blind.

 - Tom Robbins 

When I hear some sigh, "Life is hard," I am always tempted to ask, "Compared to what?"

-Sydney J. Harris 

Flappity, floppity, flip

The mouse on the mobius strip;

The strip revolved,

The mouse dissolved

In a chronodimensional skip. 

Why is the alphabet in that order? Is it because of that song? 

- Steven Wright 

Life is far too important a thing to ever talk seriously about.

- Oscar Wilde 

They say,"Give a man a fish and he can eat for a day, But teach a man to fish and he can eat for a lifetime."  What they failed to tell you was he'll only eat fish! 

I'm not under the alkafluence of inkahol that some thinkle peep I am. It's just the drunker I sit here the longer I get. 

The Dragon eats Fruit!

- Seth Lipton 

Somebody ought to cross ball point pens with coat hangers so that the pens will multiply instead of disappear. 

 It could be that the purpose of your life is only to serve as a warning to others.

- Dr. E. Kersten 

Sleep is no substitute for coffee. 

Don't worry about avoiding temptation. As you grow older, it starts avoiding you.

- The Old Farmer's Almanac 

 The only normal people are the ones you don't know very well.

- Rodney Dangerfield 

Life is like a simile.

Jesus is coming! Look busy! 

Help put the "fun" back in dysfunctional! 

Will the deity who nailed the KOSMIC KARMIC KICK ME sign to my back kindly remove it? 

Some people live life in the fast lane. I live in oncoming traffic. 

If you're going to walk on thin ice, you may as well dance. 

A physicist is an atom's way of knowing about atoms 

Politicians are like diapers. They need to be changed for the same reason. 

That which does not kill you might just be... toying. 

The Goddess does not seek worship. She rejoices in being vividly imagined. 

If I promise to miss you, will you go away? 

Famous Last Words: "I think it's dead..." 

Paranoia is the delusion that your enemies are organized. 

Its a condescending thing, dear. You wouldn't understand. 

You're just jealous because the voices only talk to ME! 

Anything is possible if you don't know what you're talking about. 

A Priest, a Minister, a Rabbi, a Feminist, an Irishman, a Jew, an Elephant, and a Gorilla walked into a bar. The Bartender said, "What is this, some kind of joke?" 

Any book worth banning is a book worth reading! 

Why is the symbol for anarchy always written the same way? 

Hit any key. With what? 

The quality of a relationship is more important than the gender of the people in it.

Mae West

To err is human, but it feels divine.

- Mae West 

Ignorance killed the cat. Curiosity was framed. 

Red meat isn't bad for you. Fuzzy blue-green meat is bad for you. 

 I was here. Where were you? Back soon.

- Godot 

They aren't broken, they're...uh...modular. 

He who dies with the most toys is, nonetheless, still dead. 

It may look like I'm doing nothing but on a cellular level I'm really quite busy. 

Entropy requires no maintenance 

Klaatu Barada Nikto!

 Five days a week, my body is a Temple. The other two, it's an Amusement Park 

Normal? Normal is a setting on my dryer. 

We the unwilling, led by the unknowing, are doing the impossible for the ungrateful. We have done so much with so little for so long that we are now capable of doing anything with nothing 

With friends like these, who needs hallucinations? 

No... killing is more of a hobby with me. 

SPOON!!! 

Those of you who think you know everything are very annoying to those of us who do. 

Wouldn't it be wonderful if everyone gave up violence forever? I could conquer the whole planet with a butter knife! 

 There are only two truly infinite things, the universe and stupidity. And I am unsure about the universe. 

- Albert Einstein 

 It's OK to laugh during sex. Just don't point. 

If you're going down in flames, you might as well hit something big! 

I find television very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set, I go into the other room and read a book

- Groucho Marx 

 Evolution -- life's a niche, and then you die 

 The reality you have dialed is not in service. Please check the value of pi or consult your local deity.

 Reality? That's where the pizza delivery guy comes from. 

I'll get a life when someone convinces me that it would be better than what I have now! 

 I am very interested in the future because I plan to spend the rest of my life there. 

 Live Faust, Die Jung 

My mind isn't always in the gutter. Sometimes it comes out to feed. 

The gods love heroes. They also love a good laugh. Think about it. 

 A Freudian slip is when you say one thing but mean your mother. 

 Sex is only dirty if it's done right. 

You could be replaced by an infinite number of monkeys. 

555 --- The number of the wannabeast 

 Anything worth doing is worth doing slowly.

- Mae West 

 Fantasy isn't our crutch. It's arcane. 

 Smoking is one of the leading causes of statistics.

- Fletcher Knebel 

I think sex is better than logic, but I can't prove it. 

If you must choose between two evils, pick the one you've never tried before. 

Experience is something you don't get until just after you need it. 

Always remember to pillage BEFORE you burn. 

Ancient Chinese curse: May you live in interesting times!

Maxwell Smart

We wish you a Hare Krishna

We wish you a Hare Krishna

We wish you a Hare Krishna

And a Sun Myung Moon!

- Maxwell Smart 

For those who like this sort of thing, this is the sort of thing they like.

- Abraham Lincoln 

 Aside from that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you enjoy the play? 

Rehab is for quitters. 

A good pun is its own reword. 

I couldn't repair your brakes, so I made your horn louder. 

I don't suffer from insanity. I enjoy every minute of it. 

Why is it that when a man talks dirty to a woman, it's sexual harassment, but when a woman talks dirty to a man, it's $3.95/minute? 

Sacred cows make the best burgers. 

Health is merely the slowest possible rate at which one can die. 

Sex is like air; it's not important unless you aren't getting any. 

Madness takes its toll. Please have exact change. 

I drive way too fast to worry about cholesterol! 

Idiot, n.: A member of a large and powerful tribe whose influence in human affairs has always been dominant and controlling.

- Ambrose Bierce, The Devil"s Dictionary

Whatever is not nailed down is mine. What I can pry loose is not nailed down.

- Collis P. Huntingdon 

The Anarchists' anthem is an international anthem that consists of 365 raspberries blown in very quick succession to the tune of "Camptown Races." Nobody has to stand up for it, nobody has to listen to it, and, even better, nobody has to play it.

- Mike Harding, The Armchair Anarchist"s Almanac 

Whenever I hear anyone arguing for slavery, I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally.

- A. Lincoln 

I love deadlines. I especially like the whooshing sound they make as they go flying by. 

Never put off until tomorrow what you can avoid doing altogether. 

Indecision is the key to flexibility. 

Having an out of body experience. Back in five. 

Just because you're smart does not mean that the other guy is stupid. 

Young at Heart. Slightly Older in Other Places. 

Everyone has a right to be stupid. Some just abuse the privilege. 

I can please only one person per day. Today is not your day. And tomorrow isn't looking good either.

Q. What is the death rate around here?
A. One per person. 

All flesh is Grass. 

-The Book of Isiah

Smoke a friend today! 

All I ask is the chance to prove that money won't make me happy! 

All my life, I wanted to BE someone. I guess I should have been more specific.

- Jane Wagner 

Avoid Conflicting Drugs.

People often find it easier to be a result of the past than a cause of the future. 

The idea is to die young as late as possible.

- Ashley Montague 

 Pound for pound, the amoeba is the most vicious animal on earth. 

The early bird gets the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese! 

The Incredible Frog-Boy is on the loose again!

- "Weird Al" Yankovic 

Just once, I wish we would encounter an alien menace that wasn't immune to bullets.

- The Brigadier, Dr. Who

Once at a social gathering, Gladstone said to Disraeli, "I predict, Sir, that you will die either by hanging or of some vile disease." Disraeli replied, "That all depends upon whether I embrace your principals or your mistress." 

If I could drop dead right now, I'd be the happiest man alive!

- Samuel Goldwyn 

When I was a boy I was told that anybody could become President. Now I'm beginning to believe it.

- Clarence Darrow 

 Entropy takes no effort. 

Passionate hatred can give meaning and purpose to an empty life.

- Eric Hoffer 

 Paranoid schizophrenics outnumber their enemies at least two to one. 

Practical people would be more practical if they would take a little more time for dreaming.

- J. P. McEvoy 

 The man who follows the crowd will usually get no further than the crowd. The man who walks alone is likely to find himself in places no one has ever been.

- Alan Ashley-Pitt 

 I often quote myself; it adds spice to my conversation.

- G. B. Shaw 

 Of course there's no reason for it, it's just our policy. 

Periodically submerge yourself in the grim realities of reality and crawl from the filth a bit wiser for the experience. Assure yourself sanctity is in the shower even if you never lose the dirt 

Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!!! 

23rd Law of Computing: Anything that can go wr Segmentation violation. Core dumped. 

You're not drunk if you can lie on the floor without holding on.

- Dean Martin 

 Blood is thicker than water. Tastier, too. 

ACHTUNG!!! 

Das machine is nicht fur gefingerpoken und mittengrabben. Ist easy schnappen der springenwerk, blowenfusen und corkenpoppen mit spitzensparken. Ist nicht fur gewerken by das dummkopfen. Das rubbernecken sightseeren keepen hands in das pockets. Relaxen und vatch das blinkenlights!!! 

 I used to be Snow White, but I drifted.

- Mae West 

...And someday, they will have computers the size of houses, with millions of vacuum tubes, doing thousands of computations per minute!!! 

What is wanted is not the will to believe, but the will to find out, which is the exact opposite.

- Bertrand Russell, Skeptical Essays, 1928 

Adlai Stevenson

 A free society is one where it is safe to be unpopular.

- Adlai Stevenson 

 As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain, and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality.

- Albert Einstein 

Mohandas K. Gandhi often changed his mind publicly. An aide once asked him how he could so freely contradict this week what he had said just last week. The great man replied that it was because this week he knew better. 

 No violence, gentlemen -- no violence, I beg of you! Consider the furniture!

- Sherlock Holmes 

 Common sense is what tells us the earth is flat. 

I can't understand it. I can't even understand the people who can understand it.

- Queen Juliana of the Netherlands

 Things are more like they are now than they ever were before!

- Dwight D. Eisenhower 

A diplomat is someone who can tell you to go to hell in such a way that you will look forward to the trip. 

Love is a word that is constantly heard,

Hate is a word that is not.

Love, I am told, is more precious than gold.

Love, I have read, is hot.

But hate is the verb that to me is superb,

And Love but a drug on the mart.

Any kiddie in school can love like a fool,

But Hating, my boy, is an Art.

- Ogden Nash 

My opinions may have changed, but not the fact that I am right. 

Power corrupts. Absolute power is kind of neat.

- John Lehman, Secretary of the Navy 1981-1987 

There is a theory that states: "If anyone finds out what the universe is for, it will disappear and be replaced by something more bizarrely inexplicable."

There is another theory that states: "This has already happened..."

- Douglas Adams, Hitch-Hikers Guide to the Galaxy 

Everyone hates me because I'm paranoid. 

Give a monkey a brain and he'll swear he's the center of the universe. 

It's always best to have good manners, or at least fast reflexes. 

Time is a plaything for children and fools. 

Utility is when you have one telephone, luxury is when you have two, opulence is when you have three, and paradise is when you have none.

- Doug Larson 

Pain looks good on other people; that's what they're for. 

Love's as good as soma! 

Of course I still love you. Now stop whining and let me shoot you. 

Duct tape is like the Force. It has a light side and a dark side, and it binds the universe together. 

I didn't claw my way to the top of the food chain to eat vegetables! 

Nice computers don't go down.

We are sorry, you have reached an imaginary number. Please rotate your phone ninety degrees and try again. 

The Bible contains six admonishments to homosexuals and three hundred sixty-two admonishments to heterosexuals. That doesn't mean that God doesn't love heterosexuals. It's just that they need more supervision. 

When I die, I want to go peacefully in my sleep like my father did, not screaming in terror like his passengers. 

'Twas Brillig, and the slithey toves did gyre and gimble in the wabe; all mimsy were the borogoves, and the mome raths outgrabe. 

I need someone real bad. Are you real bad? 

A good man has few enemies. A ruthless man has none. 

You mean you need drugs to hallucinate? 

Klein bottle for sale. Inquire within. 

Any given program, when running, needs debugging. Any debugged program is obsolete. 

"But we'll never survive!"

"Nonsense. You're only saying that because no one ever has."

-The Dread Pirate Wesley The Princess Bride 

Horniness is a quintessential example of hope. 

To me, boxing is like a ballet, except there's no music, no choreography, and the dancers hit each other. 

- Jack Handey

The optimist thinks this is the best of all possible worlds.

The pessimist is afraid that it is. 

Bad things come to those who wait, too. 

A little madness now and then is relished by the wisest men. 

Hey, you've got a third eye! Uh, never mind... it's just a spot of dirt in the middle of your forehead.

You will find that the State is the kind of organization which, while it does big things badly, does small things badly too. 

I just like to say quark. Quark, quark, quark, quark, quark... 

I intend to live forever or die trying. 

Despite the high cost of living, it remains a popular item. 

If you can't see the fnords, they can't eat you. 

Jesus loves you. Everyone else thinks you're an asshole. 

You're twisted, depraved, and rotten to the core... I like that in a person. 

Hail Eris!

All Hail Discordia! 

First I must sprinkle you with fairy dust... 

For further information, consult your pineal gland. 

Hellllllooooooooo, Nurse! 

If vegetarians eat vegetables, I guess that makes me a humanitarian. 

This, too, shall pass. 

Strike any user to continue. 

I wouldn't recommend sex, drugs and insanity for everyone, but they've always worked for me.

- Hunter S. Thompson 

Colorless green ideas sleep furiously. 

If Goddess had intended humans to smoke, She would have set them on fire. 

Profanity: the single language in which all programmers are expert.

Don't panic. 

Interfere? Of course we'll interfere! Always do what you're best at, I always say!

- Dr. Who Nightmare of Eden 

Confidence: a feeling peculiar to the stage just before full comprehension of the problem. 

There are trivial truths and there are great truths. The opposite of a trivial truth is plainly false. The opposite of a great truth is also true. 

Mate, this parrot wouldn't VOOM if you put four million volts through it!

- John Cleese 

If you hit a man over the head with a fish, he'll have a headache for a day.

But if you teach a man to hit himself over the head with a fish, he'll have headaches for the rest of his life. 

What a useless scroll, all it says is "Hastur Hastur Hastur" over and over again. 

Great Googly Moogly! 

You can't lick the system, but you can certainly give it a damn good fondling. 

If firefighters fight fires, and crime fighters fight crimes, what do freedom fighters do?

Groucho Marx

I'm here with you because you remind me of you! Your lips, your hair, your eyes, everything about you reminds me of you. Except you. How do you account for that? If she figures that one out, she's good!

- Groucho Marx, A Night at the Opera 

 But then again, the King was a putz. 

If you think you know what the Hell is going on, you are probably full of shit.

- R. A. Wilson (maybe) 

Reporter (to Mahatma Gandhi): Mr Gandhi, what do you think of Western Civilization?

Gandhi: I think it would be a good idea. 

 Preventative maintainence is the key to any interstellar terrorist campaign!

- Skeletor 

If an infinite number of rednecks fired an infinite number of shotguns at an infinite number of road signs, they would eventually create all the great works of literature in braille. 

The following statement is true.

The preceding statement was false. 

Don't take life too seriously -- you'll never get out of it alive. 

Bullshit makes the flowers grow, and that's beautiful. 

Answer hazy. Try again later. 

I hate quotations.

- Ralph Waldo Emerson 

 Q: Why did the tachyon cross the road?

A: Because it was on the other side. 

 Love your enemies: they'll go crazy trying to figure out what you're up to. 

 The shortest distance between two puns is a straight line. 

It's bad luck to be superstitious. 

A limerick packs laughs anatomical

Into space that is quite economical.

But the good ones I've seen

So seldom are clean,

And the clean ones so seldom are comical. 

 Houston, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed.

- Neil Armstrong 

 Isn't it interesting that the same people who laugh at science fiction listen to weather forecasts and economists?

- Kelvin Throop III 

Infinty bottles of beer on the wall

Infinity bottles of beer

Take one down, pass it around,

Infinity bottles of beer on the wall!
Repeat until dead 

This is a test, it is only a test. Had this been a real emergency, we would have fled in panic, and you would not have been informed. 

Dyslexics Untie! 

All generalizations are wrong. 

All fanatics must die!!! 

Lemon curry? 

The day after tomorrow is the third day of the rest of your life. 

The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not "Eureka!" (I found it!) but "That's funny..."

- Isaac Asimov 

 I went to a bookstore and asked the saleswoman, "Where's the self-help section?"

She said if she told me, it would defeat the purpose. 

Where are we going? And what's with this handbasket? 

How do I set my laser printer on stun?

 If all the world is a stage, where is the audience sitting? 

If you try to fail, and succeed, which have you done? 

If love is blind, why is lingerie so popular? 

If one synchronized swimmer drowns, do the rest have to drown too? 

Why is it called tourist season if we can't shoot at them? 

Why do the drive-thru instant teller machines have braille instructions? 

 Remember: Silly is a state of mind. Stupid is a way of life.

- Dave Butler 

Be nice to other people:

They outnumber you five billion to one.

Rod Serling

It is difficult to produce a television documentary that is both incisive and probing when every twelve minutes one is interrupted by dancing rabbits singing about toilet paper.

- Rod Serling 

Honesty is the best policy, but insanity is a better defense. 

A Discordian is anyone who is willing to look at the windmills and concede that they might be giants. 

It is my firm belief that it is a mistake to hold firm beliefs. 

I used to be indecisive, but now I'm not so sure.