Friday, June 3, 2016

eXtra iNnings ePistle



Famous First Words:  I saw the best minds of my generation...   Howl  --Allen Ginsberg
Today is the anniversary of Casey At The Bat:  Bob didn’t believe that Fred’s dog could talk. So Fred asked his dog, “What’s on top of a house?”  “Roof,” the dog barked.  Bob wasn’t convinced. So Fred asked the dog how sandpaper feels.  “Rough.”  He still wasn’t convinced.  “OK, who was the greatest baseball player of all time?” Fred asked the dog.  “Ruth.”  With that, Bob walked away, shaking his head in disbelief. The dog turned to Fred and asked: "Was it Hank Aaron?”  --Submitted by Emily S., Oswego, Ill.
.........."Strike three", the umpire said.........Bob Dylan  .....Catfish
The weight of the world is love...the weight, the weight we carry is love.  --Allen Ginsberg
It is a beautiful (57°F) Friday morning with a golden sunrise.  The sky is streaked with pink strings of cotton candy.  A cacophony of birds serenade the rabbits silently munching their way through the dawn.  As we enter the backyard (decorated with a sail which is laying out sunning and mooning itself) the unseen little dog behind the privacy fence is already swearing a blue streak at squirrels which are everywhere and Puck must repeat the Not-In-My-Backyard message to each one, loudly.  The birds take away their matins hymns and then only the sound of the city recycling truck makes it through the anti-squirrel noise.  The world is so beautiful and lush and green and other colored.  Flowers scent the air and clog my nose so that I cannot smell them.  There is little breeze to spread the aroma but it still comes in gusts and wafts - honeysuckle, tea rose, mown grass.  I love to stand and watch the morning while the earth takes me 100 miles or so farther around the sun.  The clouds have paled past pink to white and  the squirrel lecture has begun to wear so Puck and I retreat to the indoors, the quiet, the creamy Moose Munch decaf and you.
Hope your weekend hits it out of the park, ePistliers.
I will never have a heart attack.  I give them.  --George Steinbrenner. / Baseball is not boring.  You are.
We've had so much rain in Kansas, Puck has stopped worrying about squirrels in the backyard and has become concerned about fish.
..........Don't let anybody say that it's just a game.........Eddie Vedder  .....Go All the Way
Trivia Questions: Casey and his poem...
^ Who wrote Casey at the Bat?
^^ For what baseball team did Casey play? ^
^^^ Who (by name or base they reached) hit before Casey?
^^^^ Can you quote the last line?
^^^^^ Without talk shows, how did the author promote the poem?
Fake Library Statistic of the Week: 35% of the pleasant dream of librarians involve patrons pushing in their chairs.  https://www.facebook.com/FakeLibStats/?fref=ts&ref=br_tf
Science Fiction Convention of the Week: British Fest...Bringing the best from across the pond to Omaha, NE.    http://britishfest.weebly.com/
    
Moonbeam: What thoughts I have of you tonight...  A Supermarket in California  --Allen Ginsberg
Trying to sneak a fastball past Hank Aaron is like trying to sneak the sun past a rooster.  / Baseball is like church, many attend, few understand.  --Leo Durocher
The winds have been so powerful lately, Puck's favorite watering hole, the IsoBar, is closer than ever.
..........Our ball club may be minor league, but at least it's triple A.........Alabama  .....Cheap Seats
Something To Think About of the Week: Holy the supernatural extra brilliant intelligent kindness of the soul!”  --Allen Ginsberg
Big Hello: Hello - English (US, UK +)
Week of the Week: Great American Brass Band Week (June 2-5) --Brass Bands: Strange groups of people who get very drunk, or not depending on their moral stand point, who then attempt to play music on long metal tubes of different sizes that have been twisted round to make the almost portable.
Quote of the Week: The only way to deal with an unfree world is to be so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion.  --Albert Camus
There have been only two authentic geniuses in the world, Willie Mays and Willie Shakespeare. --Tallulah Bankhead / Baseball is the belly-button of our society.  Straighten out baseball, and you straighten out the rest of the world.  --Bill Lee
It's so wet all the dogs and cats are indoors; it's raining ducks and geese.
.......... He runs the bases like a choo-choo train.........The Treniers  .....Say Hey (The Willie Mays Song)
^ Casey at the Bat was written by Ernest Lawrence Thayer born in Lawrence, MA in 1863.
Almanac: It is Friday, June 3, 2016.  The moon will be new tomorrow and is in Taurus.  In the Bahamas it is Labor Day.  Because it is the first weekend of June it is also Doughnut Days or Donut Days  [Salvation Army], Horseradish Days, and Positive Power of Humor and Creativity Days. 
Among those born on this day were Richard Cobden (1804), Jefferson Davis (1808), Ransom Olds (1864), George V (1865), Maurice Evans (1901), Charles Drew (1904), Josephine Baker (1906), Paulette Goddard (Marion Levy, 1911), Tony Curtis (1925), Allen Ginsberg (1926), Colleen Dewhurst (1926), Chuck Berry (1929), Curtis Mayfield (1942), Michael Clarke (1944), and Ian Hunter (1946). 
On June third De Soto claimed Florida for Spain (1539), baseball players first wore uniforms (1851), John Lynch became the first black major party national convention chair (R, 1884), Casey at the Bat was published (1888), the Supreme Court ruled child labor unconstitutional (1918), the Gila Wilderness Area was established by the Forest Service (1924), the first negro was graduated from the US Naval Academy (1949), Dragnet debuted on radio (1949), the Rolling Stones began their first US tour (1964), and Gemini 4 was launched (1966).
Tonight's Night Sky: Watch the east now. The rich Cepheus-Cygnus-Aquila stretch of the Milky Way starts rising up all across the east late these nights, earlier and higher every week.  Dawn Planet: Mercury;  Morning Planets: Uranus and Neptune: Evening Planets Mars and Jupiter: Saturn is visible all night.
This Week: Saturday, June 4 - Drawing Day aka Pencil Day and Wicket World of Croquet Day
Sunday, June 5 - Festival of Popular Delusions Day and National Moonshine Day
Monday, June 6 - Atheist Pride Day and Drive-in Movie Day and Yo-yo Day
Tuesday, June 7 - World Pet Memorial Day
Wednesday, June 8 - World Oceans Day and Upsy Daisy Day
Thursday, June 9 - Toy Industry Day and World Archives Day
I watch a lot of baseball on radio. --Gerald Ford / Little League Baseball is a very good thing because it keeps the parents off the streets.  --Yogi Berra
Puck is saving for a rainy day.  So far he has a slicker, two towels, and canoe.
..........We'd pick out captains and we'd choose up the teams.........Peter, Paul & Mary  .....Right Field
^^ The outlook wasn’t brilliant for the Mudville nine that day...
Funniest thing I read of the Week:  If 666 is considered evil, then 25.8069 must be the root of all evil
Moonbeam: Sappho's 26 centuries of cadenced breathing...  5 A.M.  --Allen Ginsberg
Late Night Snacks: It's being reported the Obama family is planning to move into a nine-bedroom mansion in Washington, DC after the president leaves office. I guess he wants to be close enough to drive by the White House every morning and shout, "Sucks, doesn't it?” --Jimmy Fallon / The Secret Service had to sweep our building for the second day today. I've had so many pat-downs this week, one of the Secret Service guys told me to get checked because I had a lump.  --Jimmy Kimmel / Beverage maker Capri Sun has announced that it will be releasing an all-new line of organic juice pouches. No word on how it tastes, because nobody's been able to get the straw into one yet.  --Seth Meyers / This is a crazy election. But, of course, you know that, unless you have been in a coma. And if you were in a coma, you might want to slip back in for the next six months.  --Stephen Colbert / The extremist militant religious group the Taliban has appointed a new leader. So congratulations, Ted Cruz!  --Conan O'Brien / The electronics company LG identified a new phenomenon called low-battery anxiety. People become nervous, distracted, and frustrated when their phones are about to die. If you are not familiar with low-battery anxiety, it's a real condition that primarily affects people with no actual problems.  --James Corden
Everything is holy! everybody's holy! every day is in eternity! Everyman's an angel.  --Allen Ginsberg
Beethoven can't really be great because his picture isn't on a bubble gum card.  --Charles Schulz / A baseball game is simply a nervous breakdown divided into nine innings.  --Earl Wilson
Puck stores his rain in a cloudbank.
..........He started baseball's famous streak..........Les Brown  .....Joltin' Joe DiMaggio
^^^ But Flynn let drive a single, to the wonderment of all,
And Blake, the much despised, tore the cover off the ball;
And when the dust had lifted, and men saw what had occurred,
There was Jimmy safe at second and Flynn a-hugging third.
Worthless Fact of the Week: FYI: the baseball teams didn't play naked before uniforms were introduced.  The straw hats, blue full-length trousers and bloused white shirts that the Knickerbocker Base Ball Club of New York City wore on June 3, 1851--the first recorded use of baseball uniforms--are a far cry from the form-fitting, synthetic fiber uniforms of today.
Weird Word of the Week: Kludge: A work of computer programming that was done hastily and inelegantly.  German klug, smart or witty, presumably also being influenced by bodge and fudge.  http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-klu1.htm   ~~We used to call it spaghetti code.
Wacky Uses for Common Products: Steam-proof mirrors.  Spam can be used to keep the condensation off the bathroom mirror when showering, also according to the New York Times Magazine.  http://www.wackyuses.com/wacky/spam.html  ~~I feel like I should be looking up the original source.
I never took the game home with me.  I always left it in some bar.  --Bob Lemon. / A manager uses a relief pitcher like a six shooter, he fires until it's empty then takes the gun and throws it at the villain.  --Dan Quisenberry
Puck says, it's raining so much because God is listening to too much Drake again.
...........He could throw that speedball by you.........Bruce Springsteen  .....Glory Days
^^^^ But there is no joy in Mudville—mighty Casey has struck out.
Second Funniest Thing I Read of the Week

Word Shakespeare Made Up of the Week: Amazement - a feeling of great surprise or wonder.  --King John  Act V Scene I (Bastard)
Puck the Brave Episode of the Week: Here's our fearless Puck doing the two step in the case of Haggard's Harrier.  

You don't realize how easy this game is until you get up in that broadcasting booth.  --Mickey Mantle  / In theory there is no difference between theory and practice.  In practice there is.  --Yogi Berra

Rain is just a bunch of humidity that's tired of living a lie.

..........Swings his bat all the way around.........Kenny Rogers  .....The Greatest
^^^^^ Over nearly five decades Thayer recited "Casey at the Bat" as many as fifteen thousand times in theaters and at other public and private gatherings throughout the country, and he played Casey himself in a brief silent film of the poem made in 1914.
Month of the Week: June is International Surf Music Month --Here is a live version of Jan and Dean's Surf City.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6dJO8nAoYY
Reflections on Reflections of the Week: In case you were still wondering, it has been determined that the Art Exhibit** had 66 dogs and 2 cats rather than 67 dogs and 1 cat. One thing was obvious, the rich and powerful are pretty much jerks whenever they live. Apparently the decision of whether to put the portrait of the prostitute in with the middle (i.e. working) class or with lower class was a concern. The prostitute had no status in the community as did the lower class but hookers had money. There was a portrait of man. I don't know who painted it. The man looked like every other portrait I've seen in every museum I've been to. He was dressed all in black (it was the most expensive material to be found, apparently), all in the same shade of black and yet it was possible to tell what part of his outfit was satiny and what part cotton and what part leather. All that from the way light reflected off of it. It was impressive. I loved the Vermeer which was exquisite, but the enjoyed the pictures of people working most of all.
**Reflecting Class in the Age of Vermeer and Rembrandt
Famous Kansans: Douglas Youvan was born in Frontenac in 1955.  Along with Mary M. Yang, Youvan developed instrumentation to study the spectra of bacteria directly from a petri dish. This technology was later employed by NASA.  He also wrote Questions of a Christian Biophysicist.  http://www.youvan.org/  ~~You have no idea how many times I had a petri dish full of bacteria and no way to study the spectra.
Today's Peace of History: June 3, 1900: The International Ladies' Garment Workers Union (ILGWU), a consolidation of seven smaller east coast needle trades unions, was founded.
     


I think I throw the ball as hard as anyone.  The ball just doesn't get there as fast.  --Eddie Bane / I don't want to play golf.  When I hit a ball I want someone else to go chase it.
Puck's benediction: For all of you who prayed for rain, I hope you're happy now.
..........It went zoomin' cross the left field wall.........Count Basie  .....Did You See Jackie Robinson Hit That Ball?
Month of the Week Too: June in National River Month - One day three men were walking along and came upon a raging, violent river. They needed to get to the other side, but couldn't figure out how to cross it.  The first man prayed saying, “Please God, give me the strength, courage and ability to cross this river.”  Poof! God gave him big arms and strong legs, and he was able to swim across the river in about two hours.  Seeing this, the second man prayed saying, “Please God, give me the strength, courage, and ability to cross this river.” Poof! God gave him the skill to chop down a tree and fashion it into a rowboat; he was able to row across the river in about three hours.  The third man had seen how this worked out for the other two, so he also prayed saying, “Please God, give me the strength, courage and ability to cross this river.” Poof! God turned him into a woman, and he walked across the bridge.
Moonbeam: I'm immortalizing your exhaust, Avenue A bus...   Fourth Floor, Dawn, Up All Night  --Allen Ginsberg
Cost of War:
Tax dollars spent in Afghanistan: as of 6/2/16: $738,355,802,178.
Tax dollars spent in Afghanistan: as of 5/26/16: $737,690,673,879.
Tax dollars spent on the Iraq war since 2001 as of 6/2/16: $819,511,425,548.
Tax dollars spent on the Iraq war since 2001 as of 5/26/16: $819,491,988,384.
Tax dollars spent on Daesh conflict as of 6/2/16: $9,860,974,368.
Tax dollars spent on Daesh conflict as of 5/26/16: $9,758,740,289.
Tax dollars spent on the Pentagon Slush Fund as of 6/2/16: $121,062,686,978.
Tax dollars spent on the Pentagon Slush Fund as of 5/26/16: $120,493,873,983.
Tax dollars spent on all wars since 2001 as of 6/2/16: $1,691,737,333,681.
Tax dollars spent on all wars since 2001 as of 5/26/16: $1,690,348,362,810.
To gain your own voice, forget about having it heard.  Become a saint of your own province, and your own consciousness.  --Allen Ginsberg
..........Especially Willie, Mickey and the Duke.........Terry Cashman  .....Talkin' Baseball
The best way to catch a knuckleball is to wait until it stops rolling and then pick it up.  --Bob Uecker / The game isn't over until it's over.  --Yogi Berra
Famous Last Words: O children of Wichita!  --Wichita Vortex Sutra # 3  --Allen Ginsberg
May Peace be your pitcher
And Joy your runner
prairie mama
christine

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