Jane Austen - like a bawse

The movies made of Jane Austen's novels have the appearance of being sissy or girlish, but she was into life like a lumberjack with a chainsaw. She understood it. Something one of my students said yesterday sparked a memory of one of her quotes and I just had to look it up again. A bit pessimistic, but pretty accurate.  The best part is on the appearance of merit or sense.  We get fooled all the time.  Wisdom is seeing the ruse, removing the facade, calling a spade a spade. 

Which reminds me of Emerson:

and still further:

Cheers.   "Live life and prosper."

Fun With the Suthern accent

Idinit     Errbody    Wudentuv  Ima


Idinit rite there?

Can you innerduce Errbody?

He wudentuv dunnit.

Djyoo go?  Ima go?

Idinit true dat errbody wudntuv gone if it rained?  Ima ask.



Here's a useful site to help speak in a Southern accent. 

The Dice Weren't Loaded

The dice weren’t loaded, but the gun was. He was loaded too. I suffered through his abuse and his stupidity and his poor table manners. I was not going to suffer through anything beyond that: calumny, gesticulations, or folderols of any type . So when he stood up and called me a cheater, I smiled. I decided that one bullet would suffice. I pretended to look him in the eye, yet he thought I was. But I was looking though him, beyond him, trying to figure out how I could convince a judge to let me off, or how I could endure ten-to-fifteen years in prison, or if it would do just to knock the drunk fool over the head.  But I knew that we would end up in the same position again. Him cussin and swingin and mindless.  We had done this a dozen times or so already. We drank a bottle of rye, talked about legends, trumped each others memories of our youth, insulted each other, and he always got riled up and accused someone of cheating. 

He was dumb. He didn’t understand cards or or dice or gambling or money or the universe or life or karma or bank accounts and we never let him in on anything. That was our sinnin’.  We coulda done it, and took care of him so he wouldn’t be broke every time we gambled. Cut him off, or let him win a few. But we played him and took everything he had, every time. Money was scarce for us folk too. 

But ole “Sideburn” was something else. His wallet was afraid of money like a cat’s afraid of water. His wife, or should I say, his woman, and his children suffered. She went a clawing on all our wives complainin’ how they was broke and she had to scrub floors and do everyone’s wash just to feed the children. Sideburn did pay the rent every month, but that was it. He saved the rest for rye and gambling, as if his momma sat him down when he was born and tole him that was what a job was for: pay the rent, buy some booze, and gamble away your money. I felt bad for him. I sure did. But it was time to pull the curtains on this show.