WE’RE OFF TO HEAR THE WIZARD

To those of you who may think the fourth word of the above title is a misprint, I hasten to tell you that we’re not off to SEE the Wizard of Oz , but to HEAR the Wizard of Menlo Park (as Thomas Alva Edison was known) speaking the first words he recorded:

Many of us have seen photos of the famous inventor when he was old. Here he is at age 31:

https://www.onthisday.com/photos/thomas-edisons-phonograph

Note that in the “Photo Info” several paragraphs below the photo, the location is given as Menlo Park, California. I believe it should be Menlo Park, New Jersey. There is a Menlo Park, CA, which, surprisingly, was founded before the New Jersey town, which was named after the California town, which happens to be the headquarters of Facebook, which is located at 1 HACKER WAY, Menlo Park, CA. Just for the record….would I kid you?

Seriously, why am I publishing this post on this day?

http://www.findingdulcinea.com/news/on-this-day/December/Edison-Successfully-Tests-Phonograph.html

Would you care for a demonstration?

I leave you with this famous Edison quote: “Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration.” So stock up on deodorant and don’t give up, or you’ll be foiled again.

NO BRAINER DAY

I think, therefore I am. –René Descartes 
I overthink, therefore I post. –mistermuse

• * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Lately, I’ve been burning too much mental energy cooking up posts to roast Trump (e.g., I almost said toast rump); the heat is turning my face red and giving me the thinking blues:

Frankly, friends, I think I need to cool it before the strain becomes a drain on my brain and gives me a pain. Fortunately, Feb. 27 is NO BRAINER DAY — a perfect day to post a post which requires little or no thinking. But before you Trump reprobates snidely ask how that would make this post any different from my previous posts, answer me this: how much thought do you think The Donald gives his tweets? Even a smart-ask Trumpite should allow that mistermuse be entitled to one day of devoting the same paucity of gray matter to his post that your Orange Oligarch devotes to his tweets every day.

With that in mind, I’m giving the rest of this tome over to posting what others thought when they thought about thinking/not thinking. Do I think their thinking will make you think you’re thinking what I’m thinking about thinking/not thinking? Just a thought.

So, let’s get quoting before I change my mind and start thinking again:

I think that I think; therefore, I think I am. –Ambrose Bierce

[I think that I think, therefore] I yam what I yam. –Popeye the Sailor Man

There is no expedient to which a man will not go to avoid the labor of thinking. –Thomas Edison

Ours is an age which is proud of machines that think, and suspicious of men who try to. –Howard Mumford Jones

The best way [for a woman] to win a man is to make him think you think as much of him as he does. –Evan Esar

In America, we say what we think, and even if we can’t think, we say it anyhow. –Charles F. Kettering

In closing, did you know Rodin’s THE THINKER was originally called THE POET:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thinker

I happen to know that THE POET didn’t appreciate the name change, thus this reaction:

Mused The Poet to a passing skunk,
“What good is being called The Thinker?
To some day convey the aura of a President,
It should Don the wrap, like you, of The Stinker.”

 

 

SOWING MY WILD QUOTES

….young men must sow their wild oats, and women must not expect miracles. –from LITTLE WOMEN, by Louisa May Alcott

• * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Usually, when I do a post of quotations, they’re organized around one subject….but, for this post (having amassed a wide range of seedy — correction: seed-bearing — reflections), I’ll throw caution to the winds and, as the saying blows — scatter and sow my wild quotes:

What I have seen of the love affairs of other people has not led me to regret that deficiency in my experience. –George Bernard Shaw

The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread. –Anatole France

The latter part of a wise person’s life is occupied with curing the follies, prejudices and false opinions they contracted earlier. –Jonathan Swift

Most African-Americans in this country will never know the true history of our ancestors. Our forefathers were densely packed into slave ships and transported across the Atlantic to be sold like common goods. Many died and their individuals histories with them. Those who survived had their ancestral names stripped from them and replaced with ones slave masters wanted them to have. Much of our African heritage has been irretrievably lost to the ravages of such as Gen. Lee, whose monuments pay tribute to individuals who took away and erased the history of thousands upon thousands of Africans through slavery, killing and destruction of black families by way of the auction block. Now some want to romanticize, revere and commemorate them as heroes. Well, excuse me if I’m not willing to buy that brand. Forgive me if I don’t shed a tear for your loss. All I can say is, welcome to the club. –Kevin S. Aldridge

Never underestimate the power of very stupid people in large groups. –John Kenneth Galbraith

There is no expedient to which a man will not go to avoid the labor of thinking. –Thomas Edison

Enough is what would satisfy us — if the neighbors didn’t have more. –from “20,000 Quips & Quotes,” by Evan Esar

And with that, I think you’ve had enough. Evan, if you want more.