Author Archives: louisprofphillips

I never believed in Santa Claus because I knew no white dude would come into my neighborhood after dark. Dick Gregory ** BAREBAKE RIDER MAE WEST WITH TALL TALES AS OVERHEARD BY CHESTER CONKLIN ” ‘All the men in my family were bearded,” he said, “and most of the women.’ Then he went into detailsContinue reading “BITS & PIECES OF A MISPLACED LIFE: COMEDY #3”

“One time, during the recent war, an Air Force sergeant accosted Robert Benchley in a bar and, with little or no preamble, said, ‘I might as well tell you that I don’t like your work.’ Benchley replied that he had moments of doubt himself, and the sergeant then explained that he had hitched a rideContinue reading “BITS & PIECES OF A MISPLACED LIFE: THE JOYS OF WRITING #2”

BOB MUNDEN “Bob Munden was listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as “The Fastest Man with a Gun Who Ever Lived”. One journalist reckoned that if Munden had been at the OK Corral in Tombstone, Arizona, on October 26, 1881, the gunfight would have been over in 5 to 10 seconds.” iMBd **Continue reading “BITS & PIECES OF A MISPLACED LIFE: PEOPLE etc.”

“Since the world couldn’t be stopped in its headlong rush, it was best just to laugh at it. The devil laughed, because he knew life had no meaning; the angels as they flew over, laughed too knowing what the meaning was.” from an unsigned obituary of Milan Kundera in The Economist (July 22nd, 2023) **Continue reading “BITS & PIECES OF A MISPLACED LIFE: COMEDY”

PAGE FROM THE NEW CENTURY DICTIONARY (1944) ** DEFINITION OF A LIBERAL (circa 1960’s) “What is a liberal? A liberal finds it in his heart to forgive Jane Fonda for being in Hanoi, but not for being in Barbarella.” David Frost ** CONFUCIUS ON LANGUAGE & JUSTICE GOING ASTRAY “If language is not correct, thenContinue reading “BITS & PIECES OF A MISPLACED LIFE:WORDS,WORDS,WORDS”

SOWETO, SOUTH AFRICA “Soweto was designed to be bombed –that’s how forward-thinking the architects of apartheid were. The township was a city unto itself, with a population of nearly one million. There were only two roads in and out. That was so the military could lock us in, quell any rebellion. And if the monkeysContinue reading “BITS & PIECES OF A MISPLACED LIFE: TRAVEL”

for Nelson & Alex Breen *********************** ON EATING NEW TESTAMENT LOCUSTS “The locusts John the Baptist ate are not bugs, but the flat seed pods of the carob tree — which are also the husks fed to swine and the Prodigal Son.They can now be bought in the markets of Manhattan’s lower East Side asContinue reading “BITS & PIECES OF A MISPLACED LIFE: FOOD & DRINK #2 (DIGEST?)”

DR. EDWARD KASNER “…to the man on the street Professor Kasner will long be remembered as the man who gave the world the ‘google. The google, a name invented by Kasner’s nine year old nephew, is just another example of how mathrmaticd uses ‘easy words for hard ideas.’ The definition is simple: 1 followed byContinue reading “BITS & PIECES OF A MISPLACED LIFE: MATHEMATICS”

CHARLIE CHAPLIN AND GROUCHO MARX HAVE DINNER AT DAVE CHASEN’S “Last night I had dinner with Chaplin at Dave Chasen’s and he was in high humor – unusual for him. He told me, among other things, that he’s not Jewish but wishes he were. He said he was part Scotch, English, and Gypsy, but IContinue reading “BITS & PIECES OF A MISPLACED LIFE: FILM #18”

“I have heard it said that there are only four things you need to fear in California — earth, air, fire, and water.” Alex Stone. Fooling Houdini (New York: HarperCollins, 2012) THE ORIGIN OF UNCLE SAM In Troy, NY, “Samuel Wilson and his brother ran a firm known as E&S Wilson — they were butchersContinue reading “BITS & PIECES OF A MISPLACED LIFE: AMERICANA #6 (for July 4th, 2023)”