Wednesday Morning

The sun is out early. We got a decent little rain last night, but I think the rain is behind us now. If the sun stays like this all day, I will probably let the cats out this evening, though it is pushing it, with the ground being sodden and muddy. The cats still get so terribly restless and run a little wild, tearing at the furniture and at each other, being cooped up in the house.

Pop

Pop remembered. He says, “Happy Birthday!” If only he understood that the best gift he could give me is to not say anything.

Unless he has a real gift to give, “Happy birthday! Go ahead and order a book!”

“Do you mean it, Pop? I don’t really need anything.”

“It’s okay. Just get what you want.”

Since I just ordered a couple of books, I probably would have gotten that “Oriental Babysitter” DVD. I’m thinking it might not be censored, or at least not substantially.

Elvis

“Elvis told me later that he used to shake and swing himself around rather than stay still. He said he did this because if he stayed still the audience would see him shaking and quivering with fright. Of course, later on it wasn’t nerves that made him shake.”

-- Red West

[Source: Steve Dunleavy, “Elvis: What Happened?”]

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"Her"

The movie "Her" is finally available for streaming. I saw that Dish was offering it on its per-ver-view channels, and I check to see if Amazon was renting it for a few bucks, and they are, and I clicked 'buy'. I need to slow down on the buy buttons, but I have been waiting for this movie for a long time.

I've only watched 25 minutes of it, but I already know that I need that voice in my ear. The funny this is, I actually had such a voice in my ear once, and it wasn't just a computer operating system. It was Gabe: nice feminine voice, warm laughter, and when she thought I was better looking and wanted me, well, I never had anything better in my life.

Jeremy Bentham

“Nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure. It is for them alone to point out what we ought to do, as well as to determine what we shall do. … They govern us in all we do, in all we say, in all we think: every effort we can make to throw off our subjugation, will serve but to demonstrate and confirm it.”

-- Jeremy Bentham, “The Principles of Morals and Legislation”

[Source: Laura Frost, “The Problem with Pleasure: Modernism and Its Discontents”]