Laughter

Jul182019 by jrcowlesNo Comments

Shhhh! … Don’t Tell Anybody … But Art Is Fun!!!!

"Life" Issues, affirmation/s, Art, Artistic Afternoons, awareness, Change, Christianity, Christianity/Catholicism, Classical / Baroque music, community, Creativity, culture, Discernment, Enlightenment, Fascism, humor, Ideology, jokes, Joy, Laughter, Play, postmodernism, praying with art, praying with music, Renewal, Secularity, Trump, Uncategorized

Would someone please answer the following question for me: Why do Americans – actually, I think Westerners generally, but I will stick with Americans – believe art is something that must be approached so … well … seriously? With most art, most Americans seem to believe that, when looking at a painting or a piece of sculpture or seeing a play or listening to a piece of music, they are obligated, on pain of being branded as culture-phobic philistines, to wear a facial expression that announces to the world Pity me! I am dying of terminal hemorrhoids! Well, before anyone makes any cracks about that remark, I will back up a step or two and say that, yes, to be sure, some works of art are explicitly intended to evoke play, laughter, and light-hearted dalliance. A good example is

Mar282019 by jrcowlesNo Comments

A Good Reason To Hit The Bottle

"Life" Issues, Abundance, autonomy, awareness, Challenge, Consumerism, critical judgment, culture, Economy, General Interest, humor, jokes, Laughter, life, Play, Poverty, Secularity, simplicity, temptation, Uncategorized

Admittedly, this is a seemingly trivial problem, as are all the related problems I discuss subsequently, but it drives me certifiably bat-shit crazy, notwithstanding. In fact, I am beginning to suspect that the following problems, though seemingly unrelated, are in fact constitutive of a profound and irremediable flaw in the deepest foundations, ideologically and psychologically, of knowledge-based late / 21st-century capitalist economies. OK … enough preamble … this is my problem … o You know those bottles of, e.g., hand soap and skin lotion you buy that have bottle caps that double as pump mechanisms? Initially, in their right-off-the-shelf condition, those bottles’ pump mechanisms are all locked down to prevent accidental or inadvertent pumping-out of the contents. Quite reasonab

Jan242019 by jrcowlesNo Comments

The Great Skeptics’ Baking Show

"Life" Issues, awareness, Change, Chefs, Cuisine, culture, Food, Gastronomy, Great British Baking Show, Hawaii, Hospitality, humor, jokes, Laughter, puns, Satire / parody, simplicity, Uncategorized

As a chef, I am a great garage mechanic. For two reasons ... First, I have a very simple palate: I am very much a meat-and-potatoes guy. When I find a very simple combination that I like, e.g., meat loaf and mac and cheese, I tend to stick with it. I am not prone to experimentation: if it ain't broke don't fix it. My palate is about as sophisticated as that of the android in the first Terminator movie … and about as ravenous. Secondly, I am clumsy in the kitchen in terms of handling pots, pans, dishes, knives, etc. … basically any cooking implement. I break stuff. Listening to me in the kitchen – spare yourself the sickening spectacle of actually watching – is much like I imagine hearing the Battle of Hastings in 1066. Except not as graceful. Nevertheless, my wife and I enjoy wa