Universalis, your very own breviary in pixels...

Saturday 3 October 2015

"Your Majesty, the people have no bread!"

I never met her, of course, but I've always wondered if Marie Antoinette's most famous advice, (apocryphal or not,) that her subjects should make do with brioche was not sarcastic, but clueless.

People just are, sometimes, you know?

I had a roommate in actor housing once, and one night after the show while a bunch of us were watching Ironweed, Missy pipes up and says, with a thoughtful frown, You know, if I were gonna be a bum, I think I would do it somewhere warm.

Yes, Missy, me too, if I were an unemployed alcoholic, homeless by self-imposed exile after accidentally killing my own child, living in Albany at the height, or I guess, depth of the depression, I too would head for Hawaii on my jet, or perhaps ask Mater and Pater to book me a sleeper car to the Gold Coast every winter.

She was, indeed kind of spoiled rich, but she wasn't mean.

We may judge actions, but we shouldn't, we can't judge intentions.

But I do all the time.

Most recently, in my head, I mocked a site, (and whoever put it together,) six ways to Sunday, after being tempted with promise of ways to organize ones closet, (I am the sort of slob who loves to read about non-slob environments, I just don't live in one, or put any effort into creating one.)
Among the "hints"?
Make room for a vanity!
       Why don't you put a comfy plush chair in your closet?
                     Wouldn’t pondering your outfit be more enjoyable on a sheepskin rug?
It occurs to me that these people have no idea what a closet is.
It occurs to me that these people are ninnies.

 It occurs to me that I have much work to do in the marginalize not lest ye yourself be marginalized department.

I need the Faith.
You have no idea how much nastier I would be if I was not a Catholic. Without supernatural aid I would hardly be a human being.                                                                                  - Evelyn Waugh

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