From the great Argentine short-story writer, essayist, poet and translator Jorge Luis Borges  (Jorge Francisco Isidoro Luis Borges Acevedo, 1899-1986)...

“After all these years I have observed that beauty, like happiness, is frequent. A day does not pass when we are not, for an instant, in paradise. There is no poet, however mediocre, who has not written the best line in literature, but also the most miserable ones. Beauty is not a privilege of a few illustrious names. It would be rare if this book did not contain one single line worthy of staying with you to the end.” –Jorge Luis Borges

The Dream 

by Jorge Luis Borges

While the clocks of the midnight hours are squandering

an abundance of time,

I shall go, farther than the shipmates of Ulysses,

to the territory of dream, beyond the reach

of human memory.

From that underwater world I save some fragments,

inexhaustible to my understanding:

grasses from some primitive botany,

animals of all kinds,

conversations with the dead,

faces which all the time are masks,

words out of very ancient languages,

and at times, horror, unlike anything

the day can offer us.

I shall be all or no one. I shall be the other

I am without knowing it, he who has looked on

that other dream, my waking state. He weighs it up,

resigned and smiling.

El sueño

Cuando los relojes de la media noche prodiguen

Un tiempo generoso,

Iré más lejos que los bogavantes de Ulises

A la región del sueño, inaccessible

A la memoria humana.

De esa region inmersa rescato restos

Que no acabo de comprender:

Hierbas de sencilla botánica,

Animales algo diversos,

Diálogos con los muertos,

Rostros que realmente son mascaras,

Palabras de lenguajes muy antiguos

Y a veces un horro incomparable

Al que nos puede dar el día.

Seré todos o nadie. Seré el otro

Que sin saberlo soy, el que ha mirado

Ese otro sueño, mik vigilia. La juzga,

Resignado y sonriente. 

The Literary Comic Genius of Flann O'Brien: 

Flann O'Brien is one of my literary mentors (along with Jorge Luis Borges, Mark Twain, James Joyce, and Flannery O'Connor, among others). That O'Brien's novels are for readers who prefer adding a smile or even a laugh to their "deep" thoughts becomes obvious to anyone who opens one of his books. His work sometimes straddles the modernist/postmodernist divide, and as one reader said about one of his novels: "It is also one of the few satires that doesn't succeed by denigrating us and one of the few post-modern works that does succeed by making us howl with laughter."

"That's a real writer, with the true comic spirit. A really funny book."

James Joyce on Flann O'Brien's At Swim-Two-Birds.

Note: The following is a combination of Amazon descriptions and

my own observations about Flann O’Brien’s work.

A Master Storyteller of the Hilarities of Multidimensionality

Flann O’Brien, along with Joyce and Beckett, has been described as part of the holy trinity of modern Irish literature. I describe him as a master storyteller of the phenomenological and ontological hilarities of multidimensionality. His five novels, which are a monument to his inspired lunacy and genius, include At Swim-Two Birds and his last novel, The Third Policeman.  

Flann O’Brien

Flann O'Brien’s real name was Brian O'Nolan, and he also wrote under another pen name: Myles na Gopaleen. Born in 1911 in County Tyrone, he was a resident of Dublin who graduated from University College while editing a magazine called Blather). He joined the Civil Service, in which he eventually attained a senior position. O’Brien wrote throughout his life, which ended in Dublin on April Fool’s Day, 1966.

The Third Policeman

A comic trip through hell in Ireland, as told by a murderer, The Third Policeman is an inspired bit of confusing and brilliantly warped storytelling from O’Brien’s lovably demented pen. The narrator of The Third Policeman, who has forgotten his name, is a student of philosophy who has botched a robbery and committed murder. He wanders into a surreal hell where he encounters such oddities as the ghost of his victim, three policeman who experiment with space and time, and his own soul (who is named “Joe”). Some readers have favorably compared The Third Policeman to such twentieth century masterpieces as Thomas Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow, William Gaddis’s The Recognitions, Elias Canetti’s Auto-da-Fe, and Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude.

At Swim-Two-Birds

At Swim-Two-Birds (which one critic called “the funniest novel of the twentieth century”) is an exuberant literary send-up in which the novel’s narrator is writing a novel about another man writing a novel, in a Celtic knot of interlocking stories. The riotous cast of characters includes figures “stolen” from Gaelic legends, along with assorted students, fairies, ordinary Dubliners, and cowboys, some of whom try to break free of their author’s control and destroy him.

His Other Novels

The Poor Mouth, a bleakly hilarious portrait of peasants in a village dominated by pigs, potatoes, and endless rain, is a giddy parody aimed at those who would romanticize Gaelic culture. A naïve young orphan narrates the deadpan farce The Hard Life, and The Dalkey Archive is an outrageous satiric fantasy featuring a mad scientist who uses relativity to age his whiskey, a policeman who believes men can turn into bicycles, and an elderly, bar-tending James Joyce.

CONTRARIAN TROPES 15

Comical Language

by Bob Carroll

One could argue that humor is a matter of language and words, although that theory might not account for cartoons without captions or dialogues, or comedy in silent film. Conversely, what is “unspoken” could be “understood” to be a verbal matter. 

At any rate, the verbal in humor is a vast territory, as in: 

(1) Riddles: What do you get when you cross an insomniac, an agnostic, and a dyslexic? Someone who lies awake all night long wondering if there really is a Dog.  

Or (2) Ambiguities, as in these actual headlines: MINERS REFUSE TO WORK AFTER DEATH. And, STUD TIRES OUT. And, KIDS MAKE NUTRIOUS SNACKS. 

Or (3) Anecdotes, as when author Isaac Asimov discusses the powers of Jewish mothers (btw, Asimov, who was Jewish, said a non-Jewish Russian acquaintance told him that all mothers are Jewish): “Once when I was a teenager,” Asimov wrote, “I was walking with my mother on a winter day. It was quite cold but low temperatures don't bother me much, and as is my custom, I left my overcoat unbuttoned. My mother, obviously uncomfortable, finally said sharply, “Button your coat, Isaac; I'm freezing.” 

Asimov liked to ask: “The favorite nine-letter word of a Jewish grandmother to grandchild? Eateateat!”  

Many authors love (4) Humorous One-liners, and Irish dramatist Oscar Wilde was a master of them: 

“Everything popular is wrong.” 

Or:  “Consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative.”  

And one of my personal favorites: “Life is far too important a thing ever to talk seriously about.” 

Kalivac Communications 2012

A BOWL OF MIND-SMILE SNACKS

A BOWL OF MIND-SMILE SNACKS

He doesn’t know anything except facts.

James Thurber
Cartoon caption, New Yorker, 1937.

An idealist is one who, on noticing that a rose smells better than a cabbage,
concludes that it is also more nourishing.

H.L Mencken
A Little Book in C Major, 1916

Blame-all and praise-all are two blockheads.

Benjamin Franklin
Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1734

I went to a fight the other night and a hockey game broke out.

Rodney Dangerfield

Mario Andretti has retired from racecar driving. That's a good thing. He's getting old. He ran his entire last race with his left blinker on.

Jon Stewart

A man goes to a psychiatrist and says, "Doc, my brother's crazy, he thinks he's a chicken." The doctor says, "Why don't you turn him in?" The guy says, "We would. But we need the eggs."

[Anonymous (?)]

We have really everything in common with America nowadays, except, of course, language.

Oscar Wilde
The Caterville Ghost, 1887

Advice, Insight and Opportunities

If your stomach disputes you, lie down and pacify it with cool thoughts.

Leroy Robert “Satchel” Paige
“How to Keep Young,” Colliers, 1953

Hell, I never vote for anybody. I always vote against.

W. C. Fields

Beware of all enterprises that require new clothes.

Henry David Thoreau
Walden, 1854

Woman’s virtue is man’s greatest invention.

Cornelia Otis Skinner

I went to the psychiatrist, and he says, "You're crazy." I tell him I want a second opinion. He says, "Okay, you're ugly too!"

Rodney Dangerfield

Consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative.

Oscar Wilde
Quoted in Hesketh Pearson, Oscar Wilde: His Life and Wit, 1946

A guy meets a hooker in a bar. She says, "This is your lucky night. I’ve got a special game for you. I’ll do absolutely anything you want for $300, as long as you can say it in three words." The guy replies, "Hey, why not?" He pull his wallet out of his pocket, and one at a time lays three hundred-dollar bills on the bar, and says, slowly: "Paint…my…house."

[Anonymous (?)]

The Multifeatured Landscape of Ethics, Morality and Religion

A priest, a rabbi, and a minister walked into a bar. The bartender looked them over and said, “What is this, a joke?”

[Anonymous (?)]

Puritanism: The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.

H.L Mencken
A Mencken Chrestomathy: His Own Selection of His Choicest Writing, 1949

Be good and you will be lonesome.

Mark Twain
Following the Equator, flyleaf, 1897

TV commercials now show you how detergents take out bloodstains, a pretty violent image there. I think if you've got a T-shirt with a bloodstain all over it, maybe laundry isn't your biggest problem.

Jerry Seinfeld

Go lightly on the vices, such as carrying on in society. The social ramble ain’t restful.

Leroy Robert “Satchel” Paige
“How to Keep Young,” Colliers, 1953

Always do right. This will gratify some people and astonish the rest.

Mark Twain

The trouble with the rat race is that even if you win you’re still a rat.

Lily Tomlin
quoted in People magazine, 1977

You can’t pray a lie.

Mark Twain
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, 1884)

There never was a good War, or a bad Peace.

Benjamin Franklin
letter to Joseph Banks, 1783

Religion is love; in no case is it logic.

Beatrice Potter Webb
My Apprenticeship, 1926

We have just Religion enough to make us hate, but not enough to make us love one another.

Jonathan Swift
“Thoughts on Various Subjects,” 1711

There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root.

Henry David Thoreau
Walden, 1854

Art and Literature

Remarks are not literature.

Gertrude Stein
The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, 1933

An artist is his own fault.

John O’Hara

Of all lies, art is the least untrue.

Gustave Flaubert

Art is the proper task of life.

Friedrich Nietzsche

Rose is a rose is a rose is a rose, is a rose.

Gertrude Stein
“Sacred Emily” (1913). [Frequently misquoted as “a rose is a rose is a rose.”
The allusion is not to a flower but to English painter Francis Rose:
from The Yale Book of Quotations, Fred Shapiro, Yale University Press, 2006.]

I started at the top and worked my way down.

Orson Welles
Quoted in Leslie Halliwell, The Filmgoer’s Books of Quotes, 1973

So vast is art, so narrow human wit.

Alexander Pope

Art, in itself, is an attempt to bring order out of chaos.

Stephen Sondheim

Drawing is like making an expressive gesture with the advantage of permanence.

Henri Matisse

Without art, the crudeness of reality would make the world unbearable.

George Bernard Shaw

Treat a work of art like a prince. Let it speak to you first.

Arthur Schopenhauer

The essence of all beautiful art, all great art, is gratitude.

Friedrich Nietzsche

Right and true art egolessly Coincides with Reality (Itself), Truth (Itself),
and The Beautiful (Itself).

Adi Da Samraj
quoted on the rear cover of Transcendental Realism: The Image-Art of egoless Coincidence With Reality Itself, by Adi Da Samraj, The Dawn Horse Press, 2010

The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance.

Aristotle

To make us feel small in the right way is a function of art; men can only make us feel small in the wrong way.

E. M. Forster

I always try to balance the light with the heavy - a few tears of human spirit in with the sequins and the fringes.

Bette Midler

Art is magic delivered from the lie of being truth.

Theodore Adorno

We Irish are too poetical to be poets; we are a nation of brilliant failures, but we are the greatest talkers since the Greeks.

Oscar Wilde
quoted in W.B. Yeats, Autobiography, 1938

Gonzo journalism ...is a style of “reporting” based on William Faulkner’s idea that the best fiction is far more true than any kind of journalism--and the best journalists have always known this.

Hunter S. Thompson
“The Great Shark Hunt” jacket Copy for Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, 1979

CURIOUS ANECDOTES & TANGENTIAL TALES:
WHEN LIFE AND "SEEKING" GO AMOK
written or collected, and edited, by B. Kalivac Carroll

from: (forthcoming) CURIOUS & TANGENTIAL #1:
"GENIUS MUST SPEAK, OR AT LEAST WRITE A BOOK"

(Credits: the following books were written by imaginary colleagues, fantasized acquaintances, and several of my own “multiple personalities,” and were subsequently published by specialty publishing houses run by the deranged and demented....)

BESTSELLING AND AWARD WINNING BOOKS
Distributed by KALIVAC COMMUNICATIONS

(Reviews for each text forthcoming along with forthcoming blog)

I. Self-Help and How-To Books
The Useful Art of Truthful Lies
by Betty Harrison
New York: Growth Press, 1982

How to Exchange Your Left Hand for Your Right Hand
and Vice Versa Without Using Satanism or Surgery
by William Grove
London: Universal Press, 1951

Establishing a More Kindly Attitude in Your Own Personality by Practicing Empathetic Feelings for Poisonous Spiders: The Illustrated Edition
by The Reverend John Scoffers
Self-Published, 1926

Healing Your Intimate Relationship by Relieving
the Suffering of Your Self-Deluded Egoic Partner
While Enhancing Your Own Self-Identification
by Henry Harrison, PhD
New York: Growth Press, 1983

Nonviolent Techniques for Sending Your Obnoxious Partner
Down the Road Babbling to Himself
by Betty Harrison
New York: Growth Press, 1984

Dealing with Intimidating Bullies, Unattractive Strangers and
Sanctimonious Self-Appointed Authority Figures by Using Nonexistent
Spontaneously Invented Foreign Language Phrases
by Bill M. Covehill
Chicago: Guttural Press, 2005

II. Reference Books
Who’s Who in Malfunctioned Liposuction Incidents
by Anonymous
Miami: Self-Published, 1989

III. Biographical, Personal Experience, Brilliant Breakthroughs
My Utterly Boring and Stupid Former Lives,
Beginning with My Life as a "Rock Rolling Engineer" in Prehistoric Times
Sister Ellen Sisyphus Sirlees
Palm Springs: Revelation Press, 2001

Hirsute Conversations: When My Underarm Hair
Channels Voices from the Other Side
by Robert Lekbukberg
Palm Beach: Communications Press, 1992
The Art of International Traveling Inside Your Own Fully Equipped Suitcase
(i.e. with mini toilet, television, and vibrating massage neck pillow)
for Baggage Fees Only
by Alice T. Major
Jersey City, Extremely Intrepid Traveler Books, 1987

IV. Specialized Subjects
The People's Medical Advisor: Replacing Your Own or Your Partner’s Organs
on a Shoestring Budget by Using Hospital Operating Room Dumpster Diving Techniques and Do-it-Yourself Procedures, the revised, illustrated edition
by Immanuel and Susan Nomstelannetz
Newark, NJ: Wee Hours Press, 1999

A Handbook of “Shop Till You Drop” Astral Shopping Strategies,
including Bibliographies for Astral Credit Card Encryption
and the Addendum “Astral Shops to Avoid on the Third Plane"
by Henry Acreglide Henderson
New York: Sleepytime Books, 2001

V. Scholarly
Drool and its Meanings: Being a Modernized and User Friendly Guide
to the Ancient Science of Drool Divination
by Ben Spotsum, BS, MS, MD, PhD, LDD
Chicago: Dampness Press, 1907
[Also the definitive work on drool critical theory.]

Phenomenological and Ontological Implications of late 19th Century
Urban Sanitation System Disasters
by Bret Larson, MFA, PhD
New York: University Annex Printing, 1924

VI. Kalivac Book Awards for 2008
Best New Crime Novel
Dead, Dead, Dead: The Text Message Homicides
by Mike Smith-Jones Sampson
Boston: Homicidal Press, 2008

Best New Literary Novel
Maurice’s Wrinkle
by Mary Bandingwidthnode
New York: Cipher Books, 2008

Best New Horror Novel
Maurice’s Fangs
by Jack Lee Robert Edmund Bandingwidthnode
New York: Cipher Books, 2008

Best New SF Novel
The Green-Yellow Mucus Archaeologies Incident
by Sinclair Ambassador Miller
Los Angeles: Script Press, 2008

Best Nonfiction Book
Bloated, Biflagellated, and Banned:
The Rise and Fall of West Coast Bifurcated Blogs
B. Kalivac Carroll
San Francisco: Avant-Garde Books, 2008

[humor: Contrarian Tropes series]

CONTRARIAN TROPES 6

by B. Kalivac Carroll

Future Possibilities

Probably by now you have heard about NLPRS, Next Life Products, Resources and Services. I was scanning some of the “customer reviews” on the NLPRS website. 

Some samples:

1. *****I highly recommend NLPRS. When I gave them my preferred future birthplaces: exclusive Hawaii beachfront or Neuilly-sur-Seine in Paris, they didnʼt hesitate to give me a “slightly modified” version of my first choice: Honolulu Hawaii canal front property. That was so cool. They are totally on their game. 

[Barbara Frankston, Cleveland, manager of Midwestern Medical Marijuana Distribution Center Inc.]

2. * I asked for five beautiful and obedient wives next time, and they could only come up with a guarantee of one obedient wife of unknown appearance and a beautiful but spoiled mistress who expects the best of everything. That sucks, dude. 

[Joe “No Fear and No Prisoners” Handknotts, Clearlake, CA Wal-Mart auto mechanic.]

3. ***When I asked to be the worldʼs best chess player in my next life, NLPRS said no problem, but they added that I should know that chess may be on the way out. (I guess I appreciated the extra advice at a “reduced” additional fee but it was a depressing comment.)

[Henry Chalmers, accountant at American Beancounters, St. Louis]

4. ** Because of the health problems I experienced in this lifetime, I asked for a reduction of bad intestinal bacteria and an increase of good intestinal bacteria. NLPRS said sure, that could be guaranteed. Then they added parenthetically that a canine birth body would be required. I have nothing against dogs, but I asked if I could be a talking health practitioner and astrologist dog. So far no reply from their customer service link. Pretty low on the flexibility scale, if youask me. 

[Mary Lynton Skov, astrologist, Santa Barbara]

5. **** I asked NLPRS if they could offer any security devices,

directional finders and rehearsal scenarios for my upcoming bardo experience. They said I may not know that the word bardo was not of Tibetan Buddhist origin but had etymological roots in “bar,” and thus the best bardo training for me would be to explore as many low life bars as possible in Philadelphia, Bangkok, Juarez, and Moscow while taking an acid reflux prescription, wearing a bulletproof vest and

being armed with an electroshock taser. That made spiritual sense to me. 

[Bob Kalivac, Loch Lomond, Ca, novelist and Medicare patient.]

Copyright 2012, Kalivac Communications