The Manticore Tittups To and Fro All Aglow.

The Manticore Tittups To and Fro All Aglow.

The manticore (early Middle Persian Martyaxwar) is a Persian mythological creature similar to the Egyptian sphinx. It has the body of a red lion, a human head with three rows of sharp teeth (like a shark), and a voice like a trumpet.

Other aspects of the creature vary. It may be horned, winged, or both. The tail is that of either a dragon or a scorpion , and it may shoot poisonous spines to either paralyze or kill its victims. It devours its prey whole and leaves no clothes, bones, or possessions of the prey behind.

The manticore myth was of Persian origin, where its name was “man-eater” (from مارتیا martya ”man”  and خوار xwar- ”to eat”). The English term “manticore” was borrowed from Latin mantichora, itself derived from the Greek rendering of the Persian name, μαρτιχώρα, martichora.

The Manticore passed into European folklore first through a remark by Ctesias, a Greek physician at the Persian court of King Artaxerxes II in the fourth century BC, in his notes on India (“Indika”), which circulated among Greek writers on natural history but have not survived.

I hope you get my message.

Tittup:   (onomatopoeic, the sound of a horse’s hooves in a gallop)  canter, gallop.

There is a secondary meaning to tittup which connotes a hussy or a minx.  David Garrick writes, “Some tittups I saw and they made me to stare.”

It’s very instructive to see a raw piece of film and then to see that piece edited.  D.A. Pennebaker documented Big Brother and the Holding Company in the studio at Columbia in New York, mainly recording Summertime.  Pennebaker did two edits of the same footage. In one, we look like ill tempered babies, self indulgent and slow. In the other, we look like geniuses at the soundboard. To me neither one is how it really was (I cut my own film in my head), but what an education to look at both edits back to back.  Makes me realize how important, vital,  really, an editor is.

Stacy Petty’s weird and wonderful world.

Love is the triumph of imagination over intelligence.

I base most of my fashion sense on what doesn’t itch.

I almost never see advertisements, commercials, marketing brochures, and never hear telemarketers, so, look what’s happened. I’m rolling in the dough and it gives me a glow, don’t you know?  I thought so.

There is nothing in the world that I loathe more than group activity, that communal bath where the hairy and slippery mix in a multiplication of mediocrity.    Vladimir Nabokov

Don Aters took this photo of Elise Piliwale, Peter Albin and some other personnel whom he may identify for us.

Money can change a lot of things, but it can’t change a light bulb.

Know yourself.  Know what’s in your suitcase. In my suitcase are back issues of The New Yorker. The only time I catch up on my reading them is on the airplane.

People can lose their way.    So can religions and governments.

The way it looked walking on the south side of Oak Street in the 1960s.  There were families in each old mansion, people who had come together and shared everything, and tried hard for a truly communal experience. Given human nature, it was tough, but everyone did well, considering.

Calligraphy, graphology, handwritten evidence is always interesting.  Signatures are a visible track of inner mental and spiritual rhythms.

Flexibility, a willingness to compromise, these are not weaknesses, although very thick spirits may wish to think so. It takes strength to remain flexible with all the straightening that goes on in this world.

With drama it can be hard to tell if you’re succeeding or failing.  With comedy you know right away if it’s working or not.

There’s a difference between death and taxes. Death does not become more complicated every time congress meets.

The United States Treasury started with no cash, and that’s the most debt free we’ve ever been.

Rome declined.  She had a Senate.  We have a House and a Senate.  What’s going to happen to us?

It was a very cool thing to be a smart girl, as opposed to some other different kind.  And I think that made a difference to me growing up and in my life afterward.      Elena Kagan.

Each political party is worse than the other one.

My loathings are simple:  conservatism, cruelty, crime, background music.

If stupidity got us into this mess, why can’t it get us out of it?

I’m not a rock star.  I’ve still got the same wife I started out with thirteen years ago.

An onion can make you cry, but, let’s see, are there any vegetables that can make you laugh?

If at first you succeed, then what?

It’s not really a black and white issue, is it?

Life all comes down to a few moments.  This is one of them.

Tomorrow comes to us all fresh and clean at midnight, puts herself into our hands and hopes for the best.

Thank you, god, I’m Italian.

I would love to be in Kansas.

Filling someone else’s shoes doesn’t scare me.  I’ve got big feet.

I read history, but reading history doesn’t necessarily make you a better person.  Adolph Hitler read history.

Every bullet should cost $ 5,000.

Jeff Blake took this photograph at a press conference in Toronto.

Revelation can be far scarier than revolution.

There’s no rehab for stupidity.

A sense of humor goes a long, long way in a marriage.

If life gives you lemons, make lemonade, and then try to find someone to whom life has given vodka.

She had the right to remain silent… but not the ability.

When you think of the atom, you are probably thinking of a model this man drew long ago. The nucleus surrounded by orbits as in the solar system?  The atom really isn’t anything like that. It’s more like a fuzzy group of shells around a tiny, hard center, but Michio Kaku’s design is so universally accepted that it is the symbol for CERN in Switzerland.  Centre Européen des Recherches Nucléaires.

Hunting is not a sport like basketball is a sport.  In a sport it would help if both sides knew they were playing the game.

I don’t care if you’re gay, black, Chinese, white, brown, straight… it’s all an illusion anyway.

Science fiction without the science is quite common.  It’s sword and sorcery, heroism, romance and a lot of twaddle.

Computer power is supposed to double every eighteen months according to Moore’s Law. Actually, in real life it seems to be doubling at a much quicker rate than that. What this means, among other things, is that it won’t be long at all before computers are making themselves without human help and that they will be more intelligent than we ever can be, and that there will be a merging of human and machine.

Because our consciousness can enter the machine, phenomena such as warp drive, traveling faster than the speed of light, parallel universes and time travel may become familiar much sooner than we think.

I’m mildly afraid of heights. I’m afraid of depths too. Have you ever been swimming in very clear water and looked down for a hundred feet or so. That’ll wake you up.

Genius is an Inuit who dreams up the African savannah.

What we need are some crazy people, considering how we’ve done with normal people.

People can smell lies.

Thanks to hallucinogenic drugs, I completely understand you.

Acting is just a sophisticated way of playing cowboys and Indians.

You don’t choose whether or not you’re gay or straight. Everybody knows that, right? Any more than you choose whether you have brown eyes or not.

Test for drugs?  We should test for stupidity, ignorance, greed, power lust.

Her hot pants were so tight I could barely breathe.

The Republicans say that government doesn’t work.  When they get elected they always prove that.

You know how you’re supposed to wear clean underwear in case you’re in an accident?  Well, you should always read something that will make you look good if you die in the middle of it too.

Seriousness is stupidity with a college degree.

Gi ta a.   This is one way the Japanese write “guitar.”

Some people can wear hats and some people can’t.  My wife will make any hat look really good.  I took off my hat to greet my aunt when I was 25 and never put it back on again.

You will never arrive at your destination if you stop to throw rocks at every dog who barks at you.

There’s one more terrifying fact about old people:  I’m one.

I make fun of myself for the same reason that I paint myself. I’m always around and I’m a cheap model.

Nobody likes insurance companies, especially other insurance companies.

Curb Your Enthusiasm.  Very seldom has a directive been easier to follow.

My life has been one long steeple chase with me as the steeple.

Immigration is the sincerest form of flattery.

I don’t need you to remind me of my age. I have a bladder to do that for me.

Generally we admire the thing we are not.

It would take a lot for me to walk out of a film. For one thing, I would hate to spend money and then not see what I paid for.  Some people walk out of films and then try to get their money back, but the less said about them the better.  I’ve probably walked out of a film five times in my life.I can’t even remember the name of any film that I have hated.  Instant blockout.

I went window shopping today.  Got four windows.

Guy goes into a French restaurant, asks the waiter, “Do you have frog legs?”   “No, I walk this way because of my arthritis.”

I’d rather be a could-be if I cannot be an are, because a could-be is a may be who is reaching for a star.  I’d rather be a has-been than a might-have-been by far, for a might-have-been has never been, but a has was once an are.

Why would anyone in her right mind go to a psychoanalyst?

Always a winning combination.

A committee is a group that keeps minutes and loses hours.

Anytime a person goes into a delicatessen and orders a pastrami on white bread with mayonnaise, somewhere a Jew dies.

We owe a lot to Thomas Edison. If it weren’t for him we’d be running our computers by candle light.

A sense of humor is the ability to understand that the joke is oneself.

You wiggle to the left, you wiggle to the right, you do the Ooby Dooby with all your might.

There is no revenge so sweet as forgiveness.

There are two kinds of fools: those who can’t change their opinions and those who won’t.

Silence is one of the hardest arguments to refute.

Be like a postage stamp.  Stick to one thing till you get there.

There are a lot of people who mistake their imagination for their memory.

The best time for you to hold your tongue is the time you feel that you must say something or explode.

Everyone has their follies and sometimes that’s the best they’ve got.

There is only one school of music… talent.

Two things in life difficult to prepare for:  twins.

Flattery is like perfume.  Smell it, don’t swallow it.

Adversity will very quickly reduce you to your fighting weight.

It’s getting harder and harder to make ends meet.

Corporations can do a lot of things well, but running countries isn’t one of them.

If you go out with a woman, ask her about herself. When she answers, ask her something about the answer. Show her you’re interested in her, because, after all, you are.

I’ve seen a lot of women give up after they’ve had three or four bad gigs in a row.  It’s very difficult to learn not to take nasty heckles personally.

My first gig in London was with The Kozmic Blues Band, probably in 1969. It was supposed to be for a couple of days, but I finagled a week out of it and nearly didn’t come home.  I reluctantly left for the Continent, but pledged right there to live in London for ten years at some point in my life. A promise unkept thusfar.

I’m just more into playing golf.  It’s a great thing.       Kenny G

Never try to be witty with US airport officials. Irony  is always lost on them and they are holding all the cards.  No sir, yes ma’am. That’s as creative as you want to be.

Everyone is a nerd in some way.

Every seed destroys its container or else there would be no growth.

It is very easy for me to love myself, but for ladies to do it is another question altogether.

When I wasn’t as attractive as I am now, I suffered at the hands of cruel children and their taunts until I realized that confidence and a bit of esthetic care can overcome that.

We all have days when we can’t pronounce things or give that special moment the ooomph it deserves.

The way to have a lot is to not want to have a lot.

Class still matters in Britain today.

The Wicked Witch of the West.

If I had become a priest, the sermons would have been electric, but they would have been in Latin.  So, who would know?

I avoid any kind of organized outings.

I was reading a book, The History of Glue. I couldn’t put it down.

I use very few muscles at the best of times.

There could be a seat belt there too.  Those things have saved thousands, if not millions, of lives including my own.  The government made us wear them.

Velcro:  what a rip off.

I’ve got my finger in a lot of pies.

I always look for other peoples’ approval.

One in six people in the world is Chinese. There are eight people in my family.  Hmmm, I wonder if it’s my brother Lee.

Kathi McDonald used to call me. I’d say, “This is Sam,” and she’d say, “No, it’s not, it’s Kathi.”     That was the beginning of our daily vaudeville routine.

A punny person is a paranomasiac.

I can bench press 250 pounds, and I run five miles a day and do aerobics at lunch. Also, I lie a lot which keeps me really thin.

We’re all the same, but some are more than others.

What would your teen age self think about your sixty year old self?

I should just pick one book and read it over and over again for the rest of my life. I can’t remember anything anyway, so it would be like reading something new all the time.

Compromise and tolerance are magic words.

As I get older, I just prefer to dodder around in the garden looking at bugs on the tomatoes.

I’m not afraid of clowns as many people are, but there is always something of a testosterone run amok thing about them.

You know how corny those Flash Gordon serials from the 1930s look?  That’s the way all science fiction looks to me, lots of chrome and tinfoil, and voices like computers. It’s all like a bad Outer Limits episode.

Why don’t cannibals eat clowns?   Because they taste funny.

Simplicity is the real sophistication.

My only shortcoming is that I can’t predict the future.

A lot of good arguments are spoiled by some fool who knows what he’s talking about.

Some people will believe anything if you whisper it to them.

I can see right now that my old age isn’t going to be a quiet time.

It is sometimes shocking to find out what people really believe.

What could this disgusting ad possibly mean?

Is being yourself worth the trouble?  It is your duty, but is it worth the trouble?

I got a woman that’s mean as she can be.  Sometimes I think she’s almost mean as me.

Most of the time I am very distracted by music used as a soundtrack in a film or a television piece. I would much prefer it not to be there. If someone is walking down a hall, I like to hear the footsteps and I like to see it in real time. That’s far more interesting than some trumped up some special effects scene.

Beatles imitating Monkees.

People are praising the iridescent and beautiful colors of the peacock and he is looking down embarrassed by his big feet.

Politics is not a world for the squeamish or fainthearted or quitters.

God would probably not want to touch America’s tax code, since it is already on the third rung to hell.

She was born with the gift of laughter and a sense that the world is mad.

Success = talent    determination   timing (luck).     Any two out of these three will probably do the trick. Notice that one of them is completely in your control.

Feeling sorry for yourself might be the worst thing you can do.

Meow.

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