Beautiful Thing no. 44: Doing it Yourself
Here’s a semi-funny cartoon that I made all by myself. Doing things yourself reminds you of the infinite possibilities in your life. I bet you never knew you could install that sink, but you did. And now that you’ve done that, you feel confident that building that bookshelf is well within your capacity. In an age where people feel intimidated to venture too far from their particular skill set and defer constantly to “experts”, doing it yourself is empowering, enjoyable, and best of all, cheap. Granted, there are some things that you should not do yourself. For instace, dentristy, and pyrotechnics. But greivous bodily harm aside, doing it yourself is overall very positive.
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Beautiful Thing no. 1,098,121 (it’s way down there, but still there): Guilt
Not to be confused with Shame which is not at all beautiful, Guilt can produce justice, kindness, and deterrence from evil. Sure, guilt may be manipulative, and doesn’t feel very nice, but it’s dark nature more often than not seems to give birth to good. This is, of course, a paradox which instantly makes Guilt intriguing (a very close cousin to Beautiful). Guilt is visceral. Guilt is primal. “I shouldn’t have done that,” can resonate boneshakingly deep within us even if we are otherwise unscathed (or have even profited) by our misdeeds. You can interpret it as an evolutionary tool that smooths social situations and furthers cooperation and helps ensure species survival or as the Voice of God telling us the difference between righteousness and sin. Either way, it’s something special, if a bit rough around the edges.
Guilt gets it’s mention in the Tribute to Beautiful Things because it is precisely why I am writing another post. It has been so long since the last post, that I felt a sense of guilt at my neglecting my quest and abandoning my readers. Ha ha, “readers”. Stay tuned for the next post, “Beautiful Thing no. 245: Inflated Senses of Importance.”
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Beautiful Thing #88: Friends
Maybe it’s Chicago weather-induced cabin fever or just a regular old epiphany, but just the other day I said to myself, “Damn it. I miss my Friends!” This post perhaps marks a turning point in this blogs illustrious history. From it’s humble beginnings, this blog has sought to catalogue one by one beautiful objects and concepts, culminating in a compendium or encyclopedia of beauty. This purpose may shift slightly.
Within the next few days, I expect the one thousandth visitor to this site (who will win absolutely nothing). And yet for one silly reader requesting an RSS feed, I abandoned a very sleek and simple layout theme, ruining the aesthetics of something supposedly dedicated to beauty. I argue that this grave sacrifice is in istelf beautiful (had I done it without complaining, which I didn’t), and shows today’s Beautiful Thing to be very powerful indeed. So to all the friends out there, you are beautiful and more important that the way a blog looks to a thousand strangers.
Devoted readers will note this post’s shocking use of the word “I”. Remember when I said “turning point in this blogs illustrious history”… dun, dun, dun. Stay tuned…
By the way, if you haven’t already, please click on the picture.
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Beautiful Thing No. 92: Hands
I am reminded of an article by an esteemed publication known as The Onion about the importance of opposable thumbs to the dominance of humanity. Despite its silliness, the article makes a valid point. Our hands make us special. They are the ultimate tools. They climb rocks, knead dough, snap, move pieces around a Monopoly Board… everything.
Go ahead, give yours a flex. Neat, huh? I love to watch the ligaments move slightly as I twitch each finger. I’m not even going to talk about the palms. So they’re creased, so what? Give me knuckles, and violinists and guys who can tear phone books in half over palmistry any day when we’re talking about interesting facets of the hand. And fingernails… what’s up with those anyway? But can you imagine if they were just nubbins with no nails. That’d be wierd.
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Beautiful Thing #6: Irony
A quick trip to Wikipedia netted this fun little example: “When John Hinckley attempted to assassinate President Ronald Reagan, all of his shots initially missed the President; however a bullet ricocheted off the bullet-proof windows of the Presidential limousine and struck Reagan in the chest. Thus, the windows made to protect the President from gunfire were partially responsible for his being shot.” (Wikipedia, I love you. You will soon be on this list.)
Irony is the universal bitch-slap that puts fools in thier place. Irony is swift and unmerciful. Irony is often deadly. Also pilferred from Wikipedia: ”In 1900, Charles Justice was a prison inmate at the Ohio State Penitentiary in Columbus. While performing cleaning detail duties in the death chamber, he devised an idea to improve the efficiency of the restraints on the electric chair. Justice designed metal clamps to replace the leather straps, thus allowing for the inmate to be secured more tautly and minimize the problem of burnt flesh. These revisions were incorporated into the chair and Justice was subsequently paroled from prison. Ironically, he was convicted in a robbery/murder and returned to prison 11 years later under a death sentence. On November 9, 1911, he died in the same electric chair that he had helped to improve.” Did I read that right? Was the guy’s last name “Justice?!”
Here is a fine wikipedia example that encapsulates the defeated, “Humph”- factor that quality irony induces: “Both hydrogen and oxygen are flammable elements, but together form water, which is non-flammable.”
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Beautiful Thing #31: Jets
Some may remember beautiful thing #82, Sharks! They were admiringly considered to be like underwater jets. Yes, toothy jets under the water are cool and beautiful, but you know what else are cool and beautiful? Toothy jets in the air. There is something about their aerodynamic shape, the scream of the afterburners, and the remora-like missiles hitched onto the wings that inspires unashamed awe.
Head on, they are terrifying, mean-looking, animal. Predatory and powerful, they inspire a visceral reaction. Personally, when I see a fighter jet up close, I want to touch it; to pet the sleeping monster. When I see one making maneuvers in the sky, my heart leaps with jingoistic patriotism.
I could go on, Jets are man-made things that fly, a testament to technology, etc. The simple fact is they are sweet. Flying works of deadly art.
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Beautiful Think # 212: The Brain
Beautiful Thing #212 demonstrates the important lesson that not all things that are beautiful, look beautiful. In fact it’s a little nasty. Wrinkly, grey, slimy, ugly. That’s how it looks. And yet, when you’re looking at a gross brain, or closing your eyes at a Halloween party and feeling a bowl of cold spaghetti that is purported to be ”Ogre Brains”, it is your own wonderful, marvelous brain that is interpreting those signals for you.
Not to get to hoity-toity and philosophical, but when we brain about Descartes’ quote “Cogito, ergo sum” (I think, therefore I am) and we combine that with our knowledge that thinking is done in the brain, we see that the brain is perhaps our most preciously beautiful possession. It is the house in which our consciousness and memory resides. I don’t know about you but I brain that is pretty freakin’ sweet.
If you want a bit of a brain blow, check out this link to a National Geographic article about Memory.
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Beautiful Thing #2124: Music
There is not a person in the world who does not like music. If you ever meet someone who says to you, “Music, I don’t like that stuff.” Run. That person is a psychopath. If you just read that sentence and said aloud to yourself and your 18th century doll collection, “Hey, I’m not a psychopath!” while rubbing your hands and rocking back and forth, I’ve got bad news, yes you are. Put down the icepick and lipstick and please go seek proffesional help or Scientology immediately.
Now that that guy is gone, you and me, we can rap. Can you Handel that? As I said before, music is so transcendentally beautiful, it’s been called the Universal Language (If you’ve been reading lately, you’ll remember that Language is Beautiful Thing #50). We turn to music to express what words cannot, or to add power to our words. Take these words,
But the Colorado rocky mountain high
I’ve seen it rainin’ fire in the sky
The shadow from the starlight is softer than a lullabye
Rocky mountain high
Those are some mighty fine sentiments, but add a little acoustic guitar, perhaps some string accompaniments, and a melodious tenor voice and you’ve got pure magic.
In all seriousness, we have music to calm our nerves, excite us to battle, dance the night away with that mysterious stranger, celebrate rituals, and even soothe us when grieving. Every once in a while, at a special moment or just driving in your car, music can touch that nameless place in your soul and makes you go, “Oooo yeah, that’s the spot. Don’t stop, music… don’t… stop…”
Don’t stop, music. Don’t stop.
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Beautiful Things #82 and #83: Fruits and Vegetables
Your mom tells you to eat them, the food pyramid tells you to eat them, they are delicious and nutritious. But did you know they are also beautiful? They make structure and color out of water, sunshine, and dirt. How sweet is that? And speaking of sweet, they are one of the few things on this list that can be beautiful to all the senses.
Another reason fruits and vegetables are beautiful is because they are useful. Forget aesthetics, beauty for beauty’s sake, these industrious flora are hardworking and essential to our survival. They are like little red, green, and yellow superheroes, sacrificing their lives so that others may live. How noble, how selfless, how… beautiful?
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Beautiful Thing #50: Language
While language is but a portion of the elegant and complex system that is Communication (#324), it is quirky, lovable, and fascinating enough to merit it’s own number and blogpost. Congrats, Language, you’re #50.
Sure, the fact we take it for granted despite it’s virtues and industry gives it that beautiful Cinderella quality, but language is also beautiful for the way it combines two seemingly opposite qualities: it is man-made and at the same time, it is alive.
Try giving Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales a read. Just for a page, if you can read the whole thing… mine hat I doff to thee. After straining every nueron in your brain to descipher this text which is supposedly written in English, it’s hard deny that language is a perfect example of evolution.
Like a DNA strand, Language is made up of tiny bits of information strung together. Taken together, those bits of consonants and vowels make up and idea, a couplet, a sonnet, a love song. And like DNA those bits can recombine to form an infinite amount of permutations: different breeds and species of expressed thought.
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