When We’re Gone But Not Forgotten . . .
I have always loved Despair.com, but when they sent me news of their latest Demotivator right after I’d posted about being forgotten, well it seemed like the Hand of Fate. Or at least the Hand of Coincidence. Sometimes it’s hard to tell them apart. As they describe their newest demotivational poster, it’s perfect for
- The Moai
- Rapanuis
- Fans of the renowned Pieces of Eight “concept” album, whose storyline chronicles the tragic journey of a once-hopeful Styx fan who finds he has been pickpocketed by Dennis De Young, who leaves his victim with only a self-congratulatory song cycle wrapped inside supposedly Easter-Island themed album cover.
- Thor Heyerdahl
I had to look up three of those.
I’m trying to think if I’m capable of doing anything that is so bafflingly crazy that I will remembered for it. Mostly, I’m run-of-the-mill crazy, not Easter Island crazy. I’m seriously thinking about this, though. I’ve always wanted a labyrinth, maybe I’ll put one in somewhere around here. Southern Ohio needs more labyrinths. Or I could carve the trees into gnomes. If I knew how to carve trees. And liked gnomes. Topiaries don’t last so that’s out. Maybe cement casting, I have a kit for that somewhere. Or I could . . .
Nah, I got nothin’. Anybody out there got any baffling-crazy that will make you remembered hundreds of years from now? Because I’m starting to think that is a priority. Long term goals, people, that’s what we’re focusing on now. (Actual possibility of construction, aka reality, not a requirement.) What you would make to be remembered?
It’s always good to reach far beyond the norm, even if considering run-of-the-mill crazy as the norm is an oxymoron waiting to happen.
*sadly shakes head* So many of the great, memorable things have already been taken. Lady Godiva did the whole “ride the horse naked” thing and inspired an entire brand of chocolate.
Big ball of string? Already done.
I’m leading an effort to get our city to fence in land for a dog park. There are some who think that’s crazy, but they don’t own dogs, so pffffft.
I can’t think of anything off the top of my head. I guess I rank low on the bafflingly crazy scale. To put things in perspective, I don’t really care if I’m remembered hundreds of years from now. I’ll be happy if people remember me next week.
Hey, Act I of Dr. Horrible is now online:
http://www.drhorrible.com/
A new breed of something would be nice. Cats that like to march in formations?
I’m always up for a revolution. How about the United States of Crusie?
I still think the founding of Clitoris Oregon is still the most memorable think I’ve heard. When is the surveying and building starting?
I think the Easter Island statues are not a good example because - at least as far as I know, and I’ve never been there - their creator(s) didn’t sign them so that we might have a name to remember.
So does it have to be crazy? Can’t it rather make sense? After an exhausting day of kitchen cleaning I’d rather like to be the person who invented the self-cleaning kitchen exhaust hood. Although, after one generation probably nobody would remember how awful it is to remove several months’ worth of grease and gunk. I know, I know, I should do it more often, but I’ve had better things to do. At least thats what I thought at the time.
Or if that can’t be invented, I’d like to design a car with a really good place to put your purse. I’ve seen cars with all sorts of smart gadgets, but whenever I get in, I must put my purse on the backseat or on the floor. (I like big purses, mind, not the tiny movie-star clutches which might fit into the glove compartment supposing it’s not already crammed with maps and sunglasses and the GPS instruction manual.) Worst case is having to drive a car filled to capacity so you have to ask one of the passengers to take your purse and how do you know he/she is not going to take a look to find out what the heck you’re carrying with you? Actually, it happened to me once that people were taking bets whether I had more than a hundred items with me but then, they were ready to count the single matches in the box.
Okay, it’s been a long day. What was this post about? I know. According to my kids, I’ll be remembered as the person who can tell every story like it is a novella.
The area could use more roadside attractions. Like a temple of
god-trainingdog-training, shaped like a dachshund.Failing that, isn’t the state capitol dome in need of a cozy?
The House on the Rock. You could be the House on the River.
http://www.thehouseontherock.com/
they’re of course too self-congratulatory on the website. Gaiman nails it in American Gods. It’s the most bizarre thing you’ll ever pay money to see.
You could pull off a House on the River.
“My ruins become a tourist attraction.”
Snort.
I expect the crowds any day now.
Hmmm. I don’t think bafflingly crazy has to start out that way. Just because future generations, or your current neighbors, don’t understand your train of thought doesn’t mean there isn’t one. The trick is, don’t explain yourself, and let people wonder.
Colognegirl: while you are at it, could you invent a really good place to store a wet umbrella?
I’d make a monument to wide hips and show how beautiful they really are.
Or you could, like, team up with some guy and write a book together with each of you writing the POV for …
Nevermind, that’s been done.
Actually I think the best crazy edifices start out harmless. Like the people who put 2 million Christmas lights on their house. Or the guy who mae the anti-grizzly-bear suit.
We moved Clitoris to Ohio. It was closer.
I’m still focused on the labyrinth. Do a labyrinth for creativity like those par courses they lay out for exercises. My backyard will only fit a five path one, worse luck, but I’m definitely pondering it.
Love the labyrinth idea. Are you using only two dimensions, or will there be tunnels and bridges?
I’m reminded of the song from vacation bible school “Don’t build your house on the sandy land/Don’t build it too near the shore/it might look kinda nice/but you’ll have to build it twice/you’ll have to build your house once more/you gotta build your house upon a rock…”
Oh it’s stuck in my head now. (I grew up in a small town and the only reprieve my mother got during summer vacation was to send us to bible school for a week or a month or something).
“My ruins become a tourist attraction.”
I’m imagining people coming to visit the renovation gone wrong or something. Or a literal pile of crap.
This is a marvellous idea. Go wild and crazy. Make a labyrinth. But what if you get lost in it? If you don’t blog for a week everyone will come looking for you.
Okay, wait a sec, I just found Gaffney’s book, The
Goodbye Summer. Nana created sculptures called, George Bush in Love, Earthen Uterus, Fecund Goddess and a few others in her front yard. You’re artistic, you could decorate the grounds and be remembered as the crazy lady of the River House in Ohio.
Remember the Sheik who painted the genitalia on all of the marble statues on his Beverly Hills estate back in the eighties? People would go looking for it to take photos. The place finally burned down, but they never found the arsonist. Neighbors, cough, cough.
How about an edible garden? Not crazy unless you live in a neighborhood that has regulations on how tall the grass can get…so failing at keeping the lawn the right length much to the chagrin of the grass nazi-police, you create an edilble lawn…neighbors could keep it down by picking the food…just a thought. Hoping to create one soon.
Going on an extended killing spree seems to be a favourite route towards attaining immortality, but it’s been overdone.
However, I don’t quite see why it’s necessary to be remembered hundreds of years from now. I’ll be dead, so people knowing my name or seeing the ruins I left behind will be just as useless as all those other things mentioned on the poster.
As you see, I’m totally self-demotivating.
I used to think my novels would be crazy enough, but they aren’t even crazy enough to be found on the shelves of bookstores at this moment (although Amazon does carry them) so as a lasting memorial, that’s out.
Being interested in roses and growing over 100 different old garden roses, I suppose I could some day hybridize one and get my name put on it. That would be cool, but rather time consuming and I’m not sure I have the garden space for the thousands of seedlings you’d have to cull through to find one decent new hybrid.
So…maybe I’ll buy a star. And get it named after me. In hopes that one day people will get space travel working, travel to my star, colonize it, and I will be forever cursed by them. Because I’m sure colonizing distant stars is not going to be fun.
That’s it for my crazy ideas.
Hmm - labrinth - I want one myself, but I don’t have enough personnal land of my own to do it. Maybe I’ll try to get the City of chicago to build one in one of the parks. hmmh been done. I think we could use one in Daly Plaza (by the Picasso). But how about a midnight raid and it just apears in the morning….
OK not doable but a GREAT idea. Especially if I weren’t caught.
I’d write music to be remembered by. How about the music for Amazing Grace? Or Greensleeves (Henry VIII supposedly wrote that one). Or a nice symphony? Or a Gregorian chant?
Well, that humbles me. I think I’ll go hide under the covers.
with a clitoris in the center…
I would buy that car if it had storage for a purse AND an umbrella, with upholstry that doesn’t collect dog hair or coffee stains… (sigh) It sucks having to choose whether I want to vacuum the truck and take Lucy along when I go somewhere or leave her home and save myself the extra cleaning, which I con’t have the time to do any way!
I am working quietly on my own legacy of craziness/insanity/madness. (I’m called Rescue Cherry for a reason you know!) I am the crazy Pigeon Lady who rescues and releases many pigeons and doves each year in our area. I also have all the doggy rescues, some which I rehome and some which I keep. Then there is the kid rescue, for which I have been called all KINDS of crazy for doing by friends and co-workers alike.
So yeah, I think I will be remembered in my own little way. Maybe. It’s funny that you brought this up, Jenny–I was just blogging about how crazy my life has been for the past year and how insane everyone thinks I am and you bring up big stone heads on an Island. I don’t feel quite so nuts any more! LOL!
Everybody has her own immortality.
Labyrinths are flat. Well, flat-ish. I’d put flower beds between the paths. And it wouldn’t take that long to walk since there are only five circles plus the center. And it would still be 46′ across. Must cogitate. And find money.
They have labyrinth kits if you can get a civic group interested. Give you the pavers and everything for $15K.
I also just watched the first ep of Dr. Horrible. Neil Patrick Harris is excellent but I suddenly find myself in love with Nathan Fillion in a way that Firefly and Waitress could not inspire.
And now I see that Annie posted that first. Always listen to Annie.
Build a bridge over the Ohio River.
Lengthwise.
A labyrinth in your back yard would probably be mistaken for a miniature golf course by your neighbors, especially if you go for the tunnels and bridges. Maybe you could pick up a Minotaur on eBay—THAT would certainly make them take you seriously. Or conduct bull-leaping classes in your front yard.
I found a whole website on labyrinths. This is a link to the one on Glastonbury Tor:
http://www.geomancy.org/sacred-space/labyrinths/glastonbury-tor/index.html
talpianna wrote: “Build a bridge over the Ohio River.
Lengthwise.”
I’m still FOFLMFAO about that. But hey,driving on that bridge would be better than taking a canoe…
I’ll build my legacy/tourist attraction out of Play-Doh. It’s colorful and smells funky….
There’s a circle of grass near our village library awaiting a fountain from some yet-to-be-found donor, and I always mean to tell our board it’d make a great labyrinth. I found kits online for much less ($1,200 gets you the pattern, and you use wood mulch for the path).
Though no one will remember this 100 years from now, I’m known as the Halloween dragon lady. For most of the last 8 years, I’ve put up a dragon that goes from our attic window down to the sidewalk. During trick-or-treat, we send candy down through the dragon, out through its mouth.
But this year I’m taking it to a crazy new level: I want to make the front of our house look like a castle. I’ve already warned my DH and DS they’re making papier mache gargoyles with me. It’s fun to think wacked-out big!
Have you decided, or thought about, what kind of material your labyrinth will be made of? Pebbles for paths, and flowers between? Maybe a small bench, or benches, for cogitating? You’re going to have fun designing, and researching. The smaller of the four patterns might fit in your 46′ area.
I’ll be wearing the ‘life is good’ grin all day, thinking about the kids yet unborn who’ll be hauled to some point in Ohio to see Jenny Crusie’s Labyrinth. They’ll be rolling their eyes and thinking how boring, until they get there and find all the hands-on exhibits, like learning how to siphon, how to paint stars, and the art or collaging. They’ll love Wolfie’s Walk, and the gift shop where proceeds go to Dachshund Rescue and the Starving Writers Fund.
Why does that make me grin? Because I’m married to the man who delights in taking hundred mile detours to see things like Uncle Sam’s grave, the Trench of the Bayonets in France, L. Frank Baum’s house, the salt mine in Germany where you dress like miners and go all the way down into the mine. We never got to the world’s largest ball of string, but the kids still talk about the time we got bogged down in the mountains in Montana, looking for an obscure burial ground. The grizzly bears made that one pretty memorable. Good times!
I don’t think a labyrinth in your back yard is crazy enough. Heck, doesn’t everyone have one of those?
I think you should turn your whole town into a labyrinth. One paver at a time. With a paragraph of a new novel scratched into each paver.
That’d bring in the tourists. Especially when you got to the YEX.
I’m with GatorPerson: music would be my crazy legacy. But not something grand a glorious with my name attached. To match the craziness of the Easter Island sculptors, I would compose a children’s earworm-worthy song, that will drive mothers nuts for generations…sorta like “The Song that Never Ends”.
Now THAT is a work of pure evil genius.
Grace Cathedral in San Francisco has two labyrinths, one indoors, one out. Anyone can visit. It’s an Episcopal church. I went once and am going to try to go again during National. If you’re into meditation there is something very wonderful, spiritual, about going and walking it.
Well you could enact the old joke about the man burying his wife with her behind sticking up so that he had a place to park his bike when he came to visit her in the cemetery. In honor of the Easter Island statues, have a stone behind sticking up at your gravesite for visitors to park their bikes. I’m sure people would visit for the novelty and since it would be your gravesite, they would be sure to read your headstone and thus your name is remembered into eternity.
NO, but now I have a really good goal. One I might be able to accomplish.
I’m so going to have to post this on my site.
Ummm, crotched laptop cozies (cozy’s?)? Tree cozies? Hmm, could be problematic. But, funny!
That’s all I got.
…okay, *I* thought it was funny!
I think if every person in America took one day off work and rebuilt New Orleans that day, we’d all be pretty damned memorable. We’d have to stack up lots of piles of lumber, brick, and paint beforehand, then someone would say GO! No bathroom breaks or lunch until it’s done!
It would be viewed as more of a miracle than the Egyptian pyramids.
It’s still a wasteland in so many places. My 16-year-old son is there this week with his church youth group, painting houses in the 9th Ward.
Crotched laptop cozies - what is that? Something like the bum sticking out of the grave?
And the lengthwise bridge over the Ohio river reminds me of our (otherwise not very memorable) town of Wuppertal where they built a rail system over the Wupper river and the train runs below the rails, not on top. I’ve never done it but you can take a tour in a special “Kaiserwagen” where they serve you coffee and the special waffles of the region. So if you introduce that to Ohio, it would attract people even before you’re dead and buried, in whatever position you choose.
Come to think of it, she should build it in Clitoris and call it a “labyarinth.”
**Snort** Labyarinth. Good one Talpianna.
Tal, you never cease to amaze me.
New Orleans. Maybe if they staggered the entire population so we didn’t all show up at once. Fabulous city. We did a National there once and I don’t think I went to one workshop unless I was giving it. Spent the whole time wandering the French Quarter. Meg and I had our fortunes told. She said I was going to meet the man of my dreams in Tahoe. I told her I wasn’t going to Tahoe. She said I was going to miss out on the man of my dreams.
Maybe I shoulda gone to Tahoe.
But Krissie and I both bought crystal balls there. It was lovely.
I am totally with you on the Nathan Fillion thing. Act II’s up now and I busted a gut laughing.
Oh, and Joss Whedon is my new god.
I like the idea of going to New Orleans and rebuilding it. I was there, remember? And the sad part is that most of it still looks like the day Katrina ripped though it….
Act II is amazing, even better than Act 1. I’m not quite sure how it’s possible but Captain Hammer is even cheesier. His line about the hammer. Snort. I just about spit water on my computer.
Neil Patrick Harris is fantastic but Nathan Fillion does rock. Coolest Albertan in Hollywood! On his Myspace page he lists his home town by its nickname. He’s probably one of the few people in southern California who truly understands the phrase ‘but it’s a dry cold.’ Sorry, just indulging myself in a little fellow-Albertan lovefest. His home town is our capital city and about four hours away which for here isn’t far at all.
Is it just me or was Joss born to do musicals? Seriously, the man has a talent.
I love labyrinths.
I am so missing out on Dr. Horrible.
Jenny, how much are you charging for the bull-leaping classes? And how tall is the bull?
Ah, but tal, do you qualify for ancient greek bull dabcing?
Well, you’re not all that far off from the “Baffling Crazy” with the idea for casting your own garden gnomes. Someone did something similiar here.
http://www.garden-of-eden-lucas-kansas.com/
It’s a tourist spot (of sorts), too. (At least it has its own website, which makes it officially something.)
I say go for the labyrinth. If you have the real estate, put in several, each a different style or size or whatever.
Also voting for the labyrinth. I’ve walked a few, and they can be enlightening/ calming. We talked about putting one in at our church memorial garden, but I’m pretty sure it hasn’t happened yet (I moved, but last time I asked, it still wasn’t done). But it has to be very low maintenance.
I really like Mary Jo Putney’s modern romances, including The Spiral Path. I wish there were more. Not so much with the fantasy/ paranormal, and, while I love her historicals, I may prefer the moderns even to those.
Labyrinths are an awesome metaphor for the spiritual journey: it’s impossible to tell from the outside where anyone is on their path.
Won’t you need a permit to dig a labyrinth? And what will your neighbours think? That definitely must be the crazy part.
No, but she would need a permit to dig a catacomb… now there’s an idea.
No catacombs. And labyrinths are flat. Also my neighbors are not close. Or they’d have strangled Veronica by now who has moved from being frozen in place when strangers approach, to running away when strangers approach, to standing her ground and barking her brains out when strangers approach. A “stranger” is anybody who isn’t me, including all the workmen who know her and greet her by name. I can’t wait until she moves into the “I’m too cool to care” stage, where Wolfie has been parked for six years.
I’ve got the drawings done for the labyrinth. Unfortunately it’ll cost thousands. Fortunately you can do it a little at a time. I think. Cogitating now.
barking her brains out
That’s not a verb I expected you to use there. I remember people f ing their brains out and coming their brains out in your books, but barking is new and exotic. To bark one’s brains out… Must have some filthy meaning in Urban Dictionary.
You can start cheap with a labyrinth pendant from here:
http://www.qclabyrinth.org/OnlineStore.asp
I have one of the Chartres cathedral labyrinth.
Just noticed that they also offer this cool trip, not ALL that far from you:
Sinsinawa Mound Labyrinths
Description Location: Quad-City Labyrinth Project Union Arcade Building (Third Street Entrance) 111 E. Third Street Davenport, Iowa Date/Time: Saturday, September 8 8:30 a.m. - 5:30 p.m. (Arrive no later than 8:15 AM at Union Arcade Building!) Cost: $58.00 (includes transportation and lunch) Preregistration deadline: Friday, August 31, 2007 Description: Join Labyrinth Facilitator Pat McLaughlin on a visit to Sinsinawa Mound Center, a Dominican monastery and Retreat Center in southwestern Wisconsin. In the Native American Dakota language, “Sinsinawa” means “home of the young eagle.” Sinsinawa Mound is rich in the beauty of nature and rich in heritage. With the rolling hills of Wisconsin’s dairyland as our backdrop, we will walk an 11-circuit crushed limestone Chartres labyrinth. We will then make our way back to the monastery to marvel at the gorgeous sanctuary with its jewel-like stained-glass windows glimmering in the afternoon sun. An indoor canvas labyrinth is also available to walk. After lunch, we will have plenty of time to write in our journals or explore the other trails that meander through the rolling hills of the retreat. A trip to the gift shop to browse the labyrinth jewelry and books and stock up on freshly made bread is a must before we leave. As we return home to the Quad Cities, we will have the opportunity to share our discoveries on the labyrinths. To register for the workshop, please visit our Online Store at http://www.qclabyrinth.org and click on Sinsinawa Mobile Workshop. For more information, please call the QCLP office at (563) 323-1737. Limited to five participants, so please register early to reserve your spot!