Manifesti a Poppin'--or--The Blot Manifesto

As the season of Manifesti seems to be upon us, I thought I would throw my cap into the ring.

Fools, like Polonius' "neither a borrower nor a lender be; to thine own self be true, etc" often have wise things to say.

They are still fools.

The only truly useful thing I learned in High School was how to type.

The only useful thing I learned in Graduate School was how to keep my mouth shut.

I forgot this soon afterwards.

Life begins at Conception.

Outlawing all abortion is a practical and moral impossibilty.

If post-menopausal women and sterile men can get married, then gays and lesbians should be able to as well. Read the the 14th amendment to the Constitution.

America is the greatest country on earth. However, we don't get everything right, and can still learn from others.

God exists, but everything else is open to debate.

The second Amendment secures all the others.

I hate guns.

To willingly obey an unjust law is to actively participate in injustice.

By voting, you agree to abide by the results, whatever they may be.

Mozart, J.S. Bach, and Beethoven are all overrated.

Purcell, Vaughn Williams, Haydn, and Byrd are conversely underrated.

Creating art requires more than an expression of "feelings"...you have to know what the hell you're doing and why.

Picasso, Dali, Van Gogh, Renoir, Monet, Da Vinci(as a painter), and Leichtenstein are all waaaaay overrated.

Manet, Caravaggio, Titian, Pollack, Homer, Braque, and Feininger are all underrated...but not waaaay so, except maybe Feininger.

Acting as an art is achieved by very few...as a craft however, it is eminently learnable by a person with a normal intelligence and healthy emotional range.

Pity Keanu Reeves.

Comedy is harder than drama.

The theater world is full of betrayal and lies...a large portion of which cannot be attributed to anything but good intentions unfulfilled.

Saying you're going to do something is not the same as doing it.

Knowing is not half the battle...it is only about 15 percent.

Nowadays, to be a successful graphic artist one need merely know how to talk convincingly about it.

The use of an excessively learned vocabulary makes one physically irresistible to young people of both sexes.

A self-deluding narcissism is the destroyer of dreams.

It is not necessary to read impressive books to gain the admiration of others. Merely buy them and carry them around, advancing an obviously large bookmark 50-100 pages a day. Slower makes you look plodding, and faster...shallow.

Doing something very well is no guarantee of success. People have to actually want you to do it.

Staying very slender past youth is only possible for those blessed with a high metabolism, or for the self-absorbed. (I'm 36, 5'11", and 155 lbs, and have a slow metabolism...you do the math).

Self-absorbtion is vital to the success of an artist.

Self-justification is the first refuge of a scoundrel.

Charles Dickens is much better than Americans credit him.

Mark Twain isn't.

Jane Austen is better than either one.

Reality TV's everyman gladiatorial combats merely serve to highlight the similarities between the decay of modern Western Civilization and that of the Romans. That, and the dearth of writing talent in Hollywood.

The Simpsons is still the cleverest half-hour on TV. Sadly.

Andrew Lloyd Webber is crap.

Dolly Parton is a national treasure.

The wrong Bush won in 1994.

Pat Buchanan is often right. He's still an insufferable jerk and anti-semite.

Dick Morris is almost never right.

Barack Obama, Mitt Romney, and John Edwards are all lightweights.

G W Bush is smarter than it is now fashionable to admit; that is still way dumber than his brother, however.

Hillary is not nearly as smart as Bill, but thinks she's a lot smarter.

Fake southern accents should be punishable by 30 days in the county jail...where real southern accents will probably be heard.

Thames or Estuary Sludge, or Cockney English are not classy or sophisticated, and it is infuriating when non-British, especially American, teenagers find them so.

Cruelty should not be mistaken for Wit.

Tourists learn very little about the countries they visit, other than what they look like.

Port wine is a necessary indulgence.

One should never, ever sleep with a colleague...unless they're really hot.

Sow your wild oats in your teens and early twenties. It looks ridiculous when you're over 35.

Meat and Fat are good for you; butter, butter, butter!

Vegetarianism leads to illogical thought.

Atheism is as much a belief as any other...and just as impossible to prove.

The ability to read music should be considered a basic and fundamental part of a child's education.

Outcomes-Based Education is Indoctrination.

History is being constantly, and often dishonestly, rewritten.

A personal manifesto should always include a swipe its immediate predecessor.

There is nothing further to be learned from Kylie Minogue.

Brittany Spears is not a particulary attractive bald person.

Good Science Fiction should be taken more seriously than it is.

Being considered an intellectual doesn't make you one.

Considering yourself an intellectual almost always precludes the possibility of being one.

I have a sneaking suspicion I'm not nearly as smart as I think I am.

Self-deprecation is a great way to wrong-foot personal foes. But, be careful not to give them too much ammo.

The English don't speak English nearly as well as the English think they speak English.

I prefer to have second-rate originals on my walls to first-rate prints.

The aggregate intelligence of the world has stayed the same for the past 250 years, but is being shared by more and more people.

Audiences, taken en masse, are more often right than are critics.

A fancy hotel room is a poor substitute for your own home, however modest.

Manifesti are an enormous, self-indulgent waste of time.

Exceptions to this rule include your own, those of your friends, and those with which you wholeheartedly concur(this last category is chimerical).

LP's have a warmer and sweeter sound than CD's.

The answers to most of life's problems would be obvious (and more exciting) if we were all rich, dumb, living in a Wodehousian England, and posessed of a gentleman's gentleman named Jeeves.

Yours in perpetuity(or until I find something better to do),

Escutcheon Blot