The Young Rembrandt as Democritus the Laughing Philosopher
Life without festival is like a long road without an inn.
— Democritus
Ancient Greeks thought of anyone from the city of Abdera: he's a buffoon.
That bias lives on even today in the phrase Abderian laughter, which denotes the laughter of a fool—of a schmegeggy who'll laugh at anything.
The citizens of Abdera owed their reputation to a native son, Democritus, known throughout the Greek Empire as the “Laughing Philosopher.”
Democritus believed the goal of man was cheerfulness—called euthymia in the jottings he left behind—and wrote, "They are the fools who live life without enjoyment of life."
Contemporaries said this "champion of cheerfulness" made a habit of staying merry by laughing at human foibles.
Laughter might seem foreign to us right now, as we steer through "these uncharted times" (a pet phrase of the peppy voiceover at my Safeway).
But laughter has always helped folks in distress, as just one example reminds us: an inmate of the "Hanoi Hilton"—itself a wry nickname for the horrific prison camp—wrote on the wall in the POWs' shower stall, "Smile, You're on Candid Camera."
Success, wealth, independence and leisure sound good, until you count their cost in fear—fear of their loss.
It's July 1935. Two of ten men and women are jobless. Breadlines and shanty-towns are common. Businesses have cut capital spending, deeper even than the year before.
In Massachusetts, two teenage brothers borrow $547 from their parents to open an ice cream shop they name "Friendly." They offer double-dip cones of store-made ice cream for a nickel―half the price charged by drug-store soda fountains―and stay open 'til midnight.
You know the rest: 40 years later, the brothers―after adding an apostrophe S to the name―own 500 shops.
Furloughed friends of mine ask if it's time to polish the resume or "go 1099."
I answer, though it's counter-intuitive, "There's no time like the present to hang up your shingle."
It isn't easy to run a business, much less earn enough to support yourself―especially during a recession.
I know from experience.
But examples of businesses begun in recessions are bountiful: GE, GM, Marriott, Disney, HP, Trader Joe’s, FedEx, IBM, Microsoft, Instagram, Uber, Pinterest and Square, to name just a few.
Recessions are distinct not only because they cause unemployment, but spawn survivalists, "spunky" entrepreneurs who launch businesses with low start-up costs and ready customers―like the ones hankering for a late-evening ice cream in 1935 Massachusetts.
But whatever you do, don't ask me for sound business advice.
I'm like the retailer who buys $3 shirts and sells them for $2.
"How do you get away with that?" my competitor asks.
George is looking down and saying this is a great thing that’s happening for our country. This is a great day for him. It’s a great day for everybody.
― Donald Trump
As he signed a bill that interferes with the free market, free-market maven Donald Trump this week alluded to economists' notion that "a rising tide lifts all boats" and implied the bill would repair race relations in our country.
Apologists for the president don't grasp the fact that, while a rising tide lifts some boats, many Americans are marooned―black ones disproportionately.
More accurately, Trump's apologists don't care that many Americans are marooned.
Those of us appalled by Trump―a majority of Americans―recognize on some level that he's refusing to acknowledge a social evil and is therefore guilty of passive injustice.
Trump's failure to protest an evident injustice is itself an injustice―an injustice his apologists are content with.
The doctrine goes: when you can see that acting or refusing to act will bring about a similar result, there's an ethical, if not practical, difference between acting and refusing to do so.
In short, omissions can be as wanton as commissions. In a pinch, there's no such thing as a "bystander:" refusing to act is negligence.
Champions of the doctrine point to moral quandaries like the famous "Trolley Problem:"
Suppose a runaway train is about to arrive at a branch in the tracks. Ahead on both branches are track workers; one worker on one branch, five on the other. All are oblivious to the oncoming train. If it continues on its course, the train will kill the five workers. Should you switch the train onto the branch with one worker? As a bystander, you can intervene, though it makes you a killer; or take no action and let the train do the killing. Which choice is right?
Philosopher Peter Singer would answer: you can't just stand by and watch; you should kill the single track worker. As he says in Practical Ethics, the Trolley Problem shows that, in the face of life-and-death consequences, "the conventionally accepted principle of the sanctity of human life is untenable."
Americans are angry at Trump and his apologists because, while they lean on the brain-dead myth of the free market, they're blithefully ignorant of the consequences of racism in America.
But we're not ignorant and we're no longer bystanders. We know what's right―and where to send the runaway train. No one wants to run the president over; just vote him out.
Once while visiting tony Middleburg, Virginia, I saw a gentleman who'd received a parking ticket stroll into a gourmet bakery, buy an expensive Boston Cream, return with it to his car, remove it from the box, and pie the meter. Sic semper tyrannis. Who was the first man to settle an injustice with a pie? Culinary and entertainment historians agree it was British music-hall comedian Fred Karno, mentor to, among other pie-pitchers, Charlie Chaplin and Stan Laurel.
It was a short step from the British music halls to Vaudeville, and then to motion pictures. But controversy surrounds which picture first portrayed pies as projectiles. Some historians claim it was Ben Turpin's "Mr. Flip" (1909); others insist it was Chaplin's "Behind the Screen" (1916).
Regardless, pelting adversaries with pies quickly became a Hollywood trope. Fatty Arbuckle used so many as missiles, his studio had to build a bakery on premises. Laurel & Hardy threw over 3,000 pies in "The Battle of the Century," and Buster Keaton perfected proprietary recipes to ensure his ordnance would land with maximum effect.
Pie-fights also punctuated films featuring The Marx Brothers, The Three Stooges, The Little Rascals, Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck. Blake Edwards' "The Great Race" depicted the largest pie-fight in cinematic history, taking five days to shoot; and Mel Brooks tossed one into "Blazing Saddles." Stanley Kubrick even shot a pie-fight for the ending of "Dr. Strangelove," but cut it from the film.
Off stage, pieing is a punishable offence in US criminal law, actionable as a tort (not a torte). But that hasn't stopped leftist political activists from pieing deplorables. Among conservatives who've received a pie-holeful of pie filling are Anita Bryant, Phyllis Schlafly, Chuck Colson, G. Gordon Liddy, Rupert Murdoch, David Horowitz and Ann Coulter.
In fact, radical organizations like the Biotic Baking Brigade and the terrorist group Al Pieda have made the pie their weapon of choice. And why not?
We're like licorice. Not everybody likes licorice, but the people who like licorice really like licorice.
― Jerry Garcia
My father liked licorice. He really liked licorice, and kept the trunk of his car filled with big cardboard boxes of the stuff. I guess he needed assurance, were the Soviet Union to attack or a pestilence fall upon us, he'd never go without. Thanks to social media, we've all become too cavalier about "liking" things. Liking today is an indoor sport demanding no effort of any kind.
But true liking―liking to the limit―takes a village (no pun intended) of "like-minded" people. Jerry Garcia understood that: when it came to liking psychedelic bluegrass, Deadheads were indeed a breed apart. And so are other die-hard fans―of actors, movies, musicians and more―as proven by the honorable names they've earned over the years. Fans of musicians
Apple Scruffs, those hardest of hard-core Beatlemaniacs
Beliebers, the fans of Justin Bieber
Bobby Soxers, fans of Frank Sinatra
Diamond Heads, fans of Neil Diamond
Dylanologists, fans of Bob Dylan
Elvisians, fans of the King
Fanilows, fans of Barry Manilow
Kellebrities, fans of Kelly Clarkson
Metallicats, fans of Metallica
Parrotheads, fans of Jimmy Buffett
Phans, fans of Phish (also known as Phishheads)
Sheerios, fans of Ed Sheeran
Swifties, fans of Taylor Swift
Vanatics, fans of Van Morrison
Wayniacs, fans of Wayne Newton
Wholigans, fans of The Who
Zepheads, fans of Led Zeppelin
Fans of actors
Cumberbitches, the fans of Benedict Cumberbatch
Deaners, the fans of James Dean
Fanistons, the fans of Jennifer Aniston
Pine Nuts, the fans of Chris Pine
Streepers, the fans of Meryl Streep
Fans of fictional characters
Batmaniacs, the fans of Batman
Fannibals, fans of Hannibal Lecter
Potterheads, fans of Harry Potter
Sherlockians, fans of the famed detective
Xenites, fans of Xena, Warrior Princess
Fans of movies, TV shows & Broadway hits
Alexander Familtons, the fans of the musical Hamilton
Colbert Nation, fans of The Late Show
Dunderheads, fans of The Office
Finaddicts, fans of Jaws
Phans, fans of The Phantom of the Opera
Ringnuts, fans of Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen
Thronies, fans of Game of Thrones
Twihards, fans of Twilight
Warsies, fans of Star Wars (please, not to be confused with Trekkies)
Whovians, fans of Doctor Who
Windies, fans of Gone with the Wind
X-Philes, fans of The X-Files
Fans of fanatics
Dittoheads, the fans of Rush Limbaugh (also know as Walking Dead)
Trumpsters, the fans of 45―gentlefolk who just haven't quite yet found a fan club to replace the Bund
