 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Home |
Credits |
Cast |
1 |
2 |
3 |
Reviews |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Home |
Credits |
Cast |
1 |
2 |
3 |
Reviews |
|
|
|
. . . HOUSE see: "HOME & FAMILY" for related links Books are not made for furniture, but there is nothing else that so beautifully furnishes a house. --Henry Ward Beecher (18131887) American Congregational minister; brother of Harriet Beecher Stowe, son of Lyman Beecher. _Eyes and Ears_ [1862] "The Duty of Owning Books" - "The Gas Man Cometh" by Flanders & Swann 'Twas on a Monday morning The gas man came to call; The gas tap wouldn't turn I wasn't getting gas at all. He tore out all the skirting boards To try and find the main, And I had to call a carpenter to put them back again. Oh, it all makes work for the working man to do! 'Twas on a Tuesday morning The carpenter came round; He hammered and he chiselled and he said: 'Look what I've found! Your joists are full of dry-rot But I'll put them all to rights'. Then he nailed right through a cable and out went all the lights. Oh, it all makes work for the working man to do! 'Twas on a Wednesday morning The electrician came; He called me 'Mr. Sanderson', (which isn't quite my name). He couldn't reach the fuse box Without standing on the bin And his foot went through a window so I called a glazier in. Oh, it all makes work for the working man to do! 'Twas on a Thursday morning The glazier came along; With his blow-torch and his putty and his merry Glazier's song; He put another pane in It took no time at all But I had to get a Painter in to come and paint the wall. Oh, it all makes work for the working man to do! 'Twas on a Friday morning The Painter made a start; With undercoats and overcoats he painted every part, Every nook and every cranny. But I found when he was gone He'd painted over the gas tap and I couldn't turn it on! Oh, it all makes work for the working man to do! On Saturday and Sunday they do no work at all: So 'twas on a Monday morning that the Gas Man came to call! - I want a house that has got over all its troubles; I don't want to spend the rest of my life bringing up a young and inexperienced house. --Jerome K Jerome (18591927) English novelist and playwright. _They and I_, ch. 2 [1909] ----- ramshackle (adj.) Poorly maintained or constructed and seeming likely to fall apart or collapse.  ;void(0)) HOUSEWIFE . . see: "HOME & FAMILY" for related links The labor of women in the house, certainly, enables men to produce more wealth than they otherwise could; and in this way women are economic factors in society. But so are horses. --Charlotte Perkins Gilman (18601935) Leading theorist of the women's movement in the United States. _Women and Economics_ [1898] HELMER: First and foremost, you are a wife and mother. NORA: That I don't believe any more. I believe that first and foremost I am an individual, just as much as you are. --Henrik Ibsen (18281906) Norwegian playwright. _A Doll's House_, act III [1879] - Be respectful and obedient to your parents-in-law. A woman has no [feudal] lord. She should reverence and obey her husband instead. Be always circumspect in your behavior. Get up early. Go to bed at midnight. Do not indulge in a siesta. Attend diligently to the work of the house. --Kaibara Ekken (16301714) Japanese philosopher, travel writer, and botanist. _Dojikun_ (Instructions for Children) (Advice to parents to give their daughters on marriage.) - The American housewife of an earlier day was famous for her unremitting diligence. She not only cooked, washed and ironed; she also made shift to master such more complex arts as spinning, baking and brewing. Her expertness, perhaps, never reached a high level, but at all events she made a gallant effort. But that was long, long ago, before the new enlightenment rescued her. Today, in her average incarnation, she is not only incompetent; she is also filled with the notion that a conscientious discharge of her few remaining duties is, in some vague way, discreditable and degrading. --H.L. (Henry Louis) Mencken (18801956) American journalist and literary critic. _In Defense of Women_, rev ed. [1922] Nothing lovelier can be found In woman, than to study household good, And good works in her husband to promote. --John Milton (16081674) English poet. _Paradise Lost_, bk. IX, l. 232 [1667] - A 2-panel cartoon from an early-70s MAD magazine: 1920s family at the supper table, with husband, wife, five kids, and a feast. Husband: How come there's no dessert? Wife: I didn't have time to bake anything. 1970s family at the supper table, with husband, wife, two kids, and Hamburger Helper. Husband: How come there's no dessert? Wife: I didn't have time to defrost anything. - . . see: "HOME & FAMILY" for related links My husband and I have figured out a really good system about the housework: neither one of us does it. --Dottie Archibald Quoted in Gloria Kaufman & Mary Kay Blakely _Pulling Our Own Strings: Feminist Humor and Satire_ [1980]. My wife announced the week before her 50th birthday that she intended to have a butterfly tattooed on her ankle. "I want to do something totally out of character," she explained. "Why don't you clean the house?" I asked. --Kevin G. Barkes (alt.quotations, Usenet newsgroup) _Untitled Memoirs_ My second favorite household chore is ironing. My first - hitting my head on the top bunk bed until I faint. --Erma Bombeck (19271996) American humorist. _I Lost Everything in the Post-Natal Depression_ [1973] Men build bridges and throw railroads across deserts, and yet they contend successfully that the job of sewing on a button is beyond them. Accordingly, they don't have to sew buttons. --Heywood Broun (18881939) American journalist; father of Heywood Hale Broun. "Holding a Baby" in _Seeing Things at Night_ [1921] After the first four years [not doing housework], the dirt doesn't get any worse. --Quentin Crisp [Denis Pratt] (19081999) English writer. _The Naked Civil Servant_ [1968] Few tasks are more like the torture of Sisyphus than housework, with its endless repetition ... The housewife wears herself out marking time: she makes nothing, simply perpetuates the present. --Simone de Beauvoir (19081986) French novelist and feminist. _The Second Sex_, vol, 2, pt. 2, ch. I [1949] Cleaning your house while the kids are still growing, is like shoveling the walk before it stops snowing. --Phyllis Diller (1917 ) American comedian. _Phyllis Diller's Housekeeping Hints_ [1966] I am a marvelous housekeeper. Every time I leave a man, I keep his house. --Zsa Zsa Gabor [Sari Gabor] (b. 1919) Hungarian-born film actress. Quoted in Bob Chieger _Was it Good for You Too?: Quotations on Love and Sex_ [1983]. The man who never in his life Has washed the dishes with his wife Or polished up the silver plate He still is largely celibate. --Christopher Morley (18901957) American journalist, novelist, and poet. "Washing the Dishes" How often does a house need to be cleaned, anyway? As a general rule, once every girlfriend. --P.J. O'Rourke (b. 1947) American political satirist. _The Bachelor Home Companion_ [1987] I hate housework! You make the beds, you do the dishes and six months later you have to start all over again. --Joan Rivers (b. 1933) American comedian and talk-show host. Quoted in Michθle Brown and Ann O'Connor _Woman Talk_ [1984]. Biologically and tempermentally, I believe women were made to be concerned first and foremost with child care, husband care and home care. --Benjamin Spock (19031998) American pediatrician. In Barbara Sinclair Deckard _The Women's Movement: Political, Socioeconomic, and Psychological Issues_ [1979]. - Cleanliness is next to godliness. Godliness is perfection. Perfection is impossible. Therefore, Cleanliness is next to impossible. --anon. Thank God for dirty dishes, They have a tale to tell, While others may go hungry, We're eating very well, With home and hearth and happiness, I shouldn't want to fuss, For by the stack of evidence, God's been good to us. --anon. - It is important for men to remember that, as women grow older, it becomes harder for them to maintain the same quality of housekeeping as when they were younger. When you notice this, try not to yell at them. Some are oversensitive, and there's nothing worse than an oversensitive woman. My name is Jeff. Let me relate how I handled the situation with my wife, Susie. Since I retired several years ago, it has become necessary for Susie to get a full-time job along with her part-time job, both for extra income and for the health benefits that we needed. Shortly after she started working, I noticed she was beginning to show her age. I usually get home from the golf club about the same time she gets home from work. Although she knows how hungry I am, she almost always says she has to rest for half an hour or so before she starts dinner. I don't yell at her. Instead, I tell her to take her time and just wake me when she gets dinner on the table. I generally have lunch in the Men's Grill at the club so eating out is not reasonable. I'm ready for some home-cooked grub when I hit that door. She used to do the dishes as soon as we finished eating. But now it's not unusual for them to sit on the table for several hours after dinner. I do what I can by diplomatically reminding her several times each evening that they won't clean themselves. I know she really appreciates this, as it does seem to motivate her to get them done before she goes to bed. Another symptom of aging is complaining, I think. For example she will say that it is difficult for her to find time to pay the monthly bills during her lunch hour. But, boys, we take 'em for better or worse, so I just smile and offer encouragement. I tell her to stretch it out over two or even three days. That way she won't have to rush so much. I also remind her that missing lunch completely now and then wouldn't hurt her any (if you know what I mean). I like to think tact is one of my strong points. When doing simple jobs, she seems to think she needs more rest periods. She had to take a break when she was only half finished mowing the yard. I try not to make a scene. I'm a fair man. I tell her to fix herself a nice, big, cold glass of freshly squeezed lemonade and just sit for a while. And, as long as she is making one for herself, she may as well make one for me too. I know that I probably look like a saint in the way I support Susie. I'm not saying that showing this much consideration is easy. Many men will find it difficult. Some will find it impossible! Nobody knows better than I do how frustrating women get as they get older. However, guys, even if you just use a little more tact and less criticism of your aging wife because of this article, I will consider that writing it was well worthwhile. After all, we are put on this earth to help each other. Sincerely, Jeff - ----- pristine (adj.) 1. immaculate: so clean and neat as to look as good as new. 2. unspoiled: not yet ruined by human encroachment. . . see: "PLACES" for related links HOUSTON - When the air is thick with mosquitoes and moisture, it's hard to get people to think kindly of this town. Civic boosters have tried for years, portraying Houston as a pro-business paradise while sidestepping the reality of living in a city built on a swamp. But a local marketing firm recently took the blinders off and started an independent, online campaign to promote the real Houston, warts and all. "The flying cockroaches. The mosquitoes. The traffic," reads the ad, which lists 17 more drawbacks before concluding that, in spite of it all, "Houston. It's Worth It." The website then asks residents to post why the city, unlovely and uncomfortable as it can be, appeals to them all the same. The point, said the ad's co-creator, David Thompson, is to acknowledge the worst and move on. "It sort of pulls the rug out from the easy place to go how can you stand the heat and automatically takes you to a more meaningful conversation," he said. Houstonians have responded so enthusiastically to the site http://www.houstonitsworthit.com that a technician reprogrammed the page to give people more room to write. "I feel normal here. Maybe it is because I am imperfect like this city," wrote one person. "The cleanest jail cells of any major metropolitan area," wrote another. And then there was this analogy: "If Houston were a dog, she'd be a mutt with 3 legs, one bad eye, fleas the size of Corn Nuts and buck teeth. Despite all that, she'd be the best dog you'd ever know." --Lianne Hart _Los Angeles Times_ [11 September 2004], "The Mosquitoes, the Humidity . . ." . . see: "EGOTISM" see: "SNOBS" One of my chief regrets during my years in the theater is that I couldn't sit in the audience and watch me. --John Barrymore [John Sidney Blythe] (18821942) Shakespearean actor. Attributed in Clifton Fadiman _The American Treasury 1455-1955_ [1955]. - To give an accurate and exhaustive account of that period [the year 1880] would need a far less brilliant pen than mine. --Sir Max Beerbohm (18721956) English satirist and caricaturist. Letter to the editor of "The Yellow Book" [January 1895]. Too intense contemplation of his own genius had begun to undermine his health. --Sir Max Beerbohm (18721956) English satirist and caricaturist. _Seven Men, and Two Others_ [1950] - I am known in parts of the world by people who have never heard of Jesus Christ. --Charlie Chaplin (18891977) English film actor and director. Qioted in Lita Grey Chaplin _My Life with Chaplin_ [1966]. ^^ Once when Noλl Coward was crossing from Britain to the United States by ocean liner, the company in the cocktail lounge included a rather pompous English gentleman who was complaining bitterly of a recent occasion on which he had not been treated with the respect he clearly felt he deserved. "They didn't seem to know who I was!' he protested. 'And who *were* you?' enquired Coward politely. _The Folio Book of Humorous Anecdotes_ Introduced by Edward Leeson [2005], "Actors and the Theatre" ^^ He that falls in love with Himself, will have no Rivals. --Benjamin Franklin (17061790) American politician, inventor, and scientist. _Poor Richard's Almanack_ [May 1738] I now know all the people worth knowing in America, and I find no intellect comparable to my own. --[Sarah] Margaret Fuller (18101850) American critic, teacher, and woman of letters. Quoted in "The Eclectic Magazine" [June 1852]. ^ Heathcote William Garrod (18781960) British classical scholar. During World War I, Garrod, already a distinguished scholar, worked at the Ministry of Munitions in London. The practice of handing white feathers to able-bodied men who were not in uniform was in full swing. Garrod was handed one by a women in a London street with a withering comment, "I am surprised that you are not fighting to defend civilization." Garrod replied, "Madam, I am the civilization they are fighting to defend." --_Bartlett's Book of Anecdotes_ edited by Clifton Fadiman and Andrι Bernard [2000 ed.] ^ When I read something saying I've not done anything as good as Catch-22 I'm tempted to reply, 'Who has?' --Joseph Heller (19231999) American novelist. In "The Times" [9 June 1993], as quoted in Elizabeth Knowles (ed.) _The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations_ [1999 ed.]. We don't pay taxes. Only the little people pay taxes. --Leona Helmsley (19202007) American hotel executive. Comment to her housekeeper, quoted in _N.Y. Times_ [12 July 1989]. When I go, I'll take New Year's Eve with me. --Guy Lombardo (19021977) Canadian-born bandleader. Quoted by Hubert Saal in "Newsweek" [1977]. We are the people we have been waiting for. --Obama campaign [2008] Each generation imagines itself to be more intelligent than the one that went before it, and wiser than the one that comes after it. --George Orwell [Eric Blair] (19031950) English novelist. In a review of Herbert Read's _A Coat of Many Colours: Occasional Essays_ [1946], quoted in _George Orwell: In Front of Your Nose, 1946-1950: The Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters of George Orwell_ ed. Sonia Orwell and Ian Angus [4 vols., 1968]. You are an idiot. ... You are in the presence of one of the great woman scholars of your time, and you behave like an ass, and you're gonna know about it when you're fifty years old. Eat my socks! --Camille Paglia (b. 1947) American writer and social critic. During a 1992 visit to Princeton University. Don't let your head get too big, it'll break your neck. --attributed to Elvis Presley (19351977) American singer. I give myself four thousand years. --Cecil Rhodes (18531902) South African statesman. When asked by Dr. Leander Starr Jameson how long he expected to be remembered. Quoted by Matthew Sweet in "The Independent" [16 March 2002]. Please bring my flute. --Percy Bysshe Shelley (17921822) English poet. Letter to his wife, informing her he had eloped with Mary Goodwin and asking her to join them. The Jews have produced only three originative geniuses. Christ, Spinoza, and myself. --Gertrude Stein (18741946) American writer. 1925 remark attributed in "Exile" [Fall 1928]. - [Of Shakespeare:] A great man! Why, I doubt if there are six his equal in the whole of Boston. --said to William Gladstone by an unnamed Bostonian. ----- hubris [HYOO-bruhs], noun: Overbearing pride or presumption. supercilious [su-pκr-'si-li-yκs], adj.: Overly haughty and condescending, disdainful, toplofty. . . see: "FRIENDS / FRIENDSHIP" for related links When someone hugs you, let them be the first to let go. --H. Jackson Brown, Jr. (b. 1940) American author. _Life's Little Instruction Book_ [1991], Maxim #226 . . see: "THE HUMAN RACE" for related links Such fire was not by water to be drown'd, Nor he his nature changed by changing ground. --Ludovico Ariosto (14741533) Italian poet. _Orlando furioso_ [1516] A man's nature, runs either to herbs or weeds; therefore let him seasonably water the one, and destroy the other. --Francis Bacon (15611626) English philosopher and essayist. _Essays_ [1625] "Of Nature in Men" There's a man all over for you, blaming on his boots the faults of his feet. --Samuel Beckett (19061989) Irish dramatist, novelist, and poet. _Waiting for Godot_ [1955] Where is human nature so weak as in the bookstore! --Henry Ward Beecher (18131887) American Congregational minister; brother of Harriet Beecher Stowe, son of Lyman Beecher. "Subtleties of Book Buyers" in _Star Papers_ [1855]. Human nature hasn't changed for a billion years. It won't even vary in the next billion years. Only the superficial things have changed. It is fashionable to talk about changing man. A communicator must be concerned with unchanging man what compulsions drive him, what instincts dominate his every action, even though his language too often camouffages what really motivates him. For if you know these things about a man you can touch him at the core of his being. --William Bernbach (19111982) American advertising executive and copywriter. Quoted in David Ogilvy _Ogilvy on Advertising_ [1985]. One of the most tragic things I know about human nature is that all of us tend to put off living. We are all dreaming of some magical rose garden over the horizon instead of enjoying the roses that are blooming outside our windows today. --Dale Carnegie (18881955) American writer and lecturer. _How to Stop Worrying and Start Living_ [1948] The heart never grows better by age; I fear rather worse; always harder. A young liar will be an old one; and a young knave will only be a greater knave as he grows older. --Lord Chesterfield [Philip Dormer Stanhope] (16941773) British writer and politician. Letter to his son [17 May 1750]. By nature men are alike. Through practice they have become far apart. --Confucius (551479 B.C.) K'ung Ch'iu, Chinese philosopher. _The Confucian Analects_ - Subdue your appetites my dears, and you've conquered human nature. --Charles Dickens (18121870) English novelist. _Nicholas Nickleby_, ch. 5 [1839] Though no man hates himself, the coldest among us having too much self-love for that, yet most men unconsciously judge the world from themselves, and it will be very generally found that those who sneer habitually at human nature, and affect to despise it, are among its worst and least pleasant samples. --Charles Dickens (18121870) English novelist. _Nicholas Nickleby_, ch. 44 [1839] - Never appeal to a man's 'better nature.' He may not have one. Invoking his self-interest gives you more leverage. --Robert Heinlein (19071988) American science-fiction writer. _Time Enough for Love_ [1973] The deepest principle in Human Nature is the craving to be appreciated. --William James (18421910) American philosopher. 1896 letter to students who had sent him a plant for Easter. He who has so little knowledge of human nature, as to seek happiness by changing any thing but his own dispositions, will waste his life in fruitless efforts, and multiply the griefs which he purposes to remove. --Samuel Johnson (17091784) English poet, critic, and lexicographer. "The Rambler" (English journal), Number 6 [7 April 1750] I have no high opinion of human beings: they are always going to fight and do nasty things to each other. They are always going to be part animal, governed by their emotions and subconscious drives rather than by reason. --George Frost Kennan (19042005) Ambassador to the USSR in 1952, and to Yugoslavia from 1961 to 1963 and chief architect of the U.S. Cold War policy of containment and deterrence against communism. In an interview with George Urban published in "Encounter" magazine, September, 1976. Human nature must be accepted as it is. --Gustave Le Bon (18411931) French social psychologist best known for his study of the psychological characteristics of crowds. _The Psychology of Revolution_ [1902] Console yourself, dear man and brother, whatever you may be sure of, be sure at least of this, that you are dreadfully like other people. Human nature has a much greater genius for sameness than for originality, or the world would be at a sad pass shortly. --James Russell Lowell (18191891) American poet, critic, essayist, and diplomat. "On a Certain Condescension in Foreigners" in the essay collection _My Study Windows_ [1871]. Painted on the side of our Sunday school wall were the words, God is Love. We always assumed that these three words were spoken directly to the four of us in our family and had no reference to the world outside, which my brother and I soon discovered was full of bastards, the number increasing rapidly the farther one gets from Missoula, Montana. --Norman Maclean (19021990) American novelist and academic. _A River Runs Through It_ [1976] After the primary necessities of food and raiment, freedom is the first and strongest want of human nature. --John Stuart Mill (18061873) English philosopher and social reformer. _The Subjection of Women_, ch. 4 [1869] Believe, if thou wilt, that mountains change their places, but believe not that men change their dispositions. --Muhammad (A.D. 570?632) Prophet to whom the religion of Islam was revealed. Attributed in "The Spectator" [10 September 1859]. It is but shaping the bribe to the taste, and every one has his price. --Samuel Richardson (16891761) English novelist. _A Collection Of the Moral and Instructive Sentiments_, p. 138 [1755] What passes as "human nature" is at most one-tenth nature, the other nine-tenths being nurture. --Bertrand Russell (18721970) British philosopher, mathematician, and Nobel laureate. _Sceptical Essays_, 17.4 [1928] It is part of human nature to hate the man you have hurt. --Tacitus [or Publius Cornelius Tacitus or Gaius Cornelius Tacitus] (c.55c.117), Roman orator, lawyer, senator, and historian. "Agricola" Human nature is so constituted, that all see and judge better in the affairs of other men than in their own. --Terence [Publius Terentius Afer] (c. 190159 BC) Roman comic dramatist. Quoted in Hugh Moore _A Dictionary of Quotations from Various Authors in Ancient and Modern Languages_ [1831]. If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you. That is the principal difference between a dog and a man. --Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (18351910) American humorist, novelist, journalist, and river pilot. _Pudd'nhead Wilson_ [1894], ch. 16 "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar" - Nearly four decades ago psychologist Stanley Milgram had a volunteer stand stock still on a busy New York sidewalk and look up at the sky. About one in every 25 passersby stopped to look up, too. When five volunteers were recruited to sky-gaze, nearly one in five passersby stopped to look up. When Milgram and his colleagues assembled a group of 18 volunteers to simultaneously look up at nothing in particular, nearly one in two passersby looked up to see what was going on, snarling traffic within moments. --_Washington Post_ [December 2007] - end page | HABIT - HANGOVER | HAPPINESS | HAPPY BIRTHDAY - HATE | HATS - HEAT | HEALTH | HEAVEN - HELPING | HEROES - HIROSHIMA | HISTORIANS & HISTORY | HITCHCOCK - HOLLYWOOD | HOLOCAUST - HOMOSEXUALS | HOME - HOME & FAMILY | HONESTY & HONOR | HOOVER - HOTELS | HOUSE - HUMAN NATURE | HUMAN RACE - HUMANITY | HUMILIATION - HURT | HUMOR | HURTING (SOMEONE) | HUSBANDS - HYPOCRISY | | H | I - J | K - L | M | N - O | P - Q | | Return Home | The Credits | The Cast | Act 1 | Act 2 | Act 3 | The Reviews | |
||