It is with a sense of sadness and triumph that I write these words. Last night I finished the last of author Tom Robbins’ books. It was a good one to end on. “Still Life with Woodpecker” expounded on the nature of love, outlaws, pyramids, and redheads. Being crowned with crimson myself, I tried to identify with the fanciful prose and witty remarks about my carrot-topped comrades.
I even went on to investigate my own redness. When I asked my mother (who recently did our family lineage) if the red hair was Irish or Scottish or what, she informed me that the rouge locks on my noggin were “from the Saxon Reds.” Ah yes. Visions of sea-faring Vikings wielding battle axes and the pagan god Thor wielding lightning and hammers flashed in my head. Anyway… back to the book.
Now that I’ve read all of Tom’s stuff, I guess I’ll have to find a new author to obsess over and kiss the ass of. Anybody have a good suggestion? I’ll leave you with some amusing and inspiring quotes.
“Humanity has advanced, when it has advanced, not because it has been sober, responsible, and cautious, but because it has been playful, rebellious, and immature.”
“The analytically minded might conclude that persons with red hair tend to be either dangerous or funny.”
“In the world according to the positivist, the inspiring thing about scrambled eggs is that any way you turn them they’re sunny side up. In the world according to the existentialist, the hopeless thing about scrambled eggs is that any way you turn the they’re scrambled.”
“What limits people is that they don’t have the fucking nerve or imagination to star in their own movie, let alone direct it.”
This book is another attraction in Tom Robbins’ impressive line of books. Tom is far and away my favorite fiction author; and although this isn’t my favorite book of his, its worth a read. It started off slow, but once the plot got going I couldn’t put it down. “Just one more chapter, then I’ll go to bed.” Yeah right!
Here’s the synopsis: A loin-cloth-wearing magician, a sexy, enlightened debutante-turned-gypsy, a hemorrhoidal scientist/author, a rogue athlete/drug dealer, and a roadside hotdog-serving zoo are the characters and participants in a caper that might have changed the world, but ended up vanishing in a puff of light. How’s that for a summary?! This book made me want to be a hippy and eat mushrooms. In fact, I made mushrooms for dinner last night! Let me leave you with some notable quotes that found nestled in the pages:
“The principal difference between adventurer and a suicide is that the adventurer leaves himself a margin of escape. (The narrower the margin, the greater the adventure”
“Romanticism and science are good for each other. The scientist keeps the romantic honest and the romantic keeps the scientist human.”
“The world is perpetually changing. It doesn’t do much else but change… Why do you want to stick your nose into it?”
Another fantastic Tom Robbins book closed today in the playful sunshine of a sunset in Piedmont Park. Its been said on numerous occasions by me that this author can do no wrong. He has proven hilarious, engaging, and inspiring once more in “Even Cowgirls Get the Blues.“
Let me share briefly two of the many quotable sections discovered between the covers…
“If little else, the brain is an educational toy… The problem with possessing such an engaging toy is that other people want to play with it, too. Sometimes they’d rather play with yours than theirs. Or they object if you play with yours in a different manner.”
“Poetry is nothing more than an intensification or illumination of common objects and everyday events until they shine with their singular nature… How is this done? By fucking around with the syntax.”
I of course highly recommend this guy to everyone. It is fun and witty and will make you appreciate women and the world’s desperate need for their feminine touch.
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