“Where is the edge? Where does the frame start?”
88. Let your behavior be fine and noble #TAOWW
Let your behavior be fine and noble. A great person ought not to be little in his actions. He ought never to pry too minutely into things, least of all in unpleasant matters. For though it is important to know all, it is not necessary to know all about all. One ought to act in such cases with the generosity of a gentleman, with conduct worthy of a gallant person. To pretend to overlook things is a large part of the work of ruling. Most things must be left unnoticed among relatives and friends, and even among enemies. All superfluity is annoying, especially in things that annoy. to keep hovering around the object of your annoyance is a kind of mania. Generally speaking, everybody behaves according to his heart and understanding.
THE ART OF WORLDLY WISDOM BY BALTHASAR GRACIAN
TRANSLATED BY JOSEPH JACOBS 1892
Today's Oblique Strategy
“Destroy -nothing -the most important thing”
87. Culture and elegance #TAOWW
Culture and elegance. We are born barbarians and only raise ourselves above the beast by culture. Culture therefore makes the person; the greater a person the more culture. Thanks to this, Greece could call the rest of the world barbarians. Ignorance is very raw—nothing contributes so much to culture as knowledge. But even knowledge is coarse if without elegance. Not alone must our intelligence be elegant, but also our desires, and above all our conversation. Some people are naturally elegant in internal and external qualities, in their thoughts, in their words, in their dress, which is the rind of the soul as their talents are its fruit. There are others on the other hand, so gauche that everything about them, even their most excellent quality, is tarnished by an intolerable and barbaric want of neatness.
THE ART OF WORLDLY WISDOM BY BALTHASAR GRACIAN
TRANSLATED BY JOSEPH JACOBS 1892
Today's Oblique Strategy
“Abandon normal instruments”
86. Prevent scandal. #TAOWW
Prevent scandal. Many heads go to make the mob, and in each of them there are eyes for malice to use and a tongue for detraction to wag. If a single ill report spreads, it casts a blemish on your fair fame and if it clings to you with a nickname, your reputation is in danger. Generally it is some salient defect or ridiculous trait that gives rise to the rumors. At times these are malicious inflations of private envy to general distrust. For these are wicked tongues that ruin a great reputation more easily by a witty sneer than by a direct accusation. It is easy to get a bad reputation because it is easy to believe evil but hard to eradicate. The wise therefore avoid such incidents, guarding against vulgar scandal with constant vigilance. It is far easier to prevent than to rectify.
THE ART OF WORLDLY WISDOM BY BALTHASAR GRACIAN
TRANSLATED BY JOSEPH JACOBS 1892
Today's Oblique Strategy
“Decorate, decorate”
85. Do not be a wild card, a jack-of-all-trades.
Do not be a wild card, a jack-of-all-trades. It is a fault of excellence that being so much in use it is liable to abuse. Because all covet it, all are vexed by it. It is great misfortune to be of use to nobody—scarcely less to be of use to everybody. People who reach this stage lose by gaining, and in the end bore those who desired them before. These wild cards wear away all kinds of excellence. Losing the earlier esteem of the few, they obtain discredit among the vulgar. The remedy against this extreme is to moderate your brilliance. Be extraordinary in your excellence, if you like, but be ordinary in your display of it. The more light a torch gives, the more it burns away and the nearer it is to burning out. Show yourself less and you will be rewarded by being esteemed more.
THE ART OF WORLDLY WISDOM BY BALTHASAR GRACIAN
TRANSLATED BY JOSEPH JACOBS 1892
Today's Oblique Strategy
“Is it finished?”
Proof that illegal aliens kick-it in Dirty South.
It happened on a day like today, in Midtown Atlanta. I was just back from a 4-Long-Island Iced Tea lunch and was staring almost meditatively at a bug that had found it's way up to the 21st floor window, when I saw the shuttle craft make it's initial pass over downtown. Then, bigger than my mind could comprehend, the Imperial Star Destroyer descended through the cloud cover and swallowed the tiny craft up, only to disappear again, as if nothing had ever happened.
*Video Exclusive Property of Roland Occipropopholenberg
84. Make use of your enemies #TAOWW
Make use of your enemies. You should learn to seize things not by the blade, which cuts, but by the handle, which saves you from harm—especially with the doings of your enemies. A wise person gets more use from his enemies than a fool from his friends. Their ill will often levels mountains of difficulties that one would otherwise not face. Many have had their greatness made for them by their enemies. Flattery is more dangerous than hatred, because it covers the stains that the other causes to be wiped out. The wise will turn ill will into a mirror more faithful than that of kindness, and remove or improve the faults referred to. Caution thrives well when rivalry and ill will are next-door neighbors.
THE ART OF WORLDLY WISDOM BY BALTHASAR GRACIAN
TRANSLATED BY JOSEPH JACOBS 1892
Today's Oblique Strategy
“Distorting Time”
83. Allow yourself some forgivable sin #TAOWW
Allow yourself some forgivable sin. Some such carelessness is often the greatest recommendation of talent. For envy causes ostracism, most envenomed when most polite. Envy counts every perfection as a failing and that it has no faults itself. Being perfect in all envy condemns perfection in all. It becomes an Argus, all eyes for imperfection, if only for its own consolation.* Blame is like the lightning—it hits the highest. Let Homer nod now and then and affect some negligence in valor or in intellect—not in prudence—so as to disarm malevolence, or at least to prevent its bursting with its own venom. You thus leave your cape on the horns of envy in order to save your immortality.**
THE ART OF WORLDLY WISDOM BY BALTHASAR GRACIAN
TRANSLATED BY JOSEPH JACOBS 1892
*In classical mythology, Argus was a giant with a hundred eyes.—Ed.
**Gracián takes this image from the the technique of the matador, who holds the red cape to the side and allows the bull to charge.—Ed.
Today's Oblique Strategy
“What are you really thinking about now? Incorporate”
82. Drain nothing to the dregs, neither good nor bad. #TAOWW
Drain nothing to the dregs, neither good nor bad. A sage once reduced all virtue to the golden mean. Push right to the extreme and it becomes wrong; press all the juice from an orange and it becomes bitter. Even in enjoyment never go to extremes. Thought too subtle is dull. If you milk a cow too much you draw blood, not milk.
THE ART OF WORLDLY WISDOM BY BALTHASAR GRACIAN
TRANSLATED BY JOSEPH JACOBS 1892
Today's Oblique Strategy
“Only a part, not the whole”
81. Renew your brilliance #TAOWW
Renew your brilliance. This is the privilege of the phoenix. Ability grows old, and with it fame. The staleness of custom weakens admiration, and a mediocrity that is new often eclipses the highest excellence grown old. Try therefore to be born again in valor, in genius, in fortune, in everything. Display startling novelty—rise afresh like the sun every day. Change too the scene on which you shine, so that your loss may be felt in the old scenes of your triumph, while the novelty of your powers wins you applause in the new.
THE ART OF WORLDLY WISDOM BY BALTHASAR GRACIAN
TRANSLATED BY JOSEPH JACOBS 1892
Today's Oblique Strategy
“Make it more sensual”
Part 3: Less Than Successful—SmartBomb from N.C. circa 93-95
First, let me start by saying that Smartbomb (nc) was one of the last of a wave of bands that came and went, silently before the internet changed everything. When Wade Rittenberry and I, who were roommates during my last 1.5+/- or so of my time in Boone, NC, both found ourselves without the social clout or creative support of a band in which to play, we made our first real desperate move to keep the dream alive and decided to start our own band.
That band needed a name. I recall the process of naming the band being fairly quick stuff, as Wade was pretty agreeable about most things. Anyway, when Wade and I were all "band name" this, and "band name" that, we only had the kind of collective awareness of the universe that was possible before cell phones and google™ and YouTube®. We were both in the figurative darkness of life before Al Gore willed the internet into being, as well as the literal valley of isolated weirdness that held the wonderful hidden freaky '90s oasis of Boone, NC. We had NO IDEA there was another smartbomb that was rocking a much better sponsored and well-supported ride through post-post grunge into pre-proto-punksville. We were just turning up loud and screaming like kids. All of us just as fogged and sogged as kids can get and still bang their heads like that without falling down or throwing up; both of which I did my fair share of sadly as well. But the alcoholism that comes from pre-adult obliviousness aside...
I had spent the long cold winter of '93 holed-up in my bedroom with a bong and a four-track cassette machine, some headphones and a guitar; and I had a good bit of pent up angst, so I came out of it with some heavy stuff that wound up being really kinda fun to play.
I had met Gary Guthrie at some party or another. These were the days of bonfires and splitting your gloves with friends so you both can have one hand with which to drink while the other was warm in your pocket. These were the days of strange mountain rental house parties and even stranger apartments and duplexes, most into multiple decades of constant freak and student occupancy.
One night we were out and I asked him to play with Wade and I. He said yes. Further, he said we could practice in the basement of the house on Wood Circle he shared with members of The Husbians, who were really on fire at that moment. It was a pretty fantastic time. I was wanting to play all the time and Wade absolutely had not found one thing better to do yet and was down for anything. We played as much as we could.
We recorded some songs with Jamie Hoover, of the legendary NC band, The Spongetones in his lavish basement studio in somewheresville or suchandsuchberg NC or SC. It was a bit of a haul down the mountain, but we had a blast and got a really sick demo that your could turn up loud in the car. We sent it out as far as we could drive in a day and started playing a lot more.
I met David Andler from the band Octopus at the Klondike in 1994 sometime. He had started Morphius records in Baltimore a year earlier and we decided to split a 7" release. What could go wrong? We used the song "Fool", which had also been recorded with Jamie Hoover.
Around that time, I finished my degree and had mastered food delivery. I felt an itch I could not describe. I moved, almost without thinking or planning in February of '95 to Atlanta and landed with some pretty wonderful people. The day I arrived, there were 14 really heavy boxes of smartbomb/Octopus, gold vinyl split 7"s just sitting on the front porch. So, once I finished unloading the uhaul of all my belongings, I had to take 1000 7" to storage...where many of them probably still languish perhaps? I know I still have a nice sized box in the garage.
The three of us were growing out of Boone in different trajectories and the dissolution of the band and cessation of the project really came as no surprise to anyone. Unfortunately for us, we were one in the last little handful of bands who's music was never quite up to the "digital treatment" at the time, and so we never did have a CD or even a proper master of our songs; just tons and tons of cassettes. That was fine. We weren't legendary. BUT - It was incredible fun. We got along well. We showed up. We played. We had a cassette. It was gas money. We lived through it and that's all anyone was meant to have. The rest is just cake.
These two tracks would not fit on our tape, nor our 7" so no one ever heard them. Probably not the end of the world, but if you're interested, enjoy:
A.Quinn–2015
80. Take care when you get information. #TAOWW
Take care when you get information. We live by information, not by sight. WE exist by faith in others. The ear is the sidedoor of truth but the frontdoor of lies. The truth is generally seen, rarely heard. She seldom comes in elemental purity, especially from afar—there is always some admixture of the moods of those through whom she has passed. The passions tinge her with their colors wherever they touch her, sometimes favorably, sometimes odiously. She always brings out people's disposition, therefore receive her with caution from him that praises, with more caution from him that blames. Pay attention to the intention of the speaker; you should know beforehand on what footing he comes. Let reflection test falsity and exaggeration.
THE ART OF WORLDLY WISDOM BY BALTHASAR GRACIAN
TRANSLATED BY JOSEPH JACOBS 1892