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Sic
If the wheel had not
been (a)round, stuff like this would never be written
Sic wishes to take this opportunity to honor the individual who
invented the wheel.
* * * Everywhere Sic turns we run into this question
most recently submitted by Larry Frient: “If those who eat vegetables are
vegetarians, why aren’t those who eat humans called humanitarians?”
* * * There seems to be a widespread impression that
if the inventor of the wheel had not invented it, someone else would have done
so right away -- just like it was no big deal. This does a grave injustice to
the first wheel person. It’s like people -- one meets them all the time --
who say they could have painted those Jackson Pollock paintings. So why
didn’t they paint them before Pollock did?
* * * “And lead us not into temptation,”
the 3-year-old prayed, “but deliver us from e-mail, amen.”
* * * From comic Conan O’Brien via L.A. Times:
“The 5-day waiting period to buy a handgun will be replaced by an instant
computerized background check. The NRA applauds the development saying,
‘Now people will no longer have to wait five days to settle family
disputes.’ ”
* * * After Rome high-handedly hijacked all
inclusive language in the lectionary (NCR, Sept. 25, 1998), John N.
Pfeffer could stand it no longer:
Eleven little men, I ain’t
talkin’ size,
Bellied up to the table and tried to look wise,
The
red cap that chose them said with a sigh,
“It took the others years
but it still wouldn’t fly.
“It’s a simple job, and
here’s how you do it,
“Change a few words, that’s all there
is to it,
“Just scratch out some he’s and put in some
others,
“If you want to get bold, add sisters to
brothers.
“Don’t fret about inclusive purity,
“The point I’m making is job security.
“Don’t worry
about being too accurate,
“There’s a guy I know who’ll
remanufacture it.” (We hope the above does more for liturgy than it does
for poetry.)
* * * Do the Siewerts of Knoxville hit it on the
head or what? “Maybe Sic could get more respect if he could sing for the
pope.” Respect is precisely what This Space has been lacking. At once we
realized why we have admired Sidney Dangerfield for years -- he gets so much
respect compared with ourself.
Some Knoxville choir, it seems, dressed in long white duds, had
sung for the pope, up in the sanctuary of St. Ignatius Church, Rome -- frankly,
it all looked quite stuffy. An “Alleluia” kind of choir, we guessed,
or an “Amazing Grace” bunch, when they could have made the
pope’s day by breaking into “Who Threw the Overalls in Mrs.
Murphy’s Chowder?”
* * * From talk-show person Stan Kaplan: “At
the peak of Newt Gingrich’s popularity, friends considered lobbying to
have his head sculpted on Mt. Rushmore but decided the mountain wasn’t big
enough.”
* * * How could anyone not figure out
something as simple as the wheel? people ask.
But Sic thinks there’s a dozen things -- no, make that a
million -- just as simple as the wheel, and just as useful, waiting to be
invented, so why have those hotshots not invented them?
Sic rests our case, whatever it is.
* * * Pat Marrin, editor of Celebration,
thinks these famous quotes should get a wider airing (notice, he hasn’t
enough bad taste to put them in his own publication):
Question for Miss Alabama in the 1994 Miss USA contest: “If
you could live forever, would you and why?”
Answer: “I would not live forever, because we should not live
forever, because if we were supposed to live forever, then we would live
forever, but we cannot live forever, which is why I would not live
forever.”
Sic says things like this all the time -- ask anyone -- and is
considering running for Miss Alabama.
* * * More Marrin missives:
“I haven’t committed a crime. What I did was fail to
comply with the law” (former New York Mayor David Dinkins, accused of not
paying his taxes).
“Smoking kills. If you’re killed, you’ve lost a
very important part of your life” (Brooke Shields, auditioning to be
antismoking spokesperson).
“I’ve never had major knee surgery on any other part of
my body” (basketball player Winston Bennett).
“China is a big country inhabited by many Chinese”
(Charles de Gaulle).
* * * Don’t look now, but one Alexander
Filatov, a member of the Russian Duma, proposed or moved or whatever you do
with a parliamentary motion asking Monica Lewinsky to take steps to stop the
Iraq war: “The State Duma appeals to Ms. Lewinsky to undertake
corresponding measures to restrain the emotions of Bill Clinton.”
* * * The year is 2167 and the great, great, great
(you get the idea) grandson of Judge Kenneth Starr is archbishop of Lincoln,
Neb., and presiding over the inquisition of Sr. Linda Tripp of the Little
Sisters of the Pentagon, who is accused of unlawfully hearing confessions by
phone. Outside in the frosty air a pyre fire is gathering steam and ready to
impress righteousness on Sr. Linda’s person.
As everyone now knows, Sic has given up infallibility, which was
getting us nowhere fast, in favor of prophecy, of which there are two types.
We’re not into the more bland type: intoning fascinating animadversions
allegedly spoken on behalf of the Lord. Rather, we aim to specialize in the
long ball: sage but unlikely predictions about stuff so far in the future that
we’ll all be dead long before anyone has a chance to check up on us.
National Catholic Reporter, January 8,
1999
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