Random Shots: Icons of Our Times

R.F. Kampfer

THE FORMER SOVIET republic of Abkhazia (actually, a separatist province of Georgia) has issued a pair of stamps commemorating Groucho Marx and John Lennon.

Albert Einstein’s pipe was recently auctioned off for $20,000 — and the buyer probably won’t even smoke it.

Token OJ item: When you find a trout in the milk, circumstantial evidence can be pretty convincing.

Pithy Sayings

POLITICS AND RELIGION do not mix because the essence of politics is compromise, a concept totally foreign to all (at least, to all monotheistic) deities.

It is risky to take a cub from a tigress, and not much easier getting a microphone away from a poet.

Non-fat food helps you lose weight by tasting so hideous that you aren’t tempted to eat any.

Forget the debate over whether life begins at birth or conception; my grandfather always said that life begins when the last child moves out and the dog dies.

Cinematic Shots

“FOUR WEDDINGS AND a Funeral” depicts the tendency of otherwise sensible women to take up with irresponsible men in the hopes of “straightening them out,” failing to realize that this job is comparable to straightening out the Mississippi River.

The late John Belushi would have been perfect as the star of “The Newt Gingrich Story.”

Detroiters, who hate having their town portrayed as “Murder City,” never objected to all those gangster movies set in Chicago.

Probing Questions

WHAT WOULD HAPPEN to the economy if everybody balanced their budgets?

It’s true that deficit spending places a burden on our children, but what have they done for us lately?

How come people who are so fond of Mickey Mouse get so hostile towards the real thing?

 Notes on the Human Comedy

EVEN THOUGH THE streets of earthquake-ravaged Kobe, Japan were blocked with rubble and no traffic was moving, pedestrians still waited for the lights to turn green before crossing.

IWW lumberjacks who demanded hot showers in the logging camps were accused of being too lazy to scratch.

Nothing detracts from workers’ solidarity, to the point of provoking homicidal hatred, than having to share a set of tools.

Len Deighton has come out with Faith, another volume of the convoluted Bernard Samson epic. When he revealed that Fiona was really working for the British, I thought it would be a nice bit of symmetry if Gloria were to be found really working for the Russians. We’ll have to wait for Hope and Charity to find out.

ATC 56, May-June 1995