There are many skills one must aquire early in life to ever achieve high standing. Sure, a very few adults find unexpected skills -- but that's rare.
Thinking about who I might list over there on the right hand side of your screen, I was musing over the blogs I most often read and pondering other greats whose performances I admire: H. L. Mencken, Groucho Marx, W. C. Fields, L. Neil Smith, Mark Twain.... Struck me (ow!) they all have something in common. They've all got snark.
Each in their own way, from a fencer's speed and precision to a storytelling Uncle with a flair for twisted plots, from a step-by-step fisking to pure annoyed venom; but they've all got it.
I shall never be able to snark well; I will rarely snark in public and I promise that any snarking I do wil be done only for good. It's time I paid closer heed to the champions of the art. It's a high and pure calling: I wanna study Snark-Fu!
(I may prove to be a danger with it only to myself!)
Don't forget Will Rogers.
ReplyDelete"Not everyone can be a hero; somebody has to sit on the curb and clap as they go by."
"There's no trick to being a humorist when you have the whole government working for you."
"This country has come to feel the same when Congress is in session as when the baby gets hold of a hammer."
"The difference between death and taxes is death doesn't get worse every time Congress meets".
"Alexander Hamilton started the U.S. Treasury with nothing -- and that was the closest our country has ever been to being even."
--Will Rogers
You're so right -- and Rogers was so folksy, his snark just sneaks right by! Got to love it.
ReplyDeleteOne of the more wonderful discoveries of my misspent youth was the Will Rogers Shrine of the Sun at Cheyenne Mountain Zoo in Colorado Springs -- yes, the Cheyenne Mountain, and how abut that? I thought the Wiley Post cenotaph was there but find no mention at http://www.cmzoo.org/shrine.html
(All that and Robert A. Heinlein lived on the mountain once upon a time, too! Busy place, geek-wise).