Sick Burns and Frogmore Stew (your email)
Lide sent in this note about yesterday's food memories post:In the Carolinas, that is called Frogmore Stew, or Low Country Boil. I'm sure it has other regional names as well. it's awesome, and flexible enough to feed a small family or a small army.
Now, on to some sick burns.
Scott sent in an e-mail about Diogenes, who was apparently the Dorothy Parker of his ear. These are from the Wikipedia page:
He once destroyed his only possession, a wooden bowl, after seeing a boy drink water from his cupped hands. He commented "Fool that I am, to have been carrying superfluous baggage all this time!" He would walk around carrying a lamp in the daytime and when people would ask him what he was doing, he would tell them he was looking for an honest man (or perhaps just a human, implying that most people didn't use reason.) Plato described Diogenes as "a Socrates gone mad." and when Plato taught that Socrates defined man as a "featherless biped" Diogenes mockingly plucked a chicken, brought it to the Academy shouting "Behold! I have brought you a man!"
This is even better:
Alexander the Great met the famed philosopher in Corinth and asked if there was anything he could do for Diogenes. Diogenes replied, "Yes, stand out of my sunlight". Alexander then declared, "If I were not Alexander, then I should wish to be Diogenes." Another version of the story has Alexander coming across Diogenes while he's looking in a pile of bones. Diogenes explained, "I am searching for the bones of your father but cannot distinguish them from those of a slave."
Alexander the Great apparently appreciated a sick burn, even if he was the target.
Winston Churchill had some great, sick burns. Here's one when he was verbally sparring with Lady Astor:
"Sir, if you were my husband, I'd poison your drink," said Lady Astor.
Churchill responded " Madam, if you were my wife, I'd drink it."
Next, a burn by an unlikely source: Mohandas Gandhi.
"What do you think of Western civilization?" a reporter asked.
"I'm all for it," Gandhi replied.
Richard Nixon once called Pierre Trudeau an asshole. "I've been called worse things by better men," Trudeau said.
Finally, my favorite sick burn artist of all time--Dorothy Parker. This was her review of an actress in a Broadway play: She runs the gamut of emotions from A to B.
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