Watch it all.

This morning I read the obituary of an English writer I’d never heard of named Edward Upward, who died last Friday at the age of 105. (In fact, he outlived his obituarist, Alan Walker, who died in 2004.)

Ed went to Cambridge and was a friend of W.H. Auden and Christopher Isherwood and his career seems to have wilted in the heat of their brilliance. They became famous and he got a job teaching school.

And then he joined the Communist Party, which is a heavy load of bricks to carry, and he married a hard-line Communist named Hilda, and he wrote an essay announcing that good writing could only be produced by Marxists, whereupon he suffered writer’s block for 20 years. (Talk about poetic justice.)

“The middle decades were bleak for Upward,” wrote Walker. “During a sabbatical year designed to give Upward the chance to write, he suffered a nervous breakdown.” And then when he did publish again, he had become an antique. His autobiographical trilogy, “The Spiral Ascent,” was received by critics like you’d receive a door-to-door vacuum-cleaner salesman.

And then there was the problem of walking around with the name Edward Upward.

Read it all.

Asked about the kind of job he wanted, an applicant at our tax management company stated, “I seek full authority but limited responsibility.”

–Mike Wilkerson in the February 2009 Reader’s Digest, page 53

An Anglican Chant Weather report?

I enjoyed this–lol.

If I ever forget that I live in the South, the last line of an obituary in our local paper, the (Mobile, Alabama) Press-Register, would have set me straight: “In lieu of flowers, please send fried chicken.”

–Jacqul Philan of Theodore, Alabama in the November 2008 Reader’s Digest, page 206

Thank goodness for the Onion which helps us not take all this too serously. Read it all.

When my back seized up, I called my doctor’s office, explaining that I was a minister and was in too much pain to deliver my sermon. Could they help?

The woman on the other end asked me to hold. The next thing I heard was a loud voice announcing, “I have a minister on the phone who can’t stand to preach!”

–Gilbert Vieira in the November 2008 Reader’s Digest, page 43

I happened to catch this in the car this week and it really brightened my day–see what you think.

One crazy day in our pediatric clinic saw me hand a young patient a urine sample container and tell im to fill it up in the bathroom. A few minutes later, he returned to my nurse’s station with an empty cup.

“I didn’t need that after all,” he said. “There was a toilet in there.”

–Linda Felkie in the September 2008 Reader’s Digest, page 84

Trying to do my share to help the environment, I set up a trash basket at my church and posted above it this suggestion: “Empty water bottles here.”

I should have been a little more specific, because when I went to check it out later, I didn’t find any bottles in it. It was full of water.

–Mahood Jawald of Dunbar, West Virginia in the July 2008 Reader’s Digest, page 194

I live for baseball. But I had to go to work during an important game, so I asked my wife to tape it for me. After I left the office, I flew through our front door, bursting with anticipation.

“Dont tell me the score!” I yelled to her.

“I don’t know the score,” she assured me. “All I know is your team lost.”

–Michael Bogess in the June 2008 Reader’s Digest, page 61

While our friends from India traveled around California on business, they left their 11 year-old daughter with us. Curious about my going to church one Sunday morning, she decided to come along. When we returned home, my husband asked her what she thought of the service.

“I don’t understand why the West Coast isn’t included too,” she replied. When we inquired what she meant, she added, “You know, in the name of the Father, the Son, and the whole East Coast.”

–Ann Spivack in Reader’s Digest

Go here, then click on the cartoon for today, then scroll back to the cartoon for May13th. LOL.

Interviewing a college applicant, the dean of admissions asks, “If you could have a conversation with someone, living or dead, who would it be?

The student thinks it over, then answers, “The living one.”

–Reader’s Digest, May 2008, p. 187

A lot of fun.

The dogs next door get a little noisy, so one day somebody called animal control to complain. When the officers arrived, I heard my neighbors tell them, “Hey, dogs bark. It’s human nature.”

–Kent Kollmer in the December 2007 Reader’s Digest, page 190

What a lot of fun.

Catching up on some recent blog entries at the Covenant blog, I appreciated Craig Uffman’s post wondering if Dilbert cartoonist Scott Adams was thinking about the Anglican Communion when he drew this Dilbert cartoon.

Two men were talking together. The first challenged the other, “If you are so religious, let’s hear you quote the Lord’s Prayer. I bet you $10.00 you can’t.” The second responded, “Now I lay my down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep. And If I die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take.” The first pulled out his wallet and fished out a ten dollar bill, muttering, “I didn’t think you could do it!”

Stuart Smalley (Voiceover): I deserve good things. I am entitled to my share of happiness. I refuse to beat myself up. I am attractive person. I am fun to be with.

Announcer: “Daily Affirmation with Stuart Smalley”. Stuart Smalley is a caring nurturer, a member of several 12-step programs, but not a licensed therapist.

[ open on Stuart giving himself a pep talk in his full-length mirror ]

Stuart Smalley: I’m going to do a terrific show today! And I’m gonna help people! Because I’m good enough, I’m smart enough, and, doggonit, people like me!

—Comedian Al Franken

Former rock and roll bouncer and current host of Animal Planet’s, Emergency Vets: Interns, Kevin Fitzgerald tells a story here which is side splittingly funny. Listen to it all from Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me (go down to the “Not my Job” segment and begin just past 3 minutes in).