Jargon Gone Terribly Wrong

I've already e-mailed this account to a number of friends, but it's such a gem, I thought I'd share with all. On my first day in NYC, I met a woman who was attending a conference on animals here because she works at a zoo clear across the country. I asked her what she did at the zoo and she told me that she was an Artificial Emotional Enhancement Coordinator. I replied that I'd been out of the country for awhile, so didn't have the slightest clue what that meant. She looked at me and said, "It means I make toys for the monkeys."

Living in America ...

Out in the country there are so many things to avoid such as the three poisons, ivy, oak and sumacs. Then there are ticks, lyme's disease, snakes and God knows what else. One must avoid the television as well or soon you will find yourself repeating the inane babble you heard on ailse eight in the grocery store last night, Cereal Canyon, when some woman said, "I can't believe it, I just missed my FAVORITE reality show." But perhaps the greatest danger of navigating through this land of plenty is, well, the plenty itself. Every restaurant piles your plate high with as many calories as they can, ziggaurats of food, most of it fried.

From The Book of Disquiet, Fernando Pessoa

Literature is the most agreeable way of ignoring life.

From Desolation Row, Bob Dylan

When you asked me how I was doing, was that some kind of joke?

From Philosophical Dictionary, Voltaire

Judge a man by his questions rather than his answers.

From Andualsian Songs, Fedirico Garcia Lorca

La mar no tiene naranjas,
ni Sevilla tiene amor.