Measuring out life with coffee spoons (and various other things)…

T.S. ELIOT’S FAMOUS LINE: “I have measured out my life with coffee spoons.”        T.S. Eliot (1888-1965)        American-born British poet         This is one of the most quoted lines from Eliot’s early poem “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” first published in the June 1, 1915 edition of Poetry magazine. It is sometimes misquoted as “I have measured out my life in coffee spoons.” Initial critical reception of the poem was mixed. But it launched Eliot’s career as a poet and gave him initial visibility that grew to worldwide fame with publication of his other early masterpieces of modernist verse: “Gerontion” (1920), “The Waste Land” (1922) and “The Hollow Men” (1925). “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” was included in Eliot’s first book of collected verse, Prufrock and Other Observations (1917). It remains one of his most best-known poems and contains several passages found in many books of quotations. For more background on the poem see the post about it on my This Day in Quotes site.

A STRESSED PARENT'S TAKE ON COLLEGE TUITION: "As the mother of a new college graduate, I am reminded today of T.S. Eliot, the famous St. Louis-born poet who will be forever remembered for the line in that one poem of his that resonates with parents everywhere: 'I have measured out my life in tuition years.' At least I THINK he wrote that. I mean, T.S. Eliot sure never had to pay tuition. His grandfather founded Washington University...Which means he graduated debt-free. Which explains why he could pursue a career in poetry. Which you hope your own son isn't considering. I mean, what kind of benefits package does THAT offer?"        Mary Bufe        Freelance writer and columnist for Missouri’s Webster-Kirkwood Times        Some of the funny quips in her newspaper column about the pressures parents face in trying to pay for their kids' college tuition.

A DEPRESSED JOURNALIST’S VERSION: “I just hit forty. I don’t want to look up at fifty and realize I measured out my fucking life with a coffee spoon.”        Kenneth Branagh, playing the unsuccessful journalist Lee Simon        In Woody Allen’s movie Celebrity (1998)

A DEPRESSED POET’S VERSION: “I have measured out my life in little pills—Zoloft, Restoril, Celexa, Xanax.”        Kim Addonizio        American poet and novelist        In her poem “The First Line is the Deepest,” included in her book Lucifer at the Starlite: Poems (2011)

THE SEX ADDICT’S VERSION: “What in the name of God is it all for? To fuck? Is that my comfort and my staff?...To cruise the bars, to measure out my life in ejaculations?”        Daniel Curzon        Pen name of the pioneering gay novelist and playwright Daniel R. Brown        In his novel Among the Carnivores (1978)

THE BRAVE NEW WORLD VARIATION: “The Trixie Telemetry company sells a program to help parents raise their babies by quantifying their little lives, and turning what they do into data...It’s a mere matter of time before we can substitute T.S. Eliot’s tragic modern man, living by ‘measuring out my life with coffee spoons’ with the new postmodern dolt: A man who measures out his life with data spoons.”        Laurie Fendrich         Professor of Fine Arts at Hofstra University (Hempstead, NY)         In an op-ed posted on The Chronicle of Higher Education website, November 20, 2009

THE OLD WORLD RELIGION VARIATION: “Catholicism’s once vivid otherworldliness had devolved into a sort of rote board game, in which preoccupation with involved scenarios of the life to come became an excuse to measure out one’s life in Hail Marys and First Fridays while ignoring real moral concerns.”        Rev. Richard McBrien         Controversial Catholic theologian at the University of Notre Dame        An observation by McBrien cited in the article, “Does Heaven Exist?,” in the June 24 2001 issue of Time magazine

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Further reading: about and by T.S. Eliot…

“A thing of beauty is a joy forever.”

THE POETIC ORIGIN OF THE SAYING: “A thing of beauty is a joy forever.”        John Keats (1795-1821)        English lyrical poet        This well-known quote is the opening line from Keats’ first long poem, Endymion (1818)         The poem tells the story of a young Greek shepherd who falls in love with the moon goddess Selene. Books of famous quotations often include the first five lines of the Endymion, which further expound on the famed opening sentence:        “A thing of beauty is a joy forever:        Its loveliness increases; it will never        Pass into nothingness; but still will keep        A bower quiet for us, and a sleep        Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.”

THE GAME OF THRONES VERSION: “A dead enemy is a joy forever.”        A quip made by the character Tyrion Lannister in the novel A Storm of Swords (2000), the third book in George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire series of adult fantasy novels.         The intelligent, irreverent dwarf Tyrion is memorably played by actor Peter Dinklage in the HBO adaptation of the first book in the series, Game of Thrones.

WISDOM FROM GERALDINE: “You don’t have to be a thing of beauty to be a joy forever.”        Geraldine Jones          One of many great observations made by Geraldine, a character played by American comedian Flip Wilson, on The Flip Wilson Show (1970-1974).

A DISILLUSIONED LOVER’S LAMENT: “Face it: a thing of beauty is a joy till sunrise...Then WHAM BAM you’re writing letters to Dear Abby and you're burning black candles at midnight.”         Harvey Fierstein        American actor, playwright and screenwriter        Part of Fierstein’s opening monologue, as the character Arnold Beckoff, in Torch Song Trilogy, the 1988 movie adapted from his award-winning play of the same title.

THE EPHEMERAL FACEBOOK PAGE: “A Dirty Mind is a Joy Forever!”        Title of a Facebook group created “For all of those who love to have a dirty mind and can prove it.” Alas, the page no longer exists. The line is sometimes attributed (wrongly) to Oscar Wilde.

THE HISPANIC STEREOTYPE VARIATION: “Climates like those of Mexico and Spain develop a race that finds work tiresome, a ‘thing of duty is a bore forever.’”        John Wesley Hanson (1823-1901)        American writer and Universalist minister        In his book about Southern California, The American Italy, published in 1896. (I wonder what Hanson would say about the recent study showing that Mexicans work more hours per day than people in any other country in the world.)

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Related reading…

5 things – including “Income Inequality” – that are just another word for something else…

KRISTOFFERSON’S FAMOUS OBSERVATION: “Freedom’s just another word for nothin’ left to lose, Nothin’ ain’t worth nothin’, but it’s free.”        Kris Kristofferson        American songwriter, musician and actor         Lyrics from the chorus of his song “Me and Bobby McGee” (1969), made even more famous by Janis Joplin’s cover version on her posthumously-released album Pearl (1971)

THE AMAZING “INCOME INEQUALITY IS GOOD” PITCH: “The Democrats’ current campaign against income inequality is puzzling, if you think about it. Income inequality is a wonderful thing. In fact, a society without income inequality would scarcely be worth living in. No income inequality means no promotions; no advancement; no reward for training, education, hard work or experience; no benefit to being talented, creative or innovative...Income inequality is just another word for opportunity.”        John Hinderaker        American lawyer and conservative political writer        In his April 21, 2014 column on the Conservative PowerLine blog        (“Wealth Gap” by Walt Handelsman)

WISDOM FROM WALLY: “Freedom is just another word for people finding out you’re useless.”        Wally          The guru of work avoidance in Scott Adams’ Dilbert comic strip        Explaining one of his timeless insights to Asok, in the April 11, 2008 Dilbert comic strip        Also used by Scott Adams as the title of a book of Dilbert cartoons in 2009

PATTI’S PUNK ROCK VARIATION: “I wouldn’t go on Dick Clark because I’d be required to lip-synch. I showed armpit hair on the cover of my EASTER album, and it was so disturbing to people, which I still don’t understand, so they wouldn’t rack it in the South...To me, those people didn’t understand punk rock at all. Punk rock is just another word for freedom.”        Patti Smith        American musician and author        In an interview in the January 10, 2010 issue of New York magazine

A LIBERAL’S VIEW: “For the ascendant, post-9/11, populist right-wing, freedom is just another word for low taxes and an invasive, religiously correct authoritarianism.”        Wendy Kaminer        American lawyer, writer and free speech activist        In an opinion piece posted on the liberal blog Spiked (September 8, 2011)

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Related reading and listening…

“If at first you don’t succeed…”

THE LEGENDARY MOTIVATIONAL PROVERB: “‘Tis a lesson you should heed: Try, try again. If at first you don’t succeed, Try, try again.”        Popularized by William Edward Hickson (1803-1870)        British philanthropist, music scholar and educational writer        Lyrics from the first verse of the song “Perseverance; Or Try Again,” printed in Hickson’s book The Singing Master (1836)        The saying “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again” comes from the initial stanza of a work that began appearing in British and American books in the late 1830s and early 1840s, sometimes as song lyrics and sometimes as a poem. Some sources claim it was coined by the British-born American publisher and author Thomas H. Palmer (1922-1861). Palmer did include what he cited as a poem with those lines in a teacher’s manual he published in 1840, as did several other guides for teachers published around the same time. But the same “poem” had previously been published in 1836 as the lyrics of the song “Perseverance; Or Try Again” by William Edward Hickson, in his book The Singing Master. Hickson wrote lyrics for a number of songs during his lifetime, most famously an updated version of the British national anthem “God Save the King.” However, his book The Singing Master reprinted the lyrics of many existing songs for children, including popular nursery rhymes that had been put to music. So, the “Perseverance” song, with the famed motivational saying in its first verse, may simply have been recorded rather than created by Hickson.

W.C. FIELDS’ LEGENDARY COUNTERQUOTE: “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. Then quit. There’s no use being a damn fool about it.”        Attributed to W.C. Fields (1880-1946)        American comedian and actor         Variations of this sardonic quip have been attributed to Fields since at least September 1949, when the version above was cited by Reader’s Digest magazine. Often, it’s given without the word “There’s.” Sometimes “no use” is replaced by “no point.” If Fields did actually say one of these versions, it may have been a quip he uttered in real life, since it does not seem to be a line from any of his films.

THE PETER PRINCIPLE APPLICATION: “If at first you don’t succeed, you may be at your level of incompetence already.”        Dr. Laurence J. Peter        Canadian professor and author, best known for creating “The Peter Principle” and writing the book of the same name (with Raymond Hull)        This saying is widely attributed to Peter, but without a specific source. It does not seem to be in any of the editions of his popular book The Peter Principle, which was first published in 1969 and has remained in print ever since. The book does include the variation “If at first you don’t succeed, try something else” — which he may have stolen from the Fifties television Western Maverick.

PAPPY MAVERICK’S WISDOM: “As my old Pappy used to say, ‘If at first you don’t succeed, try something else.’”        Bret Maverick (actor James Garner)        The line above is one of the many sayings Bret attributed to his father Beau Maverick in various episodes of the classic American TV Western, Maverick, which ran from 1957 to 1962.         Other bits of wisdom Bret cited as things “my old Pappy used to say” include:              “...a man does what he has to do, if he can’t get out of it.”             “...man is the only animal you can skin more than once.”              “...never play in a rigged game, unless you rig it yourself.”             “...never cry over spilled milk; it could’ve been whiskey.”             “...early to bed and early to rise is the curse of the working class.”             “...if the Lord had more respect for money, He would have given it to a higher class of people.”

THE SKYDIVING SURVIVAL MAXIM: “If at first you don’t succeed then skydiving definitely isn’t for you.”         Steven Wright        American comedian        This dry joke is usually attributed to Wright, who apparently used it in his stand-up routine. However, another version is commonly attributed to comedian Henny Youngman, and other variations have long been popular among skydiving enthusiasts, suggesting that it may be have been, er, floating around for many the years.        Wright is also commonly credited with another good “try again” takeoff: “If at first you don’t succeed, destroy all evidence that you tried.”

THE HUSBANDS SURVIVAL MAXIM: “If at first you don't succeed, do it the way your wife told you.”        A popular t-shirt, card and sign slogan, appearing in several variations. (The example shown at left is a sign available from Amazon.com.)

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Related reading and viewing:

Things you won’t go broke underestimating...

THE COMMON MISQUOTE (AND WHAT MENCKEN ACTUALLY SAID): “No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public.”         A famous quip commonly attributed to journalist and editor H.L. Mencken (1880-1956)        Although these words are often credited to Mencken, they are actually a paraphrase of something he wrote in his column in the September 19, 1926 edition of the Chicago Daily Tribune. In it, he remarked on the recent upsurge in tabloid newspapers geared toward uneducated readers, including “near-illiterates.” Mencken correctly predicted that journalism of the future would “move in the direction” of the tabloids. He noted, with his usual dry sense of humor:         “No one in this world, so far as I know — and I have searched the records for years, and employed agents to help me — has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people. Nor has anyone ever lost public office thereby.”        Over time, this longer quote came to be paraphrased and misquoted, most commonly in the form “No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public.” For more background, see the post about this saying on my ThisDayinQuotes.com site.

THE ROB FORD APPLICATION: “No one has ever gone broke underestimating the capacity of Toronto mayor Rob Ford to shock the ostensibly unshockable.”        Rick Conroy        Canadian journalist         In his column in The Wellington Times (Ontario, Canada), January 17, 2014        My own favorite Rob Ford shocker came during remarks he made to the press on November 14, 2013, while explaining why he filed a libel suit against some of former staff members. One female staffer, Olivia Gondek, claimed Ford told her he wanted to perform oral sex on her. Regarding her, Ford said: “Olivia Gondek...says that I wanted to eat her pussy...I’ve never said that in my life to her. I would never do that. I’m happily married. I’ve got more than enough to eat at home.”

A FEMINIST’S VARIATION:  “Nobody ever went broke underestimating the maturity of the American male. On the contrary, as the films of Judd Apatow and magazines like Maxim make clear, immaturity among 20- and 30-something guys is a reliable cash source.”         Kate Tuttle         Freelance journalist and editor        In a review published by the Boston Globe, March 18, 2011

A FOOTBALL FAN’S VARIATION: “To paraphrase H.L. Mencken, you’ll never go wrong underestimating the intelligence of those trying to reach a new collective-bargaining agreement...Now the principals are exchanging insults on Twitter. Management is taking cheap shots at the players, and the players are responding in kind, each group blaming the other, as if the blame isn’t equal.”        Sports journalist Art Spander        Commenting on the ongoing collective bargaining deadlock between the National Football League team owners and players, in his column on the Real Clear Sports website, March 10, 2011. (Cartoon by Daryl Cagle.)

THE A.D.D. VARIA... UH… WHAT WAS I TYPING?: “No one in this world has ever lost money by underestimating the attention span of the American people.”         Editorial by the St. Louis Post Dispatch, July 9, 2010

A LIBERAL JOURNALIST’S OPINION OF CERTAIN REPUBLICANS: “Bachmann, Sharron Angle, Sarah Palin and others have turned the GOP into an international joke and brought amazement at the support and enthusiasm they generate. Legendary journalist H.L. Mencken once said nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American consumer. The same could be said of the American voters who actually cast their ballots for these folks.”        Doug Thompson        Publisher and founder of the website CapitolHillBlue.com        In a post on his website titled “The GOP’s invasion of the Intelligence-snatchers”

A LIBERAL ACTIVIST’S OPINION OF A CERTAIN DEMOCRAT: “No one ever went broke underestimating how low a politician will go to gain an advantage. Exhibit A: Vice President Joseph Biden, who likens Wikileaks honcho Julian Assange to a ‘high-tech terrorist.’”        Gabor Rona        International Legal Director for the Human Rights First organization        In a post on the group’s website regarding a comment Biden made about Assange on Meet the Press on December 19, 2010

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Further reading: by and about H.L. Mencken...