Posts Tagged ‘medieval’

Disclaimer/Preamble/Full Disclosure: In this mostly fictionalized account of his life and times, I do little justice to William of Occam. But the present need for necessary distraction being so great, combined with my desire to provide such vital distraction; a gathering storm has arisen, and the approaching precipitate is set to rain all o’er you. And while I may deceive myself into believing I write these stories for some higher purpose, they usually end up triggering the same pleasure centers in the brain that are fired by cat videos. So although I do aim high, I generally hit rather low and end up hitting the funny bone in such a way that it gets tickled. To wit:

Billy of Occam. He was the life of the party. Problem was there were no parties in the 14th century.

The Duke of Occam was a real guy who lived from 1287-1347, or should I say subsisted from 1287-1347 – it still being quite primitive in the last decades of the Dark Ages. In those bleak times a streaming service meant paying someone to ferry you across a river. It was a benighted time – I mean the spatula hadn’t even been invented yet, and people were so dumb, sometimes they forgot how to exhale and would die from asphyxiation. The breathing-challenged were advised, “Help is coming, but don’t hold your breath.” And the help finally did come in the form of Rudolph Heimlich of Nuremberg, who saved thousands by imparting his now famous maneuver for combatting “stuck diaphragm.”

Set against this squalid backdrop, the Duke of Occam managed to enjoy his life as a celebrated philosopher, as well as a despotic landowner. Remember, the idea of “benevolence” didn’t really develop until the arrival of the Renaissance in the 15^th century, and “despotic” had not yet become a disparaging term. It was just a standard issue descriptor of all landlords in that era. If you were a landlord in the 14^th century, the only template available was to act despotically. There was no room for wannabe despots in the cozy little Landlord’s Guild – unless you wannabe drummed out for lack of depravity.

If you yearned to behave benevolently in the 1300s, you’d be best advised to ferment mead in a monastery or spend 3 weeks trying to artistically compose a calligraphic “G” at the beginning of a Bible manuscript. Help was on the way here too, courtesy of another German polymath named Johannes Gutenberg who invented the printing press round about 1440. So, while the Duke of Occam’s full-time job may have been to despotically oppress the faceless masses he lorded over, he also had an emerging benevolent side that expressed itself through philosophy; and that’s how he came to formulate the clunky principle eponymously referred to as Occam’s Razor – more on that later. Read the rest of this entry »

1. 

   Bumper sticker seen at a Renaissance Faire.

   Make Sparta Great Again!

2. You Have to Admit, Vlad the Impaler does make some good points
3. Pyramids are for Squares
4. Serf Lives Matter
5. Sodom is for Lovers
6. If catapults are outlawed, only outlaws will have catapults
7. It’s all Olaf’s Fault
8. Eating Rotten Apples Contributes to Global Worming
9. I got my rocks off at Stonehenge
10. My other wagon is a Cadillac
11. OK Renaissance…we’re waiting.
12. Enough with the spices already. Maybe we could spend less than 95% of our GDP in the search for seasonings and invest a little in sewage control.
13. DaVinci Fondled Me. #Et tu Leonardo
14. Question Charlemagne
15. Robin Hood is a Socialist Income Redistributor
16. Galileo thinks He’s the center of the universe
17. I visited BarbarianLand. The happiest place on God’s flat Earth.
18. I got debauched at Pirates of the Mediterranean.
19. All We Are Say-ing, Is Give Huns a Chance
20. If blunderbusses are outlawed, only outlaws will have blunderbusses
21. I never sleep alone…thanks to my bedbugs
22. May your fireplace always be sooty and your stool forever compacted
23. Make Soap, Not War
24. We really need the soap, what with all the soot and everything
25. Occupy King John! You try eating turnips 11½ months out of the year. No more tubers…Magna Carta now!!!
26. Occupy Valhalla! It’s almost 1063 and to date only a total of 3 Vikings have had any fun at all. Being Norse sucks.
27. The Plague is Gods Way of Punishing Free Thinkers
28. Does the concept of “germs” mean anything to you Neanderthals?
29. If blow darts are outlawed, only outlaws will have blow darts
30. Pat Paulsen for President
31. A heavier than air machine? It’ll never fly.
32. Queen Elizabeth the 1^st is a Royal pain in the arse
33. Guillotine has lost his head
34. When it says Libbys Libbys Libbys on the label, label, label, you will like it, like it, like it on the table, table, table.