Monday, July 23, 2012

A Couple Of Things...



IRONY

noun, plural i·ro·nies.
1.
the use of words to convey a meaning that is the opposite of its literal meaning: the irony of her reply, “How nice!” when I said I had to work all weekend.
2.
Literature .
a.
a technique of indicating, as through character or plot development, an intention or attitude opposite to that which is actually or ostensibly stated.
b.
(especially in contemporary writing) a manner of organizing a work so as to give full expression to contradictory or complementary impulses, attitudes, etc., especially as a means of indicating detachment from a subject, theme, or emotion.
3. 
Socratic Irony
4. 
dramatic Irony
5.
an outcome of events contrary to what was, or might have been, expected.

Why the definition?... 

Last week I did a story at "The Story Salon" L.A.'s longest running story telling venue. What did I tell? Well, I told the short tale of my doing the Key note speech at that eighth grade graduation in June.

Beverly (the lady who runs it) wanted to hear my speech and a short lead in tale of why I did it. I failed the why portion, but did the speech part as the opening to the night. 

Why the irony?...

I decided to do the speech because out of everyone at the graduation, nobody managed to get the speech on either video, or audio, so I decided to do it again at "The Story Salon" because they video tape every single show... Except this one... The person who normally videos everything was out sick with a respiratory infection... 

Ah, well.

The other Irony? I don't quite know if it's exactly an Irony, but this last weekend I went to The Ronald Reagan Library. 

You ask why?

Because there was a huge  Disney exhibition there...



The Disney exhibit was great! There were a lot of items you don't normally get to see up close a personal...




A Few things I'd seen before...





And a few things I just thought were cool...





My friend and I spent over three and a half hours in the Disney side, about an hour in the gift shop and about an hour and a half in the Reagan side...

The Regan side had a few interesting things like...

Air Force One...



A piece of the Berlin Wall...



and a replica of the Oval Office...



Of course there were a couple of pieces of unintentional humor...



And...

I have to say it was a very enjoyable day over all, but I couldn't shake the feeling that sooner or later and alarm was going to go off screaming "Democrat! There's a Democrat on the compound! But it never happened.

I do want to say that I never thought I'd ever agree with Reagan on anything, but there was one thing...



I do  hope more Republicans will go to the Reagan library and stumble across this piece of signage and then take its message to heart...