The Baboon Congress

Chicken or Egg?

78 Comments
Header Image by Nisargam

I have decided to look at the world a bit more through the eyes of a blog writer.

I was at the Edina art fair a week ago Sunday for a glorious day and while looking at the booths of numerous photographers made the comment that it must be interesting looking at the world with the filter of how would this be for a photograph

It occurred to me today that for the last 5 years and likely 30 more before that our blogmeister has undoubtedly been influenced by the filter of the trail and the docks to flavor spice pervert and steer his brain and perception of the world

I have a new appreciation for the portrait of a wordsmith photoshop artist as a middle aged and getting older every year man.

I hope many of us get the chance to take a swing at posting guest blogs (are they that any more) and discover the fulfillment dale discovered in his 1200 good blogs (and the others too)

Topic before the question or the other way around?

File of topics that are not time related and  Where the heck did he always find the top news tidbit before it hit the morning lead story status on the places that know when to put a 72 point font on a headline.

Top stories for my sons would be sports leads, for my daughters something else again, for Fox News, public television, cbs and the New York Times all different again

So to hit it right once is understandable but over and over is a legacy left for us to ponder.

My first guest blog year and years ago was on Friday the 13th and dale suggested I use that as a topic but that being my first I had other stuff on the tip of my fingers so I told him no. I don’t think it’s come up again but I will craft one for the next Friday 13 unless one of you want to.

Timely is now or forget it. Other ( this one for example) can be used a filler from the blog of the day file I hope we offer to dale to make the summer go by without too many discussions that drone on for multiple days.

We all have different filters and I have enjoyed participating in the interaction to dales blogs with you all over the last 5 plus years

Now I hope I get to enjoy some additional filter results from one and all.  Music , food , art , seeds, recollections, views of life…we can do this baboons with our eyes closed. And as you can see from my typical typos that’s usually how I type.

Which comes first the question or the story?

78 thoughts on “Chicken or Egg?”

  2. I recently changed my filter. I was going to rotate my tires, but they have no tread left on them and are out of production. Skipped the lube job, too.

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

  3. The real questions are the ones that obtrude upon your consciousness whether you like it or not, the ones that make your mind start vibrating like a jackhammer, the ones that you “come to terms with” only to discover that they are still there. The real questions refuse to be placated. They barge into your life at the times when it seems most important for them to stay away. They are the questions asked most frequently and answered most inadequately, the ones that reveal their true natures slowly, reluctantly, most often against your will.
    – Ingrid Bengis

    Liked by 5 people

    Reply

  4. Some of each, I think. I can’t always come up with something if a topic is presented, but now that I’m wanting to write more blog posts, ANYTHING I come across seems like it could be a topic – making tea in the morning, unusual traffic patterns, whatever I’m reading… I apologize in advance for the ones that don’t really work.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    1. I am still struggling to write one. After this 2 week bug which recently seemed to finish me off, I am without a spark.

      Like

      Reply

  5. Rise and Ponder Baboons!

    This question makes my head hurt–I am way too much in the mode of “deal with situation at hand in this moment.” I think that is how I do life in general. Never a philosopher, me.

    Sometimes, I think, the story is brought about by NOT asking questions. For example, our local Archdiocese (and the larger Catholic Church) is beset by troubles right now. Their troubles sprouted because they did not ask nor respond to some very pertinent questions about the nature of human behavior and sexuality. I don’t know which comes first, the question or the story, but I am absolutely certain that it is best not to ignore either one sometimes. This has broken the hearts of some devoted Catholics who I know.

    Now I am going to “put on a cleen dress, pull my hair back with combs, and sit on the portch and rock a spell” while I count my blessings. (See yesterday’s post.

    Liked by 3 people

    Reply

        2. Jacque, is the receipt hand lettered? Otherwise I’ll just copy and paste from yesterday’s blog. It really is a fine document.

          Like

        2. There is one on my stove door now. I believe it may in fact be Monday-laundry. Not sure who embroidered them. I may need to frame that along with this “receipt”.

          Liked by 1 person

  6. As a recovering anthropology student, I would say you start with a question – the question leads to the story which leads to more questions and more story. The key is finding a good question or two and knowing when and how to ask more questions. I would wager that Jacque and Renee find themselves in the same question business, though the stories they hear are not for public consumption.

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

  7. I have tried to write something. I start off with some merry bit of fluff and then I notice that I’ve drifted into existential angst. I seem to be stuck in a dark, reflective mode, and I fear that even BiR (my most forgiving critic on these pages) would be challenged to “like” my darker thoughts.

    But tim, darn him, wants us to wrestle with big issues. So I will. Here’s the question: can a kangaroo jump higher than the Empire State Building? And the answer: sure it can. The Empire State Building can’t jump at all!

    Liked by 5 people

    Reply

  8. I guess as I have been struggling to get something written, I first have to pick a subject area.

    I could go on about the cats, ancestors, and of course, the s&h. But since at our house we especially enjoy Dale’s posts about space, I feel I ought to give that a go.

    I “like” a couple of spacey things on facebook, so for me it may be more a question of “what’s happening in space and what can I make of it”.

    I think I need to assign regular time to writing if I am going to get anything done. I’ve got no “spare” time as such. A group of cross country moms made a pact to get in our walking while the kids are at practice, so at least 3 days a week that will get done.

    Like

    Reply

  9. Morning all. Am without computer so am slow on my phone.

    For me, stories come from the question but also from other stories. (Preceding sentences took 4 minutes to type. Two blog pieces written buy unfortunately saved on PC. Hopefully I will get it back today!

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  10. Good morning. For me the story always comes first and the question only comes after the story is written. Dale usually helped me pick the questions to go with my guest blogs or came up with one that I agreed to use. I never even considered starting with the question and then writing the story. You need a chicken to get an egg if the chicken is the story and the egg is the question. That is my approach. The story always comes before the question in my mind.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  11. I hate to admit this but how I wrote over 550 weekly sermons:
    Saturday I would have the sermon for the next day ready, a few speaking notes on cards and rehearsed in my head 2-3 times. Because we had no church office and a secretary who did the bulletins during the week when she had time, I had to hand her each Sunday the hymn numbers and the sermon title for the Sunday 8 days away. I would scan the assigned texts and let some vague idea pop into my head, often driven by recent events local or larger, or just whimsy. During the next six days I would tuen on my filter: review the texts now and then and watch for parallel events in life, the church or the larger world. It was a rare week, blessing on me, that it did not fall into place that way.
    So you see I did something writers are taught never to do: I wrote the title first.
    To answer tim, for me it was and largely is sort of both at once in a zen sort of way

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    1. I have several pastor friends who loathe having to come up with sermon titles brcause they were not so lucky.

      And being told that they had to submit a written text to be put on the website was pure torture.

      Like

      Reply

  12. I have a few former students who have to write something on demand, such as a magazine column or a newspaper column. They tell me of the ups and downs of the task.
    I always wonder how you are creative on a timeline, such as columnists, TV writers, cartoonists, political cartoonists. Being Dave Barry would fry my brain.

    Liked by 3 people

    Reply

  13. Well, a topic just seems to come to me, and then I write, and then the question emerges. I submitted quite a piece of fluff on Sunday.We shall see what you all think of it.

    Like

    Reply

    1. Pink fluff – candyfloss – is good. Fluff in general to counterbalance the angst that tim doesn’t want us to write about; it’ll all balance out in the end.

      Liked by 2 people

      Reply

  14. In the years that I have been participating on the trail, I have often been surprised at the question at the end. It often wasn’t the question I anticipated. So, if I could think of an interesting story to tell, and I would have no difficulty tacking on a question at the end. If it surprises anyone, well, that’s just because I’m a profound and deep thinker who sees parallels where there are none. Keep ’em guessing, I say.

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

  16. Today it’s almost too easy to keep notes on your smart phone in your pocket at all times
    Are used to admire and LaMotte for carrying 3 x 5 cards in her pocket with a pencil everywhere that she went in keeping notes of her observations of life as she went about her daily business
    I love and romance writing style and would like to become and warm up when I grow up
    My tendency is to go the other way and to mine buried treasures from within my brain as I’m typing a sentence and figure out how to put the Old and new together in some form of harmony that presents a discussion worth having
    Occasionally I have an idea that I begin with but often times I’m responding to whatever it is that’s in front of me and the idea kind of forms itself as we go along
    The result is a often a an obvious question however for the trail the obvious question is not the one that used the question to get used after waxing poetic on a topic is often 180° from where it was apparent that’s part of the beauty of being on the trail isn’t it ?
    For the sake of getting it done I am now writing on many devices other than my standard laptop where my lower case preferences are easily abided.
    In this damn politically correct world all electronic devices seem to want to use capitals and punctuation as we go through our daily text messaging and or document production
    I have a friend who’s a poet and she has a hard time getting the pages to line up the way that she envisions I’m lining up when she goes to hit the print button to have them put out in hardcopy
    I have a friend who’s a poet and she has a hard time getting the pages to line up the way that she envisions I’m lining up when she goes to hit the print button to have them put out in hardcopy I have the same difficulty on
    I don’t have that problem because none of my stuff ever hits hard copy

    Like

    Reply

    2. I’m not so sure I agree with your assertion that the electronics’ insistance on capitalization and punctuation is driven by political correctness. I think all they really want is legibility and comprehension.

      Stay with and you can probably fry your device’s mind. I seem to have used so many made-up/obscure words the phone has pretty much given up.

      Liked by 3 people

      Reply

  17. Remember how paralyzing a blank sheet of paper could be in high school English class?

    Lately I’ve been pondering man hole covers.
    I’m not sure it’s enough for a blog.

    Like

    Reply

      1. Ahem. Some of those sewer-access-points go way beyond utility and are works of art. I am particularly enamored of the City of Lakes ones with the sailboat.

        Liked by 1 person

        Reply

        1. I have a print made from a “utility cover” hanging on my wall. My mom’s cousin was an art teacher and did lots of wood cut prints over his lifetime. There was an especially interesting utility cover that he passed often on his walk to work/school (think it belonged to the local phone company). I can’t remember if he asked permission or just made the prints. He did some in a duo-tone, mine happens to be a single tone blue. It looks sort of Aztec or Meso-American. Takes up a big chunk of wall but I love it.

          Liked by 2 people

    4. This brings up a point I have been pondering-if we have something short-ish, can it go on the ‘docks?

      Like

      Reply

      1. My vote, mig, would be to stick to one url. Dale had reasons for starting Baboondocks that don’t apply to us in the same way. Without his leadership, it makes more sense to me to stick to a single site on the net. Just one person’s inclination. 🙂

        Like

        Reply

      2. I agree with Steve. Long or short, we’re on our own here. Let’s keep it simple and post whatever comes up in one place. A short piece may just as well generate a lot of feedback; we just need a little something to get the juices flowing.

        Liked by 3 people

        Reply

  18. I struggled in grad school because I wasn’t able to control the process of writing a paper. As others have suggested here, I’d put paper in the typewriter and begin confronting the issue that intrigued me. Then the process of writing and questioning would show me what I really thought about the issue, often surprising me. It was often a harrowing ride, and I wasn’t sure of landing in a good place (let alone on time to meet the assignment).

    I envied my erstwife. She would type a provocative statement on the title page, then write a paper to support it. Her writing was quick and orderly. That seemed magic to me. Only later did I realize that she could write that way because she never allowed herself to become embroiled in the unpredictable process of authentic engagement with a question. She could do it, that is, because she saw the assignment as a hoop to jump through. As long as her efforts were directed toward meeting the assignment (as opposed to thinking about anything) she could manage the process. I was wrestling with issues; she was doing what she needed to do to earn a grade.

    Even after I finally understood that, I didn’t see how our different approaches meant we were two people who were never meant to be married.

    Like

    Reply

    1. I had a similar problem to you, Steve. I could never write an outline for a paper before I wrote the paper – well, unless I was just writing by rote and not really getting into it. If an outline was required, I had to write the paper first and then write the outline from that. How could I outline something when I didn’t know what twists and turns it would take, or what it would be like after a few drafts?

      I’ve also had the experience of discovering what I really thought about something as I wrote about it – and being surprised by it.

      Liked by 2 people

      Reply

  19. I’ve usually told a story several times before I put it down on paper. Five years ago, my daughter in law (now there’s a story!) threw a surprise “man-shower” for my son. He was singularly the most precocious boy in history, so with great ease and delight, I captured at least a dozen of incidents of mischief in print and had my oldest grandson draw illustrations to go with each one-page entry. I entitled the bound stories, “Things Your Daddy Doesn’t Want You to Know”.

    This brings me to an admission that Tim’s criticism of the first story I’ve contributed a few days ago has me not wanting to ever contribute another one to the Trail. It’s one of those things like going to a party where everyone offers praise for a new dress except one person. Either it’s human nature or I’m particularly thin-skinned, but that one person’s response can ruin the evening for me. My thought in situations like this is that if one person is reacting negatively, probably everyone else is too but just too polite to say it out loud. Because of my own sensitivity, I’ll tell someone privately not publicly when/if I have a problem something he/she has done, but that’s just me.

    Like

    Reply

    2. CB – don’t let tim throw you. You wrote about what’s going on with you and it happens to be about lousy neighbors. We know there’s more to you than that for goodness sakes. 🙂 Your daily comments prove that.

      Liked by 2 people

      Reply

    3. CB.. Your piece generated 73 comments – most of them fun and interesting stories. Don’t let one person’s bad day keep you from sharing your voice with us!!

      Liked by 2 people

      Reply

    4. sorry cb
      i was having a bad day and thinking nothing about how my arrows could hurt you. i know the story you told was an example of your strongest emotions and i am very embarrassed to be such a schmuck
      no other way to say it. i screwed up.
      if you stop i will be the ass that caused it. let me be a different ass. continue to participate please. im the one saying i dont want negative stuff an i come out with that? really? hope i learn from it. bad days happen . schmucks too. sorry i was not a better blogmate.

      Liked by 6 people

      Reply

  20. OT – As I’m sure you all know, the Scandinavians all celebrate Midsummer. The Danes’ annual celebration will take place on Saturday in Rosemount. If anyone is interested in participating, let me know and I’ll send you more information.

    Here’s a small video of the Swedish celebration – which unlike the Danish one includes a Maypole but not the burning of a witch.

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

  21. Speaking of stories, I’ve become trapped in the world of Netflix. My grandson recently installed free Netflix, I discovered a series called “House of Cards”, and have been watching them hours a day for several days now. I assumed that any series would end at about 6-8 episodes until a friend told me yesterday that this one’s got at least 300!!

    Like

    Reply

    1. Far be it from me to question your math, but the third season (which is currently airing) will bring the total number of episodes to 39. If more seasons follow, I doubt they will film 300 episodes any time soon.

      Like

      Reply

      1. if its me i can watch the same one over and not remember how it ends for the first 3 or 4 showings.
        i do it with the middle. it is my new favorite show but it costs money on netflix so i hit the record button in direct tv and in a month i had 100 new episodes. i watch them at night to go to sleep with a smile

        Like

        Reply

    3. House of Cards is awesome! I’ve watched all 3 seasons and am anxiously awaiting more. Lots of great stuff on Netflix.

      Like

      Reply

  22. OT, but REALLY? Son and DIL were 5 miles from home last night after a 13 hour drive from Michigan when they hit a deer going 80 MPH on I-29. They both had minor cuts and scrapes. The car may not be totalled. We will see tomorrow after the insurance company weighs in.

    This afternoon daughter phones, breathless, and says “Mom, i just got rear-ended on the interstate between Moorhead and Fargo. It wasn’t my fault, and there is just a small crack in my bumper. I phoned the police and the insurance company and have a claim number and everything. The other guy got a ticket for following too closely, and would you believe it, after the police officer left he asked me for my phone number so we could go out sometime. i wouldn’t give it to him”.

    Liked by 3 people

    Reply

    1. Oh man, Renee, you couldn’t have made that series of events up. Good grief. Glad nobody was seriously hurt – well, except for the deer. Those last two sentences by your daughter cracked me up.

      Like

      Reply

  23. Just looking at my grammar. I didn’t know that deer could run 80 MPH. I am surprised son could even catch the deer at that speed! 😉

    Liked by 6 people

    Reply

    1. i still smile at the time i was coming home with my dad. i theink it was form fargo and when we got to the northern edge of the twin cities he put on his seat belt. when i asked him what prompted him to put it on he said he had read an article that 90% of all accidents happen within 30 miles of home. i asked him if he thought maybe that was because 90% of all driving was done within 30 miles of home and he started giggling. he couldnt believe he hadnt thought of that.

      Like

      Reply

  24. What comes first – the question or the story? Usually the story, but I don’t really know how that’s going to go until I start writing. I start with one idea (if I’m lucky, it’s more of an inspiration than just an idea) and see what I end up with. The question usually flows fairly easily after I’ve written the rest of the piece. Or not. The last post I wrote was a struggle – I tried to write it several times, over several weeks, and it was pretty bad. Then one day, some words popped into my head and I wrote them down. It seemed to me to be better than the other tries – but who am I to judge? The question that came to me for the final draft was totally different than any of my previous drafts.

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

Leave a reply to reneeinnd Cancel reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.