Calendars
(page-a-day for 2019): Shakespearean Insults; Medical Bloopers; Church Signs. Andrews McMeel. $14.99 each.
Page-a-day calendars are typically thought of as visual items, offering
a single-panel cartoon, comic strip, or picture of some sort to look at each
day of the year. But not everyone wants a pictorial display every day – it can
be more enjoyable to have a few thoughtful words. Or amusing, silly, or even
insulting ones. In fact, if the insults come from Shakespeare’s works, they can
be erudite and informative as well as funny, and sometimes devastatingly
pointed – as Shakespeare was so very capable of being. The 2019 Shakespearean Insults calendar is great
fun for lovers of the Bard of Avon, and can provide a useful corrective for
students and teachers who spend most of their time focused on Shakespeare’s
extreme seriousness of perception and expression. What makes Shakespeare the
greatest of all English-language authors is, among other things, the tremendous
diversity of his writings, which range from the extremely intense to the
tremendously lighthearted to the overtly sexy to the downright scatological.
There are insults aplenty in Shakespeare, including some that are worth
thinking about for a moment: “If we offend, it is with our good will. (A Midsummer Night’s Dream)” Some of the
words here have clearly contemporary resonance: “Who is here so vile that he
will not love his country? (Julius
Caesar)” Some require wading through obsolete words to
get to their core – a worthwhile journey: “A wightly wanton with a velvet brow,
With two pitch-balls stuck in her face for eyes. (Love’s Labour’s Lost)” A few are delightful in their
dismissiveness: “Small winds shake him. (The
Two Noble Kinsmen)” “Her blush is
guiltiness, not modesty. (Much Ado About
Nothing.” “Poor prattler, how thou talk’st! (Macbeth)” Some are decidedly bitter: “He’s mad that trusts in the
tameness of a wolf, a horse’s health, a boy’s love, or a whore’s oath. (King Lear)” “There is no leprosy but
what thou speak’st. (Timon of Athens)”
And some have a hint of the sort of humor that often emerges quite unexpectedly
in Shakespeare’s works: “We know each other well. We do; and long to know each
other worse. (Troilus and Cressida)”
Lovers of Shakespeare’s works will enjoy a full year of words like these, which
have lost little of their potency after four centuries.
The language is modern, as are the
concerns, in the 2019 Medical Bloopers
calendar, and if there is nothing profound here, there are plenty of anecdotes
and comments to provide something health-care-related to think about every day.
Pages called “Lessons Learned from Patients” include, “Complete all roof
repairs during daylight hours,” and “If you are prescribed an inhaler for your
cat allergies, it is not intended to be sprayed on the cat,” and “Do not try to
remove tattoos with sandpaper. Sandblasters are even worse.” There is a silly comment
about Mrs. Potato Head going over her annual yammogram. There is the real story
of a patient who, told to limit diet to clear liquids, suggested gin and vodka.
There is another about a hospital visitor who fell asleep in the patient’s bed
when the patient went to the bathroom. There are suggested board games for
medical professionals, including Crazy Eights for psychiatrists, Tic-Tac-Toe
for podiatrists, and Twister for rehab therapists. There is this suggested
medical motto for the frustrated doctor: “Not all patients are annoying. Some
are dead.” There is the (hopefully imaginary) patient who says, “I entered what
I ate today into my new fitness app, and it just sent an ambulance to my
house.” And then there are the medicines that patients request, including “the
one that starts with an ‘S,’” “the one you break in half,” and “name a few –
I’ll know it if I hear it.” This calendar mixes the funny with the wry and the
real-world with the imaginary, offering medical professionals – and anyone who
interacts with them regularly – a daily chance to remember not to take the
serious business of health care seriously all the time.
Many people are serious about religion
only on churchgoing days, and not always then. Churches know this – and some
try to keep faith in people’s minds, however briefly, every day. They do that
using “Little Sayings to Help You on Your Way,” that being the subtitle of the
2019 Church Signs calendar. These
pithy remarks, comments and admonitions really do appear (or have appeared) on
signs in front of churches at one time or another. “Pray now, ask questions
later,” suggests one. Another thoughtfully suggests, “We could take a lesson
from the weather. It pays no attention to criticism.” Or, on a different
weather-related note, “When life gives you a rainy day, play in the puddles.” That
one strikes the same theme as this: “Anything that annoys you is teaching you
patience.” And this: “Every day will not be good, but there is something good
in every day.” Some of the signs are overtly religious: “God’s delays are not
denials,” and “I was going to waste, but Jesus recycled me,” and “In God we
still trust!” Some rhyme: “Be the labor great or small, do it well or not at
all.” Some are amusing in a think-about-it way: “The difference between heaven
and hell isn’t the temperature, it’s the management,” and “The outcome of a
rain dance has a lot to do with timing,” and “There is a reason the rearview
mirror is small and the windshield is big.” There is room here for occasionally
poking fun at oneself: “Our congregation is like fudge – mostly sweet, with a
few nuts.” And there is also room for a bit of genuine seriousness: “It is an
art not only to say the right thing at the right time but also to leave unsaid
the wrong thing at the tempting moment.” As one of the signs here puts it,
“Life is too important to take seriously!” Church
Signs will make sure that you heed those words, day in and day out,
throughout the year – faithfully.
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