Pam's Blog

James Geary is a writer/journalist, American born, living in London. Actually, he calls himself an aphorist. He spoke on aphorisms and was quite entertaining. He seemed quite comfortable on stage and is a good presenter. He’s obviously done this before. He talked about aphorisms, what they are, what they aren’t, and quoted some examples along the way. While on stage, he carried a globe of the earth with the top cut open (like a lid) and inside he had juggling balls and some aphorisms written on small slips of paper.

While telling us he five laws of aphorisms, he juggled! The five laws (which he expanded on while juggling) are, in short, these:

Geary’s Five Laws of the Aphorism
1. It Must Be Brief.
2. It Must Be Personal.
3. It Must Be Definitive.
4. It Must Be Philosophical.
5. It Must Have A Twist.

The audience participation part of the talk consisted of a game he played with the audience. He offered audience members the globe filled with tiny slips of paper. On each was an aphorism (or not). The audience member would read the aphorism (aloud to the entire Michigan Theater audience!) and James would tell who came up with the aphorism, something about that person, and read some other aphorisms written about that person. If the piece of paper the audience member picked out of the globe was blank, that person could name any topic and James would come up with an aphorism. And, if he couldn’t, he would give away one of his books to that person. The person in the audience who got the blank piece of paper suggested “lust”. James claimed to know one but couldn’t come up with it so, he gave away a book.

He offered me the globe and the aphorism I pulled out was “The ink of the scholar is more holy than the blood of the martyr.” This was said by Muhammad and James told several stories about Muhammad, and other religious figures, as well as reading other aphorisms of Muhammad’s.

Although I might not get the exact wording, I remember the jist of a couple of the other aphorisms James shared during the hour … here goes.

“A single snowflake feels no more or less responsible for the avalanche”
“A weekend wasted is not a wasted weekend.”
“Be like a postage stamp. Stick to one thing until you get there.”

Aphorisms are everywhere – bumper stickers (the one I’ve seen a lot lately is “Wag More. Bark Less.”), t-shirts and commercials. Watch for them because they can change the way you think and when you start to change the way you think, you change your life.

To read the aphorisms James has written, go here:
http://www.jamesgeary.com/myaphorisms.php

This entry was posted on Friday, February 12th, 2010 at 10:30 pm and is filed under Around Ann Arbor. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.