The Academy of Arts and Imbecility

Gomer the Greek

There are a lot of quotations from one "Gomer the Greek" in the Grobius and Fishe Academy of Arts and Imbecility. Let us set the record straight. (1) Gomer did not live in the year 2001 BC. That was a joke to put in mention of the year 2000 problem with computers. He was really a contemporary of Socrates about the year 400 BC. (2) He was not actually Greek, but rather an Albanian, or whatever they called themselves back then. (3) His name was not Gomer, but in fact something unpronouncable like Grmshvilatz. (4) The sayings attributed to him were not actually written by him, because he never really existed, but were instead written by Thomas Chatterton before he came up with his medieval forgeries. (5) Chatterton had nothing to do with it at all -- "Grobius done it!" (cf. Timothy Evans's last words before he was wrongfully hanged -- "Christie done it!"). (6) Gomer the Greek is total bullshit. Believe whatever you want to.

Questions:
-- Were you taken in by these quotations?
-- Do you think they were relevant where cited?
-- Would you have preferred that he had really existed?
-- Do you think he said these things anyway?

If you answered Yes to the last question, you are a definite candidate for becoming a member of the Grobius and Fishe Academy of Arts and Imbecility. Please go to our form page and submit your own Gomer the Greek aphorisms.

Sample Quotations

• "There is True Art in Interpreting the World through the Minds of Imbeciles"
• "It is a truth that a committee of imbeciles is more like to reach a consensus, in less time and with less argument, than any assemblage of men who call themselves well-informed and intelligent."
• "Did you hear the news? Nothing at all happened yesterday"
• "The Universe is bigger than the Agora, but not as big as Asia, which is huge"
• "If one is forced to eat shit, use a good hot sauce"
• "I have seen it all before, but therefore need I pluck out my eyes?"
• "The Gods must love Imbeciles, because They made so many of them"
• "Politics is the proper profession for incompetent doctors and lawyers"
• "Over generations many a word or phrase evolves to mean its opposite"
• "Many now believe the seat of reason is in the brain. I know that the source of all wisdom resides in the heart. A person who is dead has no wisdom, and that is the proof of the matter."
• "We have reached Enlightenment in our Age; only Darkness can follow, as when one sneezes on the candle on the way to the loo after midnight."
• "Drinking has never been a problem for me. It is always easier to swallow liquids than it is to chew fat."
• "When you drop the soap, it is a very foolish thing to put your head into the water to look for it. Try to find it with your toes, and if you cannot locate it, you can always bathe again next week."
• "Birds eat raw worms, I prefer my sausages cooked. Does that define me as civilized?"
• "If you meet somebody who claims to know more than you do, agree with that person. Their ignorance will get you in trouble if you flout it."
• "Gods throw human souls into a sieve -- the ones who fall through the holes just suffer, the ones who are too big to get strained out become powerful people and come to even worse ends."
• "Eventually every ending has a happy conclusion, or not, as the case may be."
• On his poetry: "When Homer nodded and all the rest of the pigeons fell asleep, I was the fox who outbarded them all. But no one will spare my works as much as a goose quill pen to maintain them, so hello and farewell to posterity, who won't know what they missed."
  [this the longest aphorism we have, and it was found scribbled on the back of a scroll of the The Golden Ass]