Friday, January 31, 2020
Thursday, January 30, 2020
Found 'em!
I have never played marbles.
It was not a thing, although non-electronic toys were still popular in my childhood. Slinkies, Frisbees, Etch-a-Sketch, Legos, Spirograph, Colorforms, G.I. Joe, Matchbox and Hot Wheels, yo-yos, and one of my all-time favorites, Nok-Hockey, all had and in fact still have popularity. I played with them all.
But not marbles.
And yet, here they are.
My house is at the bottom of the hill, and occasionally round objects roll down from the children up the street. Soccer balls, lacrosse balls, tennis balls, golf balls, all have made their way down here and are returned when possible. These marbles were out in the street as well. I find it hard to believe they rolled here, but who knows? Anyway, I have this small collection of marbles in my possession at the moment.
Seems like marbles were huge in the lives of boys in the past. Generally when a movie wanted to show boys at play, marbles were involved. Sometimes they were key to the plot. You could even count on Superboy playing marbles, at least in 1945.
While not up there with activities like baseball and failing to kick the football, marbles were a regular pastime for Charlie Brown of Peanuts. In fact, the plot of the 2006 TV special He's a Bully, Charlie Brown (taken from a 1995 series of strips) centers on the game.
But when I was a boy, marbles just weren't a thing. I don't know why. Maybe because it is best played on a sandy surface, like the old sandlots, and when I was a kid we mostly played on grass, blacktop, or ugly carpeting. Really, it never came up, at least not where I lived. But I had marbles in my possession from time to time, although I don't know how. Just among the dingbats and detritus that pass through the lives of kids.
My dad played marbles when he was a kid, and showed me how to shoot once, but in his childhood he was really more interested in stickball and stoopball.
Marbles are enshrined in the National Toy Hall of Fame at the Strong Museum of Play, in Rochester, New York. People still love them, and some know all the various types, like the Peppermint Swirl, the Latticino Core, the Bamboozer, and the Corkscrew (all of which sound like sixties dances). It looks like the three I found are a Clearie and two Cat's-Eyes.
If you feel like you need a new hobby, the rules for playing marbles are readily available online. But personally, about all that I hear of marbles these days is people wondering whether I lost mine.
The Phrase Finder, that Internet stalwart of the common tongue, says that the expression "to lose one's marbles," meaning to go nuts, appears to have dated to America in the late 19th century. Prior to that it meant to become furious; the site has an example of that from New Zealand. In both cases it was tied to boys who found themselves sans marbles -- whether losing them by accident or in a game, it does not say.
I have always found "lost your marbles" to indicate a vacant kind of insanity, the kind where one is ethereally and unreasonably detached from reality, rather than the kind that indicates intractable red-faced fury. But I'm sure it's been used for all kinds of craziness.
There was a fellow in town, a bearded gent who died about a decade ago, who had been known for his marbles. Now, now, what I mean is that he gave them away. Mostly he was known for giving away coins with angels on them, something to carry to remind the people he met that we are blessed. He gave me one of those, which I did carry for ages. He was also a member of AA, and I was told that when a newcomer would come in he would present the man with a marble, telling him that if he wanted to drink he should throw it away as hard as he could -- because then he would have lost his marbles.
Maybe I'll give these three away to people who look pretty close to being nuts. Tell them as long as they hold on to it, they won't have lost all their marbles. There's always a lot of people like that around.
P.S.: So what happened to my angel coin? I lost it, of course; I think it may have been in a suit that went to the dry cleaners. The incident would be too on-the-nose to use in a novel. Maybe a Hallmark movie. "I've lost my angel" is not a phrase likely to catch on, though.
It was not a thing, although non-electronic toys were still popular in my childhood. Slinkies, Frisbees, Etch-a-Sketch, Legos, Spirograph, Colorforms, G.I. Joe, Matchbox and Hot Wheels, yo-yos, and one of my all-time favorites, Nok-Hockey, all had and in fact still have popularity. I played with them all.
But not marbles.
And yet, here they are.
My house is at the bottom of the hill, and occasionally round objects roll down from the children up the street. Soccer balls, lacrosse balls, tennis balls, golf balls, all have made their way down here and are returned when possible. These marbles were out in the street as well. I find it hard to believe they rolled here, but who knows? Anyway, I have this small collection of marbles in my possession at the moment.
Seems like marbles were huge in the lives of boys in the past. Generally when a movie wanted to show boys at play, marbles were involved. Sometimes they were key to the plot. You could even count on Superboy playing marbles, at least in 1945.
 |
| And being a Super Weenie about it. |
But when I was a boy, marbles just weren't a thing. I don't know why. Maybe because it is best played on a sandy surface, like the old sandlots, and when I was a kid we mostly played on grass, blacktop, or ugly carpeting. Really, it never came up, at least not where I lived. But I had marbles in my possession from time to time, although I don't know how. Just among the dingbats and detritus that pass through the lives of kids.
My dad played marbles when he was a kid, and showed me how to shoot once, but in his childhood he was really more interested in stickball and stoopball.
Marbles are enshrined in the National Toy Hall of Fame at the Strong Museum of Play, in Rochester, New York. People still love them, and some know all the various types, like the Peppermint Swirl, the Latticino Core, the Bamboozer, and the Corkscrew (all of which sound like sixties dances). It looks like the three I found are a Clearie and two Cat's-Eyes.
If you feel like you need a new hobby, the rules for playing marbles are readily available online. But personally, about all that I hear of marbles these days is people wondering whether I lost mine.
The Phrase Finder, that Internet stalwart of the common tongue, says that the expression "to lose one's marbles," meaning to go nuts, appears to have dated to America in the late 19th century. Prior to that it meant to become furious; the site has an example of that from New Zealand. In both cases it was tied to boys who found themselves sans marbles -- whether losing them by accident or in a game, it does not say.
I have always found "lost your marbles" to indicate a vacant kind of insanity, the kind where one is ethereally and unreasonably detached from reality, rather than the kind that indicates intractable red-faced fury. But I'm sure it's been used for all kinds of craziness.
There was a fellow in town, a bearded gent who died about a decade ago, who had been known for his marbles. Now, now, what I mean is that he gave them away. Mostly he was known for giving away coins with angels on them, something to carry to remind the people he met that we are blessed. He gave me one of those, which I did carry for ages. He was also a member of AA, and I was told that when a newcomer would come in he would present the man with a marble, telling him that if he wanted to drink he should throw it away as hard as he could -- because then he would have lost his marbles.
Maybe I'll give these three away to people who look pretty close to being nuts. Tell them as long as they hold on to it, they won't have lost all their marbles. There's always a lot of people like that around.
⚈⚆⚇⚉
P.S.: So what happened to my angel coin? I lost it, of course; I think it may have been in a suit that went to the dry cleaners. The incident would be too on-the-nose to use in a novel. Maybe a Hallmark movie. "I've lost my angel" is not a phrase likely to catch on, though.
Wednesday, January 29, 2020
Fred's Book Club: Everything, Useless.
Last week we had my smallest book; this week, the biggest series.
This Wednesday's episode of the Humpback Writers (named for the fact that it runs on Wednesday, not because of the condition kyphosis, "the third basic type of spinal curvature... In its most severe form, kyphosis becomes a sharp angular deformity known as hunchback") features thousands of writers, because of the nature of the book, or really books. Thirty books. Maybe some of the writers did suffer from kyphosis. How should I know?
Here is the set in question:
Yes, fellow kids, it is the thirty-volume set of the Encyclopedia Americana! No, not the one moms bought one volume a week from the A&P; I think that was the World Book (still around) or Funk & Wagnalls (not). I don't wish to put down those encyclopedias, but the Americana (first published in 1829) was a serious general reference set, the kind of thing found in colleges, high schools, libraries, and the offices of educational publishers.
Alas, here's the rub:
This is the 1985 edition. I have a thirty-volume library-bound encyclopedia that is thirty-five years old, and thus terribly out of date.
What the heck am I doing with an encyclopedia, let alone one this old? Did Fred's mommy, sensing the genius of her boy, buy it in installments to help his advanced learning? Did she buy it as a Hail Mary to try to get some information through his thick skull? Did I win it on The Price Is Right? Did I shoplift it from Walden Books using unusually large pants?
No -- what happened was, one of my first jobs when I was a little baby editor Fred, was as a clerk/mail reader/Dude Friday/dogsbody/research assistant/flunky/water cooler refiller/occasional proofreader for a publisher of nonfiction books for youths. The Internet was little more than a twinkle in DARPA's eye at the time, so it was helpful to have things like a big, serious, unabridged dictionary and a big, serious encyclopedia. I worked at this place for a year or so, and then we heard that the company had been bought and the office was moving out of the city. So, everything had to go, including us. We had jobs for a while, mainly packing down decades of stuff, resolving author and production contracts, all that kind of thing. And no one wanted the encyclopedia. It was just going to be tossed. So, although it was dated even then, I decided to bring it home to my apartment, one volume at a time. There's a lot of information in 23,000 pages of six-point type. At the time, I don't think it could have all fit on a CD-ROM; Microsoft's Encarta had been around a bit, but was not nearly as extensive an encyclopedia. I didn't have a computer at the time, anyway.
The Americana was useful for a while, especially when I was unemployed and scrambling for publishing work. I didn't get many fact-checking assignments then, but I did have some copyedit jobs, and sometimes you want to look things up to make sure they're right. Well, we still had no Internet, children, although that was coming soon. And then we did, and I stopped using the books.
(Remember, wee tots, the Internet is only a source, and as a whole not a reliable source, of information; we all need to learn how to pick out the good stuff from the mountains of crap and fake news. And just because I've linked to Wikipedia in this article doesn't mean I endorse it; it's free and I'm lazy.)
These last few years, the main use of the volumes has been propping up electric candles in the window for Christmas. And, as I have tons of other books that can be used for that, I have to let them go. They take up a lot of space.
And they are out of date. In these tomes, Burma is still Burma, not Myanmar, and George Herbert Walker Bush is still alive, and is known as the vice president of the United States (Volume 5, BURMA to CATHAY). Not only is Yugoslavia still intact (Volume 29, WILMOT PROVISO to ZYGOTE) but so is the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (Volume 27, TRANCE to VENIAL SIN). Persons who have become awfully important in the decades since, like Bill Clinton, Bill Gates, George Walker Bush, Steve Jobs, Barack Obama, Donald Trump, Angela Merkel, Osama Bin Laden, Benjamin Netanyahu, Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, all of them were alive in 1985, but none of them rated an entry back then.
You can imagine how antiquated the entries on science and technology are. Just a quick example, about Saturn, quoted from Volume 24 (RUSSIA to SKIMMER): "A total of 21-23 moons are known to be in orbit around Saturn." We now know that Saturn has more moons than any other planet in our Solar System: "A team discovered a haul of 20 new moons orbiting the ringed planet, bringing its total to 82; Jupiter, by contrast, has 79 natural satellites," the BBC reported last October.
It's true that some things don't go out of date like that. The quote on kyphosis at the top of this entry is still accurate, and its brief section on treatment for the condition hasn't aged significantly. But even historic information is liable to change. For example, when these books came out, no one knew where Richard III was buried; his body was located in 2012.
The publisher, Grolier (since become a division of Scholastic), only publishes online editions of its encyclopedias now. I'm sure if you've been in a library in the last decade or so you've seen how much of its information services have been relegated to computers. The last print edition of the Americana was published in 2006. Even the Encyclopedia Britannica no longer makes a hard copy version of its encyclopedia. A full set of a hardcover encyclopedia is pretty rare these days.
And I have to get rid of it.
You can't sell these things. I've seen people try online, but shipping would cost more than you could get. Each book weighs about 3.3 pounds; it's close to 100 pounds altogether. It could go book rate, or what the post office now calls Media Mail, for $2.80 a pound, but who wants it that much, that they'd pay $280 just for the shipping?
Libraries don't want 35-year-old reference books. Nobody wants research that will lead them wrong -- well, I guess some of us do, judging by the misinformation online, but they won't bother to haul out the hundred pounds of books just to confirm their biases. No, old encyclopedias are of interest only to historians, and mainly important encyclopedias like the famous 1911 edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica.
You can't recycle hardcover books here (not that our recycling program is anything but a state-law-mandated charade anyway).
Also, one reason why I tip the garbage men at Christmas.
Farewell, encyclopedia! Your scholarly words are too good, or just too old, for this world.
This Wednesday's episode of the Humpback Writers (named for the fact that it runs on Wednesday, not because of the condition kyphosis, "the third basic type of spinal curvature... In its most severe form, kyphosis becomes a sharp angular deformity known as hunchback") features thousands of writers, because of the nature of the book, or really books. Thirty books. Maybe some of the writers did suffer from kyphosis. How should I know?
Here is the set in question:
Yes, fellow kids, it is the thirty-volume set of the Encyclopedia Americana! No, not the one moms bought one volume a week from the A&P; I think that was the World Book (still around) or Funk & Wagnalls (not). I don't wish to put down those encyclopedias, but the Americana (first published in 1829) was a serious general reference set, the kind of thing found in colleges, high schools, libraries, and the offices of educational publishers.
Alas, here's the rub:
This is the 1985 edition. I have a thirty-volume library-bound encyclopedia that is thirty-five years old, and thus terribly out of date.
What the heck am I doing with an encyclopedia, let alone one this old? Did Fred's mommy, sensing the genius of her boy, buy it in installments to help his advanced learning? Did she buy it as a Hail Mary to try to get some information through his thick skull? Did I win it on The Price Is Right? Did I shoplift it from Walden Books using unusually large pants?
No -- what happened was, one of my first jobs when I was a little baby editor Fred, was as a clerk/mail reader/Dude Friday/dogsbody/research assistant/flunky/water cooler refiller/occasional proofreader for a publisher of nonfiction books for youths. The Internet was little more than a twinkle in DARPA's eye at the time, so it was helpful to have things like a big, serious, unabridged dictionary and a big, serious encyclopedia. I worked at this place for a year or so, and then we heard that the company had been bought and the office was moving out of the city. So, everything had to go, including us. We had jobs for a while, mainly packing down decades of stuff, resolving author and production contracts, all that kind of thing. And no one wanted the encyclopedia. It was just going to be tossed. So, although it was dated even then, I decided to bring it home to my apartment, one volume at a time. There's a lot of information in 23,000 pages of six-point type. At the time, I don't think it could have all fit on a CD-ROM; Microsoft's Encarta had been around a bit, but was not nearly as extensive an encyclopedia. I didn't have a computer at the time, anyway.
The Americana was useful for a while, especially when I was unemployed and scrambling for publishing work. I didn't get many fact-checking assignments then, but I did have some copyedit jobs, and sometimes you want to look things up to make sure they're right. Well, we still had no Internet, children, although that was coming soon. And then we did, and I stopped using the books.
(Remember, wee tots, the Internet is only a source, and as a whole not a reliable source, of information; we all need to learn how to pick out the good stuff from the mountains of crap and fake news. And just because I've linked to Wikipedia in this article doesn't mean I endorse it; it's free and I'm lazy.)
These last few years, the main use of the volumes has been propping up electric candles in the window for Christmas. And, as I have tons of other books that can be used for that, I have to let them go. They take up a lot of space.
And they are out of date. In these tomes, Burma is still Burma, not Myanmar, and George Herbert Walker Bush is still alive, and is known as the vice president of the United States (Volume 5, BURMA to CATHAY). Not only is Yugoslavia still intact (Volume 29, WILMOT PROVISO to ZYGOTE) but so is the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (Volume 27, TRANCE to VENIAL SIN). Persons who have become awfully important in the decades since, like Bill Clinton, Bill Gates, George Walker Bush, Steve Jobs, Barack Obama, Donald Trump, Angela Merkel, Osama Bin Laden, Benjamin Netanyahu, Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, all of them were alive in 1985, but none of them rated an entry back then.
You can imagine how antiquated the entries on science and technology are. Just a quick example, about Saturn, quoted from Volume 24 (RUSSIA to SKIMMER): "A total of 21-23 moons are known to be in orbit around Saturn." We now know that Saturn has more moons than any other planet in our Solar System: "A team discovered a haul of 20 new moons orbiting the ringed planet, bringing its total to 82; Jupiter, by contrast, has 79 natural satellites," the BBC reported last October.
It's true that some things don't go out of date like that. The quote on kyphosis at the top of this entry is still accurate, and its brief section on treatment for the condition hasn't aged significantly. But even historic information is liable to change. For example, when these books came out, no one knew where Richard III was buried; his body was located in 2012.
The publisher, Grolier (since become a division of Scholastic), only publishes online editions of its encyclopedias now. I'm sure if you've been in a library in the last decade or so you've seen how much of its information services have been relegated to computers. The last print edition of the Americana was published in 2006. Even the Encyclopedia Britannica no longer makes a hard copy version of its encyclopedia. A full set of a hardcover encyclopedia is pretty rare these days.
And I have to get rid of it.
You can't sell these things. I've seen people try online, but shipping would cost more than you could get. Each book weighs about 3.3 pounds; it's close to 100 pounds altogether. It could go book rate, or what the post office now calls Media Mail, for $2.80 a pound, but who wants it that much, that they'd pay $280 just for the shipping?
Libraries don't want 35-year-old reference books. Nobody wants research that will lead them wrong -- well, I guess some of us do, judging by the misinformation online, but they won't bother to haul out the hundred pounds of books just to confirm their biases. No, old encyclopedias are of interest only to historians, and mainly important encyclopedias like the famous 1911 edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica.
You can't recycle hardcover books here (not that our recycling program is anything but a state-law-mandated charade anyway).
I despise sending good books to the trash heap, but I have to start reducing clutter. So, I've started throwing the Americana out, three volumes at a time, six books a week, for an extra ten concentrated pointy-cornered pounds in each load. Surely throwing the very books I'm writing about into the landfill makes this is the saddest entry in the Humpback Writers series.
Also, one reason why I tip the garbage men at Christmas.
Farewell, encyclopedia! Your scholarly words are too good, or just too old, for this world.
Tuesday, January 28, 2020
Name that dog!
Our dogs like Milk-Bone brand treats, and Milk-Bones have advantages over other dog treats -- for us anyway -- they don't stink and they aren't mushy. You can carry one in your pocket without having to dry-clean your coat. I think they're fine as part of the dogs' balanced diet, and if they have that then their diet is better than mine, anyway.
But I bring it up actually to bring up the dog name issue again.
Bones for Friends is a limited edition version of the standard medium-size Milk-Bone biscuits with popular dog names printed on them, as you can see. Well, I purchased this box, but I'm bound to be disappointed. As Milk-Bone says:
Our original biscuits have popular dog names on them! Reach inside and find the perfect treat to celebrate your Best Furry Friend. Found you [sic] friend’s name on a bone?
Not likely. As you, dear readers, know, we named our dogs Tralfaz and Nipper. Tralfaz was the original name of George Jetson's dog Astro when he was owned by the neglectful but wealthy J.P. Gottrockets. And Nipper, in addition to being a good description of our younger dog when he was a puppy, is the famous mascot of RCA Victor. Neither of these are popular names.
Our friends at pet-supply retailer Chewy recently released a list of the most popular pet names for the year based on customer profiles, and it's pretty blah. Dogs:
- Bella
- Max
- Lucy
- Luna
- Daisy
- Charlie
- Bailey
- Buddy
- Molly
- Sadie
- Luna
- Bella
- Oliver
- Lucy
- Charlie
- Max
- Milo
- Kitty
- Leo
- Shadow
"DAMN IT, MOM! I don't care if Bertha was your favorite aunt! IT'S A STUPID NAME!"
"Bertha, please! I think it's a lovely name. And I'm sorry if you don't care for it, son."
And what's with all the Bella stuff? It can't be because of the Twilight movies, can it? If pop culture was driving this I'd expect to see more Harrys. Look at the others: Buddy. Sadie. Where do they come from that everyone's using them? (I guess of all the Irishy names people like to stick on dogs, like Seamus and Jameson, Bailey was the only one that was used enough to stand out in the crowd.)
The New York City dog licensing people made a search feature to show how many registered dogs in the city have a particular name. And yeah, it's the same stuff. Bella: 1,195. Max: 1,153. Charlie: 856.
Nipper: 3. Tralfaz: 1. Although there are 34 Astros.
So I figured there's not a chance of finding my dogs' names in this box of cookies. Then I pulled one out -- this is, honest to goodness, the first one out of the box:
Macie? That's not on the top ten list. There's only 7 Macies in all of New York City.
So, who knows? I'll keep you informed. Maybe Milk-Bone was willing to go the extra length for the sake of all the canine Berthas out there. (Four Berthas in NYC right now.)
🐕🐕🐕
P.S.: To our friend Mongo, regarding his late pup Raven, there are also 7 Ravens currently in New York. There's 1 dog in town named Mongo as of this date, BTW. For some reason I could not get it to tell me how many dogs have Raven's old nom de net, Mongrel, so I assume none.
Monday, January 27, 2020
Janu-wary.
I shouldn't complain about the weather, what with wildfires in Australia and mudslides in Brazil. But this is me we're talking about. Of course I will!
This is the mildest January I can remember, and I'm expecting the worst.
The conditions this month -- rain, a little snow. We've seen snow fronts schlep down here from Canada and the Great Plains and turn into cold rain somewhere over Pennsylvania or something. It's been quiet.
Too quiet.
I'm afraid that February is coming for us, whipping up a bomb cyclone of snow.
December, when it was still autumn, was considerably colder and snowier than January. I had to break out the HotHands one day when it was windy and we barely got over 20. My dogs seldom care how cold it is, but they're covered in double coats of hair. My scalp doesn't even have a single decent coat. Human beings invented central heating, not dogs. As tough as December was, though, January's been a bust.
Here's a typical scenario. We had been told last week that snow was going pay us a visit on the weekend, just has it had the previous week (when we got not even three inches here, I think). On Friday night it rained a lot. By Saturday all that was left of the previous week's snow were strips where it had piled up along the edge of roads or driveways. It looked like bad piping on the first day of Kindergarten Pastry School.
Nevertheless, there was still some treachery. It rained a lot more Saturday, temperatures dipped overnight, and we had black ice on the driveway Sunday morning -- almost in time for a reenactment of the concussion saga that ruined my life for weeks last February. But the day was mild and that went away quickly.
This January has been awful for Senior Varsity dog Tralfaz, who loves snow more than Picabo Street does. Saturday night was particularly sad. He laid down on one of those crummy strips of snow, paws around it like he was hugging it, looking up at me in the darkness. He took a little desultory nibble of snow. If I'd had my phone I would have recorded it so you could cry too, it was so sad.
I wish I could explain to him where the snow went. Science eludes his grasp. Sunday morning he was inspecting a larger floe at the end of the block, wondering why a large volume of ice appears to melt slower than the smaller volume on our property under identical conditions. Mysteries of science!
Well, that's it for January -- dry all this week. Then we enter February, when the forecast is snow. Again. But even that is of the "rain and snow and 39 degrees" variety -- nothing like what Tralfaz needs. More, of course, than I want. As you can see, I lose whether it snows or not. So what else is new?
I now know why people move to Florida. Even the threat of alligators and falling lizards and hurricanes and Florida Man himself can't keep them out.
Hey, did you know there's a town in New York's Hudson Valley named Florida? It's true! I think it was a put-on for city suckers with a poor sense of direction. "Come retire to Florida! Put down a deposit and we'll even pay your moving expenses!" And then instead of a thousand miles south, they find themselves sixty miles north, with even more snow.
This is the mildest January I can remember, and I'm expecting the worst.
The conditions this month -- rain, a little snow. We've seen snow fronts schlep down here from Canada and the Great Plains and turn into cold rain somewhere over Pennsylvania or something. It's been quiet.
Too quiet.
I'm afraid that February is coming for us, whipping up a bomb cyclone of snow.
December, when it was still autumn, was considerably colder and snowier than January. I had to break out the HotHands one day when it was windy and we barely got over 20. My dogs seldom care how cold it is, but they're covered in double coats of hair. My scalp doesn't even have a single decent coat. Human beings invented central heating, not dogs. As tough as December was, though, January's been a bust.
Here's a typical scenario. We had been told last week that snow was going pay us a visit on the weekend, just has it had the previous week (when we got not even three inches here, I think). On Friday night it rained a lot. By Saturday all that was left of the previous week's snow were strips where it had piled up along the edge of roads or driveways. It looked like bad piping on the first day of Kindergarten Pastry School.
Nevertheless, there was still some treachery. It rained a lot more Saturday, temperatures dipped overnight, and we had black ice on the driveway Sunday morning -- almost in time for a reenactment of the concussion saga that ruined my life for weeks last February. But the day was mild and that went away quickly.
This January has been awful for Senior Varsity dog Tralfaz, who loves snow more than Picabo Street does. Saturday night was particularly sad. He laid down on one of those crummy strips of snow, paws around it like he was hugging it, looking up at me in the darkness. He took a little desultory nibble of snow. If I'd had my phone I would have recorded it so you could cry too, it was so sad.
I wish I could explain to him where the snow went. Science eludes his grasp. Sunday morning he was inspecting a larger floe at the end of the block, wondering why a large volume of ice appears to melt slower than the smaller volume on our property under identical conditions. Mysteries of science!
Well, that's it for January -- dry all this week. Then we enter February, when the forecast is snow. Again. But even that is of the "rain and snow and 39 degrees" variety -- nothing like what Tralfaz needs. More, of course, than I want. As you can see, I lose whether it snows or not. So what else is new?
I now know why people move to Florida. Even the threat of alligators and falling lizards and hurricanes and Florida Man himself can't keep them out.
Hey, did you know there's a town in New York's Hudson Valley named Florida? It's true! I think it was a put-on for city suckers with a poor sense of direction. "Come retire to Florida! Put down a deposit and we'll even pay your moving expenses!" And then instead of a thousand miles south, they find themselves sixty miles north, with even more snow.
Sunday, January 26, 2020
Saturday, January 25, 2020
Do you want to build a snowman?
Me, neither, but apparently somebody around here did. We got a nothing storm last week, three inches tops, all very powdery stuff. Great for skiing, not very good for making snowmen.
I did see one, a small one at a house around the corner, where a hyperactive toddler lives with his hyperactive grandfather. But that snowman did not have a dapper hat, just a rag smushed on his head. Somewhere, some snowdude did -- because I found it, about a mile in the other direction.
Actually Junior Varsity dog Nipper found it while we were making the rounds. It was in the snowy street, crushed into a wedge, a cardboard hat that when new would have approximated the hat in the illustration. Our neighborhood is very windy in the winter, painfully so, and this is not a great place for putting hats on snowmen. You can't really pin them in place. And since we saw no evidence of any snowpersons in the area, I presume it landed there after a long flight.
This hat was the crowning touch and, I think, container for the Build a Snowman Kit, as you can see, which also included a scarf, a carrot nose, two big button eyes, and six smaller buttons to make the mouth. There was a plastic sheath in the hat that I think held that stuff. According to the label, this kit was made in China by Horizon Group; their Web site has a lot of kid stuff, but I didn't see this exact item. It has a $5 price right on the label, but I can't tell who the retailer was. They sell to a lot of big box stores and online stores. I'm guessing this came from our local Target. Has a Targety feel.
It occurred to me that this could have represented the end of Frosty. As you know from the song, and the subsequent TV special, Frosty the Snowman was animated when children placed a magic hat on his head. In the TV show, when the hat was blown off or removed, he reverted in inert snow form. As weaknesses go, that's a lot worse than kryptonite or the color yellow, especially in a windy neighborhood.
Of course there are other magically animated snowpeople out there. The movie Frozen features that pest Olaf, voiced by bigger pest Josh Gad; while Olaf is afraid of melting it seems unlikely that even melting would even kill him. And he wears no clothing, the naked twit. During the first film -- and I will never see the sequel -- he is subject to all kinds of physical mayhem but it doesn't hurt him a bit. In fact, he seems to have been around since Elsa created him when she was a child, although he must have lived through twenty summers. No, it makes no sense. But I suspect when Elsa dies he will too, or at least one could hope. Humanity has got plenty of other punishments for our sins already; we don't need an immortal snow weenie.
Naturally the role-playing classic Advanced Dungeons & Dragons has snow monsters like the Snow Golem, a creature used as a guard by a wizard in colder adventures. I don't recall facing one in my gamer days, but he looks formidable to low-level parties. If you have someone who is a high enough level to cast a Fireball, you can probably take him out quick. Anyway, while the Snow Golem has an armor class of 13 due to his natural armor, he does not wear hats. Although if I were running the campaign I might up his stats but give him a magical animating top hat -- the hat would be hard to hit, but a good shot that takes it off immediately turns him back to snow.
I detected no magic from the hat we found. I would feel pretty bad if I thought this was Frosty's magic hat, because right after I took these pictures it went into the garbage. I know, I know, it was a snazzy chapeau, but come on. It was literally in the gutter.
Hey! Maybe Frosty was in the gutter with it, spread all over the place!
Man, alcoholic snowmen are the worst.
UPDATE! Just by chance I was in Target this very Saturday, and look what I found!
This tells me that A) the thing I found probably was bought there, exactly as I thought, and B) the hat is supposed to be a beat-up bum hat; its condition was not purely the result of rough usage by wind and gutter.
I did see one, a small one at a house around the corner, where a hyperactive toddler lives with his hyperactive grandfather. But that snowman did not have a dapper hat, just a rag smushed on his head. Somewhere, some snowdude did -- because I found it, about a mile in the other direction.
Actually Junior Varsity dog Nipper found it while we were making the rounds. It was in the snowy street, crushed into a wedge, a cardboard hat that when new would have approximated the hat in the illustration. Our neighborhood is very windy in the winter, painfully so, and this is not a great place for putting hats on snowmen. You can't really pin them in place. And since we saw no evidence of any snowpersons in the area, I presume it landed there after a long flight.
This hat was the crowning touch and, I think, container for the Build a Snowman Kit, as you can see, which also included a scarf, a carrot nose, two big button eyes, and six smaller buttons to make the mouth. There was a plastic sheath in the hat that I think held that stuff. According to the label, this kit was made in China by Horizon Group; their Web site has a lot of kid stuff, but I didn't see this exact item. It has a $5 price right on the label, but I can't tell who the retailer was. They sell to a lot of big box stores and online stores. I'm guessing this came from our local Target. Has a Targety feel.
It occurred to me that this could have represented the end of Frosty. As you know from the song, and the subsequent TV special, Frosty the Snowman was animated when children placed a magic hat on his head. In the TV show, when the hat was blown off or removed, he reverted in inert snow form. As weaknesses go, that's a lot worse than kryptonite or the color yellow, especially in a windy neighborhood.
Of course there are other magically animated snowpeople out there. The movie Frozen features that pest Olaf, voiced by bigger pest Josh Gad; while Olaf is afraid of melting it seems unlikely that even melting would even kill him. And he wears no clothing, the naked twit. During the first film -- and I will never see the sequel -- he is subject to all kinds of physical mayhem but it doesn't hurt him a bit. In fact, he seems to have been around since Elsa created him when she was a child, although he must have lived through twenty summers. No, it makes no sense. But I suspect when Elsa dies he will too, or at least one could hope. Humanity has got plenty of other punishments for our sins already; we don't need an immortal snow weenie.
Naturally the role-playing classic Advanced Dungeons & Dragons has snow monsters like the Snow Golem, a creature used as a guard by a wizard in colder adventures. I don't recall facing one in my gamer days, but he looks formidable to low-level parties. If you have someone who is a high enough level to cast a Fireball, you can probably take him out quick. Anyway, while the Snow Golem has an armor class of 13 due to his natural armor, he does not wear hats. Although if I were running the campaign I might up his stats but give him a magical animating top hat -- the hat would be hard to hit, but a good shot that takes it off immediately turns him back to snow.
I detected no magic from the hat we found. I would feel pretty bad if I thought this was Frosty's magic hat, because right after I took these pictures it went into the garbage. I know, I know, it was a snazzy chapeau, but come on. It was literally in the gutter.
Hey! Maybe Frosty was in the gutter with it, spread all over the place!
Man, alcoholic snowmen are the worst.
⛄⛄⛄
This tells me that A) the thing I found probably was bought there, exactly as I thought, and B) the hat is supposed to be a beat-up bum hat; its condition was not purely the result of rough usage by wind and gutter.
Friday, January 24, 2020
Lookin' good!
Today is National Compliment Day! And let me say that you are awesome! And such good taste, too! Not just the fabu way you dress, but the fact that you alight on this sensational blog for all your bloggy needs. What can I say? We all just think you're the bee's knees, my friend.
Yes, this is one of those non-holiday holidays that populate the calendars of teachers and office-party planners in the HR department with too much time on their hands. Aren't you smart to figure that out!
Various calendar-centric Web sites tell us that National Compliment Day was created in 1998 by two New Hampshire women, Debbie Hoffman and Kathy Chamberlain, to encourage positive, upbeat communications with our fellow human beings. Perhaps, since they lived in New England, they saw the need for warmth.
Of course, there are some activities suggested to go along with this day.
Holiday Insights suggests this one:
And National Day Calendar has this similar one:
I think it's great to be nice and all, and I would love to pass along some of the compliments I got, if I ever got any. Certainly I never got any in school. My entire education was based in New York City, where no day is Compliment Day but any day could be Backhanded Compliment Day.
Don't underestimate the value of backhanded compliments. They prepare you in life for... well, more abuse, I guess.
Yes, this is one of those non-holiday holidays that populate the calendars of teachers and office-party planners in the HR department with too much time on their hands. Aren't you smart to figure that out!
Various calendar-centric Web sites tell us that National Compliment Day was created in 1998 by two New Hampshire women, Debbie Hoffman and Kathy Chamberlain, to encourage positive, upbeat communications with our fellow human beings. Perhaps, since they lived in New England, they saw the need for warmth.
Of course, there are some activities suggested to go along with this day.
Holiday Insights suggests this one:
- Gather in a circle.
- Look at the person to your left.
- Find a compliment for that person.
- Write the compliment on a piece of paper and who it is for.
- Gather the notes and post on a board.
- All players match each of the compliments to a player.
- The person with the most correct matches wins.
And National Day Calendar has this similar one:
- On a piece a paper, have each student write down or draw the best compliment they ever received.
- Have them describe how the compliment made them feel.
- With that feeling in mind, challenge them to think of something positive about each of their classmates.
- Then allow each student to stand and receive a compliment from another student in the room.
I think it's great to be nice and all, and I would love to pass along some of the compliments I got, if I ever got any. Certainly I never got any in school. My entire education was based in New York City, where no day is Compliment Day but any day could be Backhanded Compliment Day.
- "Hey, Cheech, you lose weight? You don't look so fat today."
- "That's some dancing you did. I was sure you was gonna fart."
- "You came up with that? Who would have thought a moron like you could do such a thing?"
- "Good haircut. It kinda hides that weird and deformed nose you got."
- "That guy you're datin' looks interesting, Jess. I heard they call him Cro, like Cro Magnon."
- "Yo. Nice face."
Don't underestimate the value of backhanded compliments. They prepare you in life for... well, more abuse, I guess.
Thursday, January 23, 2020
Hubby Lobby.
What will an average husband take pictures of while his wife is shopping in Hobby Lobby? Let's find out!
🎨🧶🎎🕈📚👗
"These places all look the same. What's the difference between Hobby Lobby and Micheal's?"
"Oh!"
"Here's looking at you, kid."
"A place like this could give a guy ideas."
"Did you just assume my gender?"
"Holy crap! The secret's been here all along! Hey, everybody!"
"Crazy Knitty Ladies appear to have as much paraphernalia available as Crazy Kitty Ladies. Is there a lot of overlap? Don't cats ruin yarnwork? Just askin' -- not trying to start a rumble or anything."
"Painting by numbers: Craft or art? Hobby Lobby says craft. Let's poll Aisle 8."
"Hey, they do have a men's department in this place."
(Sorry for the bad picture, but among the books on sale are C. S. Lewis's Screwtape Letters and Mere Christianity; you won't find that at Blick.)
"Come on, everyone! Na na na na na na na na, Na na na na na na na na, BATMAAAAN!"
(At this point hubby is sent to wait in the car.)
Wednesday, January 22, 2020
Fred's Book Club: A Little Bit of Baseball.
Happy Wednesday, you all, and welcome to a tiny little edition of our Humpback Writers, the so-called book club held on the so-called Hump Day of the week, Wednesday. There's no good reason for the name, so we just have to live with it.
If it is possible to know anything about this book feature so far, it's that: A) The books can be of any kind at all, as long as they're books, and B) Far too often they are out of print. And that, sad to say, is the problem with today's book, Baseball: Diamonds Are Forever. But there are some things about it you may find interesting, especially about the book business.
The first thing you should know is: This book is small.
The second thing is: It is a collection of quotations about baseball with illustrations by cartoonist Joe Stites.
This book was part of a series called "Tiny Tomes," published by the Ariel imprint of Andrews McMeel (now Andrews McMeel Universal) in the 1990s into the early 2000s. This book is 128 pages long and only a half-inch thick. It's the kind of thing one used to see all the time at bookstore cash registers, the perfect impulse buy for gifts bags and party tchotchkes and stocking stuffers and shower gifts. But that was before Amazon ate the book business, and the impulse-buyer market has never been the same.
It's kind of a shame, because this book is full of fun quotes, which as far as I can determine are all accurate. Such as:
I'm sorry that the Tiny Tomes line appears to be defunct, because tiny books have a long history. In fact, there is a group called the Miniature Book Society, and that means they are devoted to the creation and preservation of books no more than three inches in height, length, or width. No, it does not mean that they are little people who like books. Baseball: Diamonds Are Forever is an overachiever by MBS standards, reaching no more than 2 1/8 inches in height and less in other dimensions.
I've seen some tiny books pop up on Antiques Roadshow, and they are Ka-Yoot. Why make little books? Well, beside the fact that tiny books are fun, and people have always loved miniature things, they were helpful for young readers with little hands, or people who were on the go who could only carry something small. Anne Boleyn supposedly had a tiny book of prayers that she took along to her execution, at least according to Miniature Books: 4,000 Years of Tiny Treasures. I'm sure that was a comfort to Anne -- unless she was taking one last opportunity to catch up on her reading. When I go they will probably find a paperback stuck in my hands.
So that's the story of the smallest book in my personal library, which I did indeed receive as a stocking stuffer some years ago. I was going to wait until February to profile this book, for the return of pitchers and catchers, but I didn't have time to profile a bigger book this week -- so, just a tiny one for ya!
If it is possible to know anything about this book feature so far, it's that: A) The books can be of any kind at all, as long as they're books, and B) Far too often they are out of print. And that, sad to say, is the problem with today's book, Baseball: Diamonds Are Forever. But there are some things about it you may find interesting, especially about the book business.
The first thing you should know is: This book is small.
The second thing is: It is a collection of quotations about baseball with illustrations by cartoonist Joe Stites.
This book was part of a series called "Tiny Tomes," published by the Ariel imprint of Andrews McMeel (now Andrews McMeel Universal) in the 1990s into the early 2000s. This book is 128 pages long and only a half-inch thick. It's the kind of thing one used to see all the time at bookstore cash registers, the perfect impulse buy for gifts bags and party tchotchkes and stocking stuffers and shower gifts. But that was before Amazon ate the book business, and the impulse-buyer market has never been the same.
It's kind of a shame, because this book is full of fun quotes, which as far as I can determine are all accurate. Such as:
- "I try not to break the rules but merely to test their elasticity." --Bill Veeck
- "You know when you got it made? When you get your name in the crossword puzzle." --Rocky Bridges
- "Girls used to come up to me and say, 'My sister loves you.' Now they say, 'My mother loves you.'" --Lee Mazzilli
I'm sorry that the Tiny Tomes line appears to be defunct, because tiny books have a long history. In fact, there is a group called the Miniature Book Society, and that means they are devoted to the creation and preservation of books no more than three inches in height, length, or width. No, it does not mean that they are little people who like books. Baseball: Diamonds Are Forever is an overachiever by MBS standards, reaching no more than 2 1/8 inches in height and less in other dimensions.
I've seen some tiny books pop up on Antiques Roadshow, and they are Ka-Yoot. Why make little books? Well, beside the fact that tiny books are fun, and people have always loved miniature things, they were helpful for young readers with little hands, or people who were on the go who could only carry something small. Anne Boleyn supposedly had a tiny book of prayers that she took along to her execution, at least according to Miniature Books: 4,000 Years of Tiny Treasures. I'm sure that was a comfort to Anne -- unless she was taking one last opportunity to catch up on her reading. When I go they will probably find a paperback stuck in my hands.
So that's the story of the smallest book in my personal library, which I did indeed receive as a stocking stuffer some years ago. I was going to wait until February to profile this book, for the return of pitchers and catchers, but I didn't have time to profile a bigger book this week -- so, just a tiny one for ya!
Tuesday, January 21, 2020
Diet TV.
Is the diet plan already failing in the new year? Is the cold weather triggering the nesting/eating instinct? Are you snowed in and unable to resist the siren call of the refrigerator?
Well, worry not! Basic cable is coming to the rescue!
How can this be? With shows like Food Network and the Cooking Channel, not to mention great food shows on PBS and the Travel Channel, surely cable TV is worse than useless at encouraging healthy eating!
That's true as far as it goes. For example, there is a word for shows about healthy eating on the Food Network, and that word is: Canceled. No one wants to pay for homework. So all their shows make food that looks delicious, no matter the calories and cholesterol, and devil take the hindmost.
But there are plenty of other shows out there that will kill your appetite dead.
I'm not talking about things like American Gothic or The Walking Dead, that might be supposed to work by showing gross icky monsters. We know that doesn't do the job. If horror movies kept people from eating, the theaters would never show them. They live by the concession stand.
But it's a different kettle of pus when you're talking about reality shows, programs that show real-life disgusting stuff. And that's where we come in. Have a look at these next time the hankerin' starts up:
The Incredible Dr. Pol: NatGeo's show about Michigan veterinarian Jan Pol is fascinating -- Dutch-American Pol is not a young man but he fearlessly treats any kind of animal, from a hamster to a bull that could kick you to pieces. Every episode seems to feature him having to drag a live young out of some huge mammal, sticking his arm completely inside the organs of something or other, and parts of Michigan that are under a permanent layer of manure. Also, he and his staff spend a lot of time shoving uteruses back into cows. You could almost make a drinking game out of it. Fascinating stuff, especially for us city boys.
Dr. Pimple Popper: Dermatologist Sandra Lee pulls unbelievable things out of human beings -- gigantic fat deposits, multicolored goo, miscellaneous blobs. They're all incredibly gross. The number of things that can grow in human skin is mind-boggling. She puts her patients at ease during procedures with running commentary on what she is squeezing/pulling/suctioning out -- this looks like mozzarella, that looks like gray toothpaste, ooh that's like a chicken breast, and so on. This TLC show is the biggest appetite suppressant on TV. Unless that title goes to:
My Feet Are Killing Me: You know, last year I joked around that TLC was following the success of Dr. Lee with a proctological show called Dr. Poop Digger.* Well, I was off by an inseam. My Feet Are Killing Me is about the practice of podiatrists who come face-to-foot with some of the most alien-looking appendages to ever appear at the end of a leg. I mean, most people's feet are pretty awful to begin with, but this is a horror show.
Untold Stories of the ER: Another TLC series, this one features what the title says -- stories from the emergency rooms of various hospitals that are in some way pretty shocking. They're shown as narrative by the doctors but also with vivid reenactments, and feature ER fun like people with large objects stuck in them, people infested with a variety of parasites, people with various bits cut off... The word rectum comes up more often than it does on Grey's Anatomy, I guarantee.
Worst Cooks in America: The only Food Network show about disgusting food, this competition pits really bad cooks against one another to try to become the best of the bunch. For the true diet factor, you want to come in on the early episodes of a season, where the contestants demonstrate to everyone's satisfaction and revulsion that they belong on this show. By the later episodes people have gotten better, and the worst have been weeded out.
Bizarre Foods: Andrew Zimmern is the host of this Travel Channel show, which makes him the grown-up version of the kid that would eat a bug for a dollar. As a profile on Fox put it, "He’s eaten putrefied shark in Iceland, tree grubs in Peru and even 'horse rib and rectum sausage' in Kazakhstan," which makes this show another contender for the "More Rectums Than Grey's Anatomy" honor. Unless his enjoyment of Samoan coral worms makes you want to see if you can order up some via DoorDash, you'll find this show a food turn-off.
Live PD: A&E's Live PD is like a real-time version of the classic show COPS, and based on the same premise, that following police officers as they deal with punks, lowlifes, slobs, wankers, perverts, and creeps is entertaining. Most of the time nothing disgusting is shown, besides the rank abasement that humankind may achieve. Still, rat- and roach-infested trailers don't stimulate the appetite. Nor does hearing the fifth guy in a row tell officers that he didn't know how the pipe got on him and these are his friend's pants and he doesn't know his friend's name.
My 600-Lb. Life: An agonizing program about people in the deepest throes of addictive eating who seek help from Dr. Younan Nowzardian, a specialist in these matters who doesn't take any crap. He deals with his patients with sympathy, but he treats them like the addicts they are, knowing that the slightest allowance on his part will doom them to a helpless, miserable life. You can't help but root for these people, but my God, seeing them struggle can make you hate food entirely.
Skin Tight: You know what? We're just going to change the name of TLC to TDC -- The Diet Channel. Skin Tight is a sort of sequel to My 600-Lb. Life, as people who lose a tremendous amount of weight have to deal with the sagging, leftover skin. It is not pretty. You feel for these folks and you never want to become one of them. So maybe skip the Chips Ahoy tonight.
That ought to disgust the desire for food out of anyone. But just in case it doesn't, you can always turn to the Internet. There you can watch such enlightening films as people on TikTok eating cereal out of one another's mouths.
Hell, now I think I have to skip lunch.
* Just wanted to point out that I had another joke show on that list called Mythsploders, a follow-up to the long-running Mythbusters, that was just focused on blowing things up. Well, former cast member and all-around good guy Tory Belleci is now starring in The Explosion Show on the Science Channel, just focused on blowing things up. I am a true prophet.
Well, worry not! Basic cable is coming to the rescue!
How can this be? With shows like Food Network and the Cooking Channel, not to mention great food shows on PBS and the Travel Channel, surely cable TV is worse than useless at encouraging healthy eating!
That's true as far as it goes. For example, there is a word for shows about healthy eating on the Food Network, and that word is: Canceled. No one wants to pay for homework. So all their shows make food that looks delicious, no matter the calories and cholesterol, and devil take the hindmost.
But there are plenty of other shows out there that will kill your appetite dead.
I'm not talking about things like American Gothic or The Walking Dead, that might be supposed to work by showing gross icky monsters. We know that doesn't do the job. If horror movies kept people from eating, the theaters would never show them. They live by the concession stand.
But it's a different kettle of pus when you're talking about reality shows, programs that show real-life disgusting stuff. And that's where we come in. Have a look at these next time the hankerin' starts up:
The Incredible Dr. Pol: NatGeo's show about Michigan veterinarian Jan Pol is fascinating -- Dutch-American Pol is not a young man but he fearlessly treats any kind of animal, from a hamster to a bull that could kick you to pieces. Every episode seems to feature him having to drag a live young out of some huge mammal, sticking his arm completely inside the organs of something or other, and parts of Michigan that are under a permanent layer of manure. Also, he and his staff spend a lot of time shoving uteruses back into cows. You could almost make a drinking game out of it. Fascinating stuff, especially for us city boys.
Dr. Pimple Popper: Dermatologist Sandra Lee pulls unbelievable things out of human beings -- gigantic fat deposits, multicolored goo, miscellaneous blobs. They're all incredibly gross. The number of things that can grow in human skin is mind-boggling. She puts her patients at ease during procedures with running commentary on what she is squeezing/pulling/suctioning out -- this looks like mozzarella, that looks like gray toothpaste, ooh that's like a chicken breast, and so on. This TLC show is the biggest appetite suppressant on TV. Unless that title goes to:
My Feet Are Killing Me: You know, last year I joked around that TLC was following the success of Dr. Lee with a proctological show called Dr. Poop Digger.* Well, I was off by an inseam. My Feet Are Killing Me is about the practice of podiatrists who come face-to-foot with some of the most alien-looking appendages to ever appear at the end of a leg. I mean, most people's feet are pretty awful to begin with, but this is a horror show.
Untold Stories of the ER: Another TLC series, this one features what the title says -- stories from the emergency rooms of various hospitals that are in some way pretty shocking. They're shown as narrative by the doctors but also with vivid reenactments, and feature ER fun like people with large objects stuck in them, people infested with a variety of parasites, people with various bits cut off... The word rectum comes up more often than it does on Grey's Anatomy, I guarantee.
Worst Cooks in America: The only Food Network show about disgusting food, this competition pits really bad cooks against one another to try to become the best of the bunch. For the true diet factor, you want to come in on the early episodes of a season, where the contestants demonstrate to everyone's satisfaction and revulsion that they belong on this show. By the later episodes people have gotten better, and the worst have been weeded out.
Bizarre Foods: Andrew Zimmern is the host of this Travel Channel show, which makes him the grown-up version of the kid that would eat a bug for a dollar. As a profile on Fox put it, "He’s eaten putrefied shark in Iceland, tree grubs in Peru and even 'horse rib and rectum sausage' in Kazakhstan," which makes this show another contender for the "More Rectums Than Grey's Anatomy" honor. Unless his enjoyment of Samoan coral worms makes you want to see if you can order up some via DoorDash, you'll find this show a food turn-off.
Live PD: A&E's Live PD is like a real-time version of the classic show COPS, and based on the same premise, that following police officers as they deal with punks, lowlifes, slobs, wankers, perverts, and creeps is entertaining. Most of the time nothing disgusting is shown, besides the rank abasement that humankind may achieve. Still, rat- and roach-infested trailers don't stimulate the appetite. Nor does hearing the fifth guy in a row tell officers that he didn't know how the pipe got on him and these are his friend's pants and he doesn't know his friend's name.
My 600-Lb. Life: An agonizing program about people in the deepest throes of addictive eating who seek help from Dr. Younan Nowzardian, a specialist in these matters who doesn't take any crap. He deals with his patients with sympathy, but he treats them like the addicts they are, knowing that the slightest allowance on his part will doom them to a helpless, miserable life. You can't help but root for these people, but my God, seeing them struggle can make you hate food entirely.
Skin Tight: You know what? We're just going to change the name of TLC to TDC -- The Diet Channel. Skin Tight is a sort of sequel to My 600-Lb. Life, as people who lose a tremendous amount of weight have to deal with the sagging, leftover skin. It is not pretty. You feel for these folks and you never want to become one of them. So maybe skip the Chips Ahoy tonight.
🤮🤮🤮
That ought to disgust the desire for food out of anyone. But just in case it doesn't, you can always turn to the Internet. There you can watch such enlightening films as people on TikTok eating cereal out of one another's mouths.
Hell, now I think I have to skip lunch.
💣💣💣
* Just wanted to point out that I had another joke show on that list called Mythsploders, a follow-up to the long-running Mythbusters, that was just focused on blowing things up. Well, former cast member and all-around good guy Tory Belleci is now starring in The Explosion Show on the Science Channel, just focused on blowing things up. I am a true prophet.
Monday, January 20, 2020
Wonders!
I had this CD of one-hit wonders of the eighties. It was a freebie I got while working at a magazine a little over a decade ago. My wife, who loves eighties music, said with disgust that she only liked three of the songs, and one she had on the actual album, and shouldn't count because the artist had demonstrably more than one hit. So there you go.
But I got to thinking about that beloved and benighted decade of the eighties, and wondering if, as I had in the past, that decade had more one-hit wonders than the sixties did. The sixties was notorious at the time for hustling acts off and on the stage. A 1965 episode of The Flintstones ("The Masquerade Party") lampooned the phenomenon (and Orson Welles's War of the Worlds hysteria) when a band called the Beasties with a hot hit is thrown out of the record office to make way for the new band, the Way-Outs. And of course Tom Hanks's musical masterpiece of 1996, That Thing You Do!, is all about one-hit wonders, set in the year 1964. The film's band is even named the Wonders.
But to answer my question: Which decade had the most artists or groups with just one solid American hit? I have no recourse but to turn to Mr. Wikipedia, which of course has compiled a list of said wonders dating from the late fifties, located at this link.
So which decade comes out on top? It's a tough brawl. For every Standells ("Dirty Water") there's a Godley & Creme ("Cry"); for every ? and the Mysterians ("96 Tears") there's an Eddy Grant ("Electric Avenue"); for every Youngbloods ("Get Together") there's a Cutting Crew ("(I Just) Died in Your Arms"). The list represents enough musicians to populate a city.
The Wiki page didn't number the lists, and I don't have the patience to count them, so I pasted it into an Excel document -- my most productive use for Excel so far this year -- and it did the count. And the winner is....
It's not even close. The eighties had 105 one-hit wonders; the sixties, with 42, didn't even beat the seventies and the nineties, which each had 54. The eighties was an extraordinary decade for chewin' 'em up and spittin' 'em out, and also for non-musicians to elbow their way into a hit (Bruce Willis, Eddie Murphy, Patrick Swayze, even Rodney Dangerfield). It also mattered that the eighties seemed to be a huge jumble of emerging and departing pop music styles, an era where rap and punk crashed into disco and New Wave and rock, which fed the endless need for bands, while the sixties had hits from longstanding solo artists that your grandma loved who could still knock the Beatles off the #1 spot. When Sinatra and Como are still topping the charts, it leaves less room for the Surfaris of the week.
Of course, I have objections. XTC, for example, is listed as a one-hit wonder for the tiresome 1986 moan "Dear God" (#37), but the much superior 1989 "Mayor of Simpleton" was a hit that same decade (#15), and yet they never broke the top ten in the American Billboard chart. God knows how many other such errors are on this list.
Still, even allowing for such miscues, the sheer number of eighties one-and-done artists has to make it the top decade for the type.
It may seem sad to contemplate the fate of the one-hit wonder, the act that thought it had finally broken out of the pack and reached the big time only to plummet straight back into obscurity. But keep in mind that, as sad as it may seem to have only one hit, that's one more hit than most other bands ever get.
But I got to thinking about that beloved and benighted decade of the eighties, and wondering if, as I had in the past, that decade had more one-hit wonders than the sixties did. The sixties was notorious at the time for hustling acts off and on the stage. A 1965 episode of The Flintstones ("The Masquerade Party") lampooned the phenomenon (and Orson Welles's War of the Worlds hysteria) when a band called the Beasties with a hot hit is thrown out of the record office to make way for the new band, the Way-Outs. And of course Tom Hanks's musical masterpiece of 1996, That Thing You Do!, is all about one-hit wonders, set in the year 1964. The film's band is even named the Wonders.
But to answer my question: Which decade had the most artists or groups with just one solid American hit? I have no recourse but to turn to Mr. Wikipedia, which of course has compiled a list of said wonders dating from the late fifties, located at this link.
So which decade comes out on top? It's a tough brawl. For every Standells ("Dirty Water") there's a Godley & Creme ("Cry"); for every ? and the Mysterians ("96 Tears") there's an Eddy Grant ("Electric Avenue"); for every Youngbloods ("Get Together") there's a Cutting Crew ("(I Just) Died in Your Arms"). The list represents enough musicians to populate a city.
 |
| And now, for your listening pleasure, "Der Kommissar" by After the Fire. |
The Wiki page didn't number the lists, and I don't have the patience to count them, so I pasted it into an Excel document -- my most productive use for Excel so far this year -- and it did the count. And the winner is....
It's not even close. The eighties had 105 one-hit wonders; the sixties, with 42, didn't even beat the seventies and the nineties, which each had 54. The eighties was an extraordinary decade for chewin' 'em up and spittin' 'em out, and also for non-musicians to elbow their way into a hit (Bruce Willis, Eddie Murphy, Patrick Swayze, even Rodney Dangerfield). It also mattered that the eighties seemed to be a huge jumble of emerging and departing pop music styles, an era where rap and punk crashed into disco and New Wave and rock, which fed the endless need for bands, while the sixties had hits from longstanding solo artists that your grandma loved who could still knock the Beatles off the #1 spot. When Sinatra and Como are still topping the charts, it leaves less room for the Surfaris of the week.
Of course, I have objections. XTC, for example, is listed as a one-hit wonder for the tiresome 1986 moan "Dear God" (#37), but the much superior 1989 "Mayor of Simpleton" was a hit that same decade (#15), and yet they never broke the top ten in the American Billboard chart. God knows how many other such errors are on this list.
Still, even allowing for such miscues, the sheer number of eighties one-and-done artists has to make it the top decade for the type.
It may seem sad to contemplate the fate of the one-hit wonder, the act that thought it had finally broken out of the pack and reached the big time only to plummet straight back into obscurity. But keep in mind that, as sad as it may seem to have only one hit, that's one more hit than most other bands ever get.
Sunday, January 19, 2020
Yek.
Every kid finds out at some point what his name spelled backward is. Although it was sad to find out my last name becomes Yek -- as in Yecch! -- it was certainly not the worst, and had the benefit of being easy to say.
Some such names are pretty useless. Smith becomes Htims; Jones becomes Senoj. Hard to pronounce, not much fun anyway. My grammar school had a lot of Irish, Italian, and Jewish kids, so most of them were completely messed up, like an Oihccevled or Ydducilligcm or Zitwokfel. You can't do anything with those kinds of names. You can't even pretend they are magic words -- you couldn't possibly say them fluidly, and they look like what they are -- backward last names. Only Zatanna or her dad could make them work.
First names were a little better. We had Retep, which sounds like it might be Indian or Pakistani; Kram was funny; and we had a lot of Nhojs. I didn't mind Derf, although it sounds like an insult. Yek! Derf! seems to go together all too well. Kcirederf, the full version, sounds like a Hungarian insult. Yek! Kcirederf!
The girls didn't fare much better. Annod wasn't too bad, but Yhtak is just a mess; we had one Eveiveneg among the group, as I recall.
Celebrities and other well-known persons make interesting mangles when backward. Naihsadrak Mik, Sboj Evets, Sknah Mot, Pmurt J. Dlanod -- they all look like something a mad Serbian scribbled on a cocktail napkin after the PCP kicked in.
You want to know: What about the dogs? Well, Tralfaz would become Zaflart, which is even worse than his actual name; Nipper is Reppin, which could be Japanese, I'm thinking.
I remember thinking that names spelled backward would be good to use for passwords or secret messages, but I have never managed to do so. When the time comes even now, in an era where passwords are much more important than when I was a kid, it's not popped into my head to use Derf or any of the other variations.
As I think about this silly topic, I remember we had one Bobby in my class, who for the sake of the pastime insisted on being Bob. That way instead of being Ybbob (pronounced Eebubob), he would just stay Bob. That was probably a smart play, but it felt like he was being boring on purpose. At least he could have been Trebor.
Some such names are pretty useless. Smith becomes Htims; Jones becomes Senoj. Hard to pronounce, not much fun anyway. My grammar school had a lot of Irish, Italian, and Jewish kids, so most of them were completely messed up, like an Oihccevled or Ydducilligcm or Zitwokfel. You can't do anything with those kinds of names. You can't even pretend they are magic words -- you couldn't possibly say them fluidly, and they look like what they are -- backward last names. Only Zatanna or her dad could make them work.
First names were a little better. We had Retep, which sounds like it might be Indian or Pakistani; Kram was funny; and we had a lot of Nhojs. I didn't mind Derf, although it sounds like an insult. Yek! Derf! seems to go together all too well. Kcirederf, the full version, sounds like a Hungarian insult. Yek! Kcirederf!
The girls didn't fare much better. Annod wasn't too bad, but Yhtak is just a mess; we had one Eveiveneg among the group, as I recall.
Celebrities and other well-known persons make interesting mangles when backward. Naihsadrak Mik, Sboj Evets, Sknah Mot, Pmurt J. Dlanod -- they all look like something a mad Serbian scribbled on a cocktail napkin after the PCP kicked in.
You want to know: What about the dogs? Well, Tralfaz would become Zaflart, which is even worse than his actual name; Nipper is Reppin, which could be Japanese, I'm thinking.
I remember thinking that names spelled backward would be good to use for passwords or secret messages, but I have never managed to do so. When the time comes even now, in an era where passwords are much more important than when I was a kid, it's not popped into my head to use Derf or any of the other variations.
As I think about this silly topic, I remember we had one Bobby in my class, who for the sake of the pastime insisted on being Bob. That way instead of being Ybbob (pronounced Eebubob), he would just stay Bob. That was probably a smart play, but it felt like he was being boring on purpose. At least he could have been Trebor.
Saturday, January 18, 2020
Kindergarten for oldsters.
Having back pain certainly does not make me feel young, but you know what does? Going for physical therapy.
I have just completed the second week of my War on Sciatica, and I want to assure the public that the fighting is going well, but no progress has been made at all.
I had an assessment and was given exercises to do at home daily, which I have done dutifully each day. (The way I feel when I wake up, if they'd told me I had to eat a pound of kale every day, I'd have done that, too. I'm a desperate man.) So now it's twice-weekly PT appointments, not covered by insurance until I meet the enormous deductible -- thanks, Obama! The ladies at the desk of the PT center can't believe how much I'm paying out of pocket. I'm not even joking about that; they're shocked, and it's their own place.
There is one advantage, though. PT makes me feel young. Why? Because I'm the youngest patient I've seen.
As my title today suggests, PT feels like kindergarten for old-timers. You have a big room with project equipment; there are nappy beds and pillows (although no one really naps); there are toys to play with, like pull-straps and bars to climb and balls in various sizes, and nice women who shuffle you through your tasks.
Everyone gets little jobs to do, and it's all very upbeat and cheerful. And bless the therapists for that; it can't be easy to deal with people recovering from injury or coping with chronic pain.
And that's me, or so it looks to this point. They ask me how I'm doing, and my answer pretty much depends on how hard I've been abusing the OTC painkillers. So far my biggest help has been to wake up at three to use the can, and while I'm in there eat a couple of Advil. Then, when I get up at six, it's still in effect, and the pain is manageable.
I think that my insurance company approved me for 54 PT sessions. Of course they would! Why would they care? It's not costing them anything! They're probably using our premiums to pay for gender-reassignment surgery for six-year-olds! Go ahead, Fred, go as much as you want! Yeah, thanks, Generosity Insurance!
Well, we'll see what happens. I've known people who dropped out of physical therapy, usually because they had a lot of pain during the appointments, or because they didn't see any improvement and became discouraged. I can't afford to drop out. The dogs have to pee at six a.m. They're counting on me. And I can barely walk at that hour. Unless I had to pee at three a.m.
I have just completed the second week of my War on Sciatica, and I want to assure the public that the fighting is going well, but no progress has been made at all.
I had an assessment and was given exercises to do at home daily, which I have done dutifully each day. (The way I feel when I wake up, if they'd told me I had to eat a pound of kale every day, I'd have done that, too. I'm a desperate man.) So now it's twice-weekly PT appointments, not covered by insurance until I meet the enormous deductible -- thanks, Obama! The ladies at the desk of the PT center can't believe how much I'm paying out of pocket. I'm not even joking about that; they're shocked, and it's their own place.
There is one advantage, though. PT makes me feel young. Why? Because I'm the youngest patient I've seen.
As my title today suggests, PT feels like kindergarten for old-timers. You have a big room with project equipment; there are nappy beds and pillows (although no one really naps); there are toys to play with, like pull-straps and bars to climb and balls in various sizes, and nice women who shuffle you through your tasks.
 |
| Take two and call me in the morning. |
And that's me, or so it looks to this point. They ask me how I'm doing, and my answer pretty much depends on how hard I've been abusing the OTC painkillers. So far my biggest help has been to wake up at three to use the can, and while I'm in there eat a couple of Advil. Then, when I get up at six, it's still in effect, and the pain is manageable.
I think that my insurance company approved me for 54 PT sessions. Of course they would! Why would they care? It's not costing them anything! They're probably using our premiums to pay for gender-reassignment surgery for six-year-olds! Go ahead, Fred, go as much as you want! Yeah, thanks, Generosity Insurance!
Well, we'll see what happens. I've known people who dropped out of physical therapy, usually because they had a lot of pain during the appointments, or because they didn't see any improvement and became discouraged. I can't afford to drop out. The dogs have to pee at six a.m. They're counting on me. And I can barely walk at that hour. Unless I had to pee at three a.m.
Friday, January 17, 2020
Thursday, January 16, 2020
January thaw.
I think we had our January thaw early, as last weekend we had temperatures in the low sixties. It was wonderful. Felt like a particularly nice St. Patrick's Day, without the excuse to get hammered. The thing is, the January thaw (a term I had never heard before I married an upstater) is not supposed to arrive until about the 25th of the month. I think we misfired our thaw.
A local dogwood I passed already has some buds. That's all wrong, dogwood. I know you bloom early but this is silly. You'll have nothing left for March. Down! Down, boy!
But the saddest sight was this. Oh the humanity!
All those Christmas inflatables, just left to die on the lawn! I counted eleven before I lost heart. What kind of a cruel world is it where uncaring passersby ignore the suffering of our gaseous friends, cast to earth by the heedless sickness of climate change? I'm going to throw myself on the grass with them in solidarity. Fear not, brethren! For I am with you! You have nothing to lose but your... deflatedness!
Last weekend, friends of mine were saying that the government of New York is so bad that it even made winter leave. That may be as good an explanation as any. After all, our brutal taxes, our one-party state, our legalized abortion up to the time the kid stops being cute, our creeping ban on plastics or anything disposable (except the elderly), our kabuki recycling theater, our acceleration on the road to serfdom, and our new sport of catch-and-release felony are making living here a... Hmm, what's the word I want?
Oh, yeah, that's right.
A local dogwood I passed already has some buds. That's all wrong, dogwood. I know you bloom early but this is silly. You'll have nothing left for March. Down! Down, boy!
But the saddest sight was this. Oh the humanity!
All those Christmas inflatables, just left to die on the lawn! I counted eleven before I lost heart. What kind of a cruel world is it where uncaring passersby ignore the suffering of our gaseous friends, cast to earth by the heedless sickness of climate change? I'm going to throw myself on the grass with them in solidarity. Fear not, brethren! For I am with you! You have nothing to lose but your... deflatedness!
😢😢😢
Last weekend, friends of mine were saying that the government of New York is so bad that it even made winter leave. That may be as good an explanation as any. After all, our brutal taxes, our one-party state, our legalized abortion up to the time the kid stops being cute, our creeping ban on plastics or anything disposable (except the elderly), our kabuki recycling theater, our acceleration on the road to serfdom, and our new sport of catch-and-release felony are making living here a... Hmm, what's the word I want?
Oh, yeah, that's right.
Wednesday, January 15, 2020
Fred's Book Club: OGH, the Early Years.
Here we are yet again at our weekly book club with the stupid name of the Humpback Writers, which falls on Wednesday to help you over the hump, and get you sliding down effortlessly to the camel's tail of Friday. Although I think more of Fred Flintstone Yabba-Dabba-Doing his way off the brontosaurus.
Never mind all that: Today we have a book that's not only a great collection of essays, but also a tribute to newspaperman and blogger extraordinaire, the Great James Lileks.
I will never forget how I discovered Lileks. One day at the office, in walks this spunky kid off the bus from Fargo, with nothing but a sawbuck, a snap-brim fedora, and a pocketful of dreams. I said, "Kid, I like your spunk. And I like your fedora. How much?"
No, that's not right. What happened was, Lileks was writing for the Newhouse News syndicate, doing a nationally syndicated humor column that my local paper ran. I clearly remember reading it in the Laundromat while waiting for my clothes. I thought he was the first really funny new columnist since the eighties brought us Dave Barry and Lew Grizzard, and I wanted to find out if he'd had any compilations as those other men did. At the time I worked near the Strand, the famous Manhattan bookstore at Broadway and 12th ("18 Miles of Books!" they say, and I believe it), and down in the cellar you could find review copies of books for sale -- not the galleys, but first editions that had been sent to the many magazines and newspapers in New York to review. They tended to get sold to the Strand, and it was a great place to buy a new hardcover at a discount in those pre-Amazon days. And that's what I did.
Notes of a Nervous Man was published in 1991, but was not his first book; that distinction belonged to Falling Up the Stairs, a mystery novel. Notes, like its follow-up Fresh Lies, is a collection of columns, looking at the world (nervously) in all its variations. I love the cover of the book, the author as worrywart seen through a peephole, although it does make him look a little like Woody Allen during Allen's long-lost funny period.
Like any good newspaperman, Lileks knows how to grab you in the opener. Here he is on...
AIR FRESHENERS ...
... and MOVIE VIOLENCE ...
... and BUYING A HOUSE.
In fact, it was this book, and his other books and columns, that made him one of the first writers I looked for when I got regular non-dial-up Internet access. And I've been going to Lileks.com for a loooong time now. I was a daily visitor before he published the epochal Gallery of Regrettable Food, before his daughter was born, before he moved into the current house, before his dad passed away, and before he opened the comments page as a playground for his fans. There's no other site I look forward to reading every single day, for his terrific posts on culture and pop culture of the past, and as you can see from the brief excerpts above, his wonderful way with words.
When Notes of a Nervous Man was published, it got a good review from Publishers Weekly, which said, "The tone is amiable and civilized throughout." I suppose that it did not get the coveted starred review only because the reviewer detected that Lileks did not share a leftist point of view -- even in 1991, conservatism was a killer. P. J. O'Rourke's Parliament of Whores, published the same year, also did not get a star from that august institution, and that book is an acknowledged classic. They wuz robbed.
Anyway: I would recommend James Lileks to anyone who just likes solid, imaginative commentary with a great sense of humor. This book is not really political. Unlike O'Rourke, OGH usually makes it easy to avoid his political writing, if that's your preference. Although Notes has dated a bit, as newspaper writing will. For goodness sake, the book is almost 30 years old. It's amazing it still zings so well.
One last thought: British writer Matt Haig had a best-seller in 2018 with the title Notes on a Nervous Planet. The title seems suspiciously similar to me. You can't copyright a title, but still. How about a little credit for the original there, Matt?
Never mind all that: Today we have a book that's not only a great collection of essays, but also a tribute to newspaperman and blogger extraordinaire, the Great James Lileks.
I will never forget how I discovered Lileks. One day at the office, in walks this spunky kid off the bus from Fargo, with nothing but a sawbuck, a snap-brim fedora, and a pocketful of dreams. I said, "Kid, I like your spunk. And I like your fedora. How much?"
No, that's not right. What happened was, Lileks was writing for the Newhouse News syndicate, doing a nationally syndicated humor column that my local paper ran. I clearly remember reading it in the Laundromat while waiting for my clothes. I thought he was the first really funny new columnist since the eighties brought us Dave Barry and Lew Grizzard, and I wanted to find out if he'd had any compilations as those other men did. At the time I worked near the Strand, the famous Manhattan bookstore at Broadway and 12th ("18 Miles of Books!" they say, and I believe it), and down in the cellar you could find review copies of books for sale -- not the galleys, but first editions that had been sent to the many magazines and newspapers in New York to review. They tended to get sold to the Strand, and it was a great place to buy a new hardcover at a discount in those pre-Amazon days. And that's what I did.
Notes of a Nervous Man was published in 1991, but was not his first book; that distinction belonged to Falling Up the Stairs, a mystery novel. Notes, like its follow-up Fresh Lies, is a collection of columns, looking at the world (nervously) in all its variations. I love the cover of the book, the author as worrywart seen through a peephole, although it does make him look a little like Woody Allen during Allen's long-lost funny period.
Like any good newspaperman, Lileks knows how to grab you in the opener. Here he is on...
AIR FRESHENERS ...
Pardon me if I pass out soon. It's not from ill health, or nerves; rather, I am being suffocated by an air freshener, a little plastic obelisk with a grisly dollop of scented chemicals for innards. A sweet, cloying stench hangs in the room, as though half a dozen Care Bears died in my closet. If I breathe too deeply, I'll probably develop diabetes.
... and MOVIE VIOLENCE ...
I've seen only two movies this summer, and already I've watched about 15,000 people die. Now, I enjoy a good shoot-'em-up as much as the next glassy-eyed, socially maladjusted drifter, but the level of violence in movies is getting so baroque that I leave each movie feeling like I qualify for the Witness Protection Program.
... and BUYING A HOUSE.
Thirteen years of apartment-dwelling is enough. I've tired of having people on the other side of the wall, especially the young people in 3A who seem to be picking up extra income by working as megaphone testers. Let's not even talk about the woman upstairs, who, from the sound of the high-velocity rhythms I hear every night, either has a thigh-blistering sex life or spends her night firing Gatling guns into pie plates. I'm getting hitched this summer, and we'll need more room anyway. That's why I went looking for a house. I wanted the peace and quiet that comes with being locked into a usurious interest rate for twenty-nine years.I won't try to sneak in a whole piece, like I did last week with the great Frank Sullivan; if you want fresh-baked-daily Lileks, by all means join the fun at Lileks.com. There he is known to many commenters as Our Genial Host, or OGH.
Problem is, I am a bad shopper. An impulse buyer. "Comparison shopping" is, by my definition, looking for what I want at several stores, then making the purchase at the one with the coolest shopping bag.
In fact, it was this book, and his other books and columns, that made him one of the first writers I looked for when I got regular non-dial-up Internet access. And I've been going to Lileks.com for a loooong time now. I was a daily visitor before he published the epochal Gallery of Regrettable Food, before his daughter was born, before he moved into the current house, before his dad passed away, and before he opened the comments page as a playground for his fans. There's no other site I look forward to reading every single day, for his terrific posts on culture and pop culture of the past, and as you can see from the brief excerpts above, his wonderful way with words.
When Notes of a Nervous Man was published, it got a good review from Publishers Weekly, which said, "The tone is amiable and civilized throughout." I suppose that it did not get the coveted starred review only because the reviewer detected that Lileks did not share a leftist point of view -- even in 1991, conservatism was a killer. P. J. O'Rourke's Parliament of Whores, published the same year, also did not get a star from that august institution, and that book is an acknowledged classic. They wuz robbed.
Anyway: I would recommend James Lileks to anyone who just likes solid, imaginative commentary with a great sense of humor. This book is not really political. Unlike O'Rourke, OGH usually makes it easy to avoid his political writing, if that's your preference. Although Notes has dated a bit, as newspaper writing will. For goodness sake, the book is almost 30 years old. It's amazing it still zings so well.
One last thought: British writer Matt Haig had a best-seller in 2018 with the title Notes on a Nervous Planet. The title seems suspiciously similar to me. You can't copyright a title, but still. How about a little credit for the original there, Matt?
Tuesday, January 14, 2020
Monday, January 13, 2020
Unwelcome.
Go away!
No, I don't want you to go away, but I fear that my door may be saying that.
The Christmas stuff is mostly gone, all of it from the outside, and the whole neighborhood looks pretty blank. No snow, not yet; unusually warm this past weekend, but we're gonna get the white stuff next week.
It's the front door that's the blankest; Meredith Wilson may have been right when he wrote "The prettiest sight to see / is the holly that will be / on your own front door." Now I got nuthin'.
Normally this is not the case. In February there's a heart for St. Valentine's Day; March gets a big shamrock; April, a bunny and chick thing; October, a ghost and pumpkin thing; November, a grateful scarecrow; and December, a wreath. From May to September there's a floral hanging that says Welcome. All of them say welcome, either explicitly or by implying that we are fun, holiday-observing people who want to share the celebratory mood. Which is good, because our mat says nothing -- it only has muddy foot- and pawprints.
But what of January? It seems to defy front-door décor. You can't leave Christmas stuff up, and that would include anything snow-themed; like it or not, decorations involving snow mean Christmas. By now people are done celebrating the new year and don't want to hear about it anymore. Martin Luther King Jr. Day defies any kind of commemorative door thingie; basically you can only get away with that (like for Washington's Birthday) if the person depicted could also be seen on TV ads for local car dealerships.
"I have a dream... of outstanding deals!"
No.
So what does that leave? Other things in the north that we note in January could be depicted by a shovel, a broken arm, or a box of tissues. Not seeing it.
Probably the only thing to do would be to get a bland no-frills sign that says Welcome, or a nondenominational, non-holiday wreath, like this one:
It's nice. I just feel like that's trying to hard. Like it's saying, Yes, the big holidays are over, but look! Life is still festive! But it isn't.
Maybe I should just pin a drawing of an afghan and a pair of thick slipper socks on the door. Not only is it winter-themed, it also explains why I'm not going to answer the bell. Sorry; too cozy in here. See you in April.
No, I don't want you to go away, but I fear that my door may be saying that.
The Christmas stuff is mostly gone, all of it from the outside, and the whole neighborhood looks pretty blank. No snow, not yet; unusually warm this past weekend, but we're gonna get the white stuff next week.
It's the front door that's the blankest; Meredith Wilson may have been right when he wrote "The prettiest sight to see / is the holly that will be / on your own front door." Now I got nuthin'.
Normally this is not the case. In February there's a heart for St. Valentine's Day; March gets a big shamrock; April, a bunny and chick thing; October, a ghost and pumpkin thing; November, a grateful scarecrow; and December, a wreath. From May to September there's a floral hanging that says Welcome. All of them say welcome, either explicitly or by implying that we are fun, holiday-observing people who want to share the celebratory mood. Which is good, because our mat says nothing -- it only has muddy foot- and pawprints.
But what of January? It seems to defy front-door décor. You can't leave Christmas stuff up, and that would include anything snow-themed; like it or not, decorations involving snow mean Christmas. By now people are done celebrating the new year and don't want to hear about it anymore. Martin Luther King Jr. Day defies any kind of commemorative door thingie; basically you can only get away with that (like for Washington's Birthday) if the person depicted could also be seen on TV ads for local car dealerships.
"I have a dream... of outstanding deals!"
No.
So what does that leave? Other things in the north that we note in January could be depicted by a shovel, a broken arm, or a box of tissues. Not seeing it.
Probably the only thing to do would be to get a bland no-frills sign that says Welcome, or a nondenominational, non-holiday wreath, like this one:
It's nice. I just feel like that's trying to hard. Like it's saying, Yes, the big holidays are over, but look! Life is still festive! But it isn't.
Maybe I should just pin a drawing of an afghan and a pair of thick slipper socks on the door. Not only is it winter-themed, it also explains why I'm not going to answer the bell. Sorry; too cozy in here. See you in April.
Sunday, January 12, 2020
Fred red.
You probably don't know this, but I have a lipstick named after me. May I present: Fred.
But wait! you say. You, manly traditional masculine man that you are, you do not wear lipstick. And you, or at least your avatar, are not red. Sickly green, perhaps, but not red.
You are correct, sir. And perhaps I am stretching the truth juuuuust a hair when I say that this Fred Crème Lux Lipstick is named after me.
My wife subscribes to a number of YouTube videos, many having to do with her interests in crafts and dogs, but also that of makeup guru Safiya Nygaard. Safiya, blessed with an excellent sense of humor, has made a career of not just doing makeup, but also doing goofy things, sometimes with makeup and sometimes not. She made a cake out of lipstick, which is supposed to be edible -- but it turned out that edible ≠ delicious. She also melted down tons of lipsticks into various "Frankenlipsticks" to see what the dominant colors would be. When she combined a bunch of reds together she got the above shade, called Frankenred, or Fred for short. Then, when she released her own line of lipsticks, Fred came along for the ride. (For the record, she does have a green-gray lipstick, but that one's called Brucie and is definitely not my sickly avatar green.)
So now you're thinking that the connection between myself and this tube of lipstick is even more tenuous than you expected. And you're right.
But you see, when your name is the 881st-most popular men's name in America (at least as of 2002, according to the Social Security Administration), you have to take your wins where you can find them.
So thank you, Safiya, for naming a lipstick Fred and thus helping to keep the name in the public consciousness. Maybe by 2022 we Freds will have climbed up to 860th on the list, thanks to your efforts. And you know just what we'll say: We're No. 860, so we try harder.
 |
| Seriously, it's Fred. |
But wait! you say. You, manly traditional masculine man that you are, you do not wear lipstick. And you, or at least your avatar, are not red. Sickly green, perhaps, but not red.
You are correct, sir. And perhaps I am stretching the truth juuuuust a hair when I say that this Fred Crème Lux Lipstick is named after me.
My wife subscribes to a number of YouTube videos, many having to do with her interests in crafts and dogs, but also that of makeup guru Safiya Nygaard. Safiya, blessed with an excellent sense of humor, has made a career of not just doing makeup, but also doing goofy things, sometimes with makeup and sometimes not. She made a cake out of lipstick, which is supposed to be edible -- but it turned out that edible ≠ delicious. She also melted down tons of lipsticks into various "Frankenlipsticks" to see what the dominant colors would be. When she combined a bunch of reds together she got the above shade, called Frankenred, or Fred for short. Then, when she released her own line of lipsticks, Fred came along for the ride. (For the record, she does have a green-gray lipstick, but that one's called Brucie and is definitely not my sickly avatar green.)
So now you're thinking that the connection between myself and this tube of lipstick is even more tenuous than you expected. And you're right.
But you see, when your name is the 881st-most popular men's name in America (at least as of 2002, according to the Social Security Administration), you have to take your wins where you can find them.
So thank you, Safiya, for naming a lipstick Fred and thus helping to keep the name in the public consciousness. Maybe by 2022 we Freds will have climbed up to 860th on the list, thanks to your efforts. And you know just what we'll say: We're No. 860, so we try harder.
Saturday, January 11, 2020
Friday, January 10, 2020
Not Lamborghinis?
I keep abreast of medical news in my small way, as I do some light editing for a medical information service. Mostly I see press releases that read like "FDA Approves Etremensloposisabnib for the Treatment of Late-Stage Jumping Frenchman Disease." They don't much register on me unless I have a story that involves the drug or the illness, or I start jumping uncontrollably like those legendary Quebecois.
However, I got an e-mail from Medscape that interested me; it was their Physician Lifestyle & Happiness Report 2020, and I couldn't wait to see the summary.
This report, which broke physicians down primarily by specialty and generation (Boomer, Gen X, Millennial), tells us how gleeful our doctors are, or aren't, and a few other bits of info about them. For example, you might wonder which specialists are the happiest outside of work. (Rheumatologists, as it happens; neurologists are the most miserable). Which generation of doctor gets likkered-up the most? (Boomers and Xers tied with 8% having more than six drinks per week, which could mean anything from one glass of wine with dinner every night to being loaded 24/7; only 6% of Millennial doctors have more than six weekly.)
For the most part doctors are not much different than the rest of us. Half of them want to lose weight, for example. Many of them work long hours -- 33% to 35% of them work 41 to 50 hours a week -- but most get more vacation than the rest of us, and probably have a stronger feeling than you and I do that our work is worthwhile and necessary.
But this chart amazed me:
Twenty percent of doctors drive Toyotas? Honda is #2 at 15%? More doctors don't even drive (2%) than drive Jaguars (1%)? What the hell?
Well, 80% of them are married, and probably have kids, and huge medical-school loans, and of course huge malpractice insurance payments... Maybe it's amazing that they can even buy Toyotas rather than Kias.
This kind of made me sad, though:
More proof, that A) a little knowledge is a dangerous thing and B) social media is the greatest anti-social force in the world.
However, I got an e-mail from Medscape that interested me; it was their Physician Lifestyle & Happiness Report 2020, and I couldn't wait to see the summary.
This report, which broke physicians down primarily by specialty and generation (Boomer, Gen X, Millennial), tells us how gleeful our doctors are, or aren't, and a few other bits of info about them. For example, you might wonder which specialists are the happiest outside of work. (Rheumatologists, as it happens; neurologists are the most miserable). Which generation of doctor gets likkered-up the most? (Boomers and Xers tied with 8% having more than six drinks per week, which could mean anything from one glass of wine with dinner every night to being loaded 24/7; only 6% of Millennial doctors have more than six weekly.)
For the most part doctors are not much different than the rest of us. Half of them want to lose weight, for example. Many of them work long hours -- 33% to 35% of them work 41 to 50 hours a week -- but most get more vacation than the rest of us, and probably have a stronger feeling than you and I do that our work is worthwhile and necessary.
But this chart amazed me:
Well, 80% of them are married, and probably have kids, and huge medical-school loans, and of course huge malpractice insurance payments... Maybe it's amazing that they can even buy Toyotas rather than Kias.
This kind of made me sad, though:
More proof, that A) a little knowledge is a dangerous thing and B) social media is the greatest anti-social force in the world.
On the one hand, we're told that physicians want us to be informed patients; on the other, we all know people (hopefully not ourselves) who do think they know more than their doctor and are willing to go visit my old attorney pals at Greef, Sorrell, & Payne for the slightest hope of a payday reason to sue. And we know there are plenty of people pleased to trash a doctor's reputation for any reason, or for no reason (even a medical rival might do it). Personally I'm a little sore at my otolaryngologist, who doesn't even seem to be curious as to why I've lost a range of hearing in one ear, when to me -- who would very much like to know why so I can stop it from rendering me deaf entirely -- it's kind of a big deal. And yet I haven't gone online to try to wreck the man's livelihood.
It's a hard job, doctoring, and we the patients usually don't make life easier for doctors. We say that health is our #1 priority, but we act as if pleasure is. And it probably is. So they're stuck driving Toyotas instead of Lambos while their advice falls on deaf ears.
Of course, in my case, if the ears are deaf, then I want my lawyers to talk to my otolaryngologist.
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