Musical Discovery

One of my coworkers decided a few days ago that she was sick of the music on her iPod. (She used the word "hate", but I don't think it was entirely accurate.) So she proposed an iPod swap. I went for it, and we've spent a few hours on each of the last few days listening to each others' collections.

This is a wonderful exercise, which I highly recommend to anyone who is in a position to do it.

My greatest joy of the exercise, so far, has been the discovery of a singer/songwriter named Joanna Newsom. I am absolutely hooked, and intend to buy her albums when funds become available. She has this magnificently unconventional singing voice which she uses to great effect with a unique delivery. Plus, the woman is a rhyme machine!

My favorite lyric goes like this:

I killed my dinner with karate -
kick 'em in the face, taste the body;

This artist is definitely my musical discovery of the year, and I can make no stronger suggestion to you, reader, than this: Listen to Joanna Newsom!

You can find a page of her fantastic rhymes here.

You can get a sample of her sound by checking out the video here.

25 (vaguely) Random Things About Me

I got invited by some Facebook friends to participate in this sharing exercise. To participate, you make a list of 25 random facts about yourself and share the list, inviting 25 friends to do the same. I found it an entertaining and challenging exercise. Just for fun, I figured I might as well also post my list to my blog. Here's what I came up with:

1) I tend to think in long, rambling sentences or even paragraphs, rather than simple declarative statements.

2) I have an astonishingly bad memory. This is especially true when it comes to remembering people's names, but that's certainly not the end of it.

3) I have started in the last few years to remember certain things about my childhood that I had thought were lost. For example, I now remember that at various times I thought I might like to become a stuntman, a lawyer, and a philosopher. These were never dreams, rather just ideas.

4) I am quite certain that I never had any desire to be a fireman, police officer, or soldier.

5) When I was young, I was interested in/fascinated by the following ideas (listed in no particular order): vampires, sasquatch, werewolves, wolfmen, the Loch Ness monster, time travel, immortality, aliens (specifically, those who would visit the Earth in their spaceships), ghosts, the dangers of the Bermuda Triangle, whirlpools that could swallow boats, underground habitable worlds in which there was an ever present danger of being burnt to a crisp by lava, ESP, telekinesis, pyrokinesis.

6) I understand (and probably pretty much always understood) that the vast majority of these ideas are unlikely to the point of absurdity.

7) Nonetheless, I have a sentimental soft spot in my heart for at least a few of these ideas even to this day, and would generally prefer to listen to someone discussing these things at length than have to spend even a few minutes listening to someone prattle on in earnest about God or Jesus or Allah or any other deity that he or she thinks is worthy of worship. In fact, . . .

8) I have very little to no patience/tolerance/appreciation for much of anything that's religiously motivated.

9) However, I love religious tracts. (If you send me one, you're sure to be on my good side.)

10) If I ever told you that I never smile, never laugh, or have no sense of humor, you should know that that was a bit of a joke.

11) My favorite color is pink, and I am secure enough in my masculinity that I'm not embarrassed to say so.

12) I find it difficult to compile this list. The reason is that something in my nature demands that I try to come up with something more interesting (to my way of thinking) than that my eyes are brown or that I have one sister and no brothers. However, . . .

13) My feet are really quite small relative to my height, as has been the case for as long as I can recall.

14) While I am extremely comfortable expressing myself in writing, I am considerably less so in person, and even less so on the phone. I get nervous when speaking before an audience. This nervousness manifests itself in the primary symptom of shaking. I do not tend to put myself into such situations very frequently, although I have for years been considering joining Toastmasters, because I think it would be genuinely good for me.

15) Not only am I nervous in front of an audience, I am also generally uncomfortable in a crowd. I have no fondness for parties because this discomfort tends to make them less than enjoyable for me.

16) The discomfort in a crowd is selective, however, depending (I think) on the size of the crowd and its purpose. I can be fully at ease as an audience member at sporting events, and I used to comfortably participate in enormous rallies (pro-choice, housing now) on The Mall in DC. I think the vastness of these gatherings makes for a kind of anonymity that is very soothing to me.

17) If I live long enough, I will be the last unapologetic carnivore on Earth.

18) It's fair to say that I am a man without ambition. I'm simply not interested in career advancement, I'm not looking to start or lead a movement. At this point, what I wish for more than anything else is to spend my remaining years with my darling wife.

19) This is not to say that I have no unfulfilled dreams. Surely, I have dreams. Right? Right!

20) My greatest fear in life is, as it has been for decades, becoming homeless.

21) Still, sometimes I think it might be nice to just get rid of all material possessions and become nomadic.

22) I used never to sing within earshot of anyone else. This was policy. Beth has changed me, to the point where I actually enjoyed taking the microphone at a (small) party a few months ago for several songs playing Guitar Hero World Tour on the Wii. This was in the presence of some people I have known for a quite a while and some people I barely know at all. That's progress.

23) If I have a hero, that hero is Erno Rubik.

24) I have competed in boomerang tournaments, not because I like competition, but because I like throwing boomerangs.

25) My eyes are brown and I have one sister and no brothers.

September Hair Photos

As you will recall from previous posts, my New Year's Resolution this year is to try my best to resist the urge to cut my hair, with the ultimate goal of donating it to Locks of Love.

Last week, my hair started really annoying me because it keeps getting into my eyes. Grrrrr...

Anyway, here are the September 2, 02008 photos. My apologies for posting them so late.

For those few of you who will get the reference, I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror a couple of days ago while I was wearing a baseball cap. Suddenly, I'm thinking of dressing up as a member of the Baseball Furies for Halloween.

A Neologism (and a half), After Much Rambling Buildup

Surely there are people who spend their time trying to devise neologisms (new words or expressions). I suspect that there is a whole subculture of these linguistic hobbyists. I think it's fair to say that the most blatant (and for a time, the most famous (and possibly the most prolific)) of these neologists in recent memory was Rich Hall. His "sniglets" (words that don't appear in the dictionary but should) were featured for a time on Saturday Night Live and he published a few volumes of them, which I believe were bestsellers.

[Note: Hall was a cast member of Saturday Night Live during at least one of what I think of as "The Forgotten Years". In recent years, when I have sporadically caught reruns of SNL on E!, I don't believe I have ever seen one of the episodes from this era rerun. These were actually my favorite SNL years (probably more than for any other reason because they're the years when I started watching, and they therefore have a real nostalgic value for me). Besides Rich Hall, the cast of this era included Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Brad Hall, Eddie Murphy (although I don't think Hall and Murphy actually shared a season), Tim Kazurinsky, Gary Kroeger, Mary Gross, Martin Short, Harry Shearer, Christopher Guest, and Billy Crystal. Some of these people went on to stellar careers, some faded from the public eye. All were great in their own way, and it's a shame that those SNL episodes don't seem to be in syndication.]

Anyway, as I've mentioned before, I've been trying to think on a 10,000 year scale instead of thinking in terms of decades or centuries. This is daunting. Especially if you also think in terms of trying to leave some sort of literary legacy. Which I do. ("Odd," you might say, given that I have never published a novel nor is there any real reason to believe that I will ever manage to do so. I won't dispute that it's odd. I also will freely admit that I have no such grandiose aspirations for what I post on my blog. It's easy to spew out lots of words if you are not trying to write for the ages.)

When I took my first real stab at writing a novel, I was not seriously thinking in 10,000 year terms. But I was thinking much more vaguely in terms of literary "immortality". And to some degree, this really acted as a hindrance to me, though perhaps not in the sense that you would expect. I wasn't frozen with fear at the prospect of trying to write something great. Instead, I was stymied by the certainty (certainty!) that much of what we deal with in our daily lives is (in the longish term) mere ephemera.

What will last?

"Telephone" will be an obsolete term soon. "Internet" will probably be obsolete even sooner. Already there's a generation of people for whom "Walkman" is meaningless, I'm sure. It's been superseded by "iPod" or "MP3 player", both of which will be virtually forgotten within 50 years. I'm pretty confident in saying that. Heck, even "computer" may fairly quickly become an archaic term, as what we think of as a computer becomes obsolete, replaced by some sort of I-don't-know-what. When faced with this knowledge, and motivated by the desire to write something timeless, what's an author to do?

In my case, the answer is challenging, and limiting: try your best to avoid including references to those things that you're sure will soon be memories, soon thereafter be quaint curiosities, and soon thereafter be lost to the realm of human experience. Limiting, indeed! If the phone is off limits, surely e-mail is too. IM and text messaging -- meaningless and (to me in my novelistic aspirational mindset) useless! What's an LP? What's an album? What in the world does vinyl have to do with music?

Anyway, the more I try to think on a 10,000 year scale, the more convinced I become that the idea of literary immortality is an unattainable goal. Here's what else I've concluded about the exercise: 1) Your best shot at literary longevity is inextricably linked with accepting anonymity. 2) The shorter your contribution (assuming it's really good), the longer it is likely to last.

So, if you want to leave a lasting literary legacy, your best bet is to accept that it will not be associated with your name for very long, and to make it as snappy as possible. Aphorisms, proverbs, and neologisms are really the way to go, if "immortality" is your goal.

Neologisms are actually probably the worst of these three forms, for the simple reason that the others can be translated to other languages with ease and (assuming they're really effective) they won't lose any value in the translation.

So, after there's no longer any such thing as a "penny" and after Ben Franklin is completely forgotten, "a penny saved is a penny earned" can still have meaning to any culture (and in any language) that has grasped the concept and adapted the saying to its particular vernacular. "Penny" is just a variable, easily replaced by "dollar" "yen", "peso", or "yumyum". "Save" and "earn" are simple concepts, easily translatable into almost any language. Assuming it still has cultural value, "a penny saved is a penny earned" can easily be imagined as having the potential to outlast the English language.

Neologisms are a trickier business. A neologism is only a neologism for a short time. If it catches on (a big if, always), it soon ceases to be a neologism and instead simply becomes a word. Words are really tied to the language in which they originate, with rare exceptions. ("OK" has somehow become fairly universal.) Generally speaking, if the language dies, so does the word. This doesn't even take into account the natural evolution of language that dictates the constant, gradual alteration in meaning that occurs to many (if not most or all) words. If you originate a new word with a particular meaning today and in 50 years the word is still used, but with a somewhat different connotation (or worse, a somewhat different denotation), can you still take credit for it? How about in 300 years, when your original definition is so far removed from the current one that there isn't even any readily obvious connection between what it was and what it has become?

I mentioned Rich Hall earlier. Turns out he was apparently Matt Groening's inspiration for the character of Moe Szyslak. Mentioning Matt Groening is a handy tool for tying neologisms to literary legacies. (I am, of course, using a very broad definition of "literary", here.) If we were placing bets, my money would be on "d'oh" as Groening's lasting literary legacy. I'm guessing that people will widely respect and appreciate (perhaps revere) The Simpsons (and, I hope, Futurama) for a few decades to come. I suspect that in 100 years, those shows will be as well known and loved as are the films of Harold Lloyd today. Which is to say that there will be a small group of devotees who fight hard to keep the legacy alive, while the vast majority of the population will suddenly be overcome by a blank stare (at best) when presented with a reference to them. By contrast, I'm guessing that "d'oh" stands a very good chance of lasting and being widely used as an expression of anger or frustration or revealed stupidity for at least a couple of hundred years. If I had to put my money on how long "d'oh" will be in common parlance, I'd bet somewhere between 300 and 600 years. (That's me being extremely optimistic, which is rare.)

Assuming "d'oh" lasts that long, will Groening's name be associated with it in any way? Not a chance! But it will still be his legacy, and I'm pretty sure that if it does last that long, it'll likely be his only (directly attributable) contribution to whatever has become of society.

Which is great!

I don't think Jose Saramago or Toni Morrison or Kenzaburo Oe or V.S. Naipaul or Orhan Pamuk is likely to have inserted anything so powerful as that one word quite so far into the future. This is not a commentary on their literary genius. Merely a thought about what likely lasts and what likely doesn't through the coming centuries.

It's fair to say that I am not one of those neologism hobbyists I mentioned at the start of this entry. It's also fair to say that I do not have any expectation that my offerings in this field will catch on, let alone last. However, having stated as much, I figure I might as well throw a neologism or two out there into the internet as see if I get any traction at all.

So, without further ado, one and a half neologisms for your consideration:

intrarogative - adj. Characterized by self doubt. n. One who is characterized by self doubt.
intrarogative question - n. A question, typically rhetorical and usually pessimistic, about one's own place in the universe.

I am an intrarogative (I think), always questioning my own choices in life, rarely certain that I have acted as wisely as I should have done.

"Why me?" is the mother of all intrarogative questions. Others include: "How did I get here?", "Why did this happen to me?", and even vaguer questions like "What else can go wrong?".

Some Thoughts on the Olympics

First, Michael Phelps was spectacular. There's no denying that. What he did was amazing. Congratulations to him and his teammates. (Note: The most impressive moment of all of the swimming events that I saw was Lezak chasing down and passing Bernard in that 4 x 100 m freestyle relay.)

However, given the coverage and praise that has been heaped upon Phelps, Usain Bolt has not gotten nearly enough attention in the television coverage here in the U.S.

Once again (as happens every time the Olympics comes around), I am reminded that our televised Olympics coverage really is way too America-centric. I wonder what the coverage in Jamaica has been like. I hope Bolt has been getting his due there!

Unfortunately, it seems that half the commentary I have heard about Bolt has been disparaging remarks about his poor sportsmanship (exuberance) and showboating (premature celebration). I feel somewhat cheated by not seeing what he would have done in the 100 m if he had really given it his all. But I will not pile on with the criticism. He left me wanting more. That's all.

Here's my take on Bolt: What he did in the 100 meter race may have been the most jaw-dropping performance I have ever seen in sport. It was utterly astonishing! Basically, the guy coasted for the last 15 meters and he still beat the rest the best in the world have ever offered.

Here's the analogy that came to mind when I saw it: Imagine a 50 meter freestyle race, in the final round of the Olympics, in which someone was so far ahead of the field that he could roll over and take his last two or three strokes on his back, still win the race, and still break the world record. It's unthinkable!

The 100 meter run record is a slow dropper. In the last 25 years, the world record in the event has now dropped, on average, just under 0.01 seconds per year. In the last year, Bolt has been responsible for fully 1/5 of that entire drop. And in establishing the new record in Beijing, he wasn't really trying! The guy didn't push until the end. Not even close. He knew he was going to win, and he relaxed. It was absolutely phenomenal.

For comparison purposes, consider that in the last 25 years, the 100 meter dash record time has dropped by just 2.4%.

The 50 meter freestyle long course record time has dropped by 5.51%.
The 100 meter butterfly long course record time has dropped by 5.69%.
The 100 meter breaststroke long course record time has dropped by 5.69%. (This shocks me! Given the complete change that the stroke has undergone, I would have though this would be more like a 10-15% drop.)
The 100 meter freestyle long course record time has dropped by 4.68%.

But winning the 100 meter run wasn't the end of it. Bolt then went on to break the 200 meter running record, which has been an even slower dropper than the 100 meter running record! In almost 29 years, the record for the 200 has now dropped by just 2.1%. Based on these record progressions, it's entirely reasonable to assume that runners are closer to reaching the limits of performance than are swimmers. And Bolt has shown that he is closer than anyone, although watching his performances, it's very difficult to assume that he has come close to reaching his own potential.

Again, I'm not saying that Phelps has not been absolutely spectacular. He has. Period. And in terms of what he has done to shatter records, it's absolutely true that Phelps is head and shoulders above anything Bolt has done. For example, in the 200 meter butterfly, Phelps has singlehandedly dropped the record by as much in just over 7 years as it had been previously dropped in just under 25 years. That's incredible! But in terms of strictly what's happened in Beijing, I would argue that Bolt's performance has been every bit as astonishing as Phelps' performance.

(And just for a bit of snarky nostalgia, I'll throw this in: Michael Phelps will always be an underage drunk driver to me.)

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There's an often uttered saying in the sports world: "That's why they play the games."

The idea is that on any given day, anyone can be beaten. However, with the women's beach volleyball competition, I really felt as much as ever that there was a foregone conclusion in play.

I could hardly have been less enthusiastic about my role as a spectator in this event. As the tournament was happening, I watched minutes here and there, but I made no real effort to tune in and pay attention. I would stop watching matches long before their conclusions, paying little attention to where the scores stood. I simply assumed that May-Treanor and Walsh would prevail. And, of course, they did not disappoint.

There was no surprise in learning that they had gotten to the gold medal match. There was no surprise in learning that they had not dropped a set. Did I watch the gold medal match? Yes. Start to finish, with almost no enthusiasm. I was awed! I won't deny that. What you're watching when you watch Kerri Walsh and Misty May-Treanor play together is simply the best there has ever been, doing what they do best. You should be aware of it and you should marvel at it. It is a genuine privilege. But sadly, it's just not edge-of-your seat, "anything can happen" competition. It's as much like watching destiny unfold as the sports fan can experience.

The Bell Ringer Joke Revisited

or:

If I'm Destined to Get a Pulitzer Prize for 02008, This is the Line of Thought That Will Earn It For Me

I'm pretty sure that it's been at least two decades since the idea of The Bell Ringer Joke started knocking around in my head. (I've mentioned the joke in a previous blog post.) There has been hope and despair, laughter and great disappointment, spread out over more than half my lifetime!

On Thursday morning, out of the blue, I had a few epiphanies regarding the joke for all of these years.

Epiphany #1: The first and second parts of the joke are spectacular, and if I had not been told at the time that I first heard them that there was a mysterious third part floating about in the ether, those two known parts would have been deeply satisfying. There would have been no disappointment associated with The Bell Ringer Joke whatsoever. The two parts stand together as a complete and brilliant story, riotously funny. Which is to say that the third part is only relevant if you know it exists. It is profoundly unnecessary to the success of the other two parts.

Having tracked down the missing third part, (since the internet made all such information readily available to all who seek it), I was precisely as disappointed by the third part as I had been warned I would be. For so many years, the rumor was not merely that there was a third part. Instead the rumor was that there was a third part and that it was a terrible disappointment to everyone who heard it. ("How bad could it be?", thought I, naively. The answer: Every bit as bad as everyone said it was.

This is why it took so many years to get to the third part: It was so bad that nobody who had heard it was willing to repeat it. In fact, there were claims of its being so bad that people completely excised it from their memories.)

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Epiphany #2: There is a reason why the third part is so horribly disappointing. And it's not really an intangible -- "you know it when you hear it" -- reason. On Thursday morning, I determined exactly why the third part is so disappointing. And I can articulate it simply. But first, as I tend to do so very frequently in this life, I feel the need to preface what I'm about to say.

Preface: I've never written a thesis on humor. I'm not very interested in doing so -- although I suppose if someone were to offer me a doctorate for doing so, I think there are certainly less appealing thesis topics to try to tackle.

I'm sure that many theses have been written on the topic of humor. I wouldn't be at all surprised to learn that The Bell Ringer Joke plays a fairly central role in at least a few of them. To be honest, I'm not terribly interested in reading any such theses. Although again, I suspect these would hardly be the most unpleasant theses to have to wade through.

It may well be the case that the more you try to figure out what makes something funny, the less funny it becomes. (This is the "dissecting a butterfly" argument, which applies also to poetry and beauty (and probably lots of other things).) That's not my point here. I'm not trying to provide a template that can be used to devise new jokes. Nor am I saying "if a joke doesn't fit this criterion, it's not funny". Rather, I'm pointing out where the disjoint is between the two successful parts of the joke and the unsuccessful third part.

So, here it is: The structure of the punch line in each of the two successful parts of the joke plays with the congruence of the literal and the figurative meanings of the idioms used. (In the first part, "I don't know, but his face rings a bell". In the second part, "I don't know, but he's a dead ringer for that other guy".)

This is not the same structure as the third part. The third part has nothing to do with bridging the literal/figurative gap. And for that matter, it has nothing to do with idiom. Frankly, I don't remember the third punch line, and I was so disgusted by it that I'm unwilling to look it up right now. But here's what I remember of it:

It was a pun.

Now, I've written before of my general distaste for the pun. I think it's a pathetic approach to humor. Rarely is it clever and almost never is it genuinely funny. That's my own bias, and I'll freely admit to that. However, that's not where my case against the third part rests.

Nor does it rest in my assertion that it is a horribly convoluted and horribly contrived pun. (Which it is!)

My case against the third punch line rests merely in its not being of the same type as the first two punch lines.

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If we can agree that the horrible third part should be thrown on the scrap heap [and I think all reasonable people can agree on this], we're left with the question of whether there should be a better third part that's properly designed and better fits with the other two parts. I am of the opinion that this is the case. Perhaps it's just based on years of frustration and pent up longing, but I really do believe that there should be a third part of the joke. That would provide closure, assuming that it's worthy of being matched with the others.

Epiphany #3: (This is the real shocker of the bunch.) I've been looking in the wrong place for the missing part. What's missing is not, in fact, the third part. What's missing is the first part! Logically, this makes sense.

The "second" guy is a dead ringer for the other guy. That's established by the fraternal relationship. The "first" guy's face rings a bell. Why? That deserves a set-up. Obviously, it's all in the telling, and it's easy enough to start out by establishing merely as a part of the narrative that the guy whose face rings a bell was taking over for a brother who died or retired or went missing. But I've come to understand that that's a cop out! "Easy enough" isn't necessarily right. Wouldn't it be better if there were a funny story to establish what happened to the first brother?

Of course it would!

So, now the task is not to establish not a new third part, but rather to establish a new first part, which would bump the other parts into the second and third slots. The end result is that you end up with a three-part joke (which, in my view, it deserves to be). And if it's built correctly, it will actually feel related to the other two parts, which is really what all of this longing and disappointment have been about.

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When I was in high school, I took a career assessment. The idea was that by asking a series of questions about a person's interests and personality tendencies, it was possible to make reasonable recommendations about what line of work that person might be best suited for. Much to my surprise, I was judged most suited to being a stand-up comedian.

Funny, that.

I think I could probably come up with a funny routine and get some laughs if I were to put some real effort into it. Doing an open mic night is something that I've long contemplated but never bothered to look into. Maybe I'll get to that before I die. Maybe not.

I don't think anyone who knows me actually thinks of me as being "Mr. Funny". I'm not a cut-up and I've never really put much effort into my joke-telling skills. I hardly ever actually tell a joke, and when I do, it tends to be a very simple joke--largely because I have such a terrible memory, it's just so difficult for me to remember any very complicated story jokes. I'm not terribly comfortable in front of crowds -- I get nervous. And I am naturally a very reserved person, largely keeping quiet and not saying a lot. I am not what you would call a raconteur. (I write at length, but I really don't talk a whole lot at all.)

All of this suggests that if you want me to provide you with a new joke, you're probably looking in the wrong place. However, that's just what I'm about to do.

Again, this must come with some warnings.

1) I'm actually just going to provide you with an outline of a joke -- a skeleton, if you will. In order to become a genuinely good joke, it would need some flesh on its bones. Part of that is simply having a joke teller who knows how to "sell" the story. But part of it is in the actual wording, and (at the moment) I'm just not ready to invest the effort in trying to perfectly craft it.

2) Part of what makes The Bell Ringer Joke so special is that it isn't in the least bit blue. That is, there's no bawdiness in it at all. Now, if you know me, you probably know that I rarely ever cuss. Frankly, I came to realise a lot of years ago that cussing is just a lazy habit. It's easy to do, hard to avoid once you establish the habit, and really doesn't accomplish much. So a long while ago, I decided to make an effort to get out of the habit. In realizing just how lazy a habit it is, I think I came to really appreciate people who don't use it as a crutch for expressing themselves. This has extended to an overall appreciation for civility and a bit of disdain for crassness. You may call me old-fashioned, or call me a prude, or accuse me of being against free speech. That's your right. But the truth is that I think people can do better and I believe that the Jerry Springerification of America is one of the worst things that has happened in our society during my lifetime. I'm not as old as some, but I'm old enough to remember when adults were generally responsible enough to not expose children (in public, anyway) to foul language. I think that was a better time.

This is not to say that I can't appreciate a well-placed cuss word. One of my favorite movie quotes of all time comes from Friday, when Smokey says, "You got knocked the f*** out!" That's a hilarious line! Part of it is Chris Tucker's delivery. But delivery alone does not make the line. If you take the F-bomb out, it just isn't funny, no matter how well delivered it is. I understand this, and I appreciate it. I'm not "above" foul language, I just think it's altogether too overused in today's society. The unfortunate downside of this is that it loses its power and just becomes so much noise instead of providing any real emphasis.

The reason why I mention this is that my joke, while quite tame by today's standards, is still considerably bluer than is appropriate to be a truly good match for the other two parts of The Bell Ringer Joke. This is part of its downfall. I'm putting this out there right up front because I want it to be absolutely clear that this is a flawed "attempt". There should be no confusion about this point. I am not providing this outline of a joke as a proposed addition to The Bell Ringer Joke. Rather, I'm putting this out there as a bad example of how easy it is to do better than what's currently out there, and as a provocation in hopes that somebody out there will take up the challenge of doing even better than this.

3) My outline does take the approach of using the literal/figurative interpretation of an idiom as the basis for its structure. So here are a couple of other parts of its downfall: (a) The literal interpretation isn't literal enough. (b) The idiom I have gone with is too obscure and outdated.

For the existing two successful parts of the joke, the literal interpretations of those punch lines are absolutely literal. My punch line is not truly literal. It's close, in its own way. But it's not quite there.

As for the idiom, I think "his face rings a bell" is very widely understood. I suspect the phrase "dead ringer" is probably a bit less widely understood (and probably becoming ever less widely understood with each passing year). But for now, I think it's probably in common enough parlance to count as being part of the general American vernacular, and will probably remain such for quite a long while. My idiom was probably pretty widely understood 30-50 years ago, but I think it has pretty rapidly dropped out of common usage, and I suspect that in 50 years, it will be considered archaic usage. If I am right about these things, my joke simply does not have the appropriately broad appeal that The Bell Ringer Joke deserves for all of its parts to have.

So, here's my sketch:

Just after the start of the year, the bishop was at the cathedral to interview candidates for the position of bell ringer. The ancient bell ringer had decided to finally take his pension. He had served for quite a lot of years. His back could no longer handle the constant pulling of the ropes and his legs could no longer handle the constant climbing of the stairs that were requisites of the job.

One candidate stood out among the rest. He was young, but had an impeccable résumé, great references, and was a member of the most well-respected family of bell ringers in all the land. His father, grandfather, great grandfather, and great great grandfather, as well as countless uncles, were all widely known to have served the church with distinction over many years. The man was hired, without audition, and the bishop left the cathedral with confidence in his choice.

The next day, as scheduled, the new bell ringer did his duty, ringing the bells exactly at the turn of the hour, every hour. Over the next months, he never missed a chime, never struck a wrong note, performed spectacularly for every mass, at every holiday. He was widely regarded as the best bell ringer in anyone's memory.

About ten months after the new bell ringer arrived, the church's old housekeeper retired and was replaced by a pretty young lady, who again had a wonderful résumé and unimpeachable references. The new housekeeper was diligent in doing her duty, and the church had never before been cleaner. Everything was spotless and sparkling. When the bishop came through on his annual visit, he was extremely impressed by what he saw and heard. He was even notified that church attendance had been steadily increasing in recent months, and was pleased.

But then one spring day, things started to go a little funny. In mid-afternoon, there was a surprise ringing of the bells. The priests had such faith in the bell ringer that they took this as a call to prayer, perhaps a special mass that they didn't realise was on the calendar. The quickly scrambled to prayer and did their duty.

A week later, there was another "special mass" at the same time of day.

And then the next week.

After that, the special masses started to occur still more frequently. It got to where there was a special mass every day, and their times started to vary.

One day, there were two special masses, one in the morning and one in the afternoon.

One of the younger priests couldn't take it any longer. He had consulted every calendar he could find and was convinced there was no justification for these unscheduled bell ringing sessions. "Glory be to God, and the more prayer the better. Nonetheless, we have a schedule for a reason", he told the head priest. So the next day, with the head priest's blessing, he snuck up the bell tower and hid in a little closet one floor below the bells. He showed up early, before the bell ringer arrived for the day. And he waited.

He heard the bell ringer arrive right on time. Every hour, on the hour, the bells were rung, just as scheduled. The priest said his prayers as scheduled, there in the closet. Then at about 3.30 he heard some light footsteps outside the door, heading up the stairs. "Who could that be?" he wondered. And he peeked out, too late to observe the visitor. But he did notice that the banister seemed slightly shinier than it had been earlier in the day.

A couple of minutes later, the priest started to hear some whispering voices, one female and one male. He heard some giggling, which gave way to muffled grunting. The grunts intermingled with squeaks and then moans, getting slightly louder as the minutes passed. Just as they were reaching their crescendo, the bell rang, almost completely drowning out a scream in praise of the glory of God, still 12 minutes before the hour!

The priest cracked open the door to the closet yet again and peered out, waiting for the visitor. When she did pass by, he saw that it was the pretty young housekeeper. She was tidying her hair and straightening her skirt as she headed downstairs. When the hour came, the bells rang on schedule, flawlessly. By this time, the snooping spy had already arrived at the office of the head priest to make a report on what he had seen.

Early the next day, a local man was surprised to see the head priest wandering through the city posting signs in shopkeepers' windows announcing that a new bell ringer was needed for the church, and applicants should come to the bell tower the following Thursday.

The man walked into one of the shops and asked the shopkeeper if she had spoken with the priest. She confirmed that she had.

"So what's the story?", he asked. "The bell ringer we had was so good! Everyone agreed he was the best in our city's history. And especially in recent days, he has had such a big smile on his face when I have seen him going to work. Always so cheery, like he really loved his job."

"Well," said the shopkeeper, "it seems they had to fire him for making time with the housekeeper."

This, of course, leads pretty naturally to the next part of the joke, with some slight adjustments for a proper segue:

The following Thursday, the bishop arrived at the base of the bell tower to perform the interviews, hoping to redeem himself for his previous lapse in judgment. When he got there, he was surprised to see only one applicant. "You look very familiar", said the bishop.

"The last bell ringer was my kid brother" responded the applicant.

"Ah, I see. I must say, I do have some reservations about hiring you", said the bishop.

"Please", said the applicant. "I must restore my family's honor. My brother was a bit of a black sheep, who had strayed from the flock. He was always a bit of a rebel, which is why he was home schooled. Unfortunately, he never really got proper exposure to society before he came here. As you can see, I graduated with honors from bell ringing college. I had perfect marks in all my classes, and my Theory professor has provided you with a letter of recommendation testifying that I was the best student he has had in forty years of teaching. Plus, unlike my brother, I am happily married and would never cheat on my wife. I am a good Catholic, and I want to serve God. Ringing bells is my way of doing this. Please give me the opportunity to restore my family's honor."

"You make a convincing argument," said the bishop, "but I cant help but notice that you have no arms. Won't that be a problem?"

"It's never been a problem before", responded the applicant. If you won't take my word for it, perhaps we can climb the tower and I can audition for you. It's almost time for the hour to turn, anyway."

[. . . .]

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As I said, my own contribution above is meant at least in part as a provocation. I'm sure it's not a great joke, and I'm sure someone out there can do better. I advise you to keep in mind the guidance I have provided in terms of what makes the existing third part such a failure, and in terms of the failure points that I have already identified in my own joke. And so, with that, I invite (I implore) you to put on your thinking cap and please try to outdo me. Please contribute your own "missing first part" of The Bell Ringer Joke. I'm sure someone out there can do a bang up job! And I am desperate to read your offerings. So please post them here as comments to my blog. I look forward to reading what you have to offer. I can't promise fame or fortune. But if you do really well, I can promise you undying gratitude!

My Career in Spelling Bees — Part 2 of Recollection of Childhood — and other things

I can't begin to tell you why I have been thinking of this recently, just that I have.

I remember in third grade, we had a classroom spelling bee, which I won. My winning word was "government". I remember pausing after the "R", considering whether the "N" belonged or not. It did not occur to me to ask for a repeated pronunciation or for alternate pronunciations, and it occurred to me that when I had heard the word spoken, it was most often the pronunciation in which the "N" is dropped — which is a legitimate alternate pronunciation in the dictionaries I consulted this morning before starting this blog entry. I opted to throw in the mysterious "N", and I won the bee. Surely my finest moment in this life.

Presumably, winning the classroom spelling bee would have qualified me to go on to compete against all of the other classroom champions in a school-wide bee. However, I have absolutely no recollection of any such thing. I would be almost willing to bet that it did not happen. Almost, but not quite.

Skip forward a year. No longer attending Fields Road Elementary School in Gaithersburg, MD. Fourth grade was spent at Peter W. Crump Elementary School in Montgomery, AL. This time, no recollection whatsoever of a classroom bee. (Again, me almost willing to bet that there was none.) But I do recall going to the auditorium for an all-grades bee. I believe participation was strictly voluntary, and I think it was after the school day had ended — but I wouldn't testify to or bet on that.

My first and only word: "eavesdrop".

I blew it.

However, that's not the interesting part of the story from my perspective, now. The interesting part is that, at the time, the word "eavesdrop" held absolutely no meaning for me. As far as I knew (as far as I know), that was the very first occasion on which I had ever heard the word. How strange is it that I could have gotten to age nine, living in American society, living in a house with an older sister, and managed to never hear the admonition (aimed at either myself or at someone else), "don't eavesdrop"?

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I've mentioned my horrible memory in previous posts. (My last "Recollection of Childhood" post garnered a comment, by an anonymous poster, that sounded vaguely like an insult. That poster called me "Captain Lou". That, of course, was an homage to "Captain Lou Albano", professional wrestler and professional wrestling manager extraordinaire. [Note: I think it's fair to say that I resembled Lou Albano in no way whatsoever, except that we shared a first name.] As if to illustrate my point (and, actually, the point of said anonymous poster) about my horrible memory, I do remember having been called "Captain Lou" by someone in my adolescence, but I can't recall who. Eric, maybe?

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In other news, Google has yet again re-indexed and the end result is that a copyright infringing web site is now receiving the traffic that should be sent my way for folks seeking my bleeding heart flower photograph:

This upsets me, and I have now sent two e-mails to the administrator of the offending site. Unfortunately, there seems to be absolutely no way to contact Google directly to get them to make adjustments to protect copyright owners from having their traffic diverted to scofflaws. Harumph. Anyway, I've just posted it again, in hopes of getting Google to re-index, thereby bringing the traffic back to me. And in case anyone is interested in buying the image on a t-shirt or mouse pad, such things are available at Cafe Press.

Things Worth Sharing

There are a few things I would like to share with my readers today:

For the last couple of years, I have been enjoying listening to the tail end of the Vinyl Cafe on CBC Radio, when I get out of the book store on Sunday afternoons. I don't think I've ever caught an entire episode, which is a shame. I was thrilled to hear a couple of months ago that they are making weekly Vinyl Cafe podcasts. It's a free subscription, so of course I subscribed as soon as I learned that the podcasts were happening. I'm a bit disappointed that the podcasts are not the entire shows. However, they're absolutely worth listening to. If you've never listened to the Vinyl Cafe, you really should give it a try! And with podcasts, it's easy to fit the listening into your schedule, rather than trying to fit your schedule around listening. This Stuart McLean fellow is a truly amazing storyteller. Really, a Canadian national treasure, in my opinion.

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If you've spent years using one of these:


. . . (especially if you have found the experience rather unsatisfying, as have I), you really should make an effort to track down one of these:


I don't know where we got ours, nor can I tell you who the manufacturer is, as it has no identifying marks on it that I can find. But here's the thing:

I don't really consider myself to be an Anglophile. Sure, I tend to use -ise instead of -ize. But that's simply a matter of finding it to be a much more elegant solution. And while I think it's wiser to use "zed" than "zee", I really only do so when it comes up in conversation with a Brit (which is extremely rarely). I have absolutely not adopted the British habit of (what in my opinion is) overuse of the word "brilliant". Instead, I have fallen into the dopey American habit of overusing "cool". However, in this one case, I have no better word to use than "brilliant". The orange-handled peeler pictured above is absolutely brilliant! It is somehow so vastly superior to the other style, that it seems somehow insulting to claim that they're really the same utensil. After years of hearing people say that there's a real difference between using a genuinely good tool and using a readily available tool, it's strange that this is the best example I have of experiencing the phenomenon for myself. Well, maybe the second best. Using the one instead of the other is akin to using a good dictionary instead of using a bad dictionary. And frankly, the difference is much starker than the superiority of the Mac over the PC. Gosh, that's weird to say! Anyway, bottom line: When I use the orange handled peeler, I end up wishing I had need to peel more! When I use the other style, I can hardly wait for the experience to be over. The orange handled peeler is an absolute joy to use! It is brilliant on potatoes and brilliant on carrots. If I objected to eating apple skins, I expect I would find it to be brilliant on apples too.

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We have two friends who recently gave birth, which means that they and their husbands recently went through the process of deciding what to name a child. Surely a daunting task. I neglected to mention to them the Name Voyager. Shame on me!!! The Name Voyager may or may not be helpful in choosing a child's name. I have found it useful in coming up with character names for writing fiction, at least. Whether you have need for it or not, I find it difficult to believe that you wouldn't appreciate its sheer beauty and elegance. It is a magnificent example of how it's possible to display complex data sets in our new digital world. In that respect, so far I have found its only rival to be Thinkmap's Visual Thesaurus.

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There was one more web site that I was eager to share with you, but it seems to have disappeared. So sad. Anyway, I hope you enjoy what I have shared today. Have a wonderful week!

Star Wars, Nothing But Star Wars....

I recently watched all six of the Star Wars movies, in the order that George Lucas prefers. That is, episodes I-VI, rather than in the chronological order of their production. Here's what I came away with, as far as opinions are concerned:

1) The saga holds up very well, in terms of a narrative flow. To some degree, I think this is a bit of a feat. On the other hand, there was plenty of time between the production of Episodes VI and I, to ensure that the plot points were all ironed out in a way that keeps things consistent. I'm not really all that sure of just how much tinkering Lucas did to alter Episodes IV-VI to achieve that end. I did notice, with a bit of disgust, the insertion of the Christensen ghost and the appearance of celebratory Gungans at the end of Episode VI. Neither insertion improved the movie in any meaningful way.

2) Hayden Christensen is a phenomenally awful actor. He's dull on the grandest of scales, rivalling Kevin Costner--and that's no small anti-praise!

3) Episode VI is really quite a terrible film! Yes, it wraps up the story arc very neatly. But it's just not a good movie. I loved it as a kid, and I think it probably still has an enormous appeal for children--all those cute little Ewoks scurrying about. But as an adult viewer, I think it's a terrible disappointment.

4) Watching the films in sequence is quite a fun experience. It's a nifty way to spend a bunch of hours. My view is that the movies rank from best to worst in the following order: V, III, II, IV, I, and VI. Given that Christensen is in Episodes II and III, I'm really quite surprised that they both rank above the original movie (IV). But there it is. All opinion. I think those two really do stand out. I think episode V is the best by a pretty wide margin. The margins between III, II, and IV are pretty small. Then there's another fairly large quality drop to I. But the biggest gap of all is between VI and the rest. Every time I've watched it in recent years, I've been really shocked at how awful that final episode is. Too bad it's an essential link in the chain. If you stop watching at Episode V, I think you miss a lot of important stuff. Too bad it has to be couched in so much frivolous muck!

I'm Back

Well, it's been a very long while since I've posted, but I'm back now. I noticed that my tendency has been to not blog any time while work had me miserable. I was miserable at work recently. Well, as of this past Wednesday, I've left that job behind. I'm optimistic that I will be considerably more in a cheery mood in the future.

Here are some things I've neglected to mention:

1) This year, Beth and I became baseball fans. Strange, that. I think it means we're getting old and our brains are slowing down. When I was younger, I just couldn't understand how anyone could be a fan of such a slow and dull game (I still refuse to consider it a sport). But now I actually find that it's somehow exciting. There are things about it I despise. (For example this business about "checked swings". As I recall, when I was a kid, I never saw the "checked swing". Is it really a new innovation, or am I imagining things? As I recall, in the past, if the bat left the shoulder, it was a swing. None of this business about whether the wrist snapped or not.)

Anyway, we became baseball fans in general and Red Sox fans in particular. So we're thrilled that the Sox won the series again!

2) Brownback got out of the race. Hooray!

3) I've chosen a candidate to support in this primary season. I'm behind Edwards. I've seen him speak a couple of times. The main thing I take away from him is this: Edwards is the candidate who's seriously and consistently talking about implementing some democracy in our "democracy". That's something I'm passionate about. I think he's right on a lot. I don't think he's dead wrong on anything. And I believe he's sincere and trustworthy. (At least as trustworthy as any politician out there.)

I went around canvassing for him (as a volunteer) a few weeks ago, and today I'm scheduled to do the same. I sincerely hope he pulls out the nomination. And if not him, then I'm hoping for Obama. I think an Edwards/Obama ticket is the best idea I've heard in a while.

While I've slightly softened on Clinton, I just can not get behind her, whatsoever. The more I see her, the more my opinion is solidified that she's entirely calculating and her motive is pure, unbridled ambition. I don't believe for a second that she actually cares about anything beyond what's politically expedient. I don't trust her at all. (Some "softening", huh?)

4) The following is not original content but it tells of a change I made to my blog (feedback is welcome, of course):

Introducing Snap Shots from Snap.com

I just installed a nice little tool on this site called Snap Shots that enhances links with visual previews of the destination site, interactive excerpts of Wikipedia articles, MySpace profiles, IMDb profiles and Amazon products, display inline videos, RSS, MP3s, photos, stock charts and more.

Sometimes Snap Shots bring you the information you need, without your having to leave the site, while other times it lets you "look ahead," before deciding if you want to follow a link or not.

Should you decide this is not for you, just click the Options icon in the upper right corner of the Snap Shot and opt-out.

Orwell's 1984 -- A Book Review

A few weeks ago, we were watching Jeopardy, and one of the questions was about George Orwell's 1984. I said, "I really should read that one of these days." A few days later, we were at a tag sale and Beth spotted a paperback of the book for a buck. So she bought it for me. Now I've read it, finally, quite a lot of years after I should have done. I had read Animal Farm a long time ago, but I had just never gotten around to reading 1984. Now I'm sad that I let it wait for so long.

So I provided one of my little capsule reviews to the book store on Wednesday. But since the blog allows me to spend as many words as I want, I'm going to publish a somewhat longer review here:

Stylistically and structurally, Orwell's 1984 is a masterpiece. In addition, it is a triumph of imagination. Orwell imagined a world so thoroughly as to make it seem less a fictional setting than an alternate reality. His book, while fairly short, is as complete as could be hoped for. The novel is brutal, unpleasant, and offers no hope of a happy ending. Despite these characteristics (or perhaps because of them) the book is utterly satisfying. It left me satisfied, perhaps, in a way that no other book I've ever read has done.

Entirely without suggestion, Orwell got me to wonder, at first idly, and then more and more desperately, what was really going on. The big question: What's going on outside Oceania? More pointedly, is there really a war happening at all? (Perhaps Oceania is really no larger than the island of Great Britain, and perhaps it is merely isolated from, rather than in conflict with, other nations.)

Just when I could barely stand the strain of this question, Orwell asked it. And then he answered it. Having done so, he then answered it yet again, only this time from what seemed a much more trustworthy source within his narrative. And then the twist: He systematically stripped away all of that source's legitimacy. And finally, the master stroke... Orwell did to me exactly what the Party does to its members: He left me with only one possible conclusion--a logical checkmate, in which I was absolutely forced to accept one harsh truth: If the Party says there is a war, then there is a war. Beyond that, there is nothing. Whatever the Party says is absolute truth.

The upshot: Orwell converted me from reader into participant.

Wow!

If you haven't read this book, I suggest you do. It's amazing!

You Can Say Anything With Words

Of all the pithy sayings I've ever devised, the following is surely among my favorites:

You can say anything with words.

If one keeps in mind what I wrote a few days ago about original ideas, one might wonder whether I was the first to formulate this sentence. I'm quite certain the answer is no. A quick Google search shows that whether I was the first or not, I'm surely not the only, although the sentence does appear surprisingly infrequently in the Google database.

I think the statement is true, although it may sometimes be difficult to find the appropriate words, and it may (on rare occasions) be necessary to invent new words to achieve the objective.

An interesting side-effect of this ability to say anything with words is that it's possible to say things that make no sense. Even more exciting: It's extraordinarily easy to say things that nobody has ever said before. This, despite many people's claims that "there's nothing new under the sun" or that "everything's already been said".

Take, for example, what was said by Miss Teen USA competitor, Lauren Caitlin Upton, during this year's pageant. If you haven't yet seen or heard the clip, click here.

Part of me thinks that her response is very sad (almost as sad as the statistic cited by the questioner). Part of me thinks it's extremely funny. And part of me is just astonished by the utter uniqueness of the response. While I'm sure Miss Upton's statement has been quoted many times since she made it, I'm every bit as certain that she was the first person in history to have ever assembled that combination of words in that order. There's not any chance at all that it had ever been done before.

Marvellous!

It's just more proof that plagiarism is an unnecessary art form. Why resort to plagiarism when the potential for original wording is so limitless?

Another Swig from the Linguistic Trough, and Another Poll

I also happened to invite the Linguistic Mystic to have a look at my July 31 post. He did so and was kind enough to give me a nice credit as the inspiration for his latest post, an interesting discussion of the mysteries of whether "tomorrow" begins at midnight or at wakey-time. Thanks, Linguistic Mystic.

Today's the third in my little series of linguistic discussions, again inspired by newscasters:

Why would you say "an historic event"?

I believe Peter Jennings used to do this. I always considered Peter Jennings to be the perfect exemplar of accent-free American English, despite his Canadian origins (Eh?). (Of course, it's all accents, really...and what I think of as "accent-free" is just as much an accent as is Apu-speak from The Simpsons. At the very least, however, Jennings didn't drop his R's or his H's and there was no chance of confusing the white race with the white rice.)

So why Jennings (and others who don't drop their H's) would use "an historic event" always seemed an inexplicable oddity to me. The best explanation I could come up with is a bizarre Anglophile motivation to try emulating The Queen's English by adding that "n".

Here's the rule I learned in school, which has always served me well:

Use "a" before any consonant sound or a long "u". Use "an" before any vowel sound except a long "u".

The a/an choice is based entirely upon pronunciation of the following word, not ever based on spelling.

So, for example, we get:

an egg -- vowel sound (short e)
a house -- consonant sound (h)
an umbrella -- vowel sound (short u)
a unique experience -- long u (the specified exception in the consonant sound versus vowel sound divide)
a potato -- consonant sound (p)
an honest man -- vowel sound, as the "h" is silent.

So to me, "an historic event" sounds just as wrong as "an potato", unless it's coming from someone with a British accent (for example), where historic is pronounced 'istoric.

If you don't drop your H's, then why would you use "an historic event"? Would you also use "an house"? How about "an halfhearted attempt"?

Note: The use of "an historic event" is certainly not isolated to Peter Jennings. And it's not isolated to spoken usage. I've noticed it in writing as well. And it always puzzles me, especially when I know the author is American.

Comments are invited. If you say "an historic event" and you pronounce the "H", what's your justification? If you know of other examples of people making different exceptions to the rule, please share. If you learned a different rule, what is it?

Here's my second poll:

Capsule Review: The Ice Storm

Here's another of those little "Staff Recommendation" reviews that I write for the book store:

The Ice Storm, directed by Ang Lee.
Sigourney Weaver, Kevin Kline, Christina Ricci, Elijah Wood, Tobey Maguire, Joan Allen, Katie Holmes. If you're a movie fan, these names should mean something to you. This low-key gem may actually be the best piece of work any of them has ever been associated with. We named our first dog after the Katie Holmes character. "Libbets? What kind of a name is Libbets?!?" The movie is centered around a couple of families during a strange and tragic Thanksgiving weekend in the 1970s. It probably won't make you cry, it may not make you laugh, but it might just leave you in awe.

New Blogging Strategy, Newton Baby Picture, Two Reviews

I know that I haven't been the most regular blogger. I would like to do something about that. I doubt that I'll get to the point where I'm posting something new on a daily basis. But I would like to post something new at least a few times a week. So, I've devised a new strategy.

While I certainly don't want to turn this into a photo blog, I have come to realise that my photography is what's getting me more hits than anything else. (Why doesn't my dictionary project seem to capture anyone's attention? I don't know. I've found it absolutely fascinating!)

So what I'm going to start doing is posting photographs more regularly, particularly when I don't have anything else to contribute for a few days. Some of these will be old photos that I haven't previously posted, but that I happen to like a lot. Some will be new photos. For today, an old picture of Newton, from when he was still a little baby, 4 1/3 years ago.

Strategy shift number 2:

For the book store, I sometimes make staff recommendations. Instead of just telling our merchandising supervisor, "I like this", I generally provide a brief review. It's almost certain to be a positive review. (Why recommend something I don't like?) But it's a review nonetheless. I figure I might as well make dual-use of these reviews. So I think that in addition to posting more photographs, I'll also start occasionally posting these reviews. Surely I won't always post both on the same day, but as today is the launch of my new blogging strategy, I figure I'll make it a super-bonus day. In fact, I'm going to give you two reviews today!

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The Princess Bride, by William Goldman. Having loved the movie for over a decade and a half, I finally got around to reading the book and was surprised to find that I loved it just as much. The two are different, but they very much share the same spirit and I find that they can happily coexist in my mind as two parts of the same beautiful dream.

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The Princess Bride, directed by Rob Reiner. So far, the only thing that dates this movie is the antiquated video game played by Fred Savage in the framing story. Eventually, the line "When I was your age, television was called books" will date it as well (as the word "television" drops out of common parlance). Beyond that, this is one for the ages…a timeless classic. This is undoubtedly of the most quotable movies ever made. I'm convinced it's also one of the most flawless. And it's suitable for the entire family.

Finally, Some Elvis Pics

As mentioned a while ago, Beth and I went out to Vegas for wedding anniversary #3 to get our vows renewed with Elvis. Here are some pictures from that occasion:

All very tasteful, no?

More Minor Tragedies

I've been thinking for some time about some of the little things in the world that count as (or that should count as) tragic. (See my previous post about "Walking on Sunshine".) Note: These are not seriously tragic issues that are about real human suffering. They are minor things that don't have any really major implications. They are minor tragedies, with the emphasis on "minor".

Tops on my list: Churches that have "hours of operation". There is something horrible about the notion that churches and synagogues (and mosques, I assume) have locks on their doors and that certain people hold the keys and that the doors are sometimes locked. It's a symptom of the world we live in, and I understand it. However, I believe in my heart that this is a very sad state of affairs. These places should offer sanctuary. They should be places of refuge. That's not a part-time endeavour. To my way of thinking, it's an all-or-nothing proposition. (All-or-nothing in terms of when this sanctuary is offered, not all-or-nothing in terms of what the refuge should be offered for.) I firmly believe that criminals should be brought to justice, and that means that a church should not offer protection from the law. However, in terms of offering refuge from the pressures of the world, I believe that a church should serve its function at 3.45 a.m., just as well as it should at noon or at 2.54 p.m.

Next on my list: Ronnie Spector's vocals on The Ronettes' version of "Frosty the Snowman". I can't really explain why, but it's absolutely heartwrenching to me. The song is kind of a happy song, filled with all that childlike wonder and Christmastime joy. And Phil Spector's "wall of sound" is almost the very definition of "joyful noise". How could something so positively exuberant possibly land on my list of "minor tragedies"? I'm not really sure. But what I am sure of is that that vocal just kills me every time! No kidding: it brings me to the verge of tears.

And last for now: The third part of the bell ringer joke. For years, we've been hearing that the third part of the joke is a major letdown after the pure comic genius of the first two parts. Nobody who had heard the third part would ever even tell us the third part, because either (a) "it's so bad that it isn't worth repeating" or (b) "it was so bad that I forgot what it was". In previous posts, I've mentioned two uncles. This "I forgot it" excuse was offered up by uncle #3. Well, a couple of days ago, Beth got it into her head to try to track down the third part on the internet. What she dug up was so abominable that it lived up (down?) to all the hype (anti-hype?). So I forwarded it to my uncle, who responded that not only was it not what he had heard, but that it was actually better than what he had heard. So he did some digging of his own and produced an alternative third part. Frankly, both versions are so horrible that they can't adequately be described. I'm hard-pressed to judge which of the two is worse. In either case, the third part of the joke is third on my list of "minor tragedies".

What the world needs, I think, is something along the lines of the Ansari X Prize, but with the goal of getting a genuinely funny third bell ringer joke. It may take a few years of our finest minds working towards the solution, but I think it can probably be done. It's a noble goal. Too bad I'm not independently wealthy!

Things Heard on the Radio

A couple of weeks ago, I was listening to NPR and I heard reporter Libby Lewis giving a report in which she mentioned Lewis Libby. Not especially interesting, but I thought it was mildly amusing.

...

Yesterday, I listened live to G.W. Bush's press conference with Japanese Prime Minister Koizumi. I believe this was within a couple of hours of the U.S. Supreme Court essentially saying that Bush's plan for his captives (or are we supposed to say "detainees"?) in Guantanamo Bay is unwarranted and illegal. Before he started taking questions, he did some speechifying. During this segment, he said the following (in regards to having spoken with a Japanese woman whose daughter was apparently (from what I gather) abducted from Japan and brought to North Korea in what was surely an illegal act):

It also reminded me about the nature of the regime -- what kind of regime would kidnap people, just take them off offshore, you know[?]

Note: I've copied this quotation directly from the White House web site (http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/06/20060629-3.html). And you can tell it's not been cleaned to make Bush look better. (Note the "sic" in the first paragraph if you choose to visit the transcript.) The question mark is mine. The transcriptionist decided to use a semicolon and follow it with some more rambling that I've omitted in my block quote above.

Of course, he said it with all of the heartfelt sincerity that someone like him can muster. That is, he said it without any indication whatsoever that any sense of irony was warranted. Today, we call that "heartfelt sincerity" where in other--better--times, we might call it "dimwitted numbskullery".

He's "hosting" how many people in Gitmo? With charges having been brought against how few? And how many of them were "persuasively invited" (we don't say "abducted" in this circumstance, of course) within 6,000 miles of where they're being "treated to a little bit of American hospitality"? (Might as well commit to the euphemisms, right?)

I'm not a big fan of the profanity and I like to be kind in speaking of others. But sometimes I just want to scream out: "Schmuck!"

Obscure Music (to answer your question)

On Tuesday or Wednesday of last week, I stopped in to the local supermarket. Beth had asked me to pick up some deli meat and as it was being sliced, I found myself in conversation with a couple of the guys who worked there. The younger-looking one (who I'm guessing is somewhere between 14 and 18 years my junior) asked what kind of music I listen to and all I came up with was "a wide variety of stuff".

Then he asked whether I listened to any really obscure bands. I was still kind of in a daze from Monday and I don't think all of my synapses were really firing at full strength, so I just kind of fell into letting him know that my favorite band is Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds and that I also really dig Morphine and Pixies.

I think all three are fairly obscure. He was unfamiliar with Nick Cave, but something in his appearance led me to believe that I shouldn't steer him away from investigating. (I did get the impression that he was actually seeking recommendations for what to seek out rather than just making idle conversation.) As much as I love Nick Cave, I simply can't recommend him to everyone. Beth hates him. I'm sure my sister would last about 2 seconds with a Bad Seeds album. Frankly, when I first started listening (to an album called Henry's Dream), I just didn't know what to make of it. There are two things I can say with a fair degree of certainty about this band:

1. The average music listener simply does not have an appropriate frame of reference in which to put this stuff. Given this, it's certainly disorienting (and frankly, offputting). This was certainly the case with me, initially. But for some reason, I decided to keep listening until I "got it". (I'll freely admit that my first instinct was to simply give up and chalk it up to being "not my taste".)
2. Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds are just not for everyone. For some reason, for me, Henry's Dream did click after a day of repeated listening, and I've never looked back. I think that most people could listen and listen and listen some more and still never "get it". That's fine. If you can't "get" Stevie Ray Vaughan, then I think you're missing something fundamental. If you can't "get" The Beatles or Ray Charles or Johnny Cash or Robert Johnson, then I think you're missing something fundamental. But if you can't "get" Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, so be it.

As for Morphine, if you haven't heard them, please make a point of it. Get your hands on a copy of their second album (Cure for Pain) and give it a listen. Will it change your life? Probably not. But it will show you a possibility you probably hadn't ever thought of. If you don't dig it, that's OK. But it's worth a shot. I mean that. It's REALLY worth a shot.

And as for Pixies, here's what I can say: If you're in the 16-24 age range, Pixies should be for you what The Velvet Underground should be for people in the 32-40 age range. What do I mean by that? (a) It's under the radar of lots of folks. (b) It's edgier than its contemporaries. (In the case of the Velvets, edgier, for example, than The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, and The Beach Boys. In the case of Pixies, edgier than whatever else was happening in the late 80s and very early 90s. (Frankly, I was very out of touch with that pabulum at the time, and I haven't gotten the sense that I was missing much. I was heavy into the classic rock then, and Pixies are what broke through.)) (c) To some degree it's what gave birth to what you probably grew up considering the most meaningful music out there. (Without Pixies, there is no Nirvana. Without Nirvana, some might argue, rock is dead by 1995.)

But I need to get back to what I really started this blog entry for. The question was intriguing. Especially if we rephrase it as follows:

"What music do you know of that's really worth tracking down, for a 20-ish person who's interested in expanding his/her musical horizons?"

I've been pondering this for the better part of a week now. And I have some ideas. I'm hoping others will add to this list with comments of their own, because I think it's a valuable exercise:

So, here's what I've come up with. The degree of obscurity is, I'm sure very variable. But I think overall, this is probably a bunch of stuff that most "kids" these days are pretty much unaware of:

• Get your hands on anything by Blast Off Country Style. (No, it's not country music!) It's sort of really good bubble-gum pop, believe it or not. Teenage music. (Themes include being a high school nerd looking forward to getting into a top college.) Not angsty, really. Fun. Catchy. Just a good time!
• Get your hands on Professor Longhair's Rock 'n' Roll Gumbo. It's a spectacularly clean, crisp recording of an old dude playing rock and roll like you've never heard before. There's nothing abrasive about it. It's not making a statement. It's not anti-establishment. It's not cutting-edge. It's just plain perfect. Listen and learn.
• Find a copy of Candy Machine's A Modest Proposal. Here's where you'll find an edge. It's hard and it's fast, and it might just make you wonder why Soundgarden and Alice in Chains ever got press. Okay, so maybe it was a little late to the party, but it has more of a punk attitude and an altogether better sound than any of that stuff.
• Listen to Clifton Chenier, especially Bayou Blues. Think the accordion is for polkas? Think again! This record rocks, and you'll be hard pressed to find a more perfectly plaintive vocal than what Clifton laid down on "The Things I Did For You".
• When I was a kid, I was always aware of Chuck Berry. He was just sort of a part of the landscape. His time had come and gone, but I always knew he was the true King of Rock and Roll (Elvis wasn't even court jester. Elvis wasn't even in the castle. Elvis was just a drunk clown, wishing his money and fame could make him worthy of kissing Chuck Berry's ring.) My fear is that Chuck Berry has dropped out of the collective consciousness of people younger than myself. I really hope not. Whether you think you know Chuck Berry or not, find some really old Chuck Berry and listen to it. My favorite tracks are "Jaguar and Thunderbird", "Anthony Boy" and "Jo Jo Gunne". But it's all good.
• I happen to like a band called Daisy Chainsaw who had a bit of a hit with "Love Your Money" about 14 years ago. The last I heard, the lead singer, Katie Jane Garside, had decided to pursue a career in opera. I don't know how that worked out (or even whether it's true), but I know it was her girly-girl vocals that really kicked this band into a different orbit. Sonically, I think of them as being really sort of Brit-Grunge. But I don't know whether the Grunge community wanted anything to do with them.
• Less obscure than lots on my list is Lyle Lovett. The country community seems to have disowned him long before it disowned Dixie Chicks. (Too odd, too quirky, too versatile, too clever?) You may know him more as the former Mr. Julia Roberts than as a musician. (You may also know him from several movie appearances. He has a face that, shall we say(?), isn't easily forgotten.) But the bottom line is: This guy can write a song like nobody's business. He's the only musician who I consider to be a country artist who I thoroughly enjoy listening to.
• And the best new song I've heard in the last year is a little ditty entitled "slung-lo" by Erin McKeown. I guess the song is actually about three years old, but I just discovered it a few months ago. It goes down really smooth. (This is one I can easily imagine my sister really enjoying.)
  

Thanks, Science Guy

I've said before and I'll surely say again that in my view, my generation is as much defined by Ultraman and Kung Fu Action Theater as by anything else. This may well define me as the lone member of "my generation". I'm not sure about whether that's the case or not. There may be others out there.

The bottom line on that definition probably amounts to little more than this: For better or for worse, my cultural awareness is and will likely always be something that (at least in part) is tinted by the influence of television. Whether that's ultimately a good or bad thing is not something that I'm interested in discussing at this point. (At least not during this blog entry.) However, I have mentioned it as simply a noteworthy scrap of information. Having said as much, I am willing to go on record as saying that neither is this truth a cause for great celebration nor is it one of the world's great tragedies. I'm quite certain that it falls somewhere on the line between those two extremes.

I bring this up as a way to getting to Bill Nye, the Science Guy.

A few nights ago, I was flipping between channels, when I happened to stop for a few minutes of Countdown With Keith Olberman (in which the part of Keith Olberman was being played by some other fellow whose face I didn't recognise and whose name I didn't catch). His guest for this segment was Bill Nye. They were discussing this fossil find (Tiktaalik, link 1, link 2).

Bill Nye said something that struck me as being very important, and I am extremely grateful for his having said it (even if it didn't reach nearly as large an audience as it needs to). I don't have the exact quote, so I'm paraphrasing here:

This notion of evolution as "improvement" is wrong. Improvement is a human idea and it has no bearing on the processes of evolution.

I bring this up because I think it's a very important concept. It is, in my view, one of the most fundamental concepts in our understanding of the universe.

"Evolution" does not equate with "improvement".
"Evolution" does not encompass "improvement".
"Evolution" does not engender "improvement".
And "evolution" does not imply "improvement".

The idea of improvement plays no role in the process of evolution. And I think that one of the great failings of our science education has been the failure to make this concept crystal clear.

This is one of the biggest problems I had in my high school biology class. Evolution is obvious. It makes sense. But to me, it always seemed that "improvement" was generally considered (if not outright taught) to be a strong overtone or a deep underpinning (take your pick) of the theory of evolution. And this always struck me as wrong, wrong, wrong.

It took me a while to come to terms with this discrepancy. And what I came up with all those years ago is exactly what Bill Nye said. In essence: I was not wrong in my understanding of how evolution works. My thought process was not at odds with science. Logic is logic, and rational thought is possible. The disconnect was merely an error of word association.

If you associate the word evolution with the word improvement, it won't make sense.

The reason: That association of words is nonsensical and illogical.

Thank you, Bill Nye, for saying so publicly.

It is fair to say that a fruit fly is just as evolved as a human being is. In fact, by some measures, it may be fair to say that a fruit fly is more evolved than is a human being. Certainly, a fruit fly's lineage includes many, many more generations than does a human being's. It takes us a long time to reach sexual maturity and to reproduce. In fact, it's probably fair to say that the human reproductive cycle is among the slowest in the animal kingdom. This does not mean that fruit flies are any better or worse than we are. We coexist. That's evidence of only one thing: Neither species has gone extinct yet. That is an observable fact. And there's no value judgement involved in saying so. By the same token, we are no more highly evolved than gorillas or chimps or monkeys or dogs. We have simply evolved along different (divergent) paths.

The idea that evolution is about adaptation is misleading. The idea that evolution is a process that is heading towards something (perfection?) is misguided. And the idea that evolution is about improvement is inaccurate.

Evolution is not about anything. It's just a natural process. It's simply the way things happen. And it is utterly indifferent to qualitative assessments.