tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-169551272024-03-07T01:03:20.151-05:00The People's Republic of D.Cous."I don't know what kind of language he used, or of they do that kind of thing any more."D.Cous.http://www.blogger.com/profile/00107469506062466876noreply@blogger.comBlogger176125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16955127.post-7622401259316187052010-09-27T17:40:00.002-04:002010-09-27T17:43:14.201-04:00Apologetically Yours<meta equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"><meta name="ProgId" content="Word.Document"><meta name="Generator" content="Microsoft Word 12"><meta name="Originator" content="Microsoft Word 12"><link rel="File-List" href="file:///C:%5CUsers%5COwner%5CAppData%5CLocal%5CTemp%5Cmsohtmlclip1%5C01%5Cclip_filelist.xml"><link rel="themeData" href="file:///C:%5CUsers%5COwner%5CAppData%5CLocal%5CTemp%5Cmsohtmlclip1%5C01%5Cclip_themedata.thmx"><link rel="colorSchemeMapping" 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Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-unhide:no; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; margin:0in; margin-bottom:.0001pt; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:Calibri; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} .MsoChpDefault {mso-style-type:export-only; mso-default-props:yes; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:Calibri; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} .MsoPapDefault {mso-style-type:export-only; line-height:115%;} @page WordSection1 {size:8.5in 11.0in; margin:1.0in 1.0in 1.0in 1.0in; mso-header-margin:.5in; mso-footer-margin:.5in; mso-paper-source:0;} div.WordSection1 {page:WordSection1;} --> </style><!--[if gte mso 10]> <style> /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;} </style> <![endif]-->Before you start getting any ideas, let me tell you right now how things are shaping up around here: in short, your paranoia is founded, it seems, on solid ground, and the sooner we all realize that we’ve been wasting our time trying to pick up the wrong kinds of shiny baubles and asking the wrong kind of people what, in hindsight, look like exactly the wrong questions, let me take a minute to say that it’s been the pleasure of a lifetime singing this song with you, and All Things Considered (weekdays on NPR), I’d have done it again, even though you’re a professional opera singer from the big city, and I’ve only had vague (and entirely unfulfilled) aspirations in the direction of busking, during my quieter and more remorseful moments. But no matter: apparently, with no regard whatsoever to how incredibly good I’ve been at getting on your nerves, and incredibly bad at everything else (indeed, the two facts seem proportionate, and of a similar shape when seen from most angles), it’s just, simply put, over. No more! What’s next, you ask? What’s to come? Well, the first thing you’ll notice is how your shoe laces never stay tied the way they always do in the Motion Pictures, because you almost never see a Motion Picture Facsimile Person (of the Archetypal variety, if you’re into that sort of thing) stopping to tie their shoe whilst saving the world, do you? Anyway, while you’re down there tying you’re shoe in the most unglamorous way possible, you might notice (you might not) that the world’s not ending, and if it is, it’s doing so slowly, and in a way that you can’t seem to predict or have any impact on. It just does what it does, even when your shoes stay tied, and you catch your train, which brings up another point: who the heck rides trains, really? I mean, I guess I have ridden a train from Point A to the Point of No Return a few times, but who were all of those other people? I have no idea. They seemed (to me) to be acting as if nothing at all was the matter, or perhaps everything is. And now, a poem:
<br />
<br />Streetlight mariner cries out “land ho” from the top of the Buick LeSabre
<br />The day/morning brightly
<br />But there’s no one to hear the Cacophony Champagne Fiddle Orchestra
<br />Because the playbill was printed incorrectly
<br />And took too long to read anyhow
<br />Plus, you can bring a drunk to rehab but you can’t forgive him sometimes
<br />
<br />On second thought: maybe nothing’s over. Maybe it hasn’t even begun.
<br />
<br />D.Cous.http://www.blogger.com/profile/00107469506062466876noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16955127.post-29822131458805403372010-06-24T13:20:00.001-04:002010-06-24T13:45:43.394-04:00AbstractionI love maps. I haven't really given too much thought to why I love maps, but I suspect it's because they are an abstraction, a model of something that is real, but without the troubling overabundance of information that accompanies real things. Montana, for example, is ridiculous. It's a gigantic region of the surface of the earth, containing what is for all intents and purposes an infinite number of things. Rocks, trees, molecules, you name it. There's just too many of them for a finite being to take in. I can't look at Montana. That's where maps come in. They are finite things, which contain a finite amount of information, about something that is infinite. (Well, fine; maybe not infinite. Just very, very large.) Now Montana has visible boundaries, which distinguish it from the surrounding states. Now it's composed of a finite number (147,165 square miles) of things. Accept a given definition of a particular geographical feature (say, lakes, or mountains), and Montana has a finite number of them. Maps are a spectacular illustration (no pun intended) of how <span style="font-style: italic;">homo sapiens</span> organize information: we categorize it. We put it into discreet, knowable packets. There are an infinite number of points between Billings and Great Falls, but there is a very finite number of miles. It doesn't really matter that there's an infinite number of points within a mile, merely that the mile itself is knowable. It doesn't even matter that the concept of a mile (5,280 feet) is highly arbitrary. What's a foot? Twelve inches, you say? What's an inch? It simply doesn't matter, so long as we agree on what it is, it's knowable. Why are Montana's borders where they are? Why aren't they somewhere else? It doesn't matter; they're knowable. We can comprehend them. We've put everything on one side of the line in the Montana-shaped box, and everything on the other side of the line elsewhere.<br /><br />Both for work and personally, I use Google Maps somewhat frequently, which, given my love of maps, gives me a great deal of pleasure. Other users of the site will have noticed that the good people at Google have carefully stitched together a multi-layered quilt of photographs, taken by aircraft, spacecraft, and earth-bound photographers, giving their map of the world a terrific amount of detail. The thing is, I mostly don't use that part; there's too much information there. When I'm trying to get directions somewhere, I turn off all of the photo-graphical features, because I prefer the abstraction. I prefer the two-dimensional, simplified representation of the real thing, because it's more easily knowable. I do enjoy the photographs, and looking at places I've never been, but for actual information, I find the map too crowded when it contains every house and tree.<br /><br />Getting back to abstraction (in the abstract), I do think it's funny when people (myself included) get hung up on our methods of organizing information. I shake my head every time someone drags out the old "platypuses (platypii?) are weird" meme, because to me they're really not more weird than giraffes, or for that matter, people. It's just that they have a particular set of characteristics which make them difficult to put into one of our (supposedly) clearly-demarcated boxes. People get hung up on the boxes. So do I, though: if there were a physical place on the surface of the earth which would be hard to draw on a map, I have a feeling that would make me terribly uncomfortable. It's quite strange to me, really, that humans have to try so hard to break down the gigantic universe of information into tiny, knowable chunks, and then we start to believe that the chunks are meaningful on some deeper level. It starts to matter that we've classified some people as a certain ethnicity, for example, and get lost in the fact that there are certain things that such classification does and does not tell us. In short, we can forget that we (or someone else) created the classification in the first place, because the reality was too complicated for us to comprehend.D.Cous.http://www.blogger.com/profile/00107469506062466876noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16955127.post-37725051729918285362010-06-15T11:11:00.004-04:002010-06-15T12:48:59.243-04:00A Funny Thing Happened On The Way<meta equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"><meta name="ProgId" content="Word.Document"><meta name="Generator" content="Microsoft Word 12"><meta name="Originator" content="Microsoft Word 12"><link rel="File-List" href="file:///C:%5CUsers%5COwner%5CAppData%5CLocal%5CTemp%5Cmsohtmlclip1%5C01%5Cclip_filelist.xml"><link rel="themeData" href="file:///C:%5CUsers%5COwner%5CAppData%5CLocal%5CTemp%5Cmsohtmlclip1%5C01%5Cclip_themedata.thmx"><link rel="colorSchemeMapping" href="file:///C:%5CUsers%5COwner%5CAppData%5CLocal%5CTemp%5Cmsohtmlclip1%5C01%5Cclip_colorschememapping.xml"><!--[if gte mso 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</style><!--[if gte mso 10]> <style> /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;} </style> <![endif]--> <p style="font-family: georgia;" face="georgia" class="MsoNormal"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/US-12">US-12</a> goes right past the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michigan_International_Speedway">Michigan International Speedway</a>, a massive structure located in what otherwise would be the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brooklyn,_Michigan">middle of nowhere</a>, but which on summer weekends can attract enough visitors to become Michigan’s fourth largest city. It’s worth pointing out that not only does US-12 go right past this cultural anomaly, its two paved lanes constitute the only road that goes anywhere near the place. I used to live in Saline, some 25 miles East of the speedway, and on race weekends I’d see bumper-to-bumper traffic headed West on Fridays and East on Sundays, all campers with lawn chairs strapped to the back, colorfully adorned with the paraphernalia of auto racing enthusiasm. I’ve never gone in for that sort of thing myself; never seen the appeal of it, really, but I’ve lived within a couple of miles of US-12 pretty much my whole life, so I guess something like the misadventure I had on Sunday was always in my stars, or cards, or entrails, or whatever. In any case, I should’ve seen it coming. It was a Sunday morning, though. I thought if anything, the hordes would be departing, a weekend’s revelry behind them, but no. At first, I mistook the roadblock for some kind of construction –related traffic control, an assumption which, in most other parts of the state during this time of year, would be fairly safe. All I saw was that my way was blocked by a multitude of state troopers and orange barrels. They would simply let me go once a backhoe or some such machine had finished working in the road, I thought. I was a fool, still whistling the fool’s optimistic tune to himself, oblivious to the cacophonous scratch of Nero’s fiddle. Sure enough, after a ten minute pause, they let me go forward, though barrels had been used to route my path onto the shoulder (which I thought nothing of at the time), and with the same having been done on the opposite side of the highway, all four lanes were sent to the West. I was beginning to wonder what they would do to accommodate the people who may want to go East, when I passed a sign which said “All Lanes Race Parking.” Sure enough, my makeshift lane was being diverted off the highway, and into one of the massive grassy fields used as parking lots for the Speedway. Not one of the lanes was left going Westward, towards my intended destination. I pulled up next to a state trooper who was directing me into the parking lot. </p> <p style="font-family: georgia;" face="georgia" class="MsoNormal">“You can’t stop here,” he said. He was all business, and his business was not courtesy. </p> <p style="font-family: georgia;" face="georgia" class="MsoNormal">“But I don’t want to go to MIS,” I said, ignoring the hand gesture with which he was waving me on, “I want to go West.” </p> <p style="font-family: georgia;" face="georgia" class="MsoNormal">“Well, you can’t. Move along!”The line of cars behind me began to honk their horns in unison. It was clear I had no choice. Once in the parking lot, I pulled up to a yellow-shirted attendant, who was attempting to wave me into a parking space. </p> <p style="font-family: georgia;" face="georgia" class="MsoNormal">“Do you have a pass?” he asked. </p> <p style="font-family: georgia;" face="georgia" class="MsoNormal">“No,” I said. “I would like to leave.” He looked puzzled. </p> <p style="font-family: georgia;" face="georgia" class="MsoNormal">“Oh. Well, just head that way,” he suggested, waving his hand vaguely, and without giving the impression that he was at all confident in his prescription, “they’ll help you.” I ventured off in the direction indicated, closer to the speedway, and, I imagine, the more expensive parking, wondering who “they” might be. Having gone nearly a half mile, I pulled up to another attendant. </p> <p style="font-family: georgia;" face="georgia" class="MsoNormal">“Do you have a pass?” he asked. </p> <p style="font-family: georgia;" face="georgia" class="MsoNormal">“No,” I said. “I would like to leave.” </p> <p style="font-family: georgia;" face="georgia" class="MsoNormal">“Oh.” There was a long pause. Evidently, no one had wanted to leave before. “Ok. Um, go up to those campsites, and take a left, and that’ll get you back out to 12.” Perfect. I didn’t see any campsites, but I guessed that must’ve been his quaint, parking attendant term for RV parking spaces. I found a driveway and took a left, and saw US-12 in all its glory, some hundred yards ahead. There was a booth at the end, probably only for checking people in, as it seemed that no one had ever tried to leave before. I drove right past it, waving at the attendant. I was through with his ilk, and would not be needing his assistance, thank you very much. I took a right at the end of the drive, and was on my way.</p> <p style="font-family: georgia;" face="georgia" class="MsoNormal">Damn.</p> <p style="font-family: georgia;" face="georgia" class="MsoNormal">More barrels, and a police car barricaded the road ahead. A cop waved me to the right, back into the speedway. I pulled up to the first attendant.</p> <p style="font-family: georgia;" class="MsoNormal">“Do you have a pass?”</p> <p style="font-family: georgia;" class="MsoNormal">“No, I would like to leave.”</p> <p style="font-family: georgia;" class="MsoNormal">“Oh. Well, you can’t go that way without a pass.”</p> <p style="font-family: georgia;" class="MsoNormal">“I don’t want to go that way. That cop sent me here.” I gestured behind me with my thumb.</p> <p style="font-family: georgia;" class="MsoNormal">“Well, you can’t go that way without a pass.” Apparently, whatever this guy’s job was, the training for it involved only one very brief session. <span style=""> </span>He then suggested that I head East a half a mile through the parking lot, take a right, and the driveway would take me back to US-12. </p> <p style="font-family: georgia;" class="MsoNormal">“I already did that,” I said. “That’s what I was doing when the cop sent me this way. It’s a loop.”</p> <p style="font-family: georgia;" class="MsoNormal">Another cop approached the car. I thought about how they all had matching sunglasses.</p> <p style="font-family: georgia;" class="MsoNormal">“What’s the problem here?” He seemed like the kind of guy who takes being in charge very seriously, but in fairness to him, context might have colored my perception somewhat.</p> <p style="font-family: georgia;" class="MsoNormal">“I want to go West.”</p> <p style="font-family: georgia;" class="MsoNormal">“Ain’t gon’ happen,” said the parking attendant, in a tone that suggested he thought he was being helpful. His drawl seemed to deepen as he spoke. The cop nodded in assent.</p> <p style="font-family: georgia;" class="MsoNormal">“The road’s blocked. You can’t go West on 12.” I wondered if he used that tone of voice with his friends. I concluded that he must not, because no one who did so could have any friends to speak to.</p> <p style="font-family: georgia;" class="MsoNormal">“Well, what should I do then? I can’t go back East, either. Are you suggesting that I spend the day at MIS?”</p> <p style="font-family: georgia;" class="MsoNormal">“Not without a pass,” offered the attendant, smiling. I was enraged. I wanted to kick his teeth in.</p> <p style="font-family: georgia;" class="MsoNormal">“Not my problem,” said the cop, stepping away from the car, and waving me in the direction the attendant had indicated. He was ending the conversation on his own terms. He had no idea how to help me, so obviously the best thing was to tell me to piss off.</p> <p style="font-family: georgia;" class="MsoNormal">“Gee, thanks” I muttered, rolling up my window and heading for the driveway again. <span style=""> </span>Once again at the start of the loop, this time I took a left, and headed towards the back side of the blockade at which my ordeal had begun.</p> <p style="font-family: georgia;" class="MsoNormal">Fortunately, before I got there, I noticed a small dirt road cutting off US-12 to the South, blocked by two cops, who were in the process of telling the driver at the front of a short line of cars that they couldn’t get to MIS that way, and had to take the long way around. </p> <p style="font-family: georgia;" class="MsoNormal">“Let’s pretend I’m an ambulance,” I said, rolling down my window. “How the hell do I get out of here?”</p> <p style="font-family: georgia;" class="MsoNormal">“Huh?”</p> <p style="font-family: georgia;" class="MsoNormal">“I want out.”</p> <p style="font-family: georgia;" class="MsoNormal">“Where do you want to go?”</p> <p style="font-family: georgia;" class="MsoNormal">“Jonesville.”</p> <p style="font-family: georgia;" class="MsoNormal">“Well, you can’t take 12.”</p> <p style="font-family: georgia;" class="MsoNormal">“Uh huh. Figured that out on my own.” I regret the tone I took with him, because he actually seemed sympathetic to my plight (for a cop). Either that, or I should have been more hostile at the beginning of the ordeal, because hostility gets results. In any case, he was the first person I’d met who seemed to be able to wrap his mind around the fact that I might not be interested in staying at the racetrack.</p> <p style="font-family: georgia;" class="MsoNormal">“Well, you can head South, and when you get to a T-intersection, turn right, and that’ll take you back up to 12.”</p> <p style="font-family: georgia;" class="MsoNormal">“Will it still be blocked off up there?”</p> <p style="font-family: georgia;" class="MsoNormal">“Nope.”</p> <p style="font-family: georgia;" class="MsoNormal">“Well, thank you very much. Have a good day, officer.”</p> <p style="font-family: georgia;" class="MsoNormal">I rolled up my window and he stepped out of the road to let me through.</p> <p style="font-family: georgia;" class="MsoNormal">On the winding dirt road, going through what I believe to have been the Ozarks, and barely avoiding being run off the road by a near-constant stream of North-bound (and soon to be re-routed) race fans in (without exception) large pickup trucks, I called the state police office in Lansing.
<br /></p> <p style="font-family: georgia;" class="MsoNormal">“Hello,” I began, “I’ve just been stuck at Michigan International Speedway for an hour, while trying to drive West on US-12. I’m going to be traveling the opposite direction this evening, and I would like to know if the road is going to be blocked again.” The voice on the other end, who had identified himself as Lieutenant so-and-so (I’m terrible with names), sounded exactly like Ben Stein.
<br /></p><p style="font-family: georgia;" class="MsoNormal">“Michigan International Speedway typically accommodates between fifty and a hundred thousand people on race weekends.”
<br /></p> <p style="font-family: georgia;" class="MsoNormal">“So, will the highway be closed?”</p> <p style="font-family: georgia;" class="MsoNormal">“Between fifty and a hundred thousand people will be leaving Michigan International Speedway this evening.”</p> <p style="font-family: georgia;" class="MsoNormal">“So, you’re saying I should take an alternate route?”</p> <p style="font-family: georgia;" class="MsoNormal">“Between fifty and a hundred thousa—“</p> <p style="font-family: georgia;" class="MsoNormal">“Thank you, Lieutenant” I interrupted. “You’ve been very helpful.” I hung up the phone.</p> D.Cous.http://www.blogger.com/profile/00107469506062466876noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16955127.post-55050785747283644642010-06-02T15:24:00.002-04:002010-06-02T15:33:57.032-04:00I Am A Vigilante<meta equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"><meta name="ProgId" content="Word.Document"><meta name="Generator" content="Microsoft Word 12"><meta name="Originator" 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mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;} </style> <![endif]-->Swinging the door open to my left, and trying not to think about the nature of the discoloration near the handle, I stepped into the restroom, and I saw him. I have you now, you bastard. He was there, as I imagined was his habit, using the middle urinal: the one that doesn’t flush properly. This hulking, lumbering oaf of man-like appearance was the one whose foul bile was left daily to pollute the lavatory with its loathsome odor. His back was to me, preventing me from seeing his eyes, but I could tell that they gleamed with hatred for all his fellow beings, whose every breath was poisoned with the reek of his abhorrence. Fair Justice had delivered him into my grasp; now was the time for action. I must strike now, and rid the community of man forever of this pest. But what was I to do? I am a man of thought, of feeling, of dreams and aspirations perhaps, but not of violence. Were I to attack the brute head on, unarmed and unaided, his fists would surely make short work of me. But what of Justice, bespoilt thus, and by such a creature? Had her cause left to it no champion? No defender? If I did nothing, did I not share in the guilt of my antagonist? Alas, while my heart wrestled thus with itself, the brute finished his vile work, and without seeming to notice my presence, brushed past me and out the door, without so much as casting a glance in the direction of the sink, soap and towels. (Disgusted as I was, I cannot claim to have been surprised to find that he was not among their votaries.) A short while later, having fulfilled my own purpose for venturing thither, and after disposing of his filth (for indeed, all that the middle urinal requires is that the handle be held down for a short while longer than usual), I pried open the door with a paper towel, dropping it in its proper place as I departed, and sulked back to my desk, cursing my cowardice. I had my foe within an arm’s length, and in my weakness had let him escape, to perpetrate perhaps still greater crimes against his fellow creatures.
<br />
<br />Some two days hence, I once again found myself in that same place, for though it was with a heavy heart I returned, necessity compelled me thither with what, if you will excuse my use of the term, I shall call regularity. Little could I believe the vicissitudes of fortune, for there again was my foe, and unrepentantly committing his habitual crime! I have you now, you bastard! But wait: surely I was deceived, I thought, for this was not the same brute as before. Does there exist some confederation of beings so indifferent to the plight of their neighbor? Surely not, for what could such creatures desire in associating with one another? Could there be a more absurd notion than a community of the antisocial? Nay, what I beheld must surely go by another name, that of Anarchy. I was defeated. Perhaps, overcoming my cowardice and taking advantage of my superior agility I may have bested one man, but this was far worse. This wasn’t merely a crime, it was systematic misanthropy. It was chaos. Their habitual unruliness required not the narrow blade of Justice, but the broad, inescapable net of the Law.
<br />
<br />What was I to do? Certainly, one man cannot of himself be Law, for that would amount to nothing less than tyranny, but mayhap, like Moses of old, insignificant man that I am, I could give Law. Yes! Give them the Law, and yea, let it be writ upon their very hearts! Perhaps their malformed consciences merely had need of some dictum to follow, to lead them down the path of clean living. Morally, I was presented with little less than a Divine imperative, both to protect the community in which I found myself from further misdeeds, and also to guide these wayward souls, that they may no more offend the dignity of their brethren.
<br />
<br />My plan having been hatched some short while after the aforementioned second encounter, I arose from my desk, and stepping across the hall, removed my latter-day Stone Tablet from the laser printer. Grasping the Notice in one hand, and clutching in the other a scotch tape dispenser, I swiftly, and purposefully, made my way back to the restroom. Destiny, it seems (and there is no shortage of evidence to this fact), has a taste for the dramatic, for no poet could have composed a more fitting end to my sordid story but that I should find once again, and for the final time, the stink of human micturation wafting through the air! Emboldened in my purpose, I strode to the spot of the offense, determined that none might catch me, and learn from what ignorable authority came my Notice. Swiftly, yet with great care, I removed four pieces of the tape, and affixed the Notice on the wall above the urinal, a rallying cry of Justice in a world of wanton cruelty. In plain letters, it read:
<br />
<br />OUT OF ORDER
<br />DO NOT USE
<br />
<br />Having thus giv’n the Law to the Idolaters, with a flourish of my hand I pressed and held down the handle of the troublesome urinal, banishing forever the cruel injustice which I and those of like conscience had before suffered in silence. Out, foul urine! Trouble no more the works of man!
<br />Justice, be thou ever so well-served!
<br />
<br />D.Cous.http://www.blogger.com/profile/00107469506062466876noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16955127.post-55668984837190001862010-04-22T14:07:00.003-04:002010-04-22T14:12:22.326-04:00I Work Upstairs From My WifeOccasionally, we walk across the parking lot to get the mail together. It was during one such excursion that the following exchange took place:<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Wife</span>: "[Wife's Boss] has been giving me a hard time about these "mail dates." He says he doesn't want us making out in the back of his car."<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Me</span>: "Why, is it unlocked?"<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Wife</span>: *Frowns*D.Cous.http://www.blogger.com/profile/00107469506062466876noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16955127.post-65053246890189227772010-04-22T12:43:00.004-04:002010-04-22T12:52:53.159-04:00The BeaurocratI have just been appointed to a small exploratory committee, tasked with investigating possible applications for pastrami sandwiches, with cheese and Dijon mustard. While preliminary results seem to indicate that this particular combination of inputs is highly effective in a relatively narrowly-defined setting (e.g., lunch), the committee is expected to recommend much more extensive testing over a long duration of time before a more complete evaluation can be made.D.Cous.http://www.blogger.com/profile/00107469506062466876noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16955127.post-21631425351723753762010-03-31T16:53:00.003-04:002010-03-31T16:59:18.295-04:00Hot Dog!<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiACBnPjQl6F4rD3qbw_2vnWK6fRgBjlN8wyVktXc-gqm_htP3o8MMuOo_IblI4w5ENkFcjWYzBAAsG_IhYanUWeFSUm6mC621jB4muuSeQpND366W3FLTW5y7RdBqwalSTr0GuEw/s1600/Robosaurua.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 276px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiACBnPjQl6F4rD3qbw_2vnWK6fRgBjlN8wyVktXc-gqm_htP3o8MMuOo_IblI4w5ENkFcjWYzBAAsG_IhYanUWeFSUm6mC621jB4muuSeQpND366W3FLTW5y7RdBqwalSTr0GuEw/s400/Robosaurua.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5454904777099281266" border="0" /></a><br />Lisa colored in Robosaurus! It is too awesome for words. If you'd like to see your own version of Robosaurus displayed on this very highly-respected website, <a href="http://www.eastershow.com.au/documents/ColouringPage-Robo.pdf">click here</a>, and then email it to dcous at hotmail dot com, or my other email, which is my first name dot my last name at gmail dot com.D.Cous.http://www.blogger.com/profile/00107469506062466876noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16955127.post-39982988365461264892010-03-30T13:14:00.003-04:002010-03-30T17:08:32.740-04:00Robosaurus is My President<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-6v-BYZq8Npp6ERrLzgrHYZaCYqQjro4WCqshnqMk2uzuDcaLusWpBNoRpO5Mb-aX6useduRsqXV4_pbD-GNXUPaHqqp8u7FBqGX75S5ywkZArjfOW-puqpLno4ncCna2ydGC4g/s1600/Robosaurus.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 266px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-6v-BYZq8Npp6ERrLzgrHYZaCYqQjro4WCqshnqMk2uzuDcaLusWpBNoRpO5Mb-aX6useduRsqXV4_pbD-GNXUPaHqqp8u7FBqGX75S5ywkZArjfOW-puqpLno4ncCna2ydGC4g/s400/Robosaurus.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5454476747910236434" border="0" /></a><br />This is, without a doubt, the Greatest Photograph Ever Taken. (I found it <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_pictures/8594737.stm">here</a>.)<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Update: </span>A quick perusal of Google yields both <a href="http://www.richard-seaman.com/Aircraft/AirShows/MarchField2004/Sampler/Robosaurus.jpg">this majestic image</a>, and the <a href="http://www.eastershow.com.au/documents/ColouringPage-Robo.pdf">best coloring book page in the history of ever</a>.<br /><br />If you color in that page and send a scan of it to me, I shall post it to this blog, and what's more I shall think very highly of you. Those two things are, in their own way, a modicum of both wealth and fame.D.Cous.http://www.blogger.com/profile/00107469506062466876noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16955127.post-18701637528505909672010-03-03T12:20:00.002-05:002010-03-03T12:31:26.066-05:00I Could Get Used To ThisI'm currently eating some sort of cinnamon raisin bagel, whose top is adorned with brown sugar, slathered in hazelnut neufchâtel cheese. It is like <span style="font-style: italic;">dessert</span>, except that it is actually <span style="font-style: italic;">lunch.</span> My boss brought everyone bagels yesterday morning, the leftovers of which have served me as lunch for the past two days. Tomorrow, the company is going out for sushi.<br /><br />For those of you keeping score at home, that is <span style="font-style: italic;">three free lunches this week.</span> How long will these people keep feeding me?D.Cous.http://www.blogger.com/profile/00107469506062466876noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16955127.post-2412241836009924812010-01-28T14:57:00.003-05:002010-01-28T16:03:24.271-05:00This Is Why I Shouldn't Have a BlogIt's a new year, apparently, although as I write this the year has grown old enough that perhaps I should call it "slightly used," or even "Certified Pre-Owned." After all, the "new" year is nearly 1/12 spent already. I meant to get around to making a few resolutions, but then I didn't even succeed in my resolution to make resolutions, which is perhaps just as well, since you can imagine how long they would've lasted, had they ever materialized to begin with. Not that I consider it too late, mind you. I make resolutions all the time, some of which I even stick to. I hardly think there's anything particularly special about New Year's Resolutions, as my neglecting to make them has doubtless already suggested to your keen and calculating intellect. I've been dwelling on cognitive dissonance a bit lately, which is to say, on the apparent rift between what we (people, I mean) claim to believe, and on how we actually act. I try to do this sort of thinking in a removed sort of way, so as not to be too judgmental (so I tell myself), and also (not improbably) because removed, abstract thinking is less likely to induce any kind of self-examination, which is a terribly uncomfortable thing to find oneself doing, probably because even a cursory glance into the immense chasm of one's own intellect can yield the unwelcome revelation that, abysmal as it may be, it's really more of a dark, cramped little nook, like the one people have under their staircases, where they keep the tennis racquets and ski poles and other things that, if they emerge at all, only do so once or twice in a given year, and always accompanied by a disappointed, almost guilty little feeling, and the remembrance that you once told yourself that you were going to become quite the avid tennis player with all of the spare time that you were going to have now, because dammit, this year you're going to watch a lot less telly. As I said, it's best to do this sort of thinking without too many specifics, particularly if those specifics were to be drawn from one's own life and experiences. In any case, the point that I've come to, thinking about cognitive dissonance, I mean, is that people have two competing drives. (Keep in mind that this is just one way to think about this, if you'd like to think about it at all.) The first drive is, simply put, Instinct. It's a way of thinking which happens, if not completely subconsciously, so automatically that if you're not careful you'll find that you've been thinking and acting a certain way in spite of yourself. It's the part of you that eats the entire snack bowl of high-calorie rubbish before the rest of you even realizes what's up, because evolution strongly favors creatures that eat as many calories as possible, as often as possible, because it (historically) leaves those creatures with the energy they need to kill things and reproduce, <a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/18/Praying_Mantis_Mating_European-51.jpg">sometimes simultaneously</a>. The second drive is what I'll call Reason, which is roughly what Freud would call the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_ego">Super-Ego</a>, or what Jimminy Cricket called <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conscience">himself</a>. It's the part of you that feels bad when all you do is behave instinctively. This is kind of weird, because instinct isn't intrinsically <i>bad, </i>or at least I don't think of it that way. It's gotten us pretty far as a species. So far, in fact, that eating the whole bowl of potato chips is actually a bad decision, because (at least in this part of the world) we're up to our ears in food. (Have I ever mentioned to you how bizarre I find the fact that a huge proportion of the fat and most of the sugar Americans consume comes from corn?) It also makes a lot of sense to me that built into the human organism would be the desire to be better than one is now, to transcend a purely instinctive existence. This does result in what is often called, and what less often (in my opinion) actually is, hypocrisy, but I'm of the mind that anyone who's able to perfectly satisfy their conscience on a daily basis probably has a poorly-formed one at that. Morality is a Platonic form, unattainable in its perfection, and it has to be; how would we get any better if we thought we were already there? Of course, people sometimes think that, too. Hm. <div><br /></div><div>Speaking of nothing about which I was just talking, I just found out that <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J.D._Salinger">J.D. Salinger</a> died yesterday. The news itself wasn't a huge shock, since he was ninety-one years old. The funny thing is that just last night, before going to bed, I randomly picked up a small volume of his short stories, and read <i><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/For_Esm%C3%A9_%E2%80%93_with_Love_and_Squalor">For Esmé-With Love and Squalor</a>, </i>which I thought was pretty good, by the way. Quelle Coincidence, non?</div><div><br /></div><div>Speaking neither of hall closets, cognitive dissonance, nor of J.D. Salinger for that matter, if you're still out there, reading this thing, please feel free to drop me a comment. It doesn't really have to pertain to the post, if only because the post itself, like many of its predecessors, doesn't really pertain to anything either. It doesn't bother me if you're not there, mind you, I don't keep this blog for reasons closely related to my self-esteem, save that perhaps I think better of myself when I write things down occasionally, though it doesn't seem to matter a whit to me what I write, as the evidence (no doubt) bears out.</div>D.Cous.http://www.blogger.com/profile/00107469506062466876noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16955127.post-53969103129241357612009-12-03T14:54:00.005-05:002009-12-03T16:15:21.768-05:00In Case You Were Wondering,With Thanksgiving behind us and Advent under way, the wife and I did in fact pick up <span style="font-style: italic;">Christmas in the Heart.</span> I've given it a few listens through at this point, though this early in December I try not to over-dose on Christmas tunes, in case my plans go awry, and I have to do some of my shopping in actual brick-and-mortar establishments, where plasticine reproductions of beloved melodies waft through the air like imitation snowflakes. Whatever you do, don't let one land on your tongue. Where was I? Oh, right. <span style="font-style: italic;">Christmas in the Heart.</span> The bottom line, which I'll put conveniently near the top of the page, is that it's pretty good. Once you accept that Bob Dylan has made a Christmas album, straight-faced, and with roughly the same track listing as anyone else's Christmas album, it's not nearly as weird as you initially feel it should be. It's a welcome addition to the four or five albums that I'll put in the CD player as I decorate the tree, and try to make cookies. As a Dylan fan, I can easily say that this isn't even close to being one of Bob's best albums. It is, however, one of the best <span style="font-style: italic;">Christmas </span>albums on the market (Christmas albums being worse, in general, than non-Christmas albums). Of course, as is the case with most good Christmas albums, not every track is a winner; the songs that I already liked before hearing Dylan sing them are still the best ones on the album, and there are still some duds. I'll go through the tracks one-by-one, just in case anything I've already said has piqued your interest.<br /><br />1. <span style="font-weight: bold;">Here Comes Santa Claus</span>. There's not much that Dylan can do with this one, because in the end it's just not a very good song. The tune's a bit on the obnoxious side, and then there's the lyrics: "Here comes Santa Claus, right down Santa Claus Lane..." Seriously? <span style="font-style: italic;">Santa Claus Lane? </span>Even as a child, I thought that was a terrible lyric. Still, Dylan, his band, and his delightfully corny backup chorus make the song listenable. The highlight of the track is the inflection of his voice on the line "hang your stockings and <span style="font-style: italic;">say your prayers </span>'cause Santa Claus comes tonight." The way Dylan tells kids to say their prayers, you'd think Santa was actually coming to kill them. Terrific. As a side note, the song mentions that Santa "doesn't care if you're rich or poor, he loves you just the same," which I think is a remarkable assertion to make to a child whom you're attempting to convince of Jolly Ol' Saint Nick's existence. Any kid who's experienced more than one Christmas is bound to notice that Santa generally brings rich children better toys. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm fine with this. The guy can do what he wants with his magical toy distribution empire, it's only false advertising that I object to. Anyways, moving along...<br /><br />2. <span style="font-weight: bold;">Do You Hear What I Hear? </span>This one's pretty good. It's never been my favorite song, but it's got a nice sort of vibe to it, thanks to Bob's rhythm section. A winner.<br /><br />3. <span style="font-weight: bold;">Winter Wonderland.</span> To me, this is the real triumph of the album, because I don't really like this song, or at least I didn't before this version of it came along. This version, however, is great. I challenge anyone to listen to this song <span style="font-style: italic;">without </span>imagining that Bob's background singers are dressed like <a href="http://www.thegreatadventureguide.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/rockettes3girlsred2.jpg">Rockettes</a>. It is impossible.<br /><br />4. <span style="font-weight: bold;">Hark The Herald Angels Sing.</span> As with most of the songs here, Bob does this one pretty much straight up. It works.<br /><br />5. <span style="font-weight: bold;">I'll Be Home For Christmas.<span style="font-style: italic;"> <span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"></span></span></span></span></span></span><span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-style: italic;"></span></span></span>A sentimental old gem. It's amazing how well Dylan's voice works for this song, backed by piano and pedal steel guitar. I've always thought that the line "Please have snow and mistletoe and presents on the tree" sounds just a bit off, since most of us have presents <span style="font-style: italic;">under </span>the tree, but I guess at this point it's too late to change.<br /><br />6. <span style="font-weight: bold;">Little Drummer Boy.</span> I kind of like this song. It's not the best Christmas carol out there, but it's found its way into the cannon, and as it is I suppose I'd miss it if it weren't included here.<br /><br />7. <span style="font-weight: bold;">The Christmas Blues.<span style="font-style: italic;"> <span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"></span></span></span></span></span><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"></span></span></span>I'd never heard this one before. It sort of reminds me of Oscar the Grouch's song "<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HHVcBSpQMjA">I Hate Christmas</a>" off of the Sesame Street Christmas LP my family had growing up. Looking back, I'm guessing that it was a gift to one of my older siblings. It's such a fixture in my Christmas memories that I should probably send my parents a card this year which says "Dearest Mama and Papa, thank you for not killing me for all of the times I played the Sesame Street Christmas LP. I had no idea at the time what I was putting you through." So, I guess that "The Christmas Blues" is kind of a downer, but it sounds cool, and is actually kind of refreshing in the middle of an album so rife with festive cheer. To be honest, perhaps some part of me also hates Christmas. "And if you want the truth, I ain't so crazy about Thanksgiving or Labor Day, either!"<br /><br />8. <span style="font-weight: bold;">O' Come All Ye Faithful (Adeste Fideles). </span>What's this? Bob Dylan singing in Latin? Sure, it sounds silly, but I don't think it actually sounds any sillier than when most people try to sing in Latin. Besides, it just sounds so... cheery. A winner.<br /><br />9. <span style="font-weight: bold;">Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas.</span> I've always sort of liked the melancholy optimism in this tune. It's somewhat nice to hear a Christmas song with the line "until then we'll have to muddle through somehow," as if the month of December isn't all sticky-sweet generic cheer and goodwill towards men. Dylan diverges from the tune of this song somewhat here, which is surprising to me only in how little he does it.<br /><br />10. <span style="font-weight: bold;">Must Be Santa </span>is a polka about Santa Claus. I'm not really sure that I need to tell you more. It's so ludicrous that I can't really fault Dylan for including it here, really, even if it is easily the worst track on the album. (One of the rapidly-sung lyrics is just a list of reindeer and recent U.S. Presidents, for apparently no reason.)<br /><br />11. <span style="font-weight: bold;">Silver Bells.<span style="font-style: italic;"> </span></span>Another oft-unbearable classic that Dylan somehow makes enjoyable here. With its usual corn syrup removed, it's now a slow country waltz with jangly guitars, and Dylan's signature voice. Oddly decent.<br /><br />12. <span style="font-weight: bold;">The First Noel.</span> Weird as it is, even this late in the album, to hear Dylan backed by strings and dulcimer and singing with a choir, it works. It's quite nice, really.<br /><br />13. <span style="font-weight: bold;">The Christmas Island.</span> Ok, this really is pretty weird. It's a Hawaiian-themed Christmas song, complete with mellow slide guitars and background singers cooing "aloha-ay, aloha-ay" behind Bob. It's not bad, mind you. In fact, it's sort of nice to hear a Christmas song I've never heard before. It is pretty weird, though.<br /><br />14. <span style="font-weight: bold;">The Christmas Song.</span> This version is pretty good, but it's also the only song on the album where I feel that Bob is genuinely outclassed by a previous version. To put it bluntly, Nat King Cole pretty much owns this song, as far as I'm concerned. Once his version was recorded, no other was or would ever be needed. This is alright, though. It's not a bad little ditty, and Bob sings it pretty well.<br /><br />15. <span style="font-weight: bold;">O' Little Town Of Bethlehem. </span>Is that apostrophe next to the O in the title of these old songs really necessary? I always thought you could just write "O little Town..." and it would be fine. I've always like this song. Dylan and his group go through it roughly as slowly as anyone could be expected to and still get away with it, carried by a bowed upright bass and light strumming on an acoustic guitar. A pleasant closer for a pleasant album.<br /><br />Well, if I had any due diligence to perform, vis-a-vis this blog and Bob Dylan's Christmas album, I feel that at this point my obligations have been met. If you think you might like to listen to this album while donning a ridiculous sweater and pouring yourself a tall glass of egg nog, you're probably right. If you don't think so, well, why ever not?D.Cous.http://www.blogger.com/profile/00107469506062466876noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16955127.post-85995914196779518342009-10-17T11:03:00.002-04:002009-10-17T12:50:01.062-04:00My NemesisApparently, I have a nemesis. It's not the kind of relationship I thought I'd pick up by working part time at a café, but so it goes. Our first meeting was normal, I made her some milk/coffee/flavor combination and attempted to exchange pleasantries; the only somewhat unusual thing about her was that she didn't seem interested in making eye contact or smiling at me. Our second meeting was similar; she didn't speak to me except to order her coffee, she ordered the same thing, and I failed to make it correctly. I left out the vanilla flavoring, and her latte tasted like coffee. I don't habitually make this kind of mistake, and it is indeed about as bad a thing as one can do whilst supporting oneself as a barista. I was in the wrong, I screwed up, It was all my fault. Our third meeting shortly followed our second, and she was livid. Her eyes seemed to have doubled in proportion, and the pallor which had theretofore characterized her visage had vanished, leaving in its place the deepest crimson hue I'd yet seen across human features, and scarcely would have thought possible had I not beheld it myself. "Would you <span style="font-style: italic;">please </span>put vanilla in this latte, like I asked you to <span style="font-style: italic;">before?"</span> She seemed to be speaking in two voices at once, the first for the purpose of conveying information, the second merely for conveying the profundity of the contempt in which she held me. Trying my best to keep my composure under the intensity of her glare, I offered to re-make her the entire drink, but to no avail. I would happily have refunded her out of pocket, and considered it a small and entirely reasonable price to pay for the privilege of never seeing her again. It took ten minutes after she'd stormed out of the place before the sun started to shine back in through the windows, and I began to collect myself. I'm not used to being despised. I'd even thought to myself in my some of my more foolish and youthful states of mind that one day I should know that I'd done some good in the world if someone hated me for it. But this was over coffee. It's shameful, really. I've made an enemy out of someone, over coffee. This isn't how it was supposed to be at all. I know that I have indeed made an enemy of her, by the way, because the third meeting was not our last. Twice since then, she has walked into the café, noticed that it was me, vocalized her disgust (the most recent expression of recognition being "Oh, <span style="font-style: italic;">come on</span>!"), and stormed out. Somewhere in the course of my life I've done something terribly wrong, such that my worst enemy was made was over a vanilla latte. It's all wrong. It wasn't supposed to be like this.D.Cous.http://www.blogger.com/profile/00107469506062466876noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16955127.post-2998580402739883452009-10-15T13:39:00.000-04:002009-10-15T13:40:08.876-04:00Um...I honestly don't know what to think about <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Christmas-Heart-Bob-Dylan/dp/B002MW50KO/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1255624237&sr=8-1">this</a>. I mean, it's Bob Dylan's Christmas album. That's not a phrase that, before a few months ago, I thought would ever be writ, save perhaps in jest. Maybe it still is a joke, I don't know. I mean, it is Dylan. He's generally done well by confounding expectations of him, and this is indeed unexpected. It's also pretty good, I guess. I mean, I don't really <span style="font-style: italic;">like </span>Christmas albums, except for a two-week period at the end of every year, which I call "Christmastime," or "The <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=toAdJGnFV6s">Hallyday</a>s," but this does <span style="font-style: italic;">sound good.</span> I may even buy it, to listen to it during those crucial two weeks. Many of the tracks to which I've listened to the samples could easily be my favorite version of those songs. Bob's still an excellent singer (yes, he is) and producer, even if those are the only things going on here. The backing chorus sounds terrific, and the instrumentation is good. Bob's good (the piano on most of the tracks sounds like him). It's just... weird. Maybe the weird thing is how it sounds like it makes sense, like it doesn't know how weird it is. It's apparently for a good cause (the proceeds all go to charity), and a Christmas album is a pretty easy way to sell a boatload of records without the hassle of writing any songs, but for myself I can't help but wonder if it's beneath him. As of earlier this year, he was still making good original music. Couldn't he have spent more time, y'know, doing that, if he didn't put out a Christmas album? I don't know. Maybe I'll check back with you closer to the Hallydays.D.Cous.http://www.blogger.com/profile/00107469506062466876noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16955127.post-63327330043892768332009-09-14T14:39:00.006-04:002009-09-15T18:04:04.598-04:00Can Anyone Tell Me Where The Time's Gone?Before I knew it, the weekend was over. My birthday, celebrated in the evening with a party that I had secretly hoped my wife wouldn't throw, was on Friday. I didn't tell her that I wished not to celebrate it, partially because when I say things like that she begins to look at me with some sort of vague, grave concern, as if not wishing to celebrate one's birthday is a clear sign that one is anything but alright, but mostly because she seemed too eager to <span style="font-style: italic;">do something</span> for me, to show me some high degree of consideration and affection, for me to tell her that she had better not. What I told myself, at least, was that I had too much deference to her desire to be a good wife to tell her that I would rather be left alone. I had a bathroom to repair, after all, and there wasn't much hope of getting that done with a party happening on Friday, since we were already engaged for another on Saturday, and then the softball tournament on Sunday. No, I would never finish the bathroom with a party. Besides, it's only my birthday. There's nothing terribly special about birthdays, least of all my own. Birthdays can easily be forgotten, and in my family, they often are. I have no problem with this, nor have I since I turned twelve, which was, for the record, thirteen years ago. If I received no phone calls, no emails, no visits, and no cards, and if the day began, proceeded, and ended with the same utter lack of ceremony as every other day, I should have had no cause for complaint. But then my mother called, and said that my brother was going to be in town from New Orleans, and wouldn't it be nice to have a brunch on Sunday for my birthday to get the whole family together, et cetera, et cetera, and in spite of myself I assented. As soon as I hung up the phone, I thought of calling her back and asking that it not be a <span style="font-style: italic;">birthday</span> <span style="font-style: italic;">party</span> <span style="font-style: italic;">per se</span>, with cake and hand-made cards from all of my nieces and nephews, and instead it could just be a chance to have brunch together as a family, and see Neil, whom we haven't seen since my wedding last summer, but I didn't. When I say things like that she begins to look at me with some sort of vague, grave concern, as if not wishing to celebrate one's birthday is a clear sign that one is anything but alright. A birthday party is nothing less and nothing more than a large group of people going out of their way to be kind to me, and I can't stand being fussed over. Besides, there's the bathroom to think of...<br /><br />Having aired the secret of my humbuggery to whomsoever cares to read it, I can now tell you how glad I am now to have been so utterly disappointed. As I write this, The Bathroom is still a shambles. The base of the wall around the tub has been torn out, and the tub itself is full of debris. There is a thin layer of plaster dust on everything, which would have been a thick layer of dust had I not gone over every surface with a broom and a wet cloth, in a bid to keep my wife from killing me, and I won't know until I get home tonight whether or not it has worked. I covered up the project during Friday night's party simply by closing the shower curtain, only opening it once to solicit advice on the enterprise from my almost sickeningly competent sister, who was in attendance. (Naturally, she had some to offer.) The party was delightful. It featured, in different rooms, simultaneous games of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flip_cup">Flip Cup</a> and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flip_cup">Settlers of Catan</a>. I often don't remember that I have a lot of friends, until a group of them happens to all be at my home at the same time. It's startling, really, that I know so many truly engaging and interesting people, and that they have nothing better to do on a Friday night than to visit me, though to be fair, they may have come because Lindsey is such a wonderful hostess. I experienced a kind of melancholy joy to think that the time in my life for such parties is fading; mingled among the twenty-somethings still mostly indistinguishable from the friends of my teenaged years was a conspicuous number of infants. Multiple family members called to wish me well. You'd think I'd just won an election, or at least that I had, in some way, suddenly become monumentally successful. It was embarrassing, really.<br /><br />Saturday night's party was a classier affair, a dinner party hosted by <a href="http://darjeelingblend.blogspot.com/">Laura</a>, at which my brother Collin recited from memory all 2,684 lines of G.K. Chesterton's epic poem <span style="font-style: italic;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_ballad_of_the_white_horse">The Ballad of the White Horse</a>. </span>I knew that Collin had memorized the thing a while back, that it was written by Chesterton, and that it was long, but that was pretty much all I knew. I really didn't know what to expect when the invitation came in the mail. I accepted immediately, of course; if only for the people involved, the evening promised to be engaging. Besides, my brother had put forth the effort to memorize the ballad; it seemed the least I could do to listen to it. Lindsey and I went to the Saturday evening mass, and arrived at the party just as Collin was giving his audience a brief introduction to the poem. The living room of the house was arranged like a small theatre, with four or five tight rows of chairs facing Collin, standing in front of the hearth. Lindsey and I looked apologetically at the dozen or so faces which inevitably met ours as we ducked into the only two empty chairs in the room, front and center. I quickly noticed that I was shamefully under-dressed. After a dedicatory preamble addressed to the author's wife, itself taking some three minutes or so, Collin began the poem in earnest. The invitation had advertised a <span style="font-style: italic;">recitation,</span> a claim which I suppose was supported by the facts, technically speaking, but which I'm afraid I must maintain is somehow (I'm not quite sure how) fundamentally untrue. Collin didn't <span style="font-style: italic;">recite </span>a poem about some ancient battle between Britons and Vikings; he conjured up the opposing armies out of thin air and sent them once again to decide the fate of Christendom at the points of a thousand spears, having transformed the small room in which we sat into a misty plain on a distant isle, rising out of endless seas on a far younger earth. I stared at the floor, entranced, for some three or four hours (I don't know how long), as if watching the contest unfold. Only if I looked up and saw the familiar features of my brother standing at the familiar hearth was the spell broken, until I once again shut my eyes, or cast them back to the floor. I can say little about the experience now, save that it is exactly how epic poems were meant to be experienced. It was great.<br /><br />Sunday we awoke and trekked (by which I mean we took our car) out to the Ancestral Manse for the birthday brunch. Having already unnecessarily and thoroughly celebrated my birthday on Friday (see above), the brunch felt like overkill, but I suppose that most of the principal participants were different for the two parties. Neil didn't show up until fairly late in the party, so I didn't actually get to see much of him, but the food was good and the company was good, and I did get the requisite handful of cute hand-made cards from toddlers. (Though my godfather informed me that one of my cards was actually a copy of one he'd received from one of his grandchildren on his own birthday, and not, as I had thought, an original.) Following brunch, and a startlingly short stop off at home, we headed out to Saline for The Softball Tournament To End All Softball Tournaments Until Next Year's Softball Tournament. It was, without a doubt, the best softball tournament in which I've participated since last year's softball tournament. Our team didn't win, but I got to play multiple infield positions instead of my usual Right Field (two facts which I choose to believe are unrelated to one another), and it was a good time all-around. After the games a bunch of us went to nurse our wounds (or something) at the local T.G.I. Ruby Chilibee's, and Neil stopped out to join us, so I got more time to hang out with him, before finally heading home to a soft bed and a half-demolished bathroom.D.Cous.http://www.blogger.com/profile/00107469506062466876noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16955127.post-18132233344018857482009-09-08T18:39:00.004-04:002009-09-09T14:06:01.054-04:00A Morning (With Apologies to Willa Cather)<span style="font-style: italic;">For several weeks after my sleigh-ride, we heard nothing from the Shimerdas. My sore throat kept me indoors, and grandmother had a cold which made the housework heavy for her.</span> BING! Good morning sir, how are you today? A regular coffee, yessir. Our mildest roast? That'd be the Peruvian, right over here. I think you'll like it. Oh, yeah. I have to be here at six thirty to have the place ready to open. No, I don't mind it too much. Yeah, thanks for coming in. Have a great day. BING! <span style="font-style: italic;">"All but the crazy boy," Jake put in. "He never wears the coat. Krajiek says he's turrible strong and can stand anything..."</span> BING! Hi there! What can I get you? Medium Spanish, coming right up. Two percent milk alright? Yeah, good game. I was encouraged by what I saw, though to be honest with you I'm still not sure about the quarterback situation. Yeah, that was nice to see. Yeah, that's a load of hooey, if you ask me, not that you did. It's nothing that every other college hasn't been doing. Exactly, yeah. Hey, thanks. Have a good one! BING! <span style="font-style: italic;">The old man was sitting on a stump behind the stove, crouching over as if he were trying to hide from us. Yulka was on the floor at his feet, her kitten in her lap. She peeped out at me and smiled, but, glancing up at her mother, hid again. </span>It's quiet. Get up. Change the CD. Nina Simone. "This song is called Mississippi goddamn, and I mean every word of it," she says, seemingly exuberant in her ability to express her anger. The live recording is some weird mix of raw and virtuosic, like a group of expert musicians who've never played together before. They probably<span style="font-style: italic;"> </span>had, though. I have to remind myself that the music is happening in the past, well before my birth, I guess, even if I'm experiencing it for the first time now. Recorded music is magic. It's alchemy and necromancy, art and technology. It's wonderful. Damn, it's slow today. <span style="font-style: italic;">Grandmother went on talking in her polite Virginia way, not admitting their stark need or her own remissness, until Jake arrived with the hamper, as if in direct answer to Mrs. Shimerda's reproaches. Then the poor woman broke down. She dropped on the floor beside her crazy son, hid her face on her knees, and sat crying bitterly.</span> BING! Good morning! How's it going today? Having the usual? Whoa, mixing it up today! Large mocha, coming right up. You want whipped cream on that? Righto. What's that? Sorry, this thing is loud. Oh, yeah. Good game. I'm still holding my breath for the Notre Dame game, though. Yeah. Here you are, one large mocha. Thanks for coming in, take it easy! BING! <span style="font-style: italic;">Grandmother drew back. "You mean they sleep in there--your girls?" He bowed his head. Tony slipped under his arm. "It is very cold on the floor, and this is warm like the badger hole. I like for sleep there," she insisted eagerly. </span>BING! Hi, how are you today? Just a regular coffee? We can do that. It's right over here, I'd recommend the house coffee. It's a dark Italian roast, I think you'll like it. Thanks, have a good one! BING! <span style="font-style: italic;">By the time they paid Krajiek for the land, and bought his horses and oxen and some old farm machinery, they had very little money left. He wished grandmother to know, however, that he still had some money.</span> Get up. Re-brew the house, wipe the counter, rearrange the muffins. Running low on medium cups on top of the machine, should get those... BING! Hi there! How are you today?<span style="font-style: italic;"> All the way home grandmother and Jake talked about how easily good Christian people could forget they were their brothers' keepers.</span>D.Cous.http://www.blogger.com/profile/00107469506062466876noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16955127.post-75685146778308866222009-06-08T16:35:00.006-04:002009-06-10T19:40:38.801-04:00I laughed. I cried.<div>I once heard a story which I strongly suspect isn't true, about Hector Berlioz and Georges Bizet leaving a performance of, I believe, Beethoven's Fifth. Berlioz said that he had liked the symphony, but thought that music of its kind should not often be made. "Don't worry," the younger composer assured him, "it won't be."<br /><br />Lindsey and I, together with a few friends and a large contingent of my in-laws, went to see Pixar's <span style="font-style: italic;">Up </span>over the weekend, and if you don't want to sit through this post, presumably because my entire readership is contained within the group I mentioned above (no, not the 19th Century French composers), I'll cut right to the chase: If you like movies, you should watch <span style="font-style: italic;">Up. </span>Phew! I hope you enjoyed that run-on sentence as much as I did. I knew very little about the movie when I went to see it, except that it was made by Pixar, and therefore was very likely to be enjoyable. I also noticed in the preview I'd seen that the central character of the film appeared to be a grumpy septuagenarian, and that intrigued me. You just don't see many kids' movies about old men; they're harder to merchandise. So, I was expecting the movie to, at worst, be not bad. If it turned out to be something along the lines of <span style="font-style: italic;">A Bug's Life, </span>I would still enjoy myself, and if I won out, it could be as good as <span style="font-style: italic;">The Incredibles.</span> Yes, I'm a grown man, and I like cartoons. Sue me.<br /><br />So I was optimistic, but not overhwelmed with excitement, when I put on my 3-D glasses (yes, it was in <span style="font-style: italic;">mind-blowing three-dee!</span>) that made me look somewhat like <a href="http://theselvedgeyard.files.wordpress.com/2009/02/img_8.jpg">this guy</a> (though my companions said I looked more like <a href="http://www.theadvocates.org/celebrities/images/murray-rothbard.jpg">this guy</a>), and took my seat. My memories of what came next contain a nearly formless succession of images popping off the screen and tormenting me, and I am at a loss to better describe what occured. Later, my wife informed me that what I had seen was <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3o4oGxVG_HM">this trailer</a> (if you click that link, you do so at your peril), evidence that the <a href="http://republicofdcous.blogspot.com/2008/07/and-just-like-that-world-ended.html">Dark Forces</a> that brought down <span style="font-style: italic;"><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AoNDp03udhg">Beverly Hills Chihuahua</a> </span>upon the earth are at it again. I recall remarking to myself that for someone who was intentionally going to see a childrens' movie, I sure tend to hate childrens' movies. I heaved an audible sigh of relief when the requisite animated short signalled the beginning of the film. The short was a delightful, whimsical affair, a story of a long-suffering stork and the living cloud that loved him (seriously). Lindsey said "Aaaawwwww" roughly every ten seconds of the five-minute short, which I suppose means that she considered it to be cute. Then the movie started.<br /><br />On hour and thirty-six minutes later, as the credits rolled up the screen, I turned to my companions, bewildered, and demanded: "That was a <span style="font-style: italic;">kids' movie?</span>" Indeed, the lone child in our group (my eight-year-old brother-in-law) said he had loved it, and probably for the reasons you'd expect: a man flies his house with baloons, and there are goofy talking animals. I also nearly cried twice. I'm only willing to admit as much because I'm fairly sure I was not alone, and indeed some of my companions <span style="font-style: italic;">actually did </span>cry, more than twice. In short, the movie is really, really good. It was also hilarious, don't get me wrong, but it manages to tug every freaking one of your heart strings on its way to your funny bone. Yes, I just used <span style="font-style: italic;">two </span>made-up body parts in one sentence.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Up </span>is better than it has any business being. I hear that it's been doing fairly well at the box office, and that's great, but I'm actually surprised it was released at all. I don't know the movie business, but it looks to me like movie-making suicide. <span style="font-style: italic;">Kids' movies aren't supposed to make people cry. </span>I'm sure that the folks at Disney have already figured it out, but I have no idea how to merchandise this movie. What, are they going to make Carl Fredirickson action figures? Probably, but all the same. I can't even conceive of making sequels out of the thing. It's impossible.<br /><br />Anyways, go watch the movie! I wouldn't recommend the 3-D experience, though. It's alright, but it's just sort of a gimmick. My favorite part of it was the ridiculous glasses I got to keep. Oh, and never, ever mention that ginuea pig movie to me again.<br /></div>D.Cous.http://www.blogger.com/profile/00107469506062466876noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16955127.post-45903523933080903902009-06-01T13:19:00.003-04:002009-06-01T13:46:32.650-04:00The ImpostorIt's a few moments before nine o'clock on a Saturday morning, and not only am I not in bed, I'm an hour's drive from it. And I'm stretching. It's a cloudy morning, cold for this time of year. A light drizzle is falling, and I've just pinned a number onto the front of my t-shirt. And I'm stretching. <span style="font-style: italic;">What am I doing? This is not the sort of thing I do</span>. A few members of the crowd I've joined at the starting line are exchanging friendly taunts. Some are telling each other the time they'd like to finish in, or swapping a few workout tips. Everyone's smiling, chatty, and fidgeting a bit. A few of the guys standing near me allow me to join in their conversation. They're talking about running, which I suppose is a natural starting point for a conversation at a starting line. <span style="font-style: italic;">But they think I'm one of them.</span> The drizzle has let up. I'm cold. I'm tired. I awoke too late to make coffee. Lindsey's still at home, in bed. Probably still asleep, even. Maybe she's sat up by now, and is reading a book, but she's almost certainly still under the covers. I yawn, and rub my eyes one last time. "ON YOUR MARKS! GET SET..." A bullhorn goes off. I'm running. In a race. <span style="font-style: italic;">This is not the sort of thing I do.</span>D.Cous.http://www.blogger.com/profile/00107469506062466876noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16955127.post-76883323404286937272009-06-01T13:10:00.002-04:002009-06-01T13:17:28.456-04:00Let's Try This Again...Ok. I'm <a href="http://gizmodo.com/5089477/real-19th-century-vampire-killing-kit-is-a-must-in-current-economic-climate">ready</a>. <a href="http://decemberists.com/">Decemberists</a>. <a href="http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=Columbus,+OH&sll=41.120875,-83.382345&sspn=3.74072,7.075195&gl=us&ie=UTF8&ll=39.995008,-83.000336&spn=0.475539,0.884399&t=h&z=10&iwloc=A">Columbus</a>. Tonight. Let's do this thing.<br /><br />Go Blue!D.Cous.http://www.blogger.com/profile/00107469506062466876noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16955127.post-53584841857379707812009-05-27T15:32:00.004-04:002009-05-27T15:50:09.395-04:00UpdateI finished reading E.F. Schumacher's <span style="font-style: italic;">Small Is Beautiful</span>. I'll try to put up my thoughts about the whole thing soon, but I'm having trouble putting them into any sort of order, mostly because Schumacher doesn't do as much with his thoughts, either. I shall endeavor to do the book <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8057179.stm">justice</a>, in any case.<br /><br />In other news, the <a href="http://www.theonion.com/content/video/trekkies_bash_new_star_trek_film">new Star Trek film</a> is surprisingly good, whether or not you are, as I have <a href="http://republicofdcous.blogspot.com/2009/03/stuff-ive-been-digging.html">claimed</a> to be, a moderate and completely reasonable fan of <span style="font-style: italic;">Star Trek. </span>The film was even found to be highly enjoyable by my resident less-than-moderate Trekkie (my wife), who<span style="font-style: italic;"></span> has admitted to reading books (yes, plural) about <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worf">Worf's</a> difficult time making human friends at Starfleet Academy. I wish I could ask a truly unbiased person their opinion on the flick, but everyone I know who saw it is pretty much a geek. No offense, everyone. I saw it too.<br /><br />Also, I haven't forgotten about this blog, even if you have. I just haven't posted anything on it for a rather long time. I seem to enjoy doing so when I get around to it though, so maybe I'll pick up the frequency a bit.D.Cous.http://www.blogger.com/profile/00107469506062466876noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16955127.post-64913584044292665172009-05-27T15:17:00.005-04:002009-05-27T15:31:23.975-04:00Serve Me Up One Of Them Slices O' Life!Now, according to the Font Of all Human Knowledge, "<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender">gender</a>" is a rather complicated term, one which ought to be applied only with a great deal of caution, if at all. I understand that it's supposed to be distinguished from "<span>sex" </span><span>(</span>even though in most cases, by almost any definition, the two aren't appreciably different), but this question on an online job application had me puzzled:<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJGOeM6yrgPkMNjIUwnYkWs0WZGNj_U2NrezP7SW578wHG6dCUPlrNoiWXRjSf77D7lJ1wRIAC0H1a-ddUCbJyr5tJl1EhNmEgubMoWY_RIpI-5W1cvWwWZy9hw4CJ-sIvI3fpIQ/s1600-h/Screenshot.bmp"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 367px; height: 122px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJGOeM6yrgPkMNjIUwnYkWs0WZGNj_U2NrezP7SW578wHG6dCUPlrNoiWXRjSf77D7lJ1wRIAC0H1a-ddUCbJyr5tJl1EhNmEgubMoWY_RIpI-5W1cvWwWZy9hw4CJ-sIvI3fpIQ/s400/Screenshot.bmp" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5340586501577155842" border="0" /></a>Now, even if you regard your <span style="font-style: italic;">gender</span> as being different from your <span style="font-style: italic;">sex, </span>couldn't you still be expected to, y'know, <span style="font-style: italic;">know it? </span>I'm just asking.<br /><br />Maybe they ought to have included a few deep epistemological questions dealing with how hard it is to <span style="font-style: italic;">really know anything</span>, as well as asking whether or not the applicant is currently undergoing some sort of existential crisis.D.Cous.http://www.blogger.com/profile/00107469506062466876noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16955127.post-75049568103705108312009-04-17T16:17:00.004-04:002009-04-17T16:31:46.936-04:00On ContextThe following footnote on <a href="http://baselinescenario.com/2009/04/16/new-day-new-bank-same-story/">an excellent blog post</a> by James Kwak struck me in a funny sort of way:<br /><blockquote>I got my data from the financial supplements on <a href="http://investor.shareholder.com/jpmorganchase/earnings.cfm" target="_blank">this page</a>. There’s a small discrepancy in the Q1 2006 numbers, depending on whether you look at the Q1 2006 release or the Q1 2007 release. <span style="font-weight: bold;">But it’s only about $100 million</span>, so I didn’t bother looking into it [emphasis mine].</blockquote><br />Now, his use of the words "only" and "small" is (I think) intentionally ironic. The funny part is that it's also appropriate. (Look at the scale of the vertical axes in his graphs.)<br /><br />I tend to ideologically disagree with Kwak and his co-blogger Simon Johnson on a number of points, but <a href="http://baselinescenario.com/">their blog</a> is still highly recommended. I (belatedly) thank my mother-in-law for having directed me to it.D.Cous.http://www.blogger.com/profile/00107469506062466876noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16955127.post-82833673039745702872009-04-02T14:01:00.003-04:002009-04-06T12:52:33.502-04:00Sound Off!The New York Times has a little <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/02/fashion/02voicemail.html?pagewanted=1&%2359;ve%20got%20voice%20mail&%2339&_r=1&sq=you&st=cse&scp=1">piece</a> about the impending <a href="https://www.google.com/voice/about">demise</a> of voice mail, which if it's true could be the greatest thing that has ever happened to me. I have no idea if it is true, mind you. The closest I've ever come to reading the tea leaves of technological advance came early in my adolescence, when I ingeniously came up with the idea of a coffee maker that had a <span style="font-style: italic;">timer </span>built into it (so that your coffee is already brewed when you wake up), only to discover that such a wonderment actually already existed. To be honest, before reading the article, I had no idea that I was not alone in hating voice mail. The knowledge that there are other people out there like me, that I may in fact be part of some kind of <span style="font-style: italic;">movement</span>, is strangely empowering.<br /><br />The funny thing is that my current phone service doesn't even include text messages - I pay separately for each text I send or receive - and for that matter, I really dislike writing text messages on my phone. I even tell my friends not to send me texts, but when they <span style="font-style: italic;">ignore </span>this request, and I actually receive a text message, it's an invigorating experience: all that they had to say to me is <span style="font-style: italic;">right there,</span> on my phone's display screen. Whoa. It's like my first train ride. I don't have to dial anything, or hear a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Majel_Barrett">Majel Barrett</a> sound-alike tell me that I have "TWO UNheard MESsages... FIRst MESsage, SENT TOday, at SEVen SIxtEEn P.M." I don't have to sit through several stammering sentences of my friend or loved one trying to find the right words to tell me one sentence's worth of information. I should say that I don't mean any of the above as an indictment of anyone who has ever contacted me via voicemail. I am very bad at leaving succinct voice messages myself. Voice mails have their place, for now. I just hope that they don't keep it for very much longer.<br /><br />"But Cous," you're thinking, "What about the human element? You don't get to hear the inflection in someone's <span style="font-style: italic;">human voice </span>by reading a text message from them!" To that, I have two responses: first, I don't think voice mail is going away completely. I think you'll still be able to leave your mom a touching voice message on Mother's Day when she misses your call because she's on the phone with your older brother who she loves more than you, and you can still call your friend from outside the pub on St. Patrick's day to sing them the first few bars of "Danny Boy," before you get to the part where you don't know the lyrics. It's just that <span style="font-style: italic;">most </span>of what we use voicemail for is better suited for other modes of communication, or soon will be. Second, unless it's that touching voicemail from your not-quite-favorite child on Mother's Day, there's nothing all that human about voicemail as it is. You can't <span style="font-style: italic;">converse</span> with your voice mail messages, after all; you can only play them back. Ever miss a phone number in someone's message and ask them politely to just repeat that part? Try it sometime. You'll realise that, however familiar the voice you're hearing may be, you're not interacting with a human being, but merely a lifeless facsimile of that human being. That's right: for all that they can do, voice messages are incapable of love.D.Cous.http://www.blogger.com/profile/00107469506062466876noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16955127.post-3960618316509422582009-03-26T12:33:00.003-04:002009-03-26T13:31:18.529-04:00"It's Mighty Funny, The End Of Time Has Just Begun"I was thinking the other day about the End Of The World. You might suggest to me that it's a healthy thing to think about, either because human advancement is speeding the planet's demise, or perhaps because it's helpful to meditate from time to time on one's own mortality, but I have to admit that my particular line of thinking was more whimsical than all that. Assuming that the world will end at all (and I think it will), how it happens will probably be pretty interesting to whoever happens to be around at the time that time ceases to be. Sure, perhaps the Universe will continue on its merry way without us being there to watch it, but what's the point in thinking about time when there are no more people to watch the clocks? People theorize a great deal about what happened <span style="font-style: italic;">before </span>humanity existed, and how long it may have taken, and that's an interesting and hopefully humbling thing to study. But what about time, and the Universe, <span style="font-style: italic;">after </span>humanity's cosmically (comically?) brief existence? It's somewhat less compelling, really. I was somewhat surprised at myself to reflect that whenever the subject came up, either when I'm thinking about it alone or discussing it with others, there are certain doomsday scenarios which are infinitely more desirable than others. After further reflection, I determined that there is what appears to be an inverse relationship between the probability of a given cause of The End and its desirability. Perhaps you've observed the same thing yourself, but I suspect that instead you've spent your time thinking about things that actually matter, and have given it very little thought. How fortunate for both of us then, that you should stumble upon this inter-net web-log, dedicated almost entirely to the study of things that (probably) don't matter.<br /><br />Now then, for my money, the best possible ways for the world to end are (in no particular order):<br /><br />1. Interstellar war (or something). I don't think that space aliens actually exist, but if they do, I think it would be pretty awesome if they destroyed us. Something like the beginning of Douglas Adams' <span style="font-style: italic;">The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy</span> would be pretty much ideal, though I guess it wouldn't constitute war per se.<br /><br />2. Human error (of the awesome variety). If you have to go somehow, you could do a lot worse than to be done in by science. Our best hope for this right now, as far as I know, is the existence of the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lhc">Large Hadron Collider</a>. Of course, the fact that the LHC's creators have assured us that it's <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Safety_of_particle_collisions_at_the_Large_Hadron_Collider#Safety_concerns">perfectly safe</a> would only contribute to the awesomeness here, in the event that they're horribly, horribly wrong. Hopefully they would get to say something like "Ye gods, what have we done?" right before the earth is engulfed in a black hole. Freakin' sweet.<br /><br />3. Asteroids (on the rocks, but hold the Bruce Willis). This is (I think) more likely than #1 or #2, and as such is somewhat less desireable. It's also been the subject of a couple of really bad movies, which doesn't help its case. Still, as far as doomsday scenarios go, it's pretty cool.<br /><br />Now then, on the completely pedestrian, undesreable side of things, we have:<br /><br />1. Global pandemic. Unless it comes from outer space and turns us into flesh-eating zombies first, there's pretty much nothing cool about everyone on earth dying of some mutated form of Smallpox. It's also on the "relatively likely" side of thigns. It's too normal. Too square.<br /><br />2. War that has nothing at all to do with space aliens. Let's face it, people are pretty good at destroying one another in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weapon_of_mass_destruction">ridiculously uncool ways</a>. It's pretty believable that Armageddon could happen this way, and I have no reason to believe that the end of the Cold War has made it significantly less likely.<br /><br />3. Global Warming. Apparently this is now called "Climate Change," probably because too many Midwesterners have taken to facetiously welcoming the idea of "warming" every single time it snows, and I mention it often enough on this blog that I'm going to start calling it simply ΔC. Now, ΔC finally killing us off is a <a href="http://republicofdcous.blogspot.com/2007/07/update.html">lot less likely than it used to be</a>, but there are rumors that it wasn't completely defeated in the summer of 2007, and is rearing for a comeback. If this happens, I predict that it will be pretty lame.<br /><br />4. Human error (of the not-awesome variety). This could manifest in any number of ways, but would probably resemble either global pandemic (1), accidental use of WMDs (2), or boring old ΔC (3), all of which, as discussed above, would be lame.<br /><br />Anyways, those are my two lists. What are yours? The Font of All Human Knowledge has a pretty good list to pick from <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Risks_to_civilization,_humans_and_planet_Earth">here</a>, if you're stumped.D.Cous.http://www.blogger.com/profile/00107469506062466876noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16955127.post-15529379514735196492009-03-06T14:12:00.002-05:002009-03-06T15:09:33.113-05:00Book Titles ReduxI <a href="http://republicofdcous.blogspot.com/2009/03/in-which-we-provide-brief-discussion-of.html">mentioned</a> a few days ago that I advocate judging a book by its cover, particularly if you've got little or nothing else to go on. I also <a href="http://republicofdcous.blogspot.com/2008/12/ok-so-i-finished-reading-pride-and.html">mentioned</a> (and have been verbally and electronically pilloried for doing so ever since) that I found every woman on earth's <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Pride-Prejudice-Jane-Austen/dp/1438242816/ref=pd_bbs_sr_4?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1236368620&sr=8-4">favorite book</a> rather boring.<br /><br />With all that in mind, something about <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Pride-Prejudice-Zombies-Classic-Ultraviolent/dp/1594743347/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1236367433&sr=8-1">this little work of literature</a> caught my attention. Now <span style="font-style: italic;">that's </span>a good title: it's simple, to the point, grabs your attention, and tells you roughly what to expect from the book.<br /><br />I thank Kathleen K. and <a href="http://ewlynchart.blogspot.com/">Eric</a> (separately) for the pointer.<br /><br />By the by, Tyler Cowen, <a href="http://www.google.com/search?q=what+I%27ve+been+reading+site%3Awww.marginalrevolution.com&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a">who reads an obscene amount</a>, has some very <a href="http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2007/08/can-you-judge-1.html">interesting</a> <a href="http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2007/08/can-you-judge-a.html">things</a> to say about judging a book by its cover.D.Cous.http://www.blogger.com/profile/00107469506062466876noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16955127.post-62690905002137578082009-03-05T15:03:00.004-05:002009-03-05T19:23:14.965-05:00Stuff I've Been Digging1. U2's new record, <span style="font-style: italic;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/No-Line-Horizon-U2/dp/B001O0EQ5U/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1236283518&sr=8-1">No Line On The Horizon</a>.</span> Surprisingly, the most popular rock band in the world continues to make really good music. Longtime U2 producers Eno and Lanois share writing credits on the album, and their presence can certainly be felt over the whole thing, which overall feels much more cohesive than their last few efforts. Their signature heart-on-sleeve bombast survives, the band continuing to be self-aware enough to avoid pretension despite high ambition. One of my favorite things about U2 is the fact that they continually push themselves artistically, and this record has a great, adventurous feel to it. It's honest, intimate, and (best of all) fun to listen to.<br /><br />2. Steven Hawking's <span style="font-style: italic;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Brief-History-Time-Stephen-Hawking/dp/0553380168/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1236284334&sr=8-1">A Brief History of Time</a>.</span> I found a used hardcover copy in excellent condition for a dollar at the library, and I couldn't refuse it. I'm in no position to comment on the science, but the entertainment value of the work is very high. Hawking's claim early in the book that it contains only one equation (E = MC^2) isn't exactly true--there are several equations which are merely expressed in english, rather than mathematical notation--but it's no matter, the book is great for a non-scientist such as I, and I think he makes the subject matter as easy to comprehend as any discussion of infinity can be. My only quam so far (I've not finished it yet) is that he insists on saying "million million" instead of "trillion." Was the word just less commonly used when the book was written? I don't know.<br /><br />3. <span style="font-style: italic;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Star-Trek-The-Next-Generation/e/B001CFAJCQ/">Star Trek: The Next Generation</a>.</span> I'm kind of a closet Trekkie, which I guess means that I enjoy <span style="font-style: italic;">Star Trek</span> in what I would define as some form of moderation. I certainly don't indulge in the excesses of <span style="font-style: italic;">Trek</span> geekness, such as reading fan fiction, contributing to the expansive <a href="http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Portal:Main"><span style="font-style: italic;">Star Trek </span>wiki</a>, or pretending that <span style="font-style: italic;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_trek_iv">Star Trek IV</a> </span>was anything other than a festering turd of a film. In any case, I really liked this show growing up (it was one of the few TV shows my family watched). Recently, the wife (who is less ashamed of her affection for <span style="font-style: italic;">Star Trek </span>than I am, claims to like <span style="font-style: italic;">Star Trek IV, </span>and has even read some fan fiction) and I borrowed the first season of <span style="font-style: italic;">TNG </span>from my parents, and have been enjoying it's hilarious late '80s campiness, generally with the exception of the much-hated <a href="http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Wesley_Crusher#Background">Wesley Crusher</a>. It's also surprising how little the production value of network television increased between the medium's inception and the advent of DVD. Particularly in the first season, <span style="font-style: italic;">TNG </span>doesn't really look any better (for that matter, it isn't any better written) than its late '60s predecessor. My favorite running joke of the whole thing is that in the world of the show, human society has advanced beyond material want, and yet they haven't figured out that seat belts might be a really good idea.<br /><br />That's all I've got for now. I would write about something more interesting, if only I could think of it. TTFN! Ta Ta For Now!D.Cous.http://www.blogger.com/profile/00107469506062466876noreply@blogger.com4