August 19

Are we having fun yet?

Last Wednesday, there was a well-publicized total eclipse of the sun, visible in most of Western Europe. We tried to watch it on CNN, but the eclipse was a backdrop for the incessant chattering of commentators spread across the landscape in the eclipse's path. In addition to never sticking with any one location through to totality, the commentators prattled on about how awe-inspiring the event that we wouldn't be seeing was, and how nature would fall silent, except undoubtedly for the face-flapping commentators who thought we were all tuned in to listen to them, and see their silhouettes in half-darkness.

Thursday was Thursday the 13th, which doesn't sound nearly as threatening as Friday the 13th, no doubt because of the moderating effects of the pleasant alliteration.

We are become our parents.

PBS has been raising money this week, which means we've been subjected to a large number of music shows. In the past, they leaned heavily on do-wop, soft rock and soul acts from the 50s and early 60s. This time, though, they moved forward in time. Billy Joel. Willie Nelson. Neil Dimond. Dolly Parton. Woodstock. Prince. David Bowie. The Stones. Fleetwood Mac. Tina Turner. Acts I heard the first time around.

The good news: lots of good music. The bad: yep. Old, old, old.

+ one letter.

I was reading an article by Joanna Stern about using A.I. In it, she mentioned using it 'on the roads.' My brain immediately cued Willie's classic, but then hit pause when it realized that Joanna said 'roads.'

It's interesting how much difference a letter can make. In Willie's telling, he's on a single, determined path, moving toward a specific destination. We probably think of our lives that way—a single continuous trail that we have determined, chosen and follow.

But Stern's phrase raises all sorts of interesting reinterpretations. Each one of us is on multiple paths, going in different directions, with different starting and stopping points, sometimes self-determined, sometimes imposed by family, work, faith, or a perceived need. Sometimes they run in parallel, sometimes overlapping, sometimes tangled, sometimes conflicting. Much messier, but depending upon your personality type, potentially much more interesting and a source of personal growth.

Gotta let you know.

A group of academics are writing an open source American history book called The American Yawp. The little bit I've read so far is clear, balanced, and well written, easily accessible to your average high-school student or someone who needs a refresher in parts of American history.

What I found particularly interesting was their collection of contemporary (to the time) supplemental documents for each period covered. There are official documents, of course, but also poetry, literature, essays, and speeches. I've bookmarked it for those times (Sarcasm alert!) when I run out of things to read.

Warning to writers.

One of the documents included in The American Yawp Reader is Charlotte Perkins Gilman's Why I wrote 'The Yellow Wall Paper.' In it, she tells of her own near breakdown and how, as part of the cure, her doctor told her to never write again, which made her crazier. Just goes to show.

I wonder how many literary classics and other works of art have been lost to 'doctor's orders.'

A new model for endorsements?

Yahoo! reports Trump Endorses Missing N.J. Congressman Who Hasn't Been Seen in 3 Months.

Step 1: Find out who's been MIA the longest. Step 2: Endorse them.

Boy howdy, just imagine the endorsements Mitch McConnell would get if he was running.

Where do I sign up?

BBC reports on The people lost in addictive daydreams.

That sounds like fun. So I read a little, and 1. they make it sound like a bad thing (at least, 'maladaptive' gives that impression), and 2. I may have had them for a while now.

No mention of Walter Mitty.

Back in the day.

My brother-in-law called last Saturday morning. No reason—just catching up.

I know this is not why he called at that time, but it put me in mind of the special rates that long-distance calling companies offered in the 90s for 'off-peak' calling during nights and weekends.

It's not a big deal, but that's something you're not likely to see in those 'everyone did these 30 things in the 90s' posts on the intranet. Actually, long-distance calling companies probably won't make any lists either. Nor a practice called slamming.

Audience, people. Audience.

The noon news features a trivia question about weather or other vaguely meteorological matters.

Today's question, about where you would find 'cat clouds,' had three choices: in the mountains. the seashore. or the desert.

Unsurprisingly, the anchor got it wrong, as cat clouds are formed in the mountains, and the highest point in the Norfolk area is about 37 feet above sea level.

I think we were set up to fail.

I'm sure I could look it up, but...

Unbidden this morning, on his 5am run, my muse dropped the word 'Maidenhead' into my brain.

He can be a real S.O.B., my muse.

Anyway, I know that, in addition to referring to a woman who still has her virginity, Maidenhead is a town in England, but beyond that, I know nothing, including:

  • what a resident of Maidenhead is called. Maidenheadian? Maidenheader? Maidenheadite?
  • how the town acquired its name, and if it has a nickname.

I am naturally a curious person, but I think I've already expended enough brain power on Gabriel's little joke.

word of the week

pangolin

poetry bonus! recent augie sez

Quoted.

Clutter...is really just procrastination. It is the physical manifestation of unmade choices.

--Jeff Goins

 

Bonus!

Back to school.

I'm sure that in some places, 'back to school' is old news, as students are already boarding yellow rat boxes for their five-day-a-week slog back to academe. For those places, like where I live, we're still a week out, and still looking at back-to-school sales, reminders, sales tax holidays, an so on.

But in spite of the common meme that kids hate school and dread going back, lots of kids actually like school and look forward to returning. Some like it because summer has totally bored out; others, because they get to see friends they haven't seen in three months; some (like me) because they like learning, are good at it, and as The Boss sang, 'that's where the fun is.'

In the meanwhile, we still have the advertisements and 'warnings' that the start of school approaches. We were fortunate that most of the preliminary hoopla this year waited until August to ramp up, somewhat unusual in a culture where I expect to see Halloween candy on shelves on my next visit to the store.

But the yelling and yammering is all still around us. Sales on everything, including couches and dining sets. Districts short of x bus drivers and y teachers. Reports of cameras to catch speeders in school zones. High school football practices. Collections of school supplies and even clothes for kids. One advertisement for a charity organization collecting school supplies showed a laughing child clutching school supplies with the tagline, Remember when you felt this way about school supplies?

I never felt that way about school supplies. Now textbooks, that was my thing.

Through grade school, I never knew where the textbooks came from. I'm presuming now the school got them, and our parents paid for them, and they got to us somehow. I remember my first grade teacher suggesting to my parents that they acquire the extra-curricular Reading with phonics book for me (although I don't remember if that was during the period that Sr. Mary Martha assigned me, who was reading at a fourth grade level, to the Bluebirds, the group with the 'starter readers,' but then later forgot why she put me in the B.B.s). Logistics didn't matter—once the new books hit my hands, I was just too enthused about the source of the new reading matter. For all I knew or cared, they could have been spit from the very bowels of hell itself.

Sometime in third or fourth grade, there was a big push to put covers on the books. Directions were distributed, showing how to cut, fold, and tape the covers. Some girls in my class found (or had their parents buy) pieces of wallpaper or wrapping paper to make festive covers for their textbooks.

Most kids, though, especially the boys, went with the traditional brown paper grocery store bags to make covers. The only question was that if the bags that had grocery store logos on them whether the logo should show or not. The consensus was that unless your family owned the store, no.

I was resistant to any book covering. I took very good care of my books (and still do. Sometimes my wife will borrow a book and ask if I've read it, as there are no marks on it. Yes I have–but very carefully). Why mark up a good friend, make it hide its face in a brown paper bag like it's a New York Jets fan, and erase a distinguishing mark that showed us as a higher lifeform compared to the sniveling toddlers in second grade (Oh. I see you're still doing just addition and subtraction. Hang in there, kid. Someday you'll advance to multiplication and division, if you're lucky.).

My mom, probably under pressure from the powers that be, suggested I put covers on my books. I explained in a series of cogent, well-organized arguments, why my books should remain free of brown paper.

That night, I found myself at the kitchen table after dinner, my textbooks lined up, a stack of brown paper bags, scissors, and tape at the ready. When I was done, my mom suggested putting my name and the book's name on the paper. I agreed to my name, but didn't need the book name. The cover might be hidden, but I still knew what was under the brown paper.

The next morning, the names of the books had been added to the new covers. I guess that was alright—her handwriting was better anyway. Not much I could do about it then.

Anyway, I survived, thrived, even. Still reading, still love playing with words.