I miss our old futurists

Posted on June 5, 2022 by ksedinger

UPDATED below.

I saw these two tweets the other day, in reaction to Elon Musk’s widely publicized dictum that his employees have to put in their 40 hours a week at the office, no ifs ands or buts, no refunds returns or exchanges, that’s just the way it is, because something something gazpacho:

https://twitter.com/LouisatheLast/status/1532791845322883073

https://twitter.com/LouisatheLast/status/1532792510015320067

I like it when someone comes along and succinctly says something that I’ve been struggling to crystalize in my own mind. Elon Musk is largely feted because he’s apparently a vanguard of our wonderful future…or, at least, that’s the pleasant veneer that has been applied to him. But when you really get down to it, that’s not at all what he is. He’s just a rich capitalist with a shiny thing to sell. That’s it. That’s all he is, all he ever was. He stands on the shoulders of giants and with his piles of money convinces millions that he got there by virtue of some special genius unique to him.

But then he says stuff about his businesses and how he wants his employees to behave and be forced to work, and you get a glimpse under the hood. And you realize there’s nothing new there at all: he’s nothing more than a railroad tycoon, maintaining absolute control over his giant well-moneyed empire.

Elon Musk is no futurist. He has said nothing about improving the human condition in any way other than the same old idea that rich people should just be allowed to keep doing rich people things, that humanity is best served by letting rich people prosper and that their underlings should be happy to work, work, work for the greater glory of The Company and the CEO.

Elon Musk’s future is pretty much the same as the world we’re in now, only with different insignias in chrome on the backs of the cars. It’s a world where the pursuit of wealth is the paramount human concern, where the entire economy is propped up on the illusion of work as the paramount function of the individual, where life must be earned through work. There is nothing new under the sun in Elon Musk’s worldview. Nothing at all.

We need better futurists.

UPDATE: I wrote this post yesterday and scheduled it for this morning. Then, I see this:

The way Elon Musk wildly vacillates between “Rich Capitalist Overlord Who Demands Loyalty And Labor From His Underlings” and “Aging Stoner Using Star Trek Action Figures To Play-act His Future Visio” really ought to give more of us pause….

 

Posted in Commentary | Tagged | 1 Comment

Ryan Fitzpatrick for the HOF!!!

Posted on June 4, 2022 by ksedinger

NFL quarterback Ryan Fitzpatrick has announced his retirement after a 17-year career. Fitzpatrick was drafted in the 7th round of the 2005 by the Rams, while they were still in St. Louis, after playing college ball at Harvard. He then proceeded to play for nine teams, occasionally being the starter and sometimes having some astonishing games in both directions. He was never a winner–his record is an unimpressive 59-87-1–but strangely, he was.

Ryan Fitzpatrick was one of those quarterbacks who always knew what he wanted to do in any situation, and he always had the confidence to try to do it. He was never once a guy who shrank from the moment. But sadly, he was also a guy who often didn’t have the physical skills–either the arm strength or the speed or the dead accuracy–to make it happen, so the results would sometimes be very, very bad.

With Ryan Fitzpatrick playing, you knew there was potential on every play for something worthy of a highlight reel to happen. Problem was, it could be his team’s highlight reel, or the opponent’s. He might have been a winner someplace, had he landed with a team with a historically good defense–think Jim McMahon or Trent Dilfer–but he also always provided strong leadership and a good presence for the fans. Ryan Fitzpatrick was never great, and everywhere he landed he was generally viewed as the placeholder until the team, whichever team it was, could draft the “Franchise Quarterback”.

That never stopped him, though. Never once did Ryan Fitzpatrick’s confidence flag or falter. Late in his career he played for Tampa Bay (before that team made its own deal with the devil), and he would appear at postgame pressers like this:

Now performing “More Than a Woman”, we have….

But he was also absolutely beloved every single place he went. Nobody ever hated him, and it shows in how he remains beloved in every place he went, after he left. Just this past offseason, Ryan Fitzpatrick attended a playoff game for a team that wasn’t even his, and he took his shirt-off in sub-zero temperatures to cheer the home team, because he had actually played for that particular team ten years prior.

This happened here. Ryan Fitzpatrick played four years with the Bills ten years ago before moving on, and this past year he was with the Washington Football Team…and yet, there he was when the Bills played the Patriots in the wildcard round, shirtless and exuberant:

He never won here, but he did beat Tom Brady’s Patriots here one time, snapping a losing streak to that team that felt like it started in 1938. He had huge plays, and gigantic gaffes. And yet he was beloved, because of stuff like this. He remains beloved, because of stuff like this.

Which is why I think he should be in the Hall of Fame.

I’m being kind-of serious here. I know, I know: the Hall is meant for indisputably great players, and there are statistical thresholds one expects of players in the Hall. And I know, because Fitzpatrick’s stats are hardly gaudy, he’ll never get there. But I submit that it’s the Hall of Fame, not the Hall of Stats. The Hall of Fame does not exist merely to honor numerical excellence. I’m a storyteller, and stories are why I love the Hall of Fame–in fact, stories are what I love most about sports in general. Who doesn’t love sitting with friends around a beer or two, swapping stories about great games and great players or even players who weren’t so great but had some great moments?

We don’t love sports because of stats. Stats help and they’re fun in themselves, but stats aren’t what connect us to sports at the most basic level. Stories are why we connect with sports: stories that we can share, stories that we recall collectively, stories that bind us together in fandom either in love for this team or, yes, hatred for that team or player, the one that always drives in the knife.

I submit that sport is more about story than it has ever been about statistic, and on that basis, I have to say that Ryan Fitzpatrick belongs in the Hall of Fame, because…well, anyone who ever watched him play will have a twinkle in their eye and a knowing smile as they remember his exploits. Sport is compelling because of its stories: its good stories and its happy stories and also its terrible stories, its tragic stories, its sad stories. Numbers are great and important and even essential, but there’s a reason nobody sits around the bar or the campfire with a beer in their hand swapping yarns about the time that one banker did something. There’s no stories in that.

Ryan Fitzpatrick was a great story. There are guys with Hall-worthy stats whom fewer and fewer people will ever talk about again, but I guarantee people will be talking about Ryan Fitzpatrick for a long, long, long time.

That’s a Hall of Famer, in my book.

(I was hoping the Bills would bring Fitz back here for just one season, as Josh Allen’s backup. To see him come back here and maybe get a ring? That would have given his story the sheen of fairy tale, wouldn’t it?)

(And yes, by my definition, my Hall of Fame would have to include Tom Brady. But my Hall of Fame would have a Wing of Pure Evil….)

Posted in Commentary, On Sport | Tagged | Comments Off on Ryan Fitzpatrick for the HOF!!!

Bad Joke Friday: THE RETURN!!!

Posted on June 3, 2022 by ksedinger

I used to run this weekly (kinda-sorta, you have to be patient with me when it comes to “weekly” features) item in the old days of Byzantium’s Shores, and as The Daughter texted me this one just an hour or so ago while she was on break at work, I figured, why not share it here? So:

There is a criminal on the loose stealing wheels from police cars.

The cops are working tirelessly to catch them.

badumm-tss

Posted in On Things I Find Funny | Tagged | 1 Comment

Something for Thursday

Posted on June 2, 2022 by ksedinger

Returning to our mini-series of Conversation Songs, where each song’s lyrics give one side of a conversation and leaves the other side un-heard, we have an appearance by Bob Dylan.

“Positively 4th Street” has nothing to do with 4th Street, anywhere at all, judging by its lyrics. And it’s not exactly positive, either; in fact, Dylan’s lyrics are angry and accusatory. The singer is calling out a one-time friend for betrayal, for letting the singer down, for not being there. But he does it in an oddly upbeat melody and tone that just repeat, over and over, with no variation. It’s a very strange song, pairing lyrical bitterness with upbeat-sounding music. Is Dylan mocking the way we often mask our relations with people we dislike in generic niceties and false pleasantry? Maybe. Maybe this is the case of when you run into someone you dislike but for whatever reason you have to play nice–so while you’re being outwardly nice, you’re really thinking, as Dylan sings, “What a drag it is to see you.”

 

Posted in music | Tagged | Comments Off on Something for Thursday

“My thoughts, I confess, verge on dirty….”

Posted on June 1, 2022 by ksedinger

Dexys Midnight Runners. I cannot decide if they helped or hurt the cause of overalls.

Earlier I saw, somewhere online, a note that the song “Come On Eileen”, by Dexys Midnight Runners, was released 40 years ago this week. That’s…wow, that’s really something. I honestly don’t recall when I first heard the song, as I didn’t really start paying attention to pop music until several years after that, and even at that point I wasn’t much of a radio listener: albums and MTV were my avenue towards music, and even at that point, while MTV was still showing music videos, the older stuff–songs that had been off the charts for a while–were simply gone from their rotations, only popping up on “retro” days like MTV’s anniversary and that sort of thing.

“Come On Eileen” is often cited as a “one hit wonder” phenomenon, which like in many cases is only true if you consider US success. The band had more success in the UK, and stuck around for a little while; they produced enough albums and had enough body of work to produce a Greatest Hits album. I remember seeing that CD in the bins at Media Play once, in the early 90s, and it struck me as weird that they had a Greatest HitS album, which is when I learned that you can be a very successful band and not be big in the US. (See also: a-ha.)

As for “Come On Eileen” itself, it’s a strange kind of song, to be sure! It starts with a brief violin solo before the beat kicks in, and then the lyrics kick in. Singer Kevin Rowland sings with a lovely British baritone in a way that combines infectious exuberance with unintelligibility. I mean, really: I defy anyone to understand the words to this song the first time through. It’s one of those classic songs that makes me thankful for living in an era when I can Google the words. And then there’s the way the song blends several different styles in one, starting with a kind of retro folk-rock before breaking into the chorus, which is markedly different stylistically; it has an entirely different beat and nothing in the verses tells us anything about the Eileen of the title. I mean, we have the singer referring to Johnnie Ray and how popular he was, but now we’re hearing about Eileen and how she makes the singer all horny and stuff. This should not work, and yet, as both sections are cheery and upbeat, somehow this stuck-together-with-scotch-tape song works.

And then there’s the song’s video, which does the same thing! A black-and-white section at the beginning, set in the 50s–using footage of singer Johnnie Ray disembarking a plane while fans go crazy–contrasts with our mid-section, in which the band is performing on some London streetcorner. It’s all really weird, and honestly, this song and video shouldn’t really work, except for the fact that the constituent parts within work perfectly–so perfectly that the song has endured for forty years.

Of course, anyone familiar with the video will see a particular significance to me. I don’t know why this is the Official 80s Anthem Of Overalls; lots of bands can be seen rocking overalls in their videos from the era! And yet–maybe it’s because this is the only Dexys Midnight Runners song to endure in American consciousness–this is the one. Mention it and someone will usually say something like “Hey, that’s the band in the too-big overalls!” And yes, it is. I’ll be honest here: from the way they’re styled in this video, “Come On Eileen” does not exactly make the best case for overalls as a sartorial choice.

But anyway, I will admit to liking “Come On Eileen” a great deal. If we who rock overalls have to have an 80s New Wave rock anthem, we could do a lot worse!

See the official video here. (The video is not able to be embedded.) Meanwhile, you can listen to the song right here!

Damn…forty years of “Come On Eileen”. That’s wild!

 

 

Posted in music, On Bib Overalls | Tagged , | Comments Off on “My thoughts, I confess, verge on dirty….”

From the Books: “Measure Twice, Cut Once”

Posted on June 1, 2022 by ksedinger

I saw a news item the other day that carpenter Norm Abram is retiring from his decades-long job on the teevee show This Old House, which he has been on for over 40 years. I haven’t watched a lot of This Old House, but I have caught it now and then, and it’s always an enjoyable show from which I learn things when I do catch it.

Abram is also an author, and one of his books is a favorite of mine: Measure Twice, Cut Once: Lessons from a Master Carpenter. This small, short book is just what the subtitle says: a series of practical lessons from a person who has been practicing their particular trade for many years. Abram doesn’t go in for a lot of preachy “what it all means” motivational stuff in this book (with a couple of exceptions); he just writes clearly and succinctly about tools and their use and how to approach jobs. This is not an “intro to carpentry” book, but rather the kind of thing you might want to read if you know your way around a toolbox but don’t feel like you know your way around a toolbox, know what I mean?

Toolboxes

Working with my father, I didn’t have a toolbox of my own at first. He had plenty of tools, and I borrowed what I needed. Leather toolbelts hadn’t yet come into fashion; when they did, I was an early convert. My dad never wore a toolbelt. He wore bibbed overalls with loops and pockets for various hand tools sewn on them. He wore them over his work clothes all year, even, to my astonishment, in the worst heat of summer. I wore a cloth nail apron and carried the tools I needed at the moment until I graduated to my own toolbox and leather toolbelt.

There are several kinds of toolboxes, each with advantages and disadvantages. Some carpenters carry triangular wood boxes with pole handles but no covers. These days, I often see carpenters lugging around five-gallon drywall compound buckets with drop-in dividers with slots for tools. They’re not very elegant, but every tool is visible and easily reached. There is almost no stacking, which leads to pawing through layers to uncover the desired tool.

My dad carried a metal carpenter’s box with square corners. Its hinged cover swung open to reveal a shallow removable tray sitting over a larger storage compartment. His toolbox was long enough that a 28-inch level could be stored on the underside of the vocer. A level is delicate and doesn’t benefit from being stacked with other tools inside the box. The level fit over two blocks of wood that were secured to the cover with screws; it was then held firmly in place with homemade metal clips. The tray had limited space for smaller items, such as nail sets, a chalk line, pencils and other marking tools, a plumb bob, and drill bits, which we put in an old metal bandage container.

Measure Twice, Cut Once, but Don’t Measure At All If You Can Avoid It

Never measure unless you have no choice. Instead, base your marking and cutting on the actual situation. For example, I would never measure an exterior wall for a piece of siding, then go off and measure a length, cut it, and bring it back to install. It doesn’t matter how long the siding needs to be: I hold up a length where I intend to install it and mark it in place for cutting. It’s the actual length that’s important, not the numerical symbols on my tape measure.

Tape measures vary. The longer they’re used, the more they stretch. The hook at the end gets gummer up or bent enough to cause slight variations in readings. I don’t assume that my own tape is perfect. If I’m working along, I know that all the measurements are taken from my own tape and therefore profide uniform variations from a true standard. But if I’m working with other carpenters and each of us uses his own tape, with a unique variation from true, the consequences take on real importance. I’ve often seen carpenters argue at a lumber pile about whether a piece was cut to the right length, only to find out that their tapes were not equal.

The Right Way

I saw a funny movie recently about a carpenter and his three sons. The father, who had just died, spoke some of his best lines form his coffin. For instance: “There’s only two ways to do things. There’s the right way and there’s my way. And they’re the same way!” The line reminded me of my somewhat autocratic grandfather. He was a supervisor in a woolen mill, but he knew carpentry and performed it well. In his generation, the family was large and close, but my grandfather was boss and no one dared disagree with him. My dad, on the other hand, never said or implied that his way was the right way. But since he hadn’t come from a tradition of open discussion, he and I didn’t talk about carpentry as much, looking back, as I wish we had.

…

In my generation, technology has changed many hand tools and introduced the power tools that have largely superseded some of them. Yet many aspects of carpentry are very much as they were in my father’s day or in my grandfather’s. Even if the tool has evolved, the method is the same. There are many situations in which nothing works as well as a hammer and a chisel. I can’t imagine technology reaching the point where there would be no need for the deceptively simple technique of scribing.

What has declined from my dad’s generation to mine is the prevailing standard of skill in carpentry. My father could do many things by hand that I’ve never practiced enough to do, such as ripping a long board by hand in an admirably straight line. Recently I helped renovate an old house in Salem, Massachusetts. A number of handsome frame houses in Salem’s historic district have overlapping clapboards on their sides and backs; the facades, however, are made of very long boards butted square against each other to make a flat surface. An overlapping clapboard can be less than perfectly straight, but there can’t be much divergence when the boards are butted. In Salem, many facades reveal an excellent fit everywhere in long boards sawn and planed two centuries ago–by hand.

Carpentry was once a classic trade in the sense that techniques were treated as secrets to be revealed only to the chosen few, handed down from one generation to the next. Much of my time during the past two decades has been spent demystifying the skills of carpentry and woodworking so that any interested person can acquire the tools, learn the techniques, and practice them to a desired level of skill. Hence this book. It will discuss the contents of the ideal toolbox of today, not the tools that sufficed for my father’s superior carpentry. But as I describe hand tools and offer tips on techniques I’ve adopted, I never forget that much of what I know and practice was handed down to me from my dad and others of his and earlier generations. I hope these lessons will give you the confidence to use more tools, to augment your toolbox and workshop, and to share your experience and wisdom with others.

I find that I tend to respond most positively to people who view knowledge as something to be shared widely and often. Carl Sagan, Norm Abram, Anthony Bourdain…these kinds of people are the guiding lights of my world.

Posted in On Books | Tagged , | 1 Comment

Tone Poem Tuesday

Posted on May 31, 2022 by ksedinger

Mieczysław Karłowicz was a Polish composer who was just coming into his own, and who might well have become that nation’s greatest composer, when he was killed in an avalanche while skiing when he was just 32. He did not leave behind a particularly large body of work, but what remains is nevertheless fascinating post-Romantic writing, lush and evocative, almost impressionistic in its tone coloring. This work, “Returning Waves”, was apparently inspired by a trip Karłowicz took to the sea. A YouTube commenter provides this quote, apparently from Karłowicz’s journal:

“We sat on a rock jutted out into the sea, which was boiling. It clung to the rocks, and anger was accompanied by a roar that made a thunderous noise. The rocks were dripping from the receding waves, and when the sun came out for a moment, the whole battlefield was cleared up with white spots like snow, and the green water flashed like glass.”

I can’t vouch for the accuracy of this–information on this particular work is hard to find online–but it definitely seems to fit the piece’s general mood. This is earthy, naturalistic music that puts me in mind of other post-Romantic composers like Arnold Bax.

Here is “Returning Waves” by Mieczysław Karłowicz.

(I just did a quick search to see if I’ve mentioned him before, and it turns out that Mieczysław Karłowicz was actually the composer I featured on the very first Tone Poem Tuesday I ever did, back in 2016! How time goes by….)

Posted in music | Tagged | Comments Off on Tone Poem Tuesday

On Memorial Day (an annual repost)

Posted on May 30, 2022 by ksedinger
Here is my annual reposting of some things that pertain to Memorial Day. This particular year’s iteration of this day gives me pause to consider my sense that many of the things for which the men and women we honor today fought and died may be slowly, or quickly, passing into memory. I hope not….
 
First, a remembrance of a soldier I never knew.

Fifteen years ago I wrote the following on Memorial Day, and I wanted to revisit it. It’s about the Vietnam Veteran whose name I remember, despite the fact that I had no relation to him and clearly never knew him, because he was killed four years before I was born.

Memorial Day, for all its solemnity, has for me always been something of a distant holiday, because no one close to me has ever fallen in war, and in fact I have to look pretty far for relatives who have even served in wartime. Both of my grandfathers fought in World War I, but both had been dead for years when I was born. I know that an uncle of mine served during World War II, but I also know that he saw no action (not to belittle his service, but Memorial Day is generally set aside to remember those who paid the “last full price of devotion”). My father-in-law served in Viet Nam, but my own father did not (he had college deferments for the first half of the war, and was above draft age during the second). So there is little in my family history to personalize Memorial Day; for me, it really is a day to remember “all the men and women who have died in service to the United States”.

One personal remembrance, though, does creep up for me each Memorial Day. It has nothing at all to do with my family; in fact, I have no connection with the young man in question.

When I was in grade school, during the fall and spring, when the weather was nice, we would have gym class outdoors, at the athletic field. On good days we’d play softball or flag football or soccer; on not-so-good days we’d run around the quarter-mile track. But the walk to the athletic field involved crossing the street in front of the school and walking a tenth of a mile or so down the street, past the town cemetery. I remember that at the corner of the cemetery we passed, behind the wrought-iron fence, the grave of a man named Larry Havers was visible. His stone was decorated with a photograph of him, in military uniform. I don’t recall what branch in which he served, nor do I recall his date-of-birth as given on the stone, but I do recall the year of his death: 1967. I even think the stone specified the specific battle in which he was killed in action, but I’m not sure about that, either.

That’s what I remember each Memorial Day: the grave of a man I never knew, who died four years before I was born in a place across the world to which I doubt I’ll ever go. And in the absence of anyone from my own family, Mr. Havers’s name will probably be the one I look for if I ever visit that memorial in Washington. I hope his family wouldn’t mind.

I looked online and found these images, first of Mr. Havers’s obituary and then of Mr. Havers himself. The things you remember. I wonder what kind of man he was. He has been gone for more than half a century. His name is not forgotten.

 

Mr. Havers’s service information can be found on the Virtual Vietnam Wall here. He was born 14 October 1946 and died 29 October 1967, in Thua Thien.

Next, my annual repost for Memorial Day.
 

Tomb of Unknown Soldier

 

Know, all who see these lines,
That this man, by his appetite for honor,
By his steadfastness,
By his love for his country,
By his courage,
Was one of the miracles of the God.
— Guy Gavriel Kay

“The Green Field of France”, by Eric Bogle
Well, how do you do, young Willie McBride,
Do you mind if I sit down here by your graveside?
And rest for awhile ‘neath the warm summer sun,
I’ve been walking all day, and I’m nearly done.
I see by your gravestone you were only 19
When you joined the great fallen in 1916,
I hope you died quick and I hope you died clean
Or, Willie McBride, was it slow and obscene?

Did they Beat the drum slowly, did they play the fife lowly?
Did they sound the death-march as they lowered you down?
Did the band play The Last Post in chorus?
Did the pipes play the Flowers of the Forest?

Did you leave a wife or a sweetheart behind
In some faithful heart is your memory enshrined?
And, though you died back in 1916,
To that faithful heart are you forever 19?
Or are you a stranger without even a name,
Enshrined then, forever, behind a glass pane,
In an old photograph, torn and tattered and stained,
And faded to yellow in a brown leather frame?

Did they Beat the drum slowly, did they play the fife lowly?
Did they sound the death-march as they lowered you down?
Did the band play The Last Post in chorus?
Did the pipes play the Flowers of the Forest?

The sun’s shining down on these green fields of France;
The warm wind blows gently, and the red poppies dance.
The trenches have vanished long under the plow;
No gas and no barbed wire, no guns firing now.
But here in this graveyard that’s still No Man’s Land
The countless white crosses in stand mute in the sand
To man’s blind indifference to his fellow man,
And a whole generation who were butchered and damned.

Did they Beat the drum slowly, did they play the fife lowly?
Did they sound the death-march as they lowered you down?
Did the band play The Last Post in chorus?
Did the pipes play the Flowers of the Forest?

And I can’t help but wonder, no Willie McBride,
Do all those who lie here know why they died?
Did they really believe when they answered the call,
Did they really believe that this war would end wars?
Well the sorrow, the suffering, the glory, the pain
The killing and dying, was all done in vain,
For young Willie McBride, it all happened again,
And again, and again, and again, and again.

Did they Beat the drum slowly, did they play the fife lowly?
Did they sound the death-march as they lowered you down?
Did the band play The Last Post in chorus?
Did the pipes play the Flowers of the Forest?

Posted in Commentary | Tagged | Comments Off on On Memorial Day (an annual repost)

A Quiz!!!

Posted on May 29, 2022 by ksedinger

Yup, it’s time to steal another quiz from Roger! Huzzah!

1. Who was the last attractive person you saw?

The Wife, obviously! As if there’d be any other answer!

2. Do you have a tattoo? If not, are you going to get one?

I do not, and I have no current plans to get one, though I don’t rule it out completely, either. It’s not really a “bucket list” item, though I have occasionally thought that having a dodecahedron figure somewhere, maybe an arm or shoulder, would be cool given that shape’s prominence in my Forgotten Stars books. It would have to be visible to be any use, though, and I never go sleeveless.

3. Have you smoked a cigarette in the last 24 hours?

I have never smoked a cigarette at all, full stop. My only smoking experiences are the crappy cigars two or three guys gave out years ago when they found out they were baby-daddies.

4. Do you believe everyone deserves a second chance?

I’d like to believe this, but I’m not sure. (It also depends on what we’re talking about here…does a man who cheats on his wife deserve a second chance? Does the guy who is currently in the criminal justice system in Buffalo for shooting up a grocery store deserve one? I will say that I do not believe in the death penalty.

5. What is your favorite number?

No idea. I’m honestly kind of confused by the idea of a favorite number. Nine, maybe? I dunno.

6. What time did you go to sleep last night?

I’m not sure; the bedroom’s clock is on The Wife’s side of the bed, so I have to lift my head to see what time it is, and I didn’t bother last night at sleep time. But I’m sure it was later than I would have liked, because Guy Gavriel Kay’s new novel came out last week and I’m now reading it.

7. Are you one of those people that always answer their phones?

Absolutely not. I’ll answer The Wife and The Daughter, and my parents and sister, if they call, but I have long long LONG since rejected the idea that a ringing phone is something that automatically gets my immediate attention. This sometimes gets me the stinkeye at work, but really, when did we decide that we MUST answer a ringing phone? People say with great indignance, “You didn’t answer my call!” My general response is something along the lines of “I was not in a position to answer a phone call,” for whatever reason. (This is often true.)

But when some push the idea–and there are folks out there who cannot comprehend the notion of not answering a ringing phone at all–I will sometimes say something along the lines of, “What makes you think that the fact that you are in possession of a phone gives you the right to appoint yourself as my highest priority at any time you wish?” This usually results in sputtering indignance, but when you insist that someone is required to answer the phone when you call, that is exactly what you are saying: “I expect you to drop whatever you are doing, no matter what it is, to talk to me when I decide that I need to talk to you.”

Yeah, no.

8. If you died today would your life be complete?

Sheesh, talk about whiplash: from answering the phone to “If you died right now….”! I’d guess, no? My books aren’t done and I want a lot more years with The Wife than the 25 I’ve already had. I’m selfish.

9. If you are being extremely quiet, what does that mean?

Most likely I’m into what I’m writing or reading. Also, check my ears: I may have my earbuds in and am cheerfully listening away to something.

10. Do you know what high school your dad went to?

Huh. I do not! It’s in Pittsburgh.

11. Last time you had butterflies in your stomach?

Probably my last doctor appointment, because I’m at the stage in life where some numbers like to go up, up, up. Luckily, mine are either holding steady where they’re supposed to or they’re going down, like they’re supposed to. Yay, my numbers!

12. Where is your cell phone?

Right here on this table, next to my computer. I’m using it to listen to music, and it’s also doing its wifi-hotspot thing for my current laptop, which for some reason simply does not get along well with our house’s wifi router. (I actually don’t like this computer all that much and am constantly trying to decide how much longer I have to go until I can feel like replacing it wouldn’t just be a luxury purchase.)

By the way, overalls-wearers of the world, if you carry your phones in your bib pocket, how do you do that? I mean, not how, because it’s obvious, but I try it once in a while and that’s just a big hunk of plastic-and-metal to be weighing down the bib. Drives me crazy!

13. What is the nearest purple thing to you?

That is a surprisingly tough one to answer right now! I’m sitting on my deck and there’s nothing blatantly purple in my line of sight. Huh! I’m sure there’s something in the kitchen or in the laundry room that’s purple.

14. When did you last step outside? What were you doing?

To come out here! I’m sitting on the deck! First writing session outdoors in 2022! Huzzah!!

15. What is the last thing you watched on TV?

Actually on a teevee? Probably an episode of Jeopardy! that was on when we hung out with my parents one night last week. All of our “teevee watching” happens on my laptop, via streaming. We have a bed desk that I bought when The Wife has laid up after a procedure last year, and that’s what we use for the computer while we watch things. The last thing we watched at all was a movie called Self/less, which we watched just last night. (It’s a sci-fi thriller starring Ryan Reynolds and others. Not a bad movie, with one of the more satisfying “Bad guy gets his in the end” moments I’ve seen of late.)

I guess that’s it. Time to write in the novel, I guess.

 

Posted in Life | Tagged | 1 Comment

Also, this.

Posted on May 28, 2022 by ksedinger

Here’s something in the “You learn something new every day!” Department: there is a Chinese reed instrument called the Sheng, which involves several upright pipes in a nifty kind of cross between an oboe and a calliope.

Here a sheng player sets up camp in a public place and plays music from the Mario Bros. videogames. The video includes nifty added animations based on gameplay, and it helps that our performer is dressed appropriately for playing Mario music.

Posted in music | Tagged , | Comments Off on Also, this.