Some Limerick Lit!

From naive point of view, namely Nick's

Hot shot Gatsby and crew get their kicks

But Nick is mistaken

Gatsby's nothin,  just fakin

and the rest of the bunch are all dicks

He was old, that old man of the sea

But his mind was as quick as can be

He thought of every cliché

As he pulled in his prey
Which got eaten by sharks, oh dear me.

 

There’s Anna and Vronsky and Kitty and Levin

Plus three dozen more 'fore you get to page seven

But just like the soaps

It’s all sex, dough and dopes

And nothing is ever forgiven

"Call me Ishmael "  he begins with great pride

then boards the Pequod for a wet wild ride

Capt. Ahab chases blubber

as we learn bout oil and rubber
And from fate you can run, but not hide. 

Poor Portnoy was raised to excel
but for Shiksas he constantly fell
haunted by his inner demon
he can only spill his semen
with girls who make life a pure hell

Imagine Joe Stalin as a Pig
taking power on the farm-- Mr.Big
With Snowball as his Trotsky
And Squealer as a Nazi
And hip readers saying "Get it? Can you dig?" 

Personing, Placing and Thinging... 
I may not have colleged at an Ivy, but I know when I'm being jargoned-- so here's  a few more I'd like to have attentioned for garbaging.

We've got to better construction this.
We can action it in the morning.
They fanned them on Facebook.
Let's all headquarter at the Hotel.

Ok, you guys just go ahead, I think I'll take a few days off and beach. 


File under: Say what?

According to Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was not intended to protect against discrimination on the basis of gender or sexual orientation.

Specifically, he stated: 

"In 1868, when the 39th Congress was debating and ultimately proposing the 14th Amendment, I don't think anybody would have thought that equal protection applied to sex discrimination, or certainly not to sexual orientation..." 

and then added:

"If the current society wants to outlaw discrimination by sex, hey we have things called legislatures, and they enact things called laws. You don't need a constitution to keep things up-to-date. All you need is a legislature and a ballot box..."

...and he still wasn't done: 

"... Certainly the Constitution does not require discrimination on the basis of sex. The only issue is whether it prohibits it. It doesn't."

Either I'm missing something, or the undistinguished be-robed  bully has lost his last marble. Intended or not, the 14th amendment does protect against discrimination on the basis of gender or sexual orientation by virtue of specifically excluding no one.  And how does Scalia know what they were thinking back then?  Were there no homosexuals then?  Were there no women? 

The 14th Amendment's equal protection clause 
states: "No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."

I'm no constitutional scholar, but that looks to me like everyone's equally protected except non-citizens.  Scalia has called himself a "faint hearted originalist" (as opposed to a stout hearted Borkian?) which brings me back to the top of this post and has me wondering if it's time for the guy to consider actioning his retirement option.  E.J. Dione of the Times thinks so and demanded that he resign saying  (in the context of Scalia's even more bewildering dissent in the case of Arizona's attempt to enforce unconstitutional anti-immigration law)  "  ...he is perfectly free as a citizen to join the political fray and take on the president.  But he cannot be a blatantly political actor and a justice at the same time."



File under:  Sour Grapes

Recently learned that AMC is producing a series about Washington's Spy Ring ( Based on Alexander Rose book on right) during the American Revolution.  I wrote (and pitched to one studio) a proposal for such a series 25 years ago before I abandoned my dreams of historical fiction glory to ply my trade as a Mad Man.  Not that I would have ever resurrected the project, but can't say that I don't feel ripped off.  On the other hand, I'm real curious to see what they do with it.  It's a helluva saga teeming with great plot twists and turns, suspense, action, human drama and always been surprised no one had picked up on it... till now.  So I'm kinda glad in a way that it's gonna get done, and it's the same team that made Breaking Bad, and I hear that's a great show.

File Under:  Thane Strikes Again

Another most stimulating evening last night with the ever passionate, persuasive scholar and gentleman Thane Rosenbaum at the monthly meeting of the Men of a Certain Age Book group.  Discussed (among many other things) his latest book Payback: The Case for Revenge.  Rather than attempt to summarize here and fall short of  giving him the proper attention he deserves, I suggest you follow the link below and skip the middleman.  I'll just say that I consider Thane a major figure in contemporary culture and a true philosopher prince-- with a humanist perspective that is as insightful and valuable as anyone writing today.  And because he is both a novelist and disciplined non-fiction essayist, he is able to combine his two great gifts: an informed real world clarity of vision and a rich and fertile imagination.  Together they synthesize to articulate a worldview of provocative depth.

Go to:  http://www.thanerosenbaum.com  

It's just your opinion man...

All on one night and All for $2.25.  

...but it's also my blog-- so I'm gonna indulge myself and continue on to celebrate  some soul brothers (and sister) who...

...unlike some of the names on the poster (left) never came to enjoy as large a following, and hence my eagerness to pay tribute. 

B. Traven. Author of  The Treasure of the Sierra Madre and  The Death Ship.  Both masterpieces. The Mexican Jungle books ain't chopped liver either. And his personal history is about as strange a mystery as anything ever dreamed up in fiction.
                                                                 “Anyone who is willing to work and is serious about it will certainly find a job. Only you must not go to the man who tells you this, for he has no job to offer and doesn't know anyone who knows of a vacancy. This is exactly the reason why he gives you such generous advice, out of brotherly love, and to demonstrate how little he knows the world.” 

― B. Traven, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre

Benny Carter. "You got Duke Ellington, Count Basie, and my man, the Earl of Hines, right?  Well, Benny's right up there with all of them cats. Everybody who knows who he is calls him King--he is a King!"  ---Louis Armstrong.
                                       
Was recently listening to one of Benny's early versions of I Can't Get Started (Vernon Duke & Ira Gershwin) and whew...it's what dreams are made of. 

Cornell Woolrich.  (Also wrote as William Irish) Not everyone's cup of tea cause few like it that strong and bitter, but for the hard core  Noir fan, nobody did the inner demons of desperate measures better.  Best known for Rear Window  (Hitchcock watered it down) and The Bride Wore Black, but lesser known titles like Fright and one on the right surpass those.

"Just two more people sharing a common human experience. Infinite in its complexity, tricky at times, but almost always successfully surmounted in one of two ways: either blandly content with the results as they are, or else vaguely discontent but chained by habit. Most women don't marry a man, they marry a habit. Even when a habit is good, it can become monotonous; most do."  -- Cornell Woolrich Angels of Darkness

Preston Sturges.  Okay, he's far from obscure or forgotten by those in the know, but how many know?  Sturges is the screwball comedy master.  Literate, witty, smart social satire plots that surprise with characters that delight-- he blended them all. He wrote and directed all his best films, and therein lies the key (see Woody Allen, Coen Bros., Albert Brooks, Tina Fey, Trey Parker & Matt Stone, Billy Wilder) that makes all the difference. Top of the list: The Great McGinty, The Lady Eve,  Sullivan's Travels  The Palm Beach Story , The Miracle of Morgan's Creek , Hail the Conquering  Hero.  “THE POLITICIAN If it wasn't for graft, you'd get a very low type of people in politics. Men without ambition.  Jellyfish! CATHERINE Especially since you can't rob the people anyway. THE POLITICIAN Sure...How was that? CATHERINE What you rob, you spend. And what you spend goes back to the people. So where's the  robbery?  I read that in one of my father's books. THE POLITICIAN That book should be in every home!”
---The Great McGinty "I just play to the goddess of music-and I know she's dancing." Taj Mahal.  For a short spell there in the 70's, it looked like he was the one who would keep us funky and real for years to come.  And he did, but he remained on the fringes and moved to Hawaii for a while to re-charge after too many years fighting labels and labelers. But he's back, still doing his gravel voiced (but like Satchmo, oh so musical) down and dirty groovin with that syncopated home-cooked gumbo cooked up from every rhythm driven style on the planet. Steps Ahead (The Original) Last is this album with five peerless masters weaving a dazzling sonic quilt. Go to Amazon to see what the crowd thinks (5 stars from all but one) --but sadly, it's a small crowd and album is only available now as an import- but maybe you can find elsewhere for downloading.  I can listen to this every day (which I did when it first came out) and be enthused anew every time. Brecker, Erskine, Gomez, Manieri and (drum roll please) INTRODUCING ELIANE ELIAS.  Two tracks in particular: Islands and Pools--latter penned by the late great Don Grolnick. Here they are playing Islands that begins with some (goofy?) B'Roll footage of museum sightseeing in Copenhagen (as tune plays) where this was shot live in 1983.  This  is what my son Will used to call "smile" music.  Gomez and Erskine lay down the latin spiced groove while arpeggiating angel Elias and masterful Manieri explore all the melodic side streets and Brecker lays back just covering the head. Play it loud!

Wanna take The Proust Questionnaire?

(...assuming you have absolutely nothing whatsoever better to do with your time)

From Wikipedia:  

At the end of the nineteenth century, when Proust was still in his teens, he answered a questionnaire in an English-language confession album belonging to his friend Antoinette, daughter of future French President Félix Faure, entitled "An Album to Record Thoughts, Feelings, etc."

Since I had nothing else today and came across a piece online that featured the questionnaire as it has been adapted in a regular series for Vanity Fair, I thought this might provide some diversion before going on Memorial Weekend Hiatus.  

Below is (some of) the Questionnaire Proust filled out at age 20 with answer field for your own response should you care to copy and paste and  show your grandchildren when they express doubt that you were ever smart and interesting. 

        Your most marked characteristic?

Proust: A craving to be loved, or, to be more precise, to be caressed and spoiled rather than to be admired
Your answer: 
What do you most value in your friends?

Proust: Tenderness - provided they possess a physical charm which makes their tenderness worth having
Your answer: 
What is your principle defect?

Proust: Lack of understanding; weakness of will
Your answer: 
What to your mind would be the greatest of misfortunes?

Proust: Never to have known my mother or my grandmother
Your answer: 
What would you like to be?

Proust: Myself - as those whom I admire would like me to be
Your answer: 
What is your favorite color?

Proust: Beauty lies not in colors but in their harmony
Your answer: 
What is it you most dislike?

Proust: My own worst qualities
Your answer: 
What natural gift would you most like to possess?

Proust: Will power and irresistible charm
Your answer: 
How would you like to die?

Proust: A better man than I am, and much beloved
Your answer: 
What is your present state of mind?

Proust: Annoyance at having to think about myself in order to answer these questions
Your answer: 
What is your motto?

Proust: I prefer not to say, for fear it might bring me bad luck.
Your answer: 

What a wuss huh? Many of young Marcel's more self-involved and self-regarding  answers (caressed, spoiled, irresistible charm ?) reminded me of why I abandoned all attempts to read his famous Magnum Opus since...

..Unlike Proust, we post-moderns rarely indulge in such sensitive earnestness...here in contrast are some of the responses provided by the anti-Proust--comedian/filmmaker Albert Brooks  

What is your idea of perfect happiness?
Not sure what happiness means. Need to look that up.

What is your greatest fear?
That three days before I die I’ll find out what happiness means.

Which historical figure do you most identify with?
Pete Best.

Which living person do you most admire?
You don’t know him.

What is the trait you most deplore in others?
Honesty from strangers.

What is your greatest extravagance?
Premium gas.

When and where were you happiest?                                                                                      
Again with the goddamn happiness.

What do you dislike most about your appearance?
From behind I look like a foreigner.

Which living person do you most despise?
Currently I work with him, so answering that could hurt business.

What do you consider your greatest achievement?
Climbing Mount Everest.

On what occasion do you lie?
When asked about my greatest achievement.

What is your current state of mind?
The prosecutor said it was sane.

What is your most treasured possession?
I own the No-Hope Diamond.

What do you most value in your friends?
That they dislike the same people I do.

Who is your favorite hero of fiction?                                                                                      
The second of the three little pigs. In normal usage his stick house should have been sufficient—he just happened to come across a once-in-a-lifetime event. The first pig was stupid; the third pig had obsessive-compulsive disorder.

It takes All Sorts (http://all-sorts.org) is the kind of site that copywriters love cause it saves them from having to think for themselves.  It's a collection of collective nouns that may or may not have found their way into the Oxford English Dictionary.  And the archive is huge because every minute or so, All Sorts searches Twitter for the hashtag #collectivenouns. And the stuff just keeps pouring in. 

Some are theirs, some are mine, but won't say which is which...

A__________of Mimes

A Fraid of Spiders

A Tautology of tautologists

A Barren of bloggers

A Knot of String Theorists

A Starve of Philosophers

A Shush of Librarians

A Whatever of Teens

A Boehner of Obstructionists

A Disgrace of Drones

A Wink of semicolons

An Axle of Potholes

A Newt of Sophists

A Qwerty of Typists

An Amalgam of Dentists

A few (belated) observations as Bockers bow out and I resume my regularly scheduled life...

"The Block" Destined to be replayed
ad nauseam for years to come. 

The paint in the NBA is too rough to ref. I don't see half the fouls they call (even in replays) and convinced all they can really do is try and prevent outbreak of total unrestrained punching, kicking and biting.

Frustrating trying to read all the tattoos. We should get slo-mo close-ups with enough time to read all the calligraphic text and symbolism.  I think we might gain some insight into the players by seeing what thoughts and images they choose to permanently affix to their skin.

You can't blame Carmelo. But you sorta can.

Pacer coach told team at halftime: "Enjoy the challenge".  Good advice.  No fear, no panic, cause hard work can be and should be fun. I like that guy. Go Pacers.  Beat the Heat.  

skeu·o·morph

[skyoo-uh-mawrf] 

noun

A skeuomorph is a physical ornament or design  made to resemble another material or technique. Examples include pottery embellished with imitation rivets or a software calendar application which displays the days  in imitation of a paper desk calendar.  

So,  by employing  the look and feel of an old  technology, we "friendly up" the new technology so it won't feel too alien (and unfriendly).  Nice example of how progress proceeds best when it proceeds incrementally and preserves some traditions at the same time. 
Couple of skeuomorphic suggestions:
Vintage alarm clock that lets you hit the top to turn it off.
Virtual Billfold/wallet  filled with all your credit cards and IDs so you can access all the numbers and info without having to get real thing.

Chances are both already exist, it's just we luddites who don't know about em. 

You Got to have Friends...

If you're a regular reader here, you already know about my nephew Gabe and his musical history.  If not, I won't give you a re-cap except to call your attention to his current activities--which center around the trio above, who are making their mark on the scene performing live and in the studio--with the latter represented by the above self-produced 6 track release.  And like all young performers with their eyes on the prize, they've got a web presence stocked with everything you want and need to join the revels.  Go forth and enjoy...they make artful and soulfully sweet sounds.  http://www.friendsoflolamusic.com

Correct me if I'm right...
...in 1996 AOL's rather simple-minded dirty-word filter prevented residents of several English towns and counties — among them Scunthorpe, Penistone, Lightwater and Middlesex — from creating accounts with AOL because it matched strings within the town names to "banned" words.  Thus, all such filtering fiascos have come to be known as Scunthorpe Problems.  It's also known as the "clbuttic" mistake. (more on that anon) 

And the digital theatre of the absurd continues as recently, a blogger had received a Nook and decided to purchase and read Tolstoy’s War and Peace ...

"As I was reading, I came across this sentence: “It was as if a light had been Nook'd in a carved and painted lantern….” Thinking this was simply a glitch in the software, I ignored the intrusive word and continued reading. Some pages later I encountered the rogue word again. With my third encounter I decided to retrieve my hard cover book and find the original (well, the translated) text.  For the sentence above I discovered this genuine translation: “It was as if a light had been kindled in a carved and painted lantern….”

During the conversion of the book to the Nook format, the publisher ran a search and replace for "Kindle"  and changed every one of them to the word or form of the word  Nook in the book.

Other examples From Wikipedia:

In June 2008, a news site run by the American Family Association censored an Associated Press article on sprinter Tyson Gay, replacing instances of “gay” with homosexual, thus rendering his name as “Tyson Homosexual”.

The word “ass” may be replaced by “butt”, resulting in “clbuttic” for “classic” and “buttbuttinate” for “assassinate”.

In December 2011, it was reported that software used by Virgin Media had filtered words including “Arsenal” (for “arse”), and “Canal” (for “anal”)

Courtesy of Julia Turner 

Cupertino Effect

Also known as "auto-correct errors", a Cupertino error occurs when your computer thinks it knows what you're trying to say better than you do. The name comes from an early spell checker program, which knew the word Cupertino - the Californian city where Apple has its headquarters - but not the word "cooperation". All the cooperations in a document might thus be automatically "corrected" into Cupertinos. 

Whatever...
....floats your boat,  turns you on, rocks your socks , stokes your fire, tickles your pickle... 

...are all well and good for those to whom it may concern--but some of us  could use a few alternative and apt variations that would speak to this particular moment in our lives-- so let's see if any of these sweeten your prune juice...

Whatever mends your meniscus
Whatever loosens your lumbar
Whatever lowers your LDL
Whatever lightens your luggage
Whatever drains your gutters
Whatever de-herniates your disc
Whatever seals your leaks
Whatever accelerates your Aleve
Whatever diminishes your diameter

Ring...ring...ring...ring....ring...ring...ring...

We're sorry, the number you have called is out of service...

but maybe with a little imagination we can bring you a different service...

It's a curbside Pub...with four legged Maitre D. 

A wi-fi hotspot.  That was a no-brainer.

Not too sure bout this one.

One of dozens of aquarium repurposings...but who's gonna feed em?

And at night, the aquarium supplements street lighting. 

Counter.  Intuitive. 

These too will soon be obsolete...so take a book and leave a book.

And a Leftover from my Pallet Post