We may have a new institution

Game night.
Last night friends came over to play Scrabble. Fun stuff. I didn’t even win and I still think it was fun. Aren’t I growing up? (Except for that last leading question of course. But feel free to pat me on the back with an affirmation.)
Which brings me to an observation about trading kid time for adult time. The adults were more immature, which is as it should be. Right?
We’re always trying to be what we’re not. The kids want to be responsible and to make decisions and we want to toss this to the wind. So while we wanted to go out for ice cream, the kids were working out a better household budget.
Let's make it a regular thing. (Not the budget. Duh. The game night.)

Coco Tuesday

No TV has really changed Coco’s schedule since he’s been using a movie or Spongebob or whatever to have a pseudo-nap after school. And I was able to keep farting around on the computer or around the apartment.
So now we’re butting heads more. But it turns out that he’s different from Madge in many ways, if not all. For example, and to my relief, he enjoys being outdoors. And, big bonus, because of it, now she’s beginning to enjoy it more, too. Until the temperature gets to be above 75 and she complains of the heat, but we’ll work with that, I hope.
Coco has also begun speaking more and has noticed that he can get and hold attention by talking. And now he’s seriously intruding on her turf. Sibling stuff is so much fun, I tell you.

Madge Monday

The week without TV is over and we’re back in business. Was it a success? I don’t know. Our rhythm was thrown off and we got to fight more.
Of course it’s all my fault. More to the point, it’s the fault of those stupid birth order books. See, now I know that firstborns would rather be right than have fun. And I know, by saying that, I sound like the lastborn that I am. So? Now what?
Actually this morning I had a minor insight. Not only is Madge a perfectionist who likes to follow rules and, of course, make the rules in the first place, but she also has a hard time saying no. And this seems to be the source of much conflict. Coco invites her to play. She says no. He manipulates her into saying yes, which means she already starts playing without really wanting to. Then she’ll set rules which he never wanted to follow because it was his game (usually with her toys since she’s older and there are many hand-me-downs around) and boom, we have some sort of conflict escalating into tattling. Which I hate.
Here’s what I’ve noticed: The middle child? That’s the parent.

And we're back

First post, of course, needs to be a smartass one.

Here's something I got in my email inbox:

Now, if you want some valuable information maybe you should read this. At three minutes and four seconds after 2 AM on the 6th of May this year, the time and date will be02:03:04 05/06/07.This will never happen again IN MY LIFETIME, nor in YOURS.Just thought you should know this!

Fair enough. But to this the "deep thinker" in me replies:

Look at your watch. It is now 09:57:12 04/30/07 (or whatever the case may be for you). This moment, too, only happens once in your lifetime. Take a breath. This breat only happens once in your lifetime. Have a conversation. This conversation will only happen once in a lifetime. Kiss someone. This kiss... might get you arrested. This arrest will only happen once in a lifetime.

I think you get the point. How to "live" this knowledge is a different matter altogether.

Snicker, snicker

Okay.
One more.
If you've got eight and a half minutes, you can do worse than watch this (Robert Pinsky, Sean Penn, Stephen Colbert in the Meta-free-phor-all).
Now I'm gone. Have fun.

All right

That might have been it for the week (See Madge Monday for details).
Feel free to check out the links or older posts while I'm out. Or go out and enjoy Spring.
You're supped to turn away from the computer screen every half hour anyway. (I read that somewhere. Like the eight - no, it's six - no it's ten - glasses of liquids i should consume a day - caffeinated beverages and alcohol don't count, this random knowledge is one of those parental admonishment rumors I can neither trace nor verify. But it sounds like good advice, i.e., advice I can feel guilty about for heeding.)

Coco Tuesday

The manipulator let his colors show in a spectacular way tonight.
He was about to brush his teeth when he asked for a glass of milk. I said okay. He realized that the girls were folding laundry and talking and having a good time, so he went to them and said "I help Mommy" to me. I said okay. Next thing I hear is Julie's voice. "Coco. Stop jumping on the bed. You're messing up the piles." "Okay. Sorry, Mommy." Pause. "Coco! I told you to stop jumping on the bed." Then it struck me; he'd been yanking my chain again. I stomped back to the bedroom. "Coco! You said you wanted to help Mommy. You're not helping Mommy at all." He made his crumpled-injured face and hugged Julie tightly around the neck. Then, mid-hug, he turned his face to me, smiled and stuck out his tongue.

I had to go into the bathroom to keep him from noticing how hard it made me laugh.

Madge Monday

Madge's school is having a "Turn off the TV" week, which includes no computers. It's really a "for god's sake, let something other than pixels entertain you for a while, maybe even interact with your parents in a non-demanding way" week. Or "let's see how you survive this torture without breaking your parents' wallets from all the new toys you'll need to be distracted" week.
Of course Madge insists that I play by the rules, too, which means that I'm not allowed to use the computer this week. I said while she's awake, but she wants stricter adherence. We'll see. So I'm posting this Monday in advance. There's no new WaitWait this week, so it might actually work, though I still need to communicate, right?
Only email, maybe.
The occasional blog entry if something really funny happens.
But that's it.
Maybe.

Mental note

No matter how much experience your gaydar has accumulated in seven years' of San Francisco, no matter how stereotypically your students act (love of musicals in boys, love of mechanics in girls), it is not your job to out them, especially here in New York, where people are surprisingly repressed about these matters.

This is my weekly Sunday mantra before I teach. Because, let me tell you, it can be difficult.

double-take

A friend of mine went to Paris (in April, no less, the weenie) and took this remarkable picture.

Notice the symmetry in the buildings juxtaposed with the jaunty angles of the photograph and the way the color of the roof approaches the sky?

Was there anything else?

And the only thing the newspapers here talked about that week was Imus.

Madge's new style

New details and new themes emerge in Madge's drawings. The dragon bowled me over. The duck is pretty awesome, too. I don't know where they're coming from, but they're a welcome change from fairies and mermaids, if you ask me (which you don't, I know).

Johnson Fables

No. 7 (Tuesday, 10 April 1750)

“Other things may be seized by might, or purchased with money, but knowledge is to be gained only by study, and study to be prosecuted only in retirement.”

Retiree: Your honor, let it please the court that Study has continually wasted my time and resulted in no fruit.
Study: Objection. Relevance?
Retiree: I’ll tell you the relevance, you piece of…
Judge: Careful, or I’ll hold you in contempt.
Study: See what happens when you ignore me?
Retiree: Oh, quit it. Look at the Judge. Your Honor, may I ask you some questions?
Judge: I’m not sure how…
Retiree: Did study get you your position on the Bench?
Judge: Well, to pass the bar I had to do a little studying in my day.
Retiree: But to become an elected Judge, did you study in solitude? Or did it come your way by bargaining and compromise?
Study: This isn’t about him.
Retiree: No, you’re right, it’s about you and how little you’ve done for me.
Study: Perhaps you’re looking at it the wrong way. Maybe you should have done more for me and then something would have fallen into place for you.
Retiree: You mean…? Oh. But isn’t it a bit late for me to gain Knowledge now? In this way?
Study: Knowledge is always gained too late.
Retiree: Your Honor, I rest my case. It is not the prosecution of Study, but the occurrence of Experience that imparts Knowledge.
[Study quietly steals away]

Getting along

Yesterday was an all-round grumpy day.

Sass, attitude, and snappiness. And the kids weren't behaving too well, either.

So these pictures (taken the day before) are for me, to remind me that we do have fun together.

worn out

I need new jeans.
Not
to keep up with fads,
but
because Gap-pant knees
can't
keep up with dads.

junk mail folder

Julie's work occasionally moves some of my emails to her into the company's junk mail folder.
I decided to run some informal tests and so far it seems that her company deems phrases like "come home," "you work too hard," and "you need a raise" obscene.
Really. Ask Julie. She's had to retrieve them all from her junk folder.
Please leave comments as to which other phrases I might try.

I think they should go "home" themselves.

Jess loved to draw

This weekend I read Katherine Paterson’s Bridge to Terabithia (1977). Early in the book (Chapter 2), I found this:

Jess drew the way some people drink whiskey. The peace would start at the top of his muddled brain and seep down through his tired and tensed-up body. Lord, he loved to draw.

Jess(e) is the 10-yr-old protagonist. The story is told from a third-person, single point of view, which means that the “he said” “she did” stuff gets filtered through Jesse’s reactions.
Needless to say, this whiskey-drinking simile is either disturbing or incorrect. But it leads to other possibilities.


Harold rode his bike the way some people have sex. First tentatively, but once he had the hang of it, the training wheels came off and he didn’t care how many shins he skinned or toddlers he accidentally ran over. Lord, he loved riding a bike.

Billy built Legos the way some people gamble. The tingle would start at the base of his spine and soon his fingers itched for those nubby plastic pieces that he’d sacrifice his mother just to get a chance to build again. Lord, he loved to build.

Phoebe dressed her doll the way some people smoke crack. The first time she fastened the Velcro correctly she got an incredible rush to the frontal lobe, and from that point on it was moremoremore until she found herself in a mall parking lot offering sexual favors for a quick hit of new doll clothes. Lord, she loved to dress dolls.

Jess drew the way some people drink whiskey. Shakily. Shouting abuse at others. Wetting his pants. Lord, he loved to draw.

Coco Tuesday

What’s new in Coco-land? Spongebob stocks are down, Spiderman up. We found a Spider-Spud at the toy store yesterday and now he’s fighting it out with Darth Tater and winning. But Coco isn’t quite able to change Peter Parker Potato’s costume so I get to help out a lot. Yay.
Oh, yes, and it’s getting quite difficult to get Coco to take off his Spiderman pjs. Yesterday he waited around for about twenty minutes in the nude for the dryer to be done before he put on his striped pjs.
Once the dryer was done, he changed, of course.

Madge Monday

This weekend Madge didn’t go out of the house even once. I think the vacation took it out of her or something. The rain didn’t help, of course.
Still, it was cute. We merely took turns staying in with the kids. (Coco came with me on a few shopping trips.)

Every once in a while, blogs or emails include things like “ten books that most changed my life” or some such thing. We got a few books on birth order from the library and I think they’re going to change my/our attitude towards dealing with Madge, the first born. (Neither Julie and I are first born, so we think just saying “lighten up” will help. But it appears we might have to be more careful about our approach.) It’s no book in particular that’s doing the trick, just looking at them in general. Interesting stuff. Fun, too, in a glossy-magazine pop-psychology kind of way (lists, tests, advice, wannabe humorous phrasings and slogans, but still).
Of course there’s always the-rock-and-the-hard-place advice. First, they say first-borns are jealous of attention paid to younger siblings. Then, they say that the younger siblings hound them too much and need to be removed from the first-borns, especially when the older friends are over. But how do you do that without paying more attention to the younger siblings?
Which leads me to another influential book, Parenting with Duck Tape.

Headline poem

(Got a little desk job this morning, so I have a little extra time to surf and read.)

Polar Bears: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/16/world/europe/16polar.html?ref=world
Immigrants: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/16/nyregion/16immig.html?ref=us

Russia Tries to Save Polar Bears With Legal Hunt
Controlled hunting aims to cut down on poaching - maybe.
Tax Returns Rise for Immigrants in U.S. Illegally
Exposed to authorized poachers, immigrants establish a paper trail - maybe.

Studen Loan Payments

Sallie Mae (for the international readers: she is - they are - primarily known for student loans in the U.S.) is in the process of being bought out by a couple private investors and two banks.
What'll the new name be? Uncle Fester? Hannibal? Vlad the Impaler? Oprah?
The new payment schedule is more straightforward, though.
For a B.A. - firstborn child.
For a Master's degree - kidney and liver.
Ph.D. - your soul.

Johnson Fables

No. 6 (Saturday, 7 April 1750)

“[T]he fountain of content must spring up in the mind.”

The Explorers of Happiness were stymied. In vain had they sailed the world searching for the Fountain of Content. It seemed that every time they settled somewhere, the Fountain of Content lurked just beyond the horizon, and whenever they were on the road or open sea it called to them from their reminiscences of home.
Finally, they had the felicitous idea of drilling into their crania.
And, Lo! The Land of the Content* is inhabited by people with derricks sticking from their skulls.

*At least the permanent, drooling grin makes the casual observer think so.

A Headline

N.J. Governor Is Critical After Car Crash

Unfortunate. Not only because of the injuries sustained by Corzine, but because, reading it, one thinks that the accident has changed a formerly accepting disposition.

Madge bonus

A couple nights ago, at bedtime, Madge said she wants to be in Les Miz, as Fantine or Eponine.
Then she said, as any girl part, really, even the mean one who makes Fantine lose her job.
See, she's already willing to make sacrifices.

Holy Bleep!

When the cousins were here, I rode this thing with one of them.

Man.

Perfect April weather. A balmy mid-thirties. Snow flurries alternating with a brisk wind and sunshine.

A Nathan's hot dog rolling around my small intestines - not sure which egress to choose.

But, whoa, what a ride. I looked it up, the steepest incline was something like 56 degrees, but I could have sworn it was perpendicular. My camera dropped out of my inside jacket pocket during the ride and had somehow made its way out of its case as well.

If you come here, you gotta ride this thing. I recommend a cold day because there were no lines.

Bring diapers.

Cosmetic joke

Ricky D. called us over the weekend, what a sweetie. For some reason, I thought of a joke for him. Here you go (makeup is his industry, of course).
This stuff covers so well, it'll even take care of a five-o'clock shadow. As a matter of fact, so many fairies use it, we call it the make-a-wish foundation.
(pzzzzzzting!)

Coco Tuesday

Coco isn't quite as thoughtful when he gets upset.

Here's the result of one of his outbursts.

I had been cutting up movie rental coupons with his scissors, something he didn't approve of. (Really, he's just generally upset because things aren't moving at his pace right now and he doesn't have any space. Guests.)

So he took the scissors and closed the door behind himself in his room.

The result: Madge's allowance got a bit scrambled.

Madge Monday

Wow.

Sometimes, she surprises me even more than usual. What a mature thing to do.

Or, let me rephrase that. She did something I, in my infantile pettiness, would never have thought, no, never think, of doing.

When I came out of the shower the other day, I saw this note. It says,

Don't yell at m while your family are here. You emberess me daddy. - Madeleine

It makes me all choked up just thinking about it again. And the weird thing (to me) is, I wasn't even raising my voice. But at least now I know that she takes almost all forms of disapproval or chastisement as yelling.

Something to consider.

a little quiz

Sorry I've been delinquent.
Guests.
But here's a beaty of a line I read recently. Feel free to guess where. Guess right and I'll write you a poem (you supply the topic). (And using Google or a similar search engine doesn't count.)

An envious heart makes a treacherous ear.

Cool, hunh? "Ear" is in "h(ear)t" already. "Envious" and "treacherous" are trisyllabic and end in the same way. Oh, yes, and it makes sense.
Mental note: learn to do similar things with words. By Thursday.

Friday Johnson Fable

No. 4 (Saturday, 31 March 1750)

“[A]lmost all fictions of the last age will vanish, if you deprive them of a hermit and a wood, a battle and a shipwreck.”

A Shipwreck came upon a Wood and said, “I feel pointless without my Battle. Could you direct me toward a fiction?”
The Wood responded, “I’m not much better off than you since I’ve lost my Hermit. All I can think of now is solid fact.”
Said the Shipwreck, “You don’t suppose your Hermit ran off with my Battle?”
“I have heard him talk of ‘wrestling with demons.’ Does that sound like your Battle?”
“Not like the Battle I’ve come to know and love, but it seems I don’t know my Battle like I thought I did.”
“Where might they have gone?”
“I don’t know, but they’ve probably made a wonderful life for themselves,” said the Shipwreck, tearing up. “I’ve always felt like I couldn’t really satisfy my Battle.””And I’ve always been trying to tell my Hermit that he shouldn’t worry about being enough for me. I might be a vast, impenetrable Wood, but he is near and dear to me.”
“You know what?” said the Shipwreck, wiping its eyes. “I think we’re making our own fictions right now.””Yeah,” said the Wood. “Buck up, we’ll be all right on our own.”

Happy, happy Kafka

I've opened "The Great Wall of China" in the aphorisms. What a giddy guy:

To grasp the happiness, that the ground, on which you stand, cannot be larger, than the two feet that cover it.

or,

There is a goal, but no path; what we call path, is hesitation.

or,

There is no having, only being, a being desirous of last breath, of suffocation.

I bet he loved knock-knock jokes.

Coco Tuesday

Coco is outdoing himself trying to be a good host. The kids’ Granny, Tante Tina, and two oldest cousins are here on a visit from Germany (and I've already developed my first stress-zit, but this isn't about me). It seems a revelation to him that older kids might enjoy his toys as well. Well, that’s not quite true. Madge does, and so do some of her friends, but this is a new experience for him. It’s cute. Though it seems the auntie and the grandmother are still figuring out how girl-children work, so I sense difficulties arising on that front.
Coco, though, dragged me from the dinner table this evening so I could read to him, and he promptly fell asleep, he’s been so overwhelmed by the excitement.
No I just need to figure out how to keep him from telling his guests how every scene in every movie turns out. I guess we need to rent stuff he hasn’t seen yet.

Madge Monday

Many things happen in Spring, most of which I forget about every year. One such thing is that it gets incredibly difficult to spot my own kids on the playground. First of all, tons of kids who don't show up in colder weather suddenly appear. (I don't know if it's the parents, the kids, or a mixture of the two that keeps them homebound.) Second, I've spent about four months getting used to seeing them in their winter coats. My eyes scan the playground for a pink jacket and a red one. Easy enough. But now all coats and bets are off, and I'm standing on benches, craning my puffy neck for my little chicks.
Another few weeks of this, and they'll be the only kids on the playground with blue hair. Or orange, but I've always thought blue hair is kind of cool.

Timely judgment

More like me, these lines from Alexander Pope (which seem out of place in "The Rape of the Lock" - as yet unfinished reading for me, but there you go):

[...]
Mean while, declining from the noon of day,
The sun obliquely shoots his burning ray;
The hungry Judges soon the sentence sign,
And wretches hang that Jury-men may dine;
[...]

not your usual facetiae fare

On my way to my Sunday job, I was listening to one of my favorite podcasts, the NYTimes Book Review. It allows me to superficially keep up with new books without frequenting bookstores, where I am forced, by the nature of the company I keep, to set up shop in the children’s section. I think it’s the former grad student in me that feel the need to stay somewhat current with new publications I never intend to read.
One such book is “Radicals For Capitalism,” which, as I gather, is a history of the American Libertarian movement. The reviewer gave a brief overview of the topic and pointed out that Greenspan was a follower of Ayn Rand (who must really detest the “libertarian paternalism” label). He also noted that Greenspan helped shape the laissez-faire elements of the American economy.
This struck me as odd, because, in my superficial acquaintance with the man and his utterances, I’ve come away with the impression that all he has to do is say something, and the market responds. (Even now that he’s not the Chairman of the Federal Reserve anymore.)
Then I remembered that Bernanke made the mistake of opening his mouth too often in “casual” situations, while Greenspan seemed to handle reticence better.
And I realized that Greenspan knows that his utterances are commodities in themselves, which is why he charges $150,000 for a speaking engagement.

Here are some quotes from the printed review (note that the capitalist powerhouse, Austria, gave birth to the economists who hatched the idea):

Libertarianism has its roots in the writings of a pair of major 20th-century Austrian economists, Ludwig von Mises and F. A. Hayek. Both opposed economic planning and argued that only the forces of supply and demand could allocate resources fairly and efficiently. If an item becomes scarce, its price will rise, ensuring that people who place the highest value on it — those who can use it most productively — will be able to get it. To this coolly economic argument, Rand and other writers added a moral one: laissez-faire capitalism equaled freedom.

[T]o Rand and her followers, collectivism was the single greatest problem facing the country. As they saw it, government programs forced citizens to comply with goals they often did not share while stifling the creative energy of individuals and even laying the groundwork for totalitarianism.

What Rand and her followers hadn’t anticipated, I guess, is that government programs can also be traded as commodities.

(Papa/Opa: feel free to comment)

The book, in case you're iterested, is:
RADICALS FOR CAPITALISM A Freewheeling History of the Modern American Libertarian Movement. By Brian Doherty. 741 pp. Public Affairs. $35.

Johnson, sans fable

Same quote:
“The natural flights of the human mind are not from pleasure to pleasure, but from hope to hope.”
This explains why people watch TV at all.

Johnson Fables

No. 2 (Saturday, 24 March 1750)

“The natural flights of the human mind are not from pleasure to pleasure, but from hope to hope.”

The Travel Agent of the Human Mind has two package deals.
One, a Pleasure Cruise: all the amenities of home provided by a friendly staff, and, to minimize the risk of displeasure, no actual travel. Yes, it’s a domestic servant service, bringing luxury to your home. Known pleasures, all the time.
Two, the Hope Tour: all the excitement of foreign lands provided by a hostile staff, and, to minimize the risk of tedium, no permanent accommodations. Yes, it’s overseas deployment. Adventure every day, flirtation with death, but the possibility of saving others from themselves and you.
Guess which one is booked solid.

Spring's Awakening

Right now it seems that Spring is hitting the snooze button.

The latter two pictures are from yesterday and today. I tried to take them from the same place. We'll be tracking the process here (it'll be almost as exciting as watching cheese ripen).

As I was trying to align myself and the camera, I noticed that the black Mini hadn't been moved, and it reminded me of my oldest sister.

When she parks her car, she remembers her spot by the car next to hers. And, somehow, this system always works. She's a genius.

Justice, of Sorts

Pretty Women Walking Theirs Think Me One Too

When I try to coax a smile
they extend
denial.
So I let out a silent whoop
when they bend
to scoop.

Spring is in the air

I should probably take some pictures of the neighborhood, quick, before Julie gets back, so she can see what spring is like. She's off to SF and its perpetual Sprall, whereas our temperatures have been in the 60s and the barren trees and bushes appear itching to burst. Little pre-buds are forming at the tips of things and, if experience tells me anything, greenness will abound in no time. She might make it back to catch part of the process - or she'll just see a bunch of green and yellow and white and wonder what happened.

Today, I realized, marks an anniversary of sorts. So far, so good.

I bet Julie really misses me

Anonymous. 1609


LOVE not me for comely grace,
For my pleasing eye or face,
Nor for any outward part,
No, nor for a constant heart:
For these may fail or turn to ill,
So thou and I shall sever:
Keep, therefore, a true woman's eye,
And love me still but know not why—
So hast thou the same reason still
To doat upon me ever!

Coco Tuesday

More art. Two pictures. One is a work in progress, one is the final product. Coco starts by drawing fire, the red stuff. Then he says he’s a fireman and covers the fire with water, the blue stuff, and peace and order is restored. Of course that’s only the artist’s point of view as translated by me. You are free to make of these what you will, just start associating ideas with the colors red and blue (some ideas: hell, heaven; flesh, mind; strawberries, blueberries; sale items, full price; teacher’s corrections, editor’s suggestions; etc.).

Finally. Yesterday Madge had a moment in which she wished she didn’t have a brother, that she was an only child, etc. On the way home from Coco’s school, he wanted to go by the Cat Clinic, where you can see the boarded animals in a window. He saw one and said, “Let’s buy that one. Baci needs a sister.”
I haven’t told Madge yet because she was pro-sibling again after school.

Proof

See?

Madge aligns dolls and outfits, each goes with something predestined.

Coco sees that the farfalline (mini-bowtie-pasta) look like phones and gives one to Bob the Builder and keeps one himself.

They're a great team (Madge and Coco, not Bob).

Oh joy

My dearest Julie alerted me to this bit of news today, which, for my benefit, she phrased in the following way, “Did you hear they’re making a movie of Revolutionary Road?” All the headlines about it seem to focus on DiCaprio and Winslet reuniting for the first time since Titanic – I guess that’s the way to get more readers.
But Julie knows that it’s the other approach that’ll get my attention, as I care more about the novel than about the actors. And, because I do, they seem miscast, at least when measured against the Frank and April Wheeler of my mind.
The book is, well, not the most uplifting. I once made the “mistake” of suggesting it to a book club which I had recently joined, for the simple reason that it is a life-changing book. I neglected to mention that the change isn’t necessarily positive, at least not immediately. The immediate change is to make you cynical and morose at the same time.
Here’s the first sentence. “The final dying sounds of their dress rehearsal left the Laurel Players with nothing to do but stand there, silent and helpless, blinking out over the footlights of an empty auditorium.” In other words, if Shakespeare says all the world’s a stage, Yates says, “Yes. And we’re under-rehearsed amateurs without talent or audience.”
When Julie told me the news, I thought, “How on earth could Hollywood even try to make this into a movie?” But it turns out it’s a BBC production, so there’s hope.


SPOILER AND BAD PUN ALERT
Because Yates doesn’t go for a cliff-hanger ending, he goes for a coat-hanger ending.

Equal time

I've been noticing lately that, while Madge likes keeping her toys segregated by type and brand and likes lining them up and organizing them (though not cleaning them up, for some reason), Coco likes to mix and match. So, for example, he might have a Playmobil figure talking to a FisherPrice figure, a possibility which simply wouldn't occur to Madge.

This is something he set up the other day. The toys are of the same kind, but the tableau is not one Madge would put together (or approve of, I fear).

(It also shows that he has some sort of working knowlege of agribusiness.)

Picasso, eat your heart out

Julie is out of town, so there will probably be more posts this week - not only because I'm without a conversational partner but also to keep her up to date with the issue (that's offspring in legal terms, I believe).
While I was cleaning (a little, don't get too excited, Julie - I'll save the cat box for you), I ran across this. A few weeks ago some Picasso paintings went missing in Paris. I don't think this was among them, though.

Madge Monday

On Saturday we were choosing movies to rent. Yes, plural, I’m weak. For some reason Madge, who is the one in our family who runs out of the room when eerie music imposes its will on the action, wanted “Haunted Mansion.”
Coco didn’t. In order to convince him, she said, “Coco, it’s from the same producers as ‘Pirates of the Caribbean.’”
To which, of course, he said okay.
What the? A) Where does she get this, and B) What did he think she meant?
Maybe it merely shows that the marketing on packages is aimed at 4-yr-olds, but still.

Flea market

Trying to get to the playground by Madge's school, we ran into the weekend fleamarket setting up shop.
Of course, they have toy bins, in which you find dismantled discarded McDonald's Happy Meal gimcracks, among other things. Which is why we had this conversation:
Coco (holding thing up to eye): Daddy, what is this?
Me: It's half a binocular, which they're trying to sell you as a telescope.
Coco: Can I have it?

I think if the flea market were actually marketing fleas, that would be a step up.

And no, Julie, I didn't get it for him.

Johnson Fables

(Get your minds out of the gutter. Not that Johnson.)
Okay, since I ran out of alphabet, here's a different approach.
My very first blog used Samuel Johnson's first essay, mostly because I figure he was essentially blogging twice a week back then, merely with different technology (and, of course, remuneration). Since he moralizes quite a bit in the essays, I thought I might use him as a starting block or stepping stone or some other metaphor for a mental crutch. Here goes:

No. 1 (Tuesday, 20 March 1750)

“… it is more pleasing to see smoke brightening into flame, than flame sinking into smoke.”

The Smoke and the Flame got stuck, stage right.
Said the Smoke, “No, no. After you. You are the one they want to see, all action, light, and heat.”
To which the Flame replied, “No, no. After you. They truly adore your mystery; the way you keep them guessing is more delightful than an actual fact.”
“Or a factual act.”
“What?”
“You don’t think much, do you?”
“No, but I do much.”
“You think?”
“What?”
“Nothing. Are you going on first or what?”
“Oh, I don’t know…”
Meanwhile, center stage, the Pile of Sticks was taking another bow in front of a slowly exiting audience.

subbing today

In one of the classes a girl asked me, without irony, I swear, "Hey, mistah, c'n I axe you a question?"
"Sure."
"You like WHAM?"

I have no idea how to take that question. Little does she know that I followed them around when they were still playing small clubs, before they got a big contract and "sold out."

(Also, what's a band like WHAM to kids born in the nineties?)

Les Miz in da house

Want to know what's slightly disconcerting?
Having a seven-and-a-half-year old singing, in her brashest Broadway voice,
"DON'T they KNOW they're MAking LOVE to ONE alREAdy DEEEEEEEEAAAAAAD?"

Me and Ogden Nash

That darn interview is still bugging me. The line about Ogden Nash was supposed to be self-deprecating, but she cut that part. Let's see what you think.
I remember saying, "I'd like to be the next Ogden Nash, but the Saturday Evening Post isn't around any more."
I was trying to be cute along the lines of "..., but I never get any responses from The Saturday Evening Post or Colliers." But it was off the top of my head, and those lines tend to be incomplete.

Anyway, so you know it's not an idle threat, here's something I wrote a long time ago, prompted by a Nash anniversary piece by Roger Angell in the New Yorker.


“Readers […] - this one, at least – still instinctively look for the restorative Nashian couplet or clarifying stanza about today’s water-quaffers, navel-piercers, abs-flaunters, and cell-gabblers, not to mention the assertive S.U.V., the forty-room beach cottage, and ‘could care less.’” --Roger Angell, The New Yorker, Aug. 5, 2002.


Uh-Eau

The consumption of vast amounts of eau
Results in a release of the same, beleau.
Water’s crest in popularity arises, as I figure it,
From the newfound necessity to take breaks from work far more often than one did for a cigurit.


Water, Water Everywhere,
And Not a Bite to Eat

For your figure no matter will be quite as drastic
As drinking water endlessly from bottles made of clear and shapely iconoplastic.
But hydration has less impact on your general fitness
Than an unwanted side-effect to which I now bear witness:
Water-quaffers
Have no money left in their household coffers.
If you wonder why those carrying the plastic flasks are so lissome and lithe,
‘tis because they must fast assiduously to choke up the health-religious tithe.
In other words, once you’ve paid the siphoners and distillers and bottlers and transporters and marketers and sellers for the amounts of water that the Monsoon season of South-east Asia can hardly compete with,
There’s nothing left for you to eat with.


To the Abdominatrix

I don’t know what I ever did with
My gaze
In the days
Before the bared mid-riff.


Abominable Abdominals

I
Son, you may have seen how female body parts that function digestively
Are of late exposed quite suggestively.
Teens today their mid-sections like to flaunt,
Testing categories famously postulated by Kant.
For they arrest a passing glance in a moment of embarrassing pausality
And temporarily wipe out any ab priori knowledge of space and time and causality.
As for fab posteriori knowledge,
Well,
For that you’d best wait until you’re old enough for college.

II
Daughter, why this metallic severance to our connection that was so quaintly umbilical?
It distorts the cute fleshy spiral that had grown faintly hilical.
Your navel that resembled the bread roll affectionately christened the “Kaiser”
Is now pierced by studs and bars that invoke the artillery shells of the invading forces of World War I which ought to have been behaving much naiser.
I’ve not forgot,
When you were a tot,
How my lips and a plosive fricative on the jiggly folds in your belly would boost your mood enormously and how your bubbly giggles made for a satisfying designator.
But wait. Come here. Maybe the metal adds buzz to your resonator.


Ears Everywhere, But Where Are Your Eyes?

O, Masters of cellular communications,
Why must you invade all of life’s quotidian situations?
At the grocery store, doing some shopping,
You grab someone else’s cart and fill it with sausage and bacon because your broker tells you that pork-belly futures are dropping.
At school, because your mother says that the nation’s transportation system is on the skids,
You pick up the wrong kids.
At a wedding ceremony,
The guests of the groom are unable to catch the bride’s name because they’re listening to the logistical details of your alimony.
You never ever cease to drone
In that annoying little phone.
And all the while your immediate surroundings bear the brunt of you
Because you don’t pay attention to what’s in front of you.


Hark, Now. Wassup?

I think Shakespeare would condone
The use of a cellular phone.
For a vanquished king could easily receive a page
And be informed of all the juicy deaths that have just occurred off-stage.


The Plight of Gaia Iulia Soccermom

Another hedgerow’s bent, and who’s the perpetrator?
Oh gosh, that was me, in my V8 Overcompensator.


It Takes a Villa

For friends and guests, my wife presumes,
Our beach cottage has forty rooms.
They all fit; that’s the pity.
I think I’ll just stay in the city.


Oh, Could You?

Could care less.
“Could care less” might want to sting, but makes a mess.
The effort to express disdain
Through lack of n’t gets said in vain.

The speaker tries to sound above-it-all and haughty
But gets dragged down by of the omission of a little-bitty nottie.
For caring only cuts the auditor wide
When coulding is denied.

Could care less.
“Could care less” denudes its sense and needs redress.
To remain aloof, care less you couldn’t.
There, now, ain’t that understoodn’t?

Coco Tuesday

Ack.
We had his four years or fifty-thousand miles checkup and oil change today, and the jury is still out as to which part he detested more, the measuring and probing or the shots (three of them).
Judging by the drama, it was the measurements that got him. We wound up showing up an hour before the actual appointment because I couldn’t take his anticipatory dread anymore. Once he realized he wasn’t going to school he started freaking out. He had been told about the visit, but conveniently forgot about it (“At last – memory yields”).
Madge, by the way, was insistent that we tell him about the shots. She has a need to know, at all times, about everything. Mystery and surprise are her primal foes. She can ruin many a movie with this need. But she can also wind up her little brother by telling him things he doesn’t want to hear. And, when he ignores her, she makes sure he doesn’t. Somehow, though, we managed to make her keep quiet about the shots. Good thing, too, I think.
It’s really odd, how he dislikes getting undressed in order to be measured. In his four years I think his blood pressure has only been accurately taken once, his height maybe three times, his weight, never.
Oh, well. He got his shots and a toy and the pleasure or Madge’s company because she only had a half-day today.
Which, I guess, means that I have double-overtime.
I smell a raise.

Winehouse, Back to Black

Lately, the fare on the NYTimes Popcast has been so-so, as far as I'm concerned. Some good interviews, but the albums reviewed weren't quite to my taste.
The coverage of the bland fare was good, of course, but...
This week, though, MAN!
Amy Winehouse, go check her out. http://www.amywinehouse.co.uk/
It's like the Shirelles, but with an alcohol problem.


["Rehab" and "You Know I'm No Good" are my favorites so far, but "Tears Dry On Their Own" (a translation of sorts of "Ain't No Mountain High Enough" - listen to it and you'll tell right away) is "fun," too.]

Response to Julie's Comment (in a way)

Julie noted that she didn't know about the interview and it unrepressed (EXpressed?) some old memories.
Namely:
It used to be that I wouldn't introduce Julie to people I knew. And she invariably got insulted and we had to (a) work things out, (b) process emotions and evaluate the relationship, (c) feel guilty for a while and use our verbal skills to get into some good graces again. (Take your pick.)
Every single time, however, the case was this: I didn't think the other people were worthy of meeting Julie. Julie was none of their business. And, the sooner I got away from these people, the better.
But Julie, then as now, was/is way more social than I and felt somehow slighted.

She was nice enough to say that she may have just forgotten about the article, but, really, I'm not as happy with it as I wished I were, based on the actual phone conversation with Ms. Yost. But, oh well. I hear there is no such thing as bad publicity. Let's leave it at that.

Air Apparent

In other words, I hope Prince Philip regaled the family by passing gas and not by some mumbled racist comment.

Madge Monday

This weekend, she said to me, "You're not too fat. Obelix is fatter than you."

What an optimist.

some press

Who knew?
I thought I sounded smart, suave, and witty during the interview, judging by Ms. Yost's reactions on the other end. Now I'm not so sure.
The result is a brief contribution to an article in the Arizona Republic. (For the record, it's not "my favorite limerick" it's "my favorite limerick to tell other people when they ask me for a sample." There's a difference.)

skateboard car

Weird.

The special effects are quite cool, says the "dude" in me. But the music? How does that relate?
And, then, why would you pronounce "Qashqai" as "cash-cow" other than through wishful thinking?

Friday Fable (AA Fable)

I miss doing the Friday Fables, and of course I’ve had an overwhelming reader response to them. Random people on the street, in fact have been begging me to bring them back.
But, as you may have noticed, I ran out of alphabet.
So here’s one more alphabet-related one. Next week I’ll be thinking of new ways to cook them up. (Who knows, I might actually start with the moral, as Lessing suggests.)

The author and the alphabet

Offstage, beyond the blank paper, the alphabet said, “Do you even know what you’re doing?”
To which the author replied, “No, not really. I just go at it and see what happens. Luckily I have you to guide me.”
“What do you mean?”
“There are numberless books that simply use you as an organizing principle. Sure, they’re a little weak on the Qs, the Xs, and the Zs, but for some reason the idea doesn’t go away.”
“And you want to do the same?”
“Sure, if you don’t mind.”
“What if I do mind?”
“Then I’ll apologize and do it anyway.”

Sorry.

Madge, the watchdog

This morning, in front of school.

A mom: Good morning!
Me: Hi!
Madge: Who is SHE?

Yikes. I swear, Madge heard the exclamation points. Any wonder I occasionally feel smothered?

The continuation:
Me: A mom who picks up at the same door I do. Her kid is in the same grade as you, just in a different class.
Madge: Oh.

birth order, again

Madge, the other day, said, "I'm tired of being the helpful one. I wanna be the Coco one."
Not bad, as far as zingers go.
On the other hand, she didn't see the humor in my telling her to go to bed early and not read or watch Star Trek with us or pick up the cat or use the camera or...
Oh, well.

rhyming

Here I am, it's almost midnight, working on the limericks.
Guess what rhymes with "nothing"?

ooooooh, how meta

a boy and his cat

Synchronized Sleepers. (Both, by the way, snore.)

I apologize for not having updated the photos at Look C. in a while, but the camera just recently decided to retract the lens and start working again.

Frosty Impression

Reticence

[Scene: a snowy evening.]

Hmmmmmmmmm.

Pffffff-

ffff.

Postscript (3/15): I just reread the post and realized I was too punny in the title. It's merely intended as an impression of Robert Frost's poetry.

epa-who?

I came across a handy rhetorical term yesterday: epanorthosis.
Basically, it means having your cake and eating it, too.
When I was in high school, writing English essays, I used an underhanded version of this rhetorical device. I had two ways of correcting words (because of the mandate to use ink, we couldn't erase). The first was to completely obliterate the incorrect term. The second was to merely draw a line through it, so that my teacher's mind (Hi, Ms. H-, Ms. R- !) would be tainted by what I was trying to improve upon, therefore finding a happy medium on her own and, of course, giving me the benefit of the doubt.
(Lately, I've seen this technique on blogs and don't feel nearly as inventive as I did back then.)

Coco Tuesday

He does say some cute things, especially when he’s mad.
For example:
“I’m not your cuddle-bunny anymore.”
“That’s a dummy idea.”
“You’re making me crazy.”
“That’s not a deal.”

Yesterday, though, he went past cute and into devious. He didn’t want to go to school (he’s still a little under the weather, but no fever, so off he goes – no pampering from me, thank you very much, although I did get him a toy afterwards, but, psssst, don’t tell Julie). Here’s how he built up his case (disclaimer: each of his statements below is a patent lie):
Coco: I can’t go to school.
Grand Inquisitor: Why not?
C: R-- [his wonderful teacher] says I can’t come.
GI: Why not?
C: She says I was bad.
GI: Why?
C: I hit someone.
GI: Who?
C: Uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, … A--.
GI: You’re saying R— won’t let you come back to school because you hit A--?
C: Uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, … yes.

He’s so advanced for his age.

putting the coins to rest

Now that I have (finally) thought of an aphorism to go with the "Trustworthy" post, I can let the matter go.

A distrust of money increases its value.

lyrics

Why does only country music get to be so unselfconsciously punny?

I just downloaded some Billy Joe Shaver (the guy who wrote "The devil made me do it the first time/The second time I done it on my own"). The song is "Slim Chance and the Can't Hardly Playboys"
That title on its own is worth a MacArthur genius grant, I think.
Apparently, they're on Polish ("PAW-lish") Records, and are going to have a Polish hit real soon. [zing!]
Another line: "Out where the cars are up on blocks and the houses are on wheels"

Ya gotta love it.

seeing double

When Julie and I were living in our separate places in SF and having our never-ending sleepovers, we both had roommates, of course. One of her roommates had red hair (as does Julie). Her name was Holly.
On April 1, I saw her with a new haircut and some makeup (which she usually didn’t wear). So I said, “Hey, Holly, nice haircut.” And she responded, “I’m not Holly. I’m her twin sister.”
It being April Fool’s, I laughed and said, “Okay, and what’s your name?”
“Julie.”
“Funny,” I said and walked off.
Later I ran into Holly, with more hair and less makeup.
In other words, I’m a little gun shy around twins now.

Yesterday, in one of my classes, I had two kids with the same last name, same projected graduation date, and very similar looks (once you got past the gender difference). I said, “You guys must be twins.”
To which one of them (the older, darn that birth-order thing) said, “No. We’re not. We’re triplets.”
And, indeed, there was a third in a different class.
I just can’t win.

Madge Monday

Yesterday, while I was gone, Madge said to Julie, “I’ve learned all the words to the songs. Can I go see Les Miserables now?”
And so she has. Using the booklet and the CDs from the library, she’s accumulated a working knowledge of all the lyrics – though she complains that she can’t sing both lines of a duet (when the singers have differing words).
I guess we need to start a Madge-Mis fund now.
The problem is, if she does get to go, how do we keep her from singing along?

knowing Auden

I worked again yesterday, which meant a day away from the kiddies, who have been sick and whiny or not sick and whiny, depending on your take.
And, as always happens when I get away from the kids after they've been suffocating, I feel I have a lot to get off my chest.
Also, as often happens when they're home and not doing much more than watching movies and drifting in and out of sleep, I read a bunch.
Here's my friend Wystan Hugh Auden again (I wonder what his friends called him - I'll look it up, maybe):

...[I]n our culture, we have all accepted the notion that the right to know is absolute and unlimited. [...] We are quite prepared to admit that, while food and sex are good in themselves, an uncontrolled pursuit of either is not, but it is difficult for us to believe that intellectual curiosity is a desire like any other, and to realize that correct* knowledge and truth are not identical. To apply a categorical imperative to knowing, so that, instead of asking, "What can I know?" we ask, "What, at this moment, am I meant to know?" -- to entertain the possibility that the only knowledge which can be true for us is the knowledge we can live up to -- that seems to all of us crazy and almost immoral.

*It makes more sense to me if the word were "complete" - editorial error? Or just me? In other words, I have the feeling he originally wrote "complete knowledge and correct knowledge are not identical" and in the rewrites got things jumbled so he ends up contrasting correct knowledge with truth.
Either way. What a thinker (and feeler). Some day I ought to read his poetry.

she exists

Often, because I am of the so-called "day people," people who see me and the kids are surprised when they see Julie.
"Oh, you're the mom," is a comment she frequently gets to hear - and, obviously dislikes.
Today I finally came up with a fairly good response, I think.
"You didn't think, after hearing all I had to say about her, that a woman this perfect could really exist, did you."

trustworthy

There are plenty of stories circulating about the dollar coins that were minted without the catchy "In God We Trust." For example this one http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2003605634_webdollar07.html. It appears the one-dollar coins are selling for around $50.

Now, I'm not trying to make any kind of agnostic claims about the worth of the slogan, but it appears to me that we might be sitting on a solution to the defecit. All we need is a good eraser.

conundrum: n. see parenting

It's the little things that get to you.
Next week we get so sign up Coco for pre-K. Sounds easy. But of course they want documentation. The first is funny to me, an "unpaid utility bill." All I need now is a note from the school to the electric company as to why I'm delinquent.
The other is an immunization record, which shouldn't be funny but has become ironic (though not funny to me) because Coco is home with a fever, which means I can't go to his doctor as I wanted to pick up his immunization record, because he'd think we're going on his account and, really, he's not that sick (and as we all know, he's tired of doctors).
In short, in case you missed it:

Gotta go to Coco's doctor.
Can't, though, because Coco's sick.

Okay, now I can laugh about it, too.

break-out role

Because of my first name, Horse-lover in Greek, I've always had an odd relationship with Peter Shaffer's (yes, same guy who wrote the entertaining yet historically misleading "Amadeus") play, "Equus."

Now Harry Potter, sorry, Daniel Radcliffe is starring in it and a bunch of teenage girls are encountering some disturbing sights.

Hopefully not all of their inquisitive attention will be directed towards equipment that he did or did not acquire at Ollivander's.

I'm sure the girls in this picture were all desperately thinking, "Accio!"

it's snowing today

Some bitter mom saw me pulling the kids to school on the sled on less than half an inch of snow and said, “Wishful thinking, hunh?”
Thinking she was being funny, of course.
And my first thought was, “Well, duh, otherwise I would never have had kids.”
Meaning, “If I didn’t think things could change for the better, … And why, pray tell, do you even bother sending your children to school?”
But I kept my mouth shut. Experience has taught me that, with people such as her, I usually have to explain my quips, by which time they lose whatever sting they may have had.

headlines

Makers of Sodas Try a New Pitch: They’re Healthy
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/07/business/07soda.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

For Cheney, Political Toll May Follow Libby Verdict
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/07/washington/07cheney.html?hp

Makers of Sodas Try a New Pitch: They’re Healthy
And, at heart, they’re right, if your choice is drinking nothing or drinking soda.
For Cheney, Political Toll May Follow Libby Verdict
Cheney tries a new pitch: We're honest.

Overheard in my head

WindCHILL? Who ever thought of calling it that?
"Chill" doesn't even approach what happens when you face the blast.
Today the wind is downright cryogenic.

Coco Tuesday

We’re still listening to the soundtrack of “Les Miserables” at home. It’s in the CD player fairly permanently now and Madge keeps reaching for the booklet to sing along.
I had an insight which Julie isn’t going to like, but here it is: The musical must have been written with Meat Loaf in mind for the role of Jean Valjean (or Javert). The songs seem tailored to be outtakes of “Bat Out Of Hell.”
But this is Coco Tuesday, so here goes. The other day when Madge was singing along with her favorite number (other than “Castle On a Cloud”), “Who Am I?” She gets to the part where she sings, “I’m Jean Valjean” and Coco bursts in, “No. I’m Sha Fa-Sha.”
And a fight ensued.
Me? I’m Eponine (even though Madge keeps calling me Javert).

headlines

Oil Innovations Pump New Life Into Old Wells
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/05/business/05oil1.html?hp

A Record of Failure at Center for Sex Offenders
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/05/us/05civil.html?ref=us

A Record of Failure at Center for Sex Offenders
Corralled together, they merely offend each other, sexually.
Oil Innovations Pump New Life Into Old Wells
No offense, but I think it depends on your point of view.

Madge Monday

I love that smart kid of mine. Sometimes I’m not sure if what she says is on purpose or not, but still.
On Friday, her school had “Parents as Learning Partners.” Parents are invited to come and work with their children. We were done with our project and went to the next task, which was to read. The book we picked up was “Leo the Late Bloomer,” in which Leo (oddly enough a tiger, not a lion, poor mixed-up creature) doesn’t speak or read or write or draw or eat neatly at the same level as his friends. His mother isn’t concerned, but his father is. On the front matter of the classroom’s copy are several post-its with a heart penciled on them and various messages. “Everybody blooms.” “We all learn to do things.” (All by boys, incidentally. I wonder if the teacher was purposely assigning the reading on purpose to academically frustrated males.)
I asked Madge what these notes were and she said, “Oh, that’s the heart of the story.”
Cute, hunh?
So I asked Madge her take on the heart of the story, in her words.
She said, “You just need to be patient.”
Without irony. Without a glint in her eye.
I don’t mean to be paranoid, but look back at the father’s role in the story. Then note who she said this to.

headlines

Warm Winters Upset Rhythms of Maple Sugar
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/03/us/03maple.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin
U.S. Predicting Steady Increase for Emissions
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/03/science/03climate.html?hp

Warm Winters Upset Rhythms of Maple Sugar
How the winters got warmer, nobody knows.
U.S. Predicting Steady Increase for Emissions
Except, of course, maple sugar emissions.

headlines

Greenspan Is Still Able to Move Markets
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/02/business/02greenspan.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

Widespread Storms Cause Deaths in 3 States
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/02/us/02cnd-tornado.html?hp

Greenspan Is Still Able to Move Markets
If Greenspan can’t come to the markets, the markets must come to Greenspan.*
Widespread Storms Cause Deaths in 3 States
It’s about time Greenspan had a talk with the weather.

*At about $150,000 a pop, it seems.

Subbing

I've noticed a certain lack of levity here lately. (Now you know how much I need Julie around.)
Yesterday I had my first subbing gig in a local high school.
Too many images and thoughts accumulated in this novel situation to properly relate in this short time, but here's something that happened.

Girleequa: How old are you?
Me: Let's just say I'm in my thirties.
G: You look as old as my sister.
M: Okay.
G: My sister's thirty-six.
M: Yeah, that's about your sister's age.
Femaleeshia: Oooh. He's slick. You bein' slick, ain't you? He think he slick.

They're really not dumb. At all. But for some reason the period between the two World Wars isn't what they want to be studying at this hormone-filled stage of their lives.

Auden and "aesthetics"

I just found more on Auden, law, and aestetics.
If you're still interested, read on.
The very next chapter in "The Dyer's Hand" deals with his guilty (pun intended) pleasure of reading murder mysteries.
Of the Human Mileu of these mysteries, he writes (italics are mine, he can't have them),

It must appear to be an innocent society in a state of grace, i.e., a society where there is no need of the law, no contradiction between the aesthetic individual and
the ethical universal, and where muder, therefore, is the unheard-of act which precipitates a crisis (for it reveals that some memeber has fallen and is no longer in a state of grace). The law becomes a reality and for a time all must live in its shadow, till the fallen one is identified. With his arrest, innocence is restored, and the law retires forever.

Make of it what you will. I love this kind of stuff.

Paraph

I subscribe to one of those “A Word a Day” deals that show up in my inbox every day. I know this comes as a surprise to you, but try to contain yourselves (why I presume I have more than one reader, I don’t know).
Today’s word was “paraph.” (Incidentally, I just noticed that it’s a word which MSWord doesn’t recognize. Maybe the folks as MS ought to subscribe to the service as well.)
A paraph is the swirly flourish attached to a signature, intended to foil forgers.
The odd thing, though, is that this superficial flourish is the easiest bit of the signature to imitate. The way the name is shaped, the essence of the signature, however, is more difficult to get right. (I speak from the experience of copying my dad’s signature, which includes a paraph in the initial “G,” after seeing that Alain Delon Movie – the original, pre-Damon, Ripley – in which he uses a projector to magnify the signature in order to get the flow right.)
Anyway.
It’s weird how we think superficial flourishes delineate our inimitability.

Yummers

A not unusual conversation in our house.

Me: Coco, do you want some food?

Coco: No. I want a small hot dog.

See, reading Upton Sinclair's "The Jungle" to him in utero paid off.