Monday, February 28, 2011
Mountain Climbing
I am sorry, friend for whom I am concerned, for being such an infrequent and at times nonexistent blogger. I have been distracted and diverted and sidetracked by involvement in things that are not in this digital universe. Soon, however--in a week, in a fortnight, in a fort--who knows?--, I shall unleash a number of blogular masterpieces that will blow your mind with a soft, refreshing breeze. Until then, you must suffice with this scan of a letter that my older brother (now a college graduate and student of jurisprudence) wrote to Sir Edmund Hillary. Enjoy it; it is truly a work of epistolary art.
Sunday, February 27, 2011
A Post from a Guest, Lest You Fest-er
My blog posts are usually related to things that go on in my life, but I don't really want to write about what has gone on in my life recently. So, today, "From a Concerned Friend" offers you a mystery-guest blog post! What a pity that it is more interesting than what I write, but I am satisfied to BIRG for now.
Life is pretty good, Deborahblogfans! As I sit here in sunny [location withheld], sipping a [cocktail withheld] and gazing at the lovely clouds, I feel a remarkable sense of peace, and an amicable brotherhood with nature, the universe, and mankind. It would be easy for me to declare that I simply enjoy everything.
However, any good writer must leave the confines of his own emotions and attempt to experience unfamiliar ones. And we shouldn't forget that -- despite how wonderful this day seems -- the world is full, O Concerned Friends, of hate. Human beings are capable of hating nearly anything, and their ability to do so drives many of the events that define their lives. We cannot ignore the remarkable amount of hate on planet Earth. Therefore, I have decided that as a creative exercise, each day for the next week I will hate something innocuous, in order to better understand the mind of a hateful person. Deborah has graciously allowed me to publish my first effort here. Here goes:
I hate oranges. I loathe them, I abhor them. I detest the way they look, those bright intrusive blotches of gaudy, clashing color on the landscape of a tastefully painted Nature. Every time I see one, let alone notice their scent or (god forbid) accidentally eat something orange-flavored, I feel like vomiting or lashing out in rage. Their interior is just as ugly as their exterior; the sharp, regular angles of the sections seem unnatural, too mathematical to find in my garden, and the way they bulge reminds me of the internal organs of some diseased animal. And it's so obnoxious that the edible part is hidden behind a thick skin! Is the orange some kind of elitist? Is the outside world too good for it? I despise the finicky, difficult process of eating an orange. Even the first step - the peeling - is a lose-lose situation. If you peel it using a knife and fork, you appear fastidious and fussy to your eating companions; if you pick off the skin with your fingernails, it takes ages, it's messy, and your hands retain the repulsive smell for days. That's before you even begin to eat the orange. At the least pressure, the meat of the orange squirts out the revolting juice, getting your (already smelly) hands sticky, ensuring that you can't use the plate for anything else, and ruining your enjoyment of the meal because you know you'll need to clean up the juice afterwards. I am not a man given to profanity, but fuck oranges. With so many other appetizing fruits, like bananas and grapes, available to us in this privileged Western society, it is a source of continual amazement and consternation to me that anyone continues to eat oranges. I'll die happy if I never have to taste a single one of these fruit-lepers ever again.
Well, that was pretty successful! Next time: hating the word "tennis"!
Life is pretty good, Deborahblogfans! As I sit here in sunny [location withheld], sipping a [cocktail withheld] and gazing at the lovely clouds, I feel a remarkable sense of peace, and an amicable brotherhood with nature, the universe, and mankind. It would be easy for me to declare that I simply enjoy everything.
However, any good writer must leave the confines of his own emotions and attempt to experience unfamiliar ones. And we shouldn't forget that -- despite how wonderful this day seems -- the world is full, O Concerned Friends, of hate. Human beings are capable of hating nearly anything, and their ability to do so drives many of the events that define their lives. We cannot ignore the remarkable amount of hate on planet Earth. Therefore, I have decided that as a creative exercise, each day for the next week I will hate something innocuous, in order to better understand the mind of a hateful person. Deborah has graciously allowed me to publish my first effort here. Here goes:
I hate oranges. I loathe them, I abhor them. I detest the way they look, those bright intrusive blotches of gaudy, clashing color on the landscape of a tastefully painted Nature. Every time I see one, let alone notice their scent or (god forbid) accidentally eat something orange-flavored, I feel like vomiting or lashing out in rage. Their interior is just as ugly as their exterior; the sharp, regular angles of the sections seem unnatural, too mathematical to find in my garden, and the way they bulge reminds me of the internal organs of some diseased animal. And it's so obnoxious that the edible part is hidden behind a thick skin! Is the orange some kind of elitist? Is the outside world too good for it? I despise the finicky, difficult process of eating an orange. Even the first step - the peeling - is a lose-lose situation. If you peel it using a knife and fork, you appear fastidious and fussy to your eating companions; if you pick off the skin with your fingernails, it takes ages, it's messy, and your hands retain the repulsive smell for days. That's before you even begin to eat the orange. At the least pressure, the meat of the orange squirts out the revolting juice, getting your (already smelly) hands sticky, ensuring that you can't use the plate for anything else, and ruining your enjoyment of the meal because you know you'll need to clean up the juice afterwards. I am not a man given to profanity, but fuck oranges. With so many other appetizing fruits, like bananas and grapes, available to us in this privileged Western society, it is a source of continual amazement and consternation to me that anyone continues to eat oranges. I'll die happy if I never have to taste a single one of these fruit-lepers ever again.
Well, that was pretty successful! Next time: hating the word "tennis"!
Thursday, February 24, 2011
Nicknames
I am like George W. Bush in a number of ways. Both of us are white and American, for instance. We also both like the United States, despite its many past and current mishaps; and we like to eat pretzels.*
Dubya and I are also similar in our tendency to bestow nicknames upon our friends and countrymenandwomen. I realized this only twenty minutes ago when passing ____ near the campus green. (Campus green, by the way, is a terrific and underused term here at _____ College/University). I greeted ____ as "Phalanges." I have also recently referred to others as "beartato," "baritone," "baritone saxophone," "bear," and "honey bear."
There is a theme: bears have phalanges. And, yes, I did have to Google that statement to verify its veracity. Veracity verily verified!
*I am, however, better at that particular activity than he is.
Dubya and I are also similar in our tendency to bestow nicknames upon our friends and countrymenandwomen. I realized this only twenty minutes ago when passing ____ near the campus green. (Campus green, by the way, is a terrific and underused term here at _____ College/University). I greeted ____ as "Phalanges." I have also recently referred to others as "beartato," "baritone," "baritone saxophone," "bear," and "honey bear."
There is a theme: bears have phalanges. And, yes, I did have to Google that statement to verify its veracity. Veracity verily verified!
*I am, however, better at that particular activity than he is.
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
Lunch Provided
Today, I was the victim of informational social influence. It was noon, and I had just concluded a rather embarrassing swim class in which I had attempted to swim the butterfly stroke.* Naturally, I was feeling quite a bit peckish as I climbed four flights of stairs to attend a talk on what I believed would have something to do with linguistic anthropology, but which instead was primarily a biography of an Indonesian writer--anyway, I was hungry, and there was supposed to be lunch at this lecture. But, just as I entered the room, the lecture began; and unaware that the pizza boxes containing the provided lunch were situated not by the available seating, but next to the professor giving the lecture, I headed over to sit down near my linguistic compatriots, _____ and _____ , so that I could quickly snag some lunch and make myself not a violin case- and backpack-toting nuisance.
Having seated myself, I spotted the pizza in its far-too-prominent position near the talking professor. I realized immediately that I had made a fatal mistake. The rest of the audience had already gotten pizza and cans of a popular cola, the latter which struck me as an odd choice for anthropologists, but I digress, as I like to do, because digressions are how we learn interesting facts. Anyway, pizzaless and sodaless, I hoped that someone would eventually get up and replenish his or her plate while the professor spoke, thus freeing me from my discomfort-inducing need to conform. No one did.
As a victim of informational social influence, I became a victim of hunger, too. I resigned myself to a state of pizzaless lecture, but in my prospective memory I preserved an image of myself 45 minutes in the future, when, I believed, I would be able to grab some pizza on the way to my work shift. Alas, when the shining moment of the lecture's end arrived, and I finally confronted the pizza box-laden table, I was dismayed to find that the only remaining pizza was pepperoni pizza. And I don't eat metazoans.
I learned a few good lessons today:
1) Your hips will sink if you extend your head too far out of the water while breathing during the butterfly.
2) Even when lunch is "provided," you should make a contingency plan for dejeuning.** Hunger is not a pleasant experience.
3) I am privileged. Before today, I have never had to skip lunch.
4) Dessert is a meal best served four times.
*Why that stroke involves legs I will never know. Butterflies only have wings.
**The act of lunching is an important enough concept to merit a synonym.
Having seated myself, I spotted the pizza in its far-too-prominent position near the talking professor. I realized immediately that I had made a fatal mistake. The rest of the audience had already gotten pizza and cans of a popular cola, the latter which struck me as an odd choice for anthropologists, but I digress, as I like to do, because digressions are how we learn interesting facts. Anyway, pizzaless and sodaless, I hoped that someone would eventually get up and replenish his or her plate while the professor spoke, thus freeing me from my discomfort-inducing need to conform. No one did.
As a victim of informational social influence, I became a victim of hunger, too. I resigned myself to a state of pizzaless lecture, but in my prospective memory I preserved an image of myself 45 minutes in the future, when, I believed, I would be able to grab some pizza on the way to my work shift. Alas, when the shining moment of the lecture's end arrived, and I finally confronted the pizza box-laden table, I was dismayed to find that the only remaining pizza was pepperoni pizza. And I don't eat metazoans.
I learned a few good lessons today:
1) Your hips will sink if you extend your head too far out of the water while breathing during the butterfly.
2) Even when lunch is "provided," you should make a contingency plan for dejeuning.** Hunger is not a pleasant experience.
3) I am privileged. Before today, I have never had to skip lunch.
4) Dessert is a meal best served four times.
*Why that stroke involves legs I will never know. Butterflies only have wings.
**The act of lunching is an important enough concept to merit a synonym.
Sunday, February 20, 2011
Mappin' the Land: Intermezzo
Surprise! This post is not about maps. Instead, it is about Internet video memes that date from the early 2000's--that is, my area of expertise.
I have realized that the memes I am about to enumerate could never have been popular in the era of YouTube. Perhaps they couldn't even have been conceived. YouSee, YouTube is useful for the transmission of what are now called "viral videos," like the interview with the boy who likes turtles and the news story in which a newscaster mixes up blindness and homosexuality (I don't blame her--who doesn't?). These newer "viral videos" are of finite length, since that is the format YouTube stipulates.* However, endlessness is an integral quality of the memes I was familiar with in my pubescence. What could a middle school-age nerd desire more than to sing along with her computer screen for a half hour? Forty minutes in a row? Three hours?
So, without further ado, here are the memes.
Oh, seventh grade. Oh, cocker spaniel hair. Oh, badgers. We can all relate to these things--and by "we all," I am, of course, referring to the group of persons born between 1989 and 1993.
I watched the Llama Song today for a little bit too long to admit. I think my superior recall of its lyrics attests to the power of the human memory. The question that remains, however, is what links together llamas and ducks. Yes, they are both chordates, I suppose...
Don't you hate it when lists only contain two items? Oh--I'm sorry.
*Not that that's a bad thing! I love you, Google! I will even have children with you. They'll be half-corporation, half-human, like Rupert Murdoch.
I have realized that the memes I am about to enumerate could never have been popular in the era of YouTube. Perhaps they couldn't even have been conceived. YouSee, YouTube is useful for the transmission of what are now called "viral videos," like the interview with the boy who likes turtles and the news story in which a newscaster mixes up blindness and homosexuality (I don't blame her--who doesn't?). These newer "viral videos" are of finite length, since that is the format YouTube stipulates.* However, endlessness is an integral quality of the memes I was familiar with in my pubescence. What could a middle school-age nerd desire more than to sing along with her computer screen for a half hour? Forty minutes in a row? Three hours?
So, without further ado, here are the memes.
Oh, seventh grade. Oh, cocker spaniel hair. Oh, badgers. We can all relate to these things--and by "we all," I am, of course, referring to the group of persons born between 1989 and 1993.
Don't you hate it when lists only contain two items? Oh--I'm sorry.
*Not that that's a bad thing! I love you, Google! I will even have children with you. They'll be half-corporation, half-human, like Rupert Murdoch.
Saturday, February 19, 2011
Mappin' the Land Part II: Từ biển đến sáng ngời biển
Welcome back to the first continuing series at this blog, which is known to many as "From a Concerned Friend," and to others as a web page with some photos on it.
This evening I will be featuring maps from Subjects #2 and #3 that are meant to represent East Asia. To East Asians who don't read Roman orthography, however, they may appear to bear no relation to what the region actually looks like. So, without further ado, let's look at these Map Wrecks.
Here is the map drawn by Subject #2, who, if you would kindly recall from my most recent post, is a North American. While this map features every country from East Asia--excluding Timor-Leste--it is also, sadly, shaped not like any geographical landmass that I am familiar with, but rather like a plumbing fixture from a hypothetical planet of bad plumbers.
Subject #3, similarly a North American, was faced with roughly the opposite problem. While his countries are shaped more or less correctly, he clearly had trouble recalling recent Eurocentric history, lumping together Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos and Burma into "Rest of SE Asia."
And nobody knows what the Philippines are shaped like.
--A Concerned Friend
P.S. Thanks to ____, my correspondent from Italy/the West Indies/Vietnam and life partner, for the Vietnamese translation in the title.
This evening I will be featuring maps from Subjects #2 and #3 that are meant to represent East Asia. To East Asians who don't read Roman orthography, however, they may appear to bear no relation to what the region actually looks like. So, without further ado, let's look at these Map Wrecks.
Here is the map drawn by Subject #2, who, if you would kindly recall from my most recent post, is a North American. While this map features every country from East Asia--excluding Timor-Leste--it is also, sadly, shaped not like any geographical landmass that I am familiar with, but rather like a plumbing fixture from a hypothetical planet of bad plumbers.
Subject #3, similarly a North American, was faced with roughly the opposite problem. While his countries are shaped more or less correctly, he clearly had trouble recalling recent Eurocentric history, lumping together Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos and Burma into "Rest of SE Asia."
And nobody knows what the Philippines are shaped like.
--A Concerned Friend
P.S. Thanks to ____, my correspondent from Italy/the West Indies/Vietnam and life partner, for the Vietnamese translation in the title.
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