Ars Bvshnellica Q&A, Sept 29 2007 edition

For best results, read the Q aloud and pretend A is being said by beloved horror icon Vincent Price.

Q. I loved you in "The Pit and the Pendulum."
A. Thank you, you're very kind.

Q. I thought you were supposed to be moving to South Orange today, but you're back in Ashland. What gives?
A. I did move to South Orange today, but upon entering the apartment I noticed there was no power. I figured I could either spend two days in the dark or come back to Ashland to spend the night and bring more stuff tomorrow morning.

Q. Tomorrow morning? Why not later?
A. The mattress store is delivering my discount mattress tomorrow between noon and 4pm; if I want to be in South Orange by noon, I have to leave Ashland tomorrow morning.

Q. "Discount mattress"?
A. Yeah, the model has apparently been discontinued.

Q. A discontinued mattress? Who cares?
A. Yeah, really. As if neighbors really get into pissing contests over who has the latest mattress model. It is suburbia, though.

Q. *shudder*
A. *shudder*

Q. I thought the utility company was supposed to turn on the power in your apartment yesterday. Did you call them?
A. Yes. They told me that no one was there to let them in.

Q. But I thought you told them earlier that the building superintendent would be there.
A. That's not technically a Q, but yes, I did tell them that, and the super claimed he was around all day, so I don't know what happened. I guess Monday is now the earliest day they can turn on the power for my apartment.

Q. What's your new address going to be?
A. Got a pen? It's:
151 Vose Avenue, apt B12
South Orange, NJ 07079

Q. "Vose". What an ugly word.
A. Try saying it on the phone. Every time I say it I have to say "V as in Victor ..." because it's such a bad word.

Q. It sounds German.
A. Are you surprised?

Q. Hey, I thought I was doing the Q's here.
A. Alright, go ahead.

Q. What's your new phone number?
A. I'm not getting a phone. I'm keeping my cell and once I get the internet hooked up, I'll be using Skype.

Q. What's your cell number?
A. I told you months ago. Search your email.

Q. Which is better, Gremlins 1 or 2?
A. Depends on your mood.

Q. Is it embarrassing that you're 32 and you had to have your mom co-sign the lease?
A. It's on par for my life.

Q. What did you think of The Office's season premiere?
A. Meh.

Q. What are you reading right now?
A. Nothing; I took my books to South Orange today and then left them there.

Q. When do you start your job?
A. Monday.

Q. What are you doing again?
A. I'm doing the layout for the Ukrainian Weekly. It's a newspaper.

Q. Hey, you like doing newspaper layout!
A. And I'm Ukrainian!

Q. When are you going to finish your series of posts on your trip to Europe?
A. I dunno. Sometime.

Q. You can do it this week.
A. Stop bossing me!

Q. I guess I better let you go. Thanks for your half of the Q&A, A.
A. You're welcome, Q.

Past imperfect

Inexplicably, my mom subscribes to Hello! Magazine, the British periodical whose mission statement is "celebrities are infinitely interesting, even the British ones you've never heard of; it's just too bad our photos are blurry rubbish."

In a nice nod to the commoners, the magazine devotes its last few pages to recipes (which are photographed much better than anything else in the publication). A few weeks ago they had a recipe for bangers and mash, which can be accurately described to North Americans as "sausages and mashed potatoes." The recipe went something like this:

1. Grill or fry some sausages.
2. Boil potatoes and then mash them.
3. Get ready to loosen belt, fatso.

It's a British magazine, and thus will use "fatso" rather than "fatty."

As much contempt as I have for Hello!, I do have to thank them for alerting me to another term I'd like to adopt: "soured cream." That's what one of this week's recipes called for. (I think the recipe was for Victoria Beckham's Easy Tuna Casserole. An unwanted celebrity and a high-school-level chef? She's a double threat!)

It never occurred to me that you could call sour cream "soured cream." I'm such a ridiculous stickler for "iced tea" and "whipped cream" that I always hoped there were more needlessly nitpicky names for foodstuffs I could use. Welcome to the team, soured cream; we've got some pierogies with your name on 'em.

That being said, I continue to be baffled by some folks' insistence on calling homemade cd compilations "mixed" cd's. We never called them "mixed tapes," did we? No! So why are their techonological descendants "mixed cd's?" Because they're not; they're "mix cd's" and they always will be!

OK, this post was kind of pointless, so I'll toss out one more Into the Wild criticism that's kind of a spoiler, but that continues to bug me days later. Say what you will about director Sean Penn, but you have to admit that he's a principled dude. So why would he go and change the ending to Into the Wild? It's really a rip-off to have the kid survive at the end. Certainly, it works in the context of the film Sean Penn wanted to make, but it cheapens the real story and I think Penn should have tried harder to reconcile the true story with the story he wanted to tell. I'm a little surprised no other review I've read has mentioned this aspect of the film, but it's gotten overwhelmingly positive reviews so I suppose everyone else thinks Penn made the right decision in having the kid survive his Alaskan adventure. For me, it simply didn't work.

"You're so organic!" Ugh.

So according to this morning's phone call, I got the apartment in South Orange. I'd successfully avoided living in New Jersey for five years, but now I'm being dragged back. It's like I violated my parole.

Instead of seeing a guy in Brooklyn about a used Saab, I went to see Into the Wild. The book is one of my favorite books. The movie is not one of my favorite movies. I told some people I wouldn't say anything about the movie until they've had a chance to see it, but considering its NY presence is limited to two theatres, I don't know how long it will take for it to hit other cities and this movie is too unique for me to keep silent. As a half-assed conciliatory gesture, I'll limit my criticism to two elements that maybe won't bother you as much as they did me:

1. Way too many fonts. At least four within the first few minutes, including one that morphs into another. This was one thing that made the movie feel unfocused. (There were others, but this was one.)
   
2. Way too many voiceovers. A lot of the time I just tuned out and enjoyed the visuals, which were generally terrific. Some of the voiceovers (oh, there are a few speakers) used language that no one ever uses. One speaker used the word "balk." Have you ever said "balk"? Maybe you've written it, but have you used it in speech? No, you haven't. Why not? Because it's a silly word. It's a word used when you want to be needlessly poetic, which describes 90% of the voiceovers in this movie.

Things I did like in the movie

1. The music, sometimes.
2. The cinematography, mostly.
3. The end credits' citation of all the quotes used in the movie, entirely.
   
4. Hal Holbrook, unabashedly.

Go see it and we'll discuss.

Spam taught me a new word today!

I got a spam from "indehiscent Kidd" today. I didn't know what "indehiscent" meant, but considering I also got spam from "transferably Keith," "conductible Archer," and "radiotelegraphy Ewing," I figured "indehiscent" was at least a real word.

According to Webster.com, "indehiscent" is an adjective meaning "remaining closed at maturity," as in "indehiscent fruits." So in addition to being a real word, it's also a stupid, nigh unusable word.

It makes me wonder if "HandMAdeR01EXXRep1icäs" is also a real word.

Sartorial satori

Three reasons to visit the Charles Tyrwhitt website right now:

1. If you use the url http://www.ctshirts.co.uk/nyt6 and order by October 31, you'll get 50% your first order.
   
2. At 50% off, their really nice shirts are reasonably priced really nice shirts. Admittedly, this place isn't Sears, but we are talking about really nice shirts.
   
3. Every shirt has the option of French cuff (ie need cufflinks) or single cuff (ie have buttons), pocket or no pocket, and monogramming.
   
4. "If the item you buy doesn't fit, doesn't recover from a spilt curry or doesn't transform you into an instant Adonis (or if it does and gets ripped off your back), then send it back free of charge within three months for an exchange or immediate refund. No questions asked. We shall not cry. We shall just try even harder to please (and I shall keep practising my backward bends)."
5. They have you covered, regardless of your pay grade. On the personal information form, the options under "Salutation" are:
   

   Mr, Mrs, Miss, Ms, Dr, Admiral, Admiral Sir, Air Commodore, Baron, Baroness, Bishop, Brigadier, Canon, Captain, Colonel, Colonel Sir, Commander, Commodore, Councillor, Count, Countess, Dame, Deputy, Duke Of, Earl, Fam, Father, Field Marshal Lord, Field Marshal Sir, Flight Lieutenant, Frau, Frau Dr, Frau Graefin, Freifrau, Freiherr, Fuerst, Fuerstin, General, General Sir, Graf, Group Captain, H R H, Herr, Herr Baron, Herr Dr, Herr Prof, His Excellency, Judge, Lady, Lieutenant, Lord, LT Colonel, LT Commander, LT General, LT General Sir, M, Major, Major General, Major General Sir, Marchioness, Master, Mlle, Mme, Mr & Mrs, Officer Cadet, Prinz, Prinzessin, Professor, Rear Admiral, Rear Admiral Sir, Reverend, RT Hon, RT Hon Sir, RT Reverend, Sergeant, Sir, Squadron Leader, The Bishop Of, The Countess Of, The Duchess Of, The Earl Of, The Hon, The Hon Mrs, The Marchioness Of, The Marquess Of, Vice-Admiral, Vice-Admiral Sir, Viscount, Viscountess, Wing Commander

I felt like a chump for sticking with "Mr", but I'd rather not end up on yet another "Field Marshal Lords only" mailing list -- once the list gets out, the spammers targetting that group are relentless!

Once again, though, I am left questioning my career path; if I'd made different decisions, at this very moment I could be working towards becoming "LT General Sir David Bushnell" instead of just looking to buy a used Saab from a guy in Brooklyn.

Cemetery in Windham, NY

The highest point of Main Street in Windham is occupied by a cemetery on one side and a steep drop-off to the other. Maybe there's a message there. Maybe not.

Every time I drive past, I don't think of the drop-off; I think of the tallest and most ambiguous gravestone in the cemetery.

Fig. 1: Does this bug you, God? I'm not touching you. Does this bug you?

I've never seen a gravestone with a finger pointing skyward, though I guess it's technically meant to point Heavenward. It's either taunting God, or teasing the living.

Fig. 2: See? That's where I'm going. To Heaven. Suck it, living people.

Hey, it was the 1860's; people were jerks back then (cf the Civil War).

Regardless of the intent, the figure is admittedly unusual.

Or is it? Laura claims that when the Prophet Mohammed was buried, his hand was left above ground (I didn't ask if the hand was pointing anywhere in particular). Furthermore, the first animal to start eating the superterranean hand was a pig, which allegedly is the reason Muslims are forbidden from eating pork. I don't know if the hand was left above ground for any specific reason (again, I didn't ask; man, I gotta work on my story listening skills), but I like to think that Muslims of the day were considering a ban on some particular foodstuff -- maybe there were competing shepherd factions or something -- and they left Mohammed's hand above ground to settle the dispute: "First animal to eat the hand gets banned!" Maybe we could solve the Mideast crisis by leaving a KFC Chicken Bowl on the Gaza Strip, and the first group to make a grab for it loses their claim.

What? Oh, the cemetery, right.

Here is the second interesting gravestone, which is ambiguous only if you're a jerk.

Fig. 3: No, the woman is not sad because she won't have the Butts to kick around anymore.

Isaac C. Butts ... I.C. Butts ... Icy Butts ... insert joke here. It's ok; he's been dead for 100 years, and maybe he was as big a jerk as the pointing guy above.

This gravestone introduces a topic that is unavoidable when discussing ye olde dead people: These people had crazy-ass names. In the case of the Butts, the "ass" part of "crazy-ass" suggests I could have chosen a different term.

For instance, there's the Mattoons:

Fig. 4: I wish they'd had a child named "Saska"

"Ransom A. Mattoon" sounds like a carnival booth for kidnappers.

And then there's Sonic Youth frontman Thurston Moore:

Fig. 5: It'll take more than a teenage riot to get him out of bed right now

Well, maybe this is not the Thurston Moore we know and love ... perhaps the Thurston we know and love was born under a different name and came upon this gravestone shortly after committing one crime too many, and decided to steal this dead man's name and use it to become an indie guitar god!

In the end, though, "Thurston Moore" should know that it will all come to naught. And then McDonald's will find a way to make a buck off it anyway. And maybe they'll call their sandwich ...

Fig. 6: Get it? Naught + McDonald's = ... nevermind

Yeah, that was pretty terrible. But it was also the first thing I thought when I saw it, and shouldn't honesty (and its snooty cousin, authenticity) be praised?

Answer: Yes, yes it should. Especially if it's me being uncharacteristically honest.

33 days until my next brownie ...

I survived the brownie. It was scary for a bit there; at one point I thought I could smell Thai green curry, which I haven't had in months. Perhaps I was traveling through time? I really don't think my mom laced the almonds with anything, so it must have been the prison-grade refined sugar.

And now, having survived the brownie, I just want more.

But I cannot! I must not! The Dirtbombs are playing Maxwell's on October 20th, and I must remain alive until then.

If they're playing Maxwell's, it might mean they're touring, so I urge you to check your local listings. I also urge you to bring earplugs; the last time I saw them, I lost my hearing for three days. Which is still less scary than the side effects from that delicious, delicious brownie.

When will the screaming [in my stomach] stop?

There's a finite amount of brownie that will go into my body before my body taps me on the shoulder and tells me we're about to vomit. We're almost at that point, but I've got so little brownie left on the plate that it would be a crime to stop. Trust me; I've been a victim of crime. For instance, there was the time this weekend when I was eating spaghetti: my body was near the point of tapping out and couldn't finish the delicious spaghetti, even though I had very little left on my plate, like less than two forkfuls ... or forksful? I forget which is the correct form, but maybe neither is correct because both of those words look Scandinavian. When in doubt, don't trust the Scandinavians.

The almonds worked out well, though. Thanks, Laura!

NYC Water Towers

I went to New York City a few days ago, but was limited to two hours. I wanted to take pictures but was feeling uninspired and under the gun, so I took pictures of water towers. Pictures like this:

Fig. 1: Old school

I love water towers. They're old-fashioned and largely obsolete (I think there's still one business in Brooklyn that still makes them) but they don't take up much precious real estate and they're a good back-up in case of emergency, so I guess they get to stay. Thanks to that, it's possible that water towers will outlast all of us.

Fig. 2: New school

Actually, I don't know anything about New York water towers. Until that steam pipe burst a couple of months ago, I didn't even know New York City still had steam pipes. I mean, I knew all along that New York City had water towers (just look up, there they are) but as to what they're used for, or even if they're still used ... well, your guess is as good as mine.

I tried, I tried, I tried

One of the channels we get is the Documentary Channel. It shows documentaries you've never heard of that sound really interesting but end up being poorly and cheaply made and thus not-interesting. Today they showed Aardvark'd, a documentary (duh) about four summer interns at a software development company who are tasked with designing, developing, and releasing a product in 12 weeks. It made me really glad that I'm not pursuing software development as a career.

The guys (obviously they're all going to be guys) come up with a product which is a web-based help application, wherein an "expert" is allowed to take over another user's computer remotely. If that sounds a lot like VNC, it's because it is; the guys ended up creating a web interface that gets both parties to install TightVNC and use that. Somehow they expect users to pay for a service that tells them to install free software. It seems like the "expert" user would know about VNC technology and could tell the other user to install a VNC client ... but that would make too much sense.

Subject matter aside, the documentary itself was pretty terrible. It was so poorly shot that I got motion sickness from watching it (I took a Bonine five hours ago, but that worked only briefly). It included three re-enactments of wacky things happening to the guys -- There's a giant cockroach in the bathroom! Their landlord tells them no parties! -- which made the doc seem like an episode of "Rescue 911" with especially poor actors.

The entire thing was such a waste of time (like software development itself? Hmm ... ) that it bores me to write about it now. If I'm to impart any sort of wisdom about the experience of watching this documentary, it's that I get motion sick watching jittery camerawork.

He can get the job, but can he do the job?

Driving into Newark, NJ, is an interesting experience. The closer you get as you pass through Florham Park, Livingston, South Orange, and Maplewood, the greater your loathing of humanity grows. As you pass into Newark at last, just blocks from where a gang recently killed three university students for no reason greater than boredom, you start to reconsider your decision to get out of bed every morning. The area would be nice if anyone cared, but the charming old houses are in disrepair, the lawns are neglected, and the people wander the streets in a sweaty daze. Then you're sitting in the car, outside a thrift shop and across the street from a strip club, and the heat is unbearable and some person in the thrift shop (an employee? a customer?) is yelling at some other person in the thrift shop, and you ... what? What can you do?

I think that should be Newark's new tourism slogan: "It's Newark. What can you do?"

I think that was the first time "Newark" and "tourism" appeared in the same sentence. Oh, poor Newark. I think it was the NY Times last week that described Newark as the one major city in the US that steadfastly refuses any attempts at improvement. There were riots in 1965 that frightened the middle class away and the city never recovered. You'd think in forty years a city would have turned itself around, at least partially, in some neighborhoods ... but nope, not Newark!

To be fair, there is one good thing about Newark: leaving it. In a miraculous reversal, the farther you get from Newark, the better you feel. You start driving and twenty minutes later the housing prices are astronomical and you're feeling ... well, you still loathe humanity, but it's a kind of loathing that doesn't include suicidal depression. An hour after that, the editor-in-chief tells you she'll bring up your salary requirements with the publisher next week, and if he ok's it then you've got yourself a job. And now you just have to find yourself a place to live ... I'm thinking somewhere with a low amount of humanity-loathing would be nice, but I'm not picky.

It was pretty cool to watch

I'm pretty sure it's unusual for steam to come out of a laser printer. I bought my printer brand-new in 2005, and I don't think they've made water-cooled laser printers since the mid-90's.

Another hypothesis: I was printing out my portfolio at the time, so it's possible the printer wasn't steaming, it was smoking from the red-hot newspaper layouts it was producing.

Then again, the printer had spent the last four months in a box in the garage, so it might have been getting rid of accumulated moisture.

Water-cooled printer, red-hot layouts, or excess moisture? I don't think we'll ever know for sure.

plenipotentiary!

Fig. 1: No thank you

I don't about you, but I'm increasingly baffled by Dictionary.com's Word of the Day. Lately I've gotten "pukka" and "mulct". Have you ever tried to use "pukka" or "mulct" in conversation? No, you haven't. Why haven't you? Because those are terrible words. Because besides being unnecessary synonyms for words that have alrwady have an abundance of perfectly synonyms, they sound unappealing. They sound like bodily fluids. What's the point of having your vocabulary enriched if the result will nauseate people? What I need, Dictionary.com, is a synonym for "creepy". I need several synonyms for "creepy". I need a month of synonyms for "creepy".

Either that, or I need things to stop being creepy. I'm not sure if Dictionary.com can eliminate all creepiness from the universe, but if they can dig up "mulct" they clearly have mysterious powers I cannot yet begin to grasp. Come on, Web 2.0; let's make this happen.

"Loin" is never not creepy

Every once in awhile, I feel a combination of delight and annoyance that "cool" rhymes with "school." At some point in our language's evolution, "cool" stopped being merely a word meaning "sort of cold" and became a word also meaning "popular with the youngsters," and I'm sure when that point arrived, some well-meaning educators rubbed their hands together and said, "Finally, we can form a phrase to convince our young charges to continue their educations (thereby ensuring continued employment for us)!"

I read somewhere that 40% of the average person's waking hours are spent thinking in parenthetical asides. But anyway ...

"It's cool to stay in school." I'm curious about the first time that sentence was used, and I'm also curious if the person who used that sentence that first time was as totally un-cool as I think they must have been. I googled "it's cool to stay in school" (all in quotes, obviously, because I'm interested in only the real thing) and got a surprisingly low 745 hits. After the first page of results I was as uninterested in continuing this line of inquiry as you are in reading about it now, so here are some choice snippets from those first ten results:

It's Cool To Stay In School, Diddy Tells High School Students ...
www.starpulse.com/news/index.php

brad's life - It's cool to eat at school.
I remember those, and also "It's cool to..." stay in school, follow the rules, and other such idiotic rhyming phrases that belittled the intelligence of the ...
brad.livejournal.com/2155583.html

Toys & Hobbies at ShopSheet.com
It's never too early to learn that it's cool to stay in school and hip to be smart. This small desk is packed with big style. The seat features a pullout ...
www.shopsheet.com

myLot - hushuoyoudao - my discussions
i miss school a lot...here are the ten reasons it's cool to stay in school: 1. School is where you met your bestfriend--the one you can't live without. 2. ...
www.mylot.com/hushuoyoudao/discussions?t=reply

Uh-oh, I feel a lame transition coming up ...

Here we go ...

I still don't know when it started be cool to stay in school, but if the characters on Mad Men came up with it, I'd have a new appreciation for the phrase. Mad Men is a delightful new drama on AMC about a Madison Avenue advertising agency in 1960, and by "delightful," I mean "delightful if you can look past the misogyny, anti-semitism, racism, homophobia, and sense of class entitlement." Hey, some people can't.

I can. I love it.

There's background to the scene below, but I think it works fine without.

Fig. 1: I think "cherry danish" is supposed to mean something