Do you ever wonder what your epitaph will say? Inevitably, something will be chiseled in granite. Unless you think about it ahead of time, you won’t be consulted on the last say you will ever have. Ideally, mine should chronicle my life in the car. It’s when I’m at my best.
As a solo act, being alone in the car trumps them all. The universe between the windshield and the back window is yours alone to govern. You can play any song you like on your CD player, and you can play it as many times in a row as you like. I always I end up listening to one or two favorite songs on a CD, over and over. I do this in case life is shorter than I expect it to be. I don’t want to wake up on the other side and find out that I invested too much time on tracks that I didn’t really like. Listening to music is not about being polite. At present, Dust in the Wind and Carry on My Wayward Son have the exclusive rights to the airwaves in my car. They bring about a cosmic atmosphere. Dust in the Wind laments on how ephemeral life really is, and Carry on My Wayward Son excuses all my transgressions on my way to laying my weary head to rest.
There’s a lot of stuff to do in the car, other than the obvious activity of driving it around. First of all, even though I don’t have an especially fancy car, there are a lot of controls to be adjusted. If I’m on a long trip I like to adjust the air conditioning about every one to two minutes. It keeps me sharp. In the winter, I adjust the heat even more frequently, switching it from blowing on my face, to my feet, to the back seat. I can never seem to achieve an ideal temperature for more than 30 seconds. It’s the main reason I insist passengers sit only in the back seat. That way they can’t touch the temperature controls.
Eating in the car is also a pleasant pastime, especially since drive-thrus are so plentiful. Coffee never tastes better than when you are driving around, the sun in your eyes, the tunes blasting, and the coffee stains outnumbering the buttons on your coat. If you are kind of clumsy like me, you might end up wearing as much of your coffee as you drink, but the battle scars on your coat don’t matter. You know the cup holder is in even worse shape than you are.
Often, when I’m driving around and my mind is roaming free, I will have a great idea about something I want to write. I keep a note pad in the map pocket of the door to jot down these jewels. I like to be safe, though, so I wait until I come to a traffic light that’s red. Then I begin writing furiously. Sometimes I can tell that I’m making the drivers around me paranoid. They think I’m recording their license plate numbers to report their driving errors. Occasionally, I try to reassure them by rolling down the window and yelling “Don’t worry – I’m just having ideas!” Usually they pretend they haven’t heard me and drive away quickly. They don’t even wait for the light to go green.
There are even more exotic things you can do while driving your car than eating and drinking coffee and deafening yourself with 35 year old rock music. Some people apply makeup, read books or maps, brush their teeth without the benefit of water, or catch up on their cross-stitch. These are all fun car activities, but I try to indulge in them only if the traffic light is long enough to allow me to fill in my income tax forms. At other times, when the red light lasts interminably long, I toy with the idea of changing my oil, but I never do, because I would actually have to get out of the car to do this.
Last summer Highway 11 kept interfering with my perfect life in the car. I spent more time stopped by construction than I did driving. Each waiting period stretched out longer than the previous one. I can tell when drivers’ tolerance for waiting has reached the limit. They start getting out of their vehicles and visiting up and down the long chain of cars to see if the other drivers know why the delay is so long. Of course, they cannot possibly have any additional information, but any kind of waiting is a good excuse for socializing. Pretty soon people start opening their coolers and slapping on sun tan oil as they pump other drivers for the details on what life is like in Cobalt, or Albuquerque, or Moonbeam. Eventually, just as Joe from Greenville, Alabama gets his BBQ lit, the line begins to snake ahead.
On my last trip up Highway 11, I finally tired of socializing with the same drivers at every delay. I decided to indulge in some light housekeeping in my car. I cleaned the dashboard and the windshield, and mucked out the cup holders. I re-folded about twenty crumpled maps. I alphabetized the travel pamphlets, restrung my tennis racket, and I had enough time left over to haul water from a nearby creek and swab down the passenger seat. It was suffering from some sort of encounter with spilled Chinese food. I considered re-warming the leftover food on the engine, but I was worried that I would run out of time.
I don’t like to be parted from my car. So perhaps my epitaph will reflect this. Maybe it will even be shaped like a car. And with all the advances in solar power and audio devices, I’m pretty sure that I can look forward to having the haunting strains of Dust in the Wind follow me and my car into eternity.
Monday, August 9, 2010
Saturday, April 24, 2010
BYOB - Redefined!
Remember when BYOB meant Bring Your Own Booze or maybe Bring Your Own Beer - depending on how fiscally advanced your friends were? Now it’s way more boring. It means Bring Your Own Bag.
Originally, BYOB was invented to help keep your buddies out of the poor house when you all wanted to get drunk together. The current purpose? Lining the pockets of grocery store magnates. Oh sure five cents for a plastic bag is nothing. After all, what else can you do with a nickel these days? Penny candy costs ten cents! And, yes, even a whole bunch of grocery bags is only going to set you back fifty or sixty cents. But that’s not the point. I don’t think grocery stores are buying those bags for five cents each, so I smell profit being cooked up. In fact, now that we have the Internet, and nothing can be kept secret, I’ve discovered that those bags cost way less than one cent each. So that’s at least 400% profit on every bag sold. With a money-making scheme like that, grocery stores will probably stop bothering to pedal food at all.
Customers are only too happy to pay for those bags, figuring that they’re helping the environment. But…if I previously required ten bags to bring home my groceries, and now I need ten bags plus 50 cents to bring home my groceries, how am I helping the environment? In fact, I have consumed even more resources with this method. Somebody had to mine/smelt/manufacture/transport those coins I used as payment, or invent and supervise the cyberworld required to process the equivalent digital transactions. And they all drove to work in their SUV’s.
So, in my desperate attempt to help the environment, I am now transporting ratty moth-eaten plastic bags in my purse, pockets, and under my bra strap - so that I can save a few nickels. Frankly, it makes me feel cheap. But if I buy the bags I feel un-green. I also suspect that I’ve been mercilessly gouged by corporations that have figured out how to squeeze a few more shekels out of the environmentally guilt-ridden.
Cloth bags would seem to be the ultimate solution. So… in addition to used plastic bags, I tote my largish collection of reusable bags with me everywhere I go. They’re much bulkier and can’t be stuck into convenient nooks and crannies like the plastic ones.
The grocery moguls expressed their concern for the environment by helpfully selling me the cloth bags at a dollar a piece. They would like me to use them for a long time, but not too long a time. I can tell this because while they are made of cloth, they’re not washing machine friendly. A few rounds in the washer and they’ve become pathetically bearded with lint balls. Oh well. At least I can’t see the E. coli frolicking in last week’s meat juice/produce nectar.
But still I worry. While I’m not wasting plastic by bringing home an estimated 1000 bags per year, I am sucking up energy by putting them through the wash. So, basically, trying to be green is a painful equation that can never be satisfactorily balanced.
Of course I could always give up buying food altogether.
Originally, BYOB was invented to help keep your buddies out of the poor house when you all wanted to get drunk together. The current purpose? Lining the pockets of grocery store magnates. Oh sure five cents for a plastic bag is nothing. After all, what else can you do with a nickel these days? Penny candy costs ten cents! And, yes, even a whole bunch of grocery bags is only going to set you back fifty or sixty cents. But that’s not the point. I don’t think grocery stores are buying those bags for five cents each, so I smell profit being cooked up. In fact, now that we have the Internet, and nothing can be kept secret, I’ve discovered that those bags cost way less than one cent each. So that’s at least 400% profit on every bag sold. With a money-making scheme like that, grocery stores will probably stop bothering to pedal food at all.
Customers are only too happy to pay for those bags, figuring that they’re helping the environment. But…if I previously required ten bags to bring home my groceries, and now I need ten bags plus 50 cents to bring home my groceries, how am I helping the environment? In fact, I have consumed even more resources with this method. Somebody had to mine/smelt/manufacture/transport those coins I used as payment, or invent and supervise the cyberworld required to process the equivalent digital transactions. And they all drove to work in their SUV’s.
So, in my desperate attempt to help the environment, I am now transporting ratty moth-eaten plastic bags in my purse, pockets, and under my bra strap - so that I can save a few nickels. Frankly, it makes me feel cheap. But if I buy the bags I feel un-green. I also suspect that I’ve been mercilessly gouged by corporations that have figured out how to squeeze a few more shekels out of the environmentally guilt-ridden.
Cloth bags would seem to be the ultimate solution. So… in addition to used plastic bags, I tote my largish collection of reusable bags with me everywhere I go. They’re much bulkier and can’t be stuck into convenient nooks and crannies like the plastic ones.
The grocery moguls expressed their concern for the environment by helpfully selling me the cloth bags at a dollar a piece. They would like me to use them for a long time, but not too long a time. I can tell this because while they are made of cloth, they’re not washing machine friendly. A few rounds in the washer and they’ve become pathetically bearded with lint balls. Oh well. At least I can’t see the E. coli frolicking in last week’s meat juice/produce nectar.
But still I worry. While I’m not wasting plastic by bringing home an estimated 1000 bags per year, I am sucking up energy by putting them through the wash. So, basically, trying to be green is a painful equation that can never be satisfactorily balanced.
Of course I could always give up buying food altogether.
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Cloak and Swagger
Have you ever noticed that when you put on a cape you immediately begin to swagger? No wonder it’s the garment of choice for superheroes. Picture Batman without his magnificent black cape. That’s right – now he’s totally neutered. He’s reduced to a muscle bound man in a foolishly sculpted leotard. But add in a cape and he is restored to superhero status. Capes are all about power.
Capes just don’t get trendy nearly often enough. If I wanted to go out a buy myself a cape this very afternoon, where would I go? Neither posh nor humble stores have a cape section. Where could I go to toss a satin cape over my shoulders and admire my reflection in the mirror? Even the Sears catalogue is devoid of capes.
So, where does Batman shop? Is there some secret Capeland Mall that we don’t know about? It seems that the Pope knows where it is – he always wears a modest-length pristine white cape for official duties. It’s probably a mall with separate entrances for superheroes and arch enemies, so they can avoid unnecessary clashes during off duty hours. There are different stores for heroes and anti-heroes, with clever names like The Cloakroom, Frantic Mantle, and Papal Stoles ‘n’ Stuff. Garments for sleuthing in are sold at Capers. Weekend wear features ponchos with a choice of stripes. These also possess the standard secret pocket where you can hide your jeans and sneakers when suddenly called into action. Possibly, in this mall, you can even buy a virtual phone booth, since real ones are scarce. These once popular change rooms have pretty much vanished in the era of cell phones, forcing superheroes into ever more compromising situations for urgent clothing swaps. Fortunately their super powers make these awkward moments fleeting. I’m not sure what the Pope does.
Perhaps the world would be a better place if we all started wearing capes. Don’t think so? The next time you fold up the sheets fresh out of the dryer, drape one over your shoulders. Oh – now you get it! Suddenly you are empowered. Now imagine that it is smooth and satiny and falls in thick red or black folds that drape down to the floor. You are now both sexy and powerful. You can see why even the tweed capes favored by British lords made them strut around with wool induced grandeur. Sherlock Holmes did his best thinking in a cape.
So who still wears capes? Well, there’s Dracula of course. His cape has a red lining that his tailor has discreetly installed to hide telltale stains. It also keeps people from confusing him with Batman, who stays with the classic double-sided black cape, which is not only intimidating, but reversible. Models wear capes - mostly because designers love to create capes but can’t figure out how to convince secretaries and doctors and accountants to buy them. Witches wear capes as a kind of uniform, making them easy to spot. This has the psychological advantage of warning us that we are about to be placed under a spell or fall prey to a potion. This little bit of foreknowledge actually primes us into being more easily influenced - the Wiccan version of advertising. Children wait impatiently every year for Halloween so that they can wear a cape. It doesn’t matter what the costume is, a cape is a mandatory accessory – Chicken Little and Michael Jackson costumes have capes that are just as worthy as the ones worn by Darth Vader and Snow White.
Capes are actually timeless fashion pieces. Darth Vader is still wearing one in a distant future… or is that right now in a distant galaxy? I can never figure that out. In Biblical times they were fond of capes, but referred to them as simply “cloaks”. Everyone had a cloak - the scribes, the shepherds, the rich, the poor. Even the cranky inn keeper had a cloak. They were practical in an era that lacked sewing machines, freeing tailors and housewives from the tyranny of sewing in sleeves. Long before panty hose were invented, these people had conquered the one-size-fits-all concept. A sleeveless item such as a cloak can be worn by anyone tall enough not to trip on its hem. Garments that have sleeves are not capes, nor are they cloaks, or ponchos, or stoles - they are coats! So when you see a cape with sleeves on eBay, do not be fooled.
Secret societies are also very fond of capes, or at least that is what I’m told. Details of their garb is, of course, strictly confidential.
Royalty goes in for the cape in a big way. You can easily pick out the king when you go into a palace – he’s the one with the biggest cape. Just in case you are a completely unobservant dolt, he also wears a crown. His knights wear sturdy capes that are handy to shelter in on freezing nights, or to stuff into bleeding wounds. They can be transformed into a blanket for a picnic, or a set of wings to aid an exit from a speeding horse. They also make a convenient wrap for warming rescued damsels. The sheer versatility of the cape is staggering.
So if you want to find yourself at the extreme end of the empowerment spectrum - good or evil - sew yourself a cape. There is no other piece of clothing that has the robust stamina and dominating atmosphere of a cape. Could Darth Vader have terrified Luke Skywalker while wearing a trench coat? Never! Nothing can be substituted for the noble cape. Whoever heard of a coat and dagger operation? As in all other things, only a cloak will suffice.
Capes just don’t get trendy nearly often enough. If I wanted to go out a buy myself a cape this very afternoon, where would I go? Neither posh nor humble stores have a cape section. Where could I go to toss a satin cape over my shoulders and admire my reflection in the mirror? Even the Sears catalogue is devoid of capes.
So, where does Batman shop? Is there some secret Capeland Mall that we don’t know about? It seems that the Pope knows where it is – he always wears a modest-length pristine white cape for official duties. It’s probably a mall with separate entrances for superheroes and arch enemies, so they can avoid unnecessary clashes during off duty hours. There are different stores for heroes and anti-heroes, with clever names like The Cloakroom, Frantic Mantle, and Papal Stoles ‘n’ Stuff. Garments for sleuthing in are sold at Capers. Weekend wear features ponchos with a choice of stripes. These also possess the standard secret pocket where you can hide your jeans and sneakers when suddenly called into action. Possibly, in this mall, you can even buy a virtual phone booth, since real ones are scarce. These once popular change rooms have pretty much vanished in the era of cell phones, forcing superheroes into ever more compromising situations for urgent clothing swaps. Fortunately their super powers make these awkward moments fleeting. I’m not sure what the Pope does.
Perhaps the world would be a better place if we all started wearing capes. Don’t think so? The next time you fold up the sheets fresh out of the dryer, drape one over your shoulders. Oh – now you get it! Suddenly you are empowered. Now imagine that it is smooth and satiny and falls in thick red or black folds that drape down to the floor. You are now both sexy and powerful. You can see why even the tweed capes favored by British lords made them strut around with wool induced grandeur. Sherlock Holmes did his best thinking in a cape.
So who still wears capes? Well, there’s Dracula of course. His cape has a red lining that his tailor has discreetly installed to hide telltale stains. It also keeps people from confusing him with Batman, who stays with the classic double-sided black cape, which is not only intimidating, but reversible. Models wear capes - mostly because designers love to create capes but can’t figure out how to convince secretaries and doctors and accountants to buy them. Witches wear capes as a kind of uniform, making them easy to spot. This has the psychological advantage of warning us that we are about to be placed under a spell or fall prey to a potion. This little bit of foreknowledge actually primes us into being more easily influenced - the Wiccan version of advertising. Children wait impatiently every year for Halloween so that they can wear a cape. It doesn’t matter what the costume is, a cape is a mandatory accessory – Chicken Little and Michael Jackson costumes have capes that are just as worthy as the ones worn by Darth Vader and Snow White.
Capes are actually timeless fashion pieces. Darth Vader is still wearing one in a distant future… or is that right now in a distant galaxy? I can never figure that out. In Biblical times they were fond of capes, but referred to them as simply “cloaks”. Everyone had a cloak - the scribes, the shepherds, the rich, the poor. Even the cranky inn keeper had a cloak. They were practical in an era that lacked sewing machines, freeing tailors and housewives from the tyranny of sewing in sleeves. Long before panty hose were invented, these people had conquered the one-size-fits-all concept. A sleeveless item such as a cloak can be worn by anyone tall enough not to trip on its hem. Garments that have sleeves are not capes, nor are they cloaks, or ponchos, or stoles - they are coats! So when you see a cape with sleeves on eBay, do not be fooled.
Secret societies are also very fond of capes, or at least that is what I’m told. Details of their garb is, of course, strictly confidential.
Royalty goes in for the cape in a big way. You can easily pick out the king when you go into a palace – he’s the one with the biggest cape. Just in case you are a completely unobservant dolt, he also wears a crown. His knights wear sturdy capes that are handy to shelter in on freezing nights, or to stuff into bleeding wounds. They can be transformed into a blanket for a picnic, or a set of wings to aid an exit from a speeding horse. They also make a convenient wrap for warming rescued damsels. The sheer versatility of the cape is staggering.
So if you want to find yourself at the extreme end of the empowerment spectrum - good or evil - sew yourself a cape. There is no other piece of clothing that has the robust stamina and dominating atmosphere of a cape. Could Darth Vader have terrified Luke Skywalker while wearing a trench coat? Never! Nothing can be substituted for the noble cape. Whoever heard of a coat and dagger operation? As in all other things, only a cloak will suffice.
Monday, April 20, 2009
How to Say No
Do you ever get asked to do things that, frankly, you just don’t want to do? If you answered that question with a “no,” keep surfing. For the rest of you normal people, I’ve come up with a few suggestions on how to say "no." You will have to figure out for yourself when and where to apply my time-tested strategies.
Don’t lie about it. Just say “no”.
Say “no” but soften it with a “white lie.” Anyone who says they never do this is lying. And it isn’t even white.
Feign deafness.
Feign blindness. (Gets you out of a lot of stuff…)
Say “yes.” Especially useful when caught off guard. Go home. Think about it. Call back and say “no.” These things are always easier over the phone. Use one of the four techniques described above.
Say “no” but come up with an alternate solution to help the person making the request. Probably the gold standard in the art of saying "no".
Convince them they can do it on their own. (Doesn’t work when kids ask you for money or fever medication….)
Reply with an equal but opposite counter-request. (e.g. I will help you build your dog house, if you will help you me replace the roof on my cottage – hope you don’t mind doing it in June even if the flies are a tiny bit bad then… Most likely to be successful if your request is far more burdensome)
Say “Shhhh”. Pretend you are listening for a burglar. Indicate that you just “heard something” outside the window. This only works at night.
Walk away distractedly. If pursued mumble something about “those voices in my head.”
Carry around business cards that say, “Director, Just Say No Program.” Hand out liberally.
Defer your answer – maybe you want to say “yes” after you think about it. (especially useful with kids, if your first inclination is to say, “Oh-my-God-NO-are-you-crazy-have-I-taught-you-NOTHING???!!” There is an outside chance, very small, that you could be over-reacting.)
Advise them to call 1-800-NOT-EVER. Their hotline will take care of it for you. There is a small monthly fee for the subscription. Well worth it.
Say “yes” and then clearly illustrate your incompetence. “Sure, I’ll look after your dog! Don’t worry about the last five dogs that ran away. Two of them eventually came back. One was even alive…”
Wear a button that says “NO!” If people ignore it, show them how sharp the pin is. (Caution – “show” them only.)
Defer the request. Check with others in the group who supposedly said “yes” to the proposal. Chances are half didn’t and the other half won’t show up. Applies mostly to parents and events that take place very early in the morning. Give in to peer pressure. Ask yourself: what would other parents do?
Say “yes” and feebly mention that you will help as “soon as you can manage”. Keep crutches in plain view or wear an eye patch. Works especially well with bosses who are afraid of unions.
Slip out the back, Jack, Make a new plan Stan… (it worked for Paul Simon…)
Don’t lie about it. Just say “no”.
Say “no” but soften it with a “white lie.” Anyone who says they never do this is lying. And it isn’t even white.
Feign deafness.
Feign blindness. (Gets you out of a lot of stuff…)
Say “yes.” Especially useful when caught off guard. Go home. Think about it. Call back and say “no.” These things are always easier over the phone. Use one of the four techniques described above.
Say “no” but come up with an alternate solution to help the person making the request. Probably the gold standard in the art of saying "no".
Convince them they can do it on their own. (Doesn’t work when kids ask you for money or fever medication….)
Reply with an equal but opposite counter-request. (e.g. I will help you build your dog house, if you will help you me replace the roof on my cottage – hope you don’t mind doing it in June even if the flies are a tiny bit bad then… Most likely to be successful if your request is far more burdensome)
Say “Shhhh”. Pretend you are listening for a burglar. Indicate that you just “heard something” outside the window. This only works at night.
Walk away distractedly. If pursued mumble something about “those voices in my head.”
Carry around business cards that say, “Director, Just Say No Program.” Hand out liberally.
Defer your answer – maybe you want to say “yes” after you think about it. (especially useful with kids, if your first inclination is to say, “Oh-my-God-NO-are-you-crazy-have-I-taught-you-NOTHING???!!” There is an outside chance, very small, that you could be over-reacting.)
Advise them to call 1-800-NOT-EVER. Their hotline will take care of it for you. There is a small monthly fee for the subscription. Well worth it.
Say “yes” and then clearly illustrate your incompetence. “Sure, I’ll look after your dog! Don’t worry about the last five dogs that ran away. Two of them eventually came back. One was even alive…”
Wear a button that says “NO!” If people ignore it, show them how sharp the pin is. (Caution – “show” them only.)
Defer the request. Check with others in the group who supposedly said “yes” to the proposal. Chances are half didn’t and the other half won’t show up. Applies mostly to parents and events that take place very early in the morning. Give in to peer pressure. Ask yourself: what would other parents do?
Say “yes” and feebly mention that you will help as “soon as you can manage”. Keep crutches in plain view or wear an eye patch. Works especially well with bosses who are afraid of unions.
Slip out the back, Jack, Make a new plan Stan… (it worked for Paul Simon…)
Sunday, April 19, 2009
Gotta Love Those Earworms
Okay, it sounds more disgusting than it really is. They finally came up with a name for those maddening tunes that get stuck in your head and play over and over (and over and over…). They’re called earworms. They come knocking on the door of your brain completely unbidden: Jesus Christ, Sooooperstar, do yoooouu think you’re what they saaaaay you arrrre? If you weren’t around in the early ‘70’s that might not set one off in your brain, but if you’ve ever owned that album you are now doomed for the rest of the day. And if you’re like me, it will tap you on the shoulder in the middle of the night to remind you that it’s not quite finished with you just yet. It will override an iPod plugged directly into your brain, and it will make you go around humming that brief set of notes until your family starts considering stoning you with the leftover pork chops.
How did they come up with the term “earworm”? Just like so many other interesting English words we borrowed it from the ever clever Germans. They use Ohrwurm to describe this distressing bug in the head. From there it’s a short leap to “earworm.” Even though the term is not at all accurate – the tune is in your brain, not your ear, and there is, thankfully, no worm – it says it all. In reality, it’s just a bunch of intractable synapses having it off with you. Still, the term earworm perfectly nails the process.
Earworms are vile creatures. They play only a tiny portion of a song in an endless loop of brain-eating repetition. At the neurological level the needle on the tone-arm of your brain has gotten stuck in a groove. It can advance no further into the song. The harder you try to drive the fragment to the end, the more resistant it becomes.
Some musical artists are more talented than others at spawning earworms. Pretty much anything by Stevie Wonder will set one off. There is soooperstition, writing’s on the waaaaaalll. The overly catchy tune written for Canada’s 1967 Centennial is especially dangerous: Caaaaa-naaaa-daaaa, one-little, two-little, three Canaaaaadians… That one wormed out in my head for so long that it eroded down into my eye socket and caused era-realted hallucinations - mainly Pierre Elliot Trudeau caricatures. TV commercials finally dethroned it in 1971 by convincing me that I’d like to teach the woooorld to sing, in perfect har-moo-nnyyyy…setting me off on a Coca-Cola buying frenzy.
Sometimes new earworms set up shop in the middle of the night. One minute I am sleeping peacefully, the next I am wide awake and listening to an internal version of Hey Jude…but only the first eight bars. At times earworms even become adulterated. I have been tortured by the alternate Hey Jude lyrics a classmate once wrote: Hey Jude, don’t take it baaad, take a maaaad hog, and knit a sweater… So, so, SO much worse than the original!
So what can you do when you are infected by an earworm? Should you take an Aspirin? Stuff your head under a pillow? Crack yourself over the head with a baseball bat? Place your head in the vice in the workshop and squeeze until the worm pops out? Trust me. None of these work. Save yourself the bother. The only way to de-worm yourself is to find a recording of the song and play it. Somehow this satisfies the ear worm, integrating it back into its source. It nestles back into the song instead of bristling in your brain. Your head becomes clear again, and like a dog on his way home from the vet, you are blessedly worm-free. That is… until you encounter a Stevie Wonder song or one of those patriotic tunes crafted to inspire the war torn masses. It’s a long way to Tipp-errrr-arrrr-yyyy…
How did they come up with the term “earworm”? Just like so many other interesting English words we borrowed it from the ever clever Germans. They use Ohrwurm to describe this distressing bug in the head. From there it’s a short leap to “earworm.” Even though the term is not at all accurate – the tune is in your brain, not your ear, and there is, thankfully, no worm – it says it all. In reality, it’s just a bunch of intractable synapses having it off with you. Still, the term earworm perfectly nails the process.
Earworms are vile creatures. They play only a tiny portion of a song in an endless loop of brain-eating repetition. At the neurological level the needle on the tone-arm of your brain has gotten stuck in a groove. It can advance no further into the song. The harder you try to drive the fragment to the end, the more resistant it becomes.
Some musical artists are more talented than others at spawning earworms. Pretty much anything by Stevie Wonder will set one off. There is soooperstition, writing’s on the waaaaaalll. The overly catchy tune written for Canada’s 1967 Centennial is especially dangerous: Caaaaa-naaaa-daaaa, one-little, two-little, three Canaaaaadians… That one wormed out in my head for so long that it eroded down into my eye socket and caused era-realted hallucinations - mainly Pierre Elliot Trudeau caricatures. TV commercials finally dethroned it in 1971 by convincing me that I’d like to teach the woooorld to sing, in perfect har-moo-nnyyyy…setting me off on a Coca-Cola buying frenzy.
Sometimes new earworms set up shop in the middle of the night. One minute I am sleeping peacefully, the next I am wide awake and listening to an internal version of Hey Jude…but only the first eight bars. At times earworms even become adulterated. I have been tortured by the alternate Hey Jude lyrics a classmate once wrote: Hey Jude, don’t take it baaad, take a maaaad hog, and knit a sweater… So, so, SO much worse than the original!
So what can you do when you are infected by an earworm? Should you take an Aspirin? Stuff your head under a pillow? Crack yourself over the head with a baseball bat? Place your head in the vice in the workshop and squeeze until the worm pops out? Trust me. None of these work. Save yourself the bother. The only way to de-worm yourself is to find a recording of the song and play it. Somehow this satisfies the ear worm, integrating it back into its source. It nestles back into the song instead of bristling in your brain. Your head becomes clear again, and like a dog on his way home from the vet, you are blessedly worm-free. That is… until you encounter a Stevie Wonder song or one of those patriotic tunes crafted to inspire the war torn masses. It’s a long way to Tipp-errrr-arrrr-yyyy…
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Attention Span
I think our attention span is spiraling down into ever tinier fragments of time. Now I’m tired of this topic; I’m going to think about something else. What were those hockey scores? Has it started raining yet? I think I’ll make spaghetti for supper. No, wait. I was trying to turn my attention to the topic of span. Oh shoot. What was that topic again? Must remember to gas up the car. Isn’t some kid somewhere at some lesson waiting for a ride somewhere? Okay, now where was I? Oh yeah, I suspect something is happening to our attention span. Now where is the lid to the jam jar? I thought I put it right over….. ooh, look at the pretty picture on the calendar!
It’s like we’ve fallen into some sort of jumble of societal dementia. No one thought can last for more than a few seconds before caving in to the centrifugal force of the next bigger-better-faster thought that comes busting into consciousness. Or maybe it’s just a plain ordinary thought that meanders in and sets up shop. In any event, thought number one is deposed.
Researchers who have a higher attention span than the rest of us have figured out a few things. They say that the average attention span for adults is twenty minutes. What a lot of hooey. The average attention span lasts for the duration of that golden period that lies between strings of TV commercials. And this holds true only if someone blows something up, or guns down five people, or takes off their shirt. Failure to produce these essential components puts the attention span at about three minutes for adults, and three seconds for teenagers.
Rock videos probably changed the global neural network for length of attention span. This is how they work. You insert yourself into the video slingshot and hang on for dear life as they pummel your bleeding eyes with rocket-speed scene changes. While your neurons have their stubby pencils out still trying to record the first scene, the video blasts on through scenes two through twenty-five. You are still less than twenty seconds into the video. Plaster your brain with a few hours of this and then sit down to write a thrilling essay on how Shakespeare makes use of classical allusions. Gee, this is hard. Perhaps a video game would settle me down.
Advertisers know a secret they have kept carefully hidden from us. Focused attention span endures for only eight fleeting seconds. After that we look elsewhere. This gives them the appropriate rhythm they need to ping-pong us with their products, leaving us conquered by what amounts to attention spam. Now that I have revealed their secret they will probably hunt me down and force feed me frozen home-style deep dish pizza until I die of pepperoni poisoning. Of course, if I can distract them for eight seconds, I can probably make my escape.
Now where was it I left my other sock?
It’s like we’ve fallen into some sort of jumble of societal dementia. No one thought can last for more than a few seconds before caving in to the centrifugal force of the next bigger-better-faster thought that comes busting into consciousness. Or maybe it’s just a plain ordinary thought that meanders in and sets up shop. In any event, thought number one is deposed.
Researchers who have a higher attention span than the rest of us have figured out a few things. They say that the average attention span for adults is twenty minutes. What a lot of hooey. The average attention span lasts for the duration of that golden period that lies between strings of TV commercials. And this holds true only if someone blows something up, or guns down five people, or takes off their shirt. Failure to produce these essential components puts the attention span at about three minutes for adults, and three seconds for teenagers.
Rock videos probably changed the global neural network for length of attention span. This is how they work. You insert yourself into the video slingshot and hang on for dear life as they pummel your bleeding eyes with rocket-speed scene changes. While your neurons have their stubby pencils out still trying to record the first scene, the video blasts on through scenes two through twenty-five. You are still less than twenty seconds into the video. Plaster your brain with a few hours of this and then sit down to write a thrilling essay on how Shakespeare makes use of classical allusions. Gee, this is hard. Perhaps a video game would settle me down.
Advertisers know a secret they have kept carefully hidden from us. Focused attention span endures for only eight fleeting seconds. After that we look elsewhere. This gives them the appropriate rhythm they need to ping-pong us with their products, leaving us conquered by what amounts to attention spam. Now that I have revealed their secret they will probably hunt me down and force feed me frozen home-style deep dish pizza until I die of pepperoni poisoning. Of course, if I can distract them for eight seconds, I can probably make my escape.
Now where was it I left my other sock?
Sunday, February 15, 2009
A Perfect World
Someone told me the other day that this is not a perfect world. Gee, I already knew that! In fact, I’ve known it for a long time, at least a year or so. In the five decades prior to that I merely suspected it. What tipped me off? Well, it wasn’t any one big event, just the culmination of a lot of little events. That couch I paid $29.95 for on eBay never showed up. The birds at my feeder kicked out the bird seed and pooped on my deck chairs. The dog packed up my suitcase and took it with him when he moved in with the neighbours. Other hints: my iPod showed up in the dryer after boldly venturing into the washing machine. It was the first time I ever witnessed music committing suicide. Last Christmas I came down with a bad cold, just like the previous eleven out of the twelve Christmases. The only year I was spared the cold I had Norwalk virus instead. What a mercy it was to return to the simple rigors of a fever and a runny nose the following year.
I’ve also begun to notice that globally the world is a little less than perfect as craziness crests ever higher. When there are devastating wildfires in California or Australia, some people run for their matchboxes so they can get in on the act. The rest of us are left banging our heads on the Wall of Disbelief. While most people either strive to make the world a better place, or at least are feckless enough to avoid setting off the general ruination of the planet, there are a few who are so inexplicably malicious that we are left stunned with the jaw-dropping stupidity of their actions.
Why can’t we ever have perfection? To figure that one out, we would have to understand just what perfection is. Apparently, Aristotle was the first one who flopped down in his lawn chair and allowed this concept to wash up on the shores of his brain. When it was all over and the three barrels of wine had been rolled back into the cellar for refilling, he had decreed three rules. Perfection has to be complete – no parts can be missing. It has to be so good that nothing similar can be any better. Also, it needs to have some sort of goal in mind, and it needs to achieve that goal, like a hockey player with a vendetta lucky enough to have a crossed-eyed goalie on the opposing team. There can be no margin for missing that goal. Pretty heady stuff – can you imagine what Aristotle might have come up with if he had stopped after just one barrel of wine? Or if he’d sustained a puck to the head?
I tried to think of things that might fit with Aristotle’s three point plan for perfection. Shopping came pretty close, but fell down on the goal part. Often I buy the no-name brand when I can’t find the premium brand, or when the premium brand has a price so high that I require treatment for altitude sickness. Likewise, driving a car almost fit the bill, but when I applied the “nothing could be better” part I had to admit that my car was a Ferrari only in my mind. Regrettably, swimming in a lake on a hot summer day also fell by the wayside. While, for the most part, it satisfies all of Aristotle’s carefully constructed principles, I remembered that time I emerged from a swim with a blood-sucker the size of Lassie stuck to my leg. I’ve never felt the same about swimming since.
Then I thought about ice cream. Could it possess the potential for perfection? I began to apply Aristotle’s line of thought to find an answer. If you stick the ice cream in a cone, it is complete – no parts are missing. Can ice cream be said to be “so good that nothing of the kind could be better”? If you throw half a paycheck into this endeavor, that will most definitely be true. No point in getting the cheap stuff when you are seeking paradise. Does ice cream achieve its goal? This is a toughie, and you can see why Aristotle needed all those barrels of wine and a cozy lawn chair as assistive devices. It’s not something you can just decide in a moment or two. It must be tested. Ben and Jerry’s, Hagen-Dazs, homemade ice cream – all these depths must be repeatedly plumbed. Lumps of cookie dough must be deployed. Cherries must be Garcia-ed. Vanilla beans must be paraded down your palate, front and centre. Chocolate must be placed on the altar of your tongue and given its due diligence. It takes a lot of years and a lot of effort to make these important decisions about perfection. I’ve worn out more than one lawn chair in this exploration, possibly making me a larger authority than Aristotle in more ways than one. And when it was all said and done, when the multitudinous tubs of ice cream were swept away, and when the sugar fix wore off, and the bathroom scales loomed up into my consciousness, I would have to say that, unequivocally, ice cream fits all the criteria for perfection.
So while I admit that this isn’t a perfect world, there are those rare moments when it comes close enough not to matter. And in those moments, your fist is wrapped around a sticky cone, your forearm is awash with a river of ice cream, and bathroom weigh scales were never invented. That, my friend, is what you will find when you reach your Shangri-La or your Heaven – a big frosty ice cream cone. And it will have not one but two giant scoops waiting. Just for you.
I’ve also begun to notice that globally the world is a little less than perfect as craziness crests ever higher. When there are devastating wildfires in California or Australia, some people run for their matchboxes so they can get in on the act. The rest of us are left banging our heads on the Wall of Disbelief. While most people either strive to make the world a better place, or at least are feckless enough to avoid setting off the general ruination of the planet, there are a few who are so inexplicably malicious that we are left stunned with the jaw-dropping stupidity of their actions.
Why can’t we ever have perfection? To figure that one out, we would have to understand just what perfection is. Apparently, Aristotle was the first one who flopped down in his lawn chair and allowed this concept to wash up on the shores of his brain. When it was all over and the three barrels of wine had been rolled back into the cellar for refilling, he had decreed three rules. Perfection has to be complete – no parts can be missing. It has to be so good that nothing similar can be any better. Also, it needs to have some sort of goal in mind, and it needs to achieve that goal, like a hockey player with a vendetta lucky enough to have a crossed-eyed goalie on the opposing team. There can be no margin for missing that goal. Pretty heady stuff – can you imagine what Aristotle might have come up with if he had stopped after just one barrel of wine? Or if he’d sustained a puck to the head?
I tried to think of things that might fit with Aristotle’s three point plan for perfection. Shopping came pretty close, but fell down on the goal part. Often I buy the no-name brand when I can’t find the premium brand, or when the premium brand has a price so high that I require treatment for altitude sickness. Likewise, driving a car almost fit the bill, but when I applied the “nothing could be better” part I had to admit that my car was a Ferrari only in my mind. Regrettably, swimming in a lake on a hot summer day also fell by the wayside. While, for the most part, it satisfies all of Aristotle’s carefully constructed principles, I remembered that time I emerged from a swim with a blood-sucker the size of Lassie stuck to my leg. I’ve never felt the same about swimming since.
Then I thought about ice cream. Could it possess the potential for perfection? I began to apply Aristotle’s line of thought to find an answer. If you stick the ice cream in a cone, it is complete – no parts are missing. Can ice cream be said to be “so good that nothing of the kind could be better”? If you throw half a paycheck into this endeavor, that will most definitely be true. No point in getting the cheap stuff when you are seeking paradise. Does ice cream achieve its goal? This is a toughie, and you can see why Aristotle needed all those barrels of wine and a cozy lawn chair as assistive devices. It’s not something you can just decide in a moment or two. It must be tested. Ben and Jerry’s, Hagen-Dazs, homemade ice cream – all these depths must be repeatedly plumbed. Lumps of cookie dough must be deployed. Cherries must be Garcia-ed. Vanilla beans must be paraded down your palate, front and centre. Chocolate must be placed on the altar of your tongue and given its due diligence. It takes a lot of years and a lot of effort to make these important decisions about perfection. I’ve worn out more than one lawn chair in this exploration, possibly making me a larger authority than Aristotle in more ways than one. And when it was all said and done, when the multitudinous tubs of ice cream were swept away, and when the sugar fix wore off, and the bathroom scales loomed up into my consciousness, I would have to say that, unequivocally, ice cream fits all the criteria for perfection.
So while I admit that this isn’t a perfect world, there are those rare moments when it comes close enough not to matter. And in those moments, your fist is wrapped around a sticky cone, your forearm is awash with a river of ice cream, and bathroom weigh scales were never invented. That, my friend, is what you will find when you reach your Shangri-La or your Heaven – a big frosty ice cream cone. And it will have not one but two giant scoops waiting. Just for you.
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