Dumb And Dumber
"I think something is burning...I think something is burning..."
The following accounts are true. The names have been changed to protect the guilty. This week we present the culinary offenses of two brothers for your consideration. No partners in crime, they committed their transgressions independently and inadvertently decades ago. Despite having moved on to competency in the kitchen, the siblings have not forgotten what they once did, nor have they ever stopped arguing about it. At issue is the question of whose kitchen mishap is the stupidest. As both jury and judge, you will see for yourself that there exists no debate whatsoever as to whether each unfortunate cooking decision was stupid, for you will soon observe that this is a given. Rather, you must weigh their relative stupidity.
The defendants would prefer that you take into account their youth and inexperience in the kitchen before rendering a verdict. They were raised in a coddled and protective environment by a generous and solicitous mother who saw to it that they were provided with delicious and nutritious meals on a daily basis. Thus, when left to fend for themselves at ages somewhere between late adolescence and early adulthood, they encountered what the general public might think of as common kitchen situations for the very first time. In the spirit of fairness and impartiality, and to spare them further embarrassment, you shall learn of their crimes without direct reference to their age at the time of the incidents. Nevertheless, the defendents reiterate their pitiable excuse that their actions were understandable because they were young and inexperienced, and hereafter they submit themselves to the mercy of the court.
Two Minutes For Holding
Things had just quieted down in the east wing when the welcome silence was pierced by another bellowing shout from Room 11. “Loo-eeeeze!!”
“Good heavens,” sighed Kaylee from behind the nursing station. She brushed a lock of hair from her eyes and replaced the phone in its cradle. “Doesn’t that man ever stop?”
“I can tell you’re new here,” drawled Janice as she checked items off of her clipboard. “I don’t even notice it anymore. It’s like the racket them geese make out on the patio. Drives you crazy at first, but then you get used to it.”
“I don’t know if I can ever get used to that. It makes me want to jump out of my skin every time he does it. Imagine having a man shout at you like that! Then again, I suppose poor Louise probably got so used to hearing it that she just tuned him out like you do.”
“Poor Louise?”
“Well, I’d say she was poor, having to put up with Mr. Francis until the day she died.”
Janice gave a hoarse laugh that died out in a series of coughs. “Ah, honey, you know what they say when you assume! Far as we know, nobody was putting up with Mr. Francis but himself.”
“What about Louise?”
“There’s never been any Louise that we know of. Old Mr. Francis was a bachelor, didn’t have no kids, lived alone and never said boo to the neighbors about any Louise until they started hearing him shouting the name over and over like he does here now.”
Kaylee furrowed her brow. “Well, that’s…odd.”
“And that ain’t the half of it! Wait ‘til you see him with his hockey players.”
No Gutzon, No Glory
It can be hard to change your mind about things set in stone. Especially icons.
My father worked second shift when I was very young, and it was not unusual for me to be awake to greet him when he returned home. It might explain why my earliest memories include the experience of watching our local television station sign off for the night with a patriotic montage set to The Star Spangled Banner. Somewhere among the rippling flags and sweeping aerial vistas was a glimpse of Mount Rushmore, and the sight of it stirred within me a deep and primal fascination. The visceral impact of this enormous sculpture in the context of our national anthem and other famous monuments never left me. I began a precocious campaign for my parents to take me to see "Mountain Rushmore."
Within ten years we were there, standing on the observation platform and gawking up at Gutzon Borglum's colossal sculpture. It was enthralling to be in the presence of such an iconic monument. Prior to actually being there, Mount Rushmore existed only in pictures and films, and though my mind knew that there really is such a place, as far as my own experience was concerned, the actual physical entity might have been as mythical as Atlantis. But there it truly was, a granite reality that could not be denied.
The Reluctant Athlete
If gloves could talk...this one wouldn't have much to say.
"You want me to play softball in a prison?" I asked incredulously.
"I know," said Brian in a calm tone that resonated with sympathy and reassurance. We both knew that my objection had little to do with the unusual venue, and it was painfully obvious that he was desperate for players. So desperate, in fact, that he was approaching one of the last people you would want to ask if you wanted to forge a decent softball team. My brother tried to bolster his sincerity with a smile, but he could barely suppress a laugh as he tried to entice me by adding, "It'll be fun!"
"Yeah, fun," I grumbled. Brian belonged to a service organization that not only did the occasional good thing for the community but also participated in a recreational softball league. Scheduling a game against the inmates of our local minimum-security prison was a way to join the two vocations. Unfortunately, only a handful of members had signed up for the opportunity. Joining Brian in this endeavor would be the noble thing to do, but it would require a complete consumption of my pride. It was akin to taking a willing dive into a pool of embarrassment. "Let me think about it."
Sweet Home, Perstai
Standing before my 2-story home in Perstai. I hope to add a basement soon.
"You should get a home in Perstai, Dad," urged Melinda. I had reservations. I was not looking for new ways to occupy my time, and I had seen how willingly Melinda would sacrifice a free hour here and there to amble about her virtual world. I couldn't quite get it. It seemed like her avatar never did anything of much significance, yet unwinding within this mythical land apparently provided her much pleasure. I had to admit that Animal Crossing, the Nintendo Wii title that made Melinda's imaginary journeys possible, was a clever game. Its designers had crafted a tightly controlled environment that gave a satisfying sense of individual freedom within a dynamic fictional society fueled by limited artificial intelligence. Melinda was well aware that she was playing a game by herself and that her illusory interactions with pixelated neighbors were nothing more than simple, scripted encounters. But she didn't care, because it was fun.
"Maybe," I said, by which I meant, "No."
She had already persuaded Mom to establish residence in Perstai, and I had noticed Julie starting to take almost as much pleasure in this digital alternative existence as Melinda did. Sometimes one of them would watch the other strolling about town for awhile, then the one playing would log off and the one watching would log on. It didn't seem to make much difference who was actually playing, as both gamer and observer appeared to be equally absorbed by Perstai culture.
"Look," one of them would say, "Bones just clapped when I caught that fish!"
"Ha, ha!" the other would guffaw, and I would glance at them with withering condescension. Time wasters. It would be a cold day in Perstai before I indulged myself in that sort of pointless activity.
Stranger Danger
One minute everything is fine, and then...
Twice in my life I have been momentarily convinced that a total stranger was about to kill me. Given my sheltered upbringing and habitual avoidance of risky behavior and potentially unsafe scenarios, it seems an unlikely statistic. Both incidents occurred when I was a college student engaged in the most humdrum of pursuits. One moment I was just another Joe Average going about his ordinary business, and then suddenly I was staring death in the face. Or so I thought.
My first brush with mortality happened on an otherwise dull September evening. I had moved into my dorm room a few days earlier than most students due to required training for my work-study job. As a member of the dormitory security staff, I would be expected to know what I was doing by the time the rest of the residents arrived. I didn't mind getting a head start on campus life, especially since it was easier for me to move in while almost everyone else was still out.
Reminiscents
I hadn't thought about this object for quite some time.
The other I day I was teaching my class while walking about the room with a long, wooden pointer that I sometimes use to highlight important information but mostly enjoy twirling as a prop. There's something about giving it a few spins that seems to relax any physical tension while simultaneously enabling me to focus my thoughts. On this occasion, I was giving some routine instructions, thinking ahead to how I might best manage the next activity, and absentmindedly spinning my pointer. After a few rotations, I held the long stick still, and in doing so I unwittingly brought the small metal ring fixed to its blunt end to within a centimeter of my nostrils.
For an instant I was suddenly transported from my classroom to another place. It was not so much a detailed location as it was a sort of vague, cerebral space, and dominating this mental plane was the vivid apparition of a gyroscope. I recognized it at once as the cherished childhood possession that my sister had given me, one of a number of gifts that were thoughtfully chosen to improve my overall development. Alas, her attempts to increase my physical activity were unsuccessful, as I never quite got the knack of shooting the basketball, and I simply could not advance more than several bounces on the pogo stick before careening dangerously askew. But the gyroscope occupied my attention for many hours. I would moisten the end of a string on my tongue, delicately thread and load the axle, then set it going with all my strength. I loved watching it stay upright no matter how precarious its perch. The sturdy device had a peculiar smell, a dank and earthy metallic odor, a sort of dull acridity that smelled just like...just like...well, just like the little metal ring on the blunt end of my classroom pointer. I hadn't thought about my old gyroscope in years, but everything from its shape to its heft in my hand suffused my mind in an instant.
Such is the power of our sense of smell to resurrect latent memories.
Organization Man
First by artist, then by original release date. An island of control in a sea of chaos.
I am not an obsessively organized person, but I will acknowledge a few quirks that, to some, may represent an unnecessary attention to detail, if not a hint of madness. Although many facets of general housekeeping escape my devoted attention (just ask my wife), there are certain areas in which I am particular. None of them are of great importance, but they are distinct preferences nonetheless.
For example, I usually take care to sort the money in my wallet by denomination, from smallest to largest. While I'm at it, I would prefer that all bills face the same way. Never would I intentionally insert any currency into my wallet "head-first," as I should not like to encounter an upside-down image when fishing for cash. Not that I couldn't deal with it, but I simply would rather not, and I don't mind taking the few seconds to put a buck in the right way. Okay, once I did further organize my ones by serial number, but that was when I was saddled with a few minutes of unoccupied tedium, and though it did provide me a tiny amount of mental satisfaction, trust me that you could take a peek inside my wallet right now, and I guarantee that if there's any money in there at all, the serial numbers are all mixed up. Not that it matters.
Art For Hoi Polloi: Salvador Dali
Lowbrow meets lowbrow: Rocky emulators sprint up the visage of Salvador Dali.
Recently I came across a live webcam of a construction site in St. Petersburg, Florida. I was surprised to find not only active workers but fairly interesting activities going on, and I zoomed in to watch a pair of laborers installing triangular glass panes into a large, metallic lattice that bulged from a concrete edifice. The structure looked somewhat odd for a conventional building but rather conservative for its intended purpose: the next home of the Salvador Dali Museum. Given the famous surrealist's iconic imagery of melting watches and drooping appendages propped up by crutches, one might have expected a design that abandoned recognizable geometric forms altogether.
The new facility, slated to open in 2011, is only a few blocks from the current museum, but it will offer fifty percent more gallery space and more than twice the overall area. More importantly, it will provide robust shelter from violent storms for its collection in a way that the present building does not; so vulnerable is the existing museum to damage that its exhibits must be removed and stored during severe weather warnings. Constructing a more secure home for these treasures sounds sensible to me, because I would hate for the world to lose the original work of such an incredibly talented and imaginative artist. I have been captivated by Dali's art all of my life, and obviously many people feel the same way. Why, then, do I have the nagging sense that serious critics would dismiss his oeuvre as pandering to the lowest common denominator?
Perhaps because it does.
Take Me To Your Liter
Let's see: 1 inch equals 2.54 centimeters, so 1 centimeter equals...hmm...
Whatever happened to that great push to fully implement the metric system of measurement in the United States? I was only an elementary school student in the Seventies, yet I was not immune to the controversy surrounding some contemporary educational issues. There was the backlash against New Math, for example, as parents questioned the relevance of learning abstract mathematical concepts to the computational competency of their children. The use of phonics instruction still annoyed those who remembered becoming perfectly good readers without repeatedly breaking down words into their phonetic components. I was dimly aware of these debates, but the hot issue that really got my attention was the impending rise and dominance of the metric system.
As a child, this major societal shift was presented to me as an inevitability, and I perceived a menacing future. There would be no use resisting, it was implied. It wouldn't matter if you expressed a preference for the customary system or voiced an objection. Well, you better learn to like it, because it's coming! By the time we were adults, we could expect grocery store shelves filled with canned goods packaged by the gram, gas stations selling liters of gas, and car speedometers indicating kilometers per hour. I was apprehensive. Just the sight of the fraction 5/9 in the Fahrenheit to Celsius conversion formula made me uneasy.
Unfortunately, performing cumbersome system conversions seemed to be the extent of the educational effort to make the metric system relevant to our everyday lives. No wonder so many of us developed a prejudice against a measurement method that is preferred by nearly everyone else in the world.