There’s a story that Salman Rushdie was once asked by some friends what Hamlet would have been called if it were a Robert Ludlum novel. Rushdie immediately came up with The Elsinore Vacillation. He then turned Macbeth into The Dunsinane Reforestation, The Merchant of Venice into The Rialto Sanction and Othello became The Kerchief Implication.
That inspired this less than erudite pop quiz: Robert Ludlum novel or episode of The Big Bang Theory?
The Barbarian Sublimation
The Hades Factor
The Holcroft Covenant
The Luminous Fish Effect
The Shiksa Indeterminacy
The Matarese Circle
The Tangerine Factor
The Sigma Protocol
The Lazarus Vendetta
The Griffin Equivalency
The Financial Permeability
The Arctic Event
The Van Allen Belts
The Dumpling Paradox
The White Asparagus Triangulation
The Scorpio Illusion
The Icarus Agenda
The Codpiece Topology
The Killer Robot Instability
The Cornhusker Vortex
The Aquitaine Progression
The Bus Pants Utilization
The Thespian Catalyst
The Apocalypse Watch
The Pirate Solution
Scoring:
23-25: You used to use your tablet for reading. Now you mostly use it for watching TV.
20-23: You’ve watched all the Jason Bourne movies.
15-20: You plan to spend your summer vacation reading but mostly just watch TV.
10-15: And so the bartender tells Shakespeare, “You can’t come in here. You’re bard!”
5-10: Hello fellow English major.
1-5: So you got the Shakespeare jokes but are wondering about this “Big Bang Theory” and who this Ludlum guy is.
The last time I rode a Greyhound bus was in 2000. I recently took one to Cincinnati. It would have been cheaper to fly, but since there are no direct flights from Nashville to Cincinnati the flight would have meant stopovers in Dallas, Honolulu, and Poughkeepsie, and while I didn’t mind that my wife thought it wasn’t such a great idea. I was also looking forward to seeing what had changed.
The first change, of course, was the Greyhound station itself. The old one was dull, gray, and dingy, and filled with an assortment of drifters, grifters, and sifters. The new one, in an entirely different location, is a much brighter shade of gray and seemed to have picked up a higher class of clientele. The old black and white TV sets firmly attached to chairs that cost you a quarter for five minutes of viewing were gone, replaced with plugs for charging whatever devices you happen to be carrying. I couldn’t use any, though, because there was no sitting room. My bus was scheduled to leave at 5:05 am. I got there at 4:15, hoping to beat the crowd, not realizing that the crowd had been there since at least the day before and taken up almost all available space. Maybe recent events in the airline industry have prompted more people to stay grounded.
In the old days there’d be an announcement of departures over a crackly intercom. This time a driver stood at one of the terminal doors and, in a clear voice loud enough to be heard by everyone, announced, “ALL THOSE DEPARTING FOR MEMPHIS, ST. LOUIS, KANSAS CITY, AND ON PLEASE LINE UP HERE!”
Needless to say this was not my bus. My bus, it turned out, was leaving from the terminal next to it, the one where the driver walked in, looked around and mumbled something to the people closest to him before leaving again. I had to ask around a bit to confirm that it really was the bus to Cincinnati because the LED sign on the front of the bus said HAPPY HOLIDAYS.
I’m not making that up. It was part of Greyhound’s War on Some Late May Holiday.
In the old days whenever I’d take a Greyhound bus there were usually a lot of seats available. This time when I stepped onto the bus every seat was taken except one. In the very back. Next to the bathroom. A woman sat in the window seat on the far right. Next to her, in the middle seat, was a man holding a baby with his legs spread so far apart his knee was in the aisle.
The only open seat was to the left of him.
I tried to make myself as small as possible and we both might have been more comfortable if he’d put his knees together. Instead he decided to complain bitterly about the bus being too crowded. And I realized that f-bombs, unlike other forms of munition, lose their strength when you drop one every other word, but that’s another story.
The woman leaned across him and smiled at me. “Excuse me sir, could you move to another seat?”
“I would if there were one.”
It was true and also resulted in the man dropping several more f-bombs, none of which, surprisingly, were directed at me. Then we got a lucky break: a bus company representative came on and offered travel vouchers to anyone who’d take a later bus. I might have taken the offer but my diaphragm was compressed by my fellow passenger’s lower thigh. Several people did, though, and I was able to squeeze out and grab a window seat.
The bus finally got underway a little after six and I settled back with approximately two days of podcasts I’d downloaded in preparation for a long trip.
The bus stopped at Louisville en route to Cincinnati. In the old days I only had to get off the bus at my final destination. Disembarkation is now mandatory at every stop, so I got to look around the Louisville station and get yelled at for taking pictures of the cop and his sniffer dog.
The Louisville station, by the way, has been updated like the Nashville one, and, in addition to a bright gray color and lack of dinginess, also boasts a gift shop and game room.
Then it was back on the bus and I was fortunately able to snag another window seat. The rest of the trip was blissfully uneventful and, possibly because the driver exceeded the speed limit a few times, we arrived in Cincinnati on time.
The Cincinnati Greyhound station has not been updated, and I’m pretty sure they even still had some of those chairs with the TVs. Next time I may opt for the flight with the stopovers, even if it does mean going to Poughkeepsie.
When I was five I went through a phase of drawing one particular kind of picture over and over again: a long line that curved all around the page, punctuated with blobs. Don’t ask me what I was trying to represent or what I thought it meant because I have no clue. It was just an idea I had in my head that I had to get down. Another kid saw me making one of these drawings at school and said it was ugly. The teacher overheard this and told me I shouldn’t care what anyone else thought, that I should draw what made me happy.
And that’s a nice idea but it’s not really that simple, is it? Unless you’re making something that you’re never planning to show to anyone the idea is going to be in your head that you hope other people like it. You may even make compromises, or at least decisions based on what you think other people will like, what you think they want. The romantic notion of the misunderstood artist who is only truly appreciated after laboring in obscurity for a long time is a popular one but it very rarely works that way. Most artists who eventually become successful get a lucky break. They get someone who likes what they’re doing and who has enough sway to convince a lot more people to like what they’re doing, or they get enough exposure that they find an audience.
Or sometimes they change what they’re doing.
When Picasso showed his painting Les Demoiselles d’Avignon to a bunch of his friends they laughed and said it was ugly. He put it away for twenty years. I guess he liked it too much to destroy it, but it took a really long time for it to be considered a landmark of modern art.
Source: Wikipedia
And while the are a lot of Picasso’s works I do like I think his friends were right about Les Demoiselles d’Avignon. It’s really ugly.
I didn’t stop drawing those kinds of pictures because that kid said one was ugly. I stopped drawing those kinds of pictures because I got bored with drawing the same kind of picture over and over. But I’d never had any interest in showing them to anyone else, they weren’t for anyone else, so it didn’t matter. His criticism still stuck with me, though. I didn’t like being told my picture was ugly. Maybe I quit drawing those kinds of pictures because being happy was making me bitter and resentful.
Have you ever made something that no one else liked but that made you happy?
Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. I guess I should really say “pilot”. I’m not really a captain of anything. It’s not like I own this plane and I can’t order anybody to walk the plank or swab the decks. I think there’s someone that comes in and vacuums the carpets and empties the trash, and we don’t really have a plank. I guess I could make you slide down that inflatable emergency ramp or maybe walk out on the wing, but that’s a pretty long drop even when we’re on the ground. I’m not going to open the door while we’re in flight, at least not once we really get up there, because that could get really bad from what I’ve seen in movies and on TV. What I’m saying is I’m not going to throw anybody out while we’re in flight, but don’t push me because I will land this plane and drop you out no matter where we are.
I’m also going to be upfront with you and say this is my first flight. Like, ever. So I’d suggest you keep your seatbelts on the entire time. There’s supposed to be a button that makes that seatbelt light come on, but you would not believe how many buttons there are up here. Also a bunch of gauges, meters, dials, and these big levers. I thought by now they’d have some of this stuff digitized. My mother’s old Camaro had a digital display and it was from, like, the eighties, you know? I’d invite everybody to come up and take a look at this but we’re on a schedule and once the flight starts I’d feel better if everybody stayed seated. If anybody has any helpful tips on these gauges and things though just tweet me. I’ll try and check my feed once we get up there. No promises, though, because I’m going to need my phone to navigate too.
Oh, hey, I just found the button for the seatbelt sign. And there’s one for no smoking too. Are there any flights you can still smoke on or have they just not taken that out yet? I’m not sure what the rule is on vaping either. Let’s just be on the safe side and don’t do it, okay?
Our flight will also be taking a little longer than usual because we’ll be following the interstates. Sorry about that. Like I said we haven’t quite got the navigation part up and running yet. It’s still in development, but we should have it working soon. And we’re gonna be seriously blowing through some speed limits because we’ll be up in the air and you may not know this but planes move really fast. Keep an eye out the windows, though, and if you see any police planes coming up next to us tweet me or yell at one of the flight attendants. This is weird but planes don’t have rearview mirrors so if there’s anybody coming I won’t know until they almost pass us. That seems kind of weird. I hope I don’t, I don’t know, back over a flock of bald eagles or something. That would be pretty embarrassing.
Anyway in a few minutes the flight attendants will be walking you through the emergency measures, and I know how everybody is about those. Please, seriously, pay attention for once because if this thing goes down it’s going down hard, you know? Those little oxygen masks might save your life if we have a fire or something. But, and don’t tell anyone I said this, you can leave your drink tray down the entire time. You just might want to put it back up when we land to make it easier to get out.
Okay, we’re just about to take off here. According to my phone here it’s rainy and seventy-two degrees at our destination. I don’t know how far anybody has to walk once we get there but I hope you have umbrellas. Wait, lost the directions. Okay, there they are. And I just saw some of your tweets. Come on, people, let’s try to stay positive. You know what they say about how you’re safer in the air than you are on the ground. That’s probably because there’s so much less you can run into on the ground.
And thanks for trying our new flight sharing app. I hope you’re as stoked about our new startup as I am. All right, let’s make it happen, cap’n!
It’s not every day that I see an abandoned golf cart just sitting right there by the bus stop. It’s just two, maybe three days a week. And also technically it’s not really a golf cart because it’s used by a maintenance crew or to carry around visitors to the university campus. And if you’re going to get really technical about it then it’s not really abandoned, but still every time I see it I think, well, how long is it going to be there and is there time for me to take it out for a spin? I wouldn’t drive it all the way home, or even that far away. I’d just like to go for a quick ride. Little carts like that are more fun to drive than regular cars for some reason. Maybe it’s because they make me feel like a kid again and actually had a motorized little car I could ride on and it had a top speed of sixty inches an hour. That didn’t matter. On Saturday mornings my friends and I could still imagine it was a magic dune buggy that took us on wacky adventures.
Somehow it was always easier to have fun with friends which is why it’s a good thing I’m always alone when I see that cart. If I were with friends I might be even more tempted to take it and, well, they just might encourage me and we would all take turns. Or maybe they’d stop me. Or try to stop me. That reminds me of the old saying about friends. A good friend is one who will bail you out of jail. A really good friend is one who’s sitting next to you in the cell saying, “Well, that was fun.”
Is graffiti dangerous? Does it pose a threat? Some people seem to think so, which is why it so often gets covered up or is in hidden areas. This particular piece, for instance, is in a largely abandoned industrial area—a place that’s been sitting empty so long it’s become kind of a graffiti gallery, and even getting to it requires slipping through a hole in a fence.
In the United States and many other countries freedom to speak, especially to criticize the government, is a cherished right. It’s not an absolute right—depending on what you say there may be consequences—but generally we don’t have to worry too much about what we say. At various times throughout history and even now in some countries that’s not true, and yet people in those places were, and are, sometimes willing to take the risk of speaking out even when the result is imprisonment, exile, or even execution.
Every artist who shares their work takes some risks, even if the only risks are ridicule or rejection. Having had my own ego bruised on occasion I don’t want to downplay those risks, but there’s something especially powerful about people willing to risk their freedom, maybe even their lives, to create and share a work of art with the world. Even if graffiti isn’t making an overtly political statement, even if it’s not speaking truth to power, it challenges conventions and laws. It’s art that won’t behave by confining itself to a gallery or private collection, and it dares to ask, even in a free society just how free are we?
Yeah, there is something threatening about that.
Anyway that reminds me of a joke: two Romanians are sitting in a bar. One says, “Fifty-four” and they both laugh. The other one says, “Eighteen” and that both laugh. The bartender says, “Okay guys, what’s with the numbers?”
One says, “Under Ceausescu we weren’t allowed to tell political jokes so we gave them all numbers. Then when we wanted to tell a political joke we’d just say one of the numbers.”
The bartender laughs and says, “Oh, I get it. Hey guys…forty-three.”
They stare at him blankly, then one says, “You know, it’s not so much the joke as it is the way you tell it…”
Star Wars was released in theaters on May 25th, 1977. In honor of the film’s 40th anniversary here are ten facts you didn’t know about Star Wars.
10. At the final awards ceremony Luke, Han, and Chewbacca all received medals made of chocolate wrapped in gold foil. Chewbacca is not seen wearing one because he ate his.
9. The Rebel fleet had over two dozen Corellian battleships that provided back-up and support for the smaller X and Y-wing fighters. These were not shown in the epic finale because of cost and licensing issues with the manufacturer on Corellia.
8. The battle station plans stolen by Princess Leia and transported by R2-D2 were encrypted. The code was only finally broken when C-3PO, who is fluent in between four and six million forms of communication, spilled coffee on the plans.
7. The Rebel base on the forest moon of the planet Yavin was built entirely out of Empire surplus.
6. There was a Starbucks™ on every level of the Death Star. Shortly before his final confrontation with Darth Vader Obi-Wan Kenobi was seen on station security cameras in one enjoying a tall macchiato.
5. The creature in the Death Star’s trash compactor was a dianoga. Native to the planet Vodran it was intentionally captured and placed there as part of the Empire’s organic waste recycling program. The metal beams and styrofoam waste in the trash compactor were supposed to have been placed in a different specially marked trash compactor. This along with the escape by Luke, Han, Chewbacca, and Leia prompted a thorough review of the station’s waste disposal program en route to Yavin. (Previously: The Dianoga Is In The Details.)
4. The Death Star was never actually called that by the Empire. It was known as the Mobile Operations and Ordinance Nexus. Lucas deliberately changed the name, saying, “It’s a space station, not a MOON.” Alderaan was also already scheduled for demolition to make way for a hyperspace bypass, which is a bonus fact I just threw in there.
3. Chewbacca has a galaxy-wide reputation as a champion of more than two dozen Monopoly and Trivial Pursuit tournaments.
Source: starwars.com
2. Mos Eisley mayor Momaw Nadon is quick to point out that “You’ll Never Find A More Wretched Hive Of Scum & Villainy!” is a local joke and that the crime rate is actually lower than that of Poughkeepsie. He also still emcees a Wednesday night comedy night at the cantina, although Figrin D’an And The Modal Nodes have since been replaced by The Lolas, an all-drag Kinks tribute band.
1. Owen and Beru Lars were detained but eventually released by the Empire. Owen repeatedly responded to Stormtroopers’ questions with, “I told you to forget it,” and they would for several hours before returning to question him again. The couple would later sell their moisture farm and retire to Naboo after suing Lucasfilm for portraying them as dead. The case was settled for an undisclosed amount.
And one more bonus fact:
Empire soldiers did not destroy escape pods leaving the Tantive-IV Rebel ship seen at the beginning of the film. Acting on Darth Vader’s orders to bring him all passengers alive they traced all escape pods to the crash sites and the occupants were either captured or died in the Tatooine desert. The idea that C-3PO and R2-D2 just happened to get away because their pod appeared unmanned has been described by many involved as “too implausible to be true”.
There are a couple of high school students on the bus I ride home from work, a boy and a girl. They always sit together. They seem nicely matched: they both wear rumpled dark hoodies, and he sits and draws in a sketchbook while she reads graphic novels. Sometimes they don’t even talk for the entire trip, but every day, when her stop comes up first, they share a quick kiss. I don’t stare, but it’s cute and I’m happy for them. And it brings back memories from high school—specifically Juliette, who was in my Latin class. She also rode the bus with me.
Normally riding the bus was an hour of unbearable misery, but when Juliette and I started sitting together things got a lot better. We chatted and laughed and generally had a good time.
To say that when it came to looks Juliette was out of my league would be a gross understatement. Forget leagues. Metaphorically she would have been a football pro while I, with my acne and awkwardness, was bottom rung of a Tuesday night bowling team. And I had already learned a lesson that Harvey Fierstein put so well when he said, “See, an ugly person who goes after a pretty person gets nothing but trouble. But a pretty person who goes after an ugly person gets at least cab-fare.” It was a school bus, though, so Juliette wasn’t expecting me to pay for the ride.
If you are or have been a teenager maybe you’ll understand this: knowing I had no chance with Juliette in a romantic sense took all the pressure off me. With her I was a witty, charming, suave gentleman, whereas with any girl I was actually interested in and thought I had a chance at dating I was Hedorah the Smog Monster. And it didn’t bother me that Juliette talked to me about the guys she dated–she was extremely selective, because she could be, but still managed to get stuck with some creeps, while I could talk to her about a bad breakup I was going through and share really bad song lyrics I’d written, but that’s another story.
Somehow Juliette and I always found ourselves sitting behind Kate and Brian, a pair who weren’t quite as mismatched but vehemently denied they were attracted to each other, creating a whole will-they-or-won’t-they vibe. And then, after a band trip, it became clear they did and, as it turned out, would continue to for some time.
That first day after the band trip we watched Kate and Brian hold hands, kiss, and swoon over each other. Then Juliette turned to me.
“I’m so glad they got together. Aren’t you?”
I preferred their sarcastic bickering, but, yeah, if they were happy then bully for them. Juliette went on.
“Of course you and I would never get together like that.” A smile played across her dewy lips and she gave me an intense stare. “Right? I mean, it could just never happen between us.” She put her hand up and played with her hair a bit.
As an aside, yes, some of the most poignant and useful relationship advice I’ve ever gotten has come from a gay playwright and a cartoon penguin.
Juliette and I continued to ride the bus together and continued to laugh and talk, but gradually we drifted apart. I started getting rides home with a friend who had a car and she, well, I don’t know. I wanted her to be happy. I still hope she is, but I knew even our friendship wouldn’t last. We had so little in common beyond riding on the bus together and, silly as it may sound, it was my senior year and I was saving myself for college, where I hoped I’d meet someone more like me.
There’s a saying that as you get older your greatest regrets aren’t the things you did but rather the things you didn’t do. While there are a few missed chances I regret I’m still glad Juliette and I never went beyond friendship even if the tension of possibility remained out there. Sometimes it’s better to just leave a good thing as it is.
That’s a bit of advice I learned from Hedorah the Smog Monster.
This picture is taken from Google Maps and, as you can see, it’s Farrell Parkway in Nashville, Tennessee—specifically the spot where it runs under a railroad and also I-65. It’s not the graffiti on the train car that interests me, though—it’s the lack of graffiti under the tracks.
When I was a student at the nearby John Overton High School this was “The Bridge”. The bus I rode took me and lots of my fellow students down this road way every day. At the time, though, it looked very different. At the time The Bridge was covered with elaborate graffiti. A lot of it, including a huge mural of Grecian columns, stayed there for years—maybe even decades, although it was kind of a rite of passage for Overton students to make their mark on the bridge. Well, it was for most students anyway.
One night when my parents were out of town I had a bunch of friends over. Because I was a geek this wasn’t a party—this was a bunch of guys spending most of the evening playing D&D, maybe watching a movie or two, and eating up pretty much every scrap of food in the house. And then around two a.m., bored and hopped up on sugar and caffeine, my friends decided to explore the basement and dug out half a dozen or so cans of spray paint that dated from the Eisenhower administration.
“Let’s go and paint the bridge!” one of my friends said. Everyone thought this was a great idea. Well, everyone except me. I knew my parents had asked the neighbors to keep an eye on the house and even though I was pretty sure the neighbors would all be asleep at that time I was still wary. So all my friends piled into a car and left me alone. I sulked around the house and listened to the radio, discovering Janis Joplin for the first time.
Freedom’s just another word for nothin’ left to lose…
When my friends got back they told me the ancient paint cans had been dry so we put them back where we found them. One of my friends spun an elaborate yarn about how they’d been caught by the cops and arrested, which I knew wasn’t true since they’d only been gone an hour, but it still sounded funny.
Sometimes the saying that as you get older your greatest regrets aren’t the things you did but rather the things you didn’t do is true. Even though the paint cans were dry I wish I’d gone with my friends. I wish I’d at least tried to leave my mark on The Bridge.
Since I still live in Nashville I’ve been over The Bridge regularly and I’ve noticed that for several years there’s been no graffiti at all, something confirmed by Google Maps. I guess painting The Bridge is no longer a rite of passage. I wonder what’s replaced it, and what, in a few years, some lonely kid who’s a student at Overton will look back on and regret not doing.
There’s a story that Salman Rushdie was once asked by some friends what Hamlet would have been called if it were a Robert Ludlum novel. Rushdie immediately came up with The Elsinore Vacillation. He then turned Macbeth into The Dunsinane Reforestation, The Merchant of Venice into The Rialto Sanction and Othello became The Kerchief Implication.
