Latest Posts

Let Sleeping Faces Lie.

Author: February 9, 2016 8 Comments

rbfEven though Susan Harlan’s Alternatives to Resting Bitch Face made me laugh something about it still bothered me. And then I realized it’s that term and I remembered that one of my favorite things about going to dog shows is hearing little old ladies say, “Look at that bitch go” and “Who does that bitch think she is?” but that’s another story.

And I felt like the list was still putting the responsibility in the wrong place. Maybe that was the point and I not only missed the joke and am unnecessarily white knighting here–it wouldn’t be the first time. I’m still trying to figure out why guys think it’s appropriate to ask women to smile and I’m amazed by the catalog of creepiness at Endearingly Wacko (part 1 and part 2)  I’d like to offer up some alternatives to the alternatives.

I’m Projecting My Feelings Onto You Brain

You’re Out Of My League So I’m Going To Insult You Brain

I Have No Self-Awareness Brain

I Expect Something In Return For Behaving Like A Decent Human Being Brain

I’m Unaware Of This Male Privilege You Speak Of Brain

I Really Believe Women’s Experiences Are Just Like Men’s Brain

I Don’t Get Why You Aren’t Flattered By Attention From Strangers Brain

I’ll Decide Whether I’m Your Type Brain

I Was Raised By Coyotes Brain

I’ve Mistaken You For Someone Who Gives A Shit Brain

 

 

Quick Takes.

2016: A Bus Odyssey.

Author: February 8, 2016 6 Comments

“You’re odd-I-see, true to your name!”

-the goddess Ino to Odysseus, from The Odyssey, translated by W.H.D. Rouse

The construction went on for a surprisingly short time: less than two months. I assumed it was one of the local companies that had torn up and closed off a section of the sidewalk, blocking off pedestrian access because that is what’s happening all over town. And there was already a perfectly good bus stop there—and by “perfectly good bus stop” I mean a metal sign stuck to a pole. But then when the construction was done there was this…thing.

odyssey1

Source: Essays & Articles of Cinema https://filmessaysandarticles.wordpress.com

Okay, it wasn’t exactly like that, but it was a monolith next to a bus shelter where there had never been one before. Because of the construction I’d been catching the bus at a different stop so its appearance was a bit of a surprise.

odyssey2Hesitantly I touched it.

odyssey3Nothing happened.

What is it? What is it supposed to do? Based on a single picture I found on the Nashville MTA website it looks like it will eventually have a large route map, but the information is scant and for now it’s just this big blank thing standing on the street next to the bus shelter. It’s probably something to do with the project to install 100 new bus shelters, but what are the proposed “amenities” and how does the signal work? I contacted the MTA and got this answer:

When the button is pressed a small light flashes atop the bus shelter.  It is best used when the bus can be seen in the distance.

Which is fine, except in those places where the hills or turns or construction that’s torn up the sidewalk make it so the bus can’t be seen in the distance.

odyssey4

Source: Essays & Articles of Cinema https://filmessaysandarticles.wordpress.com

Adventures In Busing.

So…Happy Birthday, yeah?

Author: February 7, 2016 8 Comments

Most of the time I’m behind on things, but once in a while I hear about something before it gets big. And that’s what happened when a friend introduced me to a brilliant young comedian named Eddie Izzard, whose birthday is today. Several years later I’d see him live at the Ryman Auditorium, which was interesting given that it’s a former church. And maybe he realized that because he seemed to want to challenge the audience, to make us angry by provoking us on the topic of religion. Izzard’s clearly a guy who loves a challenge–in 2009 he ran 43 marathons in 51 days. In his book Dress To Kill, a loose autobiography, he says, “I like things that work, even in difficult circumstances. I like doing gigs even when I’m fucking dying.” Although interestingly he dropped out of the military because he was passed over for promotions. He felt the system was arbitrary and lost interest. The world of comedy–and entertainment–is better for it.

What was strange about seeing him live, though, is that he couldn’t seem to get the pushback from the audience he wanted, and that’s not surprising. He was facing people with t-shirts that read “Cake or death?” and all he had to do was a few lines in a James Mason voice to elicit cheers. In the taped performance of his Dress To Kill show you can tell he loves it when a heckler yells, “Move on!” And if you listen to some of his earlier shows–even Glorious, which is his best performance so far–it takes him a bit to warm up the audience. In the show at the Ryman he got a standing ovation as soon as he came out and couldn’t have gotten heckled if he’d begged for it.

So, yeah. Here’s to many more challenges to come. It’s hard for me to pick a favorite Izzard bit, but here’s a great one. If you’re unfamiliar with his work be sure to turn up your speakers really loud and gather your children or co-workers around.*

justkidding

Happy Birthday.

This Isn’t A Real Job?

Author: February 6, 2016 4 Comments

warholJust a few months out of college I got a job working in a library mailroom. It wasn’t in the library itself but an office building so we had a messenger who dropped off and picked up intra-library stuff twice a day. I’d help him carry it down to the basement and load it onto the van. There was a construction company that had its office in the same building and we would sometimes meet construction crew guys in the hallways or the basement.

We nicknamed one of them The Joker. He didn’t resemble Jack Nicholson or any other incarnation of the infamous Batman villain, and he dressed like most of the other guys: a t-shirt and a flannel shirt that thankfully covered enough of his baggy jeans that his crack was never exposed. He was, I think, the oldest member of the crew and he wore glasses with such thick lenses I never got a clear view of his eyes. It was the teeth that earned him the name Joker. His discount dentures were a little too white and a little too straight. They were like a miniature version of the fence Tom Sawyer tricked his friends into whitewashing. In his mouth. And they were poorly fitted so The Joker had a permanent leer.

One day The Joker said to me, “Why don’t you get a real job?”

I asked, “What’s a real job?” He just grunted and walked away.

That question has stuck with me. What’s a real job? I’m pretty sure he meant construction, but how is that any more of a real job than working in a library, or, for that matter, making corrective lenses or cheap dentures? Isn’t anything that pays the bills a real job?

That brings me, in a very roundabout way, to this particular graffiti. The picture is an advertisement that’s been slapped down on sidewalks around town since advertising’s goal is to cover every available surface and to that end somebody’s put a couple of stickers advertising something completely different on the ad, but someone—I think it’s local artist CONS—has scribbled their own signature on it too. Two of these things are intended to make money and were designed and paid for. One isn’t.

In the era before the ascendance of Pop Art it was considered vulgar for artists to talk about money. There was a very romantic notion that while artists didn’t necessarily need to starve they should eschew gross materialism. They could have wealthy patrons but weren’t supposed to be wealthy themselves. Andy Warhol especially changed that, openly talking about how much his works commanded and making the making of money kind of a performance art. And that raised some questions that are still valid and still, perhaps, unanswerable: is art more or less authentic if the artist is being paid? If the piper only pipes what the highest bidder wants to hear does that make the music better or worse?

Or, to tie it back to this particular piece, is advertising more or less art than an elaborate scribble? The romantic in me wants to say the graffiti artist is doing something more creative, more interesting, more real—even more noble, but then I think, hey, advertising can be art. And that means making art can be a real job.

Seen any graffiti? Send your pictures to freethinkers@nerosoft.com and receive the gift of seeing your name here.

American Graffiti.

Objects In Mirror Are Not As They Appear.

Author: February 5, 2016 2 Comments

Headed toward home I wonder who monitors all the monitors

That glow in the houses on either side. And where

Are they? In the savannahs and in remote jungles

Where the only electricity comes from seasonal storms

Seen in photographs from a distance monitors

Are lizards that slink around rocks and over

Trees after small mammals and other easy meals.

They range in size from smaller than your hand

To monsters with five-fingered feet

With claws that could remove your entire arm,

And they’ve held dominion over their territory

From time before the first simians scraped sparks

Out of stones. A trespassing baron sat down to rest

As he was crossing an island he’d crossed an ocean to visit.

All his minions found was his indigestible glasses and shoes.

Some of these big lizards, although common

Names are hard to tie down, are called basilisks.

In legends basilisks were the offspring of a rooster’s egg

No matter which way it fell off the barn roof

And had the power to turn anyone who caught their eye,

No matter how casually, into stone.

It’s just a legend. Some legends are encrusted or crystallized facts,

But not this one. This legend’s safely in its cage

Around the next corner licking its lips.

komodo

The Weekly Essay

Sponsored By The Monongahela Steel Foundry, Makers Of Ingots For The Home.

Author: February 4, 2016 6 Comments

Sometimes all it takes to make something funny is to give reality just the tiniest nudge. Take for instance, reporter Wally Ballou touring the historic Sturdley House, home of Fabian Sturdley, which was going to be torn down to build a combination bowling alley and car wash before a group of civic-minded citizens banded together to save it. A tour of the Sturdley House takes approximately four and a half minutes and you can see Mr. Sturdley’s collection of National Geographics as well as his picture of a blank Mount Rushmore. Not too many of those around.

That, of course, comes from the comedy duo Bob and Ray. After more than forty years of working on radio together they were separated in 1990 when Ray Goulding passed away. Bob Elliott continued working, including appearing with his son Chris Elliott. Bob played Chris’s father on the show Get A Life. That sounds like a premise for a Bob And Ray bit: What’s it like playing your son’s father on television?

Their wit was dry as a bone and I think that’s what keeps me going back and listening to it. Or reading it since a lot of it works just as well in print—their book From Approximately Coast To Coast…It’s Bob And Ray includes some great bits, including an interview with historian Alfred E. Nelson whose history of the United States mistakenly puts the Civil War in 1911. Nelson admits that’s a mistake and goes on, “I could have checked by asking almost anybody. But, here again, when I sit down at the typewriter, I just like to take off and go. Know what I mean?”

In a genuine interview with Mike Sacks, collected in Poking A Dead Frog, Elliott said, “We did what we wanted to do and we got away with it. And it was fun.”

Yes. Yes it was. Hail and farewell Bob Elliott.

As a final twist I first learned about them from a 1979 NBC television special. The clip below includes one of my favorite things ever, which starts at the 7:33 mark. If you don’t have time to watch the whole thing skip to that. It’s four and a half minutes you won’t regret.

Hail & Farewell.

It’s All About Convenience.

Author: February 4, 2016 16 Comments

automatedInstructions for using the library’s automated self-checkout system

  1. Swipe card through the scanner on the right.
  2. Now turn your card around and swipe it the right way.
  3. No, like it shows you on the screen, with the magnetic strip going through the slot.
  4. Type in your library PIN.
  5. That’s not it.
  6. You wrote it down and keep it on a little slip of paper in your purse or wallet? What’s wrong with you? Has it occurred to you that if somebody gets it they could check out books in your name?
  7. Type your real library PIN. And try to remember it this time.
  8. Confirm your identity, unless you’re checking out books using someone else’s card in which case shame on you.
  9. Hold book, barcode up, under the laser scanner. Don’t worry. The laser scanner only burns if you keep your hand under it for more than four and a half minutes.
  10. I said barcode up.
  11. Keep the book under the scanner for five minutes.
  12. When the machine makes a fart sound press “REDO”.
  13. Your book is now checked out. Slide it spine down through the demagnetizer to avoid setting off the alarm when you leave.
  14. Proceed to exit.
  15. Turn around and go to the circulation desk because you’ve set off the alarm.
  16. Sheepishly hand the copy of What To Expect From Your Colonoscopy to the oldest person at the circulation desk. You know the one–that gray-haired woman in the pink sweater with her glasses on a chain around her neck.
  17. Look up at the ceiling when she has to call over four other people because she doesn’t know how to use the new system.
  18. Wonder why you didn’t just buy the book. It wasn’t that expensive and you could have had it delivered right to your house. But then you remember the “Customers who bought this also bought…” and it was bad enough just having that in your search history. And what would you do with it once the procedure is over? You don’t want to leave it lying around the house where one of your friends or, worse, your mother is bound to find it. But you can’t bring yourself to throw a book away either.
  19. Take your checked-out book and exit the library.
  20. On the drive home remember that you left the printed receipt with your name and the title of your book at the automated checkout station.

We hope you enjoy the ease and convenience of the library’s automated self-checkout system.

Quick Takes.

We’re Not Idiots.

Author: February 3, 2016 6 Comments

So the B-52’s are playing at the Schermerhorn Symphony Center here in Nashville on February 4th and 5th, which is really cool in many ways. I remember when the song Love Shack appeared on MTV as a “smash or trash”. This was back in the day when the “M” in MTV stood for “music” and not “an odd assortment of reality shows and other garbage and hey, kids, come back!” At the time “smash or trash” was also something radio stations did, back before the local DJ’s were replaced by robots in a facility deep in a Wyoming mountain. They’d play a song–or in the case of MTV a music video–and ask people to call in and declare it a “smash” or “trash”. It was a groovy thing, so much better than the robots who now say, “We’re gonna play this and you’ll like it!” Other notable smash or trash songs included Bobby McFerrin’s Don’t Worry, Be Happy and She Drives Me Crazy by Fine Young Cannibals, but that’s another story.

The Schermerhorn is an amazing building and I love that the B-52s are playing there, but it also reminds me of this commercial for the Nashville Symphony. I really dig this commercial except for one part that annoys me so much it ruins the whole thing for me.

Did you spot it? Maybe you had the same reaction. If you’re not sure it’s at the 12-second mark, when Giancarlo Guerrero is demonstrating what the symphony isn’t and one of the things it isn’t is…

symphony2Really? The guy speaks about thirty languages. Or at least two. Surely he knows what “soporific” means. And that makes me think they’re making fun of the audience, chuckling and thinking, “Hey, these rednecks couldn’t possibly know what that word means, so let’s make a joke about it.” And maybe most people–even educated people–don’t know what it means. It’s not a word that comes up in everyday conversation unless you hang around with S.J. Perelman even though most of us sit through soporific meetings and sales presentations regularly. And that’s okay. Why not turn it into an educational opportunity? Oxford English Dictionary, help us out here!

symphony3Yeah, seeing Guerrero stretched out snoozing on the stage would have been both educational and funny. But then the commercial goes from trash to smash when he chugs a Yazoo Dos Perros.

symphony1Clearly the man has taste. I’ll bet he’s gonna dance this mess around.

Ramble With Me.

Walk On Guy.

Author: February 1, 2016 7 Comments

walkI like to sit at the very back of the bus, especially during the winter since the engine is back there and the back seat is warm. As I walked past the other passengers I made eye contact with a guy in a dark green coat and a black cap. Was that a flicker of recognition on his face? Did he wonder why I was boarding the bus here?

I walk a lot. It’s a little over half a mile from the bus stop to my house, plus there’s the walk to where I catch the bus. Some days I’ll walk more than a mile and a half from my office to the bus stop. There are nearer stops but unless I can see the bus coming I keep walking. And depending on personal whims I may walk with the traffic—taking me slightly closer to home—or I may walk against the traffic, taking me farther away from home but putting me closer to the oncoming bus. And even when I get to a bus stop and settle down to wait I won’t always sit down. Sometimes I’ll pace back and forth covering who knows how much ground before the bus finally arrives.

It’s just a weird habit. Out on the road I don’t feel like standing still. So I keep walking. The other day I passed a guy sitting at a bus stop. He had on an army jacket and jeans. A cascade of copper dreadlocks spilled from under his cap. He looked up at me as I went by. I wondered if he were waiting for a bus or just resting. Maybe he was out walking too. I continued on for about six blocks and finally hit a point where the stops are so far apart–the next one is on the other side of a long overpass–I was afraid the bus would zip by me before I could get to the stop, so I stood where I was. And then paced around where I was.

The bus arrived and I boarded and as I walked to the back I recognized the army jacket, black cap, and copper dreads. He looked up at me. Was there judgment in those eyes? Did he recognize me, and did he wonder if there was something about him that made me unwilling to share a bus stop with him? I felt so uncomfortable about it I almost said out loud, “It’s not you, it’s me.”

Adventures In Busing.

In A Word.

Author: January 30, 2016 7 Comments

POLONIUS: What do you read, my lord?

HAMLET: Words, words, words.

–Hamlet

Words, words. They’re all we have to go on.

–Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead

graffiti1Because I don’t do graphic design and have no clue what kerning is (or at least didn’t until I stopped typing this sentence and went and looked it up) I often take letters for granted. And that may seem strange given that words are my medium, but most of the time I just stick with the Times New Roman font or whatever the default is and don’t think about changing it unless I want to use italics for emphasis or bold to make something really stand out. Occasionally if I’m adding a caption to a picture I might look for a funny font but mostly I’m just lazy and use the default.

And this is true most of the time when I’m reading. I read the words but I don’t think about the design of the font, unless I happen to flip to the back and it’s a book with one of those little notes. “This book is typeset in Whillickers, a 12th century Belgian font designed by an amateur cowl maker.” If you say so. Looks like Times New Roman to me.

It even seems more than a little odd to me that there’s some controversy over U.S. highway signs which switched to a more legible font called Clearview in 2004 but is now switching back to one called Highway Gothic. They don’t look that different to me, except for some kerning, but Clearview is expensive while Highway Gothic is free.

Anyway when I look at graffiti, or any art that turns abstract language into something visual–think Robert Indiana’s LOVE sculpture–I do notice the font because it’s not just the word. It’s also how it’s designed.

That’s what I like about this particular work. It makes me think about how printed language has two ways of conveying meaning: what it says is tied to how it looks. And as a bonus there’s a sense of menace.

graffiti2

Seen any graffiti? Send your pictures to freethinkers@nerosoft.com. Full credit will be given or you can remain anonymous. I’m easy.

American Graffiti.