And so now, apparently, I'm a bibliographic Shark Tank. Authors have no more than 100 pages (maybe 50, if you're trying my patience with royalty schemes for hundred-year-old popular songs) to convince me to keep reading until the end. I've never actually seen the show, so I don't know what the hosts actually say to candidates who don't make the cut, but whatever it is, consider it said to Shana Alexander.
So with Shana Alexander fired or banished or whatever the Shark Tank equivalent is, I just started reading The Zelmenyaners, which according to Rokhl Kafrissen's Jewish Book Council review, is "the funniest Yiddish novel about Soviet central planning you'll read this year."
I know, right? I read novels about Soviet central planning all the time, and they're not usually that funny.
I think I'm still missing the Cazalets, so I guess I needed another saga about a family with an unusual last name that includes a Z. The Cazalets and the Zelmenyaners both live in turbulent times, but of course I'd rather be in London during the Blitz than Minsk (or anywhere else in the Soviet Union) in the late 1920s and early 1930s. I'm only a few pages in, but I'm going to guess that the humor is of the gallows variety. I'll report back later.
*****
Tuesday: It used to be, in the good old days, that baseball games were cancelled in the event of rain. That is, except during seasons when there are more rainouts than games, and the league is desperate to cram in as many games as possible before the season ends and the playoffs begin. And that's why I just spent two hours standing in the cold rain, cheering on a bunch of dispirited, mud-stained, bedraggled 12-year-old boys who weren't any happier to be there than I was. And it's going to rain again tomorrow. Maryland three days before Memorial Day weekend, and it's like monsoon season in the Ganges Delta. What in the actual hell, as they say in high school.
*****
Wednesday: Today, I looked up the word "website," because I needed to reassure myself that the one-word spelling still prevails in most accepted style guides. I was right, and it does. Then, I had to look up the title of a journal article on drug policy, because I suspected that it had been listed incorrectly in a resume that I was readying for a proposal. I was right about that, too--a word was missing. But that, as they say, is not the weird part. The weird part came when I clicked on Google search again, and was offered "websites to buy drugs" as a search option, before I even started to type. This was at work, naturally, so our IT department probably thinks that I'm trying to score illegal painkillers on the Internet.
"Hitman," for your information, is one word. So no need to Google it. Because you don't want Google to go and helpfully search "How to recruit an assassin," or "Murder for hire, cheap" the next time you want to look up movie times.
I mean, really
*****
Thursday: This weather is cordially invited to suck it.
*****
Friday: I have so much to do this weekend that I can't keep it all straight in my brain, which isn't too sharp under the best of circumstances. Exhibit A, for example: I have too much to do, and yet here I am, blogging about nothing. Is that what a smart person does? Maybe not. Maybe not.
But it's still Memorial Day Weekend, which means that it's summer, which means that all is well. I have no problems that summer can't solve.
*****
Saturday: I inadvertently published this mess last night, and a bunch of people appear to have read it. So I apologize. I feel like a chef who just fed his customers a plate full of undercooked chicken.
*****
When I was 9 or 10, I saw a movie--I can't remember its title, nor most of its plot, but I do remember that it was about a pioneer family who endured epic, cinematic hardships as they sought to establish a homestead in the wilds of the 19th century American west. Although I don't remember much about this movie, one particularly horrifying scene is burned into my consciousness, probably forever at this point. The heroine, dressed in what a 1970s movie producer thought that a pioneer woman would have worn (gingham, pinafore, bonnet, lace-up boots), heard a strange buzzing, humming sound, which grew louder and louder until, overcome with curiosity, she stepped outside the log cabin onto the barren sun-baked dusty prairie, where (OMG, it's too much to think about) she was suddenly swarmed by cicadas, which swirled around her, landing on her by the hundreds, as she clung to her bonnet, shrieking.
I'm going to go have a drink.
OK, I'm fine now. I didn't really have a drink, because it's 8 in the morning, but I can't overemphasize the effect that this scene had on my growing and impressionable 10-year-old mind. So my windows are open now, despite the light rain (and the rain! How is it possible that there's any rain even left?) and the cicadas are louder than Metallica, and what with 40 days and 40 nights of near-nonstop rain and an actual, legitimate plague of fucking locusts, I feel like I live in the Old Testament.
But it's still OK. Because it's SUMMER!
*****
Actual Saturday of Memorial Day Weekend conversations.
12YO: OK. I think I'm ready. I have my hat, my towel, my suit, extra shirt, goggles, and wallet.
Me: Put that towel back in the bathroom, and get a beach towel.
12YO: OK. I just like this one because I can roll it up really really small. By the way, I have $28 in my wallet. Is that enough for the snack bar, do you think?
Me: ---
15YO: I have to work at 3. Is it going to be sunny? Do I need my sunglasses?
Me: I don't know, but just bring them anyway. It can't hurt to have them.
15YO: OK. Do you have a whistle? I can't find my whistle.
(I actually have two whistles, for swim meet refereeing purposes.)
Me: Yes. Here you go.
15YO: What size is the cork in this?
Me: What? I have no idea.
15YO: See, the ones that have the bigger corks have a better sound, and you don't have to blow as hard. I'm going to go outside and test this.
Me: ---
Apparently, the whistle passed the test. I'm not sure, meanwhile, how a person is supposed to determine the size of the cork in a whistle. I'm not going to find out, either.
*****
Sunday: I suppose I wouldn't normally mind spending a large chunk of the weekend fighting with a giant, unwieldy Word document with multiple authors. Except when the Word document appears to be very close to winning.
Meanwhile, this mess is about as cooked as it's going to be and no one should be in any immediate danger of salmonella, so now I'm going to hit publish for real. Happy Memorial Day, and bon appetit.
So with Shana Alexander fired or banished or whatever the Shark Tank equivalent is, I just started reading The Zelmenyaners, which according to Rokhl Kafrissen's Jewish Book Council review, is "the funniest Yiddish novel about Soviet central planning you'll read this year."
I know, right? I read novels about Soviet central planning all the time, and they're not usually that funny.
I think I'm still missing the Cazalets, so I guess I needed another saga about a family with an unusual last name that includes a Z. The Cazalets and the Zelmenyaners both live in turbulent times, but of course I'd rather be in London during the Blitz than Minsk (or anywhere else in the Soviet Union) in the late 1920s and early 1930s. I'm only a few pages in, but I'm going to guess that the humor is of the gallows variety. I'll report back later.
*****
Tuesday: It used to be, in the good old days, that baseball games were cancelled in the event of rain. That is, except during seasons when there are more rainouts than games, and the league is desperate to cram in as many games as possible before the season ends and the playoffs begin. And that's why I just spent two hours standing in the cold rain, cheering on a bunch of dispirited, mud-stained, bedraggled 12-year-old boys who weren't any happier to be there than I was. And it's going to rain again tomorrow. Maryland three days before Memorial Day weekend, and it's like monsoon season in the Ganges Delta. What in the actual hell, as they say in high school.
*****
Wednesday: Today, I looked up the word "website," because I needed to reassure myself that the one-word spelling still prevails in most accepted style guides. I was right, and it does. Then, I had to look up the title of a journal article on drug policy, because I suspected that it had been listed incorrectly in a resume that I was readying for a proposal. I was right about that, too--a word was missing. But that, as they say, is not the weird part. The weird part came when I clicked on Google search again, and was offered "websites to buy drugs" as a search option, before I even started to type. This was at work, naturally, so our IT department probably thinks that I'm trying to score illegal painkillers on the Internet.
"Hitman," for your information, is one word. So no need to Google it. Because you don't want Google to go and helpfully search "How to recruit an assassin," or "Murder for hire, cheap" the next time you want to look up movie times.
I mean, really
*****
Thursday: This weather is cordially invited to suck it.
*****
Friday: I have so much to do this weekend that I can't keep it all straight in my brain, which isn't too sharp under the best of circumstances. Exhibit A, for example: I have too much to do, and yet here I am, blogging about nothing. Is that what a smart person does? Maybe not. Maybe not.
But it's still Memorial Day Weekend, which means that it's summer, which means that all is well. I have no problems that summer can't solve.
*****
Saturday: I inadvertently published this mess last night, and a bunch of people appear to have read it. So I apologize. I feel like a chef who just fed his customers a plate full of undercooked chicken.
*****
When I was 9 or 10, I saw a movie--I can't remember its title, nor most of its plot, but I do remember that it was about a pioneer family who endured epic, cinematic hardships as they sought to establish a homestead in the wilds of the 19th century American west. Although I don't remember much about this movie, one particularly horrifying scene is burned into my consciousness, probably forever at this point. The heroine, dressed in what a 1970s movie producer thought that a pioneer woman would have worn (gingham, pinafore, bonnet, lace-up boots), heard a strange buzzing, humming sound, which grew louder and louder until, overcome with curiosity, she stepped outside the log cabin onto the barren sun-baked dusty prairie, where (OMG, it's too much to think about) she was suddenly swarmed by cicadas, which swirled around her, landing on her by the hundreds, as she clung to her bonnet, shrieking.
I'm going to go have a drink.
OK, I'm fine now. I didn't really have a drink, because it's 8 in the morning, but I can't overemphasize the effect that this scene had on my growing and impressionable 10-year-old mind. So my windows are open now, despite the light rain (and the rain! How is it possible that there's any rain even left?) and the cicadas are louder than Metallica, and what with 40 days and 40 nights of near-nonstop rain and an actual, legitimate plague of fucking locusts, I feel like I live in the Old Testament.
But it's still OK. Because it's SUMMER!
*****
 |
| Annual countdown to opening day: T minus 1. |
Actual Saturday of Memorial Day Weekend conversations.
12YO: OK. I think I'm ready. I have my hat, my towel, my suit, extra shirt, goggles, and wallet.
Me: Put that towel back in the bathroom, and get a beach towel.
12YO: OK. I just like this one because I can roll it up really really small. By the way, I have $28 in my wallet. Is that enough for the snack bar, do you think?
Me: ---
15YO: I have to work at 3. Is it going to be sunny? Do I need my sunglasses?
Me: I don't know, but just bring them anyway. It can't hurt to have them.
15YO: OK. Do you have a whistle? I can't find my whistle.
(I actually have two whistles, for swim meet refereeing purposes.)
Me: Yes. Here you go.
15YO: What size is the cork in this?
Me: What? I have no idea.
15YO: See, the ones that have the bigger corks have a better sound, and you don't have to blow as hard. I'm going to go outside and test this.
Me: ---
Apparently, the whistle passed the test. I'm not sure, meanwhile, how a person is supposed to determine the size of the cork in a whistle. I'm not going to find out, either.
*****
Sunday: I suppose I wouldn't normally mind spending a large chunk of the weekend fighting with a giant, unwieldy Word document with multiple authors. Except when the Word document appears to be very close to winning.
Meanwhile, this mess is about as cooked as it's going to be and no one should be in any immediate danger of salmonella, so now I'm going to hit publish for real. Happy Memorial Day, and bon appetit.
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