Oh, Right, I Have a Blog

I've been away on an extended hiatus as CEO of a software startup, which is still ongoing, but I just can't stay away from blogging any longer. I picked up a copy of the NYT times this morning at the Starbucks, which is proof positive that I'm missing the ole' blogging world.

So, I'll start out modestly with a phenomenon that I'm sure we're all familiar with, but is really kind of silly if one stops to consider...

The Token Door Shove... (dramatic music starts now)

This refers to the little polite "shove" we give the door as we're entering a building and it's closing on the person entering behind us. The TDS is silly because, more often than not, it makes zero difference to the life of the person behind us; in some cases it might actually make things nominally worse, as just opening the door afresh would be easier than attempting to coordinate the door grab post push. We just do this, of course, because it's a signal that we recognize the person behind us, which in general is a good thing. But, again, it's silly because it doesn't really matter. It masquerades as having some positive benefit, when in fact it's pure theater (if it actually does help in some particular case, great, but it's a knee jerk thing that we never figure in the first place, which is The Point). How many other benign actions do we engage in just to reassure those around us that we're polite members of civilization? How about, the little purse of the lips we give to passersby? Do you know the one? Ever so soft and reassuring, and completely useless, unless it's midnight in a shady part of town, of course, where it might give evidence that we're not in attack mode with, say, a rusty screwdriver concealed behind our back (but what if it's just facial expression subterfuge?). But if we're in the shady part of town, we wouldn't look at the passerby at all, would we? So, again, we're hell bent on appearing polite to each other, whether we're actually helpful to another, or not.

On Lawhatever James and Passion for World Cup

Labron James makes much ballyhooed anouncement on which organization he will work for, continuing to bounce a ball on a wood floor and throw it through a metal hoop to the adoration of millions. Don't Care. Not that I'm bothered by fame per se. I love Lady Gaga and she's a fame monster.

What other grumbly points can I make. Oh yes, I almost forgot. In the ongoing attempt for all enlightened Americans to outdo each other in showing the most self-deprecation, the Bay area is aflame with passion for the World Cup. Who gives a damn? Uruguay? I don't even know if I pronounced it right, and you know what, who cares? Uruguay? Yes it's vitally important that we all hang on the edge of our seats to see this world power at their finest hour (actually I think they lost). Interestingly, when I show a little American nationalism amongst my European friends here in Palo Alto, they seem strangely, ironically, to appreciate it. It's almost like everyone is thinking: "Americans, get some cojones! The world's superpower and your educated elite are tripping over themselves to appear embarrased by your success, and desperately trying to convince us that you're okay because you love watching Uruguay kick a ball around, clapping so loudly you make yourself look silly. We wouldn't do that, says the French man, smiling. We love France. Suckers!")

US Nonplussed as Iran Threatens Ban

Iran's Ahmadinejad threatened to ban Coca Cola and other American products Thursday, after President Obama announced new sanctions on the regime in further efforts to curtail its nuclear ambitions. Insiders in Washington remarked privately early Friday that Iran has in fact been receiving shipments of New Coke, tons of which were inventoried shortly after its introduction in 1985, in response to lackluster public interest. "We're not worried about its [the ban's] impact on the economy", remarked a White House official who chose to remain anonymous, adding that a deal struck with Coca-Cola currently gives a percentage of the profits from sale of the now-defunct New Coke to the State department to help offset the cost of "dealing with Iran". "We may feel the heat in terms of a loss of funding if Iran follows through", he admitted, noting that sales of parachute pants and Vanilla Ice albums could also suffer.

Computer giant IBM and Intel were also mentioned by Ahmadinejad in his defiant response to news of further sanctions. And a spokesperson for Iran told CNN's Wolf Blitzer Friday that "further bans on U.S. auto imports", could "bring the U.S. economy to its knees", insisting that the thousands of Pintos Iran currently imports could easily be replaced with "less expensive models from China", and "other countries", insisting that such non-Western alternatives were competitively priced and would be increasingly sought after as relations between Washington and the beleaguered Iranian regime further chilled in the wake of Thursday's announcement.

Obama declined to comment on Ahmadinejad's retaliatory remarks, and privately the mood in Washington appeared upbeat. "We tried to sell them MC Hammer shirts", said a State department official familiar with the matter, "but they told us to go packing". "We were definitely the Great Satan after that one", he mused, confessing that the once bestselling single "Hammer Time" remained a solid, if seldom admitted, favorite of his. "Don't diss The Hammer", he chuckled, jerking a thumb towards the wall behind him, where a photo of several men standing around crates of Coca-Cola was visible. "Drink up, boys."

It's Dr. Larson, now

Yes, that's right, I've completed my Ph.D. at the University of Texas at Austion. I feel so...., so,...., so,....

Well, it was a feat, in addition to starting the company. I'll say that. And anyway, I love to write, and to do research.

Erik

John Williams in D.C.

John Williams burst on the scene like a superhero, shoulder pressing several members of Code Pink in one hand, slamming a double Jack and Coke in the other. At this moment, he could do no wrong. He was Tiger Woods playing golf, Kobe Bryant shooting hoop, Peyton Manning throwing the football. But it couldn't last. As Williams strided toward the West Face of the Capitol building, a member of Code Pink reached down and managed to untie his shoe, generating a cascade of events that resulted in his ignominous fall, scattering the remainder of his beverage onto the shocked crowd and depositing Code Pink in front of the Capitol no worse for the wear. Williams never got the deals at the Capitol. He'd be damned if he would stand for this again. But already through the crowd congealing around him the Pinksters were gone, and the Capitol police were beginning to look his way. He turned his back to the crowd and strutted away. Later that afternoon, he was found staring at a moon rock in the aeronautics museum. Sulking. Pensive. He never got the deals in D.C.

Texas. Suburbia.

I have this neighbor that throws weekend football parties in a weird mixture of bacchanalian and high brow. His home is large and new, with expensive looking furniture and large glass windows in the back that open up to a beautiful view of Texas Hill Country. He grills fajitas on the porch with a vigor that I've seen only in true Texans. The oak ice chest next to the grill is frequently opened to reveal local and domestic beers for plucking out, cracking open on the handy bottle opener affixed to the exterior of the chest. There's this admirable functionality to partying in Texas Suburbia.

Inside, the wide screen is cranked to a pitch that makes talking difficult. It's a faux pax, I think, but people are in the nice house, with the fajitas grilling, and so 30 somethings and 40 somethings are reduced to staring at T.V., or retreating back to the kitchen to stand eye to eye. His wife I've been informed is "bitchy". No sign until there is one; she introduces the beautiful living room furniture by warning all that spills will be punished. The kind of quip that enforces the supremacy of her material things over our socializing, while she trots around with a thinly disguised patina of glibness. So, then, "bitchy". She has this attribute, that's all.

She drinks a Cabernet in a large glass. There are beers in hands elsewhere. Husband (his name is either "James", "Jim", or "Jimmy", take your pick he says) later pulls out a fine few bottles of tequila, joyously filling shot glasses with people smiling nervously around him. We're all feeling a little scandalous because it's barely past noon, but in nice houses somehow it's hard to feel like a loser, even slamming tequila for no obvious reason on a Sunday.

Later--within the hour, I guess--Jimmy's face is red, and he rocks from one leg to another while scooping ice cream out for kids. I feel like this must be just pure work for Jimmy now; he's drunk and the ice cream looks very frozen, and kids who are noisily running around upstairs and then downstairs and then upstairs and then demanding ice cream aren't fajitas or football or tequila. The obligatory dog is a puppy-- a gangly Golden Retriever --and is running this algorithm in its puppy head that brings each guest on the couch a slobbery cloth ball for retrieving. Each guest then prys the slobbery ball away and throws it somewhere safe in the house. Puppy runs and gets, returns to guest. Eventually puppy goes to next guest on couch and in this fashion manages to entertain himself for upwards of five hours, a feat that I'm confident not every guest quite manages.

In like a lion at noon, it's all over at 5:00 p.m., and we're all saying our good byes and rounding up children with Jimmy standing red faced at the door calling after us that he hopes we aren't leaving hungry. I think his wife is sleeping now. A strange, quasi-depression is knocking at my consciousness and I'm looking at the other faces as we saunter back home to see if it's intruding on them too. But I don't think it is, or at least this kind of impromptu investigation won't ever reveal it. The faces of suburbia are plastered with an impenetrable veneer of smiles and success and contentedness that admits nothing probing or philosophical or contrary. It's admirable, really, this capacity for perpetual vacuity. Notable, at least.

But anyway Jimmy's party is, like all such parties, quickly forgotten. New horizons in Texas Suburbia await. Kids go off to school the next morning and jobs are attended to; husbands march off to work, and wives (many of them) stay home, mixing in the child-free hours intervals of mindless Web surfing with determined spurts of house cleaning or the administration of various financial or other affairs. Weekends explode with laughter and tequila and serious talks of football teams and furniture and the water requirements of different grasses for lawns. Gossip breezes in and out and never ventures past what so-and-so three houses down is up to, or whether Nancy got too drunk or Mario blurted that he's only with Sandra because of the kids, or that the Stearns' dog keeps getting out and barking at Josh as he's leaving for work.

*****

Finding oneself deep in Texas Suburbia is like venturing past a cultural event horizon, where no information of broader interest can be transmitted. All is local, immediate, and desperately uninteresting to any poor sap who wanders in without first a proper period of acclimation. Conversational priorities are codified in game-like, deterministic, if unspoken rules, like rock-paper-scissors: Concrete beats abstract. Local beats remote. Ergo, the concept of "education" is a non-starter. But discussion of various events at a particular grade or middle school might carry folks past midnight. The principal at Winkley Elementary ignites discussion, a city-wide matter (like the mayor's election) earns a friendly chat, a state-wide issue (like the state budget, or state senate affairs) a smattering of cautious remarks. Once outside the borders of Texas, though, all is necessarily perfunctory, if discussed at all. Offer up an issue of, say, international interest, like the destabilization of the Middle East, and you'll get awkward, reserved, cooky-cutter responses that, if captured on paper, would not seem out of place inscribed with a crayon.

Yet, nowhere can one find such vast repositories of information on matters local and trivial. Discussion about potholes (there was a particularly deep and nasty one just down our street, caused by one of the custom home builders' heavy equipment, no doubt), might last the entire second half of a football game, if one includes related stories. Gossip about a neighbor (one of our neighbors scolded another neighbor's kid, for instance) might begin and end a get-together (if not by admission of those participating, by observation of any bored fool present who was not). This self-serving vapidness of upper middle class suburbia is everywhere, I imagine. In Texas, it's Texas-sized.

But counteracting the existential nightmare of finding oneself trapped in such a web is the baser but entirely pleasant and mostly satisfactory realization that tequila, fajitas, cold beer and high definition football prop up the damaged spirit and coax one from week to week with only vague comprehension that life itself is passing by. Like a fish plucked from deep oceans of knowledge and deposited on the dry rotten planks of a junk, one will flop and flounder for a spell, but retreating not to nihilism but to a smiling numbness offers hope that the months and years will pass without great incident, and the possibility of eventual release can give quiet solace. Some may worry that such resignation will prove permanent, but for thinking types this outcome I'm convinced is not likely. Few people, knowing the treasure and majesty of the broader world, would embrace lengthy compromise of this sort in plain view of opportunities to the contrary. So then, fear not. Wait for such an opportunity. And in the meantime, Voilà! To Jimmy! The time passes by.

When Symptoms First Appeared

I have time for blogs of this sort:

"when symptoms first appeared"??? Won't "when symptoms appeared" suffice? It's weird how we do this with language.

The Touch

She was lonely, and felt fragile, and wished he would move closer. But it wasn't the physical proximity but the evidence that his attention was on her, and so when he put his hand on her shoulder, she felt better, and turned away. He layed in silence for some time while she drifted to sleep. Later he left the house for cigarettes at the corner, and stood and smoked and watched the stars late into that dark night. The stars shone brightly.

Sam

My wife brought our dog Sam back from the animal shelter Spring of 2006. He was a sickly puppy at the time, full of worms, with a running eye, and a pensive, shy demeanor. But he won over my wife, with his tawny fur and big, innocent eyes. He was Paul when we took him home, and when he reached our house he was Sam.

Sam's running eye was harmless, according to the vet, and the worms clinging in his swollen belly were let loose by the pills we embedded in his food. He grew larger by degrees I'm sure, but as we experienced him his progress was discreet, so that he was suddenly a larger pup, and then an adolescent, with no stages in between. Sam took to chewing everything in our back yard, which caused me great consternation, and prompted ongoing friction between my wife and I, as she remonstrated me on my lack of patience, and I her on our lack of unpunctured water hoses, and unchewed bushes, and boards on our deck free of marks from puppy teething.

Sam was a classic mut, a pound puppy that was listed as a cross between a Pit Bull and a Labrador, the faintly discernible drops in an ocean of breeds comprising his motley origin.

The Trio

I've long been interested in writing about our three favorite habits: alcohol, caffeine, and nicotine. It's of course possible and perhaps even probable that I'm interested only because I indulge regularly myself. A kind of self-interest, as it were. But regardless, I'm here tonight to stand up in the group meeting and admit my problem. Here goes.

This evening after work I'm sitting watching the news, drinking a glass of Chianti, and it dawns on me, slowly, that something's wrong. Finally I pinpoint it... no coffee today. Not good. I drink, as a habit it should be told, two to three cups of strong coffee every morning, without exception. And today I was interupted working on the initial stages of my first cup, with no additional coffee drinking in my day.

So, here I am, hours later, with a physical problem worming its way into my awareness, and suddenly the nickel drops and it occurs to me that I haven't had enough caffeine. Ahhh. It all makes sense now. It explains how I'm dull, headachy, almost depressed. I'm sluggish, uninteresting and uninterested. The wine means nothing. In fact it's exacerbating my situation.

So, I hate to admit it, but I'm soon trucking down to the local Starbucks, 6:30 in the evening, wine half drank sitting on the counter, ordering a Grande Latte, with an extra shot. The perky woman behind the counter, with the store fairly dead by Starbucks standards, asks if (and I'm repeating this basically verbatim) "I'd like another shot on the house". Huh? This is bar talk. Sure, I reply, bellying up to the barista. Another shot of the stuff, and on the house, lady! Now I'm looking around. Things seem better. Perhaps I should strike up some random conversations with the other caffeinated souls perkily reading and chatting and yacking around me. Maybe this place could get jumpin' after all!

Anyway, this is an interesting subject to me, this whole idea of our habits and how we view them. And so I won't put off much longer my exploration of our beloved trio; call it the alcohol, caffeine, and nicotine diaries. More to come.

Sunday morning, 24 January 1965

I finished yesterday Roy Jenkins' biography of Winston Churchill, all 912 pages. I was planning on writing some summary thoughts but have completely run out of steam today. Most of the day, I've been (somewhat uncharacteristically) depressed. The transience of life, existential angst, that kind of thing.

I can offer at least this, for now: I was research assistant and (increasingly) caretaker for George Kozmetsky before his death in April 2003. I was with George the day before he died, when his face turned grey from his sickness and my eyes grew big like saucers, thinking he was dying (he was, it turns out). His eyes grew big too, looking at me. What a thing death is. The only other time my eyes grew big like this, looking at another person, was when my daughter Brooke was born. The nurses originally suggested that I perform the medical procedure of cutting the cord. It was too much, seeing her born like that. I wasn't ready. In either case I wasn't ready.

The Strangers

I watched The Strangers last night, an unfortunate movie, if only because its sole aim is to scare the dickens out of you, but (at least in my case) fails miserably. (Actually, I should say that I re-watched The Strangers, this time at the offices, in the dark, and completely alone, hoping for that jolt of fear. Nothin'.) Let me explain.

First, if you haven't seen it, it's essentially the Manson Family idea: two women and a man in creepy masks descend on a house in the country to harrass a hapless couple, who're staying at the house for the night (the house of the young man's parents, who aren't there). That's the basic idea.

As for the couple, Liv Tyler plays Kristen McCay, who has recently rejected a marriage proposal from the now-frustrated James Hoyt, played by Scott Speedman. I thought the chemistry between the main characters was fine; the problem creeps in (no pun) when the bad guys show up. This is made known by the obligatory eery knock on the door, at four in the morning (which terminates the unfolding love scene-- thanks a lot!), resulting in a peculiar exchange with a young woman at the doorstep, dead of night in the country, asking for someone in a dead pan I'm-in-a-horror-movie voice.

But Hoyt blows this off, and shortly after goes to get cigarettes for McCay, leaving her in the house by herself (yeah, right). Of course, you guessed it, the creeps from outside are soon inside, and the cat and mouse game begins.

By the time Hoyt arrives with the smokes, McCay is freaked. He's still got the dismissive must-be-okay attitude, but after seeing one of the antagonists standing menacingly in the shadows outside one of the windows, he digs out the family shotgun. Now, with two women and a man wearing Halloween masks in the country, in the early hours of the morning, with no phone access (the hard line's dead, and the one cell phone got chucked into the fireplace by the bad guys, who seem to be making excursions into the house to perform particular missions, only to go back outside to stand around and look scary), it would seem that there are two reasonable moves for our antagonized lovers.

One, get in the car and drive off. Two, retreat to a room of your choice (with no windows behind you, etc.), and sit there with the 12 guage and the several dozen shells Hoyt pocketed, and wait for daylight. Bad guys with Halloween masks disappear when the sun comes up (same goes with the audience's fear). Then, simple equation: bad guy shows up with knife, shoot bad guy. That's easy enough.

Neither option happens until it's too late, though Hoyt and McCay do, eventually, attempt to drive off (what a concept!), but get rammed by the creeps in their creepy pickup and end up back at the house.

So, move one failed, proceed to move two. Sit there with the shotgun and wait it out. This was too boring, apparently; better to run around, finding creepy places, exposing yourself to danger. Be the victim! Feel the victim! Oh well.

Incidentally, one thing I did find interesting: a menacing knock on one's door (with no peephole... that's cheating) in the middle of the night, in the middle of nowhere, does present a dilemma. Open it up, might be bad. Yell through the door? I guess, but then if it seems harmless, you're obliged to open it ("What the hell do you want?" "Uh, my car broke down, I'm cold, and lost..."). Doing nothing seems a little too cautious (maybe even a little pusillanimous), and shooting through the door without understanding the situation is obviously absurd. Assuming there's no phone access, what would you do? Unfortunately, entertaining this mildly insipid question is the closest The Strangers came to pulling me into the Creep Zone.

Happy New Year

I probably shouldn't post this, but...

Happy New Year! The most uneventful New Year celebration ever. I tried to be festive but had no enthusiasm for it, and ended up snoozing and watching bad T.V. By way of contrast, the best New Year celebration I had was in Seattle in 1995 (to be 1996).

I was in Pioneer Square for the countdown, which was packed with the merriest of folks, cheering beyond all reasonableness. I remember lifting the champaign to the sky and counting down with hundreds of my suddenly closest friends. What fun, that night.

Later I lost my leather jacket in a bar, and ended up staying with a woman named "Gretchen" details about which I'll omit. In the morning I awoke to a new year, in a new bed, and by noon was walking in rare sunlight (I remember it was sunny in Seattle) back to my apartment, which was across town and I guess at least three miles away. Gretchen didn't have a car. It was, I think, a New Year to remember, loosely stated.

In my old age and married with kids now, I just sort of nod off, watching Andersen Cooper in ear muffs and a bunch of now silly looking revelers cheering and whooping and hollering. Many have Gretchen stories, by now, too. They will, some day, many of them, recall with great fondness the first moments of 2009.

The Harley Dudes

I was driving on 183 a couple of days ago, and this gaggle of Harley bikers rumbled past me, leather jackets and babes on the back. I was doing maybe 70 in a 65 zone, and so the bikers must have had their hogs up to 75 or 80. It occurred to me, with the vibrations of their engines pulsating through the door of my Toyota and the Bon Jovi or whatever anthem rock I'd cranked up temporarily drowned out, that I never see these guys get pulled over for speeding. When has anyone ever seen a bunch of Harley dudes parked to the side of the highway, doing that give-me-my-ticket-so-I-can-leave shame thing? What's the deal? My theory is that they're too damn harley, to make the noun an adjective for present purposes; it's not in the fabric of things to have these guys getting written up by un-cool Johny Law. They're only popped if things escalate, like a knife fight in Vegas. Or if something goes down in Sturgis.

But I love these guys anyway. I just wish they wouldn't drown out my anthem rock when I'm pulling gears in my 6 cylinder Tacoma. We all need those harly moments.

Edgar Allen Poe

I'll do this from memory but saw it originally years ago in some book about Edgar Allen Poe. Legend has it that it came originally from the morbid maestro himself, inscribed on the wall of a pub somewhere in Massachusetts:

Fill with mingled cream and amber, I will drain that glass again. What hilarious thoughts do clambor, through the chambers of my brain. Quaintest thoughts, queerest fancies, come to life, then fade away. What care I how time advances? I am drinking Ale today.

Gettin' it Straight

The Credit Crisis. Auto bailouts. Stock market in turmoil. What does it mean, and who has the answers? Let's start with some clarification of terms. Define your terms, as philosophers teach us. So I'll try to do just that, and I'll pick as my subject matter a set of terms that we constantly use, that have different meanings though it's common to view subsets of them as in essence the same (or at least having substantial overlap), and that are particularly germaine given our current circumstances. The terms are:

Geek
Nerd
Dork
Tool
Jerk
Asshole
Prick
Douche Bag
Dumb ass
Pinwheel

Let's get started. In what follows I'll define the term, then offer some exemplar from popular culture to tack down the definition. I'm confident that the conflations will melt away, to the edification of all.

First, a geek. Contrary to popular opinion, a geek is not a nerd. Don't conflate them, folks. A geek is someone that drills into a particular subject with a zest that borders on the maniacal. But (and this is important), he does his drilling at the expense of, say, hygiene, or social skills. The classic geek is the computer geek. Moooove. But geeks find homes in other technical disciplines as well. Nicholas Cage's character in The Rock, Stanley Goodspeed, was a geek.

The nerd. Ah yes, the nerd. Nerds are boring, unathletic types that tend to fall into nerdy routines (like getting up at the same time, having coffee, listening to some soothing music, leaving the house at the same time, etc.). Nerds are terrible with the opposite sex, tend to be abstemious (being too "smart" for vice), and are by definition socially unattractive to non-nerds and in particular to members of the opposite sex that are non-nerds. In other words, they're smart, with nothing else. Nerds. Classic nerd is Marty McFly, from Back to the Future. Also, Ross from Friends (though a borderline case, since Ross had a greater than zero chance that a woman would find him attractive).

Dorks. Dorks are nerds with less native intelligence. A dork looks and sounds like a nerd but talks about his car, or his recipe for Jalapeno macaroni salad. Dorks tend to watch a lot of sports on T.V., and may wear sports insignia, especially on dates, or to nice restaurants.

Tool. Interesting type, the tool. Tools are smart, mostly successful, with something more to offer than can be managed by geeks, nerds, or dorks. A tool will be at least one of: attractive, athletic, or sociable. Tools are tools essentially because they follow the rules. A tool made it into a good law school, dresses nice, may have an attractive mate, and refuses to buy beer for the neighbor kid (though he's known him for years). A tool may inform on classmates for cheating. He rarely speeds. Tools generally end up running things. (Don't worry, however, because they're still tools.)

Jerk. Low class, mean spirited, don't give a damn types. Chet from Weird Science. You can almost substitute "jackass" for jerk, though there is some small semantic difference.

Asshole. Jerks that have made something of themselves. Colonel Nathan R. Jessup from A Few Good Men. 'Nuff said.

Prick. Pricks are assholes with an innate and ineradicable sense of entitlement. They're high society about their assholiness. It's an important distinction. You can't call a prick an asshole without a palpable degree of imprecision: "No, he's a prick, Bob. Get it straight". Hardy Jenns, from the 1987 Some Kind of Wonderful, was a classic prick.

Douche Bag. The douche bag. This is generally a lower management type that makes everyone in the room (or office) go mum when he walks in. Like a Pez Dispenser he pops out company lines with a shitty smile, poring cold water all over your once hot but now extinguished conversation about the weekend's activities, or the new girl in office 101. The douche bag would be a standard issue nerd or dork, only there's an additional moral deficiency with the DB; the bag wants to climb up the management ladder, and at your expense. Go mum when you spot the Douche Bag. He's only gonna cause you pain. (The silver lining, however, is that DBs tend to get their comeuppance, having more desire for Machiavellian conniving than actual ability, and tending always to repel all things cool. Exemplar? Hard to find. Best that comes to mind is Carter Burke, the character played by Paul Reiser in Aliens. Douche bag. But anyway in spite of the dearth of DBs in popular culture, I know several from past jobs. I bet you do too.)

Dumb ass. Nerds and even dorks may have something to say within their sphere of expertise, but dumb asses, by definition, always come up short. Dumb asses speak, and every non-dumb ass starts an imaginary stop watch, waiting for the cessation of dumb ass sounds. The "Oh" guy from Office Space is a classic dumb ass.

Pinwheel. A pinwheel is someone who may or not be smart about something, but seems drawn, like a moth to a flame, to sound off about other subjects about which he has only enthusiasm without accompanying expertise. Pinwheels come out of the woodwork when discussions turn to politics. Classic pinwheel? There are lots. Clooney can be a pinwheel, as can "green" actors like DiCaprio. In fact, pretty much any Hollywood actor with strong views on political issues is sure to adorn him or herself with fluffy pinwheel attire. Ashton Kutcher sounds more than a little pinwheely at times. These pinwheels, the Hollywood variety (a common strain of pinwheel), all suffer from the false belief that their sheer attractiveness somehow promotes their opinions to bedrock truth. Maybe, but only for other pinwheels (this is key). Also, fourteen year olds.

So there you have it. In the midst of these dire times, a get to the point, hard hitting, good ole' fashioned linguistic analysis of the nouns whose referents we're seeing more and more of these days. Let's get it straight.

The Sobriquet

She remained phlegmatic about her sobriquet long after her lover had bestowed it, and then began using it in earnest. But something changed. She noticed first that she was anxious to discuss it when around the table with her girlfriends, and later became horrified at the prospect of its slipping to third parties in public or semi-public moments. She was not a woman prone to obloquy, particularly against her lover, but in almost febrile moments she began to fret that he had drawn her into a miasma of his silly, redolent, refulgent phrases that he thought coruscated their union and she just his style. She didn't know any more. She thought maybe she didn't like her sobriquet. Maybe she hated it.

Exiguous complaints, she countered. And then the frustration would grow until it burst out in fissiparous fragments, and she'd retreat to lying motionless. Unthinking.

In other moments a more psephological mood would emerge, and she'd poll her constant and contradictory thoughts for some majority that might bring solace. Or decision.

Decision. Dissumulation, is all. Dissumulation. He doesn't care, despite his near ubiquitous plaudits. Well nor than does she. It was, she later realized, the codicil that granted her immunity from that death which awaited the other. She was phlegmatic no more.

The Sea, Part Two

The undulations of the sea lofted him up, and rolled him helplessly down, into the chaotic brine and ocean. He choked. He choked more. His eyes went wide as adrenaline surged, his limbs flailing, then a massive push down into the sea. The spots that grew red in his consciousness grew brighter; his mind reeled and he was strangely cognitive, caught in frantic vascilating between drawing breaths of air or clenching shut to stem so much more choking. He didn't get it right. Water came into his lungs with fantastic pain and no air. No air. He drew in on himself. Where was he? Suddenly, and quit unexpectedly an insight. It should be fine, he thought, suprised at his calmness. Calm. That's what he was forgetting. Calm brought his dreams and his thoughts and then the painless morphinic images where he saw his father. His father was smiling, looking at him. God, his whole life washed over with calm. He was fine. He had always been fine.

The boulder that struck his head got no prize. He had ceased to care, and then he knew no more.

His death lay heavy on the hearts of the living. It was perplexing, and tragic. Perhaps. But perhaps in no one's view in particular, it could be said that his last moments were in fact very much like his first moments, and strangely just so innocent and divine. There was, of course, no one there to say it.

Magazines

None, right now. I did purchase a Wired a while back, but in a section titled "Here are three things we got wrong, 1993-2008", they cited Fukuyama's The End of History. Among the more bone-headed claims I've seen in print lately, this gem stands out:

"
Francis Fukuyama proclaimed that history ended with the demise of the Soviet Union. The future would be characterized not by the literal but only the figurative war of ideas. We believed him.

We were wrong. Wired failed to see how a new generation of fanatical geeks would use the Internet in their effort to take over the world. Instead of ending, history looped back on itself, and we are now confronted by a recrudescent and particularly virulent religious ideology straight out of the Middle Ages.

We recognized a world in transition, but we missed the danger in front of us. We eschewed conventional wisdom, but we couldn't escape it. Takeaway: Be contrarian, and then be contrarian again.
"

Yes, that's the takeaway, you shiny paged, over glamorized pseudo-intellectual gee whiz nitwits. That's precisely not what Fukuyama said. I'm sure he's philosophical about getting misrepresented in the popular like-to-seem-smart media. If I were him I'd laugh or cry, but kindly suggest to the editor of Wired that they stick to GPS enabled toilet paper, laser sighted lipstick, and whatever other techy auto-erotica adorn the pages of this unfortunate 'zine.

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