Title

last week—August 29

the title

some text

No one expects the Spanish cheat sheet!

last week—September 16

And that would be. ..?

Popular Mechanics claims Scientists Just Discovered There’s Actually Something Faster than the Speed of Light.

I cheated and looked, and it turns out darkness is faster, as any grammar school teacher could tell you when asking a review question in class.

Puts one in mind of Mark Twain’s saying a lie can be halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its boots.

Up next: the thing that’s faster than the thing that’s faster than light.

Poetic justice.

I was surprised at how many choices of pre-formed text for the heading of this section were available.

The quest for the right heading was prompted by this CNN headline: Milo Yiannopoulos, far-right British commentator, detained by ICE. I don't know why anybody even bothered listening to this daft Limey when he started pontificating about how ICE should do its job, especially in California. Anyway, he overstayed his visa, and his welcome, and is now incarcerated, pending removal.

Good riddance, I say. Maybe the powers that be will deport him to a third nation, like Sudan or Haiti.

Update: He's gone.

Strangenesses.

I've commented before on how crappy the spell-check support has become. If you really want to confuse the poor dears, screw up in the first few letters of a word (say, transpose letters). Hours of fun trying to figure out where the heck that suggestion came from.

But I digress. One feature I really enjoy/appreciate is the look up/dictionary feature. I can tap on a word anywhere (text editor, browser, graphics editor), and find the meaning of a word and see it in different languages. Nice.

But I'm afraid the lookup feature has begun hanging out with the spellcheck in seedy dive bars, sharing tequila shots and telling tales of screwing over users.

I have no proof of this, but earlier today, when I wanted to look up 'yore,' it didn't. It had no problem with the word, giving me pronunciation and letting me know that it was a noun, but it had no definitions showing. If I knew French, I could translate d'antan. I found out later that a second tap on the entry would take me to the definition, but that's more (annoying) work than I used to have to do.

One step forward, two steps back.

Cue the hype-churn machine!

Oh, wait, it's already been cued.

A slick Wall Street Journal wrapper from Google proclaims 'A New Era of American Innovation.' There are obligatory pictures of America: small towns, big cities, freeways, government buildings, many sporting American flags. The ad's tagline is colored blue and red.

My second thought upon seeing the ad was 'I'll bet this was generated by A.I.!' It had all the ham-handed cues, including the self-congratulatory air.

My first thought? 'Hey gang, it's time to play 'Parse that sentence fragment!''

• a new era. So what are the origins of artificial intelligence, you ask? Well, 1956, by one reckoning. The late 1980s, by another. Or you might like the early 2000s, but probably 'new' here means 2017. Era? We can only hope it's shorter than the Jurassic.
• American. Yep. All-American. Nobody else—not China, not Japan, not the E.U.—is working on A.I. None of the big players–Google, Microsoft, Meta, and Amazon–has overseas operations.
• innovation. Theft is as old as humanity (you could make a case that Eve (through the serpent) stole the apple from the tree). And cramming stuff down consumers' unwilling throats? How often do you cable subscribers watch C-SPAN, the home shopping channels, or the all-Hitler channel? Not what I'd call innovation, aka something new.

And to the pictures. All the standard A.I. tug at the patriotic meme string slop. Sharp, crisp landscapes. Clear blue skies. No food processing facilities. No smoke-belching industries. No energy-gobbling data farms. No A.I. generated porn. No attack of A.I. driven cabs on a quiet suburb. No lines of workers replaced by A.I. at the unemployment office.

Isn't life going to be wonderful? Nothing to see here. Move along.

Decisions, decisions.

I recently found out I'm supposed to have a metaphor for my life. It's not good enough that I use metaphors in my poetry and writing, I have to possess one, too.

Sounds expensive, I think.

I wonder if I can re-use my mantra. Unlike Jeff Goldblum in Annie Hall, I remember my mantra (it's Omaha). It's a little tattered and dusty, but still serviceable. But no, I'm told that won't work. Gotta be a metaphor.

I decide to see if one of the metaphors I used in one of my poems will work. I start reading, and very quickly discover two things:

1. I've written some really crappy poems
2. Metaphors are really good at hiding

So that's no help. This is going to require some serious time and thought. So I sit down with a large mug of tea (who am I trying to kid? I'm a writer—a glass of Jamesons on the rocks), to puzzle out my metaphor.

The first part is easy enough. 'Life is....' But then, things bog down, and the whiskey is gone. Is it 'life is' or 'I am?' I'm nothing if not adaptable . and flexible. Maybe I need some distance. Or a nap.

I return refreshed (both me and the Jamesons), and lo, the images and metaphors come pouring out like water from a faucet with a clogged aerator. I find metaphors, and a problem. So life is..., or I am...

a journey

or a trip, or a path, but whatever, it's overdone. Everything seems to be a journey these days. I don't wanna do what everyone else is doing when they go out to fetch the newspaper.

a rock

the Paul Simon song kind, not the wrestler turned politician kind. I'm too mushy, too sensitive, for this to work.

a macho man

OK, this is more of an aspirational (after all, it's 'I wanna be') than an actual metaphor, but we'll keep it on the list for now.

a bar of soap

I'm sure there was a good reason for this being on the list, but the reason is lost (blame the Jamesons?). I'll bet it had something to do with being slowly consumed in the service of something or other.

an idea machine

wishful thinking, I'm afraid.

a trophy

Is life the trophy, or am I the trophy? or yes? Either way, it doesn't do much as a controlling metaphor for me.

puzzle

This is good. Also maze, labyrinth, tangled yarn, or chaotic. 'Web' has too much of a pattern, so it's out.

a bowl of cherries.

Not only is it dated, I doubt its helpfulness and relevance. Plus, I'm not a big fan of cherries.

Until I find my real metaphor, I'm going with 'a glass of Jamesons.' Seems appropriate, and I can back into its metaphoricity while people look puzzled and/or back away, which seem to be the most common response to metaphors in preliminary testing in general anyway.

Special pop quiz edition.

three weeks ago—September 2

There was supposed to be a lunar eclipse last night. I missed it, of course.

However, Belle the Collaborator Cat had a different idea. Around 4 AM, she tapped me on the shoulder, a sign that she wanted me to get up and accompany her to her food bowl to watch her eat. I did, but she didn't. I noticed a bright light outside, and went to check.

It was the moon, full, big, and in a cloudless sky. Seeing it like that was a rare event, perception-changing. Not quite a potentially once in a lifetime event like an eclipse, but enough to change that day and get Belle forgiveness for getting me up.

R.I.P., Tim Curry

Man, he wasn't in a lot, but when he was there, you knew it.

The kind of thing I should have known

but didn't, to my great embarrassment.

Playing with words is a personal fave. I knew I wasn't alone in making things up, but I had no idea I was inheritor to such a long and glorious tradition.

Back in 1820s America, it was popular to mangle words, particularly substituting letters to make the language sound quaint or country (yes, it was a putdown then, too). Then, the new 'forms' were abbreviated.

Most of these forms disappeared, as slang tends to do (when did you last say '23-skidoo' or 'bee's knees'?), but one hung in there—OK, the abbreviated form of 'all correct' (I'll let you figure it out for yourself).

We have Martin VanBuren to thank for its longevity, apparently. When the eighth President of the United States was running for office, he was nicknamed 'Old Kinderhook.' Supporters formed 'OK' clubs, and members proclaimed themselves 'OK with OK' and so the phrase entered mainstream usage, reverting back to its original meaning of 'all correct.'

and thanks to John Gruber for rectifying.

Sign o' the...something?

I go to a 'neighborhood' i.e., closest, grocery store. Apparently I live in a 'demographically diverse' neighborhood, that skews a little bit towards the 'lower economic' end of the scale.

Now, there was a time when retail stores would have 'coupon machines' at the checkout that would monitor your purchases and spit out a ribbon of lightly printed (almost impossible to read) coupons related to what you just purchased—a competitor's products, or 'buy a whole bunch more of the same thing next visit' coupons, rarely if ever 'get 10% off next time you buy' coupons.

Well, that time is now again. I've noticed a couple of single coupons on recently, but last month, I got a string of coupons longer than the receipt, coupons that will go directly into the trash without even being looked at.

I've also noticed a lot more shelf stickers advertising 'BOGO' sales, or something similar, but now with fine print, saying it requires having an electronic coupon loaded from the website into the store's app, to be presented to the cashier, then adding and yet one more item to the checkout juggle, with ATM card, loyalty card, wallet, trying to unload the cart, loading bagged groceries back into the cart, and God forbid, trying to redeem coupons you got last week.

Anyway, I wonder if all this sudden coupon activity is a sign that folk are hurting economically, that there is stress in the economy, or if it's all just more posturing trying to convince us that our grocer is 'on our side.'

FWIW Update: I haven't received any coupons in the past couple of visits.

Filling more gaps in the ol' knowledge bank.

While conducting research for a poem (!?!), I came across a reference to the Leanan Sidhe (both a muse and demon), said to prey on artists, musicians, and writers looking for inspiration. She offers inspiration by asking the artist to be her lover, and shares her creativity, intellect, and magic. Then she leaves them and makes them so depressed they want to die.

Actually, I had met her, judging by the effects, but never knew her name. Leave it to the Irish to come up with a scourge focused specifically on artistic types.

Maybe it's just a way of culling the herd of wordsmiths in Ireland. As Lucille Clifton points out, in general,

Lately
everybody I meet
is a poet.

F.Y.I. (yours & mine).

There are 33 subgenres of fantasy writing, itself a subgenre of fantasy, itself a subgenre of fiction.

I'd be willing to bet that each of the 33 has a split between young adult (Y.A.) and regular, or adult.

The slotting of literature into genres and cascading subgenres is getting silly. At the end of the day, for me, it boils down to a good read (aka stuff I like) and 'why did I pick this up?' reading, destined for immediate placement in recycling.

Realization.

I've mentioned before about some family units that have 'family walks' in the neighborhood where the kids on tricycles and bicycles are spaced out halfway along the block and the parents are trailing far behind, walking dogs or strollers.

I've also talked about the good ol' days, where we would leave the house after breakfast, come home for lunch, and disappear again until dinner, without supervision.

Between then and now, helicopter parents intruded, and the whole 'everybody on the street is out to snatch my kid' feardome environment festered.

I wonder if the 'kids spread out movement' is a small step toward redressing the imbalance?

Just how big is that wallet?

AARP warns about the 15 Worst Things to Carry in Your Wallet.

Or course, these are just the worst. AARP, being diligent, adds some bonus 'worse' items to not carry.

Turns out I have none of those things in my wallet. I had a Starbucks gift card, but I found somebody who actually drinks Starbucks that could use it.

Let me count the ways Grunge is wrong.

I was born at the front end of the 'baby boomer' generation, during the Truman Administration. By the time I hit the music listening stage, dancing and discovering that girls didn't have cooties, music was heavy into the folk scene, the surf sound, the Wall of Sound, Motown, and the flotilla that carried the British Invasion was anchored just off the coast.

So I was in a state of shock (disbelief? bemusement?) when I read 5 Doo-Wop Songs That Take Boomers Right Back To Roller Rink Nights.

So to summarize: Of the five songs listed:

• I recognized the names of three
• I could scare up a couple of lines of one or two songs
• I listened to none then or now, even at a roller rink.

If you're going to make fun of us, at least get the facts right.

Absolutely no point.

CNBC passes along Flesh-eating screwworm is confirmed in the U.S., officials say.

I have nothing to add except that 'Flesh-Eating Screwworms' is a great name for a rock band.

115.

My 'composition process' follows a pretty standard pattern:

• Get an idea.
• Write the idea down, most likely on my tablet or on a piece of paper (which is preferred but less common these days)
• Start developing the idea, if there is a path forward, or other ideas get attached
• At some point, start developing another idea.
• Copy other items, like recipes, quotations, etc.
• Leave completed items like blog posts, and incomplete items, like items where enthusiasm has waned, sitting in the composition folder.
• Remove items when they're ready for formatting or been used for another purpose.
• Be really surprised when one day you notice you have 115 items in the folder. Some items have subitems, like poems, quotations and subtitles. Items also include recipes for food I will never make, snippets of html/css code, and inspirational sayings I found on the way to looking something else up.
• Too many of the items are of the abandoned variety, something that prompts a 'what was I thinking?' response when I look at it now, or worse, 'that was a good idea. Why did I abandon it?'

Of course, 'get an idea' can jump from the first spot to anyplace in the food chain, starting the whole process over again.

Bottom line: I have been a lot busier and productive than I thought. The muse has been good to me.

But now, alas, it's time to triage. Wish me luck.