Hilchos Dunkin on Erev Pesach

 

One may eat as early as alos, but only crullers

One should time his eating so that he reaches the creme in the Boston Creme donut at netz because it is the ikar. The Bostoner held the icing was the ikar because, as he wrote, "nu? Here we just call it creme." 

One must order something was has not had in at least 6 months so that he can be yotzei saying "now I remember why I don't get this." 

If one does not have to refill his Dunkin app he has not fulfilled his obligation. 

The minimum shiur is one. The Talmud ask "one what" and opinions range from R.Yosi who holds "one munchkin" to R. Meir who says "one of everything." the S"A holds like R. Yehudah who says  "one food and one drink" though tosfos there brings down a long discussion of whether water counts as a drink. We are meikil. The Ramo says two foods would count but not two drinks. 

If one sees a table, Snag it. 

Small children should brought into the store and not rushed when placing their orders. This reminds us of the limited choices we had in the midbar as we left Mitzrayim. We are now free to choose, so take your time! 

In each 20 minute period, one person must do something that at least one other person reacts to by mumbling "something sometimes chiilul hashem..." 

It is praiseworthy to sing benching out loud at 7 AM

One must have intent to eat Dunkin and to be eating Chameitz. If one had only a banana or a cup of coffee he is not yotzei. There are differing opinions about fruit smoothies so it is advisable to get a piece of banana bread or an order of hash browns to be sure. 

A person must look at his watch at least three times. A parent or responsible adult must recite the ceremonial "remember, nothing goes home so finish it here or it goes in the garbage" before leaving. 

Sefardim have the custom to walk around the car three times brushing off any possible crumbs while saying "let's try to keep the car clean all year!" In ancient times servants would keep water ready in the parking lot so each person could rinse and spit out any residue. This practice had fallen out of favor.

In temple days there was an appointed messenger who told everyone the length of the line at regular intervals via social media. This is an important tradition of our forefathers in our hands and we should guard it zealously.

Don't just ask someone for a bite of a donut or one Munchkin because you don't want to order your own. No one like that guy.

A woman can buy for a man and a man for a woman even though one might think her obligation is less as this a positive time bound commandment. But she, too, will miss breakfast wraps.

Outside of Israel one must include in conversation  mention of Jerusalem and how "this whole second seder thing is so bogus and don't get me started on kitniyos. Next year I'm definitely eating them." 

People who are eating quickly so they can get to the airport to head to Florida can not cut the line.

DOPU's

 Hi guys -

I know I haven't spoken to you (formally) in a while so I'm just dropping a line. I was sent a picture of the two of you recently, one I had never seen, but it was you in your heyday, attending some event or another. That's how I remember you both. In my mind, you were never young, even when you were young. You were always sage and refined even when you were little. You never had a specific age because you were always just "the age that my parents are" whatever that number ended up being. Generally, I estimated your age as halfway between "older" and "old."

Mom, always engaging and working on something. With your angular features and widow's peak (or cowlick or whatever), you were clear eyed and always in the moment. Dad, at an event because he is supposed to be there, or somewhere so he did his job and was somewhere. No doubt it was an unwelcome social engagement for him, like buying a suit, a necessary part of his work to fix the world.

He was never young and she was never old. He was OK with whatever temperature she wanted and she was OK with his choice because she would never be warm enough, anyway. I have no doubt that there was some passive agressive martyrdom bandied back and forth because that's the way things develop in many cases.

I miss that. I miss you both. Please know that you are missed.

Love,

Dan

The O's Own Park

 I caught another Orioles' game last night. Just a few notes and reflections:

They have this second baseman (I think...maybe shortstop?) names Jackson Holliday. Jackson Holliday looks to be about 9 years old. His bio says he is 20 and was the top pick in the 2022 draft. I say, 9 years old

Next, and I have mentioned this to people already after watching another game -- that Gunnar Henderson is really good. With his 1880's rugged good looks and the name Gunnar, he could certainly be the next big thing.

The game was on MASN which is the sports network of I'm not sure what, but they carry Baltimore games so I assume that MA stands for "Baltimore." Their two guys in the booth give off an odd couple vibe, both very weird. Maybe this is a function of a smaller market or maybe these two guys have just crafted a niche of "weirdos" and that works for them.

One of the guys said that by winning a game, Baltimore continues its streak of not being swept in a series. That's a rather esoteric statistic but it brought me to wonder "what counts as a series?" Some serieseseses are 3 games long and some 4. But there are also 2 game serieseses -- do those count? What about if a game is rescheduled for September to make up for a rain-out. That becomes (though linguistically illogical) a one-game series. So as statistics go, I wish this one would.

A true Mets fan

 Here's a scary truth, but a truth none-the-less:

In lieu of the usual slate of twisted reality shows with their dashed hopes and dreams of the rich and famous, or the sitcoms of my childhood but now in rerun form, or even the movies I never wanted to see anyway, last night, I chose to watch a Mets game. This was momentous for many reasons, including my sense that when I watch, they lose (sure, the lose also at other times, but when I watch, it becomes my fault), and my lacking any TV package which allows me access to the game. So how did I turn my intent into reality? I turned on the MLB app and chosen to watch the condensed game because I had already listened and knew that the Mets had won, 16-4. I figured I would be able to appreciate an easy win, safely. They beat Atlanta which made the prospect of watching a laugher all that much more sweet. When else in my life would I be able to have such pure enjoyment? The Mets win easily, beating a serious rival and no commercials, just action. Sign me up, right?

The condensed replay, for those of you living under the influence of Arak, is the game in order, but only pitches that result in something important are shown. So no marathon at bats, no meaningless pop ups in foul territory. Only the really great plays, the important put outs and the base hits/errors. Zoom, zoom, zoom -- let's watch some runs! It is the whole game with just the good parts.

[side note -- if you have just the good parts and not the context of less good parts, you run the risk of not appreciating the good parts as they stop being special. I guss that's why professional whiskey tasters cleanse their palates with Brillo pads and when they aren't working, they prefer mulled midget blood. When it comes to a Mets win, I can watch just the good parts because they have a 50+ year context of suckage. I'm not missing out on a positive baseball experience -- how often will I get to see the Mets trounce the Braves in record time? Maybe never-often, that's how often. What do you think of that? Would you be happy then? Huh? Would you?]

So on with the rout, right? During this abridged retelling, I got to the part where the bad guys, down 7-0 start rallying and scoring runs. One man crossed the plate and then two and three. And I, a full and fuller grown man who knew completely well who won and by what score, still felt butterflies of worry in my stomache as I watched. Now it wasn't that there was some sort of compelling narrator who made me care about the characters and watch the plot unfold as I grow closer, emotionally to the players and set them up as my heroic idols. It was that I know that the universe is so cruel and uncaring, that the Braves' pact with Satan to maintain dominance over the Mets is so absolute and that the Mets are so magically and supernaturally bad that they could find a way to lose during the replay.

The Beekeeper, A review

I watched The Beekeeper last night. Jason Statham gets angry and people get dead. it's what I paid for so, yay.

I really did like the movie. At points, I would say I really liked it and there was a scene or two that shone and the whole movie, even with its unevenness was riding strong score until the last 10 minutes when the story telling, already muddy and confused at times, went off the rails and the plot holes became too big to ignore. A movie that felt so very satisfying the whole way through sold its soul too many times and suddenly it was just a mess. The dialogue remained crisp and often entertaining and the acting was surprisingly mature for a movie of this genre, but there was too much unexplained and too many gaps of logic. It became confused at the end even though its watchword all along had been clarity of purpose and message. The plot became almost too stripped down and efficient so that everything wraps up with no denoument.

I give it an 81 but with a bit of revision, an A grade is still within reach for an improved draft.

This Topia

I am trying to create a conception of a universe that is so dystopian that I need to find new imagery to describe it. So here's my work in progress of a list:

1. It is marketed as "The Dystopia's Dystopia"

2. This is the universe that the English teacher in Dystopia Universe High School uses to explain dystopia to his students

3. That universe's dystopian system is that dystopia that no one ever picks for kickball so he becomes the official right fielder, or even the "foul ball getter"

4. The dystopia that time forgot!

5. Chuck Norris refuses to live there

6. If Baba Yaga and Beetlejuice got married and had a baby universe, it would be this dystopia

7. In Soviet Russia, topia disses you!

Small Ball

I watched some of 2 different baseball games (a Yankees/Marlins game and a Red Sox/Orioles game). One was on Prime and one was the free game on MLB network. What follows are thoughts inspired by watching the games:

I experienced a weird emotion. I watched a player who used to be on "my" team and is now playing for another. Which is the proper feeling?

A. Pride at the player's success because I knew him way back when.

A sub 1. Secret happiness when the player fails

B. A sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach when I think about another great player who got away and I consider what might have been.

C. Righteous anger aimed at the player because no matter the truth of the situation, in my mind, this guy's sub par performance sank my team, or his super performance before a trade deadline showed a lack of loyalty, or his attitude wasn't appreciative enough and we wasted good money on him and I hopt god strikes him down with a lightning bolt full of chlamydia. Amen.

--------------

So I watched the game and the camera, before every pitch, switches to an angle from center field, aiming at the batter from behind the pitcher. Pretty standard. And also to be expected is the technologically superimposed (or otherwise inserted) rectangular box representing the strike zone so we can all feel superior when we second guess the umpire because a computer informs us that the human is human. Now, as far as i recall, the strike zone is variable -- as it relies on the physical dimensions of the batter, it should appear distinct and in proportion with each sized person who comes to the plate. Additionally, even within an at bat, as a player stand more upright or bends, the zone should change to accomodate that new physical reality. Bottom line is, the zone representation should not be static on the screen, but dynamic. But what did I see?As the batter moved around, up and does and such, the strike zone remained exactly the same. This seems wrong to me.

--------------

I'd like to tell you a little story about a baseball player from a bunch of years ago. He was a cocky kid for sure but with the skills to back up the swagger. He wore his hate off to the side, thumbing his nose at convention as he blazed a trail through high school and college. The next step was the MLB draft and with the right agent and the words of praise from all his coaches, he was snapped up early and sent through the minor league system. So far, his life was batting a thousand.

And he continued his rise, stopping for only a cup of coffee in single-A and not much more than a pastry in AA. Upward through triple AAA and then the call to the Show. The Bigs. How big? SHOW BIG!

July 2nd was a glorious and clear day. His first start on an 83 degree sun-fest. He was steady as a rock as he went through his pre-game ritual, with the same confidence as ever. No false bluster, but the well earned bluster from a lifetime of success. He walked to the mound, hat askew and chains swinging, his own man.

Quickly, he loaded the bases. He was wild and overcompensated by forcing very hittable strikes. So now one out and the bases jammed. Finally, the manager walked slowly to the mound. The pitcher figured that he had burned this bridge and he was on his way out so he prepared to argue his case even though he knew that ultimately he would surrender the ball. The manager just stood there staring. The pitcher sighed and held the ball out, seeing that no words were going to change anything.

"Whatchoo doing?" the manager asked quietly.

"I thought that after that last walk --"

The manager cut him off. "Nope. This is the majors. Clean up your own goddam mess. You're only screwing up your own rookie stats at this point."

Now the pitcher was confused. "So why'd you come out, skip?"

"Well, it looks like we're going to be here for a while so I wanted to recommend that you fix your hat before you end up with a stupid looking tan line." And he turned around and walked away. Slowly.

The pitcher was left hand outstretched, mouth open enough to catch well hit line drives with mustard on them. He took a beat, fixed his hat and proceeded to strike out the next 3 batters and have an historic year.

And that player was me.

I'd like to tell you that story but I won't, because it isn't true. I wasn't that player and none of that ever happened because I just made it up. Life doesn't work like that. Grow up.

-------------------

I just misheard the commentator -- I thought he described the call strike three as "he struck out yelling."

-----------

Rules question:

In the case of a dropped 3rd strike, is the batter still safe until the catcher does something actively to make him out (so the play is live) or is he assumed to be out if he doesn't run, or returns to the dugout, making the play dead from that moment?

Here's the case -- bases loaded and a dropped third strike. If the batter is live until actively put out even if he doesn't run then the catcher simply has to pick up the ball and touch home because the batter's live status means the player on 3rd must advance a base and is therefore a force out at home. In fact, a catcher can then choose to drop a third strike and force an out at home if the runner on third is particularly fast. If the catcher intentionally doesn't throw to first, he can then touch home and THEN throw to any base for a second force out on the same play. In fact, if he throws to second or third, and then the ball is relayed to first, he can effect three force outs on one play after an unhit ball.

Or not -- experts please let me know.

One night in Indonesia

I decided to take an evening to myself and just relax. I present an accounting of that evening.

Early on, I watched Adam-12 (season seven, episode 10, I think) and Willie Aames was on as a kid named Billy Ray. This is gonna be a good evening!

I have found some Indonesian cinema. A movie called "Foxtrot Six." It looks like a good old shoot-em-up kind of movie. I'm psyched. This evening is getting even better.

30 minutes into the movie. I don't think I understand what's going on in this movie. I mean, I might understand, but I don't know. That's only because I don't know what's going on.

I thought I was pretty expert at watching movies and following a story line. All my skills are proving useless for this movie.

Thirty-five minutes in and I'm now convinced that I officially don't understand what's going on in this movie.

Regardless of my understanding, there is a VERY FUNNY scene at about 36 minutes or so. There is a very violent combat scene in which 10 men, all covered in oil compete to see who can climb a greased pole and ring a bell first. So they spend their time beating the hell out of each other and squirming around in their oily mess until one of them can somehow shimmy up the pole. After our hero wins, he is approached by others who get him into a conversation. As he speaks, he flicks open his lighter to light his cigarette. The man with whom he is speaking stops and says, "isn't that all oil?" The hero says, "yeah, why?" There's a pause and the other guy says, "no reason."

And at about 39 minutes there is another great moment. Look, I'm getting on in years and I should be a mature adult at this point but I just can't stop laughing at a good (for lack of a better term and apologize for the crudeness) "nut shot." The one at 39 minutes is pretty damned good. I laughed for a while.

At a little over an hour in, I got to a part where I thought it would be the kind of place that make sense to some one if not multiple ones, but it ended up being the wrong kind of place and it only made the non kind of sense.

My new hit single inspired by the movie, "I don't want to get flash fried."

I can't keep track of who the characters are or what the story line is and this traditionally counts against a movie. I feel like they used more than a single actor for each role within the movie which explains why i can't keep anyone straight. I can imagine an interesting version of Hamlet, made from spliced performances, assembled from pits of other performances but it doesn't work in this piece of Indonesian cinema.

I feel like there was a more cohesive and compelling backstory begging to be told while this movie was being made but the decision was "no."

Actual line from the movie, "Let's show this clown what pain really feels like." I have many, many questions.

It is a very bloody movie and I am very squeamish. I am how I am and that's it. It seems to be an instinctual response -- I flinch when I see certain things and hide my eyes to prevent and more messy response. Some would say that my response must be learned and not innate (though aren't some instincts inborn? The blink-response or a scare-flinch, or other things that reflect the "flight" response) but this would beg some unremembered trauma which taught me to not like bloody things. I'll stick with reacting by instinct and just put my head back under the covers.

I have no idea what's going on in this movie. Of that I am now totally sure.

There was a post credit scene which was amazing because I can't imaging anyone wanting to take any credit for this movie.

Thus endeth Foxtrot Six.

Next up, reflections while watching a baseball game in a mirror.

No man, You Eff Ell

Recently I happened upon a broadcast of a football game. This is unusual because my television has 3 channels on it so the odds of finding a game, especially out of football season is rather slim. But with as new league come new possibilities.

So here are my notes. Fist off, the announcers kept touting that the attendance of 42,000 was a new record for "modern spring football." That's a lot of qualifications and I'm still not sure what each word is coming to include or exclude.

Then I hit the "info" button on my remote so I could see what I was watching. The game was said to be covered live but was also scheduled from 8-11. The final play was at 10:59. Was it really live (this was not advertising itself as an editted replay)? Weird.

A big element of the UFL seems to be its embracing of sports betting. The over/under, the winner, the individual stats -- everything was up for discussion and display on screen. Except it makes no sense. For there to be predictions that have any value, there has to be a past upon which to rely. The history of a team helps establish the tendencies and possibilities. Computer models need data - a league with no past can't have reasonable predictions for the future. How can you figure an over/under if the players have no track record? How can there be odds, or a spread if the bettors have no previous games to use as a basis for a guess?

As for the game, itself, it is similar to "modern fall football" but it seems to be a minor league version with rule changes to make for excitement. Everything is reviewable (except reviews...) the clock runs differently, there is no kicking a PAT and a whole bunch of people are mic'ed up for the sake of transparency. It was certainly a nice diversion but I didn't see much that inspred my interest in some less-than-small market team and a third rate player who doesn't even have the good sense to be famous already.

Basbeball has been very good to me

Last night I found myself watching a baseball game. This makes sense because this is just where I left me. Anyway, the MLB app on my television takes the local feeds from each market's "sports channel" and bundles them for subscribers. For those of us freeloaders, the app offers one free game each day. Yesterday, it was the St. Louis Cardinals against the Miami Marlins so I sat myself down for that game. I get to see and hear stadiums that I would otherwise not pay attention to, and I can observe the styles of coverage and listen to the play-by-play and color commentary of other broadcasts and cities.

I just heard the guy in the booth say "even though they out hit us." Us. He explicitly aligned and even affiliated himself (and, I would think) the entire broadcast team with the Cardinals. In looser parlance, he would be called a "homer", but I have always envisioned a "homer" as someone whose energy and excitement (henceforth, "rooting") is in favor of the home team and while there might be some slight slant in discussion, with a bias towards one team and its player and efforts, that would be the limit.  There would be nothing so gauche and obvious as speaking of the self and the team is a partnership or an identical association. That casts a huge pall over the entirety of the coverage and sullies the reputation and tradition of honest booth observers, that 4th estate of sports who explain the game in objective terms.

He continued to do this, using three or four more first person pronouns to include himself and the team in the same category. How can I trust the commentary on the game if I know so explicitly that his emotional agenda is blatantly biased?

I did get to see an amazing moment, though. I was watching as a batter hit a sharp line drive over the shortstop's head and into left center. A single. Then there was the replay and slo-mo. Wonderful. Now a different angle, close up and slo. This shot was from the camera on the first base side, showing the batter's front as he swung. The angle, though, also included the fans over the batter's shoulder: a father an what seems to be his son. The father is turned to his son and is clearly hectoring him about some aspect of baseball. His hands are raised as he explains the physics of something or other. The child is smiling widely, his eyes glued to the game. He sees the hit and ignores his father and the father turns too late from his lecture and misses the entire play, in fact, missing everything that is really important about going to a game with your son.

Later, I ended up in the kitchen as I had to make sure that I ate some dessert and thus balance out the main course I had just crimed against huge-Dan-ity. I had the exhaust fan on in order to appease the local, overly sensitive drama queen of a smoke detector. She makes such a scene over, like, no smoke! She is SO annoying like that. Gawd!

The TV was still on, insisting louder from the other room that I should really be abandoning dessert and staring at the rich men play a game. From that distance and with the intervening noise, I lost many of the subtleties of intonation and meaning coming from the guys in the booth. I heard that a new pitcher was being announced in, "Sixto Sanchez." Except that I heard it through a wind tunnel and it came through as "Six-Toe Sanchez." "Oh, cool!" I thought to myself, "A real old school nickname which makes me emotionally connect with the mass market nostalgia machine we call the MLB." Then I realized my mistake and that I was a horrible "ist" of some sort and I was denying the player free agency by assuming pretty much anything about him other than some near-Cartesian acceptance that he exists therefore he exists.

And later, I found out that the guy in the booth, the horrible homer, is Al Hrabosky!

I TAKE IT ALL BACK. I'm sorry! I take everything back. Please don't kill me Mr. The Hungarian!

I was also thinking about the various labels and hierarchies in sports. Baseball teams are managed while other sports are coached. Baseball has a manager, helped by coaches. Other sports have Coaches who run things (basketball, hockey) assisted by assistant coaches. Football has a Head Coach and other coaches -- the manager isn't on the field at all.

Then my dessert was ready.

With the Beatles

 What does it mean to be "significant"? (and you can scale this to your particular level of existence and/or need)

I was watching a baseball game, as I am wont to do. It was the Angels and Orioles. The camera zoomed in on the batter who was placed in his shot so that the pitch clock was visible, ticking down beyond him. It was at 13 seconds and I realized -- this guy, this kid, knows that within the next 13 seconds, he will do something that others will record, review, write down and analyze, opine about and reconsider well into the future, whether he succeeds or fails. He is guaranteed immortality as a part of the quantified history of the MLB. That is to be significant, knowing that whatever you do, it will be seen, thought about, considered and remembered. I'm an English teacher. While a small group of people is supposed to be hanging on my every word, even they will forget me and what I do today, probably before the bell rings and while my words are still warm in the air.

The Beatles were doing something significant, most every moment fo their lives, for 7 or so years. Their music is layered like a multu-track recording but somehow, the elements on one track act like they are aware of what is and isn't on the other tracks, and they act accordingly. There is an interrelationship between sections recorded at different times. Somehow, they retain their identity as part of a whole and not a discrete aspect. The brilliance of the Beatles isn't the music, but the relationships between the elements OF the music, a relationship which constructs a frame for the music. The instruments are aware of each other, the harmonies explore impossibilities, using even discordance as a tool to communicate anguish, with the emotions in the performance coming alive. The music (to mine a cliche) then transcends. Not that it transcends anything in particular, it just does.

The choices of harmonies (and they made choices) was as a mask worn by a character in whose guise the songs were sung. The Beatles were actors in the truest method of the word. They breathed life into the songs, even if it wasn't their lives. They were authors of stories and made decided choices about how to tell those stories. Listen to something as apparently mundane as the drums on "I saw her standing there" with their "making it up as I go along" facade hiding some surprisingly difficult work.

In fact, were I to finally plunk down the cash and buy a time machine, I think a moment I would like to travel to, a moment which is pretty high on that list would be to the time when I first heard Beatles music. I want to watch myself being rolled over by the enormity of what I was hearing. Was I an infant, unable to appreciate music as anything other than soothing sounds? Did my love come from repeated hearings before I was able to know what was going on? Or was there a day on which I put an album on for the first time and just "got it"?

Truth is, they were toying with us. TOYING with us! Consumer preference is supposed to drive the cultural milieu through a series of give and take agreements and compromises until a middle position is established.  The artist moves the marker of what is part of culture and the consumer accepts it to a degree and the artist moderates to meet that demand. The sides of consumer vs. artist meet in the middle, where the artist's experimentation remains palatable to the public appetite looking for innovation but only within certain constraints of tradition, comfort and predictability. But the Beatles thumbed their noses at us and never gave in. They insisted that we meet them on their terms, not via compromise but via our complete capitualition. We ceded the power of culture creation and let them drive us wherever they went, and we followed, not demanding any sort of balance with our preferences. They dragged the culture where they wanted to go, setting trends and waiting for everyone else to catch up and on.

I daresay that one of the defining features of cultural importance exhibited by the Beatles is the percentage of their discography which appears on someone's "favorite song in the world" list. Sure, many people have the hits on their list, but so many of the Beatles "deeper" cuts are still named by people as "that song." This percentage is higher than for most other artists. So when Jet steals from a few different songs (like the lesser known "Sexy Sadie") or when you realize how much Bohemian Rhapsody owes to Abbey Road, side 2 you start to see fingerprints everywhere.

I listen and consider their impact on society, culture and music, and I also understand that this all happened for a relatively small window of time. The transition from Mop Top to hippie to fantasy character to proto-slacker reflects and is reflected in the greater culture. Imagine the social upheaval, the drive to advance and evolve -- what other era has gone so far, so fast? I think the answer is clear: anyone younger than I am sucks and get the hell off my lawn.

So, in sum, if anyone has any contacts to Sir Paul or Sir Richard, please let each (and both) know that I feel fortunate to have the chance to listen to the fruits of their efforts. It really is good stuff, so thanks.

My Ring a Ling

 My ringtone has changed few times over the years and has had its current iteration for longer than I can remember (which tops out at about 14 years). I use "The Orangutan Gang (Strikes Back)" by Shadowfax. I picked up on Shadowfax by accident on an overnight shift on the campus radio station in college. The format of my show was "just show up so we have someone at the console for when the cops show up." So I filled time with records pulled at random.

Maybe I was in a mood of relative largesse, a time when I appreciate my family, but I happened to pick through the stacks and found an album by Shadowfax with the track "Song for my Brother." As a believer in the spooky power of confluence, I snagged the record, wheeled over to the turn table and cued the disc up. The music was great and from then, I was hooked.

I try to set my notifications to be quiet and unobtrusive, short and to the point. A click or a pop -- a sound that I will recognize but others won't be sure that they actually heard. My ringtones also have rules: no words, nothing too jarring and nothing others would know (yes, I'm being pompous. Hell, I was self-aggrandizing from way back, when it was still just pompo-me). The Orangutan Gang (Strikes Back) worked perfectly. I had it on mp3 in my collection of songs currently housed at Youtube along with 5000 or more other songs I have collected, imported, ripped, stolen or otherwise uploaded to "my library" which has been part of "my music" on 4 different computers and countless services.

Last night I dcided to have a "music evening." On a "music evening" I log in to youtube through my television, put my entire library on shuffle and lean back and listen to the randome selection of songs. I mean, I really LISTEN and I fall into a trancelike state, neither awake nor asleep. I relax in a meditative mode, deconstructing musc -- appearing fully immersed and chill but with senses heightened, sensitive to everything I hear. Suddenly I shot up. I heard "The Orangutan Gang (Strikes Back)" and grabbed my phone. But the screen was black and I still heard the ringtone. I glanced at the TV and saw (after a few moments' adjustment) that the song was what youtube had randomly chosen to play for me. Out of the thousands of songs, it chose my ringtone source file and it freaked me out. Crazy but it could happen. I smiled and put my phone down.

And then I heard Shadowfax AGAIN.

Seventeen seconds into the TV's song and 2 seconds after I sighed and put my phone down, it rang, playing the same song and, again, freaking me out.

My daughter was calling and I appreciated the conversation but it was a crazy coincidence that I wanted to share. [later that same day, the news was covering some story and as I reached into the dryer to pull out the clothes I was to fold, the news story recounted that the violent attack it was covering happened "as the victim reached his hand into the dryer." At the same exact time as I was reaching into the dryer. God and his mysterious ways for the win, again.]

No filter

I live in a very nice apartment. I have been in this place, with its covered garage parking, in-unit laundry, double sink, walk in closet for about 7 months, on my own, an army of me. I am proving that my walk is as big as my talk and I'm making the life I kept moaning about not having and not having had a chance to have. So I moved in, solo, set it up solo and live there solo. As one of life's little tasks is laundry I make time in my weekly routine of tidy to do a wash or two. 

I enjoy doing laundry and am pretty much an expert and an exacting one. I get to the clothes in a timely fashion, not that anyone else is rushing me in order to get to the machine. I fold it and put it away and keep track of my supplies so I'm not caught short at the next wash. And I always clean the lint filter, usually even before I have emptied the clothes out of the dryer. . I put the detergent back, close the box of anti-static sheets and leave the area as clean as when I arrived.

So yesterday, I opened the dryer in order to move the recently washed pants to it and I automatically checked the filter to make sure it had been cleared. Then I thought to myself, I ALWAYS clean the filter after I use it -- why would I have to check before using it? Who else is using the machine who might have left it uncleaned? But I check, anyway.

And that is today's episode of "crazy little things called Dan"

No Charge

My phone was still charging -- the screen reads, "52% Slow Charger". I pushed a few virtual buttons and saw the explanation. According to my phone, the new fancy cable I just bought for cheap from a novelty surplus (or suplus novelty, I'm not quite sure) shop might not be the bestest or fanciest.

At fist I thought unsettled and angry thoughts to myself (about, among other things, myself). I worked myself into a healthy lather thinking of my options. First place on the list was to A-Ha myself into the catalogue and find the customer service cartoon. Then I'd Harold and the Purple Crayon the heck out of the guy.

[true side note -- I drafted this by hand and, as I wrote it, I lost my place and stared at the piece of paper, looking for a blinking cursor]

So anyway, I'd be messing with the customer service guy and holding a purple gun to his animated head when I tell him that his cable that he sold me is, well, not so dope, as the young people said like 25 years ago. Maybe I'd demand a refund or a credit (though generally, no one gives me any credit for anything).

Anyway, I decided to go the other way and turn a crsisi into an opportunity and a bug into a feature. I bought 100 cables, rebranded and relabeled them as "Special Overnight Safety Chargin Configuration" cables. I wrote copy boasting their "at least 4 times longer charging time" so you dont have to worry about overcharging the battery while you sleep. This prevents ruined batteries and ensures peace of mind every morning when you wake up. Then I set a price point at double what I paid.

This Last Night in Baseball Week Tonight

I watched a baseball game last night. Yankees vs. Astros. Neither team I am interested in but a game is a game so I watched. First off, it seems that the Yankees have continued their practice of selling their collective souls to the devil in return for success. Nothing surprising there.

I was listening to the commentator guy talk and it seemed like I was listening to Irwin Fletcher who somehow faked his way into the on-air booth and was calling the game with his usual panache and "making it up as I go along" attitude. He spoke at length about how the Astros pitcher was "basically unhittable" and then the pitcher gave up 2 home runs and a walk. After the second home run and an awkward pause, the guy said "but, yeah, when he doesn't open up his shoulder and keeps his release point in the middle of his body, he's basically unhittable then." He then proceeded to explain the pitcher's motion with the conviction of Bart Simpson saying "turn the middle side topwise."

And I'd like to close with an apology. I am sorry. I apologize to a certain ethnic group because I started assembling a potentially racist joke in my head. It was wrong of me to try and craft something referencing the Houston, Texas team playing the New York team and including something about "busloads of fans headed to New York." I am so, so sorry.

Random Musical Notes

I spent some time watching a concert last night so I have a series of music based commentary to share. If you don't like it, click on "like" and you won't get any more posts like this until I feel like I want to write more. You're in my house; take off your shoes.

There are 2 kinds of rock and roll drummers: beaters and bangers. I'm a banger and proud of it. While I know a little of the technical stuff, I play be listening and doing, and I build myself on unpolished, innate sense, blundering ahead by feeling my way there. I can't do fancy but I can do earnest. No beater I, even though, as I figure it, almost 100% of professional, famous, "good" and lusted after rock drummers are beaters and I respect that. It makes sense that bangers are the amateurs and I'm ok with that. My future was never written amidst the stars.

But beaters play at being bangers because they know that bangers have more fun. When Hollywood wants to present the stereotypical rock drummer, does it go for the guy who can cold read a chart during a commercial session and one-take it flawlessly? Or one who eats metronomes for breakfast and works on rudiments as foreplay? No. Hollywood calls Animal.

So I'll never do the work to cross over to Beater-ville, and I'll never have a past to be ashamed of, or to be ashamed of missing.

Questions for discussion:

Is Meg White a banger or a beater?

Is Paul McCartney the most successful banger of all time? This leads to a tangential point: is there a distinction between bangers and beaters in all areas? The person who doesn't have to work at anything to be a natural but will never be as good as the guy who builds skills by the book in order to be great. Or the person who reaches "great" by divine gift and is still making it up as he goes along (a rare commodity who makes gold without knowing a bit of chemistry).

---------------------------

I get told that I was an old man even when I was younger. This might be true -- I'll have to check the kinetoscope. Some people, it seems, were never young. They might have been less chronologically advanced, but they were still old souls. I see this in musicians especially.

Eddie Vedder, Neil Young, the members of The Band, John Fogerty, Keith Richards were all born wizened, wrinkled and jaded. They, even as children were a ragged blend of angry, cynical and aloof.

But others, like Mick Jagger and Paul McCartney will never be old regardless of what any piece of paper proclaims. They will always have the twinkle in the eye of a 17 year old boy who is just discovering joy and anger, greed and celebration in the same moment and who still see the world with an innocence and excitement that has lost since passed away in others. They have found a way to be their youth, not reminisce about it.

---------------------------

I just now realized how totally bass forward CCR's music is. The bass lines themselves are smart, flirty, insistent and incredibly solid, and the production refuses to let the bass melt into the music bed or be a supporting, background player. The bass is pushed up until it leads, growling like a horn, melodizing like a guitar, driving like a drum. I watched a 1970 concert film (Royal Albert Hall) and I have to say that they are TIGHT and their balance and mix are spot on.

Me forget not

Maybe here's what I fear -- forgetting.

In my old age, I need to have recall of all the trivia and infotainment that never lets me get bored during my internal dialogues.

Just today, I sat on the sofa for 6 full minutes because I couldn't remember Keither Richards' name. Just his name. I could picture him; I could recall one hundred and one memes about him. I could name and sing songs he wrote. I could yell "Glimmer Twins" as loud as I wanted and only mean "Mick." But I couldn't remember the name "Keith Richards." I refused to look it up and, finally and fortunately, I remembered. But the delay scared me.

I figure I will need an aide with an encyclopedic knowledge of popular culture (then and now), history and me to act as interpreter and be able to translate my half completed thoughts and sentences, my gap filled statements where I struggle to fill in important details that have camped on the Cape of My Tongue and refuse to leave on the long trek to conscious thought. That person will have to intuit my thoughts and references and provide missing facts that make my nonsense sense. Imagine how scary I'll be without my translator, lost in the middle of a thousand thoughts, none within my grasp, flailing about for words flying away.

This is what I fear -- an inability to remember, express and interact.

Rethinking Parshat Zachor

 

Before I begin I want to make very clear that I presume everything I am about to write is a product of dire ignorance on my part. I’m more than happy to be educated on this so if you know of any commentaries or midrashim which clarify, please let me know. Also, I want to make it clear that none of this is meant to cast aspersions on the Jewish practice of reading Parshat Zachor. My concerns are nit-picky. I gotta be mean.

 

Each year, we are commanded to hear the reading of Parshat Zachor, Devarim 25:17-19 which retells of the attack by Amalek. As this is in Devarim, we can assume that it was spoken/recorded/written towards the end of the Hebrews’ journeys through the wilderness. The text of this reading is as follows:

 

זָכ֕וֹר אֵ֛ת אֲשֶׁר־עָשָׂ֥ה לְךָ֖ עֲמָלֵ֑ק בַּדֶּ֖רֶךְ בְּצֵאתְכֶ֥ם מִמִּצְרָֽיִם׃

אֲשֶׁ֨ר קָֽרְךָ֜ בַּדֶּ֗רֶךְ וַיְזַנֵּ֤ב בְּךָ֙ כׇּל־הַנֶּחֱשָׁלִ֣ים אַֽחֲרֶ֔יךָ וְאַתָּ֖ה עָיֵ֣ף וְיָגֵ֑עַ וְלֹ֥א יָרֵ֖א אֱלֹהִֽים׃

וְהָיָ֡ה בְּהָנִ֣יחַ ה אֱלֹהֶ֣יךָ ׀ לְ֠ךָ֠ מִכׇּל־אֹ֨יְבֶ֜יךָ מִסָּבִ֗יב בָּאָ֙רֶץ֙ אֲשֶׁ֣ר ה־אֱ֠לֹהֶ֠יךָ נֹתֵ֨ן לְךָ֤ נַחֲלָה֙ לְרִשְׁתָּ֔הּ תִּמְחֶה֙ אֶת־זֵ֣כֶר עֲמָלֵ֔ק מִתַּ֖חַת הַשָּׁמָ֑יִם לֹ֖א תִּשְׁכָּֽח

 

I looked at the commentaries (thank you Artscroll and Sefaria) and found that this was referencing an event originally recorded in Sh’mot 17, starting in verse 8. The problem is that the version recounted in Devarim is strikingly different from the events of Sh’mot! I’ll go through the various phrases and show what I’m talking about.

 

1.       בַּדֶּ֖רֶךְ בְּצֵאתְכֶ֥ם מִמִּצְרָֽיִם

 

When the events of Amalek’s attack took place, the people were in Refidim. It was there that the people had complained about a lack of water, shown no appreciation for Hashem’s presence and were therefore attacked by Amalek. But, again, the people were not “baderech” on any particular road. They were camped. Additionally, this encampment was on the 23^rd or Iyar according to the Seder Olam, a month after Yam Suf, after 2 other stops and the revelation at Har Sinai (see Bamidbar 33:14 for more). Why is it still reckoned by the Exodus and not marked as the path to Israel or from Har Sinai or just a next stop on their travels. In fact, 17:1 speaks of Refidim as being one of the stages of travel but does NOT connect it to yetzi’at mitzrayim. But let that be for a moment.

 

2.       אֲשֶׁ֨ר קָֽרְךָ֜ בַּדֶּ֗רֶךְ

 

According to the Rambam, the people had been camped at Refidim for a few days (17:1 “ועמדו יום או יומים”). So they weren’t on any literal road. But more than that, the version in Sh’mot says vayavo Amalek – not that Amalek happened upon them (korcha -- לְשׁוֹן מִקְרֶה Rashi, Dev 25:18) but that they intentionally approached the Hebrews.

 

3.       וַיְזַנֵּ֤ב בְּךָ֙ כׇּל־הַנֶּחֱשָׁלִ֣ים אַֽחֲרֶ֔יךָ

 

Amalek, according to Devarim, cut off the stragglers. Devious and cowardly, right? Except the people were camped and had been for a couple of days. How were there stragglers?

 

4.       וְאַתָּ֖ה עָיֵ֣ף וְיָגֵ֑עַ

 

Rashi explains that Ayef (tired) means thirsty. But according to the text, they had already been the recipients of a miracle and there was water! Why would the people be thirsty? [the more homiletic sense that they were thirsting for Torah would at least reflect the loss of faith that brought about the attack, especially since Torah is equated with water, and then the “lo yarei elokim” might even refer to the Hebrews who were absent of Torah and therefore did not show proper yir’ah, but I haven’t seen, via a quick look, anyone who sees the phrase as applying to the people of Israel] Maybe the “atah” is not the people but Moshe who might have been thought to be tired and ineffective after the people’s challenge so Amalek thought that when Moshe was weak would be a good time to attack.

 

So the surprise attack on the stragglers who had fallen behind on the arduous journey is not the way the story is told in Sh’mot and one would think that details like this, the exact ones which inspire an eternal commandment would be given when the event happened, or the details given should be in accord with the way the story is retold 40 years later.

 

Then we have this notion of an obligation to erase the memory of Amalek. In Devarim, we are told that…

 

5.       וְהָיָ֡ה בְּהָנִ֣יחַ ה אֱלֹהֶ֣יךָ ׀ לְ֠ךָ֠ מִכׇּל־אֹ֨יְבֶ֜יךָ מִסָּבִ֗יב בָּאָ֙רֶץ֙

 

When Hashem gives us a respite from the enemies that surround us in our land, THEN timche the memory of Amalek (we will erase). Has that happened yet? Are we at peace with all the surrounding countries? Is there really any rest in Israel even when there isn’t a shooting war taking place? A country with peace doesn’t need a compulsory draft, doesn’t need to build walls, doesn’t need metal detectors at every entrance and doesn’t need to worry, daily, that its children might not come home. We are clearly not at the time when the name will be erased, and those enemies are not Amalek, because we will only have to deal with Amalek when all the other enemies are done, and they are not.

 

That hearkens back to what Hashem actually said in Sh’mot. There, Hashem said that at some indeterminate, future time “macho emche” I will certainly erase. Hashem will do the erasing and not just yet. This is a promise that Hashem will do his part, a first person declaration of certainty (the doubled verb indicates the absolute inevitability) for us to rely on. And if we look at the verb in Devarim, the text reads “timche et…” you will erase, but not as a tzivui/command! This comes as a statement of future fact. We are not being given an order, we are told what will happen.

 

It could be that Hashem is promising us that at some future time, he will take care of the physical Amalek, the one who came up to us while we were encamped and who attacked us for no reason. We will fight them and Hashem will make sure that they are bodily destroyed. But when Moshiach comes and Hashem has helped us reach peace with our surrounding neighbors, then WE will automatically erase the thoughts of Amalek from our knowledge base – but not the physical group. Their nefarious deeds and history will still be known, but the evil that they represent, the kind that is capable of attacking the weak and defenseless, will simply be gone from the world and we cannot forget that promise that Hashem will make us a world in which no one will want to pursue the kind of evil epitomized by Amalek. This is a conceptual/spiritual erasing, as human nature will go through a shift. We won’t have to be commanded – that erasing will just happen.

 

So why, then, are we commanded to read Parshat Zachor each year? Is it to stoke the flames of our hatred and give us a convenient scapegoat which we can blame for everything that has gone wrong? No, quite the opposite. Evil is everywhere now – we can run into it at home or on the road and it attacks us in open and in secret ways. But Parshat Zachor is a promise of a future time when that will no longer happen, creating an opportunity to reinvigorate our faith: not to remember what happened in Sh’mot, but to look forward to the promised change that will come once we merit the arrival of the future king Moshiach.

Take That

My schoolyard taunting skills were both strong and weak. Because they were more technical and complex than the traditional taunts, they were more involved and took longer, thereby making them witheringly mean but inevitably less effective.

The old stand by of "I'm rubber, you are glue" was delivered as "I'm rubber, like a vulcanized rubber, and you're glue, but a glue that doesn't work on rubber -- it works on words, though, so if you say things, they are repulsed by my elastic surface and adhere to you, thereby being applicable to you and not me."

When I saw two young people near each other, I began the sign-song "I see ____ and _____ sitting in a tree, and this is dangerous enough but they alse are sharing germs and practicing unhygienic behaviors at an age too young to be engaged in such activities."

I was also a master of attacks on parentage -- "Your mother is very large, which, in and of itself shouldn't be something we call attention to, but in her zeal to eat food, she often disregards your emotional needs!"

And let's not forget "U-G-L-Y is what you are and you have no recourse and cannot hide your identity under a presumed name. And your ugliness is more than skin deep. I mean, you are just ugly through and through. Dang. Wow. I mean, really, really ugly."

I like to think that I encouraged good health as people got many steps quickly walking away from me.

A Basic primer on truth

 My BASIC skills are rusty but I going to do this to make a point. I can't guarantee the precision of the code, but I hope you get the idea.

What follows is a Random Number Generator* that I wrote. It will generate a Random Number* between 1 and 50.

10 Let X=RND(50)

20 if X= 46 goto 10

30 print x

40 print "type 1 to get another random number. Type anything else to exit"

50 input y

60 if y=1 then goto 10 else end

*except not 46

=======

If you didn't see the code, you would believe me when I said that this is a random number generator. We defer and don't investigate when we get numbers from a supposed authority.

A quick movie follow up

Just for posterity's sake...

I watched Ip Man 2 last night. 

It is, technically, far superiod to the first movie. The quality of camera and film are much improved and the acting is also much better. It seems somehow more "professiona;" and on the whole, the movie holds together as more organized. That being said, there is much more of a traditional story-telling vibe about it. In fact, I would say that the movie, still exploring the same themes of loyalty and family, plus the quest for superiority over other pugilistic forms (which, symbolically, still stand in for the larger political and social influences of various cultures while the Chinese voice struggles to stand firm and unique even as it fights within to find its single, representative style), morphs into Rocky 3.

Friends become enemies, enemies become friends, lessons are learned, good prevails through tragedy. Babies are born, dust is raised and sandwiches are served. Fin.

On to Ip Man 3 I think...

A movie discussion

Last night I watched Donnie Yen in Ip Man. I have avoided the Ip Man movies for many years now because I didn't really understand what they were all about but on the advice of Nikko (he works in the Leasing Office) I found this particular version and sat down with it.

This is no mere martial arts flick. It uses complex story arcs, incorporates history lessons, had flawed and very believable characters -- even the fight scenes develop a particular personality and language to communicate their message.

There is, however, an expectation of a familiarity or even a fluency with the vocabulary incorporating all the culturalisms which are so engrained that they become subtly asynonymous with each other. The same word, movement or emotion can, by virtue of the complicated shifts in culture mean very different things from another seemingly identical iteration of that word or action. But one needs to understand the entirety of the societal norms and behaviors to appreciate it.

The movie fascinated me. The aesthetic is old school but the depth of character and emotional backstories are so much more modern in their conception and telling. Ip Man is of the model of the stoic master but that impacts his home life and what makes him so successful as a fighter marks his failings as a husband and father. He is dressed up as the invulnerable super fighter, but has to learn to be a man as well. Superman is always off saving the world that he never plays ball with his kid. What the world sees, it admires, but that's just the public face of a man whose family resents him.

The cultural issues, which I'm assuming are represented accurately, amazed me. In earlier martial arts movies, I began to appreciate the use of animal names for various moves because of how the move simulates both the appearance of the animal, but copies its strengths in fighting, and the choice of style is driven by the choice of what animal would best succeed in a given confrontation against any other particular animal. But in this film, things are taken a stem further.

Conflicting schools of Kung Fu are representing different dynasties, styles, locations and philosophies. One sees the Kung Fu as extension of body while the other sees it as an expression of the mind. They are fighting, refining and redefining themselves through the battles. The schools/styles reveal an approach to living and the conception of self, and represent nations and policies so to defeat someone is to show error in his entire way of life. It is almost as if there is a constant quest for a certain shade of hegemony -- all the Kung Fu movies with local battles and duels or larger wars between school and styles are real in an alternate universe, one in which dominance over all  will be awarded to the school that has the "best kung fu" as proven through that series of bracketed face offs and seeded contests. Impress, win, move up or disappear. So every Hollywood presentation is really a documentary about the Darwinian selection system which creates a fight-or-die, force-fed evolution of Kung Fu.

About an hour in, the movie shifts from being a series of character-based studies to being a more traditional plot-driven work. The Hollywood tropes start showing up (and retroactively make one wonder if the first part was only pretending to be outside the traditional box of martial arts films). When you get to the standard redemption, revenge and growth parts, you are rewarded with a training montage set to music. It all leads up to a big, final duel between the representatives of two distinct cultures who are competing on both the macro and micro levels. But it doesn't end there. Just saying.

Anyway, I liked it a lot.

Failure to Lunch

I'd like to discuss my midday meal yesterday. I'm not going to recount this in an attempt to call anyone out. I shall not attempt that, but I will do it successfully. Not with names -- if this ever gets to the people about whom I am speaking, I will get in plenty of trouble, but the truth must be told. All the details are true but the names, well, they just aren't here.

First off, a quick disclaimer: my hosts were fantastic and nice and the food was good. I enjoy their company (and I have no doubt that there are things about me that annoy them and things about them that annoy me, but that's life).

They had guests. Sadly, the level of humor at the table was having one person comment about going to an ENT and another person then saying "what?" and everyone laughing at how innovative that joke is. Subtlety has left the building.

But then I was talking to a person at lunch. While he regaled me of all the stories which explained his various careers and why people didn't like him, and then about his medical issues and why he doesn't speak to his children or them to him, he worked his way towards explaining what he currently does. He invests. That's nice -- I asked if he had a fancy terminal or a super account so he can get all the most updated info. He said he didn't and he googles things. OK, then. Sounds very cutting edge.

He told me of how he got into the market: his kid encouraged him to, so he bought a stock on the kid's recommendation and it tanked. But he held on to it and then bought more when it was cheap. When it came back up, he made money. This was, he explained, the trick that he discovered -- buy when things are cheaper, and sell them when they get more expensive.

I'm glad he confided this secret to me. Success, here I come.

Mighty Are

 

then she called, out of the blue and just to ask a simple question. A lovely gesture to remind me (if only in my own estimation) that I was still pretty high up on the people-in-her-life list. And while I was chatting with her about the banalities of life I heard her say “ok, well maybe I’ll just go and draw some blood” and then she went back to talking to me until she had to go. I love you and all that, MUAH. But then it hit me – she called from work, from real, full-time, adult, make the world a better place work. And she was one of those angels on earth who heal others with skills I can’t comprehend. She is an actual grown-up human and I, somehow, had something to do with helping her along the way. I am so proud to be her dad, thankful for and celebrating all and every part of who she is.

And at the same time, the voice I heard was somehow 5 years old, and I was a younger man, vital, perfect in my child’s eyes and somehow relevant again. She needed me. Yes, simply to answer a question about a bag, but she needed me because she is still (in my own estimation) that small child who needs to be reminded to look both ways and who has an innocent smile that can shine in any context. She was playing a role, living out a young girl’s dreams while still knowing that when we walk my hand will still grip hers reflexively and inhumanly quickly should she stumble. I know she is stronger, and stronger than I in many, many ways, but in that moment, on the phone, she was just my baby, and I was just her dad.

Bitter-sweet memory

I guess it all started in my childhood, much like my incessant need to have teeth. As a boy, I occasionally found myself at the Y for some sort of event and breakfast. I don't recall much about the breakfast (it probably included lox and I work hard to forget any interaction I have with lox) but I recall what there was to drink. It was in a large can but it wasn't tomato juice. It was something called (IIRC) "Unsweetened Orange Juice."

You have to recall that, way back when, one could not just walk into the store and get fresh orange juice. Want fresh OJ? Buy a bag o' oranges and a juicer and frustrate the hell out of yourself for 3 tablespoons of juice-pulp-seeds and more than that on the counter or your pants. Or just fly to Florida -- it is cheaper. At my house, mom usually came home with frozen, concentrated juice. Peel the tab, get it all into a glass bottle, and then pour in a certain number of canfuls of water. Mix and voila, orange juice. But as far as I understood, what was in there was concentrate and water, no sweetener. The result, though, tasted not unlike actual orange juice.

Unsweetened was a different story. It had hints of grapefruit juice and metal and was totally unsweet but was still orange juice. I never really thought about what it actually was but the touch of bitterness suited me just fine. Now, things called "unsweetened" are still plenty sweet and I don't have my time machine available to go back to nineteen seventy whatever and stock up with cans of the stuff. I have tried grapefruit juice and that's not what I'm craving. I want my can of unsweetened orange juice circa 1979 vintage.

This goes into my list of "food from my youth that I want back" including Buitoni Spaghetti Twists, Stella D'Oro Como Delights, Empire frozen BBQ chicken in sauce, Mrs. Goodcookies tub of dough, Diet Cel-Ray soda, and Burry's Best chocolate cookies among others.

Morning miscellany

1. Hunger approached him and he considered rising to it and getting something to eat. He knew had to be careful in his choice of choices -- nothing too spicy. His intestinal system had made that clear when it made its feelings known for the entire length of a very uncomfortable night. I knew I should keep my spicy down to the level of a carrot, but not one of them spicy carrots, neither.

2. Admittedly, I'm still getting over that Bruce Boxleitner is a lefty.

3. I wonder what the largest amount of meat I can get on one hamburger order at each fast food place would be. Like a double double, third pounder double or whatever.

4. Idea for a story: a guy falls in love with a woman and later discovers she has an identical twin. Hilarity, romance, murder and other assorted hijinks ensue.

5. I have not yet encountered anybody who uses the film-based social media platform "Letterbox" who actually knows why the word "letterbox" has any relevance to film. And when I try to explain it, no one believes me.

6. I watched the movie "The Forbidden Kingdom" last night. It was very enjoyable but I'm not fully clear on the exact mechanism of some of the events which were purported to have occurred. I feel that some of the forensics should be re-evaluated and some of the witness statements, reconsidered.

I did like the movie. I have never before really appreciated the names of and uses for the different styles within each martial art -- the choice of a useful style and how each focuses on a strength and approach of the animal. It was actually very neat.

More movie notes

Tonight's first choice was The Forbidden Kingdom but that's not available to stream for free so I moved past it. Then I saw the poster for (and trailer for) The Misfits with Pierce Brosnan. This looked like a movie for me. In the end, I think it was an it wasn't.

As I watched it i had a strong, strong feeling like I had seen it before. I was completely convinced that I had. But the thing is, the weird thing is, I have no memory at all of ever having seen it before! I'd think that I'd think that that's pretty important to have when trying to remember things. So what's going on here?

But my point is that at 41 minutes in to the movie, the "Misfits" (hence the title, I guess) are to travel across what they report to be "30 miles of virgin desert" (I know, sounds hot!) via camels. That makes sense. But in the next few scenes we get a series of shots (aerial, front, from the back and like that) showing a line of camels, traveling one behind the next, all connected by a rope and each being led by a local guide. That means that the local guides had to walk 30 miles in the virgin desert. I'm pretty sure that's not how these thing work.

The movie continued and for the love of all that is Pete, I was still sure that I remembered so many scenes. It was a constant state of I have deja viewed this before. But then there were scenes that I didn't recall AT ALL and I certainly could neither remember nor intuit the ending.

The movie turned into a very poor man's version of Oceans 11 down to the stylings of the musical accompanyment and incidental music but I don't recall any of that from before.

It wasn't that the directing was bad -- the directing was fine and even good and the director is to be commended. It's just that the movie, itself, was bad. Poor. Insultingly iterated. Derivative but not in a good way. I can only speak of a single human character because none of the roles on screen presented enough personality on its own to be considered human, and only when all the fractions were added up did there amount to be anything resembling a complete character. The story was muddled, the pacing inconsistent, and the timeline unclear.

The plot is about items stolen, slightly reshaped and returned without having ever become anything new. Oh, wait, did I write "about" up there? Delete that "about" and read the sentence again.

So in the end, the film is exactly for me, so much so that I get the sense that I have chosen it before. But it isn't for me because I deserve so much better.

Idea for a video

A musical tale told wordlessly:

A simple man walks down the road playing a simple man's tune on a tin whistle. He dances happily past another man with a fiddle. The first man stops and plays more of the tune. The fiddler picks of the tune and joins the walk, adding a melody which, surprisingly, shows the simple tune to be a harmony!

They pass a third man, one who is holding a different instrument. He joins etc. until a whole mass of accumulated marchers, now playing a much fuller song and the simple tune has been woven within a much more complex piece of music, they walk past the rock club. Patrons and musicians watch them suspiciously, this rag tag group playing a piece of non-rock musicians, then they join and complement the arrangement, improving it by addition. Then past the church and the choir joins in, then the symphony etc and everyone, no matter the background or difference in style, joins and augments to make the simple tune grander and grander.

The song culminates with a once more through the chorus and then home. Fin. Everyone looks at each other and starts shaking hands and comparing ideas about music.

Camera pans way out and over...miles away and zooms back into a view of a 5 year old kid who is crouching, drawing on the street with dirt and a rock scratching into asphalt while unconsciously humming the same simple tune.

On Being Connected

I went from my place to my mailbox yesterday and was out of touch. It was scary.

In my apartment, I have wifi. Zoom, says the wifi. I get my phone calls on my cell phone through the wifi and I interact with the world from the safety of under the covers, behind a series of doors and locks, because of that wifi. There is, I have discovered, very little phone service at that end of the building.

The front of the building has better telephone connectedness, so when I get to the mailboxes, I can use my phone via the 5G network that I pay for. Clearly, my wifi won't reach, but I have this other option. But on the path between the two, I'm out of the loop, in that limbo between the edge of my wifi and the coverage of the 5G. "I would say I am exactly like a ship carrying a cargo that will never reach any port." Except I'm not Tom Cruise.

Yet.

This got me thinking (not the Tom Cruise part) and I realized a major technological shift which has impacted out sociological identity and expectations. Big words, I know, but I looked 'em up and they mean what I say, 100%. Here's the thing -- in the olden days, we called a place. When we wanted to reach a person, it was first, essential that we knew where the person was, is or will be. We contacted that place and hoped that the person was there and available. When a person was away from that place we could not find the person. If we didn't know what place the person was in, or didn't know how to contact the place, we could not connect with the person. We called operators to help us connect to the place, still unsure if the person would be there. The phone book, though it was listed by person, was really a directory of phones associated with locations. As such, our baseline was to anticipate being OUT of contact until we could get to a location and reestablish our anchor and then we could be reached at that place. But on the road, or taking a walk, or in the bathroom (in most cases) we could not be found. Once we left to go out and play, we were incommunicado until we ended up at someone's house -- we could neither be found, nor reveal ourselves to others.

But times have changed. Now, instead of connecting to a place, we connect to a person. We have a ratio of approximately 2.4 phones per person (according to a statistic which I just made up, but you get my point) so we have the ability to contact and be contacted when we are no place in particular, and no place we intended to be. This has forced us all to shift the way we see our interconnectedness and we now start off assuming that each and every person will be available to be found and spoken with (or texted to) at all times. This has rippld into changed expectations for workers who now are "available" at all times. This has led to a change in parental awareness of their children's movements (which of course has allowed the innovation of industries to both prevent and amplify this constant contact). Now, when I walk to get my mail, I have to fear that blank space, baby, between the wifi signal and the 5G.

Now we know everything when it happens if not beforehand. We need instant gratification because we live without having to wait. We can't let things sit because our clocks have been turned to overdrive and we have no "off" time. When we are forced to tune out we feel that FOMO because the world is still happening. Go back 100 years and where is the FOMO? If you wanted to visit a friend you had to send a letter saying "I'll be there sometime between 8AM and June." One might say that cable companies are just old fashioned because that's still how they schedule appointments.

Happy Trailers to You!

I spent a bunch of time last night working on a new business idea. I'm gonna pitch it to you so I hope you invest all you have in this.

So there I am, scrolling through the various movie options on all the streaming platforms that followed the binary brick road into my house. As I move through them, I says to myself, I says, "Hey, self" and then I says "What?" cuz what would you say? Then Howie Mandel shows up and punches me for stealing his line so I, in an attempt to defend myself, try to suffocate him by putting a rubber glove over his head but he just inflates the glove! It was hilarious. Classic Howie, amirite? So I channeled my inner Gallagher and got a sledgehammer and sued my brother. But that's not my idea. Or even anyone else's. (and if these references are lost on you, tough nerts, bucko) 

But anyway, it certainly does happen then I see thousands of images for movies that I am not sure about and I just don't have the interest in watching a 2 minute trailer for each to figure out what story is being told and whether I want to watch. So here's my service:

For a nominal fee (nom nom nom) I will watch and summarize/review the movie based only on the trailer available on my TV. For example, the movie "Double Trouble" from 1992. I watched the trailer. It is about two guys who are either brothers or at least go to the same barber who punch things and stuff. Viscerally engrossing and experimental in its use of camera angles and color scheme. And effing weird because there are two guys saying stuff and then other stuff gets punched. I recommend it fifth-heartedly.

If you have any concerns over the quality of my reviews, find the movie and sit through the trailer yourself! I know that once you have validated my opinion, you will know you can rely on it in the future and you will happily pay me money to slog through the crud so you don't have to.

I'll vet anything that my TV reports has a viewer score of 4.4 or under -- sign up for the premium package and you get coverage up to 5.0 out of 10. So all those also-ran movies. The Vertical Entertainments and the Asylum movies with fire and ice age tornado earthquakes (now with extra terrorists!). With foreign spies saving the world from estranged children, aliens and animated frogs. I sit on the couch for you!

If a trailer is too wacky even for me, I will get someone on my crack team of subcontractors to watch also and provide a second opinion of the movie. Just last night, after watching the trailer for "City Hunter" (1993) I felt at such a loss that I had to phone-a-frond and called my brother (he's a plant in the audience) and his wife (they put the Love in H.P. Lovecraft). They watched it and agreed that I was not actually hallucinating and Jackie Chan is, indeed, dressed in blue as a female anime character and then it gets strange. One thing is for sure and that's that the trailer definitely exists.

This is a million dollar idea in that I will let you buy it from me for a million dollars (OBO).

Old Man Screed

 Technology is making us dumb. There, I said it. With each new technology we have this illusion that suddenly, our intellects will soar as we use the resources available to help us build a base of knowledge and skills. But that's not what happens. Invent GPS and turn by turn directions and people stop being able to read a map. Give them a calculator and they lose the thinking skills required to do lower level math which means they lack the understanding that would be foundational to developing higher order math skills. But all of this is well known. Today, I ran into a new one.

I have assigned to my class the task of making a flyer, a hand out -- a single page which outlines a societal issue and presents a current problem, its scope, history, consequences, and like that. I told them to imaging giving it out to people -- what could they do in terms of balancing statistics and data with emotional appeals and graphic design considerations. I expected many of them to use the standard excuse of "I'm not artistic" which I can deal with. But a different one came up. Students have no idea how to work on a blank piece of paper and put together anything which isn't just a (poorly written) paragraph. They all expect to look online, find a template and just plug in some of their own data and poof, out comes a completed flyer. They don't understand when I say that a page is 8.5 by 11 inches and they don't know what to do when all the free templates are not of that size. They, for all of their supposed technological acumen, have no understanding of how a document is laid out.

Technology is not, in their minds, a means towards a more intellectually satisfying end, but an end in and of itself. If I have the internet, I assume someone has already set me up to succeed so I just have to look up someone else's completed work and tweak it. Instead of working to build the skills, they assume that all the prep work has been magically done by "the internet." They think that google, which is simply a search engine, is actually giving them answers. When I ask them why they make a claim, they say "that's what google said" as if google was an independent (and really smart) entity, not that it is a search engine simply presenting algorithm driven website lists.

Students simply don't understand what is going on -- they expect to stand on the shoulders of geniuses but don't know who the geniuses are, whether or not they are actually geniuses, or how to maintain their own balance. When I started making a personal webpage, I had to learn basic html. When I found fancier components and I wanted to lift the code from another website, I tried to figure out how it worked so I could manipulate it. Now, students don't have the skill to make anything, they just want to take what someone else made and call it their own because they lack the skills to do their own work.

Sorta sad. Kids today...sigh.

thoughts on pronouns

 I don't think that I have any problem calling someone who asks to be refered to as "they/them" as "they/them." The pronoun label is a covenience of linguists, not a societal truth.

If you ask me to refer to you as it/tree/they, I'll do it because it doesn't matter -- it is your personal preference and I can respect that. So when do I develop a problem? When you think that you you are adopting an extant word and import its other baggage. I shall try to explain.

If a singular person wants to be refered to as "they," then I would change the sounds coming out of my mouth (in the same way that the sounds qwould change if I used a foreign word in the place of an English one). The arbitrary letters combined to make the sound by which I label you don't, inherently, matter. What matters is I am finding and using a specific and unique combination to define you and make you distinct from other potential referents. The word I use for you is a signifier of a single individual. Therefore, I should be allowed, or even required, to use the singular verb to agree with the singular pronoun, whatever the sound of that pronoun is. We are importing the sound of the combination of letters, not the meaning: "they/them" has 2 gramamtical dimensions in the 3rd person -- number-plural and gender-indeterminate. If an individual wants the label of "they/them" then either the person is demanding the full meaning (which is false because the individual is not demanding to be thought of as a plural) or the person is asking a new coinage, a new word which happens to share the sound of a pre-existing word but must be a different word as its meaning is necessarily different from the extant word.

Just because this new word is identical in spelling and pronunciation does not mean that it IS that older word. It is a new word which has the grammatical implications of its meaning, not its prior use. The word must call forth the singular structure regardless of the fact that it looks like a plural word.

So, sure, I can call you "they/them" but if you are uncomfortable when I say "they wants dinner" then maybe you should choose a different word as your pronoun which doesn't make the grammar confusing.

Much is amiss

I miss my parents. I guess I'm allowed because they are currently not here but I really do miss them. One thing that reminds me of how much I miss them is when I need advice. Which is always. I didn't generally go to them and formally ask for pearls of wisdom, but I valued their opinions and statements because I respected their process, their approach and their values. They got me or, when they didn't, they knew to listen until they did. There are fewer and fewer people I can go to for that mind of understanding. There are fewer and fewer people whose imput I can esteem as highly. Fewer I want to emulate and fewer whose input is a valuable piece to help in my dealings with the world.

I miss that.

Time Travel

I just finished a series of 5 books by Allen Appel which focus on the adventures of Alex Balfour, a fictional historian who travels through time. He and others in his family have the gift/curse and it shuttles Alex to the Civil War, the Russian Revolution, WWII and other places. I found it quite enjoyable and am using it to round out my poorly thought out opinion on the impact of time travel. I have decided that time travel does exist but it doesn't work the way it is often thought to.

Now I'm no scientist so I won't try to explain how or why people can travel through time, but I'm going to deal with the question of "changing the future". We often think of time as a line and at moments of decision, there are potential branches. With each choice any person makes, a path is chosen and other branches represent other universes in which other decisions were made and they branch off onto the aither. Imagine a nexus point/focal point, and off of this there are infinite paths to take. Our universe is but one of the infinite ones that are born of each moment. A single past leading to multiple potential futures, so going into the past would change a whole lot of infinite realities.

But I'm gonna flip that right on its head. I believe that there are multiple pasts and that they get mixed into a single present/future at these nexus points. Instead of infinite futures branching off, time is the process of resolving infinite pasts and lopping off all other future possibilities. Instead of one moment into many, it should be many pasts into one moment. This then also explains another issue of time travel -- changing things.

If someone goes into one of the pasts and changes something, and that has an impact on the unified "real" present, then that change happens instantaneously and we have no idea that it happens. You see, at the moment of change, all of our awarenesses and memories shift as well. Imagine if the Orwellian concept of "Eurasia has ALWAYS been at war with East Asia" was an actual truth. When the past is changed we cannot know any difference -- things are as they always have been. For most time travel changes, this wouldn't even be perceptible to the casual observer. A guy in India goes back in time and buy Colgate instead of Crest? Screw the butterflies; that will not result in any real change to my life. But if something large enough or local enough happens, then the observer would see me sitting and living life while reality shifts around and inside me, but I can't sense it. I am probably shifting through tens if not thousands of universe versions every day as time travelers go back and monkey around (or primate around) but I can't know it because the present is constantly the reality for me in whatever version I see it. And my memories will always conform to the reality I am in and the past which generated it. I can't remember any other reality because, in each case, there has never been any other reality. 

If time travelers are here from the future doing stuff, I'll never know it because they are creating a future reality into which I will move, never knowing that things could have been any other way. The word "change" is wrong -- people who travel to the past are setting up my present, not changing it.

Now, as to traveling into the future, no dice. That's silly.

IRL? JK

I'm not much of a writer nor do I play one on the radio but I do know this -- I have an idea and good as dollars to donuts I'm just going to lay it out. And caution: I'm not a Broadway kind of guy. Live action plays make me anxious because I worry that the actors will forget their lines and my overactive empathy gland would explode...did you know that I was worried when (I think it was) Shannon Doherty was replaced by an actress who had been on Saved by the Bell on some show I had never seen I actually felt worried that the new actress would mess up her lines, a concern which seems empathetic until we remember that we are talking about the new episode of a television show which had already been filmed, using multiple takes. I knew that but was still worried. That's not empathy, that's just crazy. So I guess I'm handing the idea off to someone who can make it theatrical and I'll wait for the novelization of the movie.

I spend an ordinate amount of time (yes, I said it and I stand by it) engaging with the masses and multitudes in conversation of one form or another via web-based platforms. I use the written word on message boards, interest groups and forums (fora?) and talk about a variety of life issues as I balance all the threads, subthreads, side conversations, direct messages, and real life. I often center around discussions of Israel and of religion (to some degree of sectarian identification or another). The ebb and flow of the conversation can be surprising and both predictable and not. Knowing the players, following an etiquette, choosing the identity to establish etc are interwoven into the fabric of messages. I did research on this as it applied specifically to chatrooms and their impact on the creation of a new dialect of English. Let me know if that seems interesting to you and maybe I'll look in the old files (I wrote it over 20 years ago) and send it over.

Anyway, I can imagine an empty stage and it is the physical space of forum incarnate. Different people walk on and off to say their messages, following the (il)logic of forum conversations. While 2 people are having a back-and-forth, even a heated one, a person may walk through and say something either irrelevant or only tangential and then try to insert himself...this then breaks into other simultaneous arguments or side conversations with actors using the physical space and the entrance/exit from the stage into a choreography as important as the content. Then a new person comes in and everything bubbles up again. The pacing speeds to the frenetic extreme and some posts are a single word or just an image and other times the battle grounds lay, fallow and simply waiting.

Having been in these threaded conversations for more years than I can count on the middle finger of my left hand, I can promise the right aspiring writer that this has the potential to be an incredible crystallization of an under-represented cyberculture - "Keyboard Warriors" .

Copyright 2024 Daniel Rosen All Rights Reserved, baby

Thinking about Last Night

Another Saturday night and I ain't got no filter. So here's the stuff I jotted down during last evening:

Peter Frampton was on an episode of Black Sheep Squadron (Season 2, Episode 13, from April 6, 1978 https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0517357/?ref_=ttep_ep13). Who was the audience of the show in 1978 that would have wanted to watch a show about WWII pilots and wanted to see a rock and roll guy from the 70's? And did Frampton really have that bad of an overbite? And Ernie Hudson? Wow. Now, please have someone explain to me why they chose to paddle from the south Pacific to France instead of getting on a plane.

I am now creating a new definition of "aging" -- aging is the process of movement along the continuum of time, from short to long that expresses the wait between current cultural references that I understand. The older I get, the longer I have to wait for there to be something that I recognize.

There was an Intuit commercial on last night and on it, as woman says "I shook up generations of tradition with 5 words" (or something to that effect, but she specifically said "5 words"). She then recites what she said to shake it all up: "Mama, I wanna make perfume." So now "wanna" counts as a single word. Television has spoken.

I wonder how many of the things labeled "ms" are really the truth. MSG? MSK? MST3K? MSI? What about MS Word? I don't know what to believe.

Note -- in Hebrew, "emes" is one way of pronouncing the word for "truth." Get it?

Idea for a practical joke -- stand on a street corner  and "talk loudly to yourself" (or pretend to be on a cell phone) and say "Of wow! In this timeline Monroe WAS president?!" or even "Wow! In this timeline, Monroe actually WON??" Then walk around with a friend, go into a bar and say to the friend "Hey, is this the universe in which there's a bus crash now into this bar?" and then pause silently and say "ok, guess not" (or run out screaming as soon as you say it). And no, I am not being inspired by the guy from MIB3. Also (and not inspired by Doogie Howser), walk into a building and ask the doorman for the exact date. Then say loudly "Good -- there's still time" and run out.

Movie review time

This won't be an in depth review, but more a series of impressions and ideas.

I know that recently I have watched some weird movies. Alien Code was crazy weird. Wild Target? Weird. Strays was insane and weird and there were loads of others. Last night I watched a movie was weird in a really bad way. Not offensive but clearly an attempt at a puff-PR peace touting the rich cultural histories of China and India and their cooperation when mangling modern cinema.

The movie was called "Kung Fu Yoga" and it was a Jackie Chan film in which he surrounded himself with a crack team of wannabees (no, that isn't a reference to any Japanese actors). I like Jackie Chan and this film had a few flashes of humor in the writing (and some of the fight scenes were inventive and acrobatically intense, classic Jackie Chan) but on the whole, this was a horrible, horrible movie. It spans genres (awkwardly), has too many characters and backstory to keep straight and I couldn't really understand anything that was going on. Also, lots of different languages spoken so the subtitles are sometimes there and sometimes not.

In terms of plot, imagine stealing the general storyline and many specific scenes and devices from the first 3 Raiders movies and mix it with National Treasure. Then stir until it is fully nonsensical, throw in some weird future tech and a dance number and hope for the best. There might have actually been a reference to Rush Hour in one of the lines of dialogue ("You OK? You speak English?").

I wish I could have been in the writers' room when someone came up with and tried to sell this plot twist: "So then, Jackie jumps in the car and starts driving, only to discover that there is a fully grown lion in the car with him! So there is this high speed chase with a lion there!"

Was there automatic assent with sagacious nodding and "harumphs" from around the table or was there at least one guy who cautiously said "but, um, isn't that, well, stupid?"

Those were the nicest things I could say about it. I recommend that you watch it so that I'm not alone in my suffering and you can confirm that it really is as whacked out as I claim it is.