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And the Rain Crashed Down

Imagine that you get off the T and find that although it is cloudy out it is not raining.  You need to walk one block but it begins to sprinkle lightly.  Describe the most appropriate emotional reaction to this situation.

If you’d asked me at 5:26 this evening, I would have answered, “You’ll get wet, and in 45 seconds you’ll be indoors and dry.  Only an infant would complain about this situation.”

If you’d asked me at 5:27 this evening, I would have answered, “It’s sprinkling?  If you value your life flee the streets for dry land with all the speed your legs can offer, sacrificing whatever possessions and money you must to secure the nearest shelter.”

I swear I am not exaggerating when I say that in the time it took me to walk one block the skies opened from “no moisture of any kind” to sheets of rain so thick that when I tried opening my mouth I had a very realistic fear of drowning right there on the street.

Then the leasing agent I went to see showed me apartment 1313.  I can’t discount the possibility that some very powerful forces want to keep me out of this building.  Besides, what happened to superstition (the jokes featured in the latter half that 1.5 minute video)?

Now, to make up for telling a story that, while admittedly very exciting for me at the time, basically reduces to, “I got very wet today,” I will balance it all out with a link to some of the best music ever written, beginning with the song And the Rain Crashed Down.

A Truth by Any Other Name

From Radiolab, Paul Ekman describes his definition of lying:

A lie is a deliberate choice to mislead a target without any notification.

According to that definition an actor is not a liar, although… I saw a good actor last night in a play and I was for a time misled.  I even had tears because he had misled me.  But I was notified.

My wife taught me what I’m supposed to say when she comes in with a new dress – I’m not supposed to say, “Gee, that’s not a flattering cut,” or, “the color is wrong,” or, “that’s for someone twenty years younger,” all of which might be true.  I’m supposed to say, “Smashing!”  So I’ve agreed to those rules, and since we’ve agreed about that I’m not lying.

Imagined Perfection

A gallery of pictures of phone sex operators with short interviews:

“To the caller, when I first answer, I am the inanimate Barbie. They do not know what I look like, who I am or how I feel. They can only imagine. It is my job to indulge their fantasies, to convince them that I am not a doll. I am their dream turned real. I view every question the caller asks me as a command for me to transform. If they ask if I am blonde, I become a blonde. … I breathe life into their fantasy, I carve the doll out of flesh.”

(via Kottke)

The Magic of Imagination

JK Rowling (which she herself has said is to be pronounced “rolling, like ‘rolling pin'”) gave the Commencement address at Harvard this year. Now you can watch online.

Delivering a commencement address is a great responsibility; or so I thought until I cast my mind back to my own graduation. The commencement speaker that day was the distinguished British philosopher Baroness Mary Warnock. Reflecting on her speech has helped me enormously in writing this one, because it turns out that I can’t remember a single word she said. This liberating discovery enables me to proceed without any fear that I might inadvertently influence you to abandon promising careers in business, law or politics for the giddy delights of becoming a gay wizard.

You see? If all you remember in years to come is the ‘gay wizard’ joke, I’ve still come out ahead of Baroness Mary Warnock. Achievable goals: the first step towards personal improvement.

That part’s funny, but watch the whole thing.  This is the construction and utilization of language that makes English worth listening to.

(And yes, this is a point to Boston.)

It’s Beardfacé!

I just rewatched “My Number One Doctor” – the Scrubs episode where Kelso signs up the hospital to use rateyourdoc.org

It turns out: it’s a real site! Not where you can rate real doctors, just where you can rate your favorite Scrubs characters.

“Colonel Doctor’s treatment can only be described as delicious and crispy.”

Dr. Kevin Casey still gets a 5 rating from me.

Update: There’s even a scene where Turk has the site open on his laptop.  While blurry, it looks to me like the very same site.

Congratulations! You’ve Shown Basic Human Intelligence!

“American Airlines, bowing to pressure yesterday from some of its lowest-paid workers, agreed to drop a $2-per-bag fee for curbside check-in service at airports throughout the country and to lift a ban on tips for skycaps at Logan International Airport.” – Boston Globe, 30 May 2008

I wrote about this issue a few weeks ago, when American retaliated against the skycaps (nine of whom won back $325,000 in lost tips in a lawsuit last month) by prohibiting all tipping at Logan. Now, in exchange for the skycaps dropping their charge of retaliation, the airline will allow tipping and get rid of the fee.

Of course, in just two weeks American will begin charging $15 to check even a single bag, so the old $2 fee to check a bag at the curb rather pales in comparison to the $15 it will cost to check one at all. This too will surely cut into the tips of skycaps, since fewer people will check bags at all (as is surely the intent) and those who do will again feel they’ve spent enough on the luxury already without giving their money away in gratuities. Since this fee isn’t levied directly against curbside check-in, I expect skycaps’ only choices will be to accept their new burden or defect to one of the few airlines that still allows checked luggage.

We should be glad American has backed off its ludicrous stance on tipping at Logan, but let’s not throw them a party. They’ve just done what they should have from the beginning. When a toddler finally concedes he can’t eat dessert before dinner we don’t offer a reward of extra cookies, we just announce our approval of his being a good little boy.

Can I Press Your Buttons?

“In [a traditional elevator] you have an illusion of control; elevator manufacturers have sought to trick the passengers into thinking they’re driving the conveyance. In most elevators, at least in any built or installed since the early nineties, the door-close button doesn’t work. It is there mainly to make you think it works. (It does work if, say, a fireman needs to take control. But you need a key, and a fire, to do that.) Once you know this, it can be illuminating to watch people compulsively press the door-close button. That the door eventually closes reinforces their belief in the button’s power. It’s a little like prayer.” – The New Yorker, 21 April 2008

In my own recently remodeled elevator, the button for my floor doesn’t light up anymore. It still works; it just doesn’t light up.

This is completely unimportant in my daily routine, but it’s problematic when someone gets on after I’ve pressed it. When one of the many college girls in the building follows me into the elevator and presses, say, 4, on an otherwise unlit and apparently untouched panel, it must be creepy to see me standing there motionless, grinning passively as if to say, “I know exactly where I’m getting off tonight, baby.”

Even when she’s rushed out at the fourth floor and sees that I’ve stayed behind, I still look like a lunatic who’s just standing in an elevator not doing anything, like a homeless guy riding back and forth on the S train in Manhattan all day.

Basically what I’m saying is: “Maybe the next time you guys remodel the elevators, you should check to make sure all the buttons on the new control panel light up.”

Remind Your Lungs How Much They Like the Taste of Air

“She is gonna call me ‘Point B’ because that way she knows that no matter what happens she can always find her way to me. And I’m gonna paint the solar system on the backs of her hands, so that she has to learn the entire universe before she can say, ‘Oh, I know that like the back of my hand.'”

This poet, Sarah Kay, is absolutely, completely, and in all other ways amazing.

  1. Hand Me Downs
  2. Point B
  3. Hands
  4. Hiroshima
  5. Jellyfish
  6. And Found

Some of those are very hard to hear, so either get headphones or just be ready to turn the volume way up.

I honestly don’t think I’ve heard words that powerful since Sorkin’s West Wing.