So for lunch today I walked down University Avenue to Carribean Spice, went in and said, “Jamaican meat patties?”
To which the proprietor replied, “Why, yes I am.”
.
.
.
Sorry about that. Shelley’s board is closed and there will be overflow.
So for lunch today I walked down University Avenue to Carribean Spice, went in and said, “Jamaican meat patties?”
To which the proprietor replied, “Why, yes I am.”
.
.
.
Sorry about that. Shelley’s board is closed and there will be overflow.
As one gets older, they say, the memory is the second thing to go.
The first thing to go, of course, is the memory.
So I’m having a conversation with my friend Eric. The topic is (surprise) Marx Brothers movies, specifically some of the later ones, and I’m looking for a certain descriptive word, and unbidden, from deep within the “These Words Aren’t Even On The SAT Anymore” vault, here it comes:
“Pastiche”.
He stops.
I stop.
“I think that’s the right word,” I say. We both go to the dictionary to look it up.
As it happens, it was exactly the word I’d been looking for, down to the shadings and implications. We’re talking dead center of the bullseye here.
If someone had asked me what that word meant meant five minutes before our conversation, I couldn’t have told them.
And now I am most fraught.
How did I know that word? And what the hell else do I know that I don’t know about?
And do I really not know these things, or am I just keeping them a secret from me?
The best version of the “Star-Spangled Banner” ever written is a barbershop arrangement that can be performed by any capable quartet. I kid you not… you will hear the song as for the first time and you will have goosebumps.
And best of all, everyone can sing along. I take some issue with artists (the quotes are implied) who try to explore the limits of this simple melody like an excited puppy on an elastic leash. I often sing along when such artists perform the song. To the sideways perturbed glares I sometimes get, I reply, “I was just helping her out… apparently she forgot how the song went.”
This witticism (the quotes are implied) usually fares badly amongst the glarers and quite well with everyone else.
Even talented artists like Whitney Houston have to face the personalization issue. Singers are told to “make a song their own”. But this song belongs to every American, so I just can’t enjoy her rendition.
Sure, I can appreciate her technique and effort and talent and training, in the same approving way you might say to yourself, “Hey, this guy is GOOD!” while being beaten up by a really skilled karate expert.
But as far as I’m concerned, you don’t turn a Whitney Houston loose on an old British drinking tune for the same reasons you don’t drive an Indy racer to the grocery store– it’s inappropriate.
Forcing “God Bless America” on an unsuspecting ballpark crowd doesn’t work either, though. I’m getting to the point where I don’t care if I ever hear that song again. And anyway, what are the agnostics supposed to sing? “Unspecified diety bless America”? Doesn’t work, see, the fluglehorn is going to be in phased tempo with the contrabassoon on the semi-quavers.
I hate it when that happens.
I noticed another light that seems to have lost its mind: SW 2nd Ave, between the law school and Wilbert’s.
Can I get an “Amen” from the choir? And don’t get me started on Williston Road and 34th.
Here’s a question that ought to throw the DOT into a scurrying panic:
Exactly how long must a motorist sit at a light, with no traffic flowing in any direction, before the light can be considered “malfunctioning” and the motorist may proceed with caution after determining that the intersection is clear?
I often hear a certain axiom misquoted, to wit:
An infinite number of monkeys with an infinite number of typewriters would eventually create all the works of Shakespeare.
The axiom is designed to force one to consider the nature of infinity. The permutation reflects our reluctance to do so.
Let’s correct this, shall we?
“An infinite number of monkeys with an infinite number of typewriters would immediately create all of the works of Shakespeare–
—and every other piece of writing that has ever existed, or ever will exist (as long as it’s created with, or translated into, the typewriters’ character set) —
–in the minimum number of keystrokes required to do so—
–and each work would be produced an infinite number of times.”
See if that doesn’t clear a little space in the ol’ attic.
(Originally published on the Shelley Berman site.)
I sometimes visit my old houses.
Sadly, no one famous once lived there.
Sadly, no one famous is hankering to move in, either.
The site of my first home, of the mobile type, is now covered by the tarmac of the south runway at Indianapolis International. Shelley probably flew over me more than once.
I may have waved. I was five at most, so I can’t remember if he waved back.
Probably he did.
My second home, not far away, has grown frighteningly small but otherwise has weathered sturdily.
My third, far away in South Florida, I saw weekend before last. One of the hurricanes of last season had walloped it soundly. Blue plastic sheeting covers a good quarter of the roof and something heavy appears to have dented the midsection.
But Dad’s bracing on the gables held, and the house stands, a somewhat battered but defiant prizefighter awaiting whatever swirling roundhouse the summer season chooses to bring.
Most of the world’s conflict arises from two people vigorously espousing the least-badly-broken answer to what invariably turns out to have been the wrong question.
Hang on to this concept as it’s going to appear in future posts.