Happy New Year

Hoping for the best . . .

Substance Matters

Another episode in the-blog-as-scholarly-dick-joke:

Herodotus reported a similar story. Astrabacus, a dead but reanimated hero, had sexual intercourse with a maiden. He even fathered a son called Demaratus. His paramour described Astrabacus as being a phasma or “apparition” in the form of her dead husband, Ariston. Despite being an apparition, Astrabacus was apparently not ethereal. In order for him to have sired a child, at least one part of him must have been substantial.

Killing Time in the Twenty-First Century

The czarina and I watched Inside Llewyn Davis a few days ago. I think that's the right spelling. Coen Brothers movie about the New York City folk music scene in, well, really you can pin it down to a few days in 1960 or 1961 based on one of the closing shots of the movie.

Even though folk music right at the moment depicted in the film's days was way too earnest for my taste, the movie did take place in the neighborhood that kinda grounded my teenage years. As I remarked when watching the movie, "I was born in the right place, just about twenty years too late."

Anyway, I'm wasting time (see title) waiting for my goddamn phone to charge up so that I can get a VPN code to log into one of my work emails. When I was in Denver last month, I showed my younger issue how, considering different programs and phone codes and all that nonsense, I had to open up nine different computer screens and phone messages just to get started. And that's what I'm doing now. Waiting. For something to charge. That. I.

Never

Use.

Wrong century, folks.

And I hate to harp on it, but I'm still not up on the world since November 7. This—in a construction that baffled the Eurotrash we housed for a few months—is not unlike measuring sobriety. I actually clicked on one of my usual news sites today and managed to click away before it loaded. It was like sticking your head in a bar wondering if you could get back out. I am learning firsthand about the phrase "ignorance is bliss." I think there's stuff my wife wants to talk to me about or show me on TV. She said, "You can't keep this up forever." I replied, "I can keep it up as long as I want to."

So, rather than give people hell under an assumed name and enjoying and not enjoying the game, I'm here, typing to no one.

Thoughts of authors are colliding. In the resurrection, does your virtual life go with you?

Why Everything Has to Change, Part I

You do not want to be around me when I've spent a day negotiating the US health care system and the vagaries of homeowners insurance.

Homeowners Insurance Makes No Sense

We have a quasi-ephemeral waterbound asset that was almost legislated out of existence a few years ago. Getting insurance on such a structure is not easy, and for a reason I may or may not go into here, we find ourselves needing insurance after having it for fourteen years—and unknowingly not having it for the last two. Very few insurers offer such policies, and usually then only in combination with a homeowners policy.

We went to an independent agent who said its company that insures floating cabins would not co-insure a house with an asbestos shingle roof (which has been protecting the house for ninety years). 

Whaddya think is gonna be here ninety years from now? This?

the old home place

Or this?

the wyfe pleaser, TVA no. 4-H-174

(Although it's a little more finished now, and about ten years older.)

By the way, feel free to suggest a price on either, much preferably the former. If you live in a city with a six-figure population, you'd be amazed at how little the top joint would cost you. Come live in an area of natural beauty, deep-rooted culture, and some of the roughest-looking civilians you will ever see. And that's the septuaginarians at Kroger at one in the afternoon.

Been quite a day. And four to twelve inches of snow are in the forecast. Flushes 'em all out of the hollows to stock up on body-killing consumables.

And a Happy Hanukkah to All

Shiksa goddess and I just lit the first night of Hanukkah candles. Each year when I put out our Hanukkah flag, I am reminded of the time that our flag was set on fire. This was not a random occurrence; the perps were former classmates of my older son. Nor was it isolated: a few years later, another of his former classmates left a flare on top of one of our cars. Even though I got the license plate as it drove off, the police said that the plate itself was not an indicator of who left the flare. When I asked if the owners had reported the car stolen, no answer was forthcoming.

We'd taken these boys on vacation, etc. Hate conquers all.

And from the "Oh, that's no big deal; boys will be boys" department, in eighth grade, when the class was asked in art class to do something in the style of a well-known artist, the latter perp did a Warhol Campbell's Soup can, with the final s in Campbell's and the first s in Soup in the style of the Schutzstaffel. Nothing to see here; move along. When I saw the reports from Charlottesville in 2017, I could clearly imagine that kid's face among the tiki lights.

Such it is that, after 58 years and in this time in our nation's history, I'm fairly damn proud of Jews making it this long—and to be one of them.

I remember the words of my dear great-aunt Etta Kaganov: "Bobby, it doesn't matter what you say you are. When the Nazis come back, they're gonna get you too."

Not if, but when. 

Aunt Ettie was one of a kind—and probably no small influence on where I've ended up in my life. Aunt Ettie was a New York City schoolteacher for 50 years or so. When I was four years old, she used to take me to her principal and others in the school system who didn't believe I could read the New York Times at that age. Now I'm scared to look at it.

Still haven't seen the news. That's since November 7. Shiksa goddess and I were going out to eat yesterday, and I noticed the flags were at half-staff. She told me that H.W. had died, figuring I'd at least want to be informed of that and that it wouldn't harm me too badly. I had some problems with H.W. (I don't think any former CIA chief should be president), but in retrospect, he may have been the last of the liberal Republicans—at least in the 1980 primaries. What I'd give for a few of those right now.

Fate

Going to Denver, AAR-SBL 2018, this weekend. 

I was in contact with the folks at one of my publishers today about the confab, one of whom has started his own press that I’m also working for, and he offered to give me a badge for the conference. Just call him when I got there. 

So, no housing costs (staying with son and daughter-in-law, one mile from convention), no registration, and my wife remembered we had points on some card that got me enough airfare to fly out there. She says I was meant to go. I wonder if she’ll keep that thought in mind if I get run over by a bus.

If you had told me thirty years ago, or especially thirty-five years ago, that one day I would be traveling halfway across the country for a forty-eight-hour period to attend the annual conference of the American Academy of Religion and Society of Biblical Literature, and that I was really looking forward to it, I would have laughed in your face.

Then again, although there were extenuating circumstances, my first presidential vote was cast for the ticket of Ron Paul and one of the Koch brothers. 

And the irony of both are not unconnected. 

Seven days, no news. I really just can’t recommend this enough. I’m going to have a hard time in the Atlanta airport, trying to avoid televisions. Might be time for the earplugs and finding the nearest airport chapel.

I think it was in Atlanta one time when I was traveling through that I stopped off in the chapel for some peace and quiet. Muslim guy comes in, puts his rug down, does his thing, and gets up to go. I said, “Please don’t take offense, but how do you know which way is east?” He said, “I saw some other guy do it this way.” Speaking of thirty-five years ago, that’s a question I never would have asked in my youth, before meeting the perpetually curious and sociable woman who became my wife.

Next airport chapel I went into, I noticed that they had the direction marked on the wall.

Do What Now?

I’d think the audiobook version would need some clarification.

“The dominant strategic response to sexual violence in conflict is increasingly penal in nature.”

Still Here

In case you're keeping score at home.

Two Questions

1. What awful dictionary did Microsoft Word base its spell check on that it doesn't recognize "diaspora"?

2. If you're just finding this blog and you arrived here via Facebook, please let me know how. You can leave a comment or email me.

Signed,
The Proprietor

Another Sign of Reverse Time Travel

I'm copyediting a book in which the author spelled the word as "marihuana."

Today's Public Health Moment

Just in case you ever wondered what a stethoscope was for, among other things, I suspect:

"Amphoric sounds in the lungs (similar to those made by blowing across the mouth of an empty bottle), which are a sign of a tubercular cavity, were now audible to physicians, having been sufficiently amplified by a stethoscope; a lack of murmurs and a dullness when a patient’s chest area was thumped were signs of the conversion of elastic lung tissue into more fleshlike tissue; diffuse whistling sounds were a sign of irritated and partially obstructed bronchi."

Today's Uncomfortable Truth

"Remember that medications are designed to enable you to continue to live a dysfunctional life, not improve it."

Non Sequitur of the Day

“His family name actually was Tie and his personal name Ying but he had taken the pen-name ‘Patcher of Decadence’ after the monk ‘Lazy and Decadent’ of the Tang dynasty, whose name was associated with baked potatoes.”

Hi, Tony.

Yet Another Stop-the-Presses Moment

Porn typically follows the standard pornographic script.

An Email I Will Long Cherish

From a dear friend of mine -- the only person's whose Facebook friend request I ever accepted, and even that for only a week -- whom I met in our first job out of our respective colleges. We whiled away the hours, mostly second shift, proofreading airline timetables and lottery tickets. We became fast friends, enjoying music, the early Letterman years, Braves baseball, and a variety of other effects. In retrospect it is unreal to recall that we only worked together for eight months, because we bonded for life, although we don't communicate frequently. But my wife is a Facebook friend of his. . . .

My friend is fifty-eight years old and has a delightful six-year-old son, which informs the email I received today:

Hey.

Just wanted to tell you that the Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers live CD has grabbed a spot in Zachary's brain. We listened to it a good bit for a week or so after you sent it to me, and then a couple of times here and there. Yesterday, he was walking around muttering "dum de dum de dum dittle um day, oh New England!" and I just had to laugh. That's not even one of the songs we've played a lot. We were in a loop of playing "I'm a Little Airplane," "Ice Cream Man," "I'm a Little Dinosaur," and "My Little Kookenhaken."

So we had to play "New England" like 3 times on the way to school today.

You are one subversive motherfncker.

Jesus Christ, Google

I can't even load a picture of my own freaking dog?

Mazel Tov

Oy, my mother would have been so proud. Finally, one of her sons became a doctor.

Technology Update

Flip phone? Check.

Word 2003? Check.

Adobe Acrobat 9.0. Check. Maybe it's 7.0. I don't know. It works, and I have the disc if it doesn't.

Unable to intuitively or at a glance operate the televisions in my house? Check. The last time I voluntarily turned on the TV was to watch the Masters a few years ago to help me get to sleep. (I actually have enjoyed watching golf on TV. No stress. Nothing bad happens, except some gazillionaire only makes $60,000 this week for finishing 35th.)

iAnything? Nope. I used to have one of those tiny iPods years ago. I put about a dozen albums on it and lost all interest.

I seem to catch the blame for this, but the -- uh, sh!t, what's the opposite of receptive? (see, you few blog readers; it all comes together) -- end of a plug-in music-type device snapped off in the receptive part of my dashboard while someone related to me by marriage was plugging it in and I was supposedly making a sharp turn. Ehh . . .

Anyway, this little nub is as deep in there as you can get (not far), and according to the geniuses here in the home of the World's Fastest Half-Mile, you'd have to take the whole dashboard out to fetch the thing. About $400 of labor for something that they'll actually fix in about two seconds. I never listened to music much anyway in recent decades. I've been driving around in silence for years, even before that -- and that's Bristol silence in the car, baby, not Brooklyn silence. I think I turned off the radio when Sean Hannity went to New York from Atlanta. I might not be making that up.

[Speaking of which, turns out that Bernie Sanders's boyhood home was about a tenth of a mile from my last known NYC address. Right down the street, make a little turn, two houses down. Have I already mentioned this?]

The problem is that I think my younger son will be taking this v-hikl to Colorado with him. The man needs some music. As did I at that age. But I've always got AM radio, where few people dare to tread.

But the car. It seems to me that if I parked on a steep enough hill and got a little vacuum action going on . . . or a magnet. . . .

Technology.

So yeah: AM radio.

What prompted this post is that Tere bought a shredder a year or two ago and had it up where she does some work, but she never uses it. I have all kinds of uses for it. I moved it down to the LoD headquarters a week or two ago. Used it yesterday. What fun.

Shredder. Check.

It's May 1, 2016, and I'm happy to have a shredder at hand. This century is just passing me by. I'm not really complaining.

Facebook. Assumed name. Five friends. Wife, two sons, one future daughter-in-law, one ex-girlfriend. I've received two friend requests from people who know me, who know the name from Tere's posts. One I friended for about a week and told him, Look, you know I love you, but I can't do this. He understood perfectly. The other friend request is just sitting there. Completely wonderful guys. Love 'em. Facebook is a rats' nest, or can be.

Younger son doesn't post at all. I think his last activity was changing his relationship status four months ago. I enjoy seeing my older son's posts, as it's mostly Chicago antics with a very nice group of people around various arts scenes.

But if Facebook were to go away tomorrow, I'd know less about what's going on with my son (well, and his ex), and that's about it. We can always talk on the phone, which he's happy to do. Which is a hell of a lot more than my parents got from me at age 26. I'd talk to my mother once a week and my father every few months. Not like they were after me, either. Well, actually they were hearing more from me at age 26 because I was fixin' to get married. . . .

Geez . . .

Maybe I'll do a post about my bar mitzvah.

That's not me, but it might as well be, except I of course had the Coke-bottle glasses. And the rabbi was a lot younger, and my great-grandfather (who I think appeared in the picture) was a lot older. And shorter. Grampa Isaac was a little guy. About 4-10. Always told me to move my legs so that he didn't have to step over me. If anyone stepped over me, I wouldn't grow. That's the kind of advice you take seriously from a 90-year-old guy who is 4-10.

Saying "Plate of Shrimp" Is So Much Easier

The lattice of coincidence. Who shows up again?

Agbonkhianmeghe E. Orobator