one of the only invitations I've gotten all month...

I just got a letter from the ICA inviting me to be the director's guest at a special members-only preview for the next exhibition if only I pledge a year of membership and indicate as much in the enclosed envelope. What do you think? Should I take him up on it? Should I start calling and asking to speak with him, and being like "I just want to know what time he's picking me up! Okay, okay....just tell me this: is he going to wear brown or black, because I'm wearing green, but it's more like a black-green than a brown-green."

In the letter, he also reminded me that the ICA was "one of the only places in Boston where you can see contemporary art (or something like that)." This is like thing with the cheeses. There should be an algorithm by which one can determine whether a thing can truly be said to be "one of the only" of its kind. Or each conceivable geographical location could have a master book of the numbers of things in it. Or the ratio of the number of things generally allotted to the category and things actually in it.

At any rate, I'm hoping to talk this over with the director on our way to the opening.

Legacy

One hundred and fifty years ago in Calabria, Italy, when crops failed, farmers reasoned that at least the 'Ndrangheta wouldn't get them. Yesterday, when a great-great-granddaughter in Boston's attempt to highlight her hair didn't work, her first thought was that at least they didn't turn out badly.

No words were harmed in the attempt to make these highlights.

Highlights

I tried to highlight my hair the other day, and there's this little brush you use to sort of paint them on, and it occurred to me that I could use it to spell words across my head. And then I remembered that while my hair is slightly wavy, sometimes I try to blow-dry it straight (but can't get it as pointily so as the stylist did the first day, of course. Never in the history of the world has a woman's hair looked the way it looked the day she got it done) and sometimes, when it's rainy or misty, it gets ringlet-y. So if I chose words whose letters had certain shapes and calculated the, um, sine and cosine of the various waves my highlights could feasibly display one word when my hair was wavy and another when it was straight.

suggestions?

My sister's baby is due on May 23. We know it's a girl, but the name has been kept classified, until last night, when my dad told me that he knew it, and that my mom did, too.

I knew it started with an "A" because for her baby shower she asked for (ha, I'd originally typed "ordered") one of those giant Pottery Barn wooden "A"'s, and I thought I knew my sister and brother in law: Ava. I was 99% sure. I really thought they were Ava people.

But it's not, according to my dad. He then tolerated a few yes-or-no questions, during which I learned:

> it's not monosyllabic
> it's neither extremely uncommon nor extremely common
> he and I do not know someone in common with that name

and here's the interesting part: I asked whether it ended with an A, and he said he didn't think so, and asked my mom, who confirmed that it did not. So. What is a name that starts with A, is polysyllabic, of moderate modern usage, and may or may not end with an A.

I should say that I don't think they're the type to go in for things like "Mathilde" and pronouncing it with a slight A on the end.

P. thinks it should be "Alice" - or "Ollis," really, which is funny if you know their last name.

and another thing

Micky Dolenz back in the day? Greatest voice on earth. Can I put an MP3 on here? Also? Dreamy. I had such a crush on (the 1960's) him when I was little. Having a crush on someone's past incarnation was tragic, but I guess it's kind of like little girls getting all worked up over horses. You know, investigating things without any danger of, okay, no more posting tonight.

Maybe all of our crushes are on past incarnations. CDeW, if you're reading, I feel like that sentence wants to run away from home and join your blog.

"remuneration"

is the worst word. Because it has to do with numbers, so people think "numer" as in "numeral" but it's not "renumeration."

I also just realized that the person who has commented here as "Anonymous," whom I privately outed, is the only person I know who has witticisms attributed to him on the internet. It's like raaaiiinn, on yer weddin' day.

Also, due to city-limits signs, my movie-going, frames-shopping, snack-buying walk took me from Somerville to Cambridge to Somerville to Cambridge to Somerville.

post-it note

> remember to have brought in flowers

(sigh)

I, I, I am going to marry Jemaine Clement, but everyone else should buy his album:

According to the product review on Amazon, "If amazing, delightful, and hilarious is your idea of funny, then prepare for undisappointment."

Souk of Pearle

Rather than spending all of one's spare time riding trains into different neighborhoods in the hope of finding a pair of frames to replace those lost on the Sam Adams Brewery tour, there should be a souk, so that all of the eyeglasses vendors are on the same street, or set of blocks, or whatever.

I guess that's called "being really rich and famous."

more overheard things.

Today a skate punk asked me if I had an "extra dollar." I don't know that I've ever had an extra dollar. I should have directed him to "One Less Car."

I don't remember the context, but "....exactly nine months, two weeks, and three days to the day...."

I really don't mind dumb T-shirts. But preachy dumb T-shirts? On the bike path last night I came upon a nimwit poking around the community garden with a T-shirt that read "One Less Car." What does that mean? Should I wear a T-shirt that reads "One Less Crucified Somerville Schmuck"? And why isn't it "One Fewer Car" or "One Fewer Somerville Schmuck"? I guess because you don't know the total number of cars or schmucks (although the ration seems to be 0:1, in my neck of the woods.) But back to the point - if this guy never owned a car, is it "one less car?" If he had a car and got rid of it, is he really justified in wearing a t-shirt that says "one less car?" Does he know that that his action has resulted in one less car? What if I had just gone out and bought another car? Or two other cars? Then I would have three and he would have none, and he would have to wear "One Car Fewer Than Would Be Otherwise Had Someone Not Gone Out And Purchased Two."

Or maybe not. My math is shaky, as will be remembered by the people I was having dinner with on NYE 2007 when I was rather swayingly holding forth on the relationship between punctuation and mathematical functions, and was like "IS four plus three eight, or does four plus three BECOME eight?" I suspect I've mentioned this before, but it's such an Oldie/Goodie. But I have to say that had my architect housemate not pointed it out, I do believe it would have gone un-commented upon, even if it's because no one pays attention to me.

I guess the problem is that "One Less Car" is a sentence fragment masquerading as a real thought. This is funny, as in my new job I find myself working with writers who are very suspicious of sentence fragments. I love them in theory, because when used well they show how few words need to be used to communicate, and I think that they're often compelling by structural definition. And people don't always realize the semantic power of grammar and punctuation. At work, however, the DO love the trailing-off ellipses, which often strikes me as three bullets to the heart...

One thing I can say if anyone ever considers an MAPW from Carnegie Mellon? It really does teach you how to argue for your choices, which is important in a world where, more or less, everyone thinks they can write. And they can, of course, but my sense is that with us, every single thing is considered and optimized. Back me up, Miss Marple! Daisy! (also, MAPW's? Whoa.)

In other news. a canary zoomed past our deck last night and landed on our fence, where it sat for hours. P. supposed it was hurt or freaked out by not being in a cage. Our next door neighbor tried to capture it because there was a cat lurking nearby. But now it's in our grape arbor thing, so http://boston.craigslist.org/gbs/laf/648256545.html. But if all is lost, it would be sort of neat to get a photograph of the cat that ate the canary, for future comparison.

workplace invention

A hat that says, on the back, "I am listening to music."

This reminds me of when I used to work on a helpdesk and had to wear headphones, and if someone came over to talk to us and we didn't want to talk to them, we'd just smile and then say, into our mouthpiece, "okay, now click start - programs - accessories...."

proposed class

I've been thinking of putting together a class for the Cambridge Center for Adult Education tentatively called Language In Use, which would use discourse analysis to look at pragmatics, interactional sociolinguistics, a little philosophy of language, possibly CDA, and, if I don't like them, relevance/conversational coherence. Maybe something like this:

Week 1: intro. discussion of transcription techniques/theory. examples. (then they go home, record a conversation, transcribe & photocopy for all)

Then for the following weeks, we use the transcripts to talk about, maybe,

Week 2: Brown & Levinson (face)

Week 3: Grice (conversational maxims)

Week 4: Austin (performatives etc., conditions of felicity)

I also want to throw in the use of dissociation in the media, but maybe that'd be better in a class on rhetoric (the problem being the compartmentalization of "a class on rhetoric," although it could just be a broad "Intro to" with segments on history (if need be), argument, rudimentary analysis, devices. Although Argument would be a good class in and of itself.

Just thinking out loud. Comments welcomed!

music

Why does taste in music often change as one gets older? Has yours?

I like to think that there are soundbuds in the ear that mature like tastebuds.

I have never been more ashamed.

In an effort to lose the weight I gained during my 6-month internship with the refrigerator and bar, I've been Eating Right & Exercising, by which I mean waking up every morning expecting to look like Heidi Klum. Here, at my new place of employment, we have an on-site fitness center (which in my imagination was vast and gleaming) with an elliptical machine so haaaaaaard (you have to balance on the pedals) that the only reason I can come up with why a designer here is quitting to join the Army is because he figures that when it comes to getting fit and preserving morale, it will be easier than the elliptical machine. Anyway, the morning after I rode this beast, I got on the scale, looked down, and thought "(miffed sound!) I'm not doing this for my health!"

The Dove You-Tube people are going to come after me, use me in one of their videos, and then slay me. And it will be just.

Anonymous!

I mean the one who posted about the bathing cap while reading. That totally gave you away. I know who you are.

observation

Right, so I just want to point out that every day, across the globe, many people step into showers wearing their reading glasses, probably.

overheard in davis sq.

Wandered into one of those cooler-than-thou little hand-crafty boutiques where you can like buy a little kit that walks you through embroidering a skull. I was ignored by the hipsterette behind the jewelry counter, which irritated me, and then I was irritated that I was irritated since normally I love being left alone by salesy types. Then someone came up and asked Hippetta if she had a different one of some thing or another, since the one was dusty, and she said "Basically, what you see is what's out."

Good but not as good as when a pair of girls was walking ahead of me through Harvard yard, and one said to the other, "I mean, we literally made eye contact."


Obviously, I have never made any sort of messy statement like these.

Litmus

I was telling P. about the sailing thing that Jen and I had gone on, the one which promised "up to eight cheeses." He asked how many cheeses there were. I thought for a moment, and then told him I thought four or five, but probably five, because five is more likely to be considered "up to eight" than four was. They could have served only two cheeses and still claimed "up to eight," since this has thus far gone unregulated. Then P. said he imagined I was a big hit on the boat.

wastin' away....in Someromerville.....

Of all the reasons to be up at twenty to six on an unemployed Friday morning, my favorite is when your friend Jen is taking you to Key West for the weekend.

How is it that I don't know how to eat?

Okay. So, I would hate to be called a "foodie," because to me that implies elitist attitudes that I don't (like to think I) share. I like food, and like to make it, and find it interesting in general , and, truth be told, probably revel unattractively in my esteem for low-brow favorites, like Brooklyn-style pizza from Domino's, which if you haven't tried, well, I have no words for you. But I don't get exercised about where my veal comes from, and don't experience anything NSFW if a farmer's market has heirloom tomatoes, and frankly don't pretend that there is any herb which might flourish under my iron fist.

But then I've realized that I never do this thing that people on Food Network are always doing, namely, putting more than one thing on a fork at one time. This makes me nervous, but also makes perfect sense, and is the whole point of eating things with other things (of course there are exceptions what with palate cleansers etc). But if I fail to put a forkful of Ina Garten's oven-baked fried chicken on a fork along with some of her buttermilk mashed potatoes, is there some kind of alchemy I'm missing out on? There has to be, doesn't there? P. tells me that all of the rice-eating in Japan confounded him until he realized that you were meant to have a bite of fish immediately folloed by a bite of rice, and that gestalt was the thing you chewed and swallowed.

If this is true, then eating is infinitely more interesting than I thought it was.

Faithful readers? Do you do this? Do you not do this? What's the story here?