The End of June

Would this Jew lie? All right, so it's hardly a secret that I enjoy word play, or perhaps it is, I'm not entirely sure that I do it with great regularity or make it obvious, but I probably do. Certainly I employ many adverbs and speak in wishy-washyisms. But right, June, it's all set to end in a few minutes here by this midwestern clock, so I'm sneaking in a last-minute post. Another thing they're trying to bring an end to is the Oxford Comma. I'm too lazy to link to any of the articles about it. I will say, though, that I'm in favor, because I operate most of my grammar based on speech cadence rather than actual rules learned in a book. And so, when I make a list, I like that last comma as a pause in delivery.

Due to discussions of abolishing the Oxford, or serial, Comma, the Wikipedia entry for it appears to have undergone some amusing temporary edits, including this one, which I will post lest it be removed before you click the link. It is listed under "Unresolved Ambiguity."

The Times once published an unintentionally humorous description of a Peter Ustinov documentary, noting that "highlights of his global tour include encounters with Nelson Mandela, an 800-year-old demigod and a dildo collector".[21] This would still be ambiguous if a serial comma were added, as Mandela could then be mistaken for a demigod, although he would be precluded from being a dildo collector.

I stumbled upon some exclusive dumb shit today, called The Royal Few. All of these websites make me embarrassed for the people who create them and the people who would want to be a part of them. But I guess because I wouldn't join is precisely why I feel that way.

Before I forget, I must promote Quietube, which strips embedded ads from youtube videos, and provides a link you can then share with whomever you would like. I wasn't too sure about how many people were really using this, so I wanted to go ahead and get my little share of the word out there.

At one of the coffee shops I frequent, there is the delight of a chalkboard in each restroom. I consume extra glasses of water (coupled with the diuretic effects of caffeine) to ensure I can make a trip or two to do some scribbling. Today I scrawled "July 4th is only a quarter," and returned later to find LOL and an arrow pointing to the phrase. Sadly, all it takes is for an anonymous stranger to enjoy my punny scrawlings to make my day. So thank you stranger, I hope you went back to enjoy "Any mathematician knows that mean people are just fucking average." I think a big part of the reason I enjoy their enjoyment is all of the joy I too received when reading amusing stall scribblings over the years.

Tonight's crazy ass weather put an electricity in the air that I am fully behind, especially because I managed to not be hailed upon. It's so clichéd to talk about the weather, but going from mid-80s, to strange breezes and dust bowls in the park, to full-blown hail, well that's Chicago! It hurt a little bit to type that sentence, I think it was the exclamation point. Stay tuned for my updating the font and colors if not the entire layout on this blog because I forget what it looks like when I am not typing in this little box. And it is ugly, oh yes it is ugly.

Oh, and this weekend, let's celebrate America. Because sure there's shit wrong with America, but it's also pretty all right. UHMERIKUH!

Wi[sh]consin

I'm vaguely fresh off of a visit to the rurals of Wisconsin. And I'm super fresh on wanting to vomit on the married couple seated across from me with their, as I see it, forced affections. The same couple was here yesterday, and one of my favorite moments was when someone went to sit next to this girl or, I guess, woman, and she said, "Oh, sorry, my husband is sitting there." He hadn't been there for quite some time and I rather liked the idea that he was imaginary, but it's funny to me the way that, it should be natural to say my husband because of course he was her husband and yet it still came across as forced to me. Just maybe I kind of have problems. In fact, that's as much the point of this blog as anything else, an ongoing chronicle, stored freely by google, of my association with the world around me and my willingness to share certain thoughts with the knowledge that, of course, it might be searchable and read.

My favorite recent search to land a stranger here: "why deaf people are assholes."

Have I mentioned yet I need to rework the color scheme in here? It's amazing that if you go back and read certain entries where I reference things like this they will one day make even less since since, by then, I may actually have changed them and yet you won't know unless you are diligently following, in which case you will just think that you do or don't like the colors, which is exactly the same situation as now.

But let's talk 'Consin 'cause it's on my mind. I am going to not name the town I was in, to both preserve it's relative untaintedness by strangers like me, and to protect it's identity in general lest anything negative seem to come out. It shouldn't, because this town kicks ass. It's on Lake Michigan and a good ways from Chicago, which is a reminder if I ever needed one of the enormity of Lake Michigan. No really, this lake is enormous. I had to clip an f-bomb there. Sometimes I curse too much. We were outliers there, it's true, and yet we were quickly made to feel at home and it doesn't have to be that way. I am skewed in general by my own liberal upbringing and exposures and while I know very conservative individuals and groups exist, it doesn't mean close to the same thing if you aren't standing next to it.

So I just realized that by keeping this vague I risk making this exceedingly bland, but I didn't want to not give a shout out to how grand this place is. Double negatives can be great. OH MAN I WANT TO STAB THIS COUPLE. It's weird, by the strange nature of their interactions, a bizarre formality and forced (again, as I see it) affections, they seem like robots.

But this Wisconsin town. It's small. Everyone knows everyone, but that doesn't mean everyone likes everyone, and yet it has a safety to it, a regularity in the way everyone attends the few bars in town. I used to live in a small town, not for long, but up here they seemed to get it much more right than where I lived, even though my former residence was much more a known quantity. Guess that makes sense, as when the secret's out, the magic can get lost a little. And so I'll preserve the sanctity of this little town.

Hell, every place I stopped in Wisconsin on the way up and back was so different from what I'm generally used to. I tend to have a short memory for a lot of things. But it made me glad. Glad I can still be surprised by things, glad that not everywhere is the same, and maybe even glad I don't live there. Because maybe the magic wears off, and maybe not, but magic is just unexplained occurrences of real life that you find amazing. You don't always need an answer. Just enjoy. Thanks Wisconsin. Thanks friends.

A Short of Sorts on Shorts

I found myself fiending for a 1984 British Olympic uniform for not the first time earlier, so I embarked on a very non-scientific google search to see if there is, in fact, still some way to acquire these garments. I found little but did not dig deep because I was immediately intrigued by this Wikipedia entry on shorts. It is extensive, as many Wiki entries are, and awesome. I haven't even read the entirety of that entry, but it did say that, after Adidas sponsored the 1980 Olympics, their nylon shorts became a fashion item for some years. Oh that those years still existed!

I truly appreciated the segment on cut-offs and Daisy Dukes, especially for the final sentence which I have placed in bold for emphasis. On a side note, I tend to use far too many adverbs.

Cut-offs or Daisy Dukes

Home-made by cutting the legs off trousers, typically jeans (known as "denim cut-offs"), above the knee. These were particularly popular in the early 1970s. The cut is not finished or hemmed and the fabric is left to fray. They became so popular that they were sold in stores as such. Originally a practical use for trousers with worn-through knees, they are now a type of shorts in their own right. The ultra-short version of jean cut-offs are also known as Daisy Dukes, in reference to Catherine Bach's character of that name from the American television show The Dukes of Hazzard. They are a form of hot-pants or short shorts. The character Tobias Fünke from the television series Arrested Development is also known for wearing cut-off jeans as an undergarment.

With the arrival of warm weather, I get the urge to chop the legs off of weathered pants. Although I wear shorts for far less of the year, I end up washing them far more than my pants because I am routinely sweating through them. The thing is, at my favorite place to shop, Marshall's, it's just as cheap to buy a pair of pants and cut them off as it is to buy a pair of shorts. Especially since I can never seem to find shorts of the length and fit that I prefer. I have minor hoarder tendencies as well, so I often end up chopping the sleeves off of shirts I never wear under the illusion that I will then be more likely to wear them at some point. Hell, I even want to cut my hair every week or less. Guess that's why Meursault ends up shooting somebody. The heat can make you irrational and crazy!

In one maddening moment on a run today I felt a beard hair get lodged in my gumline. I tried to remove it so frantically that I ripped part of my gum off, when a little patience would have removed it easily. Instead, of course, I drove it in deeper and had to execute some surgical precision to remove it once home.

I walked by a coffee shop earlier whose chalkboard read "Home of Sluts" on the first line. But I've been there, and it's not slutty enough for me.

Stoked to invade rural Wisconsin for the weekend. Goal is to not get beaten up for my stupid haircut and dumb clothes. Maybe a beach run in some Daisy Dukes...Viva Wisconsin!

Noontime in Chicago

Excursions to the movies have been somewhat of a rarity for me for quite some time. I suppose in some ways I have always had a weird feeling about movies, or really just going to them. One thing I can't do, for instance, is go to the movies alone. And so I tend to end up there only on suggestion and invite, creating a rather incongruous map of films. This past Sunday I took in the film Midnight in Paris, on the invitation of a friend. As it happens, I hadn't heard of the film, but thanks to the wonders of the internet, a simple search of "new woody allen movie" yielded the film title and a allowed for a quick review of the cast.

Owen Wilson was about all I needed to see on the billing, as his presence alone generally produces something redeemable for me. The circumstances were opportune as they let me go into the film in my most preferred way: with next to no knowledge and thus next to no expectation. I'm not exactly the greatest film reviewer but I'll say this one is pretty delightful. I don't think I spoil a thing by pointing out it pokes fun at nostalgia and the concept of the golden age. See I like it when film and books poke fun at the things I get roiling around in my head from the standpoint of having been there. Condemnation without any association, on the other hand, aggravates me. You get to make the joke because you were or are part of the club. There are many choice characterizations of famed artists and authors that are playful and amusing.

Nor did it hurt to have some moments of Lea Seydoux who you know is clearly a model but has this "but I'm simple and could never be a model, I'm just this country girl" thing. The only problem I have with characters like hers is I then find myself out walking about expecting to find their carbon copy suited just pour moi (to use the extremely limited amount of French I have maintained). I can't explain why I chose French over Spanish in high school, but whatever the little spark was gets reawakened every time I see movies set in France. Heck, I'm listening to Carla Bruni songs at the moment just because of her cameo in the movie. It's a testament to the fleeting and obsessive nature that may always have existed but the presence of all this content at fingertips just seems to magnify.

Merde, it appears that I've already taken to a ramble-a-thon. The evolution or reverse evolution of my blog is such a strange thing to me. A day removed from my aggravating eavesdrop of coffee shop conversation (to be accurate, I wasn't so much eavesdropping as I was unable to ignore the loud and obnoxious monologue/vague dialogue going on next to me) I will refrain from comment as it is something I get to do plenty in here. In fact I feel as if I vacillate between those melancholies and these more joyful embrace posts.

So following that note, I'll keep a theme here and give love to the Chicago summer. It's hot for the moment, very hot, but out in the heat was a free concert treat, with Iron and Wine headlining a show opened by The Head and The Heart. Nevermind the music, which was great—although Iron and Wine sounded like a jam band to my surprise—the atmosphere was unbeatable. There had to be a good 7,000 18-35 year-olds, all in good spirits, likely augmented by having brought their own spirits, wine, beer, and that other grass to enjoy on the grass. I had waves of healthy nostalgia and, for those few hours, everything seemed right with the world.