I don't know if it's the weather or the time of year, but rainy fall afternoons make me think of jazz. When I think of jazz, I still mourn Oscar Peterson. Growing up a piano player, being a fan of ranking everything, my favorite piano players were Keith Emerson for Rock, Oscar Peterson for Jazz and Glenn Gould for Classical. I'm happy to say that two of the three are Canadian and that even that point of national pride would not dissuade many non-Canadians from agreeing with me.
A little bit of jazz for your next rainy afternoon:
Some of the best web 2.0 hook, line and sinker advertising I've seen in a while... well done Nova Scotia!
Manners of Conduct in School and Out
my favorite excerpts...
Girls, the word lady should suggest, ideally, a girl (or a woman) who keeps herself physically fit, her thinking on a high plane, and her manners gentle and winsome.
Boys, the word gentleman means, ideally, a fine, athletic, manly fellow who is an all round good sport in the best sense, and who has manners that do not prevent other people from seeing how fine he is.
If you are well brought up, girls, you will not loiter on the street to talk to one another; much less to boys. Street visiting is taboo.
Boys, a gentleman does not detain on street corners a girl or woman friend. If he meets one with whom he wishes to speak more than a moment, he asks permission to walk a little way with her. During the moment that he does detain her, a gentleman talks with his hat in his hand.
Girls, if a seat is offered you, accept it at once with "Thank you." Don't explain that you don't mind standing.
The chewing of gum in a street-car, in church, or in any other place outside of your own private room stamps you at once as "common."
Boys, it is not necessary to help the girls mount the stairs in school unless they are blind or crippled.
Girls, it is better not to twine your arms about one another in the corridors and on the stairs; also, not to kiss one another tenderly if you separate for a few moments. Love your friends dearly; but be sensible, not sentimental.
When you enter your classroom, as well as when you leave it, glance towards your teacher and, if she is looking, bow pleasantly.
If the function is a dance, boys, avoid too many consecutive dances with the same girl. Confining your attentions noticeably to the same girl makes her conspicuous and mars the general pleasure.
Avoid looking at a boy with your soul in your eyes. A girl holds the key to the social situation. She should keep such a situation at school on a cordial but wholly matter-of-fact basis,—absolutely free from sentimentality.
Boys, you can easily tell what girls would have you sit very close to them, and hold their hands, and put your arms around them. But, be manly. Always protect a girl; protect her from yourself, even from herself. If she does not wish to be so protected, avoid her as you would the plague.
Use a fork when eating vegetables and salad,—and ice-cream, if an ice-cream fork is provided.
Okay, I'm showing my age a bit here, but I remember Paul Lynde from the center Hollywood Square for many years. I also remember him as getting way too many laughs for jokes I didn't understand as a very young child. That said, in reading some of his best lines in retrospect, either this guy, the writers, or a combination of both were comical wizards when it came to one-liners and double entendres. Often set up by Peter Marshall 's questions, I now get why Lynde was so loved for so many year.
As a side note, I always thought the voice for Roger the Alien on American Dad was a dead ringer for Lynde... kudos Seth. Here are some of my Paul Lynde favorites:
Peter Marshall: In "Alice in Wonderland", who kept crying "I'm late, I'm late?"
Paul Lynde: Alice, and her mother is sick about it.
Paul Lynde: Bitterly disappointed. Peter Marshall: What is a pullet?
Paul Lynde: A little show of affection... Peter Marshall: Prometheus was tied to the top of a mountain by the gods because he had given something to man. What did he give us?
Paul Lynde: I don't know what you got, but I got a sports shirt. Peter Marshall: It is considered in bad taste to discuss two subjects at nudist camps. One is politics. What is the other?
Paul Lynde: Tape measures. Peter Marshall: True or false, the navy has trained whales to recover objects a mile deep.
Paul Lynde: At first they tried unsuccessfully with cocker spaniels... Peter Marshall: When you pat a dog on its head he will usually wag his tail. What will a goose do?
Paul Lynde: Make him bark. Peter Marshall: Burt Reynolds is quoted as saying, "Dinah (Shore)'s in top form. I've never known anyone to be so completely able to throw herself into a..." A what?
Paul Lynde: A headboard. Peter Marshall: In one state, you can deduct $5 from a traffic ticket if you show the officer...what?
Paul Lynde: A ten dollar bill. Peter Marshall: If you were pregnant for two years, what would you give birth to?
Paul Lynde: Whatever it is, it would never be afraid of the dark. Peter Marshall: What did James Watt invent after fooling around with his wife's tea kettle?
Paul Lynde: James Watt Jr. Peter Marshall: It is the most abused and neglected part of your body-- what is it?
Paul Lynde: Mine may be abused but it certainly isn't neglected! Peter Marshall: In the Bible, who was found in a basket among the bulrushes?
Paul Lynde: Colonel Sanders. Peter Marshall: Now listen carefully, Paul...during the time of the hula hoop, the yo-yo, and Davy Crockett hats, who was in the White House?
Paul Lynde: I'll say the yo-yo! Peter Marshall: Eddie Fisher recently stated, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry for them both.” Who or what was he referring to?
Paul Lynde: His fans. Peter Marshall: According to the old song, "At night, when you're asleep, into your tent I'll creep." Who am I?
Paul Lynde: The scoutmaster! Peter Marshall: Is it possible to drink too much water?
Paul Lynde: Yes, it's called drowning! Peter Marshall: True or false, Guatemala once declared war on Germany.
Paul Lynde: Yes, and it's a good thing Germany never found out! Peter Marshall: Paul, why are forest rangers in remote locations ordering goats as standard equipment?
Paul Lynde: Because the sheep are wising up? Peter Marshall: You have a bunch of unwanted hair. According to Dr. Thotusen, what is most often the cause of unwanted hair? A bunch of it?
Paul Lynde: Running over a llama.
As much as I slagged Hallowe'en in my last post, here's one of the few great aspects of the holiday. The tragic self-esteem of Charlie Brown. The dependency issues of Linus. The fawning infatuation of Sally. The repressed sexuality of Lucy. The denial of Peppermint Patty. The pressured prodigy of Schroeder. The tacit understand that every adult only speaks gibberish and that the only cool character is a dog - enjoy! ... btw... I got a rock.
Is it just me or does Hallowe'en seem more culturally devoid every year? I know. I get it. I'm kidless. And while baby goats shouldn't be a consideration for one's love or hate of Hallowe'en, I'm thinking back on my own childhood at memories of All Hallow's Eves gone by and realizing that there really aren't that many fond memories. I'm not saying I hated the event, in fact I remember, at the time, having a certain anticipatory delight in thinking up costumes and gathering free candy. Quite simply, the costume/candy ritual was fun, but did not inspire near as many found remembrances as other holidays.
Let's take a sobering look at Hallowe'en: pre-pubescent, confused children try to hide behind dollar store Transformer masks as they threaten homeowners with vigilante violence unless they fork over individually-wrapped sugar confections. Clearly then, Hallowe'en has come to serve several purposes:
1) attempt to feed disenfranchised children once a year and allow for governments to forgo actual food subsidies.
2) satisfy the powerful dentist lobby, where 4 out of 5 dentists agree more candy is a good thing... no, bad thing... well, privately, a good thing.
3) seeks to encourage indentured servitude of cane workers in Haiti and the Dominican Republic.
4) bows to the snack food lobbyists who don't have tons of money, but keep the assistants of government officials knee deep in Junior Mints.
5) endorses gang swarming for the purposes of intimidating the middle class.
6) allows our vampire overlords to come out one night a year and feed on Blood Red Twizzlers.
7) makes lower class kids feel inadequate when they have to wear their Superman Underoos as a costume.
8) enables the rarely-seen-at-other holidays "razor-blade-in-the-apple" lunatics.
9) forces adults, who would never otherwise think of dressing up, to participate in a drunken costume party ritual.
10) remind me, that despite all else, for two years I had the coolest stormtrooper costume in town.
Sure, everyone knows "Rock, Paper, Scissors". And sure, some of us "experimented" in university with the occasional drunken binges of throwing "dynamite" or "gun" into the mix, but the folks at www.baseballbatyouth.com have taken Roshambeau to a fantastic new level. Three options have expanded to twenty-five; this is no longer a game for drunken escapades.
You may have to make saving throws against spells or find ways to build your armor class... Gygax Beware! Sorry... became a geeky teenager for a second there. Expand your Roshambeau and party it up with friends.
According to Mary Richert (I really don't know who she is, but she probably doesn't know who I am either) of guardian.co.uk, social networking sites are more popular than porn sites. In the article she asserts some criticisms about social networks that I agree with. Most importantly, she states that, in comparing social networks to the antisocial aspects of porn, "there's something similarly antisocial about social networking sites."
My immediate concern is that internet technology has been driven by porn since its inception. Broadband was developed simply as a way to get porn faster delivery times. Porn drove peer to peer applications for almost a decade... let's face it, while many people on Kazaa were downloading Britney Spears songs, other were looking for Britney Spears lookalikes in compromising positions. Bandwidth demands spiked for Pam Anderson and Tommy Lee and, a few years later, for A Night in Paris.
While, from a purely moral and sociological perspective I can appreciate the fall of porn from this pinnacle position, I fear the future without the omnipresent push of porn. I don't expect holographic technology is going to be demanded for people to talk to in-laws overseas, but 3-D porn? The movement that is going to bring the tactile/kinesthetic cyber interfaces of the future may be left in the cold if lonely education has to prompt change instead of porn. We have reached a precipice my friends. As Trekkie Monster of Avenue Q sang: "Why you think the 'net was born? Porn. Porn. Porn."You think Michael Phelps is some kinda hero for swimming fast? Forget it. Brad Sciullo is my hero. Like people who say "I climbed the mountain because it was there." Sciullo ate a 20 pound "Beer Barrel Belly Buster" burger, not because he had to, but because it was on the menu: "To me, it's the accomplishment. This is a passion of mine; this is my sport. Just like they would try and compete to win a marathon of some sort, I am trying to compete and defeat this burger as an accomplishment - it's another thing under my belt." Maybe a new elastic belt, but a belt all the same.
The next time you think about having dessert and the thought process goes something like "I just couldn't eat another bite", think of Brad Sciullo. Did he say "I just coudn't eat another bite"? No! He gave near an entire cow a reason for dying. Kudos Brad! Kudos!
