Funny Face
Hello World,
Happy! There's so many eventful days coming up that a person just wouldn't know where to start to wish anybody a happy everything. It's not only Valentine's Day, but also the beginning of Chinese New Year, plus Mardi Gras, Shrove Tuesday and Ash Wednesday, all in a lump of romance, frivolity, lunacy and repentance, and I want to be in that number, when the saints go marching in, by golly. These are not goofy little ersatz holidays that have been fabricated out of whole cloth by the greeting card companies or advertising agencies, but the actual real heavy-hitters of the genre that have stood the test of time, and some of them, back even before time started. Everyone knows that I'm on board with the idea that there's no wrong way to celebrate holidays, so I invite you to pick one and give it all you've got, or try a little bit of them all, in the true spirit of tolerance and diversity. Whichever you choose, I hope you'll have a whale of a time, but you'd better put the spurs to it, because everyone knows that time is fleeting.
Not so fast! I couldn't help but notice the opposite effect seems to have created its own sort of tempus fugit anomaly in the area, much to my surprise. Our local newspaper (their motto: "After All, You Can't Wrap Fish in the Internet") described it this way -
"We're looking for guest bloggers to help us cover
Hudson Valley Restaurant Week, which goes from
March 15 through 28."
Excuse me??? That sounds like one pretty long week to me, and don't forget, I'm coming off several short weeks in a row at work, and they are always the longest weeks in the world, so I have some experience with this phenomenon already. Of course, one doesn't want to rain on the Restaurant Week parade, as it were, and make them cut short their festivities for the sake of linguistic accuracy, but I would like to think that it would not be beyond the expertise of the newspaper to come up with a different term to describe their 14-day extravaganza, rather than using the word "week" as if it means just any old assortment of a various number of days. Also not saying what they mean, I mentioned to Bill that the neighbors had invited us to a Mardi Gras party on Saturday, to which he retorted: "May I point out that this is like a Thanksgiving Day Parade on the Saturday before Thanksgiving? Obviously this is a 'Samedi Gras' party, non?" Well, in the interests of linguistic accuracy, I'd have to agree with him there.
Of course, the Mardi Gras came way early in New Orleans this year, as their beloved Saints won the Super Bowl in improbable fashion over the favored Colts, and turning the city even more on its head than usual at this time of year, which is a tough trick to pull off. It was a first for the Saints and their legions of long-suffering fans, and they celebrated like it was the first thing they had won since the Battle of New Orleans in 1815, with the Colts being represented by the British Army instead, and musket balls rather than footballs, although the outcome was fundamentally the same in both cases. And historically speaking, no recital of February days would be complete without mentioning the birthday of our sixteenth President, Abraham Lincoln, on Friday the 12th, and the dinosaurs and I can remember a time when this was celebrated as its very own holiday, far and wide. Nowadays, poor old Honest Abe is lumped in together with the rest of the thundering herd on Presidents Day, coming up on Monday, and celebrating them all, regardless of their merits, makes this not so much of an honor to the deserving, as it is a consolation prize to the rogues and scoundrels instead, and they know who they are, believe me.
Speaking of consolation, now that even the Super Bowl is behind us, this leaves the wide world of sports even fewer options to entice the hard-core fan, wearing out the buttons on the TV remote in a desperate attempt to find some other athletic competition besides figure skating, gymnastics or college basketball. They already played the Pro Bowl the week before the Super Bowl, so there's not even that to look forward to, and although the Winter Olympics are about to get underway, not everyone finds them as interesting as the network executives apparently hope they would. Just when you think that it can't possibly get any worse, when the 24-hour sports channels are reduced to showing girls high school lacrosse or championship darts in prime time, along comes something even more pathetic, at least according to one alert reader:
========================
Did you know that ESPN has played the National SCRABBLE Tournaments? I've seen video clips but have never seen it live. It's amazing to see the big Plexiglas game form filled out as the players play on a regular board. There was commentary about player's stats and strategies, too.
========================
I'm thinking that if somebody doesn't come up with a sport to fill in between January and April for the non-basketball fans, we could all find ourselves in big trouble. After all, the dinosaurs didn't all just become extinct for no reason, you know.
And while we're on the topic of gone but not forgotten, there's the distant and unlamented pastor of our church, who although he is in Lebanon at present, can nonetheless invade the sanctity of our homes and private moments, through the miracle of modern technology, which as I've pointed out before, can be a double-edged sword, especially in the wrong hands. As a public service to those of you who may be having trouble sleeping, I would like to announce that he has a new book, published by our friends at Wipf and Stock Publishers, and available at their web site [ http://wipfandstock.com ] along with many other fine offerings for a discerning public, at least to hear them tell it, anyway. The book is "Kinderbeten" by Eric J. Swensson, and concerns an 18th century children's prayer movement in Silesia (now part of Germany) which launched a religious revival that could be endlessly fascinating, unless described by the pastor of my church, in which case it would become impossibly dull in the extreme. I found just the review of it to be enough to make me nod off while standing on my feet, and I was only reading it with one eye, trying to shield myself from the full impact of its soporific properties. So for all of you insomniacs suffering out there, I'm happy to pass this along in the interests of better sleep, however, I warn you that a powerful sedative of this magnitude must be used with caution and in moderation, after all, you don't want to end up like the dinosaurs.
Also at church, the interim pastor had the week off, so the Sunday worship was led by a deacon, who happened to be the wife of a pastor from a different church, with an unlikely name like Kerri McWilliams, of all things. Now, the dinosaurs and I can remember a time when pastor's wives had sensible names like Ruth or Norma or Esther, and none of this Kerri nonsense. After all, you don't read in the Bible any stories about people like David and Bambi, or Samson and Dodi, or Solomon and Shari, although with Today's New International Version, heaven knows, you probably do now. In fact, in the TNIV when Moses comes down from the mountaintop with the Ten Commandments, he probably doesn't even carry them on clay tablets, but disseminates them to everyone on Twitter instead, which would explain why it is that the dinosaurs became extinct, since they probably all died laughing, and no wonder.
Meanwhile in other technology news, the evil geniuses at FaceBook once again decided against leaving well enough alone, and foisted another new format on everyone, without a word of warning, and already a done deal with no recourse, in what can only be described as "a face accompli." (Hey, I'll bet they didn't see that one coming!) So far, I think the biggest surprise is that this despotic fiat hasn't incited the usual hue-and-cry among the FB community that we have all come to know and expect from previous tinkerings with their precious settings, in spite of being caught unawares. I heard from a colleague that under the new format, she lost all of her Friends, so FaceBook assigned her a bunch of strangers instead, and thanks so very much not. In place of an earnest and long-winded commentary from the FB executives about the change, as they did with the last reformat, this time they posted a brief bulleted list that outlined what they considered the "improvements," and left it at that. In their opinion, the new system is more simple, and I suppose in some ways it might be true, that is, except for the parts that used to be much more direct and are now exceedingly more complicated, and once again, thanks so very much not. Of course, it does no good to complain, heaven knows, but when it comes to the evil genius department, two can play that game, and I already have my own plan to get back at them. I'm going to send them a copy of the pastor's new book and describe it to them as "a real page-turner," which in terms of linguistic accuracy, is about on a par with them trying to convince us that their new format is "simpler." Then we'll see if they think being extinct is so funny, and the dinosaurs will have the last laugh after all. Or as we say in the German children's prayer movement, "Gesundheit!"
Elle
Happy! There's so many eventful days coming up that a person just wouldn't know where to start to wish anybody a happy everything. It's not only Valentine's Day, but also the beginning of Chinese New Year, plus Mardi Gras, Shrove Tuesday and Ash Wednesday, all in a lump of romance, frivolity, lunacy and repentance, and I want to be in that number, when the saints go marching in, by golly. These are not goofy little ersatz holidays that have been fabricated out of whole cloth by the greeting card companies or advertising agencies, but the actual real heavy-hitters of the genre that have stood the test of time, and some of them, back even before time started. Everyone knows that I'm on board with the idea that there's no wrong way to celebrate holidays, so I invite you to pick one and give it all you've got, or try a little bit of them all, in the true spirit of tolerance and diversity. Whichever you choose, I hope you'll have a whale of a time, but you'd better put the spurs to it, because everyone knows that time is fleeting.
Not so fast! I couldn't help but notice the opposite effect seems to have created its own sort of tempus fugit anomaly in the area, much to my surprise. Our local newspaper (their motto: "After All, You Can't Wrap Fish in the Internet") described it this way -
"We're looking for guest bloggers to help us cover
Hudson Valley Restaurant Week, which goes from
March 15 through 28."
Excuse me??? That sounds like one pretty long week to me, and don't forget, I'm coming off several short weeks in a row at work, and they are always the longest weeks in the world, so I have some experience with this phenomenon already. Of course, one doesn't want to rain on the Restaurant Week parade, as it were, and make them cut short their festivities for the sake of linguistic accuracy, but I would like to think that it would not be beyond the expertise of the newspaper to come up with a different term to describe their 14-day extravaganza, rather than using the word "week" as if it means just any old assortment of a various number of days. Also not saying what they mean, I mentioned to Bill that the neighbors had invited us to a Mardi Gras party on Saturday, to which he retorted: "May I point out that this is like a Thanksgiving Day Parade on the Saturday before Thanksgiving? Obviously this is a 'Samedi Gras' party, non?" Well, in the interests of linguistic accuracy, I'd have to agree with him there.
Of course, the Mardi Gras came way early in New Orleans this year, as their beloved Saints won the Super Bowl in improbable fashion over the favored Colts, and turning the city even more on its head than usual at this time of year, which is a tough trick to pull off. It was a first for the Saints and their legions of long-suffering fans, and they celebrated like it was the first thing they had won since the Battle of New Orleans in 1815, with the Colts being represented by the British Army instead, and musket balls rather than footballs, although the outcome was fundamentally the same in both cases. And historically speaking, no recital of February days would be complete without mentioning the birthday of our sixteenth President, Abraham Lincoln, on Friday the 12th, and the dinosaurs and I can remember a time when this was celebrated as its very own holiday, far and wide. Nowadays, poor old Honest Abe is lumped in together with the rest of the thundering herd on Presidents Day, coming up on Monday, and celebrating them all, regardless of their merits, makes this not so much of an honor to the deserving, as it is a consolation prize to the rogues and scoundrels instead, and they know who they are, believe me.
Speaking of consolation, now that even the Super Bowl is behind us, this leaves the wide world of sports even fewer options to entice the hard-core fan, wearing out the buttons on the TV remote in a desperate attempt to find some other athletic competition besides figure skating, gymnastics or college basketball. They already played the Pro Bowl the week before the Super Bowl, so there's not even that to look forward to, and although the Winter Olympics are about to get underway, not everyone finds them as interesting as the network executives apparently hope they would. Just when you think that it can't possibly get any worse, when the 24-hour sports channels are reduced to showing girls high school lacrosse or championship darts in prime time, along comes something even more pathetic, at least according to one alert reader:
========================
Did you know that ESPN has played the National SCRABBLE Tournaments? I've seen video clips but have never seen it live. It's amazing to see the big Plexiglas game form filled out as the players play on a regular board. There was commentary about player's stats and strategies, too.
========================
I'm thinking that if somebody doesn't come up with a sport to fill in between January and April for the non-basketball fans, we could all find ourselves in big trouble. After all, the dinosaurs didn't all just become extinct for no reason, you know.
And while we're on the topic of gone but not forgotten, there's the distant and unlamented pastor of our church, who although he is in Lebanon at present, can nonetheless invade the sanctity of our homes and private moments, through the miracle of modern technology, which as I've pointed out before, can be a double-edged sword, especially in the wrong hands. As a public service to those of you who may be having trouble sleeping, I would like to announce that he has a new book, published by our friends at Wipf and Stock Publishers, and available at their web site [ http://wipfandstock.com ] along with many other fine offerings for a discerning public, at least to hear them tell it, anyway. The book is "Kinderbeten" by Eric J. Swensson, and concerns an 18th century children's prayer movement in Silesia (now part of Germany) which launched a religious revival that could be endlessly fascinating, unless described by the pastor of my church, in which case it would become impossibly dull in the extreme. I found just the review of it to be enough to make me nod off while standing on my feet, and I was only reading it with one eye, trying to shield myself from the full impact of its soporific properties. So for all of you insomniacs suffering out there, I'm happy to pass this along in the interests of better sleep, however, I warn you that a powerful sedative of this magnitude must be used with caution and in moderation, after all, you don't want to end up like the dinosaurs.
Also at church, the interim pastor had the week off, so the Sunday worship was led by a deacon, who happened to be the wife of a pastor from a different church, with an unlikely name like Kerri McWilliams, of all things. Now, the dinosaurs and I can remember a time when pastor's wives had sensible names like Ruth or Norma or Esther, and none of this Kerri nonsense. After all, you don't read in the Bible any stories about people like David and Bambi, or Samson and Dodi, or Solomon and Shari, although with Today's New International Version, heaven knows, you probably do now. In fact, in the TNIV when Moses comes down from the mountaintop with the Ten Commandments, he probably doesn't even carry them on clay tablets, but disseminates them to everyone on Twitter instead, which would explain why it is that the dinosaurs became extinct, since they probably all died laughing, and no wonder.
Meanwhile in other technology news, the evil geniuses at FaceBook once again decided against leaving well enough alone, and foisted another new format on everyone, without a word of warning, and already a done deal with no recourse, in what can only be described as "a face accompli." (Hey, I'll bet they didn't see that one coming!) So far, I think the biggest surprise is that this despotic fiat hasn't incited the usual hue-and-cry among the FB community that we have all come to know and expect from previous tinkerings with their precious settings, in spite of being caught unawares. I heard from a colleague that under the new format, she lost all of her Friends, so FaceBook assigned her a bunch of strangers instead, and thanks so very much not. In place of an earnest and long-winded commentary from the FB executives about the change, as they did with the last reformat, this time they posted a brief bulleted list that outlined what they considered the "improvements," and left it at that. In their opinion, the new system is more simple, and I suppose in some ways it might be true, that is, except for the parts that used to be much more direct and are now exceedingly more complicated, and once again, thanks so very much not. Of course, it does no good to complain, heaven knows, but when it comes to the evil genius department, two can play that game, and I already have my own plan to get back at them. I'm going to send them a copy of the pastor's new book and describe it to them as "a real page-turner," which in terms of linguistic accuracy, is about on a par with them trying to convince us that their new format is "simpler." Then we'll see if they think being extinct is so funny, and the dinosaurs will have the last laugh after all. Or as we say in the German children's prayer movement, "Gesundheit!"
Elle
posted by El Tango Fandango @ 8:52 PM
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