One Fine Day
Hello World,
Happy July! Monday will be Independence Day, of course, and I hope that you will be liberated from drudgery, free from difficulties, and blissfully unfettered from cares of any kind. Many of us working stiffs are looking forward to a three-day weekend, and grateful for an opportunity to relax and recharge our batteries, as it were, and I ought to know. I can't say that this was a short week at work by any means, because I was there every day, but in every other respect, it certainly had all the drawbacks of a short week, and none of the advantages, which is my idea of the worst of both worlds, and thanks so very much not. So I was glad to see the tail-end of it, and that's putting it mildly, and even though I left early because of the upcoming holiday, it still wasn't soon enough to suit me, believe me. Although in fairness, in order for it to have been soon enough to suit me, I would have had to have left at around 10:00 AM on Monday morning, the way this week turned out.
Speaking of weeks, I can tell you that they're not the same old dog-eared and shop-worn chronologic stalwarts since time immemorial, and that's a fact. It was on Monday that our local newspaper printed the following announcement on the front page of their Life & Style section:
=====================
Writers' Week Starts Today
Manhattanville College's 28th Annual Summer Writers'
Week takes place today through Wednesday
=====================
Let's see - that's Monday and Tuesday and Wednesday ...... hmmmmm. To my way of thinking, that falls rather far short of a week, by at least several days on both ends, so much so that a person trying to catch up with Writers' Week on Friday would be sorely disappointed. You would think after 28 years, that the brilliant and creative minds behind Writers' Week would have figured out that three days do not make a week, and instead would have called it a conference or seminar or workshop, and left it at that. Alert readers may recall earlier in the year when this same newspaper brought us word of the locally famous Hudson Valley Restaurant Week, which runs for 15 days, and represents another example of the poor word "week" being misused in such a haphazard manner as to render it a misnomer through no fault of its own. I mean, it seems to me this is a pretty fast and loose interpretation of a very specific word, which actually describes a precise period of time, and you would think that it wouldn't be subject to this sort of linguistic impunity, like any old abstract concept. Of course, there are no standards anymore, heaven knows, and this is just more creeping equivocation, where words have lost all their meaning. Personally, I blame the Theory of Relativity.
And while we're on the subject of relativism run amok, it was on May 7 that I saw a commercial for the new Anne Hathaway movie, titled "One Day," which was being touted as one of the big summer hit films that we could look forward to after Memorial Day ushered in the official summer season. It was getting a lot of media attention, and I kept seeing ads for it everywhere I went, on television, in the newspaper, and on the home pages of several different browsers, over the course of many weeks. Finally I got so tired of it that I actually read the fine print on one of them, only to discover the following unpleasant surprise: [ "In theaters nationwide August 19." } Excuse me??? Anyone who knows me can tell you that math is not my strong suit, but even I can figure out that's almost 4 months ahead of time that I first started seeing promo spots for this, and far from being the hit of summer movies, is a lot closer to the first day of fall than the first day of summer, by golly. Of course, I'm measuring that in standard weeks, not the screwy newfangled 3-day or 15-day weeks they have invented nowadays.
And on the topic of rushing things, I don't know if this can be blamed on over-enthusiasm, commercialism gone wild, or those newfangled weeks they've just invented, but here was another unpleasant surprise showing up at church last week. It was still in June, and is actually the earliest I can ever remember receiving a catalogue of Christmas music, of all things, when it is still literally 6 months before the season of the holly-jolly-ho-ho-holy-Moses, Batman! Our friends at Brentwood-Benson Music Publishing are pulling no punches, flat-out calling their little visitor "Christmas 2011," and all aglow with stars, ornaments, candles, and more herald angels than you could shake a candy cane at, believe me. Although small in size, it comes packed with page after page of holiday sheet music, music collections, caroling resources, musical dramas and pageants, for churches of all shapes and sizes, and singers of all ages and abilities. The part that caught my eye was the selection of what they describe as "Ready to Sing" musical resources, which they highlight throughout their catalogue so that I don't miss a single one. Apparently this is a growing category in music circles, but for me, it begs the question that if these pieces are identified as "Ready to Sing," what obstacles are in the way of the other ones being ready to sing? Do you have to pass a test? Submit an application and have it approved? Plant it in a garden and wait for it to grow? How far in advance do you have to buy something if you have to wait for it to be ready to sing, and besides, how can you tell when it is finally ready to sing? Does it bloom? Smell? Burst into song? Send you a text message, or chirp like your smoke detector battery when it needs to be changed? I'm afraid this is all too much hugger-mugger for me, and while I'm the first to champion the idea that there's no wrong way to celebrate a holiday, I simply refuse to jump aboard the Christmas-in-June bandwagon, no matter how many herald angels they may throw at me, and that's not just a lot of ding-dong-merrily-on-high, believe me.
In other local news, long-suffering fans of the junior pinstripe franchise have become positively delirious in celebrating the fact that the Mets are two games over .500 for the first time this season, as if they had just won the seventh game of the World Series, or even accomplished something meaningful that would have justified their enormous payroll. In fact, they've gone beyond scoreboard-watching (and this is before the All-Star break, mind you) and are already poring over the standings in the Wild Card races, and while I hate to rain on anyone's parade, there's still another half of the season ahead of us yet. But they've had little enough to cheer them so far this year, or even the last several years in a row, so I suppose it doesn't hurt to let them have their fun. Of course, it may not last long, as their lovable losers will be taking on the Bombers in a cross-town rivalry this weekend, who are legitimately in first place, and didn't get there by accident, or even chicanery, although personally, I wouldn't turn my back on the ghost of Affirmed either. So it could be an interesting week ahead, which as we all know, can apparently last anywhere from three days to fifteen days, depending on your interpretation of the term, and at this rate, there's no escaping the possibility that Christmas might be just around the corner. I don't know about you, but I'll start incubating my "not-yet-ready-to-sing" holiday music just in case.
Elle
Happy July! Monday will be Independence Day, of course, and I hope that you will be liberated from drudgery, free from difficulties, and blissfully unfettered from cares of any kind. Many of us working stiffs are looking forward to a three-day weekend, and grateful for an opportunity to relax and recharge our batteries, as it were, and I ought to know. I can't say that this was a short week at work by any means, because I was there every day, but in every other respect, it certainly had all the drawbacks of a short week, and none of the advantages, which is my idea of the worst of both worlds, and thanks so very much not. So I was glad to see the tail-end of it, and that's putting it mildly, and even though I left early because of the upcoming holiday, it still wasn't soon enough to suit me, believe me. Although in fairness, in order for it to have been soon enough to suit me, I would have had to have left at around 10:00 AM on Monday morning, the way this week turned out.
Speaking of weeks, I can tell you that they're not the same old dog-eared and shop-worn chronologic stalwarts since time immemorial, and that's a fact. It was on Monday that our local newspaper printed the following announcement on the front page of their Life & Style section:
=====================
Writers' Week Starts Today
Manhattanville College's 28th Annual Summer Writers'
Week takes place today through Wednesday
=====================
Let's see - that's Monday and Tuesday and Wednesday ...... hmmmmm. To my way of thinking, that falls rather far short of a week, by at least several days on both ends, so much so that a person trying to catch up with Writers' Week on Friday would be sorely disappointed. You would think after 28 years, that the brilliant and creative minds behind Writers' Week would have figured out that three days do not make a week, and instead would have called it a conference or seminar or workshop, and left it at that. Alert readers may recall earlier in the year when this same newspaper brought us word of the locally famous Hudson Valley Restaurant Week, which runs for 15 days, and represents another example of the poor word "week" being misused in such a haphazard manner as to render it a misnomer through no fault of its own. I mean, it seems to me this is a pretty fast and loose interpretation of a very specific word, which actually describes a precise period of time, and you would think that it wouldn't be subject to this sort of linguistic impunity, like any old abstract concept. Of course, there are no standards anymore, heaven knows, and this is just more creeping equivocation, where words have lost all their meaning. Personally, I blame the Theory of Relativity.
And while we're on the subject of relativism run amok, it was on May 7 that I saw a commercial for the new Anne Hathaway movie, titled "One Day," which was being touted as one of the big summer hit films that we could look forward to after Memorial Day ushered in the official summer season. It was getting a lot of media attention, and I kept seeing ads for it everywhere I went, on television, in the newspaper, and on the home pages of several different browsers, over the course of many weeks. Finally I got so tired of it that I actually read the fine print on one of them, only to discover the following unpleasant surprise: [ "In theaters nationwide August 19." } Excuse me??? Anyone who knows me can tell you that math is not my strong suit, but even I can figure out that's almost 4 months ahead of time that I first started seeing promo spots for this, and far from being the hit of summer movies, is a lot closer to the first day of fall than the first day of summer, by golly. Of course, I'm measuring that in standard weeks, not the screwy newfangled 3-day or 15-day weeks they have invented nowadays.
And on the topic of rushing things, I don't know if this can be blamed on over-enthusiasm, commercialism gone wild, or those newfangled weeks they've just invented, but here was another unpleasant surprise showing up at church last week. It was still in June, and is actually the earliest I can ever remember receiving a catalogue of Christmas music, of all things, when it is still literally 6 months before the season of the holly-jolly-ho-ho-holy-Moses, Batman! Our friends at Brentwood-Benson Music Publishing are pulling no punches, flat-out calling their little visitor "Christmas 2011," and all aglow with stars, ornaments, candles, and more herald angels than you could shake a candy cane at, believe me. Although small in size, it comes packed with page after page of holiday sheet music, music collections, caroling resources, musical dramas and pageants, for churches of all shapes and sizes, and singers of all ages and abilities. The part that caught my eye was the selection of what they describe as "Ready to Sing" musical resources, which they highlight throughout their catalogue so that I don't miss a single one. Apparently this is a growing category in music circles, but for me, it begs the question that if these pieces are identified as "Ready to Sing," what obstacles are in the way of the other ones being ready to sing? Do you have to pass a test? Submit an application and have it approved? Plant it in a garden and wait for it to grow? How far in advance do you have to buy something if you have to wait for it to be ready to sing, and besides, how can you tell when it is finally ready to sing? Does it bloom? Smell? Burst into song? Send you a text message, or chirp like your smoke detector battery when it needs to be changed? I'm afraid this is all too much hugger-mugger for me, and while I'm the first to champion the idea that there's no wrong way to celebrate a holiday, I simply refuse to jump aboard the Christmas-in-June bandwagon, no matter how many herald angels they may throw at me, and that's not just a lot of ding-dong-merrily-on-high, believe me.
In other local news, long-suffering fans of the junior pinstripe franchise have become positively delirious in celebrating the fact that the Mets are two games over .500 for the first time this season, as if they had just won the seventh game of the World Series, or even accomplished something meaningful that would have justified their enormous payroll. In fact, they've gone beyond scoreboard-watching (and this is before the All-Star break, mind you) and are already poring over the standings in the Wild Card races, and while I hate to rain on anyone's parade, there's still another half of the season ahead of us yet. But they've had little enough to cheer them so far this year, or even the last several years in a row, so I suppose it doesn't hurt to let them have their fun. Of course, it may not last long, as their lovable losers will be taking on the Bombers in a cross-town rivalry this weekend, who are legitimately in first place, and didn't get there by accident, or even chicanery, although personally, I wouldn't turn my back on the ghost of Affirmed either. So it could be an interesting week ahead, which as we all know, can apparently last anywhere from three days to fifteen days, depending on your interpretation of the term, and at this rate, there's no escaping the possibility that Christmas might be just around the corner. I don't know about you, but I'll start incubating my "not-yet-ready-to-sing" holiday music just in case.
Elle
posted by El Tango Fandango @ 8:10 PM
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