Guerrilla Marketing Condoms?

In the space of two weeks I've seen 4 different sealed condom packages in the University's parking lot. There were three Trojans (one white, one blue, and one red - a very patriotic color scheme) and one Durex (blue with white lettering).

I can understand that college age males (and the women who are their objects of desire) are the ideal target market, but I've enjoyed idly speculating whether what I've seen reflect

• a successful guerrilla marketing campaign,
  
• the failure of the Bush administration's Abstinence Only campaign,
• a failed marketing campaign (students discarding samples),
• the aftermath of aftermath of an orgy which never made the papers, or
• something else (your suggestions welcome).
  

Network Computing Disappears From the Face of the Earth

Another of the trade rags I read is disappearing from print. This morning's e-mail carried Art Wittmann's "Strategy Session: Transformations" column with the following:

"We're saying goodbye to the standalone print version of Network Computing. But worry not--we're not going gently into that good night. ... Starting in July, Network Computing will be merging with its sister publication, InformationWeek."

It was not left unsaid that the unnamed people who produce the print version would be missed. Those of us who've suffered unemployment know the feeling in the pit of our stomach's when the bottom drops out of your world.

One of the visuals I expected to use in the next computer class I teach is to hold up a copy of InfoWorld's thick 20th anniversary edition and say, "And now it looks like this!" holding up my other hand with nothing in it. InfoWorld announced in April of 2007 that it "closed down its print edition and moved to a Web-only model." Many like myself, half-jokingly wondered what we would read in the loo, but behind it was the same sense of loss I feel when the exigencies of the march of time disrupt the quotidian.

I enjoy reading old magazines. Sometimes, they read much like science fiction and HP Lovecraft novels where an ill defined something looms behind the narrative. Anyone reading Time magazine in the 50's and 60's understood that the author's were writing in the looming shadow of world communism. Such understanding might not be apparent for a youngster reading the same article 40 or 50 years later. Those of you old enough to be able to be able to reread "The Worldly Philosophers by Robert Heilbroner 30 to 50 years later should be struck to see how the permanence of communism was taken for granted. So too in the trade press, stories' brief reference to IBM's industry hegemony/FUD (Fear Uncertainty and Doubt), Microsoft's Evil Empire, or the out-sized egos of Steve Jobs/Edward Esber Jr. (Ashton-Tate)/Philippe Kahn (Borland) provided only hints of the mind share these actually occupied.

It was only by reading a number of articles in different sources from the same time that I could get a feel or get a sense of the time. Whether it is true or not, I feel it is easier to read an old article in a magazine lying around, than to stumble across the same online. (My jaundiced attitude is conditioned by the inefficiencies of the search capabilities of Computerworld and Informationweek, but that's another story.)

So it is with a small sense of dread that Time marches on as I wonder what I was doing as it passes.

Paris Hilton: Stars are Blind

One of the computer trade rags I read had a link to photo widgets (slide.com). Among the choices for background music was a song by Paris Hilton ).

Her song was not my first choice, but after I listened to a few of the other songs I thought, oh what the heck, I might as well listen. I've wasted so much time in my life that a few minutes more won't do much to my credit worthiness or social standing. If and when the subject came up I would be on firm ground when I disparaged her singing.

Well, children, I was surprised. "Stars are Blind" is a catchy pop song. I let it repeat several times without embarrassment. There are many sarcastic things which can be said (my poor taste in music, the talent of music producers, etc.), but to my ears, "Stars are Blind" isn't worse than much of what I enjoyed in my teens.

As this is being written Paris Hilton is in jail. Juxtaposing her foray in the music business with her jail time I wondered if she would capitalize on her time in the slammer for a gangsta rap album.

Idle speculation as always.

Officially Slowing Down

I'm usually the fastest walker around. It's something of a joke. My coworkers will say, we're going and then almost reflexively add, oh, he can catch up later.

I remember only one student walking faster than me. As fate would have it, a prof I knew who had studied walking was nearby. "Is that kid walking especially fast or is he doing something special, because he is pulling away from me and I'm walking at my usual (legendary) pace?", I asked.

The prof took a look, and said it was the student's beat, not the length of the pace.

This morning, however, as a student pulled ahead of me as I walked, I realized that I was walking slower. I could pick up the pace, but somehow, without my recognizing it, my standard pace had slowed down. Not a momentous shock, but another small loss on my march through time. Sigh.

15 Minutes of Fame on the Installment Plan

Andy Warhol famously stated that everyone would be famous for 15 minutes. I'm doing it on the installment plan.

A few years ago I was interviewed as the "domain expert" for a Consumer Affairs TV show in NY. A viewer's father left her a JFK Memorial album as an heirloom and she wanted to know how much it was worth. In this neck of the woods you can find one or two JFK Memorial albums in any weekend round of garage sales so the record wasn't worth more than $1.

I count that as 1 minute of fame.

Just in time for Passover I got a minute of air time on the NYC public radio station discoursing on matzo balls. I'll call that another minute of fame.

The station had asked listeners to post comments about the perfect matzo ball recipe. My post described the years my mother and my aunts searched for the perfect recipe only to discover the perfect recipe on the side of the matzo meal box. The difference between perfect and what my mother made was not the ingredients, but whether the egg whites were separated and beaten and how the meal was mixed. This was information provided by my brother (to whom I defer in all things culinary).

Now perfect is in the eye of the beholder. Gourmet matzo balls, "perfect" matzo balls, are expected to be light with a uniform texture - something like quennels. In my estimation, quennels is divine food, but (also in my estimation) "real" matzo balls are rubbery in the center. Matzo balls with bounce is what I want to eat at seder. I don't want wimpy food. I want food that fights back.

I got an e-mail from the show's producer the next day and a few days later I was on the air reprising my post. I gave full credit to my brother for my purported expertise.

Thirteen more minutes of fame to go.

House Concert with Pat Wictor and Iain Campbell Smith

I attended my first house concert on Saturday at the Song Box. It seemed a bit confusing at first. House concerts are supposed to be just as it sounds: a concert in someone's home, but "Song Box" sounded like a regular venue.

I first learned about house concerts on the late Dave Ray's web site. (It was only looking for his site again that I discovered that Dave Ray had died in November 28th, 2002. A radio interview with Koerner, Ray and Glover and an appreciation by Phil Heywood are available on line.) I was taken with Ray's practical instructions for arranging a house concert. He covered everything from the size of the room, types of chairs, what the performer needed (I recall that Dave wanted a piece of plywood to amplify his stomping), where to put food, etc.)

The concert was announced at the Cliff Eberhardt concert in the Our Times Coffeehouse, at the Ethical Culture Society in Garden City. There was something almost furtive about the announcement - you had to call or send E-mail to get directions. I imagined that admission would require a secret knock on a door. (The web being a wonderful thing actually had an address listed, but I didn't think to look until later.) We were asked to bring something for a pot luck meal. I toyed with the idea of bringing a goat's head (appropriate for any number of satanic rites), but brought Chinese steamed buns instead.

As it turned out, the family room in the basement of the house had a raised platform at one end, great acoustics, and a sound board. When everyone but me sang along with Pat Wictor's first song I knew I was not among my peers. I guess half the people in the audience (about 3 dozen people) were singer-songwriters themselves.

The original idea was for the evening to be divided into two performances, Pat Wictor and Ian Campell Smith, an Australian folksinger/diplomat (there's a story there), but the two decided to perform together with a drummer.

More ...

Thanksgiving 2006

Thanksgiving is fairly low key family event at my parent's house. My brother comes out from the city with some provisions and cooks. I bring supplemental provisions and clean. Being that my brother has been a chef, owned his own restaurant, and worked at several high end restaurants people have expressed interest in what we actually eat. The menu (as typed by my father) is below:
The rolls were made by my father, the Pear and the Gooseberry-apple relishes were purchased at a greenmarket. Even though ice cream is on the menu, it wasn't served.

The apple pie was home made with my father supplying the bottom crust and my brother making the top crust. It was one of those things where my father made enough crust for a smaller pie, but as the apples were peeled, cored, and sliced it became apparent that momentous question of an open faced pie or a double crust pie would have to be made. The bakers (my father and brother) went into executive session and unanimously decided on the double crust.

Code Archeology

A few months ago I started on a project to create a program which will score Scantron-type bubble sheets.

Now we already have a program which does just that. The code, written in the FORTRAN 77 computer language, was written in the early 80's to be used on a Univac. I knew the young woman who wrote the code. Over the years I've made a few small changes as we switched from an Univac to an IBM mainframe and had to accommodate more sheets, but the code is pretty much untouched .

Now friends, FORTRAN, especially classical FORTRAN 77 code can be impenetrable because the variable names had to be 6 characters or less. (In programming, variables are like the unknowns in algebra.) If you've only got a few things to keep track of short names like x, y, and z are fine. Nowadays programmers prefer longer, descriptive variable names such as current_value, cronbach_alpha, and kertosis.

I'm a decent programmer. In theory all I needed to do was make some changes and recompile the code for a PC. That was theory. I didn't have a FORTRAN compiler, the code was mind-numbing, and because there were features which needed to be added I decided to write new rather than revise.

I hauled out an 8-year old C compiler and had a go. The usual statistical stuff was obvious: averages, means, and standard deviations. I had fun learning some statistics. (I now know that kertosis, despite its name, is not a dermatological condition, but is a measure of skewness , i.e. how much a bell shaped curve "leans". ) Things were going fine until I hit Cronbach's Alpha:

In the course of investigating I got to read Cronbach's reflections on the 5oth aniversary of proposing the calculation. (Being a true academic he acknowledged that his "alpha coefficient" was a generalization of a Kuder-Richardson formula as he recounted the intellectual wrangling over its significance and misuse.) Based on various references I thought I had coded the calculations correctly, but my calculations of the alpha codefficient didn't agree with the calculations of the current FORTRAN program.

If you look on the web for Cronbach's Alpha you'll find a ton of references. After some 200 links I didn't find any code. Most citations discussed the significance and how to interpret the results. Save for one link, each link I found for calculating the coefficient described how the calculation could be done by a statistical package (SPSS, SAS, MINITAB, Stata, R, etc.). The one link which seemed useful, http://www.geolog.com/msmnt/malpha.htm, worked through a problem. I based my code on the example.

I finally asked a few instructors for help. Next week I'll sit with a few and go over a sample calculation. Some are going to go deep in their own library to look for an early text which explained how to do the calculation. (It seems that in the early days of computing, extending into the 1980's many people had to code their own statistics or borrow from someone who had already written the code. Experienced coders and statisticians will surely be exasperated that I couldn't go from the description of the calculation to code or that I didn't have confidence in my own coding skills, but I digress.) One Psychology instructor gave me a name of a textbook he knew had a code sample.

Quick like a bunny I trotted over to the library only to find that three empty shelves between H62.N and H62.V. The book I wanted, "Design, Measurement, and Analysis"by Podhazur and Schmelkin (H62.P325) was missing from the library. I suspect a vast right wing consipracy or alien abduction, but again I digress.

As fate would have it on a near by shelf there was a book entitled "Fortran Programming for the Behavioral Sciences" by Veldman (H52.V4) published in 1967. Sure enough the book had code for the "alpha coefficient" and - what the bleep! - a flow chart and a sample code named "TESTAT". Neuron's fired! TESTAT is the name of a piece of code inside the current FORTRAN scoring program. And , well look at that, the code in Veldman's book was the same as the FORTRAN code in our scoring program.

Turning to the date due slip in the back of the book , I saw that the book had been taken out (and renewed) in 1983 and 1984. Code archeology indeed. Does it help? Stay tuned.

Ken Lay's Dead, but Janos Starker Lives

Ken Lay, the former Enron CEO died this morning in Colorado at the age of 64. I felt cheated. His estate is being sued for recovery of ill-gotten gains by the Security and Exchange Commission. There is as of this writing no word from the government about their attempt to recover funds (~$50M) and seize Lay Houston condo. I'd be interested in how former Enron employees are taking it. (Today, NPR interviewed an analyst who remembers principled people leaving Houston Natural Gas when Lay became CEO and wondered why it took so long for everyone else to see what type of person he was under the kindly exterior. Unfortunately I can't find the reference to insert a link.)

On a brighter note, it's cellist Janos Starker's 82nd birthday! In 2004 NPR stated that it took 33 pages to list all his recordings. (I've got only 3 of his recordings, but I've got a few years to pick up more. If you check eBay you will rarely find his recordings at a discount.)

I saw Starker in concert once in the 1970's when I was offered a free ticket. I didn't know who he was, but figured, what the heck, it's free and you never know. Boy did I luck out! (I've said lots of negative things about the guy who gave me the ticket, but always expressed my gratitude for introducing me to Starker's playing.)

Starker has been hailed as one of the 20th century's great cellists. He was known for his "patrician stage presence" (Wikipedia), but to my eyes he was concentrating on his music and was not going to be diverted. Given his usual stern demeanor, pictures of him smiling surprised me.

Gotta Love the Law

Today's Computerworld has an article headlined, "VA efforts to bolster laptop security stymied by lawsuits" which reports that 3 class-action lawsuits filed in the aftermath of the Veterans Administration's loss and subsequent recovery of a laptop with sensitive information on 26.5 million veterans has prevented the VA from altering their laptops. Updating antivirus tools and adding encryption can be considered evidence tampering.

Quoting from the article: Tim McLain, VA General Counsel said, "So until the courts rule on the issue, the VA's plans to implement new security measures on laptops are on hold. "It is a delay, not a moratorium."

One part of my brain is thinking, "OK, this makes sense - don't disturb the evidence" and another part of brain turns from what it was doing and says, "Are you nuts?!"

Well yes I am, but it looks as though I have company. (Unwritten rules require that posts dealing with the law quote Charles Dickens (Oliver Twist): ""If the law supposes that," said Mr. Bumble, "the law is an ass, a idiot." )

A Unique Event

Last night I did something I'd never done before. I cannot recall anyone else doing it either. So you're thinking, hmmm, standing up in a hammock? Everyone's done that. This was 14% more unique than saddle sores on a turtle. <inane reference>(This imaginary colloquialism comes from a 70's Colt Malt Liquor radio commercial.)</inane reference>

I broke a toothbrush in my mouth as I was brushing my teeth. (Yeah, lots of people break toothbrushes trying to open paint cans, but claim that the toothbrush broke in their mouth because they don't want to be fined for using the wrong end of a toothbrush as a tool.)

The specifics (in case you want to try to replicate the feat): it was a fairly new Walgreens toothbrush and I was using Colgate toothpaste with calcium. I don't think it's important, but on the offchance that toothbrushes have circadian rhythms the time was about 1 AM daylight savings time.

"Fairly new" means that I'd only been using the toothbrush a few weeks, but it could have been years since I bought the toothbrush. (I tend to buy a few and forget them. Sometime later the packages rematerialize from under a stack of clothes, the back of dresser, or, hey, so that's where it's been hiding under/behind car seats, on top of bookcases, in an old suitcase, etc.)

I'm toying with the idea of sending the toothbrush to Walgreen's to see if they might want to replace the toothbrush. I don't think this is worth an entry in the Guiness Book of Records.

Photos to follow.

An Excursion to the Supermarket

Bloomsday. I went shopping for my parents. Deja vu all over again.

For many years I shopped for a friend. I think she was 70 when I started and over 90 when we parted ways. It took a few months for me to learn her preferences and for us to come to an agreement. Some items had to be specific. If she asked for the 22 oz. lemon-scented version, I never substituted. If that item wasn't available I didn't buy a substitute.

On the other hand "sherbet" was either raspberry or strawberry, the brand was immaterial. While she didn't express a preference in ice cream, it took a while for her to finally explain why she wasn't as thankful when I bought ice cream with fudge or nuts: she liked to put ice cream in her coffee. I purchased grated Parmesan cheese once. In her cosmos grated Parmesan cheese was an affront to god.

Looking at my parents' list I asked them for specs: brand, size, was substitution allowed, etc.

I digress to describe my supermarket shopping style. Except when I go shopping for myself I only go down certain aisles: pasta, bread, dairy, and the vegetable area. Unless someone asks me to pick up soda and chips I never go in that aisle. I can usually pick up what I need in a supermarket in 5-10 minutes because my shopping lists are almost always short.

Today was far different. It was more of a random walk.

Holding my parents list I found myself wandering through the housewares aisle several times looking for camphor balls. (There were none.) My mother wanted instant cocoa. (My throat constricts in a defensive reaction at the thought of it.) I scanned the shelves trying to match what I'd remembered in their kitchen with what was available on the shelves. Wandering down the housewares aisle I noted that the toilet bowl cleaner was sold out. (Was this significant? Would my stock broker devine a market shift from this observation?)

They wanted the store brand pancake syrup. Why? My brother had given them real maple syrup. Who can understand parents? I had neglected to ask them what size to get. My educational background makes me want to estimate the monthly usage and extend that to 6 months. The holistic/emotive side tried to conjure the image of the container in their kitchen. I couldn't recall a discussion of an imminent pancake syrup crisis. That meant that they probably hadn't reached the reorder point so they could make it through a few pancake breakfasts if I didn't buy anything. I got the middle size bottle because I could exchange it if the size was wrong.

Potatoes. Jeez! The last time I bought potatoes they were 30¢ a pound. Now the cheapest was 60¢ a pound! I've got a general concept of capitalism. A higher price is supposed to reflect higher demand or perhaps collusion among producers. Are potatoes suddenly the "in" food. Did I miss an article at the checkout counter? ("Potatoes Make You Bigger Where It Counts", "Potatoes - the Secret of Long Life", "The New Potato Diet - Lose 20 Pounds Over Night") Maybe it was a collusive effort to make potatoes seem more desirable. (These 60¢ a pound potatoes are so much better than those old 30¢ a pound potatoes.)

When I reported back that I couldn't find the mothballs my mother said that she hadn't been able to buy them for some time. (A friend eventually bought a box at National Wholesale Liquitators. This is a public service and unsolicited plug.)

Contra-Contraception

After reading the May 7, 2006 NY Times article on the "Contra-Contraception" movement among conservatives circles and President Bush's failure to respond to the four letters Representative Carolyn Maloney of New York, sent to the president asking "Mr. President, do you support the right to use contraception?" I can only hope that the damage done to he United States by the Bush administration will be mitigated by the humor it will provide for future generations.

Career Suicide

I was trying to find the online version of an Infoworld "Off The Record" column ("Anonynmous Tales from the Front Lines") entitled "Recipe for Career Suicide". The story, describes how good programming practices got the anonymous narrator in trouble with the founder of his company. The founder and president wrote the original product code. At the time referred to in the story the president didn't realize that his own programming expertise was sadly out of date. The president reacted very badly when a client preferred the programmer's code to his.

If I had typed "Career Suicide" (with the quotes) into Infoworld's search engine, the first hit would have been the article I wanted and I wouldn't have been prompted to write this. Because I didn't include the quotes, the article I wanted didn't appear on the first page of links I was distracted by a link to eBay. EBay had auctions of recordings by a hardcore punk band named "Career Suicide", a T-shirt from their 2004 tour, and CDs with that title by Lennon Murphy.

By now we're accustomed to the inanities of automated procedures. Even so, I'll remember the page contained this link:

Looking for Career Suicide?
Find exactly what you want today.

I don't think I need help in this regard, thank you very much, but I'm saving the link just in case.

A Medical Excursion

While lifting an empty bookcase off my car <needless detail>in the pouring rain in the wee small hours of the morning</needless detail>, I felt a sharp pain in my right side about 5 inches below my arm pit. I'd never felt anything similar. Even with my limited knowledge of physiology I knew it wasn't a heart attack. It felt like something tore, but that was as far as my diagnosis went.

The most peculiar aspect of the injury was that that whatever it was didn't hurt when I haul the bookcase into the house. I just lifted the bookcase and sort of slid it along on some boards until I got the bookcase into the house.

Battling my usual inclination to ignore injuries, I didn't try to determine just how much pain I could take. I took it easy during the next few days. I was giving myself little gold stars for being so sensible as the ache decreased when the aching increased. Whether it was sit-ups or something else the ache grew to the point here I had to avoid letting my arm rest across my right side when I went to sleep.

Last night I lay back against the pillows before going to sleep. Remembering something I tried to sit up and couldn't - it hurt too much to sit up. (Well, I could sit up, but thought the most sensible thing was not to exacerbate what ever it was.)

Sitting up became a mechanical puzzle. My solution was to extend my legs off the bed and then slowly slide off. Gravity folded my torso forward.

Today I went to see the doctor. After noting the absence of hematomas and the localization of the sensitivity he opined that it was not a cracked rib, but most likely a problem with the cartilege - a fracture, tear, something. He estimated it would take 6-8 weeks to heal provided I didn't do anything stupid. The doctor gave me a hard, meaningful look when he said this to be sure I got the message. To be sure of his diagnosis he sent me for radiography.

Now friends, a few miles west of the "Miracle Mile", a toney shopping area in Manhassett, New York, there's "Medical Row" a half mile of medical specialists on Northern Boulevard in Great Neck. (Many people have heard the name, but did not realized that the Miracle Mile is an actual place, the Americana Manhasset Shopping Center. "Are you gonna cruise the Miracle Mile?" from "It's Still Rock and Roll To Me" - Billy Joel. There is a Miracle Mile in the Mid-Wilshire region of Los Angeles, California near the La Brea tar pits, but I digress.)

Because the radiology place was "just over there" (said the doctor's receptionist) I decided to walk. I don't mind driving, but I thought "over there" was the next building. Driving would mean crossing a solid double line on Northern Blvd where drivers get points taken off their licenses for every pedestrian they hit or driving on the sidewalk ("Brazilian driving"). (The points off rule was the result of the powerful auto body lobby. As I understand it, the number of points removed from someone's driving record is on a sliding scale related to the cost of the body work required to restore the car. Splatter someone with a Maserati or a Ferrari and the New York State Motor Vehicles Department will give you credits toward future points.)

The building turned out to be the very last building on Medical Row, not a long distance actually, but instructive: there was no entrance on Northern Boulevard. The building has no street entrance. Everyone has to enter through a door in the parking area at the back of the building.

Did I stumbled across a new architectural phenomenon or something well established but unbeknowst to me? Was the design to keep the riffraff out or, given the building's location, just obvious - who would walk to the building?

I enjoyed filling out the forms at the radiologists: there were three typographical errors on a single intake form. I asked if I could get a discount for spotting them, but as always, my proofreading skills proved a source of amusement, not profit. Getting up on the X-ray table was easy. Getting off required the same slithering technique I used to get out of bed.

The X-rays showed nothing, just as the doctor had expected. And I have avoided doing anything to injure whatever it is/was.

June 14, 2006 postscript: My side does not seem to ache and it seems that I should try to get back to the washboard abs (of my imaginary life).

Why I Shouldn't Write

Every once and a while I get seized with the notion that I could be creative: a writer, cinematographer, etc. I know it is never as easy as it seems. I've been saved from public disgrace and disappointment through the sheer good fortune of stumbling across creations so well done that I'm intimidated.

The writing in La Nuit de Varennes and Calvin Trillin's remembrance of Denny Hansen, Remembering Denny are tours de force of craftsmanship. Trillin's book moves back and forth in time and mind from what he remembered and assumed to what he now knew or could summise. The book has special resonance as I get older and details fade. The intensity of emotions are more remembered than felt.

La Nuit de Varennes follows a fascinating host of historical characters including Casanova at the beginning of the French Revolution. The elegance with which Casanova demurrs from a tryst, assuring the lady that the loss is surely his and not hers and the seemless explanation of a hoary pun are just two of the scenes I treasure. (About the pun, a character declines to let someone ride in a carriage, saying, "I do not want to be uncharitable." The screen goes sepia as the audience is informed that those single passenger carriages were known as "uncharitables" because the carriage could only accomodate one person comfortably and could deny someone a ride without seeming uncharitable.)

These also remind me of an introduction given to Robert Caro. The presenter quoted a reviewer as saying that Caro's biography of Robert Moses (The Power Broker) ruined the field for everyone else because no one else could ever top it.

In a similar vein, the blog How to Write Screenplays. Badly by Jeremy Slater and Dan Whitehead should give caution to anyone venturing to write humor.

First Blog

After considerable inactivity I'm making my first post. The impetus is simple : work necessitates promoting blogs as a teaching tool. I'll have greater credibility if I can relate first hand experiences to give the faculty reliable estimates of the time a blog takes. And with that...

Blogging strikes me as self indulgent, narcissistic, and arrogant - something I fantasized about when I was very young.

I suspect my early fantasy was prompted by overhearing a snippet of conversation about the silent movie child star Jackie Coogan. Coogan's fame and appeal was so great as the title character of Chaplin's film "The Kid" that everything he did was slavishly noted. Some mothers claimed that they fed and dressed their little boys to be just like Jackie. From this I imagined myself a star with someone slavishly reporting everything I wore and ate. If my mother intended to feed me Wheatina, mothers all across America would cook Wheatina for their children. (I was too young to have envisioned product placements and endorsements or to realize that children forced to eat food that I liked and they detested would grow up with but a single burning desire: to earn enough money to pay for a contract on my life.)

Riffing on that theme, imagine the disruption of the economy if people modeled their behavior on mine. I live without so many common items of American life. I never developed a taste for alcohol. I don't smoke. I don't drink soda. I don't gamble.* I don't own a TV, microwave or iPod. I gave up my phone. With the exception of buying replacement running shoes and chinos, I haven't bought new clothes for several years. It helps that I'm rather easy on clothes and work doesn't demand sartorial splendor. (A trove of ripped and stained clothes are available for outdoor work and working on cars. My mother, in her most tactful way has pointed out that those work clothes could better society by being used to tie up newspapers for recycling.)

(Looking at all the negatives in the preceding paragraph I should add something positive. Hmm, perhaps something like how I'll soon be available for speaking engagements after I finish mortifying my flesh and climb down from my pillar in the desert, but I digress...)

The American economy would collapse if a significant percentage of the country behaved like me. (Economists would not be the least perturbed. Adam Smith's "unseen hand" along with creative legislation would adapt: Tapioca pearl markets would develop. Book and music collection taxes would be instituted. Ordinances would be passed fining those whose style did not meet the GQ image.)

Enough is probably too much. If a blog of this size takes me as long as it did to create I can't imagine faculty intent on an academic career blogging unless they aspire to membership in the critical class.

It's the birthday of Raymond Carver and Theodore Roethke.

* By not gambling I mean I don't bet or visit casinos. All life is a gamble. (This last sentence would logically lead to a discussion of free will vs determinism, but I will defer that to a later post.)