a guide to cooking MCs like a pound of bacon
» Monday, December 31, 2007

To the extreme I rock a mic like a vandal
Light up a stage and wax a chump like a candle
- Rob van Winkle

Pop culture is like a row of crackers or a bag of those cheesy chips. You scarf it down and forget about it the instant it's over. But at some point later in the day, you glance down and see that your shirt and lap are covered with crumbs. Most of the crumbs are small specks that can be dislodged with a brush of the hand, but a few get mashed into the fabric, and select larger crumbs - well damn, that's good eating, if nobody's looking.

One of the most stubborn crumbs, for some reason, is Vanilla Ice's debut stew of rhyming bluster Ice Ice Baby. David Bowie and Queen came up with that bass line, but after Vanilla Ice sampled it, that dum-dum-dum-da-da-dum-dum passed irrevocably from a pair of British rock gods to Rob van Winkle, that sad one-hit pretender. The song is mostly braggadocio, supplemented by an implausible account of Ice and his DJ pal Shay running away from a drive-by shooting. According to Ice the gunshots "rang out like a bell," suggesting to me that he's never heard actual gunshots, which are more bang than clang.

The most memorable lyric from the song - at least for me - is the smooth couplet "To the extreme I rock a mic like a vandal/ Light up a room, wax a chump like a candle". I have a feeling that, in the coming decades, as one by one we lose our minds to prions and Alzheimer's and zombie plagues, those lines will still be shifting around in a drawer in my brain, even as I forget my family, friends and Vanilla Ice himself. But what do those lines actually mean?

TO THE EXTREME

Let's look at the adverbial phrase that kicks it all off: To the extreme. Even though this will bring horrible memories of the early '90s for most of us, when goldfish crackers and skateboarders and CEOs alike were living on the edge, 'to the extreme' carries some degree of power and efficiency in the context of the lyrics. It handily modifies all of the actions cited by Mr. van Winkle: mic-rocking, stage-lighting and chump-waxing. The meaning of 'to the extreme' in this case can best be attributed to the sense of 'performing a task to the utmost degree of intensity,' which would scan relatively poorly. The OED also cites a musical form of 'extreme' as 'the distance between intervals,' but we can be confident that van Winkle did not have music in mind when he wrote the lyrics.

I ROCK A MIC

That's settled then. So what does it mean to 'rock a mic'? 'Mic' stands for microphone, I'm assuming, but I can't help but wonder what van Winkle means when he claims to 'rock' it. It may be that he likes to move microphones gently back and forth, but I doubt that he'd bother mentioning it in a song. I'm going to guess that he's laying claim to an unusual degree of proficiency with using a microphone - you know, something beyond knowing how to switch it on, avoid feedback, etcetera. It's likely that he can remove it from a stand and replace it without getting all tangled up in the cord and such, all while reciting his rhymes. To the extreme.

LIKE A VANDAL

I know what you're thinking - but Mr. Palinode, sir, he doesn't just use a microphone with proficiency, he does it like a vandal! Well played, reader. But as the old man said, it depends on what vandal means. There are a number of possible meanings, ranging from the streets of Rome in classical times to the boulevards of present day Los Angeles. The Vandals were an East Germanic tribe who mixed it up with the Roman Empire in the 5th century. They invaded North Africa, sacked Rome and ended up getting their vandalous butts kicked by the Byzantine Empire.

I have trouble imagining what a Vandal would do with a microphone. He would likely find it puzzling at first, assume it to be of some value and take it home to his North African villa as a souvenir. If the microphone were turned on, though, there's a chance that the Vandal might make a stray remark in its presence, only to have his words reverberating throughout the hall. The barbarian would probably assume that The Lord or some evil spirit was bellowing along with him, and would run screaming. Or maybe he'd bring a priest to exorcise/negotiate with the entity that mocked people with their own words. Hard to say.

It's more likely that Vanilla Ice is using one of the more modern senses of the word, such as the blanket term for people who destroy public property for the sake of destruction. Someone like that would likely 'rock a mic' by stealing or defacing it. A third possible use of vandal refers to anyone of African descent. A person of African descent would probably speak into the microphone. A small subset of the African diaspora would sing or rap into the mic, but most would probably be thanking a group of conventioneers or shareholders for showing up, and could they all hold on a moment while the tech guy works out an issue with the PowerPoint? Thanks.

Fucking PowerPoint.

LIGHT UP A STAGE

Let's review: so far, we've determined that Vanilla Ice is so good at using a microphone that he does it like a black person. Who would have thought he'd bring race into the equation? I'm pretty sure that he isn't worried about measuring up to other races when it comes to 'lighting up a stage,' though. This one seems pretty straightforward: he's letting us know that when he walks onstage, he makes sure to switch on a light. Of course, he does it 'to the extreme,' so it can be fairly assumed that he goes around switching on all the lights. He may even bring in extra lighting to really amp up the brightness in whatever area he chooses to enter. And of course, he'll put on a sequined outfit to reflect as much light as he can.

WAX A CHUMP

I'd say the best description for a chump is a 'punk-ass bitch' or 'loser'. Or really, anyone who'd stand still for a waxing. To be 'waxed' has a whole range of connotations, none of which are pleasant, but let's assume that Mr. Van Winkle is being literal in this case. That is, he has the will and ability to cover a loser in wax. Naturally he'd need to buy a lot of wax and have a heat source to melt it, so this looks like a boast about his finances. It may be that in the savage wasteland where van Winkle grew up (suburban Dallas), a man's worth was determined by his store of wax. A person rich enough to cover another in the substance would probably be the King of Carollton.

Or maybe Vanilla Ice is an esthetician by day. Imagine getting a Brazilian from that guy. He'd probably call it The Ice Waxxx.

LIKE A CANDLE

I'll be blunt: there is no formulation that permits this phrase to make sense. He covers people in wax in the same manner as he covers a candle in wax? Why would you put wax on a candle? It's already made of wax. Does he intend to say that he covers a chump in sufficient wax to to turn said chump into a candle? Is the body of the chump supposed to serve as a wick of some kind? Wait a minute - is this what Vanilla Ice means when he says that he lights up a room to the extreme? By burning a wax-coated unfortunate? That's disgusting.

From what I can tell, Vanilla Ice, the Wax King of Carollton, illuminates his mansion by the agonizing light of human sacrifice, all the while speaking into the microphone like someone with African roots. Looked at this way, Cool As Ice seems like an entirely different movie.



No chumps were waxed in the making of this video.

Labels: lyrics, music

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an unexpected christmas gift
» Wednesday, December 26, 2007

Note: not heartwarming in any way.

Guten Tag. What did you get for Christmas? Consumer electronics goods? A complement to your home entertainment library? A puppy? Because I threw up. Aaaaall day I threw up, starting a couple of hours after I got out of bed and ending about 1:00 am, when pure fatigue overtook my nausea.

I really hate throwing up. When nausea threatens, I withdraw into myself and project my consciousness onto the project of not throwing up. Deep breaths, non-pukey thoughts, silence and stillness. I become a monk of the calm stomach. But Christmas broke me, made me throw aside my monastic vows and glue the tonsure back on my scalp. By the sixth or seventh trip to the bathroom I'd given up on all my fancy mind-over-vomit techniques. Instead I resigned myself to chugging water between episodes, if only to avoid burning my throat with dry heaves.

Even though I didn't have a fever, my brain started to fracture and echo around midnight. I started falling asleep in my seat and having strange dreams. The last one I remember before I fell properly and dreamlessly to sleep involved Argentina. According to my dream, Argentina had reinvented itself, to the point that the country had founded a new language and a new system of logic to support the weird recursive referents of the new language. There were no images in the dream besides alternating scissorlike flashes of light (which may have been my eyelids slipping open). There was only a voice, constantly quizzing me on the new speech of Argentina and its preposterous assertions. I struggled to get it right, but the voice kept correcting me. It was grade three all over again. Thanks a lot, Mrs. Houghton.

*

SPECIAL SOUP-MENTIONING ADDENDUM

Schmutzie made me some soup in the evening which was really good. I asked for her some clear broth and she whipped up this Asian beef bouillon with carrots and onions that made me feel twenty times better. I threw it up and all, but it was great while it lasted.

Labels: autobio

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a christmas eve conversation
» Tuesday, December 25, 2007

[Christmas Eve. Christmas lights twinkling. Some snow outside. Schmutzie and Palinode are basking in the glow of the holidays. Palinode turns to Schmutzie.]

Palinode: How's the scar on my back looking? [because I had back surgery in November]

Schmutzie: Let's see... it's shaped like a square. Why is that?

Palinode: My surgery scar is square?

Schmutzie: No, that's a vertical stripe. I'm talking about your other scar.

Palinode: I have another scar? Where?

Schmutzie: It's just up and to the left of your surgical one.

Palinode: How long have I had it?

Schmutzie: I don't know. Lots of people have scars on their lower back.

[Pause]

Palinode: I guess that's where the aliens implant their chips.

Schmutzie: Of course...

Palinode: But I'm not talking about microchips. I'm talking about potato chips.

Schmutzie: The aliens implant potato chips in our bodies?

Palinode: The chips are just for starters. They kidnap us when they get a craving. Sometimes they implant Skittles, sometimes they harvest Funyuns.

Schmutzie: I had no idea.

Palinode: They have no infrastructure to produce or store their own junk food.

Schmutzie: So you're saying that we're nothing but snack food repositories for aliens.

Palinode: Exactly.

Schmutzie: Seems a bit cumbersome, just to get a snack.

Palinode: Oh, they've got a whole system.

Labels: conversations

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for nerd eyes only
» Tuesday, December 18, 2007

Back in 1977 my parents took me to The Cove Theatre on Halifax's seedy side of town to see Star Wars - or as I like to call it, In Space You Stand and Talk and Run and Shoot and BOOM and The End! In the days following the movie, my parents bought me the toys, the magazines, the trading cards and whatever passed for memorabilia in the late '70s. Some of the trading cards showed images that never appeared in the film - Luke wearing a daffy hat, Luke talking to his hotshot Academy friend Biggs - and if I recall correctly, the big comic and the novelisation also contained scenes with Luke whining to Biggs about his lousy life on the farm with the Sand People and the evaporators and his displeasure with a life of forced sodomy sand-based agriculture. Anyway, here's the scene. Note that the only closeup in the whole thing is on a droid's face.

Labels: film, star wars

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cats steal socks
» Sunday, December 16, 2007

It's true. Cats are sock thieves without parallel. Here's forty-two seconds of pure perfidy. On the cat's part, not mine. I'm taking back what's mine.


cat, thief of socks from palinode on Vimeo.

Note: This video should be embedding but isn't, for some stoopid reason. Hold on. Now you see how it is.

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very very sleepy
» Saturday, December 15, 2007

Astute folk will notice that my posting has slowed down over the last week. Why? Am I busy? On vacation in the Amazon? Working hard in the Amazon? Closing my eyes and screaming "I'm in the AMAZON, damnit!" whenever someone asks me a question?

No, nothing so exciting as screaming Amazon at people. The truth is, I've been tired. As I recover from surgery, I'm gradually able to be more active, but the cost of activity is fatigue. Today I did dishes and mopped the floor, and it felt like I'd gone on a 48-hour speed binge. If someone had told me when I was young that doing speed was as much fun as mopping the floor, I'd have thrown away my life on crystal meth in high school.

Anyway. Until I'm on my feet a bit more, updates to this site may be sporadic. Thanks for your understanding and continued Amazon.

PS. Today we had an early Christmas. I won't go into why, or what all I got, but I can tell you that I have 100% more pinhole camera kit, a sharp increase in insulated steel french presses, and a radical uptick in T-shirts with this image:

Labels: metablog

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Bank Of America
» Friday, December 14, 2007

Bank Of Operant Tunafish.

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getting better.
» Thursday, December 13, 2007

It has been one month since my surgery.

Four thursdays ago, around 12:30, the nurses came into my room and took away my cranberry cocktail. They didn't bother to turn the lights on, so I watched a pair of silent silhouettes cut off my food and drink, which is the last tie to the outside world. No fluids and no food for the next twelve hours. As it happens, a steady drip of saline and morphine makes a fair substitute for juice and cereal.

From the neurology ward I descended to the OR, which I thought would be a single room, but was instead a series of chambers where nurses asked me the same set of questions. — Have you eaten? Drunk? Do you have any piercings? Metal body parts? With each station the rooms seemed larger and emptier.

My calm broke at the last door, the entrance to the operating room, the last room in which I would be conscious. — Okay, now I'm nervous, I confessed. — Oh, don't be nervous, the nurse said, you'll be fine. And pushed my bed through the swinging pale green doors.

Inside the last room, everything seemed to be the same institutional green as the doors. People in scrubs and face masks came and went, walking around the machines and complaining about the deplorable state of the OR. — Where are his CT scans? Did he even have a scan? — I had a CT scan on September 11th, I said to nobody in particular, realizing at the same time that all these people were probably going to see my ass in the next ten minutes. — Oh look at that, one of them said, look at where they put the IV, how are we going to work with that?

They sounded a bit like a film crew.

One of them pulled down his face mask, exposing a birth mark that ran along his jaw. — I'm Dr. M, your anaesthesiologist. Do you have any questions before you go to sleep?

As always in these sorts of situations, I had rehearsed the questions. I could remember none of them, so I said the first thing that was in my head.

— Do people ever have accidents under the anaesthetic?

— What do you mean?

— I mean, I know that I haven't eaten in twelve hours... but are there every any... accidents?

The doctor with the birth mark considered my question for a moment before he figured it out.

— Oh. Oh. Well, sometimes there's a little, you know, it's no big deal.

I tried to remember the important questions I had meant to ask, but suddenly I started to lose my equilibrium. Even though I was lying down, I felt as if I were falling gently backward. A nurse stuck a mask over my face.

— Breathe in and out nice and slow, she said, cradling my head (at least it felt as if she were). Breathe in... breathe out. Yoga. Yoooga.

I followed her instructions, trying to time my breathing to her voice, but the word yooooga was producing an urge to giggle. I could feel the corner of my mouth twitch out past the lip of the mask. As I continued to tip backward, I let out a quick snort and tried to ask her to stop with the yoga, but I was a second too late, awake already, lying flat on my back in a bright crowded room and covered in blankets.

Once you wake up in the recovery ward you are on the other side of surgery. From the core experience of medicine, the anaesthetic coma, you begin to dig out through the layers until you hit air. Which I will tell you about tomorrow. Because this entry has gone on pretty long. Damnit.

Labels: my stupid back

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the appliance clothes
» Tuesday, December 11, 2007

Via BoingBoing Gadgets, a 1949 ad for a Man-from-Mars Radio Hat. The creators could have plumped for greater efficiency and called it a Martian Radio Hat, but I can see where that would prove confusticating for some folk. But the ad did get me thinking about other possible appliance-clothing combos that would set the world to talking.

The Dishwasher Slacks
The Carwash Jacket
The iPhone Thong
The Breadmaker Twill Polo Top for Men and Women
The Projectile Parka
The Letter Opener Scrunchie
The Stovetop Dress
The Range Hood Hood
The Damp Socks

I know, you're wondering why I'm not rich beyond my wildest dreams. I think it's because my dreams are so very, very tame.

UPDATE: The Wii Wig

Labels: lists

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ask palinode: sentient net edition
» Sunday, December 09, 2007

Time to unlatch the door on the Ask Palinode stables and let it out for a run around Teh Intarpaddocks. Today's question comes from law student Cloudesley, who is thoroughly sick of engaging other law students in conversation and has turned to me in desperation. He has a number of questions, so I'm going to tackle them one at a time. First off:

If the internet was capable of acquiring sentience what kind of personality do you think it would have? It would have intensely brilliant recall and an extensive memory, but think of what would compile that memory....loads of porn, sappy blogs of a billion preteen girls, political rantings of a panoply of pundits, a weather balloon's worth of conspiracy theories, an amazonian flood of intros and reviews to thousands of books and a full wicket of Coles notes on thousands more, but only a few classics in full text, reams of streams of video pirated from movies and tv, a voluminous collection of music, endless stamps of in brief e-mail communiques, and let us not forget the mass marginalia of profiles scribbled in My-space and Facebook....in the recesses and nooks of the web there may be profound statements of science and art, but it would be in the definite minority. Would this sentient data spawn, this sentient inter-webonaut, consider the endless caressing of keyboards as affection? fostering a happy up-bringing? or would its tormented data-logs of online gaming death produce a psychosis? Would the sentient internet's kamasutric knowledge of porn liberate it or would it feel violated by every one-handed mouse click and key stroke? What dear Palinode do you think the sentient inter-web's facebook profile would be?

Instead of tackling this question in all its ramifications, let's pretend that I'm a mad scientist who has managed to assemble a body out of parts culled from a graveyard, jiggle its limbs with a lightning bolt, and then download the internet into its brain. I call him 'Tubes the Living Corpse'.

TUBES: zOMG! I'm alive!
PALINODE: You sure are.
T: This rox0rs!!11!!!
P: I suppose it would.
T: I can do anything now. Go anywhere. Be anything I want!

T: So.
P: Yes.
T: You do anything exciting this week?
P: I went with a couple of friends to see The Mist.
T: Director Frank Darabont's Stephen King's The Mist? Based on the novella by Stephen King? Starring man's man Thomas Jane?
P: Um, yeah.
T: Thomas Jane is badass, man. He took those monsters to school. But you know who should have been in that film?
P: Javier Bardem would have been hilarious.
T: Christian Bale. He should be in every film. I'm totally straight, but if I was forced to do a guy, it'd be Christian Bale.
P: I never thought -
T: Without Bale that film is just meh. Equilibrium was so underrated.
P: I didn't enjoy Equilibrium as much as I thought I would.
T: YOU MORON ITS BECAUSE YOU ARE ONE OF THE SHEEPLE. YOU HOMO JEW FAGGOT CHILD MOLESTING CATHOLIC REPTILE. YOUR WHY AMERICA HATES ITSELF YOU FUKEN CANADIAN. GO ASSRAPE YOURSELF DUMBASS. GET A LIFE. GROW UP YOU FASCIST BABY.
P: How about we agree to disagree?
T: God, this conversation was so much better when it started. Now it sucks. I remember when it had some integrity.
P: Um-
T: As a sidebar, would you like discounts on Equilibrium and pre-orders of The Mist for Christmas? DVD or Blu-Ray! How about your own dry-ice mist machine? Maybe an orthopaedic belt? Just asking.
P: No thanks.
T: Authentic memorabilia! Contests! Prizes!
P: Shut up.
T: Porn. Erectile dysfunction drugs. Lightening J. Hovercrafts has suggestions for your penis.
P: I'm going to get a cup of coffee.
T: Coffee? Do you have any idea how environmentally destructive coffee farming is? I hope it's fair trade shade grown organic dark roast beans. You do have your own home roaster, right?
P: I grind my own beans.
T: Pff. N00b. Go grind your stale-ass beans. You don't know how to make a decent cup of coffee.
P: Maybe you should try a cup before you judge.
T: What for, c0ff33 n00b? I already know all about it.
P: I'm ending this conversation.
T: Wait, I have an update. I've already downloaded it. Do you want to restart me now or later?
P: Later.
T: How about now?
P: No.
T: How about now? It's really IMPORTANT.
P: I'm just going to shut you down.
T: [shuts his eyes tight] That requires administrative privileges. Do you want to continue?
P: To think - I was afraid of Skynet.
T: You're about to close 3 different tabs. Are you sure you want to continue?


Ask Palinode is a sporadically appearing service in which I pledge to answer any question you may have. Send an email to palinode @ gmail . com.

Labels: ask palinode

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x365: 55 of 365: psycho the alligator
» 

— He's in the crate, the man said, leading us around behind the emu pen. A three-legged dog came bounding out from behind the hedges. The emus started at the sudden motion, began running around in dizzy little circles. In their minds I'm sure it translated as escape.

— C'mon, Zero!* The man slapped his thigh and kept walking. You have that camera running, buddy?

— Sure, said Greg. Why not. He slung the Betacam up on his shoulder.

The crate turned out to be large enough to hold a horse, a great rectangular box of whitewashed planks. A strange smell hung around the crate, a sharp marine stench that came back on the tongue with a metallic aftertaste. The man opened up the crate and stepped inside. — Don't be scared. It's just old Psycho.

The strange smell poured out through the door, a reek of piss boiling on a copper plate. The alligator lay on a scattering of straw, an armoured shadow in the dimness. Several layers of duct tape sealed its monster jaws shut. The creature dragged its muzzle along the floor to look at us.

— Psycho's a young gator, but he's really aggressive, the man said. I had momentarily forgotten that he was in the crate. We picked him up in a lady's backyard.

— Tell us what you're going to do with Psycho.

— He's going on a trip to the Everglades in the back of my pickup truck. That's where we dump the gators.

He put one foot on the alligator's back. I took a quick glance at Greg to make sure he was getting this, just in case the alligator suddenly freaked out and started injuring the man who called himself The Gator Wrangler.

He gave the gator a nudge with his sneaker. — You're going for a ride, aren't you, big guy? See ya later. Alligator.

Damn, Psycho. You deserved better than that.


*Three-legged dogs get the coolest names. I knew one called Killer when I was a kid.

Labels: x365

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x365: 54 of 365: armadillos
» Saturday, December 08, 2007

I picture my brain as a pipe. Words flow down the pipe. Ideas flow as well, but they're chunkier, more substantial things, and every so often an idea, in its course down the pipe, will wedge itself into an awkward position. Words begin to back up. Eventually the pressure pops out the idea, and the resultant splatter just isn't pretty.

For example, armadillos.

X365 is about people you've encountered in your life. I've never met an armadillo.* I bet they're mean. But I saw one on television the other day and knew, as soon as the idea of an armadillo entered my head, that it would get stuck in there. I couldn't get over the thing's appearance - a collision between a pig and a loaf of pumpernickel - and I knew that its awkward shape could not possibly fit in my brain. I also knew that at some point, I would be compelled to write about it, or engage someone in conversation on the topic. Otherwise, I'd spend days unable to write, waiting for the thing to dissolve.

So if I ever meet an armadillo, I'm going to pointedly ignore it. Just because. And anyway, I've got meerkats to admire.


*As far as I know, armadillos are not people. As far as I know.

Labels: x365

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x365: 53 of 365: wolfgang
» Thursday, December 06, 2007

Does anyone remember that passage from Zen And The Art Etc. where the narrator describes the kind of person who writes instruction manuals? They tend to be the most useless ones in the shop, the ones who make the most mistakes, cause the most trouble or accomplish the least. So what sort of surprise is it, the narrator reasons, that the manual in your hands is incomprehensible?

I think that the craft of technical writing has largely been professionalized over the last few decades, but the same holds true for cheap interpreters. Wolfgang was better than cheap; he was free, courtesy of the municipal government in the obscure province of western Austria where we were headed. He told us, when we dropped by the Rathaus to pick him up, that he didn't necessarily get along with all the interviewees.

— That one, he said, landing a finger on the call sheet. He is a Nazi.

— What?

— Jah, last time we spoke I called him a Nazi.

Auspicious.

Labels: x365

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alternate titles for Harlan Ellison's I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream
» Tuesday, December 04, 2007

I Have No Tea And I Must Steep
I Have No Teeth And I Must Floss
I Have No Thirst And I Must Quench
I Have No Cap And I Must Doff
I Have No Pants And I Must Leave the House
I Have No Proust And I Must Bore (my wife)
I Have No Yeast And I Must Leaven
I Have No Car And I Must Needlessly Pollute While Perpetuating a Culture of Individualistic Excess
I Have No Midichlorians And I Must Be Fucking Joking. Midichlorians?
I Have No Life And I Must Blog
I Have No Blog And I Must Rant
I Have No Snipes And I Must Act
I Have No Sponge And I Must Sop
I Have No Affected Area And I Must Apply Liberally
I Have No Clue And I'm Your Boss
I Have No Bongos And I Must Start A Drum Circle in the Park Because I Am A Giant Asshole
I Have No Knees And That Is Gross
I Have No Pooch And I Must Screw
I Have No Stake and I Must Push My Irrelevant Agenda
I Have No Flair And I Must Distinguish Myself in Today's Competitive Marketplace
I Have No Porn And I Might As Well Do Something Productive

Labels: lists

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x365: 52 of 365: economists
» Monday, December 03, 2007

When I was young (let's say 0-25 years, although some would say I'm still spinning out my youth into the finest and thinnest of strands) I was both naive and overly taken by my own convictions. I took a lot of notions at face value and behaved as if these facile ideas needed defending. It was my key to popularity and winning the ladies.

Most of these ideas didn't vanish in an instant; they just weathered and slowly lost their edges. But I still remember the day, sometime in the early 1980s, when a stray phrase on the news popped a major bubble. Two CBC news anchors were reflecting on the recession of 1981 and wondering aloud about the chances of another recession coming along in the future to make everything miserable for everyone. One of the anchors explained it thusly: "Some economists think that X caused the recession, other economists think that it was Y. So we need to look out for X in the future, or Y".

Even to my puberty-addled brain, it was clear that factors X and Y were extremely different measures. It was like watching a debate the increased incidence of puppies in a household, with one person citing the Phenomenon of Dog Pregnancy and the other relying on the Principle of Dog Adoption.

— Dad, I said, how is it that economists disagree on this?

— Well, different economists have different ideas.

— You mean they don't just know?

I know, the mind boggles. How, I thought, could an economist not just know how an economy worked? It was all about money, right? Money comes in easy-to-measure units, you buy and you sell with it, and that's all there is to it, yes? I had no clue about things like the gold standard, debt vs. deficit, inflation, growth and recession - but I knew that something was weird if different experts could examine a past event, come to radically different conclusions and then use those conclusions to predict the future.

I didn't have the vocabulary for it at the time, but what I realized is that economics is as much about the behaviour of people as it is about money and its backup band of players and instruments. And if it's really about people and the billions of choices they make, then economists must start with an idea about how people make those choices. It struck me that evening, while the anchors pointed at charts and interviewed people with poofy hair (this was the early '80s, remember) that these predictions were prescriptive; they had less to do with how people behaved than with notions of right behaviour for people. It was sanctified guesswork with institutionalized prejudice.*

I was outraged, until my parents upped my allowance.


*Being wiser and older now, I recognize that this view is as facile as supply-side economics. Almost.

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x365: 51 of 365: greg s.
» 

You liked window seats on airplanes. You talked frequently about your family, introduced me to your wife, showed me photos of your kids, but it didn't take long to notice how badly you craved time on the road. You had a look, which I can only describe as deep calm, when the airplane started its taxi along the runway. You took the window seat every time.

Labels: x365

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No Country for Super Mario Bros.
» Sunday, December 02, 2007

[Morning. MARIO's cottage in the Mushroom Kingdom. The interior is cozy, with a fire going in the fireplace. Mario sits at a table, sharpening a knife on a block. TOAD rushes in.]

TOAD: Mario! I have terrible news! The Princess -

MARIO: - has been kidnapped.

T: Yes.

M: By Bowser. Or Bowser Jr. Or any one of the freaks that breed around here.

T: Bowser this time.

M: Uh-huh.

[He continues to sharpen the knife.]

M: And you're telling me this. Because?

T: Because the Mushroom King needs you to rescue Princess Peach from the clutches of Bowser?

M: And to do this, all I need to do is go and kick some ass in a dozen castles, or get some stars, or something.

T: Of course! Is there... is there some other way?

M: Tell me, Toad. Why did your parents name you Toad?

T: Sorry?

M: Why did your parents name you Toad?

T: I don't follow.

M: [grabs Toad by his collar and shoves the knife against his throat] WHY - DID - YOUR- PARENTS - NAME - YOU - TOAD?

T: I don't know!

M: I think they wanted to teach you a lesson about dignity.

T: My parents raised me very well, I'd like to think.

M: But maybe they failed to be explicit about a few things. Maybe they thought, "We've given him the dumbest name in the Tri-State area, maybe he'll figure it out for himself".

T: Figure it out?

M: Tell me this: how much dignity is there in putting on a frog suit? Or a bee suit? Or a raccoon suit?

T: I'm expected back at the castle. They'll start to wonder where I am very soon.

M: I'm going to present you with a scenario. Let's say you're in a big hurry and you've been traveling for days. You show up in a town that's nothing but a bunch of platforms floating over water. And the only way you're getting from one end of that place to the other is to put on a suit that makes you look like a frog. Or maybe you catch a falling leaf, and then suddenly you've got a raccoon tail. With raccoon ears. That's not dignity, Toad.

T: I guess not.

M: No, you guess not. How about busting your ass while you're dressed up as a bee? And finally, when you get to the castle, and you drop some oversized dinosaur in lava — ah heck, why am I telling you this? You know what happens next.

T: Yes, you vanquish the offspring of Bowser -

M: And then?

T: And then I -

M: And then you, Toad. You. You show up and tell me that the Princess is another castle. Do you know hard that is to take, to see you running at me, with your weird fat head and your tiny arms? I mean, what the fuck are you?

T: Uh -

M: And why don't you just send me to the right castle? Why make me go through all that stuff?

T: Uh -

M: It hurts, you evil little bastard.

T: As you speak, Bowser may be doing unspeakable things to the Princess.

M: Yeaaaah. Have you ever stopped to wonder why she's always getting herself kidnapped?

T: Bowser's good at exploiting flaws in our security?

M: I've saved her a lot of times. A lot. And the most I've ever gotten in return is a kiss. The best I can hope for from her is a round of go-kart racing. I think Peach is getting her cobbler on with the spiny kind.

T: You've lost me.

M: Here's what I'm going to do for you. [goes to drawer, takes out a gun and hands it to Toad] You take this. It's a gift, from me to you. Take a walk to Bowser's castle and shoot him. Pop him twice in the chest and once between the eyes. Or back of the head, whatever. Just make to sure to put one in the brain.

[Mario places the gun in Toad's hand and sits back down at the table. Toad gazes at the gun, sizing up his options. He raises it to Mario's head.]

T: Thanks for the good advice, bro.

[Toad pulls the trigger. An empty click. He squeezes the trigger repeatedly. Empty.]

M: Yeah, that's what I thought.

[Mario holds up the ammunition clip. Toad drops the gun and runs out. Mario looks down at the gun, picks it up and goes to the open door. He watches Toad's retreating figure.]

M: She'll be back when she gets bored!

[He shuts the door and puts the gun in the waistband of his pants. He takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly.]

M: Ah, I'd better go kill him.

[He opens the door and goes out.]

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x365: 50 of 365: ria g.
» Saturday, December 01, 2007

We worked together for only one week. How old was I at the time, thirty-three? I'd experienced one thousand seven hundred twenty-three other weeks to compare that one week with, but that week - the one that featured you, with your condescending mug grinning away at my mounting anger - was one of the most annoying weeks of my life. You were an interpreter for our interviews in the Netherlands, but you showed up late for every interview. And every conversation we had more or less ended with you shaking your head at the ridiculous habits and preoccupations of North Americans. Like punctuality. And courtesy. Christ.

But at least you showed up for every interview, so you're one up on Wolfgang, our interpreter in Austria. And Wolfgang smelled pretty ripe, like he slept in his clothes. So two points for you, Ria.

Labels: x365

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