By Cyberquill • 03/12/2010 •
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“It was either a massive 30-city tour or start helping out around the house,” said Conan O’Brien, announcing his upcoming Legally Prohibited From Being Funny On Television Tour.
As soon as the tour wraps up and his contractual television ban expires, Mr. O’Brien is expected to return to the small screen and essentially do the same show he’s been doing for 17 years, only on a different network. Probably Fox.
Whatever station he’ll be on, the title for his new show is obvious, and you read it here first: … (Read More »»)
By Cyberquill • 03/01/2010 •
18 Comments
If you’re just goofing around, applying won’t suffice. In addition, you’ll have to come in for an interview, undergo job training, and perhaps even show up for work every day.
If you’re serious, all you have to do is apply, and you’re done.
Or could it be the dangling only refers to the serious and not to the act of applying?
As I keep scouring Craigslist’s Help Wanted section in my endearingly fruitless quest for employment, I keep stumbling across the endearingly insipid Serious Only Need Apply. I can’t help but wonder about the mindset of an employer who would bother to include such a silly line in a job ad, assuming the employer him- or herself either wrote or personally signed off on it prior to its publication. (Even if some factotum was wholly responsible for the content of the ad, the impression it engenders attaches to the employer and the company, not to the witless minion in … (Read More »»)
By Cyberquill • 02/24/2010 •
41 Comments
An attractive young woman suits up in a tight mini skirt and a skimpy peekaboo blouse, paints her face like Irma la Douce, dons a flashy diamond necklace, sticks a wad of 100-dollar bills into each of her exposed garters, puts on a pair of four-inch stilettos, gets plastered out of her mind, and proceeds to take a midnight stroll on the South Side of Chicago, all by herself.
She ends up raped, strangled, and robbed.
Now, if—upon condemning this act of violence—you ever so gently offered for consideration the thesis that the young lady’s choices in the run-up to her demise may not have been among the most conducive to her personal welfare, chances are you’d be taken to the woodshed by every women’s and victim’s rights group under the sun for “blaming the victim” in a disgraceful bid to make excuses for her attacker(s), as if you were implying that on account of the victim’s conduct the crime committed was less severe than had she been stone sober, wrapped in a burlap blanket with a potato sack over her head, and assaulted en route to the grocery store in broad daylight with fifteen body guards and a pack of … (Read More »»)
By Cyberquill • 02/12/2010 •
27 Comments
Some folks were born one sex but would like to be the other. More precisely, they feel they are the opposite sex, but owing to some sort of cosmic misunderstanding or genetic snafu, their soul/spirit/essence or whatever came to inhabit the wrong body. Now their hormones find themselves in a perpetual state of war with their external anatomy, thus resulting in a painfully conflicted existence. Something like that. So if a man perceives himself to be trapped in a female body or vice-versa, and the psychological distress over such mismatch impairs his/her daily functioning, that person is diagnosed with Gender Identity Disorder.
Apparently, GID has been officially classified as a medical condition such that, in some cases, sex change operations may even be tax-deductible as medical rather than cosmetic procedures. Translation: you and I foot the bill. At least part of it. And that’s fine. Nothing wrong with helping the sick.
My aim is not to dispute or even to debate the merits of such classification. I do, however, contend that if GID indeed amounts to a genuine medical condition, then my DDD is a genuine medical condition as well.
I honestly don’t know if I’m joking or not, as I find it increasingly difficult to tell what is and what isn’t a joke when it comes to the ever growing lexicon of … (Read More »»)
By Cyberquill • 02/07/2010 •
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In his splendidly (oops…) entertaining and highly (ouch!) edifying writing primer On Writing–A Memoir of the Craft, horrormeister Stephen King counsels against the use of adverbs:
Adverbs, you will remember from your own version of Business English, are words that modify verbs, adjectives, or other adverbs. They’re the ones that usually end in -ly. Adverbs, like the passive voice, seem to have been created with the timid writer in mind. With the passive voice, the writer usually expresses fear of not being taken seriously; it is a the voice of little boys wearing shoepolish moustaches and little girls clumping around in Mommy’s high heels. With adverbs, the writer usually tells us he or she is afraid he/she isn’t expressing herself clearly, that he or she is not getting the point or the picture across.
The above 80-word paragraph features five adverbs, i.e., 6.25% of it is pure adverbiage—quite remarkable for a paragraph explicitly composed to discourage rather than to promote their employment—including a whopping three instances of the word usually. (On the previous page, Mr. King had stated that he was “not in love” with the sentence My romance with Shayna began with our first kiss because it contained the word with twice in four words.)
Mr. King continues … (Read More »»)
By Cyberquill • 01/27/2010 •
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My previous post contained the following sentence:
Weapons of mass destruction or no weapons of mass destruction, Iraq, being located smack in between Iran and the Saudi Arabian oil fields, with Saddam and his murderous Oprichniki removed as a regional stabilizer of sorts, I guess there’s little chance of pulling out of there until such time as we’re all driving solar vehicles.
A former-sort-of-coworker-turned-Facebook-acquaintance of mine (not the gentleman pictured above) kindly yet forcefully lamented that something was “very wrong” with this sentence and that it made “no sense,” grammatically speaking.
Yet I contend that my sentence works just fine, as it is structurally modeled upon the Second Amendment:
A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
This antiquated construction is called … (Read More »»)
By Cyberquill • 01/25/2010 •
12 Comments
On one of the late-night talk shows, rocker Jon Bon Jovi referred to Barack Obama as the “coolest” president in the universe.
Agreed. We do have the coolest president imaginable, the classiest First Lady, two adorable First Daughters, and the most hypo-allergenic First Dog in history. More importantly, with the exception of Bo (left), less than one average human lifetime ago this entire beautiful family would have been relegated to the proverbial–as well as the literal–back of the bus in certain parts of the very country whose executive mansion they now rightfully inhabit. In spite of its flaws–which may be due to imperfections in human nature itself rather than the American system of governance–we live in a great nation with a moral arc bending towards justice in many respects.
Who can forget the expression of joy mingled with a sprinkling of disbelief in the teared-up eyes of older African-Americans, who had witnessed segregation firsthand, as they watched a black man delivering his acceptance speech and subsequently being sworn in as, yes, president of the United States of America? And irrespective of whether or not one agrees with Mr. Obama’s policies, who could possibly fail to delight in the notion of a bunch of knuckleheaded drips banging the deranged contents of their goofy-looking … (Read More »»)
By Cyberquill • 12/28/2009 •
16 Comments
The main panel discussion on yesterday’s Meet the Press, titled America–The Next Decade, was premised upon the sentiment that a new decade would officially kick off on January 1, 2010. In fact, we’ve been subjected to quite a lot of end-of-decade talk lately.
I suppose a legitimate argument can be made that a new decade begins at every moment. Hence, the decade that commenced on November 4, 1984, at 7:45:32 a.m. cashed in its chips on November 4, 1994, at precisely 7:45:31 a.m. And this very moment (right now) is the final one of the decade that started exactly ten years minus one moment ago.
Therefore, the decade that began January 1, 2000, at 00:01 a.m. has no choice but to expire December 31, 2009, at 11:59 p.m. The quantum effects of special relativity aside, ten years are ten years–a decade is a decade no matter what point in time the clock was started. A decade always ends ten years to the zeptosecond from the zeptosecond we started counting. And there exists no law against … (Read More »»)
By Cyberquill • 12/24/2009 •
9 Comments
Hard drives crash. Computers flatline. Insidious malware corrupts and obliterates our precious data. Thus I decided to invest in a state-of-the-art online data backup system. Gentle on the wallet, and should my Windows machine ever fall prey to a burglary, a flood, or get niblicked beyond repair by a jealous blonde chasing after me with a nine iron and causing all sorts of collateral property damage in the process, at least my files will be safe. (Unless, of course, whatever domestic misfortune may befall me coincides with a meteorite strike at the remote date storage facility–but what are the chances of such ill-fated concurrence?)
The project of backing up my data proved a shade more technically challenging than I had anticipated, so in flagrant defiance of the doctrine which holds that men neither ask for directions nor read manuals, I grudgingly resolved to consult the accompanying literature.
On page 17 (out of 50), the following statement perplexed me:
It is worth mentioning that Live protect requires adequate System resources.
It seems that protect should be capitalized and System should be lower-case, but let’s not sweat the small potatoes. What I found several orders of magnitude more troubling was that … (Read More »»)
By Cyberquill • 12/19/2009 •
6 Comments
Someone once referred to fathers as the dark matter of our psychic universe. The dark matter of my mine passed away exactly 10 years ago today. Death came suddenly. It was a Sunday. Und der Herrgott weiss immer warum.
* My Dad (1930-1999) *
… (Read More »»)
By Cyberquill • 12/13/2009 •
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Laura Ingraham
The other day, I watched a fascinating exchange between Laura Ingraham and Diane Francis, a Canadian journalist who advocated population control by referring to China as having had some success with their one-child policy. Although Ms. Francis, a self-professed feminist, conceded that she wasn’t particularly crazy about Communist dictatorships and their methods, some serious action needed to be taken in order to stem population growth, or else at some point in the not so far future global competition over basic resources like food, water, and energy would become so fierce that World War II will look like a dorm room pillow fight by comparison. (My analogy, but it captures the gist of her analysis.)
Needless to say, Laura Ingraham, being a card-carrying Christian conservative, blew her top at the notion of any kind of policy aimed at reducing birth rates, citing that any such policies would be impossible to enforce without draconian methods akin to those employed in China. For instance, we’d have to tell women how many children they could have, and this would never fly in this country.
Probably true. Hard to imagine to impose a one-child policy in the United States without kicking off a civil war that would make the Civil War (capitalized) look, well, like a dorm room pillow fight by comparison. After all, this is a Christian country, and one of the tenets of Christianity is that God creates every human life for a reason, and it is a mortal sin to interfere with the process. Hence no abortion, and, ideally, no … (Read More »»)
By Cyberquill • 12/12/2009 •
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So I’m reading this book called Bird by Bird by one Anne Lamott, subtitled Some Instructions on Writing and Life. Those familiar with my attempts at putting pen to screen will now be sorely tempted to enthusiastically exclaim how urgently I require not just some but truckloads of instructions in both areas. Be that as it may. (To quote James Thurber, “When I split an infinitive, it is going to damn well stay split!” And, to quote myself, when I split hairs, split they damn well shall remain.
On page 98, in a chapter on understanding people and how to tap into our quintessential oneness with our fellow citizens so as to be able to convert them into real and recognizable characters on the page, Ms. Lamott writes the following:
But it’s even possible to have this feeling when you see–really see—a police officer, when you look right at him and you see that he’s a living breathing person who like everyone else is suffering like a son of a bitch, and you don’t see him with a transparency over him of all the images of violence and chaos and danger that cops represent. You accept him as an equal.
Violence, chaos, and danger? That’s quite a flattering lineup of cop associations. One would think Ms. Lamott is referring not to police officers but to members of … (Read More »»)
By Cyberquill • 12/05/2009 •
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If I wanted to marry myself and applied for a marriage license, chances are that every license-issuing magistrate on the planet would politely but firmly instruct me to take a hike. But why? More importantly, why should my request be turned down? What could possibly be wrong with entering into the sacred bonds of matrimony with the person I love, honor, and cherish above all others? How is it that, merely on account of my spouse selection, I am being denied my civil right to shed the societal stigma of singlehood and enjoy a tax break like everyone else?
Well, for starters, if only one person is involved, it ain’t marriage. Simple as that. Says who? Why, tradition, of course. Historically speaking, the concept of marriage has never been known to extend to unions with oneself.
So there I go, and there I have it. Bummer.
Gay marriage proponents argue that the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment guarantees the right to same-sex marriage, and that resorting to the ballot box in this matter amounts to an exercise in futility, since–short of the passing of an constitutional amendment–our fundamental rights are not accountable to the democratic process. The Equal Protection Clause, by definition, trumps the outcome of … (Read More »»)
By Cyberquill • 12/02/2009 •
4 Comments
There’s no business like show business. Except death and taxes. If you thought the latter two were the only sure things in life, check out this latest bombshell revelation from yesterday’s Theater page in the New York Times:
The hit musicals, which often charge more during holidays, exploited demand even further last week by requiring more people to buy tickets at premium prices of $300 or higher. (Patrick Healy, New York Times, 12/1/09)
Broadway Musicals requiring (!) people to buy $300.00-plus tickets? Who would have thunk it? How is it constitutional to force the folks to fork over their hard-earned rent and grocery money at the box office? Whatever happened to property rights?
Effective immediately, I shall steer clear of the Theater District, lest I may suddenly find myself surrounded by a gang of brass-knuckled goons jumping out from behind a billboard or rappelling from a marquee and blackjacking me into blowing hundreds of dollars on show tickets.
Now, I’m no economist, but I sometimes do wonder what kind of theory of economics a person subscribes to that impels them to use a certain terminology in their reportage. Last time I checked, the United States was a free market economy. Is such a system God’s gift to mankind? Probably not quite, as evidenced by … (Read More »»)
By Cyberquill • 11/30/2009 •
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A well-known New York City psychologist recently recommended the following on his radio show:
Do small talk. It’s meaningless. It’s good for you.
Although I do not recall the context which prompted the chitchat prescription, its likely aim was to promote the use of conversation as a bonding tool as opposed to a mere conduit for the exchange of utilitarian intelligence or lofty intellectual constructs. Notwithstanding the fact that the determination of meaning-lessness versus its fullness resides notoriously in the eye of the beholder, on its face the notion of enjoying the company of others by way of shuttlecocking meaningless sound waves back and forth without allowing cumbersome tidings to distract from the congenial vibe seems reasonably therapeutic, especially for patients with full-blown STDD (small talk deficiency disorder).
It just so happens that yours truly’s dexterity in the small talk arena rivals that of the average milkman attempting to perform mitral valve surgery on an Dalmatian. Indeed, your’s truly couldn’t small-talk his way out of the proverbial paper bag at a wedding reception if a crazed Afghan party crasher held an AK-47 to his temple and demanded such talk; although, on account of the strength of such incentive, he might, in fact, be able to crank out an unusually eloquent succession of perhaps two or three peppy zingers along the lines of “That’s a beautiful rifle” and “How’s your goat?” prior to falling silent due to STE (small talk exhaustion), which, in this case, would most likely be followed by his falling even silenter [sic] due to … (Read More »»)
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