Ukulele fever

The New York Times takes note of the ukulele's renewed popularity:

Suddenly there's something irresistible again about ukuleles.

Again? The ukulele has never been resistible.

The Times article suggests several reasons for renewed interest in the uke, including Jake Shimabukuro's virtuoso performance of "While My Guitar Gently Weeps." Oddly though, the Times doesn't mention George Harrison's own possible influence. The scenes of George with uke in hand in the documentary The Beatles Anthology (1995) prompted me (and, I suspect, others) to pick up the instrument. (George's uke can be heard at the end of the Beatles' "Free as a Bird.")

And in case you're wondering: yes, it's possible to play "Smells Like Teen Spirit" on the ukulele.

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While my ukulele gently weeps

Capital "I"

Caroline Winter wonders why we capitalize the first-person singular pronoun:

Consider other languages: some, like Hebrew, Arabic and Devanagari-Hindi, have no capitalized letters, and others, like Japanese, make it possible to drop pronouns altogether. The supposedly snobbish French leave all personal pronouns in the unassuming lowercase, and Germans respectfully capitalize the formal form of "you" and even, occasionally, the informal form of "you," but would never capitalize "I." Yet in English, the solitary "I" towers above "he," "she," "it" and the royal "we."

Read all about "I":

Me, Myself and I (New York Times)

Love and imperfections

One more observation from Gordon Livingston:

To know someone fully and love them in spite of, even because of, their imperfections is an act that requires us to recognize and forgive, two very important indicators of emotional maturity. More important is the fact that, if we can do this for other people, we may be able to do it for ourselves.

Too Soon Old, Too Late Smart (New York: Da Capo, 2004), 146

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Thrift-store telephone

This telephone announced its presence in our house with a bright, merry ring. "Dad, it's your phone," said Ben. Our cell has an old phone ringtone, but this ring wasn't the cell's. Surprise! Thanks, Rachel and Ben! [Photograph by Ben Leddy.]

If it's Wensday, this must be England

Genevieve, who writes wonderfully about agrarian life, WPA architecture, and other matters at Prairie Bluestem, sent this news from the world of spelling and misspelling (or mispelling):

Dr Ken Smith is urging colleagues to turn a blind eye to the 20 most common slips — such as 'Febuary', 'ignor' and 'speach' — and view them instead as variants of standard spellings.

Writing in the Times Higher Education magazine, the senior lecturer in criminology at Buckinghamshire New University said: 'Teaching a large first-year course at a British university, I am fed up with correcting my students' atrocious spelling. Aren't we all?

'But why must we suffer? Instead of complaining about the state of the education system as we correct the same mistakes year after year, I've got a better idea.

'University teachers should simply accept as variant spellings those words our students most commonly misspell.'

Among Smith's proposed variants: thier and there for their and Wensday for Wednesday.

Something tells me that Smith's modest proposal must be tongue-in-cheek. But in light of other recent news from England, I can't be sure.

[Post title with apologies to this movie.]

Mediterranean fatalism

Over five nights in late July and early August, I made my way through the twenty-one episodes of the sixth (final) season of The Sopranos on DVD. No spoilers, if you haven't watched: I'll say only that there's much time spent in hospitals, "facilities," "centers," and funeral homes. It's a season of sickness and violence and death.

As a semi-Italian Brooklyn native and former New Jerseyan, I take great pleasure in the show's dialogue, which sounds, from my experience, remarkably true to life. (The exceptions: when Tony Soprano is made to say things like "I'm miffled" and "Rick Sanatorium," à la Archie Bunker.) One bit of dialogue that I noticed returning with some frequency in this season:

"What are you gonna do?"

That's Mediterranean fatalism itself, in five words.

"What are you gonna do?" is a rhetorical question that suits a variety of circumstances: Somebody's wife ran off? Somebody has cancer? Somebody has Alzheimer's? Somebody died? What are you gonna do?

In the world of The Sopranos, this rhetorical question marks the temporary surrender of illusion. Tony and company would like to believe that they're in control, of their lives and the lives of others. But sometimes there's nothing they can do, because life is difficult and unpredictably painful.

The Greek warrior Achilles expresses this sense of life's mystery and suffering in his words to the Trojan king Priam in Iliad 24. Achilles explains that Zeus keeps two jars, one filled with "good things," the other "a jar of woe." Some human beings get things from both jars. Some get only woe. And it's not fair:

"Yes, the gods have woven pain into mortal lives,
While they are free from care."

What are you gonna do?

[Iliad translation by Stanley Lombardo.]

Another Sopranos post
Angelo Bucco's notebook

Angelo Bucco's notebook

Artie Bucco's Nuovo Vesuvio is hurting. The problems: tired menu, tired decor, and Artie himself. He's a "warm" and "convivial" host, the guidebooks say, but people want to be left alone to eat and talk; they don't want to listen to his line of patter. One night, with the kitchen closed and some late arrivals wanting a meal, Artie takes out a notebook of his grandfather's recipes and rediscovers the vocation of cooking.



The people at The Sopranos have done a fine job of distressing, but — all due respect — it's easy to recognize this composition book as the kind that one can buy in any big-box store. An old, truly old, book would have a hard, thick cover, and something other than the single sans-serif word Compositions. I'm thinking of the Royal "Vernon Line" composition books of my elementary-school days, with varnished covers and watermarked paper. (Alas, I cannot find a single image of such a composition book online. But I recently saw a reproduction of a Royal inside-rear-cover in R. Crumb's Crumb Family Comics [Last Gasp, 1998].)

Artie is about to prepare coniglio (rabbit), with an animal he shot in his garden. Enjoy!

[Images from "Luxury Lounge," The Sopranos (sixth season, seventh episode). Click for larger views, and note the metric measurements.]

More notebook sightings
Les Dames du Bois de Boulogne
Extras
Journal d'un curé de campagne
The House on 92nd Street
The Palm Beach Story
Pickpocket
Pickup on South Street
Red-Headed Woman
Rififi Another Sopranos post Mediterranean fatalism

Obama and inflation

Time considers inflation:

How out of touch is Barack Obama? He's so out of touch that he suggested that if all Americans inflated their tires properly and took their cars for regular tune-ups, they could save as much oil as new offshore drilling would produce. Gleeful Republicans have made this their daily talking point; Rush Limbaugh is having a field day; and the Republican National Committee is sending tire gauges labeled "Barack Obama's Energy Plan" to Washington reporters.

But who's really out of touch? The Bush Administration estimates that expanded offshore drilling could increase oil production by 200,000 bbl. per day by 2030. We use about 20 million bbl. per day, so that would meet about 1% of our demand two decades from now. Meanwhile, efficiency experts say that keeping tires inflated can improve gas mileage 3%, and regular maintenance can add another 4%. Many drivers already follow their advice, but if everyone did, we could immediately reduce demand several percentage points. In other words: Obama is right.

In fact, Obama's actual energy plan is much more than a tire gauge. But that's not what's so pernicious about the tire-gauge attacks. Politics ain't beanbag, and Obama has defended himself against worse smears. The real problem with the attacks on his tire-gauge plan is that efforts to improve conservation and efficiency happen to be the best approaches to dealing with the energy crisis — the cheapest, cleanest, quickest and easiest ways to ease our addiction to oil, reduce our pain at the pump and address global warming. It's a pretty simple concept: if our use of fossil fuels is increasing our reliance on Middle Eastern dictators while destroying the planet, maybe we ought to use less.

"The primary goal of parenting"

The primary goal of parenting, beyond keeping our children safe and loved, is to convey to them a sense that it is possible to be happy in an uncertain world, to give them hope. We do this, of course, by example more than by anything we say to them. If we can demonstrate in our own lives qualities of commitment, determination, and optimism, then we have done our job and can use our books of child-rearing advice for doorstops or fireplace fuel. What we cannot do is expect that children who are constantly criticized, bullied, and lectured will think well of themselves and their futures.

Gordon Livingston, Too Soon Old, Too Late Smart (New York: Da Capo, 2004), 124

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Vacationing with Hi and Lois

I like the Flagstons, but what century do they drive in? From the NHSTA: "Children age 12 and under should ride properly restrained in back."

[Hi and Lois, August 3, 2008.]

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