Domestic comedy

"I don't see McCain or his tow-headed wife."

"Tow-headed?"

"Doesn't that mean 'blonde'?"

"I don't know. Does it?"

"Yeah."

(Checks m-w.com.)

9:48 p.m., post-debate: C-SPAN shows audience members crowding around Barack ("that one") and Michelle Obama. John and Cindy McCain are nowhere to be seen. Perhaps they are surrounded by an even larger crowd, but it seems that they've left the stage.

[Update: Yes, they left the stage shortly after the debate's end.]

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Fear and hope

From one of Andrew Sullivan's readers:

What this horrible McCain/Palin campaign is doing is reminiscent of the worst of the 1930s. Whipping uneducated, mindless acolytes into a violent — perhaps literally — frenzy, stirring fear and playing our citizens against themselves and each other. . . .

I've never been an alarmist nor someone to lean towards the melodramatic, but am I wrong in feeling as though our governmental system and very freedom could be at stake in the coming weeks? This terrifies me, and has prompted me to act.

And Sullivan's response:

I have faith in the American people. They'll see through this to what we need, and make the best choice available. They made the right choice in the 1930s, unlike many other nations. They will make the right choice again. If I didn't have that faith, I wouldn't have the hope I feel.

The only response to this fear-mongering is hope-mongering, a pride in America's resilience, a confidence in her inventiveness, and a determination to get to the ballot box. This is not an election you can sit out. This is an election where we all have to take a stand, including the press. Too much is in peril for a false neutrality.

When cries of "Terrorist!" and "Kill him!" can be heard at political rallies, I know that our country is in great danger. But I think I know who'll be elected next month.

Enough with the sinks

One news outlet now reports that "the sinks are ready." An analyst wonders whether John McCain's kitchen sink strategy will work. Yes, a dying metaphor again rears its head, like Vladimir Putin, I guess.

As I wrote back in the primary season,

The idiom though involves everything but the kitchen sink, the point being that the kitchen sink cannot be removed and hurled through the air, even when one is intent upon throwing everything at hand.

The best place to watch everything but at tonight's debate: C-SPAN.

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Who is the real Barack Obama?

That's easy: he's the guy who was just endorsed by bluegrass master Ralph Stanley, in a radio commercial airing in southwest Virginia.

(When I saw Ralph Stanley perform in April, his car bore a John Edwards bumper sticker. Times change.)

Ralph Stanley endorses Barack Obama (YouTube)

Five desks

1
The kitchen table was grey formica, or something like formica, in what could be called a linen pattern, thin crosshatched lines. I did my schoolwork at this table after dinner, first grade through sixth. I remember the groove where the table halves joined — dark, mysteriously sticky, a local line of longitude.

2
The dining-room table was from Ethan Allen, a colonial-furniture store that gave away little bottles of maple syrup. I worked at this table through high school, college, and two years of graduate school. I seldom saw the surface, which was protected by table-pads and a tablecloth, dark green or dark blue.

3
Boards and cinderblocks saw me through almost five years in a Ph.D. program. The holes in the cinderblocks held stationery supplies, correspondence, and light-bulbs. When I think of this desk, I think of tea, cigarettes, and typing at all hours in a bathrobe.

[As you may by now suspect, I've never had a desk.]

4
A utility table, made in Alabama, purchased from an office warehouse. It's the sort of table at which you might find a volunteer group in a mall, but it's much sturdier, with a better finish and no valley. This table once held an Apple //c and now holds the terminal (anybody's) computer in our house.

5
A second kitchen table, but it's in a room we call "the study," perhaps the only study in the world with "We love Randy Rhoads" written on its ceiling (courtesy of the previous owners' son). Elaine assembled and finished this "farmhouse" table, which is as close to a farmhouse as I'm going to get. What this table makes me think of is not a farmhouse but a library, though unlike a library's tables, this table is always already covered in books, papers, index cards, pens, pencils, and bits of life.

*

Here’s a 2015 view of my desk.

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Exuviation in progress

My daughter Rachel sends news of plans to remove twenty-four words from the Collins English Dictionary to make room for "up to 2,000 more."

24 Words the CED Want [sic] to Exuviate (Shed) (Time)

(Thank you, daughter!)

Arthur Parker on "East-Central Illinois"

"I got a bad territory, see? East-central Illinois. God help me."

Sheet-music salesman Arthur Parker (Steve Martin), in Pennies from Heaven (dir. Herbert Ross, 1981)

Sarah Palin's wink did nothing for my posture, but this line from Pennies from Heaven made Elaine and me both sit up a little straighter. I wonder how "east-central Illinois," a term that only east-central Illinoisans seem to use, found its way into Dennis Potter's screenplay.

Thinking with pens and pencils

[See correction below.]

Dutch psychologist Christof van Nimwegen has written a dissertation arguing that pens and pencils are crucial in the development of creativity and intelligence:

In "The Paradox of the guided user: assistance can be counter-effective," van Nimwegen asked two groups to perform the same tasks. The first was allowed use a computer; the second group only got a pen and pencil. The second group executed all tasks faster and performed substantially better. In addition, their solutions to complicated problems were more creative.

What's crucial of course is not ink or graphite (or paper!) but self-reliance—trusting one's mind rather than the machine.

Paper and pencil, not computer, boosts creativity (eNews 2.0)

[Correction, October 8, 2008: I received an e-mail from Christof van Nimwegen stating that he has never investigated the use of pens, pencils, and paper. The description of his work and the quotations attributed to him in the eNews piece thus appear to be wholly inaccurate.]

John, also

Word Face-Off fed a transcript of last night's debate into Wordle, the word-cloud generator.

Joe Biden's most frequently used word (well, name): John, as in John McCain.

Sarah Palin's most frequently used word: also.

(Found via a comment at Boing Boing.)

Sem Co-op snags Penguins

I'm happy to report that the Seminary Co-op Bookstore is able to obtain the third series of Penguin's Great Ideas paperbacks (which Penguin does not plan to publish in the United States). The four books I ordered came in the mail today, same shipping costs as with any other books. Go Sem Co-op!

My favorite cover is this one.

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