Poem v. story, sidewalk v. floor

Getting the names of things right: it’s important. Not every short work of the literary imagination is a “story.” Some of them are “poems.” If you teach, you know that students will often get it wrong, even after getting an explanation.

In my Brooklyn kidhood, I would go a little crazy hearing kids call the sidewalk the “floor.” Don’t eat it! It fell on the floor! Had I lived in suburbia, I might not have had this experience, because 1) the kids might have known the difference, or 2) there might not have been sidewalks, just lawns, curbs, and quiet streets.

A poem is not a story. A sidewalk is not a floor. And the map is not the territory, but that’s another kettle of fish. I am not suggesting, however, that the map is a kettle of fish.

Separated at birth?

Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Nicholson Baker. Photographs by Darryl Bush and Elias Baker.

Also separated at birth?
C. Everett Koop and Ted Berrigan
Ton Koopman and Oliver Sacks
Blanche Lincoln and Elaine Hansen

Happy harvest

At Mother Jones, a 1985 clip in which Mitt Romney speaks of the work of Bain Capital as a matter of investing in and managing companies before “harvest[ing] them at a significant profit.” If companies, like corporations, are people, my friend, this metaphor is one bloody mess.

Related reading
Other posts mit Mitt

SiteSucker

SiteSucker is a Mac app that downloads websites with no muss, not much fuss. It’s donation-ware: use it for free, or pay what you think it’s worth. It’s worth, say, at least ten dollars to have a offline backup of your site, don’t you think?

SiteSucker is available from the App Store or from the developer, Rick Cranisky. The app is a bit tricky to figure out. When I e-mailed with a question, Rick sent back a file with settings for downloading a year-by-year archive of Orange Crate Art. Good deal!

On the virtues of “site:”

BrownStudies explains the virtues of “site:” and points to a handy bookmarklet: A shortcut for Googling the current web site.

Orange Crate Art has a “site:” search box in the sidebar. Here’s how to make one.

Stuyvesant students speak

“You could study for two hours and get an 80, or you could take a risk and get a 90.” It seems that for many students at New York’s Stuyvesant High School, the choice was easy: Stuyvesant Students Describe the How and the Why of Cheating (New York Times). This article describes a school in which cheating is rampant and consequences minimal.

I am happy to know that barring some exceedingly strange sequence of events, I will never see one of these students in my classes.

Related posts
Cheating at Stuyvesant High School
Stuyvesant principal resigns retires

How to fix a Mighty Mouse trackball

For anyone still using Apple’s Mighty Mouse:

When your trackball no longer scrolls, dab it lightly with a disposable lens-cloth. Then turn the mouse upside-down and roll the trackball on a clean index card. Roll in every direction. Be vigorous. Be very vigorous.

I have tried other fixes for the trackball problem without success. The lens-cloth fix — which I just made up and tried out — works. It really works. I was mildly astonished by the amount of gunk set free.

Details: I used a Zeiss “pre-moistened” lens-cloth. It’s available from Amazon and other sources.

For use in “seemingly intolerable situations”

David Rakoff, from an essay on working as an assistant in publishing:

Sheila taught me a survival technique for getting through seemingly intolerable situations — boring lunches, stern lectures on attitude or time management, those necessary breakup conversations, and the like: maintaining eye contact, keep your face inscrutable and masklike, with the faintest hint at a Gioconda smile. Keep this up as long as you possibly can, and just as you feel you are about to crack and take a letter opener and plunge it into someone’s neck, fold your hands in your lap, one nestled inside the other, like those of a supplicant in a priory. Now, with the index finger of your inner hand, write on the palm of the other, very discreetly and undetectably, “I hate you. I hate you. I hate you . . .” over and over again as you pretend to listen. You will find that this brings a spontaneous look of interest and pleased engagement to your countenance. Continue and repeat as necessary.

“Lush Life,” in Fraud (New York: Doubleday, 2001).

I believe that hatred is a waste of emotional energy, but I think that this technique is more about endurance than hatred. And I’m sure it will prove useful to someone.

David Rakoff was a funny guy.

Related listening and viewing
David Rakoff on This American Life

Domestic comedy

“I haven’t been living under ‘some rocks.’”

Related reading
All domestic comedy posts

[Used with permission. Context here.]

New directions in nuisance calls

I am happy still to have a telephone — a landline. Without it, how would UNKNOWN CALLER get in touch?

We’ve had two calls in the last two days from UNKNOWN CALLER purporting to represent a “research and development firm” in Pennsylvania. The first came in the form of a message, asking to speak to Elaine about a proposal she supposedly submitted. The second call came today. I recognized the number and couldn’t resist picking up. I asked the guy what the proposal was about. “That’s what we want to find out!” said he. Research and development indeed.