A candidate who seeks to add $2 trillion to military spending while eliminating funding for PBS has a very strange sense of proportion and deeply mistaken priorities.
Friday, October 5, 2012
Why save PBS?
A candidate who seeks to add $2 trillion to military spending while eliminating funding for PBS has a very strange sense of proportion and deeply mistaken priorities.
Sharking up
A phrasal verb has caught my eye and imagination: to shark up. In the first scene of Hamlet, Horatio reports that young Fortinbras has “Sharked up a list of lawless resolutes,” a band of desperados. The Oxford English Dictionary explains: “to collect hastily (a body of persons, etc.) without regard to selection.” The New Penguin Shakespeare text that I have at hand suggests that to shark up might be meant to suggest a shark “seizing its prey at haphazard.” The expression appears to originate with Shakespeare; the OED cites texts from 1827 and 1900 that echo the line I’ve quoted.
Clearly, the time has come to revive this phrasal verb. One might describe any quick and undiscriminating effort as a matter of sharking up. Put together an hour of music by pulling out ten random recordings: you’ve sharked up a radio show. Toss some arbitrarily chosen sources into a piece of writing (for a teacher who requires, say, the magical “five sources”): you’ve sharked up a Works Cited list. It’s better though to work hard, choose carefully, and not shark things up.
Thursday, October 4, 2012
Planning on paper
At Plannerisms and the Quo Vadis Blog, some thoughts about the future of paper planners. I suspect that such planners will be around for many more years, if only from a smaller and smaller number of “specialty” retailers in larger cities and online. In that respect, the paper planner may come to resemble a fountain pen or phonograph needle.
I like paper. As David Allen says, paper is “in your face.” In my face, since 2007: the Moleskine page-a-day pocket planner. If it disappears, I will likely make DIY planners from plain old Moleskine notebooks.
[I long ago moved past the thought that there’s irony in writing about paper online.]
Wednesday, October 3, 2012
Newton Minow’s advice
In the New York Times, Newton Minow’s advice for watching tonight’s presidential debate:
Let me suggest that after you watch the debate on Wednesday night, you turn off your television set and do your best to avoid the spin that will follow. Talk about what you saw and heard with your family, your friends, your neighbors, your co-workers. You are smarter than the spinners.Minow has been involved in every televised presidential and vice-presidential debate.
A related post
Newton Minow, fifty years later
Words from Theodore
Roosevelt, sort of
On the September 28 page of my New Yorker cartoon calendar, words attributed to Theodore Roosevelt: “Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.”
Every day, man, every day. But the words aren’t Roosevelt’s, though something close to them appears in his 1913 autobiography:
[“Do what you can, with what you’ve got, where you are.”]
I like the informality of the contraction even better. This advice makes me think of Harvey Pekar’s “Keep on pushin’,” also good advice.
Here’s a page with the results of an effort to track down Squire Bill Widener.
A tip for debate-watching
I will quote advice that I offered on October 2, 2008:
The best choice for watching a presidential or vice-presidential debate is C-SPAN. Why? C-SPAN’s continuous split-screen lets you see both participants at all times, allowing for all sorts of observations about body language and facial expression.I hope this advice still holds.
Some expect very little from Mitt Romney tonight. Not me. I expect both body language and facial expressions, visible at all times on a split-screen. And I expect that Governor Romney will deliver his “zingers” in a way that makes clear the month-plus of rehearsal he has put into them.
[From the New York Times: “Mr. Romney’s team has concluded that debates are about creating moments and has equipped him with a series of zingers that he has memorized and has been practicing on aides since August.”]
A non-restrictive clause
in Mark Trail
[Mark Trail, October 3, 2012.]
Dialogue in Mark Trail is often stilted: contractions are few; every guy, even a bad guy, is a “fellow.” Today’s strip includes a stilted non-restrictive clause. If I were Cherry Trail, I think I’d say something like this: “Call the sheriff, Dad . . . these guys fellows are poachers, thieves, and kidnappers!”
If I were Cherry Trail, I would also be wondering where my husband is. He’s been missing from the strip for weeks now. Preparing, perhaps, for a debate.
Related reading
All Mark Trail posts (Pinboard)
Tuesday, October 2, 2012
Domestic comedy
“How did you know to get the grass seed in right before it rained?”
“I am connected to the earth.”
Related reading
All domestic comedy posts
[Used with permission.]
Yes, we can
UNKNOWN CALLER called last night with a recorded message from a group looking “to defeat Barack Obama.” Sorry, wrong number. But I listened out of morbid curiosity, and when the invitation came to speak to a person about donating, I pressed “1.” The reading-from-a-script began immediately: “Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan,” &c. I jumped in: “Could you please remove me from your lists and not call again?” The reply: “Yes, we can.”
The reply was most likely automatic. But if I were working in telemarketing and had to field calls for Romney and Ryan, that’s exactly the secret message I’d give a fellow Obama supporter.
Related posts
New directions in nuisance calls
Three words (Yes, we can.)
[UNKNOWN CALLER’s number is listed as belonging to a Washington, D. C. architectural firm. But the number has been disconnected. Caller-ID spoofing, I suppose.]
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