Holy Guacamole!

That was the headline for yesterday's newspaper. A kid was seen entering a junior high school with a suspicious-looking package; cops were called, everybody went on high alert, parents showed up, the school was partially evacuated...turns out it was a 30-inch burrito that the kid had made for an extra-credit project!

Here's the story.

Bee-Bop-A-Lula

So I was in A&W today, and the music they were playing was the old "popular standard" type stuff. It was a bit irritating at first, then I started realizing that it was part of the ambiance: old-fashioned diner, old-fashioned music. For just a moment I had a vision of what it might be like to live in a world where that music was contemporary - a kind of period film setting, where those songs were the ones you listened to every day, sang along with and waited to hear again.

Then it occurred to me that in a setting like that, you wouldn't necessarily hear the music every day. A&W started in 1910 - about a decade before gramophones, and in the early days of radio, when radios were used more for military communication than for in-home entertainment. In the days before WWI, people who wanted to hear music went to concerts or played it themselves.

When did music - recorded music, that is - start becoming part of our moment-to-moment lives the way it is now? After the Great War, when radio started becoming both more entertainment-based and more accessible...or during the 40s and 50s when a jukebox could be found in any diner? Or when Ed Sullivan began introducing the acts on TV and every girl over the age of ten had her Elvis albums?

I guess that's the comparison I've been looking for; the time when anybody could play their choice of music at anytime they wished to hear it. Record players. Then hi-fi, then boomboxes, CD players, and now Satellite Radio and Internet Jukeboxes.

I have to wonder what my grandmother would've said, back in 1955, if she could've seen how music would come to dominate our lives, and how constant our access to it would be. For example, as I'm typing this, I'm listening to Bob Dylan via the same computer on which I'm typing. With the aid of any one of several free- or paid-subscription programs, I can have any song I want to hear at my fingertips within moments - and then shuffle them all together! The song before 'Like A Rolling Stone' was by Pearl Jam; what the next one will be, I have no idea. Could be Marilyn Manson, could be Jewel. And in an hour or so, when it's time for me to go to work, I'll get in the car and choose between the local radio station (which plays almost as wide a variety as my own mix here) or any of the CDs in the 6-disc changer. When I get to work, at any given time I will have a choice of three songs to listen to: the music in the dining room, the "upbeat" music in the bar, or the local radio station again, which will be on in the kitchen.

Come to think of it, even the "popular standards" at today's A&W are piped in via a digital satellite system...but there was still an old-timey bubble-light jukebox in the dining room.

Pollyanna

"Get in a good mood! How hard is it just to decide to be in a good mood...and then be in a good mood???"

Something new every day

Here's what I've learned recently:

1. Today I learned about the sport of curling; how it's played, and how the scoring works. It's kind of interesting, once you sit down and watch it.

2. Yesterday, I learned what a coypu is: it's a chubby little rodent. If you took its head in one hand and its tail in the other and stretched it out, you might have an otter.

3. The day before that, I learned about the Boxer Rebellion, which took place in 1900 in China.

4. And a few days before that, I learned (finally!) the lyrics to the chorus of 'Scar Tissue.'

I've discovered that learning something new every day is really easy. For me, it's just a matter of admitting that I don't know something, taking the time to find out about it - usually a matter of minutes - or, heaven forbid, asking questions of someone who does know.

That's how I learned about curling. My boyfriend was watching it while we were eating breakfast. My first instinct was to roll my eyes and go find a book to read. See, I've become very secure in my ignorance; in recent years, my attitude has been that if I don't know about something, it must not be worth knowing about.

But Kenny knows about all kinds of stuff - weather systems, and obscure sports, and how things work and where things come from - and I think that's so cool! So instead of rolling my eyes because he was watching something that I didn't know anything about, and therefore had no interest in, I sat down and started watching with him. And it was interesting. And now I know something I didn't know yesterday.

I wonder what I'll learn tomorrow, that I don't know today.

Happy Obscurity

Why is it that some of us are so pleased to know about cool things that nobody else knows about? Is it just that whole anti-mainstream mentality?

Example: a while back, I got a ride home from a coworker, and her car stereo was blasting The Postal Service. I really liked it and said so, and she asked if I'd ever heard of them. When I said no, she turned to me and said "Thank you! You're so cool!"

Wait...I'm cool for not having heard of something??

But I knew what she meant. When people don't know about something that you are into, in reinforces your cutting-edge image (self-image though it may be). For instance, I have yet to meet anyone else who knows about the band Common Rotation - even at the concert (though to be fair, they were the opening act.) And even though they're not the greatest band, I still feel a little bit cooler for knowing who they are...so long as nobody else does.

I like it too, because it's like a secret code by which I can recognize members of my own little coterie. Like a quote from some obscure little 80's movie, that no one else gets, because almost no one else has seen or heard of the movie. Except me, and now this one other. It's exciting, like finding a long-lost relative. And then we get to be cool together.

I suppose, as someone who was excluded from everything all through high school, I get a charge now out of creating my own inner circles, and knowing what nobody else knows. At least I hope that's it...because the whole anti-mainstream thing is just a bit too obvious.

It's Just Lunch

I should've seen it coming, and in a way I did, but it wasn't what I expected. The attack was so subtle, and was delivered with such finesse, that I'm not even sure the third person at the table knew I was under attack. But she knew, and I knew, and I couldn't find a way to defend myself. So I just sat there and took it, and felt like a complete fool.

What did I expect? Courtesy, I suppose, because that was what I was prepared to offer. I've got to learn to quit expecting other people to play by my rules. And I guess I expected myself to be tougher than this - not to be so hurt by a bunch of words handed to me by one mean-spirited woman.

You wanna know what really ticks me off? I bought lunch! - I actually paid for that woman to sit across the table and belittle me.

If I Was A WHAT???

I'm sorry; maybe it's just me...but if Gwen Stefani is not a rich girl,
then I guess I need a better understanding of what "rich" is.