Domesticated Apes

A wacky quote from the New York Times article, "Nice Rats, Nasty Rats: Maybe It's All in the Genes";

His strategy is to cross the tame rats with the ferocious rats and then score the progeny for how much of each trait they inherit. He hopes to identify 200 sites along the genome at which the tame and ferocious rats differ. If one or more of the sites correlate with tameness or fierceness in the progeny, they will probably lie near important genes that underlie one of the two traits.

The genes, if Mr. Albert finds them, would be of great interest because they are presumably the same in all species of domesticated mammal. That may even include humans. Richard Wrangham, a primatologist at Harvard, has proposed that people are a domesticated form of ape, the domestication having been self-administered as human societies penalized or ostracized individuals who were too aggressive.

Case Work

I encourage you to check out this article on New York Times online. The article, entitled "The Case of Marie and Her Sons," was the lead in the Sunday magazine this past weekend. I happened upon it today online and it "gave me the heebie-jeebies" as my mom put it, as it was exactly the job I was doing the year before last, child protective casework, in the nearest office to where I was doing it, and the case worker they focus on started around the same time I did. I wrote about it before here. It's a job I quit, but still think about frequently, wondering how my clients are doing- how their stories played out, if they're okay. The work forever changed my perspective on how lives are lived in America, and how people are affected by their family. It's a job I'm incredibly glad I don't have anymore, for my emotional well-being, but part of me wants to go back and do it over again, perfectly. Which, as the article shows, is not possible.

School Project Time

Anyone feeling magnanimous can head over to this site and follow the directions...
Thanks!
(if you're not feeling magnanimous, I understand. It is Wednesday, after all)

Epalpebrates!

Where Words Go To Die

I guess I was in a morbid (morose, gloomy, melancholic, sinister, macabre, gruesome) mood today, as I have spent significant time pondering death- the demise of words, that is--

You too can delve into this otherworld of words (The Phrontistery), and ponder what has become of:

alabandical
adj
1656 -1775
barbarous; stupefied from drink
His behaviour after the party was positively alabandical.

And

foppotee
n
1663 -1663
simpleton
What a pitiful foppotee he was, always oblivious to our jeers!

Did we outgrow them? Grad school is going to lead me to need the word “alabandical” (RIP 1775) and “foppotee” (RIP 1663). Why would these gems fade out and others like “inebriated” and “moron” remain? Perhaps answers to all our philosophical queries can be found in these lost words… especially words like epalpebrate and stiricide:

(I include this one because I liked the sentence):
cacatory
adj
1684 -1753
accompanied by loose bowels
For the diners, the effects of the chicken cacciatore, alas, were cacatory.

epalpebrate
adj
1884 -1884
lacking eyebrows
If you don't stop plucking, soon you'll be epalpabrate!

jobler
n
1662 -1662
one who does small jobs
We've found a great jobler who takes care of our repairs quickly and cheaply.

murklins
adv
1568 -1674
in the dark
She stumbled murklins about the house until she found the light switch.

pigritude
n
1623 -1656
slothfulness
Despite the college student's pigritude, he continued to maintain a 'B' average.

stiricide
n
1656 -1656
falling of icicles from a house
The untended tenement was very dangerous in winter due to stiricide.

uglyography
n
1804 -1834
bad handwriting; poor spelling
Your uglyography conceals the cogency and brilliance of your ideas.

Subaru Time

(picture from Natalie Dee)

As it turns out, Subarus are the official car of the Hudson Valley, so my car and I are fitting right in from the getgo with this return to country living. Ways I am not fitting in includes expecting something, ANYTHING, to be open past eight o'clock at night.

Strange aspects include the bleating pygmy goat that has suddenly appeared in my backyard ("Not in my backyard!" I cried, when it chewed on my bicycle), and the fact that all I have to do with myself is sit around reading on the porch.

Stephen Colbert Interview on the 10 Commandments

I know more commandments than this dude, and that is certainly not saying much.

David Hasselhoff - Hooked on a Feeling

The pop bubblegum favorite... performed by David Hasselhoff for some German video.

Poignant Blues in India

1. According to wikipedia, the Ramayana is an epic which tells the story of a prince whose wife is abducted by a demon. The story "contains the teachings of the ancient Hindu sages and presents them through allegory in narrative and the interspersion of philosophic and devotional."

2. In other wikipedia info, Annette Hanshaw was a flapper and a blues singer of the 1920s.

3. Lastly, Nina Paley is an animation filmmaker living in New York.

The amazing thing is that combining these three things has created something wonderful. Nina Paley is in the process of creating a 72 minute animation film of the Ramayana from Sita's perspective. It's called Sitayana, or Sita Sings the Blues. Paley is using Annette Hanshaw's stunning blues songs as the background for each beautifully crafted scene. It's like a graphic novel come to life, with a great soundtrack. You can and should watch completed parts of it here: http://www.ninapaley.com/Sitayana/

Nina Paley came to combine these two disparate cultural icons through personal upset, as she was dumped by her husband over email after their marriage fell apart in India. She identified with Sita from the Ramayana and listened to Annette Hanshaw to overcome this, and it lead to this art.

An' the livin' is easy...

"Summer afternoon- summer afternoon; to me those have always been the two most beautiful words in the English language." -Henry James

Winter barges in with a snowstorm, then leaves for a bit, then returns and overstays its welcome. Spring wavers in and out with nice days and rainy days and the refusal to make the world green soon enough. But summer- summer just glides in, right on time for Memorial Day barbeques.

I've been spending my time honoring its arrival, with walks, fruits, beers, canoeing, and just hanging out. It's an intense combination of activities, specifically designed to maximize appreciation for the heat and greenness of the outside world.

As much as I love New York, I am also soaking in being in the country. My friend's mom told me she was surprised I was living in the city, and as I went to respond, I realized I was too. We were talking outside after just having walked up from the lake, and the air smelled fresh, and for a second I wondered what the hell I was thinking dwelling amidst all those buildings. But, as she and I concluded, everything is a trade-off. So now I trade for six months in the country... we shall see.

Diplodocus

I told Adam who told Paul who emailed it to Overheard in New York, so here you go... dinosaur disbelief is now famous.

Death of a Goldfish

Dust in the Wind

Crinkle has left one bowl for another.

As his life is flushed away, let us reflect fondly on his brief sojourn in a bepebbled orb in the living room. Crinkle was hardly able to use his three seconds of memory in his short, sweet life. But he swam well & died bravely. Not long for this earthly world, we can only thank him for making our days a little more golden... if only for a moment, then the moment's gone.

In lieu of donations, Adam has placed a note in Crinkle's bowl that states: Gone Fishin?

All mimsy were the borogroves...

To go along with yesterday's bird theme, I happened to look at this, a work in progress by David Troupes called The Renaming of the Birds. I liked it yesterday, but since looking at it my appreciation has only grown to the point that I keep reflecting on it & I think I will start calling pigeons "brave ladyfriends" and bluejays "noisy blue jerks."

Have you ever thought about what you would name things if you were assigned naming responsibilities? That's a weighty task. I think names are hugely powerful. I don't believe a rose by any other name would smell just as sweet- if roses were called grackles, they would not enjoy the popularity they have today. Peonies would have surpassed them a long time ago. I also think politicians usually win based on who has the better name. Seriously.

Sincerely,
Hortense D. Terwilliger

True Life Story

A couple of weeks ago Steph, Julie, and Julie's parents met an elderly woman while waiting to cross the street in New York City. This lady, well-dressed and leaning on a cane, turned to this amenable crowd to say, "Is there something on my back?"
Unfortunately for this individual, some fresh bird droppings had come to adorn her black jacket.
"Eww, yes... but it's not too much," replied Julie's mom.
"Yes," said Steph, in a cheery voice. "It looks like a bird had its way with you!"
The walking signal clicked on, and the old lady got a strange look on her face as she replied. "That's one way of putting it."

Fuck Betsy Ross

This NY Times article, about a trip around the world in 90 days, brought to mind Nellie Bly, a reporter who took a trip around the world in 72 days in the year of 1889. Nellie Bly is the kind of female historical figure we should have learned about but didn't, because history books were too busy going on about Betsy Ross (how many times can you go over the fact that she sewed the flag (unless it was Frances somebody or another- BIG controversy!)? who cares?). Anyway, Nellie Bly is a different story... I learned on wikipedia (not in those Betsy-Ross-loving history textbooks) that she got her journalism career started at 18 (in the 1880s, when there were few women in that type of work, and when she had to use a pen name, as a woman's name in the newspaper wasn't socially acceptable) when she wrote a response to a sexist editorial which proclaimed girls were only good for getting married and raising children. Her response, which she signed "Lonely Orphan Girl" was published in the newspaper. She met with the newspaper editor as a result, and told him she wanted to write articles about ordinary people, and got the job.

As a result of those pieces, advertising was pulled from the newspaper and they then tried to reassign her to fluffier things- she refused, and went to Mexico and wrote about politics and the like there for 6 months, until she was thrown out of that country. She eventually ended up in New York, and wrote a piece on going undercover in a lunatic asylum that caused a grand jury investigation and provoked an additional million dollars funding. The piece was called "Ten Days in a Mad House," published in 1888. You can read it here (complete with an advertisement for Madame Mora's corsets), it's really intriguing and also horrifying. Here's an excerpt:

I always made a point of telling the doctors I was sane, and asking to be released, but the more I endeavored to assure them of my sanity, the more they doubted it. 'What are you doctors here for?' I asked one, whose name I cannot recall. 'To take care of the patients and test their sanity,' he replied. 'Very well,' I said. 'There are sixteen doctors on this island, and, excepting two, I have never seen them pay any attention to the patients. How can a doctor judge a woman's sanity by merely bidding her good morning and refusing to hear her pleas for release? Even the sick ones know it is useless to say anything, for the answer will be that it is their imagination.' 'Try every test on me,' I have urged others, 'and tell me am I sane or insane? Try my pulse, my heart, my eyes; ask me to stretch out my arm, to work my fingers, as Dr. Field did at Bellevue, and then tell me if I am sane.' They would not heed me, for they thought I raved. The insane asylum on Blackwell's Island is a human rat-trap. It is easy to get in, but once there it is impossible to get out.

Ah horsefeathers!

I'm not trying to just beat my gums here when I tell you that life is feeling copacetic as I'm about to get a wiggle on out of this joint... that's right- I'm giving work the bum rush. Come Friday I'll be donning my glad rags and slurping some giggle water. Time to get spifflicated and live like an egg before I return to school and this tomato turns into a pill; a regular Mrs. Grundy.



Slang of the 1920's

Applesauce- an expletive same as horsefeathers, As in "Ah applesauce!"
Balled Up - confused, messed up
Bank's Closed - no kissing or making out - i.e. - "Sorry, Mac, the bank's closed."
Bearcat - a hot-blooded or fiery girl
Beat one's gums - idle chatter
Bee's Knees - An extraordinary person, thing, idea; the ultimate
Beeswax - business, i.e. None of your beeswax."
Berries - That which is attractive or pleasing; similar to bee's knees, As in "It's the berries."
Bird - general term for a man or woman, sometimes meaning "odd," i.e. "What a funny old bird."
Bum's rush - ejection by force from an establishment
Carry a Torch - To have a crush on someone
Cash - a kiss
Cat's Meow - Something splendid or stylish; similar to bee's knees; The best or greatest, wonderful.
Cat's Pajamas - Same as cat's meow
Check - kiss me later
Copacetic - Wonderful, fine, all right
Dapper - a Flapper's dad
Darb - An excellent person or thing (as in "the Darb" - a person with money who can be relied on to pay the check)
Don't know from nothing - don't have any information
Don't take any wooden nickels - Don't do anything stupid
Drugstore Cowboy - a guy that hangs around on a street corner trying to pick up girls
Dumb Dora - a stupid female
Egg - a person who lives the big life
Fire extinguisher - a chaperone
Flat Tire - A dull witted, insipid, disappointing date. Same as pill, pickle, drag, rag, oilcan
Get a wiggle on - get a move on, get going
Giggle Water - An intoxicating beverage; alcohol
Glad rags - "going out on the town" clothes
Goofy - in love
Hair of the Dog - a shot of alcohol
Handcuff - an engagement ring
Hard Boiled - a tough, strong guy
Horsefeathers - an expletive ; same usage as applesauce
Hotsy - Totsy - Pleasing
Jack - money
Jake - OK, as in , "Everything is Jake."
Jalopy - Old car
Jane - any female
Java - coffee
Juice Joint - a speakeasy
Mrs. Grundy - A priggish or extremely tight-laced person
"Now you're on the trolley!" - Now you've got it, now you're right!
Orchid - an expensive item
Ossified - a drunk person
Palooka (1) a below-average or average boxer (2) a social outsider, from the comic strip character Joe Palooka
Piker - (1) a cheapskate (2) a coward
Pill - (1) a teacher (2) an unlikable person
Rag-a-muffin - a dirty or disheveled individual
Real McCoy - The genuine article
Ritzy - Elegant (from the hotel)
Rubes - money or dollars
Sap - a fool
Sheba - A woman with sex appeal (from the move Queen of Sheba) or (e.g. Clara Bow)
Sheik - A man with sex appeal (from the Valentino movies)
Spifflicated - Drunk. The same as canned, corked, tanked, primed, scrooched, jazzed, zozzled, plastered, owled, embalmed, lit, potted, ossified or fried to the hat
Spiffy - An elegant appearance
Stuck On - Having a crush on
Swanky - Ritzy
Tomato - a female
Wet Blanket - a solemn person, a killjoy

Leave it at, Leaving the Wild

I've been mulling over this New York Times article, Leaving the Wild, and Rather Liking It, all day. It's an amazing thing to reflect on:

SAN JOSÉ DEL GUAVIARE, Colombia — Since time immemorial the Nukak-Makú have lived a Stone Age life, roaming across hundreds of miles of isolated and pristine Amazon jungle, killing monkeys with blowguns and scouring the forest floor for berries.
But recently, and rather mysteriously, a group of nearly 80 wandered out of the wilderness, half-naked, a gaggle of children and pet monkeys in tow, and declared themselves ready to join the modern world.
....
The Nukak have no concept of money, of property, of the role of government, or even of the existence of a country called Colombia. They ask whether the planes that fly overhead are moving on some sort of invisible road.
They have no government identification cards, making them nonentities to Colombia's bureaucracy. ...
Are they sad? "No!" cried a Nukak named Pia-pe, to howls of laughter. In fact, the Nukak said they could not be happier. Used to long marches in search of food, they are amazed that strangers would bring them sustenance — free.
What do they like most? "Pots, pants, shoes, caps," said Mau-ro, a young man who went to a shelter to speak to two visitors. Ma-be added, "Rice, sugar, oil, flour." Others said they loved skillets. Also high on the list were eggs and onions, matches and soap and certain other of life's necessities.
"I like the women very much," Pia-pe said, to raucous laughs.

I cannot even begin to imagine what it would be like to enter a civilization as wacky as our own in 2006. Reading about the fact that these newcomers love skillets makes me want to drop everything and move to that town in Colombia to meet them and ask- what is so great about skillets?

However, the Nakuk-Maku peoples sudden decision to leave their previous lives and lifestyle behind is strange. After all, it couldn't be more different- their old lifestyle involved living deep in the forest with virtually no possessions, moving every few days. The New York Times states it is unclear why they decided to leave, and mentions the possibility of the drug war pushing them out. However, a quick look on the Internet about the issue brought up many articles that portray the Nakuk as refugees. For example, an article on Survival International called Nomads killed, and others flee as fighting rages, serves as a negation of the optimistic tone of the Times article concerning the Nakuk's situation. The United Nations website has this to say:

...In a related development, the UN issued the latest in a series of warnings today that Colombia’s indigenous communities are threatened with extinction because of the country’s four decades of civil conflict and the violence associated with the cocaine drug trade.

The Nukak Maku’s population has declined by almost 60 per cent in the last 20 years and today they number less than 500 members, of whom more than half have been forcibly displaced from their homes, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said.

The Nukak, who live in small nomadic groups of six to 30 and speak only their own language, have fallen victim to malaria and flu since their first contact with outsiders in 1988, and now their lands have been occupied by coca growers and parties to the conflict.

So now I am left feeling depressed, for the threatened Nakuk population, and regarding the Times' oversimplified, overly upbeat, reporting on the Nakuk, which is, incidentally, the most emailed article of today.

How Opal Mehta Fell From Grace

I read "How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got a Life," just because I can't believe a Harvard student was stupid enough to plagiarize from numerous currently popular sources to create this bestseller, that has now been pulled off the shelves for that very reason. The author, Kaavya Viswanathan, now a sophomore at Harvard, stole entire paragraphs- changing only the name of the characters or small details- from Megan McCaffrey's coming of age series. Unfortunately for this student, it was the Harvard newspaper that broke this story, and it was picked up everywhere else. Anyway the similarities to a few different written works have been extensively discussed, but I haven't heard much of anything about the fact that she stole scenes and plot points from Tina Fey's movie, Mean Girls. In the book, just like the movie, a clueless but pretty girl enters the upper echelon of high school society, by joining into a false friendship with 3 mean (2 blondes, 1 other) but ever so popular girls with their own set of grooming rules- you can only wear your hair down, etc (the girls are called the Haute Bitchez, in the plagiarized version, the Plastics in Mean Girls). The scene in which one of the mean girls complements a wannabe on an item of clothing, then disses it when it she walks away, is in both the movie and the book, as is the clueless girl wearing a tight dress at her own party. Also, the idea that the clueless girl messes up things with her true crush by becoming popular is a major part of the plot in both, and the link between one of the other popular girls and that crush. So anyway, it's quite obvious that the author stole from the movie, and she even mentions the movie itself and Lindsey Lohan in her book. So why isn't this such an issue as are all the instances of taking the scenes from books? Are movies not respected as creative property in the same way as novels, or are they not subject to the same copyright laws?

Let them eat cake

It's always nice when people acknowledge your birthday, but it was a little odd to get an email from myself. If you go on futureme.org, you can write an email to be delivered to yourself sometime in the future. So, apparently, on June 10th of last year, I was sitting around with nothing to do, and wished myself a happy birthday for this year (I also told myself to buy something "on me"- what a dork). But anyway, even though it is tough to know what pronouns to use in addressing yourself, it is a cool idea. Users can also choose to make their emails public, so you can read how other people talk to themselves- it's a real mix, from those that berate, encourage, chide, belittle, or express sympathy to themselves. A lot of people tell themselves they hope they're not dead- which is counterintuitive if you ask me. Anyway, after reading a few public ones, this one was the best I stumbled across:

hey you! YOU BETTER BE A SWEET ASS NINJA BY NOW! AND BE TRAVELLING THE WORLD!!!

(written Fri Dec 23, 2005, to be delivered Sun Dec 31, 2006)
http://www.futureme.org/public.php?id=169228

It's A Wonderful Pope

Has anyone else noticed a striking resemblance between the Pope and Clarence Oddbody (the hapless angel from It's a Wonderful Life (click on the link to see a 30 second version of the movie, with bunnies))? I realized this when the Pope was featured (first one below) as one of those odd pictures that some news places collect into a slideshow.
And, if I'm not mistaken, the Pope rings bells. Hmmm.....

The Pope

Clarence (on left)

The Pope

Clarence