"Just Fill In the Blanks"

       One of the least likely to be successful telemarketing campaigns: 

       A phone call came.  There was no sound, no voice              
                    for a number of seconds


       and then, "Just fill in the blanks."


       And that's all that was said.

"Waldorf Salad for Taurus Study"

       This title appeared among the voice memos on my iPhone, dated 10/2/18.  In looking back recently, I asked myself, "What the heck was this?"

       Oh.

       Periodically, I bring part of the repast we provide ourselves at Temple on noon Wednesdays.  I recorded the note while eating a Waldorf Salad at a restaurant, listed the ingredients I saw before me so I could put them together for such a salad.

       iPhone made no mistake as I dictated the title of the memo orally.  The pronunciation would have been no different from what I uttered, but what Apple chose to hear was quite different from what I was saying:  "Torah Study."

       "Taurus" being from Greek through Latin:  "Bull"

Who Says Birds Don't Have Home Addresses?

 I would have knocked, but I was afraid it might frighten them.

And who am I to upset a household?


But I heard them.





      

A Selfish Post?

 

 I told my daughter Elizabeth, who is standing by the poetry peddler bicycle (Elizabeth started and leads the community organization Urban Poetry Pollinators in Tucson) that the bottle, her hand, and the decorated red flag on the poetry mailbox make her look like a sylph.  In fact, you could call the photo a sylphie.

Coal Train and Coltrane, 2 Different Tracks

       In November, 2017, there was news about Canada wanting to carry coal they'd dug at home over U.S. soil to reach a port on our West Coast to ship to China.  This was the fastest and shortest route for them.  But it was encouraging fossil fuels, and environmentalists were disputing the use of such "coal trains."

       My head of a sudden knew that I had both coal train and Coltrane rattling around in there. Pronounce them exactly alike, and everyone would know exactly what or who you meant in either case!  But one was a much honored jazz saxophonist, and the other was . . . a coal train!

       Our tongues and minds don't blanch in the least at such tasks--they're proud multi-service organizations.


        

Sign-age

       Rough Roads 
                  Loose Gravel 
                            Uneven Lanes


 --three signs right next to each other at the side of the road in such a way as to not be applicable to anything within sight.

       But they certainly seemed to apply to my life, at times.

I MUSICI

       I pulled up to a red light behind a car with a license plate that caught my eye.  It said IMUSICI.  

       A vanity license plate that honored the great Italian classical music ensemble "I MUSICI" [eee-MOOZ-ih-chee]?  I've heard their wonderful recorded performances, notably Italian works such as Vivaldi's "The Four Seasons."

       The car ahead was worn, but the musical taste--excellent.  I fumbled for my cell to take a photo, but the light was changing; one last look instead to assure myself of what I saw.

        I realized then those first and last letters were really the number 1, "No. 1 music No. 1."  I was deflated, and I wasn't sure what the meaning was for the driver.

       But oh, well, good to see the great things honored even if only a passing figment!
       

A.O.Sea?

        Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is one of the newly elected Members of the House in Congress and is having an impact with her probing questions in committee and her "Green New Deal" proposal.   She's even already known by her initials only, A.O.C., maybe partly because her full name has a lot of letters and syllables to cover. 

      A side-light moment on my car radio--I heard it dialing by, I think, a comedy oriented talk show--referred to her as "A. O. C. of Cortez," which I thought was a funny play on those initials:  the "Sea of Cortez."  But where is that again on the map??  Oh, just about directly south of me down Mexico way;  I'd actually slept in soft sand and collected sand dollars there; it's also called the Gulf of California.

  

Excess Orange Juice Admonishment

       After grudgingly pouring Connie a refill for her already consumed 16 ounce glass of morning orange juice, I was moved to remark:

         "You've had enough orange juice for a ship-load of sailors
                               circumnavigating the globe!"

Shout out; Call out

       "Shout out" and "Call out" sound alike, but they're just about the opposite of each other..  If you "shout out" to somebody, you want to recognize or acknowledge, call attention to, praise in some fashion, somebody whom you want to name; you "shout out" to them and usually in front of an audience.

       To "call out" in front of an audience or in print or electronically is to point out somebody who needs reproval and needs attention called to them because of something disturbing or not good about them.  That's "calling out" somebody.  It's really the opposite of "shouting out."
 

The NAGgy adVOCATE

       We have a friend who recommends things that she loves and believes that we will love too:  TV programs, documentaries, movies, etc.  She's a real booster for what she admires.  We appreciate that because she has good and elegant taste.

       More than that, she's insistent, so if you haven't watched her recommendations by the next time she sees you, she'll keep after you!

       I mention this because I love the name she came up with for what she does and who she is when she does this:  our friend Gena Bleier is a NAGVOCATE!

       That is a great portmanteau word.  It has something of the Yiddish word "yenta" in it too for my money; that word, like this, carries both highborn, genteel echoes AND the slightly coarser resonance of a busybody.

       She's coined it!  

                               

"100 % Recycled . . ."

I don't like seeing the phrase
"100 percent Recycled"
on toilet paper!

Somehow it gives me the creeps.
My imagery gets working.

And I don't want to give this paper
any access
to my . . . (posterior).

Does Trump Have his Wits about him--Oh, Maybe it's his Jester's.

       On the "Reliable Sources" program Sunday, March 24th, over CNN,  I heard the redoubtable journalist Carl Bernstein of Watergate coverage fame use some words that had my head snapping to attention.

       Bernstein  speaks with a good degree of objectivity when he comments on "the week in Trump news and coverage."  He's learned the hard way and earned the capacity to observe with fairly cool and detached eyes the behavior of wayward presidents.

       I've tested my memory and come up with close to the exact words Carl used, especially the three crucial ones that had my head snapping.  Bernstein said that when we're listening to President Trump talk, we have to decide "whether he's being sharp-witted, dim-witted, or half-witted."  He kept a pretty even tone while saying this.
 

Songs Attach Themselves to You: "send in the clowns"

Tone? Fox Circling its Prey

       My wife likes to scratch and get rid of things on the skin.  It doesn't limit itself to her.

       Last night she asked me,"What's that little thing on the side of your face?"

       I said, "It's a thing the dermatologist is going to take off at the end of March, don't come near it."

       "I wasn't going to come near it."

       I left the room in a huff, but I spoke through the doorway again, "Then why did you sound so greedy!'

"Upmost"; "Utmost"

Photo taken November 26th, 2018 in a local grocery store

       Seems to me it's an easy thing to do.  You hear it that slightly different way, and you can tell it means about what we know as "utmost."    The notice is worded appropriately, you'd spell it the way you heard it, and would rightly think you'd conveyed its meaning.

       Similar to the person who I heard pronounce the word "awry" [uh-RYE] as [AW-ree], and from the context it was clear he knew what it meant.  He probably had read it silently, hadn't heard anyone say it, and figured he knew the pronunciation.

       So probably the reverse situation of the person who wrote "upmost."  That "upmost" person heard the word, understood it, but had never seen it in writing.  The [AW-ree] person read the word, understood it, but had never heard it spoken!
   
       

Large Finger; Small Cellphone

       A call came from my son while I was talking to a doctor during an office visit.  Among the suggested quick text responses, I touched "I can't talk right now." The phone stopped ringing as soon as I did that.

       David texted me back, and I didn't know why at the time, "To the phone?"

       Yes, iPhone 5 is small; my finger, while not large, was big enough to miss the intended message and hit one of the five others which are in pretty small print.  Only when I talked to David later did I learn that I had hit

                                        "I'm on my way!"

"Have To"; "To Have"

       I recently had occasion to recall an essay I wrote about the expression "have to."  Typically we think of the words as implying obligation, responsibility.  Something impels us because of family, job, friendship, etc.  "I have to go to work."

       When the wave of existentialism left Europe's shores and splashed down post-World War II in America, suddenly, it seemed, the words could have different meaning.  Just change the word order:  "I have work to go to."  Now the obligation from outside oneself is reduced and the sense is of something one possesses; it's a part of one's own life, an option one has chosen.

      Sometimes changing word order can change your whole philosophy.
    

"Apocalipstick"

        I learned about this rock album on the radio a couple years ago.  I never heard any of the music or words on it, but the title amuses and provokes me.

       The interviewer told Cherry Glazerr, the female singer and band leader on the recording, "I like the word play, but any other particular significance?"  She said "No."  "OK," he said, "Fine."

       But that perfect binding of the two words "apocalypse" and "lipstick" says it all, or at least suggests plenty!  The end of the world yoked to something specific, personal, intimate, feminine, the opposite of horrendous world-ending images.  Or maybe not?  Who will bring about the apocalypse?  Hmm, hmm, hmm, hmmm!   Some say after that cataclysm, evil will be defeated, good triumphant.  Possibilities?  Nice.  Challenging.  "Apocalipstick."    

Straining for a Metaphor

        Sometimes they speak of a close political competition as a horse race.  But when the race is very close, twice I've seen reporters in print calling the race "neck in neck."

       There's a disconnect there.   Maybe the reporters have never been to a horse race or seen one on TV or film.  Maybe they've only heard the expression, not actually seen it in print before.  But that's where the expression originated:  Two horses fighting it out down to the wire, necks straining in synchronous forward motion.  Only a photo-finish can decide the victor!

       Since the metaphor is a horse race, the journalist today in the L.A. Times should have had it that Benjamin Netanyahu and Benny Gantz in Israel were "neck and neck"; how else will the expression make sense?