Do Public Service Messages Live On?

        A few blog posts back, I said a clever bit of public interest ad language won me over for wittiness and the value of its point, but was otherwise a "stretch."   And that was "Don't drive intexticated."

        It reminded me of an earlier public interest ad (or maybe poster?) by a writer in a public health department in Minnesota.  I believe the writer was assigned to get the word out that public spitting was not de rigueur in Minnesota.

       The words that came out of his brain and therefore out of his pen and into the public sphere were

                IF YOU EXPECT TO RATE, DON'T EXPECTORATE!!   

I have long chuckled about that motto, which I think never caught on...anywhere...in my home state or elsewhere, but which, in my opinion, deserves to be immortalized.


 
     

The Wednesday Torah Study class was on--line.

        I attended my first "Zoom" class on this, my home computer.

        I was nervous.  I got there...here...40 minutes early; I even dressed up.  I didn't want to be shabby for teacher and others in a new environment.

        Our group's need (coronavirus) and the technology's arrival and installation occurred at once!  People could be together in sight and hearing from their own homes!

         I didn't make a single move but sat in wonder.  I listened to voices, saw faces, and read text on the screen, I experienced teaching that was more in-my-lap and accessible than if it were in person.

         85 years ago Mom left me off for my first exposure to new people and location and learning at Groveland Park Grade School.  Today felt like that first day of kindergarten.


1

An Occasion for Poetry

        March 21st was World Poetry Day, just the other day.  It was established by UNESCO twenty one years ago, thus bringing it "of age" this year. 

        It takes me to a poem I've cherished in these senior years.  I was actually in the audience at the Dodge Poetry Festival when the author read it aloud, beautifully.

        I can send that very occasion to you, or rather you to it, with the whisk of a digital wand:

                                                        "Touch Me"

Is Joe Biden a Secret Stutterer?

        That is the informed observation of one Dan Roche on the op-ed page of Thursday's L.A. Times.

        As a life-long (since he was 7) stutterer, Roche recognizes in Biden the signs of what Roche calls "a master stutterer:  the savant-like ability to rephrase a thought or paragraph, on-the-fly, to avoid a problematic word or phrase."

        What some have called signs of oncoming dementia, Roche recognizes as what he and other stutterers have done their whole lives.  Yes, they get help from therapy, but often a lot more from their experiences in real situations, trying to avoid embarrassment or teasing and ridicule or maybe the worst:  people wanting to help, finishing words and reminding you you're "incomplete."

         I hadn't thought of this explanation.  I'm going to record Biden and try to discern it.


            

Tense Times, Language Makes Us Laugh

        Son David insists either he or our helper Sonia, who is here part of weekdays,  get my two-week grocery shopping list instead of me, while Connie and I stay away from public contact.  David shopped yesterday.

        Today Sonia took my remaining list to Ralph's and came home with the goods, our joint pleasure unwinding the tension that had accompanied this whole process.

        Sonia wondered about one thing, why I wanted two boxes of what she pulled out of the bag last:  drumsticks;  yes, I had requested them, but these were chicken drumsticks, and I intended the ice cream cone product covered with chocolate and nuts!

        We laughed heartily about that; in fact, we laughed infectiously, from one person to the other, in one part of the house or another, the whole rest of the day.
  

Can language do this much?

        The Automobile Club of Southern California produced a public service announcement.  

        The video showed a woman driving with her kids, curving all over the road, and she's got a bottle of beer in her hands, and it says, "You woudn't do this; so . . ."  And then it changes, and she's driving distractedly again all over the road, "so why would you do this?"  And she's reading her cell phone.

        The two scenes jumbled together for me, and I thought, the beer has got her reading her cell phone.  No, they're just trying to make a comparison, and then she's curving all over the road and drives into the car ahead of her.  The following text then appears: 

                                     Don't drive intoxicated.
                                     Don't drive intexticated.

It's a stretch.  But the witty connectedness wins me over.
  

"Coronavirus"--a Sleuth's Expose´

        The word "coronavirus" has been bothering me for days, ever since the "Rise of the Planet of the Coronavirus" amongst us all.

        I couldn't say it right, I couldn't spell it right, I couldn't remember it right.  It worried me.

        Finally, it snapped into a sudden surprise, a sudden surmise:   "coronavirus" is an exact anagram of the word "carnivorous."  Yes, eleven letters in a perfect match with each other, but in different words.

        And yes, the virus is kind of carnivorous; it likes to "eat" animal flesh, or at least thrive on living there, especially human.

        That's why it agitated me.   It seemed to want to withhold something from me.  It had within it the guised message of what it was, its pathway and chief ambition, in so many letters.

Hello to Blog, coronavirus, toilet plunger?

        Hello, Blog!!!!  We meet again, and I am humbled by you.  Plenty of fun and juicy entries I have planted here, but not for a long time.  Uncramp those fingers, Don.


        My "Life's Little Instruction Calendar" tells me today:

                "Place a toilet plunger in every bathroom in your house."

That's probably the most concrete,  practical, and considerate advice life ever let you in on.  Presuming, of course, you have more than one bathroom and presuming you even have a place to live. . .these days.

         But in these days also of the coronavirus, when almost everyone seems to be ensuring him or herself of a surfeit of toilet paper, maybe the toilet plunger isn't "beyond the pail."

        

What did this say. . .?

       Sometimes a music review doesn't quite add up.

       Three worthy artists were playing a program of trios for violin, piano and cello.  One sentence from the review reads:

       "Shostakovich, the great poet of 20th century anxiety, was also a folklorist.  Bell and Isserlis [the violinist and cellist] conveyed the sad intonations of his dancelike Jewish themes in the Allegretto finale with bittersweet urgency and a gripping life-affirming anger."

       It may not be too surprising, therefore, to find in the sub-headline that leads the review these  words:

       ". . . this ensemble's stirring and thrilling playing inspires quiet respect."


("All-star trio and argumentative couple," Los Angeles Times, May 10, 2019, Calendar Section, p. E3)

  

Unwrapping an Unconscious Rap

       For too long, I was without the map on my iPhone home page.  I needed it and somehow got it again--pulled it down, uploaded, downloaded it--I don't know.  And I suddenly, joyfully, found myself proclaiming:

"I got my Apple Map App Back!!"
 

Simple word: "Dashboard"

       I was wondering about the word "dashboard."

       You may not be surprised to know it comes from the days before "horseless carriages" (later  shortened to "car" when the "horseless" was presumed and "carriage" was too long a word for this new fast-moving motorized vehicle of maybe 30 miles an hour).

       From 1846, says etymonline, when carriages were still "horsefull" the dashboard was on the front of the carriage, not where the passengers were,  a "board or leather apron" "to stop mud from being splashed ('dashed') into the vehicle by the horse's hooves."

       Remember the wonderful Oscar Hammerstein lyrics from Oklahoma's "Surrey with the Fringe on Top":

              The wheels are yeller, the upholstery's brown,
              The dashboard's genuine leather
              With isinglass curtains you can roll right down
              In case there's a change in the weather.

Krazy Senior Reading Can Get Sticky

       I found  Krazy Glue does more than just put together balsa wood parts on a model airplane, which I learned years go; it manages to hold together plastic and metal parts as well, as so it proved today in helping repair my sunglasses.

       What Krazy Glue also made me realize today is my regular prescription glasses may need some "repair" too.  Either that, or I'm guilty of "creative," perhaps neglectful (?), misreadings.

       We all knew too Krazy Glue can get fingers to stick to one another, but I was surprised even more to see under "PRECAUTIONS":  "Avoid indigestion." What!!  I don't swallow this stuff.  A belated re-look turned the word into "ingestion." 

       Then I relaxed through more directions until I came upon " . . . contact a prison [LINE BREAK]."  WHAT again!  Rereading produced " . . . contact a poison / control center."


       

       
      

Cute twenty-something with blond curls

       Tongue-twisters come from many different places, including a random newspaper story.  A baseball player is making his first entry to the major leagues, and as the son of a former great player for the same team, he's of interest, anything about him, including Vladimir Guerrero, Jr.'s

                                     "bleached-platinum dreadlocks."

       Well, they're not so much a tongue-twister as a "mouth drencher."  Get in all those syllables distinctly, say it ten times, at moderately fast pace, and I could almost guarantee your lips will churn up a mouthful of moisture.  Not too easy to say without fumbling either. 

"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!