Sunday January 29
Item in Sunday NYT: “Magically Delicious Reading:” A review of
“The Great American Cereal Book,” by Marty Gitlin and Topher Ellis, who clearly had better breakfast experiences growing up than I did. The colorful book, from AbramsImage feature “eye-catching cereal boxes” I was deprived of during our bogus participation in the dental program. “The image of Baron Von Redberry and his counterpart, Sir Grapefellow, were immediate favorites,” according to the reviewer. I’ll bet…
Monday, January 30, 2012
SW again
Catching up with SW
Tuesday January 24: Headline in NYT about a town where even Darth Vader is nice.
Wednesday 25: Ad on TV for “new” SW film
Thursday 26: “Jeopardy” answers involved a toaster that embed an image of Darth Vader. Jon Stewart imagines Newt Gingrich’s campaign pledge to establish a moon base as resembling The Death Star (not much of a leap of imagine required to see in Darth Vader suit…)
Friday 27: Walking down the main street of downtown and the local stationery shop has on display a Darth Vader alarm clock.
Saturday 28: NPR’s “Wait, Wait Don’t Tell Me” features a segment on racy romance novels and the guest panel starts imagining silly titles like, “The Empire Strokes Back.”
Sunday 29: Driving up to the Bay Area pass the billboard featuring C3PO and the Disneyland upgrade of “Star Tours.” Does this count? Then heading to a party out in a hangar in Alameda we pass the giant shipping container cranes at inspired George Lucas to create the walking tank-like creatures in god-knows which movie (“Empire” again?)
Tuesday January 24: Headline in NYT about a town where even Darth Vader is nice.
Wednesday 25: Ad on TV for “new” SW film
Thursday 26: “Jeopardy” answers involved a toaster that embed an image of Darth Vader. Jon Stewart imagines Newt Gingrich’s campaign pledge to establish a moon base as resembling The Death Star (not much of a leap of imagine required to see in Darth Vader suit…)
Friday 27: Walking down the main street of downtown and the local stationery shop has on display a Darth Vader alarm clock.
Saturday 28: NPR’s “Wait, Wait Don’t Tell Me” features a segment on racy romance novels and the guest panel starts imagining silly titles like, “The Empire Strokes Back.”
Sunday 29: Driving up to the Bay Area pass the billboard featuring C3PO and the Disneyland upgrade of “Star Tours.” Does this count? Then heading to a party out in a hangar in Alameda we pass the giant shipping container cranes at inspired George Lucas to create the walking tank-like creatures in god-knows which movie (“Empire” again?)
Monday, January 23, 2012
Star Wars addendum to Sunday, January 22, 2012
This is getting out of hand. I’ve started the “L.A. Times Crossword Puzzle” and 51 Down is a four letter word for “Furry moon dweller.” Answer: Ewok. This is the second puzzle I’ve done today and both has SW clues.
Then in the afternoon, the 49ers play the NY Giants. In an ad for Verison, R2D2 makes a guest appearance for the new, improved Droid. Why am I surprised that when showing the screen, the image is a clip from “The Phantom Menace.” Later during the game, after in the game, a full on ad runs for “The Phantom Menace” to be re-released in theaters 3-D. The Niners lose.
Now I open the New York Times Sunday Magazine. There’s a feature story about George Lucas, so it comes as no surprise that there are many SW references contained within. I’ll read the story tomorrow but for now peruse the photographs on the lead pages, which includes a young, rangy Lucas on the set with Mark Hamill in the original “SW”.
Then in the afternoon, the 49ers play the NY Giants. In an ad for Verison, R2D2 makes a guest appearance for the new, improved Droid. Why am I surprised that when showing the screen, the image is a clip from “The Phantom Menace.” Later during the game, after in the game, a full on ad runs for “The Phantom Menace” to be re-released in theaters 3-D. The Niners lose.
Now I open the New York Times Sunday Magazine. There’s a feature story about George Lucas, so it comes as no surprise that there are many SW references contained within. I’ll read the story tomorrow but for now peruse the photographs on the lead pages, which includes a young, rangy Lucas on the set with Mark Hamill in the original “SW”.
Sunday, January 22, 2012
White Cereal Boxes
When I was in second grade, my class was sent home with an application form to give to our parents. The dental school at the local campus of Purdue University was soliciting subjects for a study. Participating families would agree to eat breakfast cereal a set minimum times per week then go to the university for regular dental check ups.
My mother signed us up immediately. Never mind that our family did not qualify. I did not yet have the requisite number of permanent teeth required by the study. My father wore full dentures, top and bottom, so technically he had no teeth at all. The eldest brothers had already left home for college and weren’t around. So this left only my mom and my brother Ed and the minimum requirement was four family members.
My mom must have lied on the application because we were admitted to the program, and have exaggerated
the number of family members because soon huge deliveries of cereal began to arrive at our house. It didn’t take long for the floor-to-ceiling storage cupboards in our mud room to be stockpiled with white cereal boxes, identical but for the plain block lettering on the front of each, including but not limited to “Toasted Wheat,” “Multi-Grain Flakes,” and my personal favorite, “Alphabet Oat Cereal.” No brand name was revealed, nor were the ingredients. I don’t know how she finessed the dental check up portion of the bargain, but I pity the poor grad student who would have attempted to get in the way of my five-foot tall
Italian mother when her mind was set on getting free convenience food.
When my oldest brother would visit on weekends from the University of Chicago, he’d drive back with
his sporty red Volvo stuffed so crammed with white boxes of mystery cereal that he couldn’t see out of the back. At home between semesters from his college in Florida, my middle brother would spend inordinate amounts of time in the kitchen eating bowl after bowl of the stuff (to this day he recalls fondly “the infinite supply” of cereal at our house).
My brothers may have dug it, but I found the white cereal boxes to be one more indignity to be suffered by having been born into this particular family. Other kids got to eat cereal with cool names like Quisp, and follow treasure maps and read comics on the backs of colorful boxes festooned with happy cartoon tigers and sea captains. It was embarrassing when friends would spend the night only to be confronted in the morning by an uninviting Stonehenge of cereal that required explanation.
Eventually the dental experiment came to an end and the deliveries stopped coming. But we had cereal to last several years, and given the amount of preservatives commonly used it made no difference. I ate Alphabet Oat Cereal well into fourth or fifth grade. My best guess is we were a Post cereal family, and I must say we have excellent teeth. My mom lived to be 93 and passed away with all hers intact.
Today’s Star Wars: Working the Premier Crossword Puzzle by Frank A. Longo in the San Francisco Chronicle’s Pink Section. 5 Down, three letter word: Obi __ __ __ Kenobi.
My mother signed us up immediately. Never mind that our family did not qualify. I did not yet have the requisite number of permanent teeth required by the study. My father wore full dentures, top and bottom, so technically he had no teeth at all. The eldest brothers had already left home for college and weren’t around. So this left only my mom and my brother Ed and the minimum requirement was four family members.
My mom must have lied on the application because we were admitted to the program, and have exaggerated
the number of family members because soon huge deliveries of cereal began to arrive at our house. It didn’t take long for the floor-to-ceiling storage cupboards in our mud room to be stockpiled with white cereal boxes, identical but for the plain block lettering on the front of each, including but not limited to “Toasted Wheat,” “Multi-Grain Flakes,” and my personal favorite, “Alphabet Oat Cereal.” No brand name was revealed, nor were the ingredients. I don’t know how she finessed the dental check up portion of the bargain, but I pity the poor grad student who would have attempted to get in the way of my five-foot tall
Italian mother when her mind was set on getting free convenience food.
When my oldest brother would visit on weekends from the University of Chicago, he’d drive back with
his sporty red Volvo stuffed so crammed with white boxes of mystery cereal that he couldn’t see out of the back. At home between semesters from his college in Florida, my middle brother would spend inordinate amounts of time in the kitchen eating bowl after bowl of the stuff (to this day he recalls fondly “the infinite supply” of cereal at our house).
My brothers may have dug it, but I found the white cereal boxes to be one more indignity to be suffered by having been born into this particular family. Other kids got to eat cereal with cool names like Quisp, and follow treasure maps and read comics on the backs of colorful boxes festooned with happy cartoon tigers and sea captains. It was embarrassing when friends would spend the night only to be confronted in the morning by an uninviting Stonehenge of cereal that required explanation.
Eventually the dental experiment came to an end and the deliveries stopped coming. But we had cereal to last several years, and given the amount of preservatives commonly used it made no difference. I ate Alphabet Oat Cereal well into fourth or fifth grade. My best guess is we were a Post cereal family, and I must say we have excellent teeth. My mom lived to be 93 and passed away with all hers intact.
Today’s Star Wars: Working the Premier Crossword Puzzle by Frank A. Longo in the San Francisco Chronicle’s Pink Section. 5 Down, three letter word: Obi __ __ __ Kenobi.
Friday, January 20, 2012
Today's Star Wars
New York Times Business section today features the headline: "A Jedi of Deals Brings His Magic Back to Morgan Stanley." The story is about a former MS dealmaker who left to be a law professor at the University of Virginia has been wooed to return as the chairman of global tech banking, "a homecoming his colleagues have affectionately called 'the return of the Jedi,'" according to the Times, 1/20/12
Star Wars Again
Last night's Star War's reference came from Jon Stewart. The news item was about Newt's second wife (the one who had MS while he was seeing Calista on the side). Apparently Wife Number One had had cancer while Newt was getting it on with #2. Stewart refers to the woman as "The Empire Strikes Back" of Newt's wives, "even better than the original but sadder."
Thursday, January 19, 2012
C3PO Billboard -- Daily "Star Wars" encounter
Didn’t get to post yesterday due to a day trip to The East Bay. On the drive home to Santa Cruz, a billboard featuring C3PO caught my eye somewhere around Fremont. It was an ad for the revamped “Star Tours -- The Adventure Continues” attraction at Disneyland.
Arriving home, my husbnad watch “The Colbert Report, and for the second night in a row he references SW, not once, but twice. First, some intern probably had a blast Photoshopping Yoda ears onto a photograph of some figure in the news, then later playing a clip from “The Empire Strikes Back” with the dialogue altered to comment on a current event.
Arriving home, my husbnad watch “The Colbert Report, and for the second night in a row he references SW, not once, but twice. First, some intern probably had a blast Photoshopping Yoda ears onto a photograph of some figure in the news, then later playing a clip from “The Empire Strikes Back” with the dialogue altered to comment on a current event.
Wednesday, January 18, 2012
Elliot's Cake: The Bloodbath
What should one write on a cake celebrating the 80th birthday of an eminent social psychologist, a respected professor emeritus, a man who taught at your own alma mater and was universally beloved? In recent months Elliot Aronson has become a good friend of my husband’s. We’ve been invited to Elliot’s birthday party this Sunday and I have offered to make the cake. I have a crowd-pleasing carrot cake recipe (even people don’t like carrot cake like mine) and as a former professional baker I have the skills, oversize pans and love for baking to provide a ginormous 3 layer cake for what is bound to be a large gathering.
As I prepare the cake the day before the party, my husband Jerry is in the adjoining room watching the San Francisco 49ers playing a major post-season game. He claims that every time the mixer is on the 49ers play well. “The Saints have the ball,” he yells from the other room. “Turn the mixer back on.” The 49ers win and move up the brackets toward the Super Bowl. I don’t want to take too much credit, but…
That night I have trouble falling asleep. Elliot’s cake has been baked, butter cream laid between the layers, and adorned with cream cheese frosting and coconut. All that‘s left to do is write a birthday greeting on top. I’ve set aside enough butter cream for the birthday message, but at two in the morning I’m lying awake trying to remember where I’ve stashed my food colors. It‘s still dark out when I finally haul myself out of bed and start rummaging around the frigid storage area that most folks would call a garage. Eureka! I find the see-thru plastic shoebox holding a painter’s palette of blues and pinks, oranges, yellows, and purples that make up my collection.
I should note that the food coloring used by professionals and serious hobbyists are not like the watery stuff available at grocery stores. I like gels, which are extremely concentrated and come in little pots resembling those used for eye make up. In the words of an old hair goo jingle, a little dab’ll do ya.
But then the dilemma: What to write? I love the fact this distinguished gentleman and scholar signs off his emails as “Ellie,” and I start playing around with cute phrases like “Ellie’s 80!” and “We heart-symbol Ellie.” But Jerry had suggested simple is best, and now I’m inclined to agree. I decide on a straightforward “Happy Birthday Elliot,” double-checking the correct spelling of his name (2 l’s , one t) on the cover of “The Social Animal,“ his seminal social science textbook.
Unfortunately Elliot has recently become legally blind due to macular degeneration. Though he can still see out of his peripheral vision, he can’t drive any more and has qualified for the companionship of a seeing eye dog. If I write the message in bright red lettering it might give the guy a fighting chance of seeing his name on his cake (and people LOVE having their names on their birthday cakes). Also “Atomic Red” will look great as contrast against the snowy cream cheese icing.
So. It’s about 6 am, dark as Hades and cold outside because it‘s January. I stick a toothpick into the little pot of Atomic Red; the amount that sticks should be enough to color the two cups of frosting I‘ve set aside to write the birthday message. Hmmm. The frosting turns a girly pink. I add more. Still pink. Even worse, the butter cream is coagulating. The consistency resembles texture of clam chowder, which is hardly an appetizing effect. The only thing I can think to do is add more red and turn the mixer n high to whip this mess into shape.
Bad idea. Soon the countertop, walls and floor are covered with what looks like a CSI blood spatter pattern. With a wire whisk I try by hand to coax the color and icing to come to some sort of détente. Eventually the lurid mixture looks good enough so I scoop some of the mess into a pastry bag to practice writing on a sheet of wax paper. The letters seem to be holding up nicely…but wait. The writing begins to hemorrhage out of the edges. And if it’s bleeding out on the practice run, imagine the effect atop a cake….
There’s a website dedicated to such disasters called “Cake Wrecks: When Professional Cakes Go Wrong.” This might end up on the site if I’m not careful. I panic, and decide to throw the entire mess away and start over.
Easier said than done. The kitchen really does resemble a crime scene. I imagine Jerry stumbling into the kitchen for a cup of coffee and having a heart attack. With fingers stained bright red I attempt to dislodge a roll of paper towels from the dispenser, leaving visible prints on every available surface. I scrape the goop left in the bowl into the trash can lined with a white bag. The effect reminds me of “Dexter,“ the Showtime series about a friendly neighborhood serial killer who likes hacking to pieces his deserving victims. A severed hand would feel right at home in our kitchen trash can right now.
Like Lady Macbeth I try in vain to scrub my hands clean with Bon Ami and decide I don’t have the time or energy to make a fresh batch of butter cream. I rummage around in my color kit and discover a tube of sparkly yellow writing gel left over from some kid’s party held during the Bush administration (which Bush I’m not sure). Unkindly I think, “Oh, hell, the guy‘s blind anyway,” so I write the message on the cake in a substance unbecoming to the stature of the man whose birthday we are to celebrate. The damn thing goes back into the fridge to set and I head out the door to walk the dog, who has been waiting patiently during this entire ordeal.
Once I get some fresh air in my lungs, the oxygen returns to my brain and I realize what went wrong. Most baking and cooking activities are basic chemistry experiments. I needed all the ingredients to be the same temperature to mix properly. Erroneously, I had added a chilled substance to a warmer one and the result of the experiment resembled a blood bath.
Then it occurs to me that Elliot, the social scientist, will find this entire episode hilarious. I had my ego so wrapped up in making this cake perfect that when the project went south at the 11th hour I experienced a psychological dilemma that Elliot has written and lectured about extensively. The theory is called “cognitive dissonance,“ which he writes about in “The Social Animal.” The theory goes that a state of tension arises when a human is faced with 2 simultaneous but inconsistent concepts, which is a lot of
theory to lay on cake frosting, but bear with me. The first cognition is I want my cake to be perfect; the second, dissonant cognition is I’ve failed Frosting 101.
I try to make myself feel better by reasoning, “Oh, he can’t see it any way“, and “his grandchildren will love it.” There you have it; cognitive dissonance resolved, to some degree. You may use this example in the next revision of your textbook, Elliot.
Upon returning home I finish cleaning up the kitchen, and take the garbage out, the racket of which must have thrilled my next door neighbors early on a Sunday morning.
Of course nobody at the party thinks anything is amiss. Elliot looks radiantly happy as he blows out the candles on the cake. The next day he sends an email generously describing the cake as one of the highlights of his birthday celebration.
Star Wars Reference O’ the Day: On “The Colbert Report,“ Stephen Colbert compares himself and Jon Stewart as twins who share the same thoughts and feelings, “like Princess Leia and Luke Skywalker.”
As I prepare the cake the day before the party, my husband Jerry is in the adjoining room watching the San Francisco 49ers playing a major post-season game. He claims that every time the mixer is on the 49ers play well. “The Saints have the ball,” he yells from the other room. “Turn the mixer back on.” The 49ers win and move up the brackets toward the Super Bowl. I don’t want to take too much credit, but…
That night I have trouble falling asleep. Elliot’s cake has been baked, butter cream laid between the layers, and adorned with cream cheese frosting and coconut. All that‘s left to do is write a birthday greeting on top. I’ve set aside enough butter cream for the birthday message, but at two in the morning I’m lying awake trying to remember where I’ve stashed my food colors. It‘s still dark out when I finally haul myself out of bed and start rummaging around the frigid storage area that most folks would call a garage. Eureka! I find the see-thru plastic shoebox holding a painter’s palette of blues and pinks, oranges, yellows, and purples that make up my collection.
I should note that the food coloring used by professionals and serious hobbyists are not like the watery stuff available at grocery stores. I like gels, which are extremely concentrated and come in little pots resembling those used for eye make up. In the words of an old hair goo jingle, a little dab’ll do ya.
But then the dilemma: What to write? I love the fact this distinguished gentleman and scholar signs off his emails as “Ellie,” and I start playing around with cute phrases like “Ellie’s 80!” and “We heart-symbol Ellie.” But Jerry had suggested simple is best, and now I’m inclined to agree. I decide on a straightforward “Happy Birthday Elliot,” double-checking the correct spelling of his name (2 l’s , one t) on the cover of “The Social Animal,“ his seminal social science textbook.
Unfortunately Elliot has recently become legally blind due to macular degeneration. Though he can still see out of his peripheral vision, he can’t drive any more and has qualified for the companionship of a seeing eye dog. If I write the message in bright red lettering it might give the guy a fighting chance of seeing his name on his cake (and people LOVE having their names on their birthday cakes). Also “Atomic Red” will look great as contrast against the snowy cream cheese icing.
So. It’s about 6 am, dark as Hades and cold outside because it‘s January. I stick a toothpick into the little pot of Atomic Red; the amount that sticks should be enough to color the two cups of frosting I‘ve set aside to write the birthday message. Hmmm. The frosting turns a girly pink. I add more. Still pink. Even worse, the butter cream is coagulating. The consistency resembles texture of clam chowder, which is hardly an appetizing effect. The only thing I can think to do is add more red and turn the mixer n high to whip this mess into shape.
Bad idea. Soon the countertop, walls and floor are covered with what looks like a CSI blood spatter pattern. With a wire whisk I try by hand to coax the color and icing to come to some sort of détente. Eventually the lurid mixture looks good enough so I scoop some of the mess into a pastry bag to practice writing on a sheet of wax paper. The letters seem to be holding up nicely…but wait. The writing begins to hemorrhage out of the edges. And if it’s bleeding out on the practice run, imagine the effect atop a cake….
There’s a website dedicated to such disasters called “Cake Wrecks: When Professional Cakes Go Wrong.” This might end up on the site if I’m not careful. I panic, and decide to throw the entire mess away and start over.
Easier said than done. The kitchen really does resemble a crime scene. I imagine Jerry stumbling into the kitchen for a cup of coffee and having a heart attack. With fingers stained bright red I attempt to dislodge a roll of paper towels from the dispenser, leaving visible prints on every available surface. I scrape the goop left in the bowl into the trash can lined with a white bag. The effect reminds me of “Dexter,“ the Showtime series about a friendly neighborhood serial killer who likes hacking to pieces his deserving victims. A severed hand would feel right at home in our kitchen trash can right now.
Like Lady Macbeth I try in vain to scrub my hands clean with Bon Ami and decide I don’t have the time or energy to make a fresh batch of butter cream. I rummage around in my color kit and discover a tube of sparkly yellow writing gel left over from some kid’s party held during the Bush administration (which Bush I’m not sure). Unkindly I think, “Oh, hell, the guy‘s blind anyway,” so I write the message on the cake in a substance unbecoming to the stature of the man whose birthday we are to celebrate. The damn thing goes back into the fridge to set and I head out the door to walk the dog, who has been waiting patiently during this entire ordeal.
Once I get some fresh air in my lungs, the oxygen returns to my brain and I realize what went wrong. Most baking and cooking activities are basic chemistry experiments. I needed all the ingredients to be the same temperature to mix properly. Erroneously, I had added a chilled substance to a warmer one and the result of the experiment resembled a blood bath.
Then it occurs to me that Elliot, the social scientist, will find this entire episode hilarious. I had my ego so wrapped up in making this cake perfect that when the project went south at the 11th hour I experienced a psychological dilemma that Elliot has written and lectured about extensively. The theory is called “cognitive dissonance,“ which he writes about in “The Social Animal.” The theory goes that a state of tension arises when a human is faced with 2 simultaneous but inconsistent concepts, which is a lot of
theory to lay on cake frosting, but bear with me. The first cognition is I want my cake to be perfect; the second, dissonant cognition is I’ve failed Frosting 101.
I try to make myself feel better by reasoning, “Oh, he can’t see it any way“, and “his grandchildren will love it.” There you have it; cognitive dissonance resolved, to some degree. You may use this example in the next revision of your textbook, Elliot.
Upon returning home I finish cleaning up the kitchen, and take the garbage out, the racket of which must have thrilled my next door neighbors early on a Sunday morning.
Of course nobody at the party thinks anything is amiss. Elliot looks radiantly happy as he blows out the candles on the cake. The next day he sends an email generously describing the cake as one of the highlights of his birthday celebration.
Star Wars Reference O’ the Day: On “The Colbert Report,“ Stephen Colbert compares himself and Jon Stewart as twins who share the same thoughts and feelings, “like Princess Leia and Luke Skywalker.”
Monday, January 16, 2012
A Year of Living Lucasly
I am about to ruin your day, perhaps the next couple of days, weeks even. About a year ago I realized I could not get through an entire day without some reference to “Star Wars” crossing my path. And now neither will you. Sorry. I swear, my head will be on the pillow, my eyes closed and my mind blissfully ready for a good night’s sleep after my first Star Wars-free day, when my husband will turn on “The Daily Show” and Jon Stewart will compare some crazy goings on in Congress as “Jedi mind tricks.”
So I decided to start keeping track. My gym gives out free yearly calendars with unusually large daily spaces in which one could write, presumably, one’s workouts. Instead I used my to write down each day’s SW references (and I mean this in the plural, for many days there is more than one). As I started telling friends and relatives about this project they started sending me SW-themed birthday cards and viral videos. The accompany thing message would say something like, “Here, now that‘s out of the way for today!” But I decided the contributions, as well intended as they may be, wouldn‘t count. This project is about being an innocent bystander, and without any effort on anyone’s part having a random SW reference cross my path, like a black cat. Thus, browsing through the Science Fiction section of a bookshop and stumbling upon a novelized version of one of the movies wouldn’t count. Likewise passing the window display of a comic book store or watching “The Big Bang Theory” since these are environments which people, real and fictional, view Yoda with a reverence usually reserved for the Savior Himself.
Allow me to share a few gems I‘ve heard on Laugh USA, the Sirius radio satellite station for comedians. Apologies in advance to the fine comic geniuses whose names I cannot remember (along with where I left my pruning shears and why I went down to the kitchen a few minutes ago):
Darth Vader decides to mess with his son, Luke Skywalker. He says, “Luke…(heavy breathing behind the mask, heavy breathing behind the mask)… I am…(heavy breathing behind the mask)…your mother.”
In another routine the comic imagines being granted the superpower to travel back in time to change one event that will alter the course of history. It’s a dilemma: Should he stop the Kennedy assassination? Derail Hitler’s rise to power? After giving the matter considerable thought he decides to travel back to 1999 “and murder George Lucas with a shovel.” (For the benefit of those not familiar with the course of the SW saga, the first movie in 1977 was actually Episode IV, was followed by 2 sequels, “The Empire Strikes Back, Episode V “and “Return of the Jedi, Episode VI,” all of which IMHO, are pretty good. But 1999 marked the beginning of the unspeakably terrible prequels, beginning with “The Phantom Menace, Episode I” and ending with the animated “The Clone Wars” in 2008. For my money, the most grievous sin committed in the prequels is the introduction Jar Jar Binks, for whom Lucas deserves to be hit over the head with a shovel.)
So, during this new year I will post each days Star Wars reference(s) along with other the other ramblings I hope will gel into a memoir.
Today’s reference: “Doonesbury.” The setting is inside the recording studio where Iraq veteran Leo, whose PTSD includes expressive aphasia, works as engineer. His boss says: “…And this afternoon we’ll be voicing a Romney Super-Pac spot attacking Obama.”
Leo: “Obama? But it…it…primaries.”
Boss: “Guess they feel they got it sewed up, and it’s time to get their general election trash on. I booked a chick who’s perfect for the gig. This calm, chilling voice, like a female Darth Vader.”
Leo: “Wouldn’t m…m…male be more menacing?”
Boss: “You’ve never been married, have you?”
So I decided to start keeping track. My gym gives out free yearly calendars with unusually large daily spaces in which one could write, presumably, one’s workouts. Instead I used my to write down each day’s SW references (and I mean this in the plural, for many days there is more than one). As I started telling friends and relatives about this project they started sending me SW-themed birthday cards and viral videos. The accompany thing message would say something like, “Here, now that‘s out of the way for today!” But I decided the contributions, as well intended as they may be, wouldn‘t count. This project is about being an innocent bystander, and without any effort on anyone’s part having a random SW reference cross my path, like a black cat. Thus, browsing through the Science Fiction section of a bookshop and stumbling upon a novelized version of one of the movies wouldn’t count. Likewise passing the window display of a comic book store or watching “The Big Bang Theory” since these are environments which people, real and fictional, view Yoda with a reverence usually reserved for the Savior Himself.
Allow me to share a few gems I‘ve heard on Laugh USA, the Sirius radio satellite station for comedians. Apologies in advance to the fine comic geniuses whose names I cannot remember (along with where I left my pruning shears and why I went down to the kitchen a few minutes ago):
Darth Vader decides to mess with his son, Luke Skywalker. He says, “Luke…(heavy breathing behind the mask, heavy breathing behind the mask)… I am…(heavy breathing behind the mask)…your mother.”
In another routine the comic imagines being granted the superpower to travel back in time to change one event that will alter the course of history. It’s a dilemma: Should he stop the Kennedy assassination? Derail Hitler’s rise to power? After giving the matter considerable thought he decides to travel back to 1999 “and murder George Lucas with a shovel.” (For the benefit of those not familiar with the course of the SW saga, the first movie in 1977 was actually Episode IV, was followed by 2 sequels, “The Empire Strikes Back, Episode V “and “Return of the Jedi, Episode VI,” all of which IMHO, are pretty good. But 1999 marked the beginning of the unspeakably terrible prequels, beginning with “The Phantom Menace, Episode I” and ending with the animated “The Clone Wars” in 2008. For my money, the most grievous sin committed in the prequels is the introduction Jar Jar Binks, for whom Lucas deserves to be hit over the head with a shovel.)
So, during this new year I will post each days Star Wars reference(s) along with other the other ramblings I hope will gel into a memoir.
Today’s reference: “Doonesbury.” The setting is inside the recording studio where Iraq veteran Leo, whose PTSD includes expressive aphasia, works as engineer. His boss says: “…And this afternoon we’ll be voicing a Romney Super-Pac spot attacking Obama.”
Leo: “Obama? But it…it…primaries.”
Boss: “Guess they feel they got it sewed up, and it’s time to get their general election trash on. I booked a chick who’s perfect for the gig. This calm, chilling voice, like a female Darth Vader.”
Leo: “Wouldn’t m…m…male be more menacing?”
Boss: “You’ve never been married, have you?”
Saturday, January 14, 2012
Back the Same Day!
Back the same day!
Every time we’d pull into the driveway, my father would cheerfully exclaim “Back the same day!” I think it was a reference to an advertising slogan back in the early days of the automobile; one of his uncles in upstate New York had become a millionaire selling the newfangled horseless carriages. My mother was always at the wheel because my father didn’t drive. Why my father didn’t have a driver’s license was a mystery to me, but as a kid I chalked it up to being just one more thing that was weird about our family. Everybody else’s dad drove cars; Suzanne Bryzynski’s dad drove a fire truck. Other dads could fix things, like flat bicycle tires and loose boards in a tree house; I can’t imagine my dad knowing which end of the hammer to use. He was able to tear himself away from his books and Beethoven recordings long enough to do manly chores like mow the lawn in summer, hang storm windows in the early fall, swap out the old furnace filters for clean news ones in winter. But other than that, he was fairly useless around the house.
Although he was the family breadwinner, my mother handled the family finances. She doled out an allowance from his own paycheck, which he continually complained was too small. On Saturdays we’d walk downtown together to do errands -- first a trip to the library where we’d return the stack of books checked out the previous Saturday, then onward to spend his allowance on sundries at Osco’s Drug Store, and once a month or so get a haircut. Last but not least we’d stop for a treat before walking home. In summer we’d get ice cream cones. In winter we’d stomp snow off our boots in the lobby of the little train station downtown and feed change into the hot drink machine, cocoa for me, coffee for him.
As an adult looking back on this situation, the strangest aspect of my mother’s control over the family purse strings was her insistence on filling out the annual tax forms, an occasion of high tension, even in the sanest of families. In mine it felt like Armageddon. Every April all the receipts with numbers to be entered and pages of forms to be filled out were scattered across the dining room table like an explosion. I could hear may parents bickering and I knew to tiptoe softly into the kitchen. This annual ritual situation was insanely weird considering 1) my mother had no particular accounting skills and could have easily demurred from the task, thus saving herself and her entire family from grief; and 2) my father was a professor of tax law at a major university and thus uniquely qualified to fill out the forms for our family‘s uncomplicated one-income tax situation. In fact, my father had been an attorney for the IRS in Washington, D.C., where my three older brothers were born. His claim to fame was having authored the original federal short form, “My bestseller,“ he liked to call it.
It’s safe to say my father was not a confrontational man, otherwise he would have marched down to the bank and cashed his own damn paycheck, and while he was at it go about the business of getting a driver’s license. But for reasons never explained, nor discussed, this didn’t happen. Instead, my father had his revenge by saying things like “Back the same day!” which he knew pissed my mother off. He’d say it in such a cheerful tone of voice she knew she’d come off as the bad guy if she told him stuff it.
His other favorite catch phrase came at the end of every meal eaten at home. “I guess that’s all we’re going to get!“ he’d exclaim cheerfully before escaping to his pipe and the stack of reading that awaited in the living room. My mother’s retaliation was to serve him terrible meals. Knowing he loved vegetables with sauces, she’d serve gooey masses of matter cooked to transparency in a pressure cooker adorned with a little salt. Most entrees came out of a can or the freezer; desserts came ready made in package. “Salad” meant green Jello atop a leaf of iceberg lettuce. After he declared his nightly “I guess that’s all we’re going to get,” my mom and I would set about the task of clearing the table, tossing the pot pie tins in the trash and loading silverware into the dishwasher. “Never get married,” she’d hiss at me.
As my parents danced their passive-aggressive tango, never confronting whatever hurts, resentments or disappointments that simmered just below the surface of their interactions with each other I felt guilty. If I could be a better daughter, maybe they’d get along better! I worked hard to get A’s at school, obediently keep my room tidy, and not play my Beatles records when dad was at home in hopes that the air we breathed would cease to crackle with unresolved tension. When these strategies inevitably failed I made myself as small and unobtrusive as possible, letting my mind wander into Wonderland and Narnia and places where little girls had adventures free from parental strife.
When I was still too young to be left at home in the evening when my mom drove to the campus to pick my dad up after work, I’d take a book along with me in the back seat, steeling myself for the moment we’d pull into the driveway and my dad would say -- sing it with me now -- “Back the same day!“
Because my father -- his name was Roger -- was a professor, he had the same vacation times as the kids. Of course he loved to travel by car. Which meant that every summer and again at Christmas time we'd pile into the car and head somewhere. My mother did all the driving. By the time my brothers were old enough to drive they were old enough to refuse to go on these trips. So one by one I lost my traveling companions until it me, my parents and their resentment toward each other driving around inside a Pontia cCatalina with my mother at the wheel. We traveled through the rural south where I saw little girls my own age living by the road in shotgun shacks; when we stopped at a park for a picnic lunch I wanted to drink from the “Colored Only” fountain because I thought the water would look like a rainbow. We crossed the border into to Canada, where my eldest brother, Roger, Jr., had gone into hiding to escape the draft during Viet Nam war, my mother giving me strict instructions not to contradict her in front of the border guard when she lied about our destination. The best was New York City where my father took me to Macy’s in Herald Square and bought me a hot pink paisley paper dress.
One summer we broke tradition and took the train to California to visit my mother’s sister. I was about 6, which would have made my brother Ed 12 or 13. He insisted on wearing his Boy Scout uniform the whole time. To keep us out of her hair, our mother handed us a box of Fizzies, a product probably so toxic it no longer exists; the tablets were like Alka-Seltzer crossed with Kool-Aid. Ed and I ran gleefully to the drinking fountain in the corridors outside the rest rooms, conveniently located outside the realm of parental purview. Instead of following the instructions to dissolve the Fizzy tablet in a glass of water, we’d each pop one in our mouths. Our tongues burned, our teeth turned psychedelic hues of red or purple or whatever fruit flavor the particular tablet purported to emulate, then, for the underpants-wetting coup de grace, an endless stream of foam erupted out of our mouths.
When we’d return home from these family trips, my dad refrained from his usual chorus, perhaps largely because the statement would be logically false since we were often away for weeks at a time. But thankfully these trips also diffused whatever emotional time bombs were ticking beneath the surface of my parent’s marriage, and for a brief time we’d be a united, peaceful, if tired, nuclear family unit.
Every time we’d pull into the driveway, my father would cheerfully exclaim “Back the same day!” I think it was a reference to an advertising slogan back in the early days of the automobile; one of his uncles in upstate New York had become a millionaire selling the newfangled horseless carriages. My mother was always at the wheel because my father didn’t drive. Why my father didn’t have a driver’s license was a mystery to me, but as a kid I chalked it up to being just one more thing that was weird about our family. Everybody else’s dad drove cars; Suzanne Bryzynski’s dad drove a fire truck. Other dads could fix things, like flat bicycle tires and loose boards in a tree house; I can’t imagine my dad knowing which end of the hammer to use. He was able to tear himself away from his books and Beethoven recordings long enough to do manly chores like mow the lawn in summer, hang storm windows in the early fall, swap out the old furnace filters for clean news ones in winter. But other than that, he was fairly useless around the house.
Although he was the family breadwinner, my mother handled the family finances. She doled out an allowance from his own paycheck, which he continually complained was too small. On Saturdays we’d walk downtown together to do errands -- first a trip to the library where we’d return the stack of books checked out the previous Saturday, then onward to spend his allowance on sundries at Osco’s Drug Store, and once a month or so get a haircut. Last but not least we’d stop for a treat before walking home. In summer we’d get ice cream cones. In winter we’d stomp snow off our boots in the lobby of the little train station downtown and feed change into the hot drink machine, cocoa for me, coffee for him.
As an adult looking back on this situation, the strangest aspect of my mother’s control over the family purse strings was her insistence on filling out the annual tax forms, an occasion of high tension, even in the sanest of families. In mine it felt like Armageddon. Every April all the receipts with numbers to be entered and pages of forms to be filled out were scattered across the dining room table like an explosion. I could hear may parents bickering and I knew to tiptoe softly into the kitchen. This annual ritual situation was insanely weird considering 1) my mother had no particular accounting skills and could have easily demurred from the task, thus saving herself and her entire family from grief; and 2) my father was a professor of tax law at a major university and thus uniquely qualified to fill out the forms for our family‘s uncomplicated one-income tax situation. In fact, my father had been an attorney for the IRS in Washington, D.C., where my three older brothers were born. His claim to fame was having authored the original federal short form, “My bestseller,“ he liked to call it.
It’s safe to say my father was not a confrontational man, otherwise he would have marched down to the bank and cashed his own damn paycheck, and while he was at it go about the business of getting a driver’s license. But for reasons never explained, nor discussed, this didn’t happen. Instead, my father had his revenge by saying things like “Back the same day!” which he knew pissed my mother off. He’d say it in such a cheerful tone of voice she knew she’d come off as the bad guy if she told him stuff it.
His other favorite catch phrase came at the end of every meal eaten at home. “I guess that’s all we’re going to get!“ he’d exclaim cheerfully before escaping to his pipe and the stack of reading that awaited in the living room. My mother’s retaliation was to serve him terrible meals. Knowing he loved vegetables with sauces, she’d serve gooey masses of matter cooked to transparency in a pressure cooker adorned with a little salt. Most entrees came out of a can or the freezer; desserts came ready made in package. “Salad” meant green Jello atop a leaf of iceberg lettuce. After he declared his nightly “I guess that’s all we’re going to get,” my mom and I would set about the task of clearing the table, tossing the pot pie tins in the trash and loading silverware into the dishwasher. “Never get married,” she’d hiss at me.
As my parents danced their passive-aggressive tango, never confronting whatever hurts, resentments or disappointments that simmered just below the surface of their interactions with each other I felt guilty. If I could be a better daughter, maybe they’d get along better! I worked hard to get A’s at school, obediently keep my room tidy, and not play my Beatles records when dad was at home in hopes that the air we breathed would cease to crackle with unresolved tension. When these strategies inevitably failed I made myself as small and unobtrusive as possible, letting my mind wander into Wonderland and Narnia and places where little girls had adventures free from parental strife.
When I was still too young to be left at home in the evening when my mom drove to the campus to pick my dad up after work, I’d take a book along with me in the back seat, steeling myself for the moment we’d pull into the driveway and my dad would say -- sing it with me now -- “Back the same day!“
Because my father -- his name was Roger -- was a professor, he had the same vacation times as the kids. Of course he loved to travel by car. Which meant that every summer and again at Christmas time we'd pile into the car and head somewhere. My mother did all the driving. By the time my brothers were old enough to drive they were old enough to refuse to go on these trips. So one by one I lost my traveling companions until it me, my parents and their resentment toward each other driving around inside a Pontia cCatalina with my mother at the wheel. We traveled through the rural south where I saw little girls my own age living by the road in shotgun shacks; when we stopped at a park for a picnic lunch I wanted to drink from the “Colored Only” fountain because I thought the water would look like a rainbow. We crossed the border into to Canada, where my eldest brother, Roger, Jr., had gone into hiding to escape the draft during Viet Nam war, my mother giving me strict instructions not to contradict her in front of the border guard when she lied about our destination. The best was New York City where my father took me to Macy’s in Herald Square and bought me a hot pink paisley paper dress.
One summer we broke tradition and took the train to California to visit my mother’s sister. I was about 6, which would have made my brother Ed 12 or 13. He insisted on wearing his Boy Scout uniform the whole time. To keep us out of her hair, our mother handed us a box of Fizzies, a product probably so toxic it no longer exists; the tablets were like Alka-Seltzer crossed with Kool-Aid. Ed and I ran gleefully to the drinking fountain in the corridors outside the rest rooms, conveniently located outside the realm of parental purview. Instead of following the instructions to dissolve the Fizzy tablet in a glass of water, we’d each pop one in our mouths. Our tongues burned, our teeth turned psychedelic hues of red or purple or whatever fruit flavor the particular tablet purported to emulate, then, for the underpants-wetting coup de grace, an endless stream of foam erupted out of our mouths.
When we’d return home from these family trips, my dad refrained from his usual chorus, perhaps largely because the statement would be logically false since we were often away for weeks at a time. But thankfully these trips also diffused whatever emotional time bombs were ticking beneath the surface of my parent’s marriage, and for a brief time we’d be a united, peaceful, if tired, nuclear family unit.
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