what's worse? the deadliest jobs - part 2

the Earth-shattering Education Encounter has a new post:

Commercial Diver v Smokejumper.

it's thrilling. the most happening thing since part 1.

you get a taco! you get a taco! EVERYBODY GETS A TACO.

need a cause?

need a spring break pickup line?

need a way to feel good about yourself while still kinda creeping everybody out? donate your taco!

i say again, donate. your motherfucking. taco.

what's worse? the deadliest jobs.

the Earth-shattering Education Encounter has a new post, about things such as this

and this.

exciting stuff.

One year ago today, the time for excuse-making has come to an end.

my company's seo site has a fresh and exciting new blog that i'll be writing for, called

Earth-shattering Education Encounter
substance. knowledge. consequences.

it's going to be really fun; i'll put up a link here whenever i write a new post (there are other contributors as well). here's a slice of the level of dialogue EsEE will work to provide:



"One year ago today, the time for excuse-making has come to an end." -Washington, D.C., Jan 2003
It’s not hard to put things off. With big things, like getting a college degree or admitting a mistake, it can be pretty easy. No more excuses: just get out there and do it. The future of yesterday is today.

listen. first the fat boys break up - now every day i wake up - somebody got a problem with hal.

...I devoured the Sherlock Holmes stories at an early age; I loved them. I don’t remember how Mr. Arthur Conan Doyle spelled out the details of Holmes’s face, but here was a man whose mystery, method and essence gathered in a place just behind his eyes, and whether I read it or determined it for myself, Holmes’s eyes were, like mine, gray. I was nine or ten years old. I became a fiend for the finer points of deductive reasoning. I’d walk onto the school playground, examine the gravelly sand beneath the swing set, and determine whether the previous swingers had jumped or fallen off. At home, my mother’s face was a complex tapestry of tiny stresses and rewards—of minor victories and, far more numerous, small things gone majorly wrong.

It’s amazing to realize I can recall with detail “cases” I worked, that far back—I must have repeated and run over the facts so many times that my memory couldn’t help but encode them. The disappearance and stealthy recovery of my wristwatch—the one that currently lay on Etta’s pillow—was a very proud moment for me. The watch is and was old, and has Donald Duck on it. The blue leather strap has gold stitching, and the white face is bordered with gold-painted metal. In the center stands an 0pen-beaked Donald, wearing his standard outfit: blue hat, blue coat, no pants. He’s pointing to the numbers around him with arms that have long since stopped rotating; attached to these are hands that do not belong together: his right hand has an extended middle finger and the thumb raised to make the pistol sign, which can generally mean either bam or way to go, sport. So we’re okay there. But then the shorter left hand, the hour hand, is bent at the wrist, the white fingers splayed stylishly, suggestively. If gay cartoon ducks have a system of hand signs, this is the one that says, I’m busy just now, but later, I’m yours every way you want me. Gail never detected the sexual ambiguity of Donald’s fingers; but she did detect, or at least invent, an offensive sexuality on the part of the man who gave me the watch. He was my Little League baseball assistant coach, Ted, and after I failed to get a crucial hit in the last game of the season, he presented it to me as a gift. He’d had it since he was a boy.

I really took that to heart; Donald Duck was not my favorite Disney character, by any means, but his voice was funny, and I realized the intent of the gift: don’t over-think, don’t be all angrily serious about this kind of very minor situation. About baseball. But Gail thought the gift was inappropriate; she took the watch from me and stashed it away. I spent every spare moment surreptitiously trying to recover the Donald. I looked in all the usual stash locations, racking my nubile brain, killing myself. Then I thought of Sherlock. Hardly for the first time—I even had the hat. I’d shut myself in my room, put it on, and pace back and forth, eyes narrowed, thinking about the problem at hand, sometimes aloud. Ah, there you are, Watson. Outstanding. Have you seen my pipe, one can’t be expected to walk properly around the crime scene without a pipe, a decent pipe. Procurement of a pipe is to be our top priority, once this case of the missing Donald is solved; although that will be a tricky business all by itself … a tricky business. I often repeated my last words, after a pause—and even then I knew this was very un-Holmes, but hell, my Watson was imaginary, speaking Watson’s part aloud mad me sound crazy. I allowed myself leeway. As much as I was the eager detective, the mysteries I pursued were never about whodunit; they were exclusively whereisit in nature. As much as I scoured the tattered, faux-leather-bound volume of the collected Holmes stories, his method didn’t translate, because I was interested in finding, not blaming. I wanted to know location, not motive. But I didn’t know of this discrepancy; and so I tried many other things to rectify it.

Prone though I am to working a heavy psychological angle when thinking back on the way I was as a boy, the answer, here, is that I had a lot of time alone; and I had an eye that was curious for the way things worked. This meant Peter Pan was great, but Robin Hood was better. I was rarely asked how I felt, so I rarely considered my feelings of much import. For all intents and purposes, Sherlock Holmes possessed no feelings not expressed in solving cases and occasionally manhandling his violin, and so he was a fascinating model of behavior for me.

The Case of the Missing Donald was a turning point—for the first time, motive was relevant. Feelings were relevant. Gail felt that Coach Ted had been wrong to give me the watch, so she stepped in and took it from me. Okay, she’s acting on feelings, here, so she’s not planning it out, she’s reacting. What happened next. We were leaving the game. We got in the station wagon and she was yelling, not really at me, to me. She looked at my face, silent but murderous, and saw that while I hadn’t showed much care for the game—I’d taken my shoes and socks off in left field and was still barefoot—I sure as hell cared about that watch; I wasn’t going to bend. So she got out of the car and stormed back to the dugout, where she proceeded to talk normally to Coach Ted for a few seconds, then explode, waving her arms everywhere while stepping towards him, which was just so awful—I looked away. She was wearing her little knit vest that she wore in the springtime—it had a lot of pockets, many places to conceal a small Donald Duck wristwatch. Even as she got back in the wagon, I was already in detective mode, sizing up any apparent pocket bulk, and, when we got back, tracing every movement of Gail and the vest in order to pick up the trail that’d lead me to the Donald’s resting place. I was more stealthy and thorough than I’d ever been, and came up empty. I ran through the scene, again, again, again, trying to make my memory pull up some sliver of detail, or to derive likely locations. That night was sleepless, and I climbed out of my window and walked almost five miles to the baseball field, where I scoured the tall-ish grass close to the dugouts, eventually collapsing there, leaning my tired back against the wire fence and staring up at the generous light of the May moon. Why, I asked the moon. Why can’t I find Donald. He must be somewhere—she never throws anything away, she hates to throw things away. And, my friend, that’s when it clicked: she hates throwing things away. The motive I was interested in was not motive for the crime—Gail’s feelings about the Donald watch had no bearing, here. But suddenly I had this new scent, a trace of motive for what she’d do with the watch: Gail could not bear to throw things away; she went around with this particular hatred right on the tip of her mind or tongue—throwing things out was a waste, and this policy governed many things, even how much food first came on my plate at dinner. Waste not/want not, the truism said, and the first part governed Gail’s daily decisions. I leaned against the dugout fence, still staring at the moon, and realized that she’d given the watch back to Assistant Coach Ted. She’d yelled at his uncomprehending face and waved her arms wildly about gift-giving and role models, and then she’d turned and walked calmly back to the car, after handing him back the watch. So that it wouldn’t go to waste. That was the last game of the season; I wouldn’t see Assistant Coach Ted again. I was so excited about this, I marveled at it enough that I began walking towards Assistant Coach Ted’s neighborhood before talking myself out of it. It was late, I didn’t know which house was his. He probably still had the watch. It’d been his before, and he hadn’t offered it to me in a way that suggested he’d offered it to the better players first. No, he was holding onto it, until such a time as I could come forward and accept his old Donald Duck wristwatch like a man.

I’d anticipated having time to discuss what I knew, and how I’d come to know it, when Assistant Coach Ted gave me the watch for a second time. But when I came to his door that Sunday afternoon, he was a little short with me, restless, by no means convinced I was there on my own. I looked down at the welcome mat and apologized for my mother’s yelling. Assistant Coach Ted let out a laugh—thank god, he said. I was second-guessing the good things I thought about you that made me give you that watch—hold on, I’ll be right back.

He brought out the Donald Duck watch and escorted me to the edge of the front yard, where he lit a cigar. Leaning back against his car, a cherry Chevy Nova, he rotated his cigar in small, quick turns, taking a short puff with each twist. I’d no idea, at the time, how a cigar was smoked, but it was undoubtedly a close relative of the pipe, which I wanted to smoke very much, and this cat knew what he was doing. I stood a few feet in front of him, studying, his technique, and marveling at the thick curls of pungent smoke. Assistant Coach Ted looked thoughtfully down the quiet road, then down at me, tousled my moppy hair, and chuckled. He told me to enjoy my watch and went back to his cigar. I backed away from him a few steps, then turned and trotted down the street, becoming more happy and running faster as I went. It was my see you around, kid moment, a moment of recognition between me and a solitary, cigar-smoking man.

A practical understanding of what constitutes a memo.

The priorities harmonization mission will be implemented over the next three quarters. Employee response has really been something. In terms of where this will place you all on the synchronization roadmap, you will look forward to a growing rate of return into the next decade and beyond.

The standing labor attorney has reviewed the upcoming mandatory training sessions—these will successfully look at a spectrum of known behaviors as they have manifested in a range of unfortunate ways:

A concrete explanation of a respectful work environment

A practical understanding of what constitutes harassment

Gaining this understanding of constitution requires focus. But you all will be able to re-direct & re-apply your energy during the subsequent training segment looking at an evolving conceptualization of

The wide range of behaviors that can lead to a claim of harassment

and

Incorporating our organizational values into creating a trusting workplace.

Please note that two adjoining training sessions will be separated out accordingly: one for team managers; and one for everyone else.

Your anticipated cooperation is appreciated.

A practical understanding of what constitutes a memo - P2.

MEMO-MANAGEMENT-MEMO-MANAGEMENT-MEMO-MANAGEMENT-MEMO-MEMO-MEMO

Now. Now you can all stop pretending that you don’t have the tools for structuring comprehensive policy implementation training sessions. If you’re going to construct mandatory training sessions notification and do it effectively, you'll never get out of the gate without specificating compulsory adherence to The 2 Stipulating Memo Principles.

1) All memo narrative forms are replaced by the 2nd person. Often mistaken for personal, this voice lets you maintain control of your memo by referring to all recipients as a de-individualized collective. “You all” is the preferred form of conveying non-directive warm fuzzies; and complimenting good performance at or near the outset is longstanding memo tradition, on the theory that you must give before you get.

2) Participles form the foundation around which all other useful linguistic qualifiers are gathered. Because participles indicate motion but are in fact staid; and because they so strongly imply an expiring timetable but are in fact tenseless, the standing HR participle policy has been 5 participles per memo paragraph of not more than 4 lines, known colloquially at the policy management level as the “5P4” strategy, with which you are familiar.

The company is expanding; the partners are optimistic that growth can be profitably contained, but they kindly ask that all managers adopt the new, highly evolved 7PP4P memo policy right away: no less than 7 participles per 4-line memo paragraph. 7PP4P has been rigorously trial-tested and shown to result in memos that communicate a sense of more pressing responsibility than ever before, while feeling no less organic.

you can't do that to shatner.

my friend marlise has a new book out, about the years right after college when she magically created herself a job as a reporter for the globe. i just bought it yesterday, and am really enjoying it; one of the early highlights is her getting into william shatner's 50-guest wedding reception by pretending to be drunk and pee in the bushes--this after being turned away at the gate, to which she brought a big lavender tiffany's box with a pickle dish in it.

this led to a fun email string -

i've always liked you, marlise. and now ... what can i do but marvel at the retardedly high extremes of likeability to which you've traveled: you brought a pickle dish to william shatner's wedding... you gave william shatner a pickle dish. a tiny wittle dish in a big purple box, for him to put his pickles in.
--
a great deal of thought went into that purchase. it was either that or a key chain, but the key chain would have come in a pouch. couldn't do that to shatner.
--
1) no, i don't expect you could

2) couldn't do that to shatner is destined to become a fantastic hit song, a party song, maybe with a scissor sisters disco rock kind of sound, like

3) whoa-oh / you can't do that to the shat / no no / can't get on the list / put his pickles in a dish, oh no / i said you can't / can't ride the shatner / dip his fish in your batter / oh yeah / best bring a platter / or a dish if you wish / to ever do that to shatner / if you wanna do that to the shat / oh yeah / oh, no.


tabloid prodigy is great fun. click the entry title to go to marlise's site.

gertrude box redux.

..apsi has just received a comment on our first-ever post, and it's marvelous.

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "how about Pandora. no? then let's go with Gertrude...":

Hey there! You're talking about my GREAT GRANDMA! She happens to be a great great grandma at this point X 4!

Gertrude Box (or grandma gert as we called her) is an eccentric and wonderful person.

She is 86 years old and is the quintessential life-long learner, but she didn't start her formal college education until after she left her husband at 50 years old!

She has swam in the senior olympics

She has given birth to eight children

At 86, she can still do at least three pull-ups, as she demonstrated at our last family reunion

Quick! Someone do a documentary before she kicks the bucket sky-diving!

http:www.jeanjitomir.com

the post itself was a rich prelude to the sartorial sophistication that would come to define apsi.

i have a thing for the notion that a name plays a role in dictating character. ...really it's a cheap subset of the question as to whether fate determines character or character determines fate -- but that's not exactly a top-shelf philosophical wondering to begin with. so whatever; it's a fun thing to ponder.

especially when today i return to my phd database [am temping at the UW college of education on a study tracking the career paths of phds in certain disciplines] and set about the task of uncovering the current residence of one Gertrude Box. ah, pardon: dr. gertrude box. she has two phds.

go ahead! say it aloud a few times. gertrude BOX. gerTRUDE box.

GERTRUDE! BOX!

strangely freeing, isn't it? it took a while but i finally tracked her down; she was a tough nut to crack. box to open. whichever.

and, if your mind is anything like mine--a generally unhelpful combination of scornful and lazy--you have to wonder what kind of person gertrude box, phd is: whether she eats wheat; if maybe when she laughs her face looks the same as when she takes a shit. that kind of thing.

i looked up the acknowledgements page of her sociology dissertation, to look for references to other family/spousal members who have more easily researchable names. and, jackpot:

"to my father, reverend harry thomas morrell, ba, bd, bph, ma, phd, and to my eight children - trudy, terry, ted, twinkle star, tom, tim, tiara and todd ... but especially to twinkle star."

well, i mean, DUH. of course it was twinkle star box who helped you, who did ALL the typing of your disseration about development of a metric for "the sociological impact of recreational parachuting." because, you know, she had the time.

black dogs : ian mcewan.

There’s a savory depth to this book. When I pull back enough to think of the whole work conceptually, it’s the layers of the pie that first demand comment. McEwan gives us a novel posed as a memoir, with two very different but inseparable narrative threads pulled by the intellectual and spiritual biographies of the writer’s parental in-laws, who, though still married, are long estranged; the primary crisis having arisen very early on, back in the 1950s, when they belonged to the Communist Party. Fun and romantic, he gangly and she graceful, both of them drowned in idealism—a pair of smiling and hopeful young British communists.

They’re early in their marriage, hiking in the European mountains, when June, the wife, has a Hitchcockian encounter with two black dogs that lastingly alters her belief in the order of things. The black dogs, who may or may not be instruments of terror biologically engineered by the Nazis but left behind after the occupation, do away with June’s inclination and/or ability to hold herself according to the rational nature of life. Her husband, Bernard, veers exclusively to logical layer of the pie, and his affinity for the Party is largely explained in this way, as being a logical framework to bring people even-handed solutions. Bernard was up the path a ways when the dogs confronted June, having been held up by these fascinating insects he was compelled to count the legs on, or something.

This, the encounter to which the title speaks, is the centerpiece of the whole arrangement; it’s the pithy center of the pie, of what’s compelled our narrator to seek out the stories and tacit counsel of the couple, the two separate parts of this diametrically opposed pair.

Why do you sound like you’re trying to write the stuffiest 10th-grade book report ever? you ask. You said you were gonna talk about the “layers of the pie”—which sounded kinda like crap at the time, but that was before you started to see how many syllables you could fit into a sentence without being interesting. You make a good point. The crazy part is that I’ve stuck to my notes so far—it’s just that I’m still relating to you the details that evoke the first part of my first point, which is the backwardness of the whole affair:

- The encounter with the black dogs is the denouement of a relationship that would continue for decades after

- Said encounter makes up the title, and is alluded to throughout the book, but is only told to us right near the end, like a proper denouement

- Though the narrator never says so, the black dogs are the driving force of his efforts—he wants to understand them, and doesn’t.

For as complicated as I’m making this, you can really simply appreciate the tightness, the emotional layers of the characters present in McEwan’s prose, by finishing the book and setting down next to you: it’s 145 pages long; the paperback is ¼” thinner than my cell phone. And four or five degrees of really complex theory of mind are at work in those pages.

The narrative turns, in the latter part of the tale, as the account of the black dogs is finally being given. There’s a break from the 2nd person voice, and it comes so naturally, I’d gone for pages before I realized the storyteller had left; nobody was telling the story; the story was just happening.

The change in style—as the 2nd person drops away, what steps in is an action-oriented tone—serves another purpose: This was the fracture point between to lovers. It became the definite pivot around which they would ground their respective life philosophies. But, strangely, the material shift of the narrative voice has a converse effect; beautifully, it brings a substance to the ambiguity of the pair’s differences.

That’s an obtuse book-report way of saying it, so let me try again: I loved this book. The end of this book, after I’d put it down, made me understand selfishness, as it relates to love, in a way that was new to me.