What the kids are up to

Disturbing news from the child front. My two lovely, sweet, and yes, borderline angelic children sang me a pair of gruesome songs tonight, both of which ended with Barney the purple dinosaur considerably worse for the wear.

"What the --?" I stammered. "Who taught you those horrible songs?"

"Everybody sings about killing Barney nowadays," said my lovely, sweet, and yes, borderline angelic daughter.

Media outrage

Look, I don't mind that there's all this coverage of the Pope in the news. The Pope comes to America. It's a big deal. I get it.

But it cheeses me off when scientists discover a 15-foot rabbi and nobody seems to give a damn.

Rabbi Arthur Rosenberg, of Holmdel New Jersey, is huge.

This post: Not for children

I just saw the most disgusting thing on CNN. Wolf Blitzer says to his guest, "May I pick your brain for a moment?" And the guest says, "Sure."

I'm sorry -- I just got up and turned off the TV. Wolf Blitzer is a creepy creepy guy.

"I'm makin' pruno!"

is what this fellow shouts
at me and my chat-mate.

We're sitting on a bench,
enjoying the East Bay sun.
He comes up to us
holding a black garbage bag.

He puts the bag down next to us
on the bench.

He was so happy.

There was something
moving in that garbage bag.

He disappears into the coffee shop
for a sec. Then pops back out like a
hillbilly leprechaun.

Grabbing the bag back, he crows:
"I'm making pruno!"

He shakes our hands and
cackles down the street.

I'm telling you, it almost made me want to
make some pruno.

******
note: I was delighted to find out later that pruno (pronounced "prune-o") is a kind of homemade booze commonly associated with prison living.

A thing that makes me mad

They named a drug
designed to help men urinate
"Flomax."

(They really did.
They called it "Flomax."
Can you

imagine the joy in
that room? "Flomax!"
"Oh my God -- we're going to
call it 'Flomax!' Somebody, do a trademark
search!"

"You're incredible,
Dave." "No Sally, you are
the incredible one. You came up with
the 'max' part!")

It makes me so angry. They

named it "Flomax"
when they

could have
called it

"Niagra."

Nordic Sub Shop

He sounds surprised
at everything he says he's
constantly surprising himself.

"Is there food somewhere around here?" is what I asked.

"There is?!" he self-flabbergasted. "Nordic Sub Shop -- right next door?! Good food?!?"

Surprise, surprise, surprise.

Me and my metaphor

I have this recurring dream in which the brakes in my car give out. The shudder these dreams share is that moment when I'm pressing down but the car careens.

I've had this dream in various forms for probably twenty years or so. Not too often -- every couple of months I'd guess. I had a version of it last night as one of my last late-dawn eye-flitters. The thing that struck me, as I yawned myself into the day, is that we're hardwired for metaphor.

Our brains could operate in a much more literal fashion. We could fall asleep and a fast-talking phantom self could give us an eight-hour lecture on exactly what it is we hope for and what we fear. But instead we close our eyes and we generate these little poems for ourselves.

In my case, my brain seems to have found a metaphor it likes and it's sticking with it. I suspect that the brakes meant one thing when I was twenty and they mean something a little different now that I'm two times twenty. But the image persists. Or maybe it's been the same mortality song all along: "hey, wait -- stop time!" And wouldn't that be nice?

That sensation of soft brakes is so real, I find myself wondering if I ever owned a car that had this problem. Was there something wrong with the brakes on that strawberry-scented Chevy Impala I drove as a teenager? Or the gold Accord that carried me from New Jersey to the West Coast?

I don't think so. These aren't real brakes, after all. Just a poem I tell myself at night.

Harold, asleep at the wheel

This morning while dropping my kids off at school, it occurred to me that California is now my home. I've lived here longer than I've lived anywhere else.

I spent seventeen years on the east coast, interrupted by five years as a kid in Holland. Meanwhile, my California experience will hit nineteen years this coming July.

Oh, I've been keeping one eye out for the "when will I have spent half my life out here?" milestone -- it's waving at me from about 3 years down the road. But this subtler calendar-flip slipped past me in the night.

If I was super-dooper rich, I think I would hire someone to scan my personal numerology, looking for just this sort of Highly Significant Moment.

"Mr. Vortex, did you know that your heart has now beaten more times than a bumblebee's wings will flap, using standard bumblebee life expectancy charts and such?"

"Thank you, Harold."

"Also, if all the work emails you've sent were compiled into one document, it would be eight times longer than Finnegan's Wake."

"That's fascinating, Harold. Here's a gold doubloon with my face on it."

Garfield Minus Garfield

Lovely. (Link via ye olde zefrank.com.

Eggs and Feathers

I'll admit that I was a little surprised this past weekend by the flurry of emails I received in response to the (arguably tepid) stand I took against eggs and feathers. Or rather, against the "egg and feather" craze that's been blighting hipster shacks like "Zack's Breakfastery" in Detroit and "The Most Important Meal" in Kansas City.

Josh from Hoboken writes: "Dear Cesil (sic): you are a big jerk. Eggs and feathers wrawk! Stop saying bad things about eggs and feathers!"

Doug in Chicago writes: "Mr. Vortix (sic): you and everyone else over the age of 25 can eat your eggs the way you like. I'll have mine with feathers!"

Perhaps the authors of these misbegotten missives think I can be startled into silence. If anything, the result has been the obverse. With each new addled assault that stumbles its way into my bulging inbox, I find myself emboldened to take up the battle cry against this repulsive phenomenon with plus vigor ("more vigor")!

Dishes like "Eggs Benedict (and Feathers)" or "Eggs Over Medium (and Feathers)" or even "(Feathers and) Soft Boiled Egg" are just the latest step in la grande decline ("the grand decline"). And I for one will not sit quietly by, tuning my viola while Rome cooks egg dishes decorated with feathers!

The perfect gentleman

At an Italian restaurant last night, while I was picking at my spaghetti bolognese, a perfect little gentleman of around 2 or 3 years old came up to me and stared.

Whatever I did -- peekabo, wiggly fingers, wiggly fingers on head, big smile, surprise face -- it didn't matter. He just stared. It was wonderful. And once again I found myself so grateful that I don't live in Belgium or Austria or one of those other places (Portugal) where they take their children and send them into the forest and don't let them come back until they're 25.

You can criticize Americans and say that we watch too much TV or that we put feathers in places we probably shouldn't (egg dishes), but you have to admit: at least we don't make our young people live in the forest.

Me and my accomplishments

You probably can't tell from this blog, but I'm an exceptionally accomplished fellow. For example: I once taught a family of gerbils how to sign "hello" and "nice to see you." I can hold my breath for three hours. From 1983 to 1987, everything I said or thought rhymed with "cantaloupe." Nice bar of soap. I like the pope. Someone should write a book called "The Audacity of Hope."

It was a difficult time for my family.

Still, even I was surprised to learn of my latest accomplishment. It turns out I'm the creator of the world's top-ranking Google result for the search phrase want to smell something wonderful.

When something like that happens to you, you just, you know you look back on your life so far -- that dusty road leading up to the here and now, and you say, "Yeah. Time well spent."

What about you? Accomplish anything extraordinary of late?

Mess with Texas

Some people, like Hillary Clinton and my 7-year-old son, have been hammering home this "Don't Mess with Texas" message. In the case of Hillary, it's one of her slogans for the March 4th primary. With my son, it's on this t-shirt he likes to wear.

And I'm sorry, but I enjoy messing with Texas. I do. And I don't care what Hillary or Power Vortex say -- I don't intend to stop.

For example, sometimes I move Texas' seat a few inches away from where they think it is. Not so much that they fall. But just enough so they go "Whoa!" and they have to readjust themselves. And they're looking around, thinking, "Who did that? Who's messing with me?"

Or I tell Oklahoma that Texas said something mean about them, when really they didn't.

Or if Texas is shooting pool, I walk up quietly behind them and tug on their pool cue right as they're lining up their shot. They hate that!

Got any ways you like to mess with Tee Ex?

Update: Reader James in the comments gently points out that those McSweeney bastards got to this watering hole first. I guess it's true what they say about an infinite number of monkeys with an infinite number of typewriters taking it to Texas in similar fashion, where time is expressed as T and "ways Texas can be messed with" is expressed as M or perhaps (M Over Tx).

Update to update: After a little reflection, I've decided that this is a sign I should redirect my energies. Instead of "messing with Texas," I'm now going to "screw with Delaware."

If you've got kids

today's a good day
to introduce them
to "Bicycle Race" by Queen.

On your mark, get set, go.....

Vortex Spawn Makes Stage Debut in Candide

Hi,
This one's narrowcast to my fellow Bay Areans. Just wanted to share the fun fact that my daughter (aka Shonny Vortex) is making her big-time stage debut this very weekend in Virago Theatre Company's staging of Candide, with music by Leonard "don't call me Spock" Bernstein and lyrics by (among others) Dorothy Parker, Lillian Hellman, and Stephen "don't call me Spock either" Sondheim.

This is an actual grown up performance. The New York Times described Bernstein's score as "shimmering" and claims that Shonny's performance is likely to be "the greatest stage appearance of the new century." I think they're overhyping it, but who's gonna argue with the New York Times?

Special Twofer Deal
The show opens this coming Friday, and they're offering a crazy two-for-one deal on advance tix for the first weekend -- two tickets for the low price of just $20. You can secure that snazzy deal by calling 510-865-6237 or by dropping me an email....

Days and Times: Friday February 22nd, 8pm, Sat February 23rd, 8pm, Sunday February 24th, 7pm.

The show runs from Feb 22 through to March 9th. For more information: click away.

-Cecil

"Want to smell something wonderful?"

That's what this lady at the table next to mine just asked her gentleman friend.

"Yes! Dear lord yes!" I want to shout.

Me and my tea

I'm drinking vanilla mighty leaf tonight.
The most macho tea.

Tough guys smell this brew they
back down. They should back down.
It makes me French with rage. Like some
French Bruce Banner. "Petite l'hommes!
Je crushez vous!"

This Coming Sunday: The Homeworld World Premiere in Moraga

A while back, my better half worked on a full-length independent science fiction feature called "Homeworld." Well the movie's now done and ready for it's world premiere -- this coming Sunday, January 13th. The tickets are free, and the theater is pretty huge, so we're encouraging one and all to come and join us for the event. I'll be the one who looks like the picture over on the right, only without the goatee and with both a top and a bottom part to my head.

Here's all the info:

When: January 13th, 2008 @ 5PM
Where: Rheem Theater 350 Park St., Moraga, CA 94556
Admission: Free
Rating: Not rated yet, but think "PG." Kids are welcome.
More info, including directions: Homeworld Site

Hope to see ya there!

Calling Iowa

OK, time to wander out on that limb. At 8:58 am on Wednesday the 3rd, based on, well, very little, I'm calling Iowa for Obama (largely because I wish it so) and Romney (organization).

Fortunately, I can edit this post tomorrow if I get it all wrong.

Any other predictions out there?

Hegel-themed Kraft Cheese Lunchables

I dreamt last night that I was throwing a party and someone brought Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel-themed Kraft Cheese Lunchables.

Der Wikipedia tells us that Hegel (1770-1831) talked about "a relation between nature and freedom, immanence and transcendence, and the unification of these dualities without eliminating either pole or reducing it to the other."

I'm trying to find the connection my subconscious was drawing between Hegel and Kraft Cheese Lunchables. The best I've come up with so far is that Kraft Cheese Lunchables are free from nature. Transcendentally free from nature.

Immanence.

I wonder if when I die

the last thing I'm
gonna do is check my email.

You know -- blinding chest pain,
hit refresh.

Hit refresh again. Pull down some spam.
Reboot
this mortal coil.

My most original idea ever

So I have this new idea for a movie. It's the most completely original idea I've ever come up with. And tonight I'm giving it to the world because that's how much I love the world.

The movie's called "Gnome Alone." And the idea is, I've gone away for Christmas vacation and I've accidentally left my gnome home, all by himself. Two bungling crooks try to rob the place, but my gnome fights them off with a series of slapstick Rube Goldberg-style defensive maneuvers. And then he stabs them in the heart.

I'm proud to say, this idea is entirely fiction. (I don't even have a gnome!)

It's sort of a send up of all those gnome movies from back in the late '50s. "The Third Gnome." "Gnome on a Hot Tin Roof." Remember those? "12 Angry Gnomes"? What was up with that?

Update: My family reminded me that Meg Ryan also had those pair of gnome movies in the '80s and '90s: "When Gnome Met Sally" and then a few years later, "You've Got Gnome."

Lego my gatling gun

This hurts my brain:

disclosure: I work for the publisher that distributes No Starch Press' Forbidden Lego.
more disclosure: Somebody should get the Nobel Book Titling prize for calling a book "Forbidden Lego."

Toast!

I've been thinking a lot about toast and how everyone takes it for granted. I mean, how many foods taste great uncooked and taste even greater after you've heated them up? 10? Maybe? Maybe 12? It's not a lot.

So I've started working on some new slogans that I hope will help turn things around. See if you can incorporate these into your daily conversations. You know, virally.

• "Toast: Like bread, only naughtier."
• "Suddenly everyone's talking -- about toast!"
• "If you combined 'toad' with 'roast,' you'd get 'toast.' Who's hungry?"
• "Toast!" (this one's not really a slogan, just a fresh way of saying the word toast -- with extra emphasis.)

OK. Enough jibber jabber. Let's get this toast party rolling!

Shine On Harvest Moon

The bliss starts about 45 seconds in.

(As an aside, I first discovered this video about 13 years ago, and for a stretch I must have played it 15 times a day. Good times. Good times.)

Here's something messed up

It's the year 2007. 2000. 7.

I'm calling bull-ass* on that one.

* "bull-ass" was my 7-year-old's best-guess attempt when we asked him if he knew the curse word that started with bull. "Bull-ass?" he said. And oh, how we laughed at his feeble stab at sailor talk. Then we promptly started using the term ourselves.

The days of experimenting with my eggs

have fallen away.

No fennel. No onions any more. No rosemary, no cheese.
All these, pulled beneath the surf
like Godzilla, turning her scaly back on us, taking our
early egg experiments down with her
in a foamy splash.

It's Tabasco now, every time.
Salt, pepper, chili powder. Basil, fresh when possible.
Big old curds. Not too dry.

Come back Godzilla. Come back
and we'll make
crazy eggs.

Bad pasta

The pasta that I had tonight at Pastino's in Oakland
was the worst pasta I have had in my entire life.

I am an old man. I have lived 300 years.
In all my years, I've never had pasta this bad.
And make no mistake -- I've had bad pasta.

For about 60 years I lived in Bangladesh,
I was a reporter at a local newspaper
and -- I kid you not -- my "beat" was bad pasta places
and the pasta they made.
Most of which wasn't
very good.

It was a difficult time.

As it turns out, those thin, flappy, granular strands of my discontent
were just the first course in an extended meal
at the heavy center of which, I now discover, sat
tonight's fettucini bolognese.

I'm about to go to sleep. And all I can think about
is the fact that some small part of this pasta will probably become
my toe skin, or a ligament. My hip. A crumbly eyelash.

I have been cheapened by this pasta. I do not recommend you go to
Pastino's.

Alameda Literati panels, November 3rd

In case you find yourself in the Island City on November 3rd, be sure to drop by Alameda Literati where I'll be speaking on not one, not three, but two panels -- one on (yes) blogging at 10 am, and the other on scriptwriting at 11 am, which will give me a chance to plug that night's performance of Mankind's Last Hope.

(And yes, that was a meta-plug, in which I just used mention of a plug to plug again!)

-Meta Cecil

I'm a sexy man (search result)

I don't mean to brag, but best I can tell I'm a popular result in Vietnam for "sexy man." Not everyone can say that. But I'm saying it. I'm saying it right now. And here's the proof.

Ivan sez: "So sorry, Mr. George Clooney. You are #2 this day!"

My HBO Special: Cecil Vortex -- Uncorked

I liked SCB's suggestion in the comments that I get an HBO special entitled "Uncorked." I'm thinking I could carve out a niche as "the guy who complains about his small town with specifics no one outside of that town can understand."

"What is the deal with all those 'no left turn' signs on Park? Anybody else find themselves driving in circles trying to get over to C'era Una Volta for some of their delicious housemade Pasta alla Boscaiola? Come on now!"

"I'm thinking the ice cream at Tucker's is like crystal meth, if crystal meth came in Rocky Road and Orange Sherbert. Am I right? Am I right? Am I right? Am I right? I'm right about that, aren't I?"

"Boy, all those stacks of books over at Kevin Patricks Books on Encinal are wild, don't you think? Who would stack books like that in an earthquake zone? It's an unusual choice, I say. Good books though, at reasonable prices."

Uncorked

I flipped someone the bird today. I haven't done that for a lot of years. It didn't feel that great, but now that I've done it, I can't seem to stop.

We live in a pretty small town. Slowing down to look for a parking spot, I put my left hand out the window and waved this guy in a VW around me. And the cranky son of a gun honked at me.

Now I hate honking in a small town. I just hate it. Save your honking noises for the big city, I always say, with its fancy ways and complex speech patterns, and its honking. Around here, no honking. Please.

So he honks at me and I can't help it -- I give him the finger. It's like my finger lifted itself, smooth and swift, like a helium balloon. My hand was already out the window, right? And my middle finger just uncorked. And he honks again! Short, snippy. And I honk back! Then I park my car and go get a small pot of darjeeling. Deeeelicious.

And there it is. Some 10, or 11, or possibly even 12 years of no-bird-flipping. Gone. Just whisked away. Like a burp in a sandstorm.

I gave three or four more people the finger on the way home. I flipped off a poodle. I was out of control. And then when my seven-year-old forgot to say "please" when he asked me for a pony, you guessed it. The bird.

He said, "Pop -- what's that? What's that strange gesture mean? Does it hurt?" And then, "Hey, I'm doing it too!" And I started to cry in a way that looked like I was laughing at something really really sad.

I can't live this way. I'm going to try to cork it again tomorrow. I hope it doesn't hurt.

To Do Lists of the Dead

I'm borderline religious about To Do Lists. For example, when I go to bed, I often remind myself that while it's easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than it is for a rich man to get into heaven, it's easier for a rich man to get into heaven than it is for most individuals to complete three projects with overlapping deadlines on time, unless they have a To Do List to help them prioritize.

So I got to thinking about To Do Lists, and religions, and how some Mormons used to baptize people after they'd passed on. And I thought I could perform a similar service by creating To Do Lists for the dead.

Here's what I have so far:

Richard Burton

• Use EVP to star as lovable robot king in upcoming Pixar film.
  
• Possess body of small dog and make it sing songs from Camelot.
  
• Stop haunting Elizabeth Taylor's underwear.
  

Richard Nixon

• Get Facebook account.
  
• Fill Teddy Kennedy's shoes with ectoplasm.
  
• Stop haunting Henry Kissinger's underwear.
  

Got any you'd like to add?

update: a pal just pointed out that Dr. Katz had the exact same idea 7 years ago. Dang you Dr. Katz! Why are you always 7 years ahead of me with everything?!

"Jokes are made in mommy's tummy"

I've been trying a little witnessed consciousness of late, hoping to get a better handle on that age-old question, "Daddy, where do jokes come from?"

What I discovered surprised me. This isn't true every time, but a lot of the time, right before I make a joke, it turns out that there's this moment when I realize a joke's hanging out there, ready to be made before I actually know what the joke is. Someone will say something, or I'll read something, or a cat will jump on something, and my "shtick sense" will start tingling. "Potential comedy, now in vicinity."

So I'Il start poking around to see if I can find it -- it's like I'm trying to locate a chair in a dark room. Sometimes the chair's small and the room's large. Other times the chair's large and the room's small.

I'd never picked up on this before in part because the whole process tends to move pretty fast, and in part because I think I'm just generally too dang giddy with, "Hey! A joke!" to stop and take notes.

But it's a little odd, isn't it?

I'm going to make a leap and assume this isn't just a quirk of me, but it's the way shtick is sometimes formed. If that's true, what does it mean? What does it mean that our nether-brains can sense the presence of a joke before our conscious minds know what's so funny? And that those same nether-brains don't bother to share the joke with our conscious minds, but instead just give a nod to say, "Hey -- pally -- joke opportunity here"...?

Does it mean that our subconscious mind likes to tell jokes to itself in nether-brain-ese, and is sort of a jerk?

Title for My Upcoming Novel:

"The Sun Also Ebbs"

My wife sez, I thought

we were supposed
to need less sleep
when we got older.

Yaaaar, this be an amusing slice of streaming vid

I thought I was completely burned out on the whole Talk Like a Pirate Day thing, and then I bumped into this lovely gem, which is worth playing just for the music:

Am I the only one

who's been worried about whether, in this post-9/11 world, what with the war, and the economy, and health care, and the general state of things, the cable news channels still had it in them to babble on and on (and on) about painful but not really very important OJ-type celebrity uglinesses?

You can imagine what a relief the last few days have been....

Sweet Caroline -- Jonathan Coulton cover

Caught the Coulton show in SF Friday night with xian and so-called Bill. Excellent fun. The highlight for me was a swank encore cover of Sweet Caroline. Here's some footage of said cover from the LA show, which I believe was the night afore....

The greatest generation strikes back

My 7-year-old just offered this interesting observation (which I reproduce here with apologies to my 81-year-old readers): "Death is OK. It's OK if you die of old age. Dying at 80 just means that God thinks you've had enough time." To which my 9-year-old added, "A soldier dying in war isn't OK."

The proximity of these two thoughts led me to the kind of rare insight that comes only once every few weeks, to whit: Why aren't we sending our 80- and 90-year-olds to war and leaving our 20-year-old kids home to play with their video game contraptions and text messaging?

I know, I know, this is kinda politically incorrect, and I apologize for that. And I certainly mean no disrespect to 90- and 100-year-olds. But seriously, I'm picturing a wave of 30,000 pissed off 110-year-old soldiers, tossing grenades, pressing lethal buttons, shouting "take that you ratzis!" I would run away from a wave like that. Wouldn't you run away from a wave like that? I think I would poop myself. And then I would run away.

Today's lunch-time conversation

"Did you find everything you're looking for?" asked the guy at the grocery store checkout.

"Yes. Spiritual wholeness. Physical well-being. Companionship. Chick peas."

"Do you want paper or plastic?"

"Paper?"

Handing over a medium-sized paper bag and my change he said, "Enjoy your happiness."

Suddenly (Flight of the Conchords edition)

Suddenly all I want to do is listen to Flight of the Conchords. And I don't even have the HBO.

Already there

At the airport today, the Aloha Airlines employees were wearing Hawaiian shirts and lovely flowers in their hair, all designed to send the message: "You're already there."

And I was struck by the idea that a flower in someone's hair can be all it takes to lift your feet, to change the temperature, to shift your sense palette and drop you on the far side of a wearying journey,

And then later on, I'm waiting to go through security, and I'm looking around at some of the smiling folks, blissed out, and I thinking, "You bastards! You're already there!"

Me, I'm off to Boston. Would it have been too much trouble for the JetBlue employees to sport Samuel Adams wigs?

Call for Auditions and General Exhortation of Theater Folks: Mankind's Last Hope

This fall (specifically, late October/early November), Virago Theatre will be staging an evening's worth of sitcom good-times that I cowrote with an old pal. The aim is to film it, 3-camera-style, before a live studio audience. You can read all about the show, including a character list and a little more background on the show's premise, here.

If you're a Bay Area actor or theater person and you'd be interested in learning more, and either working on the production or auditioning for a part, consider yourself formally exhorted to drop me a line.

Here we go again...

I've been wondering lately how my kids will be affected by these times. How will it shape their view of politics and patriotism to go through their early years with an unpopular war, with a President so widely disliked and distrusted by people in both parties, one who seems to have, well, obvious contempt for the rule of law? What kind of people will an era like this breed?

Oh yeah, I realize. "A doi now," as we used to say. It's me. My gang. Folks born in the mid-to-late '60s, with Vietnam and then Nixon on TV alongside Romper Room and the Electric Company. I guess, for better and/or for worse, times like these breed folks sort of like us.

This is important

If you're making me a smoothie
don't make the yuck face when you
look in the cup

right before you put on the cap
and hand me

the smoothie.

True overheard dialog from actual third graders:

Third grader 1: [wistful] I love my new catch phrase.
Third grader 2: What is it?
Third grader 1: When I'm happy I say: "I feel happy inside." When I'm sad I say: "I feel sad inside."

And so here we all are

I read a Vonnegut quote the other day worth sharing. This is from A Man Without a Country (Random House, 2005):

I have to say this in defense of humankind: In no matter what era in history, including the Garden of Eden, everybody just got here. And, except for the Garden of Eden, there were already all these games going on that could make you act crazy to begin with.

And I'm not sure it was meant that way, but I find this idea comforting, the image of all us hopefully doing the best we can, but still basically looking around, trying to figure things out, once in a while going: "Sooooo...you're saying if I push that lever, it makes the whoosie go off? Every time? Crazy!"

It reminded me of some advice I got from a friend way back in high school. At the time I was sweet on a girl who lived across the world. And I was bemoaning her across-the-worldness to him, and he said, "It's not like she's going anywhere." By which he meant, mortality aside, she wasn't about to jump the planet. She was still going to be here, looking up at the same moon, gripped by the same gravity. So what was the big deal?

OK. So (1) no matter our age, we basically just got here. And (2) until we die, here is pretty much where we'll stay.

That works for me.

Great expectations

I was just getting quizzed by my kids about the tooth fairy, and her castle, and the fact that it's 100 feet tall and 5 feet wide and only has two rooms -- the main room and a bathroom. And my third-grade daughter asks, mouth full of toothbrush and toothpaste:

"Is it as I expected? Is her whole house made out of teeth?"

Two Astonishing Facts about Creed Bratton

Not-so-astonishing fact #1: Actor Creed Bratton, who plays the character "Creed Bratton" on the hit NBC TV show "The Office," is actually named "Creed Bratton."

Really-quite-astonishing fact #2: Back in the '60s, this selfsame so-called "Creed Bratton" was a member of the band "The Grass Roots," best known for their hit "Let's Live for Today." Creed in turn was best known as "bandmember most likely to streak."

Breathe. Just breathe.

It's going to be OK.

R.I.P. Charles Nelson Reilly (1948-2007)

I just learned that CNR passed away late last week. It's been my long-held belief that if the aliens learn everything they know about humanity by watching Charles Nelson Reilly performances, they'll treat us with great loving kindness.

In which Tekton mania, its root causes and implications, are briefly considered

Whatever did we see in Tekton?

There was a time -- back in the early-to-mid '90s -- when we loved that font with a love that was shameless. We were puppies, licking the face of Tekton. Or perhaps Tekton was a puppy. And we let it lick our face for twenty, thirty, forty-minute stretches. And we didn't even care that she had funky breath.

We put Tekton in our fliers. In our magazines. In our computer books.

Tekton for A-heads and running heads! Tekton for body text!

I remember going to parties where we all dressed up as Tekton letters. Everyone wanted to be the lower-case "t." There were lower-case "t"s running around all over the place, getting drunk on "gin and tektonics," taking whippets. It was crazy.

Now you look at '70s fonts, for example, and no matter how dated they are, you can still understand their appeal -- not just the nostalgic, looking-back appeal they have today, but the magic they must have had in the moment. You can picture someone in some 1976 font-mine wiping the ink from their hands, tilting their lantern toward the day's work, and their buddy says: "that's fat and freaky." These were fonts with flair.

With Tekton, I don't know. I mean, I remember that we felt that way. I was there. I have photographs. But I find myself incapable of recreating a mental space in which our response to Tekton seems plausible.

Did we burn out on Tekton -- is that all this is? The way you can kill a favorite tune by overplaying it?

Does our perceptual shift reflect an innocence lost in this post-9/11 world -- the ability to dip and swoon before a font that looks kind of like handwriting, but not really?

Or was it just that we were out of our minds?