Live from New York – Lockjaw has MOVED
Through a sequence of events over the past few years, Lockjaw’s Spouse has advanced in her career and education to the point where she was able to land a job at a great New York City charter school. As a result, we have left North Carolina behind and moved the family to Washington Heights in Upper Manhattan. While North Carolina will always be home, New York City has much to offer even the grumpiest of ogres.
I am now 5 days into my new life in the city. The wife arrived a few days after I did, having spent 5 weeks studying with Father Reginald Foster, the greatest latinist in the world. We are now getting to know the neighborhood, exploring the nearby blocks for interesting places, and planning our apartment.
There are many ways that New York City is different from North Carolina. Some are good, and some are just plain weird. For instance, when you get a beer with your meal in a restaurant in New York the waiter must pour a bit of beer into your glass so that, ostensibly, the beer is not being served from the bottle.
One of my favorite things about New York City is signage. There are billboards. There are multi-colored signs above nearly every store. There are neon signs in the windows. North Carolina’s cities are creating more and more sign ordinances, which have always driven me crazy. My hometown of Sanford is one of the worst, though Cary has the most well-known. Limitations on signs are unusually strong. As a consumer trying to find a store, it can be very troubling to drive back and forth looking for a particular store only to discover that the sign is a small block on a larger, yet still small sign conglomerate with no real differentiation in font, color, or visibility. Small businesses are harmed by government regulation that does not allow them to set themselves apart from the other stores nearby, or make themselves identifiable from the road.
New York is not this way. Signs are part of the flavor of the city. What would Times Square be without the billboards but a plaza amongst tall buildings?
On the other hand, New York places benches all arounds its parks, but does not allow you to sit on one near a children’s playground unless you have children of your own. This is supposed to prevent child predators from being around the children, but I have a hard time believing that this is truly effective. This prior restraint on law-abiding citizens isn’t going to prevent the miniscule minority of perverts (perverts being a minority of the citizenry, and predators being a minority of the perverts) from finding children. Face it, if they can have police to ticket people for sitting on provided benches, why can’t they have them to watch for predators?
One of the greatest things about New York City is food. Food is everywhere. In my two trips to the city, and my short time since moving here, I have had some of the most amazing meals I have ever eaten. The HK Fritata at Hell’s Kitchen’s HK Diner was great. The sushi at two different restaurants was the best I have ever eaten. Junior’s cheesecake truly deserves its “best in the city” reputation. Last night I had “Enchiladas al Vino” at a mexican-influenced restaurant west of Broadway in Washington Heights that amazed me. Imagine my surprise when the lady at the Dunkin Donuts told me the delicious cuban sandwich I had up the street was “no good” before telling me where to find one better.
I look forward to discovering more about the city. I am loving the neighborhood. I am loving the neighbors. I love the subway system, and the grid layout of the streets.
It’s a good day.
Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark Review
I’ve reviewed a movie or three, and a couple new music releases in the past, but this has never really been a review blog. This, though, will be my first time reviewing a Broadway musical.
Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark is still in the preview period before the official opening. Initial reviews weren’t so great. Due to that fact, and some accidents during previews, the show was shut down for three weeks for a major retooling. I was able to see the show on the second night after the retooling, so I had high hopes.
The show opened with Peter Parker telling the story of Arachne, who was punished for blaspheming against the gods in her weaving. As the report progresses the scene transitions to Arachne, hanging above the stage while dancers hang from cloth strips, swinging while more strips slide upward until they have woven a backdrop to the scene. It was stunning. It was so stunning that the crowd gave a standing ovation. That’s right, the OPENING SONG received a standing ovation.
The story is one with which we are all familiar. Peter Parker is a geek who is picked on by the jocks at school. During a school field trip he is bitten by a spider from a scientific experiment in the laboratory of Dr. Norman Osborn. Through a series of events he becomes a crimefighter, while also developing his relationship with Mary Jane Watson.
What’s great about this show is that it flows very well through the life of Peter Parker. The villains are handled as comic relief to offset against the much more serious story of Parker and his relationships.
When the music or story felt weak, which was rare, it was during the parts which were needed to establish parts of the story to come. Overall the music was excellent. The story was very well done, and familiar.
The wire-work ranged from the subtle chat on the balcony, hanging over the stage, to the spectacular flying battle. The work in the opening scene was simple, yet complex in a way that set the stage for the brilliance that was to come.
It was a great show. I am glad to have been able to see it after the retooling, and would gladly see it again. Now, where’s the soundtrack?
How Music Companies Can Make Easy Money on iTunes
Back in the 1980s, a lot of great music was released. Fans of a particular artist could purchase the albums on LP or Cassette. CDs were starting to become more popular, and the 45rpm single was still a common find in many stores. Among these options, fans could get all of the songs from the album, plus radio edits in the single versions.
Many of the singles had B-Sides that were not available on the album. Fans that wanted to collect everything would get these singles to enhance their collection. On top of that, many artists also had remixes that could be purchased in LP or CD form, adding still more content to their collection.
I personally had quite a few remixes from Duran Duran that I listened to on a regular basis. Later on I collected remixes from other bands as well as special outtake CDs.
Now with iTunes many artists are offered in digital form for a reasonable price, but these remixes and outtakes are often nowhere to be found. There are a great many recordings that are in the hands of the record companies that music fans would love to buy, but which are no longer offered in any form.
It seems a simple idea for the record companies to take these existing recordings and release them on iTunes. Where are they? There would be no need for marketing. There are no additional studio costs. There is just a catalog of currently out of print material which could be once again sold, and with no printing, pressing, or other costs.
It is an easy-money proposition. Why don’t they do it?
So, basically, my question to the record companies is this. Why not try to make a living from your fans by selling them what you have instead of by suing them?
Cursive – Who Thought This was a Good Idea?
I have a vivid memory from a very young age of scribbling a bunch of loops on a piece of paper with a blue ballpoint pen. My young mind was intrigued with how long swirls and peaks could form words. Of course, since I was still too young to read I was writing gibberish.
As I grew older writing became a constant part of my life. Much of my early education involved drawing block letters in large spaces on lined paper. Every year the spaces grew smaller in order to refine my handiwork. I always knew that my artistic skills were not great when it came to drawing lines, and my simple block letters were no exception.
In third grade I finally reached what I thought was the holy grail of writing. In Mrs. Powers’ class I learned to write in cursive. I learned the letters, and how to string them together easily. Of course, my cursive writing was only legible if I wrote slowly and carefully. In addition I had adopted special forms of certain letters such as the capitalized T and F from Mrs. Powers’ own style, rather than her lessons. She taught the “proper” way, but I preferred the letters as she wrote them. To me it was as much a preference in style as it was in legibility.
The next few years I dutifully wrote cursive in class. I pitied my poor teachers who had to read my writing, and I still do. My cursive legibility relied as much on the readers’ expectations as my own skills. This, I learned later, was a common thread between most writers of the cursive script. Honestly, can you say that you’ve never found a beautifully written page that had words that could only be discerned based on the words around them?
After Mrs. Powers, the most important person in my life of the handwritten word was my 8th grade history teacher, Mr. Keith. One day Mr. Keith pulled me out of class and had a very frank discussion with me.
“David,” he said, “your handwriting is terrible. Some letters angle to the left. Some angle to the right. They should all angle to the right because the eye flows better that way.”
His next words changed my life.
“Honestly, if you can’t write any better than that, then print.”
It really was that simple. The rigid requirements of school said that I should use cursive script, because it was a skill I should practice. Another requirement was that my writing be legible enough to read. The two requirements, in my case, were contrary. I had, though, been trying to meet both requirements. Mr. Keith helped me understand that there could be a choice.
From that day forward I turned in my classwork in printed form. I would have turned in my homework the same way, except that I rarely saw homework as a requirement.
Every year most teachers would approach me and inform me that I should be turning in my assignments in cursive. Printing my assignments was not acceptable, because I was expected to use cursive script. Since I had learned a bit about making decisions on my own in the face of conflicting instructions, I knew what to do. I would smile, nod, and agree to use cursive script.
I would then turn in my next assignment in cursive, without the care required to make my assignment reasonably legible. After that one assignment I would return to my printed words without a word, or a complaint from the teacher.
Cursive, I learned, was pretty but useless. As a system of communication, cursive was imprecise. With practice my writing never improved beyond what I learned in third grade. I had gained in speed, but not legibility. Cursive writing was not for me, and I began to think it wasn’t so great for everyone else either.
Several years ago the news came out that schools were no longer pushing cursive writing skills as a necessity. I was thrilled with the news. Not only would the new kids no longer be forced to learn a form of communication that was barely effective across the general population, but also there was hope that one day I could read a prescription form.
Now when I write by hand I prefer an all-caps block lettering. Occasionally I throw in a lower-case vowel such as when I write the word “email.”
I think the biggest lesson I learned through all of this wasn’t really about cursive script at all. It was about rules. To my teachers writing cursive was the rule. I was expected to follow the rule. The rule, as it turns out, wasn’t 100% right. Learning the difference between rule and right is important to us all, and cursive script was a tool that helped me understand.
Jared Loughner – Prophet?
Although there are very few statements to build on so far, we should be on the lookout for the next phase of the Jared Loughner lunacy. Jared’s worries about mind control and some variant of illiteracy that made sense to him contain just enough of a link to reality that they will spark interest in a few people in the “real world.”
When Loughner asked, “What is government when words have no meaning,” he wasn’t simply exposing his own lack of grasp on reality. He was crafting a question that was just meaningless enough to fix itself into the subconscious of a segment of the rest of us.
Several years ago I had a conversation with a new convert to Islam. While I had theological differences of opinion with this person, it wasn’t the actual theology I found so disturbing. What I found disturbing were meaningless phrases that were being used to support the conversion. One in particular stuck in my mind, that Islam “can’t be approached from the back.”
That an idea or belief cannot be approached from the back is an absurdity, yet this guy was completely fixated on this phrase. To him it had a meaning. To me it was meaningless near-gibberish in the context of the discussion.
Loughner’s words seem to be much the same type of meaningless, yet meaningful-sounding gibberish. Much as a lack of solid, easy answers leads some to believe the government knocked down the twin towers, there will be those who will see Loughner’s wacky words as prophetic.
We have a 24/7/365 news cycle now, folks. It is only a matter of time before we have people on TV taking this nutcase seriously for his beliefs. After all, even Manson has a fan club.
Arizona Gunman Planning Ahead? Videos from the shooter.
Jared Lee Loughner has a youtube account, and has apparently been identified as the gunman in the Tuscon Arizona shooting of a Democrat Congresswoman. The videos below from his YouTube account indicate a bit of instability and foreshadowing.
The earliest of these was posted a month ago, and the others three weeks ago. One states “In a few days you will know I’m conscience dreaming,” whatever that means. Perhaps it meant he planned to go shoot someone.
Of course, I can’t be 100% sure that these are videos posted by the gunman. If I am mistaken, I apologize, but the details seem to link properly.
*Update – At this link we can see that the shooter had an interest in Drug addiction,health, health conditions, mental health, psychology, and society. As his YouTube videos show, he was a bit incoherent in his writing, so it’s probably a good thing there’s nothing to read there by him.
*Update – A photo of the shooter?
It is 2011
Just an FYI. It is now 2011 everywhere in the world, except for those folks that use other funky calendars. If you still write checks or perform any other hand-written datestamp routines that are not handled by computer, you might want to write 2011 on the back of your hand in ink for the next few days. It might help you remember.
Did I need to write this? No, but I did need to test the word press app for the iPad.
Why I dislike roadside deer
My wife and I were on the way home from a delightful anniversary trip to Charlotte. I can’t tell you exactly which anniversary it was, because I’m male. I’m sure my wife could tell you exactly which anniversary it was, because she’s the wife and women seem to have a genetic predisposition to remembering anniversaries. I’m just glad to have a calendar app on my iPhone to tell me when it’s my anniversary so I can say it first.
Here I am telling you about why I didn’t remember which anniversary it was, when you’re asking a completely different question. Charlotte? You took an anniversary trip to Charlotte? Why? The simple reason we chose Charlotte as our anniversary destination was because it allowed us inexpensively spend our anniversary “not here.” Ah, the joys of an easily-entertained couple.
There were two routes we could take to get home from Charlotte. One was to take the interstate at high speed, then turn South on US-1 which provided a nice, wide path. The other option was to take a more direct route down mostly two-lane roads and smaller highways. The actual difference in time to drive the distance was about the same, but we would be driving at night so I chose the route least-likely to be lined with dozens upon dozens of suicidal deer. From stories I had heard from others, hitting a deer with your car can be a less-than-satisfying ordeal.
Most of the trip was uneventful. There was the occasional break at a gas station. It seems that both the wife and I have bladders of small children when on a trip, requiring regular trips lest she whine annoyingly every time the car hits a bump. I mean lest WE whine annoyingly every time the car hits a bump. Of course I do.
We stopped off for a late dinner at the Ryan’s Steak House in Cary, NC. Some of you may know this particular location from the great “Ryan’s Steak House Incident” story posted to USENET a few years back.
After dinner we continued South on US-1, with our bellies full of buffet deliciousness. It being dark already, I was not looking forward to the tendency toward sleepiness that sets in on long nighttime drives. My wife, let’s call her Shannon to protect the innocent, talked to me along the way to keep me alert. Those of you who know Shannon will know how hard this was for her, as she will sometimes go entire minutes without speaking.
Somewhere in the long, straight stretches of divided four-lane that is Chatham County US-1 I heard a noise from my wife that was a little odd, followed by words that I can only suppose were “What the Hell is THAT?” Simultaneously I saw, far in the distance, a grey form that was just entering the range of my high-beams. Since I was in a 65 mph zone, I thought it might be a good idea to slow down from my 75 mph speed for safety’s sake, and hit the brakes HARD.
As the grey form came closer both Shannon and I realized that it was a deer, and a nice-sized one at that. I had hit the brakes hard enough to stop quickly, but not so hard that we would lose traction and turn a potentially bad situation into a horrible one. My brain made some quick calculations while Shannon yelled something about the grey form being a deer and to not hit it. Since the deer was in the left-lane and I was in the right my brain thought it likely that we could avoid impact regardless of the fact that the car was going to stop approximately 10 feet beyond the deer.
The deer performed some calculations in its own brain. Knowing that a stationary car is much less likely to help it in its suicidal urges, the dumb sack of tasty meat took a flying leap at the last moment in front of the car.
When I say “in front of” I actually mean across the front of. We were in a 1991 Saturn, which had a rather low front end. Even standing still the deer would probably have gone over the hood, but jumping helped a bit. Shannon is still traumatized a bit by the sight of deer belly fur before the impact. Even at the relatively low-speed of an almost-stopped car, it wasn’t enjoyable.
The deer, not being all that bright, was unable to properly measure the jump for maximum suicidal efficiency and hit the front end of the car with its hindquarters. It’s body wrapped around the passenger side of the car, cracking a large chunk out of the plastic fender and slamming its head into the passenger-side front door creating a large hole there.
When I think of what was going through Shannon’s mind when a heavy, loud impact slammed into the door mere inches from her I try not to laugh, no matter how hard that is.
Having managed to create a traffic jam of one car, the deer scampered away quickly. Upon inspection of the car we found a large piece of car body plastic and a matching piece of deerskin in the fender-hole. This bothered me somewhat as the skin is what keeps the tasty meat in place on the deer. It also made me consider that the deer may have been less scampering away than running quickly yelling, “Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow!”
After determining that the deer had only caused cosmetic damage, and that the car was still perfectly driveable, we continued our way down the highway, wondering if that cold air coming through Shannon’s door panels would ever stop.
Now, at this point I should explain what it is like to have just run into a deer in a head-on collision. It’s weird. No, that’s not right. Weird isn’t the correct word for the feeling one has in this situation. It’s freaking TERRIFYING! Almost all talk in the car had stopped. I drove along at about 58 mph, still in the 65mph zone, hunched over the steering wheel like a 4 foot tall old lady, clenching the wheel in white-knuckled hands. My eyes darted from side to side, examining every speck of not-dark at the sides of the road. My heart was beating a mile a minute, which is an entirely mismatched play on words. I’m sure you get the idea.
Fifteen minutes later we were in our home county, and I realized the exact nature of my stress. Somehow, having been driving for many years and only hitting my first deer, I was convinced that another was waiting to get me. I was actually afraid that another deer was out there, just waiting for my car to come along so it could jump out and get hit.
“Shannon,” I said, “I’m actually afraid that another deer is out there, just waiting for my car to come along so it can jump out and get hit.”
My wife, brilliant thinker that she is, responded, “Oh no. The chances against that are astronomical.”
Coming into town at around 10pm, still no other car in sight, I finally started to relax a bit and stop worrying about HOLY CRAP A DEER JUST RAN INTO THE CAR!
A deer had run out of the woods on the left side of the road, and in an amazing feat of geometric analysis and execution, slammed into the driver’s side of the car damaging two more body panels and breaking off the rear-view mirror.
I was, as you may expect, a little stressed by this latest occurrence.
The next bit was a bit of a blur, but it involved a stopped car in the middle of the lane on an empty two-lane road near town. The passenger seat contained a shivering, scared figure that had once been my wife. The driver’s door stood open and some strange man that may have been me was running in circles screaming expletives at the top of his lungs, asking every deer within the 20 mile radius that his voice could be heard if they all planned on hitting his car that night.
It was a bit surreal.
That night I told my father the story. His first question was, “Where’s the deer now?”
Tragedy is no excuse for passing up on tasty meat.
Economics Fallacy – The Broken Window
Listening to Walter Williams in my morning commute speak about the “Broken Window Fallacy” reminded me of one of my favorite books on economics, “Economics in One Lesson” by Henry Hazlitt. The text of this book is available online, and well worth a read for anyone who wants to learn more about economics. I highly suggest reading this book if you have any interest in understanding how economics works, without having to dig too deep into mathematics. For a taste, read the chapter on “The Broken Window.”
“A young hoodlum, say, heaves a brick through the window of a baker’s shop. The shopkeeper runs out furious, but the boy is gone. A crowd gathers, and begins to stare with quiet satisfaction at the gaping hole in the window and the shattered glass over the bread and pies. After a while the crowd feels the need for philosophic reflection. And several of its members are almost certain to remind each other or the baker that, after all, the misfortune has its bright side. It will make business for some glazier. As they begin to think of this they elaborate upon it. How much does a new plate glass window cost? Two hundred and fifty dollars? That will be quite a sum. After all, if windows were never broken, what would happen to the glass business? Then, of course, the thing is endless. The glazier will have $250 more to spend with other merchants, and these in turn will have $250 more to spend with still other merchants, and so ad infinitum. The smashed window will go on providing money and employment in ever-widening circles. The logical conclusion from all this would be, if the crowd drew it, that the little hoodlum who threw the brick, far from being a public menace, was a public benefactor.”
The rest of the chapter is at this link.
Muppets – Beaker sings Dust in the Wind
