Since my headline is a takeoff on a Churchyism, I’ll start the day with a suggestion for anyone within range of Columbus. Bado’s Blog passes along this news of a new exhibit at the Billy Ireland and so do I and, for that matter, so does the Billy Ireland its own self, which also has an exhibit of cartoons about dogs going on at the moment.
Note the limited gallery hours, and, if you’re coming from northeast of Columbus, note that you’ll also be roughly in range of Jamestown, NY, and both the National Comedy Center and the Lucy/Desi Museum. It’s not so close that you can do them all in one day, but it would certainly make an interesting two-day trip.
(Self-Own of the Day: First time I visited Columbus, I saw all these signs for “Woody-this” and “Woody-that,” and thought for a moment, “Man, these people are really into folk music.” Only for a moment, however, and then, appropriately, I slapped myself upside the head.)
Shannon Wheeler somewhat speaks for me. I doubt he even speaks for himself.
Too Much Coffee Man should conduct lessons in how to seethe in silence, which is not to say I don’t believe some people do it. Obviously, if they do, how would we know?
Though, at my 10th college reunion, two women from our seminar group assailed the rest of us — all male — with bitter denunciations of how we’d talked over and intimidated them. Our response was pretty much that they should have said something, because we respected their opinions and simply thought they waited to sum things up because … well, I guess we never analyzed their intentions, nor thought we were supposed to.
Apparently, getting it off their chests worked, or at least it worked for one of them, because she has since become a cheerful friend and has shown up at less formal get-togethers. Possibly the other one is still seething, but, if so, I’ll bet she’s no longer doing it in silence.
The advent of social media has largely put an end to the mass of men living lives of quiet desperation, if they ever did. This column from Psychology Today suggests that even Thoreau didn’t mean for us to take that remark so seriously, and certainly not to weaponize it in order to cover our insecurities.
I think it’s related to the way everyone rushes to declare themselves an introvert, and, boy, what a wonderful world it would be if that were true, all of which leads us to this
Juxtaposition of the Day
Obviously, Chatfield’s fellow failed utterly in his quest, and I hope this is a one-and-done first date, because she’s not buying it either.
I wouldn’t discourage him, though, because at least he won’t be peppering Facebook and Twitter with his boasting, interrupting, for instance, discussions of television to proudly announce that he doesn’t own one.
Imagine doing that in person. Picture a party where a knot of people are discussing their visits to Mexico and someone walks up to the group and says, “I’ve never been to Mexico!” as if they should all be ashamed that they have.
Talk about opening your mouth and removing all doubt.
Meanwhile, Harry Bliss’s proud rebel is in grave danger of discovering the three-dimensional world.
Maybe I’m wrong, but I think there’s something not-okay in the way so many people refuse to be alone, though I realize I’m being overly judgmental to refer to them as “yapping” on their phones.
Somebody made a snide comment to me a few years ago because I was yapping on my phone in the middle of a supermarket, but, in fact, it was a call-back from a woman I was desperate to hire but hadn’t been able to get hold of, and, no, I didn’t hang up on her. I offered her the job, which she eagerly accepted, to our mutual benefit.
I’m pretty sure, however, that not everyone yapping in public is engaged in anything half so productive, and I have not dropped my suggestion that we issue fake earbuds to people who talk to themselves on the street so they won’t stand out.
I have also not dropped my belief that walking around off the grid is beneficial in general.
If nothing else, my ability to put my fingers in my mouth and summon my dog is due to having spent an inordinate amount of time blowing and spitting into my hand until I learned how to whistle, and I picked up that skill walking alone.
I also heard that people knew when my best friend Bill and I were passing by because we’d be singing. They didn’t say it in a complaining way: Bill was in All-State Chorus and I later added a guitar and made a little money.
They just found it interesting and kind of amusing.
It’s a long time since I’ve heard young people singing in the street. Or old people, for that matter.
Juxtaposition of the Day #2
Speaking of yapping in grocery stores, I’m going to have to accuse Sandra Bell-Lundy of being politically correct, because my experience is quite the opposite: There are plenty of women yapping in the grocery store, but they’re simply chatting to friends, because otherwise they’d be alone and scared and introverted and silently seething and whatnot.
The people checking back home to find out what to buy are invariably men. I’m glad she’s reluctant to paint Harvey as a typical comic strip nincompoop husband, but I’m equally reluctant to believe that the person who does most of the cooking doesn’t have a pretty good idea of what’s on the shelves at home. And I haven’t seen Harv portrayed as the main cook in that family, though he’s no schlub.
Will Henry is much more willing to portray little boys as fools and little girls as the sort of well-centered characters who grow up to be featured in Turgenev novels or in plays by George Bernard Shaw.
I suppose the unifying concept in this Juxtaposition is gender-based self-effacement.
Though Will Henry has this eternal truth in his favor:
I’m always surprised you know Harry, but you describe his reaction to any mention of television (“I haven’t owned a TV set since 1985, and then it was just a little black and white one.”) to a T, so to speak.I sometimes wonder if he’s still at large in the newsgroup where I last saw his words. I’ve actually been acquainted with him in print and in person since the middle 70s–so long ago, he would have quite possibly have owned a TV set, perhaps as large as medium-sized!