The Archer Pelican

"Chickenbutt! That's What!"

Chickabicks at Sam and Rachel's Place

Last week at lunch after Mrs. Swygert's memorial service, her friend Ivey pulled me aside to mention, "I've been thinking about something you said yesterday." I wondered, was it some observation about life or our deceased friend that had caught his attention? But no.

Ivey continued: "You said 'chickenbutt!' and I haven't heard that for a long while but I used to say it all the time."

Do you play chickenbutt? The rules are simple. Anytime, any place, if someone says "What?" you yell "Chickenbutt! That's What!" That's it. I don't know why I think that's so funny, but I do.

Some friends and learned to play chickenbutt when we were in college, and Lordy did we wear that joke thin. Now, I often forget about it for months at a time, but then someone says "What?" and my limbic system makes me go "Chickenbutt, that's what." These days, it usually comes out sotto voce so there's no harm done if the other person doesn't get it, which they usually don't. But when they do I feel like we've exchanged a secret handshake.

Last week I was playing with some little kids I had just met, when one asked (in that cute way kids do) "You know what?"

"Chickenbutt! That's what!" I replied. To which her surprised Mom said, "Wow, my kids say that all the time -- how did you know?"

The kid just grinned. And told me she wanted to be an eye doctor. Opthalmalogist, that's what.

Not Afraid of Bananas

Not Afraid of Flavor image yoinked from Barnes & Noble

Bananas are important to our family. Dad's side calls them pisang, and Mom's side calls them saging, except when we're fresh out of Spanish class and calling them platanos. When I was growing up in Asheville, we only had two varieties: the big yellow ones and the occasional yellow/brown plantains. But here in 2004 Durham, our international community has many more varieties like baby bananas, red bananas, and several kind of plantains including a football-shaped monster called igitoki cyi nyamunyu (in the Kinyarawanda language), as cooked by my family's friend Mary Rose from Rwanda.

So anyway, last month my friend Joelle and I dropped by the Magnolia Grill for a late dessert with wine (always the Muscat de Beaumes de Venise when we're together). Our server recommended the banana fritters with ice cream, which sounded interesting, so I asked him what kind of bananas they used. "I don't know, but I'll find out," he said, then whisked off to the kitchen. A moment later, he returned with the answer: "Dole."

Hannah Arendt on War | quotables

Photo from the Hannah Arendt Papers website at the Library of Congress

The chief reason warfare is still with us is neither a secret death-wish of the human species, nor an irrepressible instinct of aggression, nor, finally and more plausibly, the serious economic and social dangers inherent in disarmament, but the simple fact that no substitute for this final arbiter in international affairs has yet appeared on the political scene.

--20th century German political theorist Hannah Arendt, referred to in William Ury's Getting to Peace, quoted here from yourquotations.net

Reading the Hannah Arendt bio and quotes, I come to wish that I were a stronger reader, a sharper intellectual, and a better person. An annoying experience, though also a touch inspiring. Related: a major improvement in my life over the last week -- unplugging the antenna from my TV so that I could watch some DVDs. After the initial 5-hour time kill (Finding Nemo, Bad Boys II ("Wusaaa!") and half of Pirates of the Caribbean), I now find myself without the previously life-killing 1-, 2-, or 4-hour waste of daily network TV. Hooray! In my newly re-acquired time, I've been cleaning house and baking brownies, and have discovered that my oven is tilted, which explains why my big pans of brownies have been coming out cakey on one end, gooey on the other. I will try to put this information to good use for humankind. Or maybe I'll trade brownies for DVDs.

Main St. Station, Richmond VA

You've seen this before, but probably from a different angle. This is Main St. Station in Richmond, whose tower you approach at a too-fast 70 mph when driving northbound on I-95 (the green and gray object in the background), and which you narrowly avoid as the interstate takes a sharp westward swing, making you wonder about road design, historic preservation, or both.

My Dad and I visited the station last Friday, en route to DC for a memorial service. Dad remembered the station as a shopping mall in the mid-80s. But that part of the venture failed in the late 80s and is no longer. On the other hand, the station has been nicely remodeled, and re-opened for passenger service several months ago. It’s worth a walk inside, just to see the excellent and historically-evocative interior designs.

The station sits between Shockoe Bottom and Shockoe Slip, in the River District full of semi-hip restaurants, bars, tatoo parlors, and some shopping. It seems like a popular place for weekend evening revelry. Many bars prominently display their regulations at the door (“No baggy pants. Jackets must be buttoned. Shoelaces must be tied. No logo shirts. Hats must be worn forward.") which remind me of DBT’s winning roadsign entry: “Welcome to Virginia. Knock it Off.”

Despite its rash of evening bars, at Friday lunch the neighborhood is slam-damn dead save for a few places like the Gutenberg Café (newspapers, books, coffee, sandwiches), Julep’s (sandwiches, pasta, and grilled stuff in a fancy setting), Awful Arthur’s seafood (three tables occupied mid-lunch), and El Paso Mexican restaurant (small but packed). At El Paso, Dad and I enjoyed the spinach burrito and vegetarian tamale combo (#34) but were less wowed by the chicken quesadilla with guacamole salad (#10). If you visit and if you are braver/ruder than I, you can ask them why they have a fish item listed in the vegetarian section.

William Ury on "Getting to Peace"

"At the turn of the millennium, no more critical challenge faces each of us, and all of us together, than how to get along. How can we learn to live together, and deal constructively with our deepest differences?

The challenge exists on the smallest scale and on the largest. Of all the factors influencing the success of a marriage, psychologists report, the single most critical one is the ability to resolve conflicts cooperatively. The same holds true in every other relationship--between friends or business partners, neighbors or nations. So much depends on our ability to get along--our happiness at home, our performance at work, the livability of our communities, and, in this age of mass destruction, the survival of our species.

More than ever, we need to learn how to cooperate."

--William Ury, in his Introduction to Getting to Peace (1999)

Note: Quotables normally appears on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. But something weird is happening at TypePad and I can't post a photo for my intended Monday blog, so here's Tuesday's quotable, instead.

Macmillan on Memorial Services | quotables

"Memorial services are the cocktail parties of the geriatric set." -- Harold Macmillan (b1894), quoted on Brainyquote.com

Today my Dad and I are attending the memorial service for the matriarch of a family my Dad lived with ~1960. We're glad that we visited her two weeks ago in Charlottesville.

Tom Lehrer Covers The War In Iraq

In his song "Send the Marines," Tom Lehrer wrote:

"For might makes right
And 'til they've seen the light
They've got to be protected
All their rights respected
Till somebody we like can be elected"

I think he would have seen this coming:

From Thursday's Washington Post: Chalabi's House Raided by U.S. Troops
By Scott Wilson and Ariana Cha
Thursday, May 20, 2004; 1:50 PM

BAGHDAD, May 20 -- U.S. soldiers and Iraqi police on Thursday raided the home of Ahmad Chalabi, a Governing Council member who was once the Pentagon's pick to run post-war Iraq, and two office buildings used by his Iraqi National Congress.

…The raids appeared to complete Chalabi's remarkable fall from grace in Washington during the past year while U.S. troops occupied Iraq. The Defense Intelligence Agency decided earlier this month to end a $340,000 monthly payment to the INC's intelligence arm, the source for much of the pre-war information on Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction that were President Bush's rationale for toppling Hussein.

…it became clear soon after the fall of Baghdad that Chalabi enjoyed little support inside Iraq, and much of his pre-war intelligence has turned out to be wrong or "intentionally misleading," according to a recent U.S. assessment. The failure to find weapons of mass destruction has become a political liability for Bush during an election year, and Chalabi's relationship with his former patrons at the Pentagon has soured accordingly.

…In turn, Chalabi, who is one of 25 members of the U.S.-appointed Governing Council, has emerged as among the most outspoken mainstream critics of U.S. policy in Iraq.
During the past few months, he has criticized the Bush administration for not moving quickly enough toward ending the occupation and granting full political powers to an Iraqi government. U.S. officials intend to hand over limited authority to an interim Iraqi government next month.

----

Full lyrics and chords to the Tom Lehrer's Send the Marines: from Gunther Anderson's website

When someone makes a move
Of which we don't approve
Who is it that always intervenes
U.N. and O.A.S.
They have their place, I guess
But first send the Marines

/ D - G A7 / / D Am B7 - E7 - A7 - /
/ D - D7 - / G - Gm - / D - - A7 D - A7 - /

We'll send them all we've got
John Wayne and Randolph Scott
Remember those exciting fighting scenes
To the shores of Tripoli
But not to Mississippoli
What do we do, we send the Marines

... / D - - A7 D - D7 - /

For might makes right
And 'til they've seen the light
They've got to be protected
All their rights respected
Till somebody we like can be elected

/ G - - - / F#m - B7 - / Em7 - A7 - / /
/ Em7 - - - - - - A7 /

Members of the corps
All hate the thought of war
They'd rather kill them off by peaceful means
Stop calling it aggression
We hate that expression
We only want the world to know
That we support the status quo
They love us everywhere we go
So when in doubt
Send the Marines

/ D - G A7 / / D Am B7 - E7 - A7 - / D - D7 - /
/ G - C7 - / 1st / / D - G Gm / D - A - D A7 D /

Braising and Broiling | quotables

"When it comes to preparing your family's weeknight meals, speed and ease are important considerations. Braising and broiling offer both--only in very different ways. While braising has a longer cook time, it's terrific for make-ahead meals. Broiling, on the other hand, is just right for quick, last-minute dinners."

--Scott Jones in Southern Living September 2001

For reasons related to metalwork (brazing: to solder using a hard metal with high melting point) and weather (think "a bracing wind"), I've never had an intuitive handle on braising ("...meat slowly and gently cooking in its own juices." ibid).

Tony Colicchio gives a great braising lesson in Think Like a Chef, available at the Durham County Library.

Yellows and Reds

Long ago, I wanted to do architectural photography. Here's an early attempt, shot on slide film, later scanned.

These days, my goals are more modest, like staying on schedule with blog postings, and the like.

Data | quotable me

"That database is completely empty -- a blowup doll in an Access whorehouse."

--PJM, most likely referring to a paper mill's air pollutant inventory, mid-90s.

I mention this quote in particular because some friends and I have considered some joint business efforts that will focus on data analysis for marketing and service strategy. If we ever get to that place, rest assured that I will NOT be the numbers guy. I used up all my math skills by the time I got done with B-school. Nonetheless, I continue to love Microsoft Excel.

For a different kind of love with a real blowup doll, consider a visit to Adam & Eve's walk-in store in Durham NC, next to Spartacus restaurant in the tiny strip mall at the corner of 15-501 business and Westgate Dr. (uphill from the old South Square Mall and new SuperTarget). The store is nothing special, but you can have the pleasure of supporting Phil Harvey Enterprises, whose work in sexual recreation and international birth control is featured in a recent Inc. Magazine Article, "Sex and the Strip Mall".

"I think we need more people" -- a Trip to the Eno

Phil (confused face, at left) and Grace (thoughtful expression, at right) on the Eno River

P:  It's a beautiful day.   
G:  Yes it is. 
P:  So why aren't more of our friends here?
G:  Did you ask any of them to come out?
P:  No.
G:  Then I think I have your answer.
P:  How's the water?
G:  Perfect for a really hot day.
P:  How's that?
G:  Bracingly cold the first time you put your foot in; but pleasantly cool the second time.
P:  Next time, we should invite people
G:  Tell me again the name of this place?
P:  Depends on which sign you believe:  Bobbitt's Hole near the parking lot, Bobbitt Hole further down the trail.
G:  Would you be so kind as to provide a map?
P:  Why certainly.  A lovely map is right here.
G:  By the way, why didn't you bring me here on Labor Day when you came with all your other friends?
P:  We hadn't met.
G:  That's a poor excuse.
P:  Yeah, you're probably right.
G:  Of course I'm right.  But I'll forgive you if you bring brownies on our next hike out here, and if you cease fabricating our dialogue in a way that makes me sound mean.
P:  Aww...

Wittgenstein on Clarity | quotables

"Everything that can be thought at all can be thought clearly, Everything that can be said can be said clearly.

--Ludwig Wittgenstein, quoted in Style: Toward Clarity and Grace, by Joseph M. Williams.

To add a line to Wittgenstein, I should mention that it can't be said clearly on TypePad if you fail to update your credit card information AND click on the button to pay the past-due amount, which is what happened to me last week. I updated my CC info and failed and failed and failed (for three days) to successfully get back into the system until it occurred to me that reading the error message would help. "Click here to submit payment." Oh. Thanks. Got it.

Mike H. on Courage | quotables

"If you can't spit into the face of death, whose face can you spit into?"

--Mike H., 1996

I used to share a cubicle wall with this Mike, who was stressed, witty, and weird.  He often pictured himself on the roof, in a clown suit, with a high powered rifle. 

What's in a Name / Lots in a Name

This is my cousin Widyastuti Handayani of the Sanjoto family (though she never had "Sanjoto" as part of her name). We mostly call her Hani, which suits me fine. Our Indonesian grandfather was named Kirdjan, and he later made up the second name "Marsosudiro" to satisfy the needs of some bureaucrat who wanted a family name for matrimonial forms prior to Kirjan's marriage to my grandmother-to-be, Moesrini. According to Hani's dad, Djoko Sanjoto (now deceased, but who was friend and peer with my grandfather and grandmother before marrying their daughter, my aunt Herni, who was 12 years old when she heard about the idea, and promptly climbed up a tree to get away from it all), "Marsosudiro" comes from word roots that mean something like, "the heart is stalwart or courageous about doing the right thing." My Dad is the only kid from his generation to have kept the name, and thus of Kirdjan and Moesrini's 18 grandchildren, I am the only one who is called "Marsosudiro." If I don't pass the name down (or endow a faculty chair or museum somewhere), it will die with me. For now, I kind of like the idea of names evaporating. In later years, I may feel differently.

Cornel West on Hope | quotables

"Last, but not least, there is a need for audacious hope. And it's not optimism. I'm in no way an optimist. I've been black in America for 39 years. No ground for optimism here, given the progress and regress and three steps forward and four steps backward. Optimism is a notion that there's sufficient evidence that would allow us to infer that if we keep doing what we're doing, things will get better. I don't believe that. I'm a prisoner of hope, that's something else. Cutting against the grain, against the evidence. William James said it so well in that grand and masterful essay of his of 1879 called "The Sentiment of Rationality," where he talked about faith being the courage to act when doubt is warranted. And that's what I'm talking about."

-- Cornel West, from the 1993 commencement speech at Wesleyan University (full text at humanity.org)

The "hope vs. optimism" theme has been repeated elsewhere, particularly in the works of Vaclav Havel, often quoted or echoed by the Rev. Peter Gomes. As for me, I fear that I am hopeful far too often. But I guess that's better than the alternative.

It's Kinda Like Baseball Season

-- from AP: "Wally Kaname Yonamine, the first American to play professional baseball in Japan after World War II, throws the ceremonial first pitch before the start of the New York Mets and the Los Angeles Dodgers game Wednesday, April 28, 2004, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/ Nam Y. Huh)"

On my mind for some time: baseball has lent far more idioms to American English than, say, football or basketball Sure, football has given us "score a touchdown," "run with the ball," "do an end run" and, uh... see, I start running out right about there. But baseball... let me count the ways:

Play ball, swing for the fences, soft ball, playing hardball, three strikes you're out, grand slam, ballpark estimate, getting to first (second, or third) base, right off the bat, coming out of right field, in the home stretch, throw a curveball, struck out, way off base, field a call, make a pitch, step up to the plate, southpaw, batting average, pinch hit, etc. etc.

The best place to use these idioms is when talking with women from nonwestern countries. It's a guaranteed home run.

p.s. What, you wanted something fun? Then go here --> funny and strange trading cards, with a pic of Sammy 'Fro-sa

The Quotable Me on "Clues"

"I've got no clues of my own and owe three to the bank."

--PJM, 24 May 1993, at work

Speaking of clueless, I forgot that it was already Saturday and I hadn't yet posted the weekend QOTD. I guess that makes me an oxymoron.

Sure, it's cheating, but I like the colors.

April 26 sunset, looking west down 147 from the Swift Ave. bridge.

This photo was taken at ~2 stops underexposure to capture more of the colors in the sky. Of course, that meant that the freeway was rendered unnaturally dark. And I'm way too lazy to figure out how to fix it in Photoshop Elements.

Cute things: a couple was standing nearby, embracing while watching the sunset on what was an unnaturally cool evening.

Completely unrelated but on my mind: I've been a complete slug for the last several months and now weigh 162 lbs, which equals the "record" that I previously set back in 1994. For some reason, I feel like larding up to, say, 175 before making some effort to get fit again. Truth is that I'd be delighted to weigh 162 if more of it were muscle, but it's all fat right now. Yep, fat fat fat. Which wouldn't be a big deal except for both sides of my family have a history of heart disease. So anyway -- should I do it? Maybe I can do a month of eating nothing but McDonald's, and then make a documentary about it. Vaguely related: one of my B-school classmates was recently named chief restaurant operations officer for Mickey D's. Maybe she can get me a pack of coupons?

People, Animals, Virginia

Patty and Bernie

Who would think that a Bernese mountain dog would make a good lap pet? Not me, but Patty doesn't seem to mind. Here they rest at the end of a long day in Earlysville, Virginia, in the ridiculously beautiful mountains just north of Charlottesville.

My dad boarded with Patty's family when he first came to the US back in the 50s. Patty was a little girl then, and Dad (before he was a dad) would drive her to afternoon horse lessons in suburban DC. Now Patty has a farm of her own where she gives lessons on horses like Ivan who used to be tempermental but isn't anymore because she knows how to treat him right.

As for me, I had an odd moment napping on her front porch, when I wondered whether I was enjoying myself because: the weather was perfect, nearby horses were nibbling grass alongside chickens pecking for seeds, while the nice little wind chime above my head went ring-a-ling-ling as I napped; or because I've been conditioned to believe that such scenes were idyllic. To quote Grandpa Simpson, I think it was "a little from Column A, and a little from Column B."

Note to readers: I'm not sure what's up with the funky formatting, but TypePad has added some features that I don't yet understand. But I guess that's better than being thrown from a horse.

"It's Alan Greenspan" | quotables

"I guess I should warn you, if I turn out to be particularly clear, you've probably misunderstood what I've said"

Alan Greenspan, Federal Reserve Board Chairman. From a 1988 speech to the Economic Club of New York (cited in ConservativeForum.org)

This quote was a clue in last Friday's broadcast of "It's Academic," in which Georgetown Day beat the living crap out of St. Albans and some other school. Of particular joy to me, the show is popular enough to air on NBC (not PBS) in the Washington DC area.

That's bad. No, that's good.

So, yesterday I went out with my cousin Hani who's visiting from Jakarta.
- That’s good!
No, that’s bad, because it was raining.
- Oh, that’s bad.
No, that’s good, because we got great parking for the 3-on-3 basketball tourney at Cameron Indoor Stadium.
- Hey, that’s good.
No, that’s bad, because we ended up walking through the rain only to find out the tourney wasn’t actually happening that day.
- That’s bad.
No, that’s good, because we got to walk onto the Cameron floor to take pictures.
- That’s good!
No, that’s bad, because my camera has a sucky flash.
- Oh, that’s bad.
No, that’s good, because we quit wasting time at Cameron and got to Southpointe just in time for the rain to stop, with plenty of time to get tickets for Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, and to go buy a dry shirt for me (Hani had been using an umbrella, but I hadn’t) at Eddie Bauer.
- Well that’s great!
No, that’s bad, because Eddie Bauer was way on the other side of the mall, and by the time we headed back toward the theatres -- which are about 100 yards away from the main mall – it had started raining again, so we couldn’t see the movie, seeing how Hani had left our umbrella in the car because it had quit raining, earlier.
- Aw, that’s bad.
No, that’s good, because now we had time to buy some snow globe and magnet souvenirs for Hani.
- That’s great!
No, that’s bad, because Southpointe is so fancy that they don’t have any souvenir shops, except for Spencer Gifts.
- That’s bad.
Yes, that’s bad.

Note to Star Trek fans, a version of this joke appears at Item 20 of the Starfleet Guide to Exploring Space.

Mike L. on Caution | quotables

"I know you have a weakness, not for gossip, but for the amusing anecdote."

--former colleague Mike L., prudently asking Phil to not repeat a particular story that Mike had just told him. 15 June 94