Update on the international production of NOTEFLIX’s “Troubles in the Garden”: Our hero, The Bluebird of Happiness and Jack, the Rich and Aging Prince of the Land of Uncertain Knowledge, have decided to take it outside and fight it out – over the wing of the fair Mamzelle Pinkie; for once and for all. (See what happens next – at the bottom of this post)
First, updating some words – to keep you current:
- “The Pinched Finger”: This is a brand new Emoji. (The thumb and first two fingers pinched together and held upward) it expresses disbelief. Apparently, there is a ‘Unicorn Consortium’ which approves standard Emojis worldwide. How you get to be on that Consortium, I do not yet know.
- Electric Hummer: Just when you thought this Hummer thing was over – it has been given a new life. The Terminator has one, so live with it.
- Calida Fornax: Latin for ‘Hot Furnace’. Believed to be the root words for CALIFORNIA. See? If you read enough, you can learn something interesting everyday.
- Native Ads: This is the name for Ads which appear on web pages designed to look like articles. These ads are not for the benefit of Natives.
- Pre-trauma disorder: There is no such official term. I made it up – and I want credit for it because sometimes I think I have it.
- Enclothed Cognition: There have been studies done which show effects clothing has on cognition. For example, they found if you wear a white coat like a doctor – well, people pay a certain amount of attention to you. But if you wear it like a house painter, well, they pay less attention to you. Somebody was paid a lot of money for this study. I want in on these grants. Enclothed Cognition seems a lot like: “Clothing makes the man.” And someone said that years ago for free.
- Iatrogenic: Originally a medical term, relating to an ailment inadvertently introduced by a physician or a medicine. The word is leaking out of the medical world and you can use it now to refer to all unexpected consequences. It is just a big word for things gone wrong.
Second, a few subjects I have wondered about in the past week:
- Forests & Trees: I have read we are losing Forest Cover. It used to be in North America, a squirrel could walk from The Atlantic Ocean to the Mississippi River without touching ground. Now, the squirrel can’t get out of Hoboken. From 1992-2001 we lost another 3% of forest cover. Soon we will not be able to see the forest for the trees – are all cut down. I am conflicted and I am part of the problem. I like paths through the woods; but it takes the chopping down of the trees for me to see the trees clearly – and I rarely see a tree that deserves to be chopped down. And now the Brazilians and the Chinese have discovered wine and are chopping down every tree they can find to grow more grapes. And soon, without the trees to eat up the carbon every place on earth will become hot, hot like a Calida Fornax. Does wondering about these things do anybody any good?
- I walk down the street frequently and in so doing I see a lot of faces coming in my direction. Over the years, I have noticed some faces coming at me which look a lot like a painting by Modigliani, or Toulouse Lautrec, or even Michelangelo…and so on. This causes me to wonder if Toulouse, or Matisse, or Modigliani painted a portrait, let’s say, and then that painting was thought by the public to be in the artist’s particular style, or ‘period’ – rather than that is how the person really looked. or vice-versa. Do you understand? I know it sounds crazy and there are more important things to wonder about – but things like this keep me from going insane…early Pre-trauma disorder?
I have met my word-count allowance for this post – which is too bad because I wanted to mention: Ponzi schemes are up – how can that be?… how come all these furniture places you see on TV lose their leases? …and a study shows there are more Americans who do not know what a ‘Test Pattern” is than do know, or know who Ted Williams was or that his head is in a cryogenic frozen container?
Next week then,
“…Troubles …” cont’d: But wait! Who is that? Why that is no other than Miz Ezmeralda, the Hairy Pig Queen of all the stuffed animals who have made it through the worm-hole and into the land of the Humans and other Dangerous Creatures. She rules! And she forbids fighting between all her subjects. Warning: Do not give the ‘Pinched Finger ‘ sign to Miz Ezmeralda. What she commands is written in stone. – (She does has a bit of an egomaniacal problem with her good looks and has become a terrible camera hog.) As you can see, Mamzelle Pinkie (in the background) is eager to find out what will become of all this. (Look for more action next week.)
