Category Archives: Pop culture

Election Day snippets

Our polling place is in the old New Bedford Hotel. But Carol had not changed her place of residence properly (no, it wasn’t voting fraud or conspiracy, it was Carol’s mistake). So I’m the only one in our house who voted. And then I was the only voter in the polling place at 7:30 p.m. — me, seven poll workers, and one cop. I asked if it was a good turnout in our precinct. The poll workers just shrugged.

Since this blog is my private blog, with no connection to the congregation I serve as minister, I can safely express political opinions here that would give the IRS conniption fits if I said them at church….

I voted to re-elect Ted Kennedy even though his stand against the Cape Wind project is utterly selfish and immoral. Global warming is real, it’s happening, and wind power makes sense here in windy Massachusetts. I cannot imagine why Kennedy, usually so strong on environmental issues, is throwing all of his weight (and probably a fair amount of his money) into ending Cape Wind — unless it’s because he selfishly doesn’t want to see a wind farm from the Kennedy family compound in Hyannis on Cape Cod. Ted, Ted, Ted:– wind farms are the new chic landscape feature; all the rich people like you want to be able to see a wind farm these days.

The thing is, Ted Kennedy is also one of the few senators who can be counted on to stand up to the current administration’s handling of the Iraq war. As a pacifist who takes the teachings of Jesus seriously, I believe all war is bad. But this current war is beyond bad:– in my opinion, it can no longer be justified by the standard Western criteria for just wars; therefore, we are currently engaged in an immoral war. The immorality of Kennedy’s stand on wind power is more than balanced by the morality of his stand against the Iraq war.

For the second time in my life, I got to vote for congressman Barney Frank (the first time was when I was in seminary at Andover Newton, which through the miracles of gerrymandering is in the same congressional district as New Bedford). So what if he’s running unopposed again — I enjoyed voting for Barney Frank.

State senator Mark Montigny and state representative Tony Cabral got my votes, in large part because of their strong stands in favor of same-sex marriage.

I did vote for a Green-Rainbow party candidate — Jill Stein for Scretary of State in Massachusetts. Interstingly, she was endorsed by the New Bedford Standard-Times, who wrote: “We recognize that Jill Stein, the Green-Rainbow Party candidate for Secretary of State, is a long shot to unseat Democratic incumbent William Galvin. But our endorsement of the physician and open government advocate from Lexington and your vote for her will send an important message. The voters need an activist secretary of state who will open up government on Beacon Hill….” I have to admit that my vote was as much a vote against Galvin as it was a vote in support of Stein.

Deval Patrick better win… that’s all I’m going to say about the governor’s race.

Election Day is not my biggest political concern right now. I’m more worried about the constitutional convention here in Massachusetts on Thursday, conveniently scheduled after Election Day so the pols can vote as they please and not suffer any consequences at the polls (grr…). If the opponents of same-sex marriage get fifty votes on Thursday, there will be another constitutional convention in 2008, and at that time the convention could vote to put an anti-same-sex-marriage question on the ballot. I’ll be attending the big rally in support of same sex marriage in front of the State House on Thursday [Link] — I’ll be there in the morning, and I hope to see you there, too.

No really, it’s fun

From the Web site of National Novel Writing Month (aka NaNoWriMo), telling about the experience of writing the first draft of a novel in one month:

The first year’s trials and tribulations are laid out in the introduction to No Plot? No Problem!, but the short version is that our novels, despite our questionable motives and pitiful experience, came out okay. Not great. But not horrible, either. And, more surprising than that, the writing process had been really, really fun.

Fun was something we hadn’t expected. Pain? Sure. Embarrassment? Yes. Crippling self-doubt followed by a quiet distancing of ourselves from the entire project? You bet.

But fun? Fun was a revelation. Novel-writing, we had discovered, was just like watching TV. You get a bunch of friends together, load up on caffeine and junk food, and stare at a glowing screen for a couple hours. And a story spins itself out in front of you.

I think NaNoWriMo is part of a wider trend of people having fun by making stuff (can’t quite call it art) and distributing it via the Web. Examples: the people who use iMovie or some other free video editing software to produce videos which they then distribute free via YouTube; the people who use GarageBand or other cheap audio editing software to produce songs which they distribute via Web sites; the blogs, of course; the mash-ups; the immense wave of creativity that we’re seeing.

Sturgeon’s Law, which states that 95% of everything is crap, still applies to this wave of creativity. Given our current cultural standards, that means we can’t call most of these creative endeavors “art,” because art is defined the 5% (or less) of everything that isn’t crap. Not that that is really the point. Yes, more than 50,000 people are writing NaNoWriMo novels, and probably 20,000 will actually complete their novel, so there might be 1,000 NaNoWriMo novels out there that might be worth reading (at least, they might be worth reading after they are throughly revised) — but the real point of doing it is because it’s fun.

Case in point: I’m now 11,148 words into writing my own NaNoWriMo novel, and yeah, it is fun. It is a whole lot of fun. It is far more fun than watching TV or reading someone else’s novel.

Hardcore for the what?

Being middle-aged now, and not living in Boston, I think I can be forgiven for not reading the Weekly Dig. But that meant I missed this article on Hank Peirce, now minister at the Unitarian Universalist church in Medford, Mass., formerly a roadie for a number of hardcore punk rock bands. The unfortunate title for the article is “Hardcore for the Lord” — somehow, I think the writer didn’t quite grasp the essence of Unitarian Universalism. And there’s no mention of the punk rock worship services Hank did ten years ago at the Middle East in Cambridge. Still, it’s fun to read about a now-respectable minister’s former life. (And thanks to Philocrites for publicizing the article on his blog.)

More about Altoids

My sister Abby wrote to Wrigley to comment on the change in peppermint Altoids. Here’s part of the reply she got:

Thank you for contacting us to comment on your experience with Altoids® Peppermint Mints. We are always happy to hear from our consumers and truly value your feedback. By receiving input from consumers like you, we are able to constantly make improvements and ensure that we are always providing our consumers with the highest quality products.

The look of Extra packaging has recently been changed to make this brand more globally recognized. There was a slight change in formulation to the Extra Polar Ice gum at this time — there was no change to the Altoids mints.

We are sorry you had this experience with a Wrigley brand and appreciate your help in maintaining the quality of our product. We sincerely appreciate your patronage and send our best!

Sincerely,

Ryné King
Consumer Affairs Representative

“No change to the Altoids mints.” –Um, well, no, that can’t be right. There was a change to the Altoids mints. As I noted in an earlier post, the ingredients list on the newly redesigned packaging is significantly different than the ingredients list on the old packaging (and it would be a federal offense to falsify lists of ingredients).

And I’m not the only one to notice this change. For example, I got the following information from the Wikipedia entry on Altoids just now:

Ingredients and Nutritional Information
As of January, 2006

Peppermint: Sugar, oil of peppermint, gum arabic, gelatin, corn syrup. In April of 2006, the ingredients were changed to Sugar, gum arabic, artificial flavor ( Which caused the “Curiously Strong Peppermints” to lose some of their strength) , oil of peppermint ( a smaller percentage), gelatin, glucose syrup.

And see this blog entry, this blog entry, this blog entry, and this blog entry too.

Given the evidence of my senses, confirmed by other blogs, I have to assume that Ryné King is curiously wrong.

Update:

As of January, 2007, I can no longer find the “fake” Altoids for sale anywhere. Looks like Wrigley figured out what a mistake they had made, and went back to the old recipe. However, Altoids tins no longer proclaim “Made in Great Britain,” so that change remains.

Altoid update

If you read this post, you know that I’m upset because evil corporate bean-counters decided it was too expensive to keep putting peppermint oil in Altoids; now they’re just sugar and artificial flavor. I used to rely on Altoids for a hit of peppermint oil to soothe my vocal chords when conducting worship, and this past Sunday, I felt bereft without my peppermint-oil Altoids.

We were in a nearby supermarket tonight, and lo and behold they still had the old-fashioned peppermint-oil Altoids in most of the racks of candy beside the check-out lines. I bought seventeen tins, enough for a two-year’s supply if I limit myself to using them when I preach.

Now I’m worried that I may have missed some of the check-out lines. I’ll have to go back and see if I can buy still more of the old-fashioned Altoids. And OK, yes, maybe I’m a little obsessed about this.

It’s curious, but not strong

Now that the Altoids brand has been sold to Wrigley, it seems Wrigley is tinkering with the ingredients. Altoids peppermint-flavored mints used to contain sugar, oil of peppermint, gum arabic, gelatin, corn syrup. Now Altoids contain sugar, gum arabic, artificial flavor, oil of peppermint, gelatin, glucose syrup. Note that there is now more artificial flavor than there is peppermint oil.

They no longer taste “curiously strong,” they just taste like any old bland mint. The change occurred at least as long ago as April, according to this blog entry. Apparently, the supplier in this area had a big supply of the old ones on hand, for it was just this week that I wound up buying the new, curiously bland Altoids.

Why would I bother mentioning this trivial fact on a blog that is devoted mostly to religion? Well, the old Altoids had a large amount of peppermint oil in them. Peppermint oil helps soothe vocal chords; I’ve heard of shape-note singers who carry around a little bottle of food-grade oil of peppermint, and during long singing sessions they periodically place a drop of the oil on their tongues to keep their voices in good shape. As a preacher, I too have used peppermint oil to keep my voice in good shape, but rather than carry around a bottle of peppermint oil I used to carry around peppermint Altoids.

But now there is so little peppermint oil in Altoids, it just isn’t worth it. I won’t bother complaining to Wrigley’s:– most customers won’t care or even notice a difference, and their bottom line will improve because peppermint oil is expensive.

Guess I’ll have to follow the lead of the shape-note singers, and go get a little bottle of peppermint oil.

More news about Altoids here.

International Talk Like a Pirate Day

Tomorrow is International Talk Like a Pirate Day. The official Web site of International Talk Like a Pirate Day doesn’t go much beyond instructing you in the use of such basic pirate-talk as “Ahoy,” “Avast,” Aye-aye,” and “Arrr.”

But popular literature offers many more possibilities for creative pirate-talk that go beyond a few simple add-on words. Here are longer pirate-talk phrases (some with translations) from the ace writer of pirate-talk, Robert Louis Stevenson:

There’s never a man looked me between the eyes and seen a good day a’terwards, you may lay to that!

We’re that near the gibbet that my neck’s stiff with thinking on it. — Things are not going particularly well.

Stow that! Don’t you get sucking of that bilge.

Ah, it’s a fine dance you’ll do, and it’ll look mighty like a hornpipe in a rope’s end at Execution Dock by London town, it will. — You are in deep trouble.

To extend the silliness further, below are some of the sayings of Nancy Blackett, Amazon pirate, terror of the seas (from the children’s book Swallows and Amazons):

Let’s broach a puncheon of Jamaican rum.

Drink to the Jolly Roger, skull and cross-bones, death and glory, and a hundred thousand pieces of eight! But you aren’t a pirate, so you can’t drink to that.

I’ll shiver your timbers for you if you don’t stop chattering, Peggy.

Barbecued billy-goats!

Let’s parley first and fight afterwards.

Now grab a cutlass and shake a leg, and talk like a pirate for all ye’re worth. For if ye don’t, ye’ll find yerself in Davy Jones’s locker with the fish cleaning your bones for ye. Arrr!

Signs of spring

Laundry night: I load up the car with the duffel bag full of dirty clothes and head out to the my favorite laundromat, the one with an attendant. The big TV in the corner is on, with some inane show about celebrities, so once the wash is going I run out to do some shopping. A light rains starts while I’m in the store. Back to put the clothes in the dryer; now the TV has a game show, so I sit in the car and begin reading Ned Rorem’s memoir, Knowing When To Stop. I decide I like his grim but refreshing words:

Life has no meaning. We’ve concocted the universe as we’ve concocted God. (Anna Noailles: “If God existed, I’d be the first to know.”) Our sense of the past and our sense of encroaching death are aberrations unshared by the more perfect “lower” animals. On some level everyone concurs — pedants, poets, politicians, and priests. The days of wine and rose are not long, but neither are they short; they simply aren’t. Hardly a new notion, but with me the meaninglessness [of life] was clear from the start….

I disagree with some of the details of what Rorem says, but not the underlying substance. Life is meaningless, and that is probably why I am a Red Sox fan. Baseball season has begun once again, and Johnny Damon has been traded to the New York Yankees; seeing Damon cleanshaven and with short hair is just unnecessary, an additional bit of evidence that life has no meaning.

When I head back in to fold my now-dry clothes, the ballgame is on. Curt Schilling is pitching, holding off an attack by the Seattle Mariners in the fifth. He’s got quite a gut, Schilling does; baseball is the sport of all different body types. A split-finger fastball makes the last out: another reason that I know this is an imperfect meaningless world is that I have yet to be able to see the difference between the pitches when I’m watching a game. Except once when I was given tickets to an April ballgame in Fenway Park and Tim Wakefield was pitching; believe me, I could see that he was pitching knuckleballs. It rained that April ballgame of years ago, just as it’s raining tonight.

Back in the car, I find the game on WSAR out of Fall River. “Are those ambience microphones waterproof? They’ve got waterproof covers? I see. Schilling’s back on the mound…” I can follow the game better on the radio, I can imagine that I’m in Fenway Park. Fenway, where hopes springs eternal in April, only to fade in September or maybe mid-October; except, impossibly, in October of 2004.

The rain is steady, it really hasn’t increased in density…. but it’s still coming down, the pitch, a swing and a miss! The Red Sox waste another double. After eight, two-to-one Boston….

But Schilling went eight innings with only three hits. Just one more inning to go…two quick outs…a base hit by Ichiro Suzuki…and then….

…and the throw is to first, and this one is over…. Jonathan Papelbon gets the save! A two-to-one victory for the Sox!

Hey, maybe there is hope, maybe life does have meaning after all.

Revolting

What’s the second best Web-based video online today? Meatrix, by those masters of animation, Free Range Studios. Soon Free Range Studios will release “Meatrix II: Revolting.” Sneak preview now online.

(Best online video, also by Free Range Studios, is here.)