Games People Play

Back in the 80's when Kevin Bacon's filmography was still quite young, a friend of ours proposed a game:  Name any two actors and then without help from any reference, trace a path between them via a chain of movies with overlapping costars. For instance, Marlon Brando and Paul Reubens can be linked like so:  Marlon Brando was in Superman with Margot Kidder who was in Amityville Horror with James Brolin who was in Pee Wee's Big Adventure with Paul Reubens.  My friend called the game Association-- although 20 years later, it became widely known as 6 Degrees of Kevin Bacon based on the popularized factoid that you could connect any actor in Hollywood with Kevin Bacon via a chain of no more than 6 movies.  

Six Degrees, or Association, as my friend invented it in the 80s has become my daughter and my go-to game for down time.  We of course don't restrict ourselves to Kevin Bacon movies.  Rather we prefer picking unlikely pairs, usually with a theme-- e.g., Karen Black to Betty White.  (Spoiler follows: Betty White was in Advise & Consent with Henry Fonda who was in On Golden Pond with Jane Fonda who was in Coming Home with Bruce Dern who was in Family Plot with Karen Black.)  With us, the longer the chain, the better*, but probably the oddest game I ever played was with a co-worker.  I suggested finding a link between Louis Jourdan and Michael Jordan.  I figured this would be good for an afternoon.  My colleague came back almost immediately with Looney Tunes: Back in Action and Return of the Swamp Thing.  (Michael Jordan was in Looney Tunes, Louis Jourdan was in Return of the Swamp Thing and Heather Locklear was in both).  This was before Google.

I could play the game forever, but on the theory of Everything in Moderation, lately it has occurred to me that we should mix things up.  The requirement for a substitute is a game with simple rules and no equipment (or only readily available materials such as paper and pen).  Since my mind tends to go blank under pressure, it's occurred to me that perhaps I should start collecting a game chest of such games for future reference.  Some of the below may already be familiar to you, some are games invented to entertain on long (or even short) car trips, and some were invented by my daughter at my request.  To her, coming up with equipmentless games is a game in itself. The results are below.  Descriptions of play involve 2 players, but with each game, the number of players is scalable to the interest/boredom of the room.  Rules do not include details about scoring, but almost all could with a small amount of imagination be easily adapted for wagering.

Word by word story - (Equipment needed: vocabulary, grammar)  Each player takes turns adding words to an evolving story.  The words must be grammatical in the context of what has come before, otherwise all bets are off. ("Once" "upon" "a" "goat" "there" "were" "two" "fleas" "named" "Jennifer" "and" "Ringo". &c.).  As a variation, you could sing the words to create a song.

Change-a-letter - (Equipment needed: none)  Using words of an agreed upon length (3-6 letters generally), players take turns altering the last word spoken before their turn by one letter.  The object is to see how long they can keep a chain going. ("brain", "braid", 'brand", "bland", 'blind", "blink", "slink", etc)  Players may agree on whether and when words can be repeated and whether  they will allow shuffling of letters to prolong the chain.  ("purse", "usurp", "spurn", "prune", "prone", "phone", etc.)

Add-a-letter - As a variation of the above, Player 1 starts with a word of 1 letter, Player 2 then adds a letter to the first in any order to create a new word, and so on until no more words that both players can agree are words can be created.  (E.g., "a", "at", "tar", "rant", "train", "rating", etc.)

Alphabet safari - (Equipment needed: Car and destination, child in backseat, short term memory, knowledge of alphabet, ability to compartmentalize driving safety and game playing)  The object is simple.  As you travel streets and roads on your way to your destination, cooperate on finding each letter of the alphabet in turn.  No, you can't save letters when you see them.  If you are on G and pass a liquor store, you cannot save the Q.  Just put it out of your mind.  (Don't worry there will be plenty of other liquor stores.  Just watch out for that pedestrian trying to cross over in front of it.)

Antonyms - This was presented to me as a Mensa game, but don't hold that against it.  Player 1 says a noun, verb or adjective.  Player 2 must come up with its opposite, but the catch is that the opposite may begin only with either an R or an S-- simple rules yet much harder than it sounds. The notion of antonym in practice is as fluid as both players agree for it to be and fluidity is rewarded with fun.  E.g., for "good", if both players accept "rancid" as an opposite, so it shall be.  Does "baby" have an antonym?  Would you accept "senior" or "sire"? 

Hinky Pinky - Player 1 comes up with a 2-word rhyming phrase.  The rhyming word must match the number of syllables of the first word-- e.g., Merry Berry is allowed but Contrary Berry is not.  The rhymer then comes up with a clue for the phrase, such as "Happy fruit" and indicates the number of syllables by saying whether it is a Hink Pink (rhyming 1 syllable words), a Hinky Pinky (2 syllable words) a Hinkity Pinkity (3 syllable words) and so forth.  Player 2 then tries to guess the phrase.  Hours of fun for the players and annoyance for the bystanders.

Riddle for a Rhyme - This is a loose variation of the above invented by my niece when she got bored with Hinky Pinky.  Player one thinks of a word -- e.g., "Score", and then gives a word that rhymes with it-- e.g., "Door"-- as a clue.  Player 2 then tries to guess the word, but instead of guessing directly, asks yes or no questions based on their guess.  E.g, Player 2 might say, "Does your word come after three but before five?"  If Player 1 is wrong, Player 2's reply  has to include the rhyme that Player 2 had in mind-- in the case of the example, "No, the word isn't four."  This is the only game I know  in which the clue giver is also a guesser and vice versa conveniently eliminating the wait for either role  

Band names - (A daughteral contribution)  Almost as simple as it sounds the idea is for Player 1 to free associate a name for a band.  The quality of the name is not important.  The challenge for Player 2 is to fit the name to a genre, to a first album title, and to the name of the band's biggest hit.  E.g.,  Player 1 blurts out: "Pretzel Kingdom"; Player 2:  "The genre is polka.  The first album is 'Once around the Kielbasa'.  Biggest hit: 'I told you not to look.'"   

Remake - (another daughteral contribution) Name a classic movie or television program and re-cast it with contemporary actors.  The re-casting can be apropos or it can give it a new twist.  My daughter has been proposing a new Columbo.  In her mind, it should still be set in the 1970s.  She has several ideas for casting villains:  Jeff Goldblum as a photographer who snaps, both literally and figuratively; Steve Buscemi as a college professor being blackmailed by a student; Idris Elba as a popular disc jockey about to be exposed for taking payola by an up-and-coming star.  In a way, Rian Johnson has already re-cast the title role perfectly with Natasha Lyonne in Poker Face, but my daughter had two notions for  Columbo that promise 2 different but equally interesting directions for the role:  in the more traditional vein, Bob Odenkirk; and for something completely different (go with her on this one) Joaquin Phoenix.

Geography  - I recently saw them playing this on an episode of Mad Men.  Players take turns naming a country.  Each country must begin with the same letter that ends the previous player's country, without repeating any already named.  E.g. "Barbados" "Suriname" "Eritrea" "Azerbaijan" (Your turn.)   Play proceeds until someone is stumped or the neighbors complain.  For variety, players can use different geographical categories, or to really live it up, a free for all in which any category is fair game: "Antwerp" "Puerto Rico" "Orinoco" "Okinawa" &c.

I can make you laugh - (Equipment needed: Sense of humor, or barring that, fearlessness)  There are several ways to play, most famously the freestyle version where a player who is It tries to make other players laugh by any means other than tickling-- funny faces, extemporaneous jokes, etc.  My favorite variation takes a page from Name That Tune -- Players take turns "at bat".  The player who is up announces "I can make you laugh with x words" where x is a number between 1 and 10, then proceeds to do it.  Over many years of playing, in my circles we tend to settle on 2.  ("Flap doodle." "Sticky bits." "Mouse knickers.")  Play passes back and forth until someone succeeds.  (And then repeats indefinitely).  The anticipation tends to work in the player who is It's favor.  We've even had success with 1 word.  (  "Armpit." "Stench." "Buffalo.")

Eye roll contest - This variation of the above was suggested by my daughter for some reason.  Same as above although the object is to provoke not laughter but exasperation.  The book I'm reading at the moment tends to be exceptional at this game with non-ironic sentences along the lines of: "Joe would have called the police, except for the inconvenient fact that he'd been dead for a week."

Sketch Artist - (Equipment needed:  Paper, Pencil or other art tool, Eraser) Player 1 comes up with a celebrity or mutual acquaintance of all players.  Player 1 then describes the "perp" to Player 2 who must sketch the mystery person from Player 1's description.  Play stops when Player 2 correctly identifies the subject of the sketch, or when the drawing is an unidentifiable mess of squiggles and eraser smudges.  For realism, Player 1's description should be from memory, but it's not a crime for the describer to have a picture in front of them for reference. 

Initials -  (Equipment needed: A piece of paper; a writing utensil) Write 10 or 20 letters down the page.  It could be anything -- the alphabet, a word or a famous phrase, a fragment of a lyric.  Next to each letter, write an accompanying letter -- similarly, any sequence, even continuing the phrase.  What you should have when you're done is a set of initials.   E.g. in the below, on the left side I've started the alphabet A to E; on the right side, I've used the  first letter of the mnemonic Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge:

AE  
BG  
CB  
DD 
EF 

The object of the game is to come up with a celebrity or famous person for each pair of initials:

AE - Albert Einstein

BG - Betty Grable 

CB - Charles Barkley

DD - David Duchovny 

EF - Edna Ferber

Have fun! Pass the time! Play responsibly!

~~~~~

*  Peter Lorre to Mary Tyler Moore (a.k.a. Laura Petrie):  Peter Lorre was in Arsenic and Old Lace with Cary Grant who was in North by Northwest with Eva Marie Saint who was in On the Waterfront with Marlon Brando who was in The Godfather with Diane Keaton who was in Reds with Warren Beatty who was in Heaven Can Wait with  Julie Christie who was in Don't Look Now with Donald Sutherland who was in  Ordinary People with Mary Tyler Moore.

Wild Times

When pigs fly out of a monkey's butt playing the Hallelujah chorus on harmonicas, I think that counts as news.  When the New York Times publishes an opinion piece suggesting sortition-- selecting our legislators, judges and executives randomly from among ourselves-- as a replacement for the American system of elections, that's the equivalent.  Such a piece by Adam Grant of the Wharton School (Trump's alma mater if I'm not mistaken) appeared recently.  And it was a good piece, making a strong case for this most democratic alternative to politics as usual starting with the provocative title ("The Worst People Run for Office.  It's Time for a Better Way"), giving a good definition, offering plenty of examples of sortition already in practice around the globe, and citing studies demonstrating both the built in flaws of letting psychopaths run government and evidence for the superiority of randomly selected leaders. 

While Grant, like me proposes sortition as a method of selecting not just a citizens council of advisors to the legislature as is commonly proposed but the legislature itself and even the executive and judicial offices, our flavors of sortition are not identical. While Grant seems to gently suggest that perhaps a civics exam might be given to those who want to volunteer to be in the pool of candidates for selection by lot, I would advocate for sortition as the basis of a new civics. I am for mandatory inclusion of every adult living in the US (including those in prison and the undocumented) and perhaps even a certain number of adolescents. Certainly there could be exceptions but in order make the selection as scientifically representative as possible, the qualifications should be broad.   (and an effort should be made to represent the demographic of those who choose not to serve.)    

But before we bicker over the finer points of the logistics of the process, don't get ready for sortition just yet.  If you set your foot into the comment section of Grant's essay, those disposed or convinced to the idea can be found in the weeds, but the vast preponderance of responses to this provocative think piece, this introduction to a notion of an answer to the complaints about the widely agreed upon disaster of American politics is "don't even start to go there".   Other themes emerge. Discussion is closed on the article but, setting aside the alarmingly common ad hominem approach as merely fallacious (to say nothing of the ostrich-like "What's wrong with what we've got?"), let us examine some other categories of objection and try to respond to each. 

Sortition is not serious. It's impossible.  It will never happen so why waste space with words about it. -  Nothing pushes my buttons quite like the impulse on hearing or reading about a well-thought out well expressed novel or ambitious idea for government than that it should be rejected on the basis that it falls short of some undefined given standard of "seriousness".  "Not serious" is never about intellectual rigor or impassioned belief.  It is always shorthand for "deviant from conventional wisdom and therefore not allowed."  It's a conversation ender.  Grant's article is a conversation starter so although flight is almost always the most common type of reaction to new ideas, terminators must be rejected out of hand in actually serious discussions such as the one Grant is raising.  These are not arguments; these are, as one reader suggests, symptoms of Stockholm Syndrome.  Speaking of which...

Let's fix the system we have -  get rid of the Electoral college, put an end to gerrymandering, get money out of politics, abolish Citizens United, implement rank choice voting across the country. - The system we have was designed broken, and there really is no fixing it.  Every time over the past 200 years it has been tweaked in some way-- the implementation of universal suffrage, voting rights, the elimination of poll taxes, successful challenges to gerrymandered districts-- it has continuously been broken in a million other ways.  People talked about campaign finance reform for decades, and then the supreme court ruled in favor of unlimited influence of money in the Citizens United decision.  Nancy McLean's Democracy in Chains makes a very strong case that all it takes is the money of some very determined anti-democratic billionaires-- and their think tanks and political action committees and university chairs and purchase of the judiciary--  to rig the system against the will of the people. Money is why we don’t have healthcare for all and why we can pass legislation to suppress pro Palestinian speech but we can do nothing about climate change.  At best, voting is one person one vote, as if this alone will guarantee a good outcome.  In practice, those in power of both parties will manipulate the system by every means at their disposal to keep real changemakers from winning primaries and thwart the participation of as many as they can in the general election and in the national discussion.  Even at best, plurality voting means that all but the candidate with the largest number of votes lose.   Rank choice voting by definition means that when a winner is not selected by the majority, the winner is likely to be merely the second or third choice (among the self-selected slate of candidates) of a plurality.  In all cases, those who are alienated from voting or disenfranchised are unrepresented.  Sortition removes the very vulnerable process of voting from the equation to ensure actual fair representation-- which is the point!

It won't work -  Presidents need constituencies and coalitions;  The selected will become corrupt; the pool to select from are already brainwashed by q.  You need to get rid of Republicans (or Democrats) before it would work.  - This category of objection betrays a misunderstanding of what sortition accomplishes and a lack of imagination about what a world without voting could be like. Random selection of our leaders obviates the maneuvers, training, dealing, lying, ambition that come with the turf in a party system. In a world in which our leaders are chosen from ourselves rather than from a slate of self-selected careerists, there are no elections, no parties, no party apparatuses, no campaigns, no campaign finances, no campaign ads, positive or negative, no disinformation or dirty tricks.  Winning elections is not merely less important, it has no relevance at all.  If our leadership reflects us in every demographic, attribute, belief, taste, our leaders are selected from natural constituencies. Without having to be elected,  all that is left for our leaders to do is to lead as we ourselves would lead.

Yes our current system is awful but Churchill was right -- it's better than everything else.  This is obfuscation by wit.  It's also false. What has our current system done for you lately other than steer the conversation away from issues that make a difference to anyone but the psychopathic class of empty headed meritocrats?  It is a nihilistic dead-end view.  Sortition is a way forward.

Why would anyone accept someone they didn't vote for as a leader?  Yes, why do we accept those we don't vote for as leaders? Why do we accept them as party nominees?  It's a question that's not relevant to sortition, because sortition is not about voting. Sortition is not about winning, it's about representation.

What we need is competence not representation.  This is a dangerous world with a complex international situation.  Presidents have their hands on the nuclear controls.   Presidents need expertise in a wide variety of subjects -- we've seen what happens when they don't.  There is every reason to believe the world is as dangerous and complex as it is precisely because of the partisan, sectarian, stunted, stilted, unimaginative and undemocratic nature of how it is nearly universally governed by an entrenched out of touch elite across the globe.  Several months ago I listened to economist Jeffrey Sachs, a Ukraine war skeptic, giving a frank and cautionary talk about the strong correlation between the pressures of our electoral system and the pursuit of war.  The talk is no longer on YouTube  (this one from May covers similar ground), but Sachs' point was that elections force candidates to take belligerent stands and presidents to opt for military solutions over diplomatic ones as a means of appearing strong.  Diplomacy is rarely given primary consideration.  The connection was obvious as was the solution-- remove politics from leadership.  Remove the ability and the incentive for leaders to posture with the lives of American soldiers. Another strong case for sortition.  This was not Sachs' conclusion but mine.   Grant's New York Times essay actually makes a good case for not trusting those who prepare themselves to be president.  

How would the executive office work with sortition?  I would suggest that rather than selecting  a single president, an executive council of a good sized number be selected.  As with all offices, staggered short, non-consecutive terms for the members would ensure continuity in leadership and in the projects and preoccupations of government  while avoiding entrenchment.  One function of the executive council would be the building of a pool of expertise from which to be informed about the concerns of the presidency.  The mechanics would be for the council to decide-- my purpose is to demonstrate how the selection of executives from among ourselves could with very little imagination improve upon the highly politicized and constrained possibilities of an elected executive.

Thanks are due to Adam Grant and the New York Times for a provocative introduction to an alternative politics.  Let's hope this is not the end of the discussion.

Cat Scratch Fever

 Evacuation scene from White Noise (2023)

We're spending the summer away from home in the far northeast, but we're not going into details about why with people.  It's a favor for a friend and involves real estate and particularly making a house that has been repaired from severe storm damage a couple of winters ago livable again.  There will be internet installed and I work remotely so no one need be the wiser.  Because we will be away for so long, it's been decided-- the cats are coming with us.  The cats originally came to us separately.  Rizzo was a rescue (aren't all pets rescues?  And prisoners?)  We think he was two when we got him which makes him about 7 now. Blanche-- who was born in a feral litter in my daughter's college town two states away and was adopted by her-- is about 5.

 

Since moving in with us, both cats have remained indoors.  Neither has shown any interest in expanding their turf beyond the front door. Both cats are affectionate and love a good lap lounging but neither is a fan of being picked up and held in the arms.  Blanche has relocated a couple of times-- back to college once and home again for good at the end of it-- and grumbles about being transported but rolls with it.  Rizzo on the other hand in only one visit to the vet developed a fierce opposition to being held in any way that impedes his access to a quick getaway.  We had a dryer fire in the basement in December in which the house filled with smoke and the fire department had to be called.  Rizzo was the first animal I saw as I was rushing to corral the family outside and in my panic I forwent the prudent care that I should have known would have been required in transporting him against his will to safety with the result that he wriggled out of my grip and scampered in all haste to higher ground forcing me to abort the rescue.  With everybody else outside (including Blanche lying low in the car after being removed from the house under protest swaddled in a blanket), I was persuaded by calmer heads to let the fire department put out the fire, which turned out to be confined to the interior of the appliance, and give the all clear before I could go back inside to find him.  He remained scarce until late into the night, even uncustomarily ignoring a dinner call, before he snuck down to his food bowl for a stealthy midnight meal.  He remained aloof for days.

Knowing this about him, we had to strategize the move carefully.   The mission was complicated by the fact that my wife, daughter and the dog would depart before the cats and me by a day.  The trip can be expected to take roughly 12 hours of travel time, something we used to do as a matter of course but time's wingèd chariot has drawn near and constantly reminds us we need to break it up.  The dog is a veteran of travel and knows the drill with hotels.  Under no circumstances can I imagine letting the cats loose in a motel room.  Rizzo would go under the bed as soon as the carrier door opened and we would never see him again.  So while the wife, daughter and dog will make the trip in two days, the plan with the cats and me is a single straight shot with only the barest minimum of stops.  There can be no other way.  Unfortunately this means come moving day, I'm on my own getting the cats into their crates.

My daughter-- a preternatural folk veterinarian-- had suggested we try some kitty sedatives -- valerian root in a cat treat form-- before attempting to get him into his crate. I'd have to be desperate to give my cat a mickey.  Remembering my failure last December at rescuing him from the fire I believed was consuming the house, I think I'm desperate, which is good enough for me.  The morning of, I mix half a tranquilizer in with his morning treats.  He's a bit of a gourmand.  He sniffs the new foodstuff for a second and then chews it eagerly.  I feel like a cad, but it works like a charm.  While I load the car in growing heat, he curls up on the vacant dog bed almost immediately and sleeps like a kitten.  "Piece of cake," I think prematurely.  

As these things go, there is more to do than I expected, and I am the only one doing it.  With the temperature of a heat wave rising, I run some errands, break down my work computer, load the pile of items that we had accumulated by the front door.  I'm anxious about fitting the odds and ends I've been tasked to bring in my car along with the 2 cat crates and a covered litter box but with no other human passengers to worry about, improvised cargo space is luxurious.

Time to get the cats.  The cat carriers have been out and open in the living room for 2 days in the hopes that they'll become just part of the background.  Rizzo first.  Thank goodness for kitty downers.  I reach down to retrieve the form of his limp body from where it has been curled up like a shrimp on the dog bed since breakfast and lift.  He is off the bed, entirely in my arms for the first time since his last vet visit.  Suddenly his eyes go full lemur on me.  In his groggy state he still manages to writhe and wriggle free.  In the sloppiness of my hold on him he maneuvers his rear claws into my right arm to springboard off of it.  The force projects him out of my grip and he is gone up the stairs.  The skin on my arm is shredded.  Shades of last December, but now I go after him.

I find him in the largest bedroom.  I realize I don't have any way to constrain him so I pick up a fleece blanket from the bed and come at him.  He meows at me and dashes through the crack I've carelessly left open in the door.  He outpaces me down the stairs and I have to hunt for him. I find him under a hutch in the dining room which as a staging area for several projects has become an obstacle course for me.  I come at him with the blanket, lie to him, tell him I'm not about to traumatize him. With blood oozing from the wound he inflicted on me, I feel like a horror movie villain stalking a victim.  He darts under the dining room table and is out through the kitchen way ahead of me.   I need him to be back in that upstairs room with the door closed, but he's not about to revisit that scene.  The pattern continues-- I hunt for him, calling his name, he ignores me.  I find him under a couch or a table, I approach and he darts off again.  After several rounds, I realize it's been over a half hour since I've last seen him.  While I call for him I seal off as many rooms as I can after checking every nook and cranny within.  I really need him to not return to the cluttered dining room but it has no doors that I can close, only open passageways to the living room and to the kitchen. On the living room side I lay a screen that has been needing repairs on its side with some chairs to prop it up as a makeshift gate.  On the kitchen side I use a bicycle to block entrance and stack boxes around it to fill up the gaps.  It's now been at least an hour since I've last seen Rizzo. From first attempt, the pursuit has been going on for 2 hours.  Blanche has watched the whole thing, inscrutably.  At one point earlier, with me approaching one of his hiding spots from one side, it seemed almost as if she were blocking him from leaving the perch he had found behind the drapes in the front window to try to help bring the ordeal to a close. Fire meeting fire. He merely turned around and slipped past me and that was the last I saw of him.  I believe I could catch Blanche but there's no need to incarcerate her before her brother is under wraps.  I'm taking a break.

I see that my daughter has texted me from New England to check on my progress.  I fill her in and send her a picture of my bloody arm.  I tell her I have no idea where Rizzo is. It feels good to share my failure.  I try to envision a happy resolution.  My mind is blank. My chair faces the fireplace and I have a horrible thought.  What if he has gone up the chimney?  We haven't had a fire in a long while.  Did we close the damper the last time?  Does it matter to a cat determined to escape a stalker?  I'm too tired to check, but then through the thick chain of the screen I make out the white expanse of his chest amid the black of the fireplace.  He has squeezed through the screen and is sitting among the soot staring at me.  I almost don't want to destroy his perfect hiding place but time is wasting.  I slowly approach but he slips past me again.  Is he actually going upstairs where I need him to be?  No, he's heading for the dining room.  He is momentarily thwarted by my barrier, but only for a moment.  He scales the screen and disappears behind some boxes.  Now my barriers are just extra obstacles for me.  He's now repeating hiding spots, though, so when I think I can at least corner him against the other,  he simply breaks through leaving me with a hurdle to get over.  By a miracle I see him enter the back sun room through its only door and I follow.  I close it behind me and as it's a small room without a lot of places for him to go, I'm able to corner him and wrap him completely in the fleece.  I carry him to the carrier and slide the whole bundle in.  I've had him in this position before and he's slithered away when I try to retrieve the blanket but this time the blanket is staying in there with him. .  The carrier gate snaps into place.  I've got him.  As he yowls his disapproval I turn my attention to Blanche.  She starts up the stairs but stops before the top and turns to me.  She hisses at me as I take her in my arms, but she lets me carry her to the carrier and place her inside. A very welcome anticlimax.

I have crossed off almost all of the items on my list, but I'm reluctant to cross off the last:  Bring pen with you.  The knowledge that the house will be empty for 2 months is weighing on me feeding into and off of all of my neuroses -- if any crucial item is left behind, it's entirely on me.  As late as it has gotten, it's not getting any cooler out there.  The cats watch me from their crates, meowing plaintively as I make trips with armfuls of the loose ends my fertile imagination has convinced me we would be sorry to be without.  With my OCD played out at last, there is no more putting it off.  I carry both cats to the car at once.  I had envisioned them to at least be able to see each other, to allow them to share the ride for support, but there's only room to place them side by side next to their litter box facing forward each for their own lonely trip.

I return to the house to close it down for the summer.  At last I  cross the last item off the list and put the pen in my pocket.  I lock the house and am on my way.  

All is quiet in the back seat.  I glance at the clock.  4:30.   If  traffic cooperates and I stop only for gas and restroom breaks I can maybe get to my destination by 2:30.  The heat is overbearing and the sky is a sickening gray.  Traffic seems to be manageable for the time of day.  Just as I feel myself getting into the groove, the meowing starts.  First Blanche with her usual heartbreaking adorable mews and then Rizzo with a series of guttural yowls I've never heard from him before.  I apologize to them.  I tell them it will be all right.  You'll be there before you know it, I lie to them.  Thinking of the phrase music hath charms to soothe the savage beast (or is it breast?  Never mind!) I turn on my 14 hour playlist.  First in the shuffle is the opening theme from Koyaanisqatsi.  It seems to work some magic on them as they settle back into stunned silence.  

It could be a long trip.  Do I dare let them out to relieve themselves let alone to eat?  I can't envision it.  I look at the deep gashes on my arms, no longer openly bleeding.  I think about the horror movie stalking scene I just participated in.  How will it look to the public as I make my way through the crowd to the restroom with the arms of  a bloodied monster?  How many times in true crime stories does the murderer have tell-tale scratches like mine?  I feel like a beast.

I am driving north.  A weather advisory indicates an AQI exceeding 200, worse than yesterday.  It's smoke from the Canadian wildfires.   This is the furthest the cats have been from the house in years.  So this is the world I am bringing them into.  I am a monster.

~~~~~~

Postscript:  The house we are in is small, rustic and mostly empty but it abounds in moths and other flying creatures, has a mouse or two and lots of windows for plenty of vistas on an exciting variety of exotic birds and wildlife.  We have been spared a lot of the heat and Unhealthy AQI plaguing so much of the country this summer. The cats forgive me.

Mudjima world

Seoul has been plagued in recent months by a series of violent mass random attacks in what are commonly referred to as "Don't ask why", or Mudjima crimes.  On July 21, a subway rider took a knife out of his backpack and stabbed 4 random people killing one; on August 3, a 22-year old deliveryman apparently inspired by the July 21 attack drove into a crowd injuring 14, and then ran into a department store stabbing 9 more, one of whom died of her injuries. 

The two recent Seoul attacks inspired a rash of copycat threats online and caused a national unease.  These and other incidents were possibly inspired by similar attacks in Japan including the Tokyo subway Joker attack of Halloween 2021 -- in which a young man dressed as the Joker from the movie of the same name poured lighter fluid around the perimeter of the subway car he was on, set it afire and then proceeded to use a long knife he had been concealing to stab 17 people. Japan, like South Korea has seen an uptick in recent years in apparently random and violent attacks against women, children and strangers committed by first time offenders in stark contrast to famously low rates of crime.

In an otherwise exceptionally crime free country for its size and clout in the 37 nation Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development, the spate of random violence in South Korea has captured the public's attention.  Police are tracking and reporting on perceived online threats and increasing their  visible presence in subways and other well-traveled public spaces. Per the BBC,  

While the details surrounding the perpetrators are still sketchy, the little revealed so far has already fuelled public anger.  "These days there are jobless losers who are taking their ills out on everybody else," one user wrote on Tiktok, in a vein of commentary which has become common online.

The BBC article on the Seoul attacks quotes an online commenter asking "Have we become the USA of Asia?"

The fact that South Koreans and Japanese are discussing the violence is an indication that both are a long way from becoming the USA of Asia.  Knives are used in the attacks because gun bans are strictly enforced in both countries. In the USA of North America (i.e., the USA), as of this writing the number of mass shootings this year, 443 is already 68% of 2022's total of 647, and yet the topic de jour is Woke Beer Ads.  "Don't ask why" indeed.

In the heat of the moment, news reports of the Mudjima crimes sensationalize the randomness, in  a way encouraging blindness to what's happening.  What's happening -- according to the reports of the attackers themselves is despair. It's frustration.  Nothing to lose. Why?  On reflection it seems pretty obvious but not to the media.  Unless you are among the lords of the 37 nation members of the OECD,  you either have the  misfortune of being unemployed and having to look for work, or you are unlucky enough to be at the mercy of an employer.  Your prospects either way are grim, and you may be excused for thinking you have no say in the matter.  In the post-historic world, the comforts of life are becoming outrageously beyond the reach of all but the most incuriously compliant and complicit in the dismal science of getting by.  

We are wallowing in "Don't Ask Why".  In the US, we passively accept an outrageously insane system of health care and have to regularly swallow our disbelief that our vastly wealthy country is alone in making its citizens pay up if they want the luxury of physical and mental health as though that is a perfectly normal thing.  Around the world, your choice is to accept the world you have inherited without questioning or to go insane.  In a best case scenario, the insane are the sanest among us.  In the worst case, they lash out seeking to make victims of their fellow victimized, most of them not caring whether they live or die on the other side of their bursts of exasperation.  "Don't ask why" seems to be their motive.  "Don't ask why" seems to be enough.  Even to the rest of us who desperately need there to be no reason.

No worries

In the 1960's when the world was introduced to me (and vice versa), if you walked into a store you were lucky if they didn't throw you out.  At best, someone might have nodded at you and mouthed, "Hello."  When you paid your money and left, maybe they'd remember to thank you, and if you could put a phrase on the prevailing mood of the salesclerk as you made your way to the exit, it might be, "Don't let the door hit you in the ass on your way out."  Okay it probably depended on the store, but even the most ingratiating ones made do with little more than the sort of pleasantries you learn in first year language class (if not by osmosis from popular culture).  

So the first time in the 1970's that someone in a fast food uniform uttered "Welcome to McDonald's. How can I help you?" to me in the kind of rushed robotic monotone that can only be learned from a corporate training video, it didn't hit my ears in the sweet way that corporate probably intended.  And when the transaction was completed with an equally robotic, "Have a nice day." the wrong way it rubbed me was memorable enough that I'm telling it to you today.

Pretty soon, mandatory corporate ingratiation by rote was everywhere, and there are people reading this who know nothing else.  The form of the greetings and departing words have gone through changes, with invocations ("What can I get for you today?" ) and benedictions ("Please come again.") sandwiching sales pitches ("Would you like fries with that?")    While it's mostly boilerplate etiquette, it does evolve in a reflection of changing tastes and manners and times.  For a while there cashiers at Walgreens were instructed to conclude each transaction with “Be well.”   I always wanted to say “What am I, a hobbit?” But that would have been rude, and in any case, years of exposure to formulaic insincere sincerity (including certainly periods of my life where I've been forced to practice it myself in exchange for my weekly bread) have taught me not to take it personally, but to see it instead as the corporation wanting us to know that they care at least enough about us to make formulaic courtesy-by-the-numbers a condition of the continued employment of the serf performing it reflexively before us.

By now the pleasantries are so ingrained they've become part of everyone's social script, and new workers hardly have to be trained in coming up with them on their own.  Without my realizing it I've adjusted to what I suspect was a worker innovation of the 90s: "Have a blessed day." Though the religious presumptuousness of it scandalized me the first few times I heard it, probably from a salesclerk at the mall, I now appreciate it as an assertion of the worker's soul on a soulless routine.  Similarly, somewhere in this same time frame-- although it might have been earlier, it suddenly became fashionable for salesclerks and service representatives to respond to customer thanks not with "You're welcome" or with the much more ingratiating and common, "Thank you!!" but with what originally struck me as a non sequitur: "No problem!"  I'm sure the first time it was said to me, it mortified me.  Was the reassurance that it wasn't a problem a veiled tip-off that it in fact was?  Was I contrary to the sentiment expressed a problem?  I may have been on a limb with the paranoia.  In conversation with others about it, I learned that some of my fellow consumers encountering the phrase reflexively took the informal substitution for the customary formal phrase as a slight and an insult.  Maybe in reaction to the prevailing response of the prissy, I simply accepted "no problem" as a novelty, a colorful informal variation of "You're welcome", and adapted.

A couple of times recently, I've learned of a new bugbear for those inclined to be particular.  A friend who I've learned over the years has standards of service for herself (unlike me who expects to be treated like dirt and doesn't really mind it all that much and am therefore frequently pleasantly surprised) recently complained about being the guinea pig for a very young waitress in training at a new restaurant in town.  The girl was so young and green that when she brought the food -- an artisanal pizza too large for the table-- she attempted to set it on top of the tableware until she was stopped by my friend.   My friend asked if the pizza could be placed on a nearby and empty table instead-- the restaurant had plenty of those at the time.  So unsure of her own power and ability to use independent judgement was the waitress that she said, "I'll have to ask my manager" and left for just that with the pizza still in hand.  

This was bad enough, but worst of all according to my friend was the girl's stock answer to every request -- "No worries!"  To my friend this was the most insulting, thoughtless and annoying reflex, and as a former teacher, she was dying to break the girl of the habit, but in the interest of peace held her tongue.  It was actually the second time this week that the phrase was mentioned as the cause of conflict between a zoomer and a boomer.  My daughter at work, had overheard some Karen biting a kid's head off for responding to thanks with "No worries!"  Rather than accepting it in the spirit it was intended, the to that point  reserved older customer laid into her with a chilly and shaming, "Doesn't anybody say 'Thank you' anymore?" I had to agree with my daughter that whatever her intentions were with the outburst, the ranter had created worry where "no worries" had been invoked. 

It got me thinking about the phrase.  It hadn't originated with Gen-Z I was sure.  I'd heard it before of course.  And yet, there is something poignantly zoomer about it.*  This is the generation that has known only the internet world.  It has only known post 9/11, post financial crisis inequality and surveillance capitalism.  It has come of age to massive college debt, sky high rent, the end of federal protection of abortion rights, reactionary anti-trans hysteria, an epidemic of right wing political movements assuming power across the globe and a climate crisis that is both obvious and stubbornly ignored by those who did nothing to prevent it, are doing nothing to prepare for it and are hogging the controls.  It is a world of anxiety and an age of dread.  In this milieu, how sweet is it that the de rigeur verbal social oil, the expression of hospitality and welcome is a simple wish: "No worries."  

If only.

~~~~~  

*My daughter, who I sometimes refer to as a millennial was actually born on the cusp and confessed to me recently that she most readily identifies with the younger cohort.  I think I might too.

Outbursts

10 second tirades:

Why ethnically innovative and gender-neutral casting of period pieces and classics is controversial only to bigots:  History is bunk.  It happened wrong and we've got to fix it.  

Why we are doomed:  Because only money gets to talk and money is an idiot.

Those who have corporate structured jobs (which include government and healthcare and media and law firms in addition to corporations) lie to themselves about how their lives reflect the reality of America.  The word mainstream sounds like that’s where most of the stream is, but it’s just a name for the thin band of stream that we’re allowed to listen to and see on our tvs and whatnot which is by for and about the people in that stream.

Lately when I feel nostalgic for some era I am sometimes troubled by the question of whether that era was as golden as it was solely because it was stealing from this one?

Space used to be exciting but now that it's gone commercial it's just another disappointment.  Mars exploration is just another show.  I can barely participate in the excitement and elation about it.  It looks like groundbreaking for a mall, a mall that’s going to die anyway (thank goodness) so let’s cut out the middle man and kill it now.

I have nothing against the unborn.  As long as they stay that way.*

I don’t dislike Burt Lancaster movies per se.  I definitely hold 50s and 60s adult mainstream middle brow melodrama in much lower esteem than I used to as a naïve child in the 60s.  But that doesn't mean I won’t watch it.  It gives my eyeball rolling muscles a good workout.  The best part about it is I can play with my phone with much higher concentration and no guilt.  That’s a good thing in my view since I am extremely addicted to my phone. It’s just hard to convey how literally, seriously and non-ironically ok I am with that genre of movie for exactly this reason.

First Elon Musk completely takes away my freedom as a non-user to scroll Twitter without joining up.  Then he changes the name of the site to X.  X my ass, Elon Musk.

Given how top heavy the leadership of the neoliberal order is with old people who will not let go of power, with nothing else happening in the way of socialist revolution, how can it be wrong to root for attrition?

Corporate Democrats are weak tea oomphless nothings who make sure they never lose financially or careerwise, but when it comes to politics never win.  Whenever they do manage to win, in spite of their belief that it’s only because they succeeded at pretending to be cool and correct Republicans, it escapes their notice that it’s really only because they lucked into being not Republicans for the 5 minutes that people who actually vote thought it mattered somehow that Republicans were not good. 

When it comes to money and getting theirs, liberal neoliberals (third way dems; elder hippie boomers and anyone of any age who emulates them) will drop their protest signs and solidarity in a minute. When it comes to sympathy and solidarity with the financially unfortunate, it’s no longer "kumbayah" and "we shall overcome", but rather "sucks to be you."  

If there is to be any hope for the planet and its inhabitants we need to cooperate now on a solution but we hate each other too much for that to ever happen.  What's more, some people are very pleased at how much hate there is preventing the implementation of effective solutions  (because this means their heads can remain attached to their necks.)  

Or am I just being a grumpy ol’ silly billy?

~~~~~~

* It's a joke.

Futility Belt

When Cornel West announced on Russell Brand's podcast his intention to enter the presidential race on the People's Party ticket (the phantom contrarian internet political branding championed by Jimmy Dore and some other questionable losers) an ostensible Green Party member of my acquaintance expressed the opinion that the move demonstrated the ultimate futility of electoral politics for the left.  His tune mellowed a bit a few days later when Dr West was publicly convinced by his friend journalist Chris Hedges to switch to the Green Party, but my friend's commitment to the Green Party is tenuous at best inspired as it was by essentially well-placed if inchoate rancor at the Democratic Party dating back to 2016 at least.  He tells me he will vote Green if he's in a voting booth election day, and somewhat more enthusiastically if the candidate is Cornel West, but his disillusionment with the political process is deep -- and who can blame him*?

No one running is ideal.  The only ideal candidate is not running.   And yet if Bernie had something in 2016 and 2020, and I believe he did, why couldn’t someone else in 2024?  Marianne Williamson is no Bernie for sure, but she’s a hell of a lot better than Biden. (And getting better every day.) Honestly she is trying to do what Bernie did—she’s trying to make the conversation more intelligent and relevant to people’s lives.  Somebody has to try because Biden (if he retains enough marbles to carry the standard for November 2024) may not win it this time.  And that does mean Trump or DeSantis unfortunately, and not Cornel West.†  

DeSantis to me makes Trump look like Biden.  My problem with sitting it out is, DeSantis wins and most of us are fine—we just complain at the tv and keep duking it out with each other on the internet and meanwhile non-citizens are rounded up, police kill black people indiscriminately, children go to work in meat packing plants, and trans people are not just denied healthcare, but killed.  And if you get sick and can’t pay for it too bad. And books are banned and ideas are banned and people are banned.  And pregnant people are forced to give birth coast to coast.  (Yes, pregnant people, because you think they’re going to let someone get an abortion because he says he’s a man?)   And the planet dies.   I mean the part of this I really hate is how DeSantis wins and most of us are ok.  We’re unified in our disgust, but meanwhile we’re living in Nazi Germany.  That’s what they want—they don’t let themselves think or say out loud that it’s what they want but it’s what they are actively working for.  And what Biden is working for is lame as shit but it is less evil.  That’s my main pickle. 

For my part, I wish it were enough to say electoral politics are futile for the left, or at least I wish it were enough for me.  It would be simpler that way.  I have after all never really gotten what I wanted at the polls in 40 + years of voting (except when I did in 2008, but we see how well that turned out).  But I’m personally too afraid of taking my powerless hand off the non-functional rudder to give it up to those who are eager for my disillusionment to get the best of me.  It’s a hang-up I can at least admit to myself.  I think what’s missing for me is a convincing alternative to just letting the wolves have everything.  If I could be persuaded that the answer was just, “Hey it doesn’t matter anyway.” I might feel somewhat differently.  But the answer from the electorally nihilistic left seems to be, “It obviously matters, but there’s nothing you can do about it so just lie back, relax and <insert politically incorrect joke punchline here >”   

Or am I deluded?  Is it like the AI thing, where the AI progenitors just want everyone to think AI is going to spell doom for humanity unless we give the AI progenitors our full trust to neuter AI so that it won’t destroy us, but actually AI is lame-o and they just don’t want you to realize it’s just code designed to look pretty clever but it’s the lame-osity that masquerades very well as genius that we need to be afraid of, because we’re too credulous to distinguish between fraudulent cleverness and actual super human intelligence?  In other words,  is the utter dominance of the right over every aspect of government nothing to worry about (fraudulent cleverness); or is it something to shit your pants over (super human intelligence)?  I don’t think it’s super human intelligence, but it has real destructive impact, right?   I don’t think we have any control over it and I don’t think a vote is anything other than therapy. 

In other words, re left participation in the American political system, is the wised-up money saying don’t participate, just let the chips fall where they may?  I.e., no alternative but also so what, kind of? I'm not judging, just trying to try the position of political nihilism as I understand it on for size. 

I was hoping my erstwhile Green party friend had an alternative to the politics that impacts our lives where one who wanted some results could better spend their energy.§  Getting a bit frustrated with my persistence at taking the question seriously, he suggested that leftist efforts might better be spent on legislative and local races.  While I 100% agree, try getting Jane and Joe Sixpack to care about congressional races in their own district let alone across the USA.  If only our system were unbroken enough (while we’re waiting for sortition to kick in) that it were possible for people’s preferences to nominate a Bernie-like candidate in the primary who would bring along a wave of sympathetic new blood to congress and statehouses and governor’s mansions across the country in her wake as she roars into victory in November. People forget what primaries are supposed to do.  They think they’re merely rehearsal for November.

Given our fucked up political system, there are really only two reasons to vote.  In the primary, your duty is to vote for what you really want, to at a minimum try to put a bit of terror into the hearts of those who money wants (and usually succeeds in helping) to win.  To this point in the 2024 cycle, for a person like me it is really a no brainer who carries the standard for the things I want.  (Marianne Williamson for those needing help).  In the general election, when those with their hands on the reins are chosen, you vote to prevent the worst of money's two candidates from winning.

I readily admit my position on electoral politics-- essentially fake it till you make it-- is as effective as my nihilistic friend's.  The main difference is that my position temporarily relieves anxiety, sometimes.  I mean with Bernie it actually instilled hope and I, unlike almost every other leftist I listen to who begrudges Bernie for giving hope and then not winning, I say, Not him, us dammit!  He tried and we fucked up -- and give Bernie a life-time pass.  

So in the absence of an alternative, my position in the primaries is by default, "My vote doesn’t count, so who gives a fuck if I vote?"  I’m going to vote because for a second I feel I did my part even though fewer and fewer people who agree with me about where the country needs to go join me in it.  Making my vote even less countable.  ^_^  Thanks a lot leftists!  (I’m not debating damn it.  I’m internally debating and hoping  I may accidentally overhear where the fuck I’m screwing up and can straighten myself out.)

~~~~

* He's not a complete nihilist.  Like me he believes that the only true answer for politics-- the only hope for actual democracy-- is sortition.  Like me he is realistic about the odds of sortition replacing our current system in our lifetimes.  Unlike me he has decided pretty much it's sortition or nothing.

† I think it would be interesting if Cornel West and Marianne Williamson kind of tag-teamed the other losers in the race.  I like the idea of MW from the “inside” showing how Dems in an ideal-ish world ought to be doing it and hopefully giving Joe Biden et al a shit ton of trouble in the process—I aim to do my part in facilitating that-- and CW telling it like it is from the outside-- and I’m not opposed to giving some assistance in that regard.  Indeed, after the primaries assuming the likeliest outcome, since I live in a state that is safe for Biden (or whomever the money prefers the dem candidate to be), where my vote counts even less, I may yet pull the lever for Cornel West.

§ Vivek Chibber thinks the alternative to electoral politics is workplace politics.  He thinks union action Is where it’s at.  He’s got a real point, doesn’t he?   Fat lot of good that does me.