MSY to ORD to MSP

When they make you turn off all electronic devices on the airplane, I’m pretty sure they’re just messing with you. Because, if there was even the remotest chance you could do any damage, they wouldn't let you have them. They don’t say, “If you’re travelling today with any explosive devices, please be sure they are disarmed and securely stowed during takeoff and landing. ” You probably couldn't hijack a plane by threatening to turn on your Nook. Then as we deplaned, I saw a Sikh driver holding a sign that said “Christian White.” And I thought, “That man is mislabeled.”

Hey good lookin'

Rule of thumb, here: Mutations tend to persist in a species if they meet one of two criteria. Either they are adaptive and help an individual to survive (big brain, opposable thumbs) or they are so inconsequential as to have no effect (male pattern baldness, rollable tongue). Mutations that are bad for you tend to go away pretty quickly. Now, alcohol rots your liver, makes you stupid and lazy, gets you into fights that aren't worth winning. So why do so many humans tolerate, even crave, this toxic fluid? Anecdotal evidence suggests that it may convey an important reproductive advantage.

Imagine canine cologne.

We have peculiar relationships with other lifeforms. For instance chalk. Because, if you were a diatom, think how horrified you'd be to discover that billions and billions of the skeletons of your ancestors where being scraped across sidewalks for purposes of hopscotch. Then there's dogs, who have to eat food that's designed to smell good to people. Seriously, if dogs formulated it, dog food would smell like a blend of sun-ripened carp and cat feces. And I just read that researchers have found a promising treatment for multiple sclerosis in mice. Shouldn't we be investing in cures for humans first?

Velcro was a blind alley.

This is an age of wonders. I suffer no risk from diphtheria, polio, or smallpox. Cheap shipping makes it possible to locate the menial underlings who serve me far enough away so I never have to see them. My communications are enhanced by a little apparatus that keeps me in touch with people all over the world while ignoring the human across the table. I have a water filled chair that rinses away any substance I put in it, allowing me to urinate and defecate right inside my own home. However, my shoes are still held on with knotted strings.

That good old shock of the new

Everybody knows who Virginia Woolf and James Joyce are; we just don't read them. We haven't read what they read, either, and context and continuity count for a lot. Maybe that's why to us Florence Lawrence doesn't look like a movie star, Whispering Jack Smith doesn't sound like a pop idol, and Bob Hope just ain't funny. Maybe you're only ready to hear Sonny Rollins, Elvin Jones, and Wilbur Ware riff for almost a quarter hour on "What Is This Thing Called Love" after you've plugged a whole pocketful of nickels into a jukebox to hear Billie Holiday sing it.

When life gives you melons, make an analogy.

The thing about cantaloupe is every once in a while you get one that is absolutely exquisite. No amount of thumping, thumb-pushing, or sniffing can predict when this will happen. You just open it up and it astounds you with its preposterous and unanticipated deliciousness. Some days are like that and in this way cantaloupes are sort of like life. However, in my experience no cantaloupe is so awful you can't imagine how you will get through the whole thing and you certainly don't look forward to ever starting another. In this way, cantaloupes are not like life at all.

The Wodehouse version would be a hoot.

George Cayley was this English guy, the 6^th Baronet of Bromptom. In 1853 he built a glider that was basically a kayak on wheels dangling under a big canvas kite the shape of a manta ray. He got his butler to sit in it and pushed it off a hill for a successful flight across Brompton Dale. If they made a biopic about this guy, he would fly it himself, but George Cayley was 79 years old at the time and also a Baronet, a level of social standing that exempts one from hurtling through the air in a canoe.