Somewhat pale and peaked

Dang! This is my latest rant ever. By latest I mean tardiest, not most recent. It is also my most recent, and will remain so until next week, at which time it will be supplanted by a later rant which I promise will not be as tardy. I’m about half done now... Look, as long as I have you here, see what you can do with this: “It was while on holiday in the White Mountains of New Hampshire that I took up my trusty Montblanc to write to a dear friend in Tenerife. The topic? Alban Berg, of course.”

Tricks of the tirade

Look at the following: “Acme Boot Wax. No brand of boot wax has been shown to be more effective in the prevention of club foot and hammer toe.” See how that works? There's no actual product claim in there. This is how we sell you toothpaste and baldness cures. Or try this one: Add up the number of years everyone has been working to make it seem like you're a bunch of seasoned veterans. So your organization might claim a century of collective experience – sounds good, but if you employ 100 people it's not really all that impressive.

Get in touch with my people.

They keep producing sequels, prequels, and remakes like nobody can make up a new plot. Folks, it's not that hard. These are just off the top of my head: “Abraham Lincoln on Mars.” I can even visualize the poster for this – the lean angular frame of the Great Emancipator with his trademark stovepipe hat in stark silhouette against the ruddy Martian sky. Or “The Ninja and the Nun.” “He's a highly trained killing machine. She's a bride of Jesus. Theirs is a doomed love in a world they never made.” Or get this: “Black Einstein.”

[D] all of the above

I'm delighted to be able to report a growing number of things about which I have no opinion whatsoever. I started small. We were talking about meat, and it occurred to me that while a rare steak can be delicious, I have enjoyed them well-done too. Both equally toothsome. No particular preference there. A room can get awfully cool or pretty dang warm before I have any trouble sleeping in it. I'm OK with it either way. But this soothing state of mind could make creating a weekly rant a bit problematic – I'm not sure how I feel about that.

Mm. Salty.

Here's a sentence that sounds naughty but in fact is not. “With some difficulty, the old gentleman pulled himself erect and carefully mounted the rostrum.” Tee-hee. Rostrum is Latin for the prow of a ship, but refers in this case to a platform for public speaking. Because it's out in front there, see. Rostrum also means “beak.” Some fishes, including the humble anchovy, have something in their snouts called the “rostral organ.” Anchovies are the litmus test of pizza. You may not like them, but you'd never order a pizza from a joint that didn't offer them.

Introducing the 2011 Vergognoso

There's something to be said for the rough frontier justice of the marketplace. Old names like Packard and Studebaker are remembered fondly because when their time had passed they simply withered and fell. Not like Chevrolet, now under the oxygen tent with needles in its arm and tubes up its nose. Lean in close and you can hear the feeble wheeze: “Let me die.” Worse yet is the unspeakable prospect of an unnatural coupling between Chrysler and Fiat, the offspring no doubt an uncomfortable and clumsy sedan that won't start in the rain, for which no parts are available.

Perturbations of the aether

I live close enough to campus to listen to low power college radio. That means I get to hear music that a global hierarchy of broadcast professionals has decided is not worth hearing. Well, even experts can be right sometimes. Like if you listen to an indy rock song and after the first 5 minutes you think to yourself, “Wow. They really really know this chord.” Or maybe you'll hear something that if a musician heard it they'd say it was poetry, but a poet would define it as music. That's human nature. Blame it on the other guy.