I can only hope.

I found out on NPR, which has never lied to me, that the common word beginning with “G” that we have customarily used when referring to Romani people is a hurtful racial slur. Bad news for Django Reinhardt emulators the world over who may need to change the name of an entire musical sub-genre. Ditto for a cool Curtis Mayfield song and a certain industrial vacuum cleaner. And possibly my opera “Meredith, or How The Elephant Lost Her Stripes” will, on the basis of a single scene, be subject to widespread protests and calls for its withdrawal. Assuming anyone notices.

Epic

Okay. Bear with me. Ithaca, New York, is named after the Greek island where Odysseus, alongside his son Telemachus, killed a whole houseful of suitors who were sniffing around his wife Penelope while he was away. Ithaca, New York, is not home to the world’s largest watering can. That’s in Utica. Ithaca, Michigan, is named after Ithaca, New York, and it’s where you’ll find Pencil Craft LLC, providers of high-quality giant pencils. Pencil Craft owner Vic Flegel offers several sizes, all of them featuring real wood, real graphite, real pink rubber erasers, and genuine copper ferrules. They are surprisingly affordable.

Let's all know more knowledge!

It turns out that you contain more than 50 glands. And some of them have extremely funny names. Like Meibomian gland, Ebner's glands, and the unforgettable Glands of Zeis. Research has revealed that each gland produces its own specialized goop that does something vitally important, at least for the tissues and organs in its immediate vicinity. As an example, if you didn’t have saliva glands you’d have nothing to spit. As it is, they are so active that the average human swallows between 1 and 1.5 liters of saliva every day. Fortunately, not all at once, from a big mug.

Some grosser than others

Probably as you begin a new week there’s a bunch of stuff you want to get done, like transcending your gross physical form and becoming a spotless being of pure light and energy. It’s a tall order, but here’s a great way to start! Invite some Black Angus cattle into your home; treat them like family. Encourage them to share your simple vegan diet and to participate in ongoing discussions around how best to create a humane, ethical, sustainable future for the planet we all share. Then, when you have bored them to death, chop them up and eat them.

Like Clockwork

Did you know that when they first instituted time zones (so trains could keep schedules as they crossed longitudes) some people objected because as far as they were concerned their actual local solar noon defined “God’s time?” But to no avail; where I live, it won’t actually be noon today until about 13:08. And they’re seriously talking about making daylight saving time a year-round thing and my question is why not leave it alone and just start work and school earlier? Because at my age, springing forward is unappealing. I may not have an hour and eight minutes to spare.

I'm Gonna Be Strong

Call me squeamish, but simply hearing certain words spoken aloud can make me queasy. Oddly enough, among those words are “squeamish” and “queasy.” Nearly as bad: Gene Pitney’s voice, mayonnaise on corned beef, and the taste of strawberry Quik. Also among the things that make me squirm, that I find embarrassing and cringe-inducing, is when people say “out of” when they mean “from.” Unless you’re William S. Burroughs or a character in Guys and Dolls, it’s dumb. “They’re a small marketing consultancy out of Des Moines,” just sounds silly –unless by “small marketing consultancy” you mean “murder for hire operation.”

The Old Reliables

When I write this stuff, I try to avoid being too topical in my choice of subject matter because I want to leave a deathless legacy of universal human truths. I want the readers of the fall-flung future, resplendent in their gossamer tunics, to remark to one another (whether in Esperanto or through telepathy) that this particular long-dead scribe (me) had an astonishing grasp of the human condition and it just goes to show that the more things change the more they stay the same. That’s why my rants emphasize misery, cruelty, greed, and stupidity. They’ll never let you down.