Coincidence? I think not.

I wanted to follow up on the world’s largest collection of pencils even after the Newton News of Jasper County, Iowa, tried to block my investigation. I’ve discovered that the record-holding collector is currently a math teacher in Colfax, Iowa, and that he is a native of Albert Lea, Minnesota, which coincidentally is the hometown of Eddie Cochran, who I mentioned here last month, and also of Richard Carlson, star of Creature from the Black Lagoon. What strange confluence of cosmic forces is at work here? More research is required around the inexplicable phenomena associated with the Albert Lea Vortex.

What I Believe

I know that my readers count on me for updates about the World’s Largest Pencil which title I believe at one time belonged to an office supply store in Wytheville, Virginia. The Wytheville Colossus, as I like to call it, has since been surpassed but remains my sentimental favorite. So, I was searching for “world’s largest pencil” and stumbled across a news story about the world’s largest pencil collection, which apparently a guy in Colfax, Iowa, has a lot of pencils. I would know more but the local paper’s website has a paywall and I believe knowledge should be free.

eye toll jew sew

It’s a shame that for political and economic reasons people all over the world need to learn to read and write English, a language so peculiar and inconsistent that even (and this is odd) its native users often find themselves flummoxed. Like when one is looking stern while facing the stern in the bow of a rowboat, shouting, “You scamp! Don’t cause a row, just take us into the swamp!” Or determining the proper ratio of the sides of your patio. Wait. I’m not through, though this is rough. Haven’t yet mentioned good and food, or dear and bear. Weird.

The Immortals

If Hank Williams had not died in his Cadillac at 29, if James Dean had not died in his Porsche at 24 or Clifford Brown in a different car at 25, if Johnny Ace hadn’t shot himself in the head also at 25, if Eddie Cochran had not died in a taxi wreck at 21, if Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and The Big Bopper (16, 22, 28) hadn’t died in that plane crash in 1959, there’s a pretty good chance they’d all be dead by now anyway, or extremely old. That’s something to think about, but not for very long.

What I've been talking about

I’ve been talking about nearly nothing else since I recently heard about the Axial Twist Hypothesis, which posits that you and I and everything that has ever had a spine basically has its head on backwards. What this is is an attempt to explain why we’re internally asymmetrical, why our brains control opposite sides of our bodies, and also something called Yakovlevian torque. Admittedly, I just skimmed the part about zebrafish embryos and am somewhat unclear as to what evolutionary advantage the Axial Twist confers, but I acknowledge that its absence would make it extremely difficult to button one’s shirt.

Yard Waste

Maybe we use the word “hate” too often. The kid doesn’t hate broccoli, they just don’t like eating it. Nobody actually hates Kenny G. or Nickelback, they’re just staking out their cultural real estate. But I really hate leaf blowers, especially the internal combustion ones that produce more noise than a Top Fuel dragster in order to accomplish less useful work than a push broom. Those really loud blowers are usually operated by lawn care professionals hired by homeowners who could do the work themselves with a manual lawn mower and bamboo rake but they’re at the gym. For exercise.

not debatable

If two guys came to my house with competing estimates for putting on a new roof and one was a strapping young lad and the other a slightly feeble geezer, among the things upon which I would not base my decision would be a comparison of their ages since my assumption would be that the person with executive authority is most likely not actually going to climb onto the roof to handle directly the shingle-based aspects of the work at hand. Further, if my choice was instead between two elderly men, I would choose the more well-meaning of the two.