Miss Piggy Lunchbox

I used to have a boss who had a few favorite slogans, most of which were meaningless to me. One of them was “It is what it is,” which I’ve actually heard several businesspeople use and was quite popular at this company. The other was, “The thing is…,” which she used at the beginning of sentences.

I think “It is what it is” is a statement that means roughly what Rumsfeld told the troops when he said, “You go to war with the army you have, not the army you might want.” In other words, this situation we’re facing is there, it’s real, and it may not be ideal, but we’re going to have to put our heads together and figure out how to address it. All fine and good, I guess, but when it’s used indiscriminately several times a day it tends to lose any weight it ever had.

“The thing is…” really was a meaningless phrase that functioned primarily as an indicator preposition and secondarily as a way to hold on to the floor in a meeting while you gathered your thoughts. If anything, it was used to mean that what followed was indisputable fact and the essence of the issue.

After a while, however, “the thing is…” morphed into its own idiom, its own preposition, and so after it had taken on that role, it functioned as a pronoun and thus needed a verb after it. So, without any cognitive dissonance in the room, people started saying “The thing is is,” with the first “is” accented, to start sentences. It meant exactly the same thing as “the thing is.” As before, the main use was to start your next sentence while you composed your thoughts so that somebody couldn’t steal airspace from you. As a result, it was often followed by a big pause. That pause, of course, begs for yet another transition into what the speaker’s point is.

All of this then combined into the following utterance, which, upon hearing, my ears fell off: “The thing is is is it is what it is,” with a slight pause between the second and third(!) consecutive “is”s. I would say this is probably the most useless thing I’ve ever heard, and the room was filled with high-salary technology workers. I shudder to think how much it cost my company for somebody to tell us that in a meeting.

How could I not have seen that the biggest problems the Twins had was that they just weren’t Christian enough? Thank God (pun intended) out machine Tony Batista’s on board to help with that this year.

From the STrib:

With Fukuoka, he said, he handed out Bibles inside the clubhouse to his Japanese teammates.

“And they read the Bible,” he said, without sounding surprised. “So I think God probably said, ‘You’re done over there. So go back here to Minnesota and talk about Jesus Christ to those guys.’ “

Sweet.

Elsewhere in the article, we get a three sentence quote from one of Batista’s former teammates.

“This is a guy you want to have on your team,” Orioles All-Star third baseman Melvin Mora said in a telephone interview. “This is a guy who is always talking about Jesus. All of the people are going to love him in Minnesota.”

If you can figure out what any of those sentences has to do with any other one, or how the second one necessarily implies either of the other two sentences, please fill me in.

[Due to Presidents Day, it's been two weeks since our last reviewing classes. Because of the extra time, we jumped right to the last assignment, which was to write a full review of 100-600 words and concern ourself with form, while keeping in mind key points from a handout in class. - Ed.]

[I've added "Filed Between" as another entry at the end of each review so you can get a better sense of my CD collection by noting what is now filed before and after each selection when I add it to the collection. I'm not sure why, but I have a fascination with each CD's neighbors. Look for a new addition in future reiews that I plan to have a lot of fun with - Ed.]

Born in Prague, raised in the United States, and educated in Spain, Marta Topferova, now residing in New York, is herself a walking melting pot of cultural influences. She channels all of these influences through a husky, breathy voice and a deliberate delivery that will turn off those who like their singers with their feet on the ground as opposed to their head in the clouds. Looking behind this projected image, however, will reward the patient listener when he finds an authenticity and a pervasive eccentricity that permeates more than her vocal stylings. Like the rare seven-course dinner with arrogant dinner partners, if you can make it past the snooty conversation, you find that La Marea is a cohesive sampler prepared from the menu of Topferova’s varied influences.

Our first hint of her eccentricity stretching beyond her deeper-than-the-deep-blue-sea singing style is in her choice of instrumentation. From harp to flute and from talking drum to Topferova’s preferred instrument, the cuarto, a four-stringed instrument similar in size and shape to a ukulele, things are kept fresh as every few minutes your ears have some new delicious sound to grab on to. If she were just affecting an artiste persona in her voice, it would come across as calculated. However, when she chooses eclectic instrumentation that supports her bohemian coffee-house stylings, she becomes pleasantly quirky with a new take on music.

It’s not all about the eccentricity, though, as Topferova also choose instruments with timbres that go well with her voice. A violin playing in its lower register on “Semana Azul,” an accordion in “La Marea,” and a talking drum in “Limonero” all sound here as if they could only be played for a Lauren Bacall sound-alike. In addition, Topferova knows how to get a lot out of these instruments for their own sake. When “Grano de Arena,” for instance, starts to feel like it’s run out of ideas, you find yourself wondering which is the rarer experience: anticipating a blistering harp solo, or actually having that anticipation rewarded when it arrives.

With a wide variety of not only rarely used sounds, but also of Latin styles and rhythms, you might expect Topferova’s bitten off more than she could chew. She quickly puts your fears to rest, though, by demonstrating a knowledge of and competency with each genre. You never get the feel that she’s reached beyond her ability, which all results in an authenticity you can’t help but respect. “La Gaita Ajena,” with its accordion, sounds like a tango worthy of Astor Piazzola without sounding derivative and “Corazón Manchado” is so infectious and confident that you feel as if the salsa is the most natural physical expression in the world, one you were born to do. This authenticity also comes through in the rare light-hearted track. Olive Garden commercial writers take note: with nary a word in “Fin de Fiesta,” which features glasses clinking, clapping and stomping, and background laughter, Topferova is able to provide with a more authentic feel of a Mediterranean family meal than you are in your heavily scripted TV spots.

With each listen, more positive aspects of this disc come to light. It’s the rare artist who can justify a vocalization style as aloof as the one on this album, but as a knowledgeable and creative songwriter, Topferova does just that on La Marea. As a showcase of her abilities in a diverse set of styles, she provides a primer for new Latin folk listeners, while at the same time adding enough new flavors in instrumentation so even veterans will find something to enjoy.

Vital Stats:

Rating:
Mix CD Candidates: “La Gaita Ajena,” “Limonero”
DMP Keepers: “Semana Azul,” “La Gran Manzana,” ”Corazón Manchado,” “Fin de Fiesta”
Filed Between: Lateralus by Tool, Microscopic View of a Telescopic Realm by Tourniquet

Friday is Poster Day in the KEN household. My Baby’s always trying to get me to do crafty, big-sky discussions about our life goals, plans, values, etc. In a textbook case of not-invented-here syndrome, I’m never into this…until, of course, it’s my idea. I give credit to My Baby for not calling me on this and just appreciating the opportunity it provides when I finally come around on my own terms.

“Make plan for job search” is an item I’ve had on my to do list for many months now, and I’ve been trying to get down into it, but since I’ve spent the better part of a year collecting ideas and thoughts about ways to go about proceeding, I was having a really tough time gathering up all this valuable information and putting into some kind of usable form. Everything seemed tangential and interwoven at the same time, which is not the kind of sequential mental organization that allows me to get things down into a kind of project plan.

Thinking about everything being interrelated, though, took me back to my arts high school tagboard and crayon days where we were taught to plan out our papers by using mind maps. That approach doesn’t appeal to me often, but based on my several false starts on my job search plan, it did last week. Since My Baby had Friday off (because tuition just isn’t high enough, I guess, for her to ever have a five-day week), she went out to get some tagboard and markers and we spent the afternoon listening to folk music and cutting pictures out of magazines.

My poster’s not complete, because I’ve still got loads of things to go through. I’ve got a first draft of a first draft. So for the time being I think I’m going to devote significant portions of my Fridays to this task, because its the perfect thing to do heading into the weekend, when I’m completely out of motivation for more structured tasks.

I’ve been meaning to write about this for over 11 months now. A lot of stories fall into that category, but I believe that this story has aged well. With another year in Boston under my belt, I’ve come to appreciate it even more.

There’s a column on page two of the Local section of the Sunday Boston Globe called “Getting There,” and it’s basically just a list of all kinds of tips and tricks for getting from some random point A to some other random point B. It’s also where the paper lists all the road closings for the coming week and gives just general transportation news. Incidentally, transportation news is like crack to this town (I’ve got a post-worthy essay about Big Dig news, too), and I don’t blame them given how difficult “getting there” actually is in this area.

I’ve tried to explain to family and friends just how messed up getting around is here, but it’s not really something that you can fully appreciate until you experience it. I think, though, that the absurdity of this story will come across to those of you not familiar with my current hometown. It happened not while I was driving, but rather while I was reading this Getting There column last March. Numbers in the text to follow refer to points on this map, which you should blow up in another tab or window to follow along..

The Problem:
Boston can’t get convention goers from hotels in Copley Square (#1) to the Boston Convention Center (#2).

…[C]ity tourism officials and bus-line operators…[have] mapped an elaborate maze of routes that [takes] buses at least 20 minutes to get [from Copley area hotels] to the Boston Convention & Exhibition Center. Streets [are] so cramped that bus companies [avoid] using the same routes to keep things flowing.

Proposed Solution:

In ye olde bloated fashion, there was talk of a $100 million “slingshot” ramp that buses could use to travel over the Pike (#3) to change directions.

Solution Adopted for the Democratic National Convention in summer, 2004:

The idea to use a dedicated lane was quietly adopted during the Democratic National Convention.

Another Temporarily Implemented Solution:

[L]ast week, those attending the International Boston Seafood Show took buses [from Copley #1] via Allston [area around #4] to South Boston [area containing the convention center], turning around before the [Allston] toll [#4] with the help of a State Police detail and cutting the 20-minute trip in half.

All right, so let’s revisit. Due to congestion, buses cannot move convention goers rom Copley Square (#1) to the Boston Convention Center (#2). It takes 20 minutes to get from Copley Square to the convention center, but if you head in the opposite direction and increase your mileage by more than 100% by going all the way to the Allston toll plaza with a police detail, well, you can do it in ten minutes. Okay, that’s all messed up enough, but it gets better.

Another Proposed Solution:

See, this guy named Robert Weiss had been pushing his own plan to move the convention goers around.

Then Weiss suggested [a] simple turnaround, something he discovered after he got lost.

Okay, I also want to point out that this is how all of these little tricks this column tells you about are found. People learn how to drive around here by getting lost. If you just spend enough time driving around and not knowing where you are, eventually you start to recognize enough stuff that you know all the ins and outs. Often, the best way to get from Point A to Point B isn’t one that was planned, but rather one that somebody found by getting lost and noticing that some exits and streets function better as a route for some purpose other than the one for which they were intended.

So what was this guy’s plan?

[Weiss] was among the first to suggest that buses carrying conventiongoers [sic] and tourists from Copley hotels (#1) to the Boston Convention Center (#2) head west on the Massachusetts Turnpike (#3) to get to South Boston (area around #2) then turn around at the Allston-Brighton tolls (#4)and head back in on the Pike.

Got that? To get from point 1 to point 2, you go in the opposite direction all the way to point 4, turn around and head back in on the Pike. And this is quicker, even without the police detail, according to Weiss!

So why doesn’t anybody in a position of authority want to implement this plan?

“Mr. Weiss’s so-called ‘Weiss Way’ involved buses traveling westbound through the mainline Allston toll plaza’s far right-hand Fast Lane, taking an immediate right-hand turn into our employee parking lot and then driving through the lot to get back onto the Turnpike eastbound,” wrote the [Transit A]uthority’s spokesman, Doug Hanchett.

Okay, so to wrap up, the quickest way to get from point 1 to point 2 is to go through point 4, which includes going through a transit authority employee parking lot. A city like this could only be planned by accident.

So far my class on reviewing has been going well in that I’ve been able to get out of it what I wanted, which is just good, constructive, honest feedback. There were a number of things pointed out to me in my class last week about my Brad Mehldau review. Most of these were things that would probably bore most, like the idea that the end of the first paragraph should be one of your strongest sentences (mine was weak) or that things may need to be repeated if it’s been too long into the review (like referring to Cole Porter penning “the title track” in the last paragraph). One thing really jumped out at me, though, and it was a comment that my writing is probably too technical to keep most readers’ attention.

This was surprising to me because I feel like I work pretty hard to keep technical stuff out of reviews, or at least explain them in a between-the-lines kind of way. I mean, I know not everybody knows what “timbre” means, but sometimes I want to talk about an interesting timbre, and I can’t think of a better way to discuss it so I try to provide some didactic context that doesn’t break up my flow and then figure that if somebody really wants to know and still can’t determine its meaning, they can always go look it up and the next time I use it we’re a bit of a tighter community. Sometimes I get lazy, though, as shown by my discussion of deceptive cadences in the Mehldau review. It’s a technical term whose description I won’t bore you with here, but, yeah, I should have focused on the effect a deceptive cadence has on a listener instead of resorting to a term none of you got.

The big surprise to me from the review, though, was that nobody knew what a damper pedal was. Well, that’s not entirely true, because I figure if I ask the general population to point out the damper pedal on a piano they’re probably going to get it right one-third of the time. I figured this was an example, however, where I gave enough context so that anybody who’d ever plunked at a piano for a few minutes would be able to catch my drift. Here’s what I said in my opening paragraph:

Radiohead is, of course, jazzy for a rock band, and their dense, synthesized orchestration lends itself nicely to liberal use of the damper pedal in translation….

I asked the class if they were able to figure out, based on my description of “dense..orchestration [that lent] itself nicely to liberal use of the damper pedal,” what the damper pedal was. Apparently what I wrote wasn’t enough to indicate I was referring to the right-hand pedal that lifts the dampers off of the strings and sustains (it’s also called the sustain pedal) notes even after the keys are released, giving a feeling of density that a harpsichord, with no such pedal, is unable to provide. My bad, and I’m sorry if I’ve come across as snooty when I thought I was being clear before.

From Salon:

The DVD containing the material includes a June 6, 2004, CID investigation report written by Special Agent James E. Seigmund. That report includes the following summary of the material included: “A review of all the computer media submitted to this office revealed a total of 1,325 images of suspected detainee abuse, 93 video files of suspected detainee abuse, 660 images of adult pornography, 546 images of suspected dead Iraqi detainees, 29 images of soldiers in simulated sexual acts, 20 images of a soldier with a Swastika drawn between his eyes, 37 images of Military Working dogs being used in abuse of detainees and 125 images of questionable acts.“
…

The DVD also includes photographs of guards threatening Iraqi prisoners with dogs, homemade videotapes depicting hooded prisoners being forced to masturbate, and a video showing a mentally disturbed prisoner smashing his head against a door. Oddly, the material also includes numerous photographs of slaughtered animals and mundane images of soldiers traveling around Iraq.

Crappety balls.

Like Bree, I took French in high school (we actually took the same class and she adressed me as “L’homme de la Grammaire,” which, as the most attention I got from the hot, cool girls in those days, was seen by my 16-year-old mind as a come on just shy of something to which I could respond in my Clavin-esque way) and am now taking level one Spanish. Coincidence? Probably.

Anyway, I enjoy coming home from class and telling My Baby, who knows a little Spanish herself, some of the crazy, concocted, broken sentences we spoke that day in class. For example, after the first day, I was able to tell her that “Tony Blair es ingles” and “Claudia Schiffer es alemana” (put your own accents in). Seriously.

Anyway, after we learned adjectives to describe a person’s characteristics, I came home and we got in a mild dispute in which I declared, “Eres egoista,” “Eres antipatico,” and so on. And to end it all, I finally laid it all out and told my baby:

“¡Eres con carne!”

Oh, the fun you can have with a language you barely know.