CALL ME SNAKE

A friend who’d been living in Paris for the past 20 years asked for a copy of a book I published 16 years ago. It was available on amazon.com and one copy cost just a penny (plus modest shipping&handling fees). I bought that one up, as it was an outrage to me and every other author, living and dead. The book had been in the University of Michigan Library–at least through 1997–after which there was no record of anyone checking it out further. As a matter of policy and pride, I will continue to purchase every book of mine that is available for just a penny.

I just got assigned a fun article by a publication sometimes billed as the world’s leading scientific journal. Which is all to the good except for one wrinkle. The head of a major astronomical observatory told me that if I went ahead with the story, he might be fired & the observatory shut down–not because anyone did anything wrong there but because this kind of publicity might imperil an already dicey situation. So now I have to figure out what to do. If I go ahead with the piece, and this guy is right, I’ll only be known for one accomplishment in my entire life–as “the man who killed ____ Observatory.” But at least I’ll be known…

I started my book tour a year early, talking about string theory and geometry to my 2d-grader’s math class. I figured it would be a pretty tough crowd but they behaved themselves well, sitting through the whole boring lecture without incident.

I’m not as active in my daughters’ school as I’d like to be but, the fact is, I don’t have time to take on much. At a recent meeting, they asked for a volunteer to run the next meeting. As no one else was stepping up to the plate, I raised my hand. Afterwards I asked a friend, “What exactly did I volunteer for?” I really didn’t appreciate the scope of the responsibilities I’d taken on. “The future of the school lies on your shoulders,” someone else told me. And in some ways, I guess that’s true. If my role had not been broadcast so widely, I’d be looking for a way to back out of it now.

I’m not as active in my daughters’ school as I’d like to be but, the fact is, I don’t have time to take on much. At a recent meeting, they asked for a volunteer to run the next meeting. As no one else was stepping up to the plate, I raised my hand. Afterwards I asked a friend, “What exactly did I volunteer for?” I really didn’t appreciate the scope of the responsibilities I’d taken on. “The future of the school lies on your shoulders,” someone else told me. And in some ways, I guess that’s true. If my role had not been broadcast so widely, I’d be looking for a way to back out of it now.

A friend came back from a restaurant in Portland, Maine, where he ordered a “bowl of slop.” But he was
disappointed in the final product. “Really?” I asked.
“It didn’t live up to your expectations?”

I’ve long wanted to break into the movies and came close to literally doing that this evening. I was in Harvard Square, in a hurry to get down Dunster Street, so I could buy burritos around the corner at Dunster Street. Except Dunster was closed because they were filming the Ben Affleck picture, “The Town.” I was in a rush, as I said, because our babysitter was leaving in 15 minutes and I didn’t want to get caught in a long line with a bunch of kids on the burrito meal plan. So I barged ahead on my bike, practically riding right through the movie set. All the while, I was imagining the director or A.D. saying: “Film this guy on the bike. That’s gonna make our movie realistic because Harvard Square is full of these nuts.”

The old Robert Redford movie, THE HOT ROCK, starts
with what looks like your typical jailyard shot. But wait,
there’s a difference! The men are all playing handball.
Is this jail? Or have all these men gone to heaven? Were
it not for the presence of a man in a tower, holding a rifle,
the scene was no different from my weekly (or biweekly)
games at the YMCA.

For some reason, my daughter cracked up yesterday when I called the video store. I’m not sure what was so funny. I just asked them: “Do you have any copies of ‘Drag Me To Hell’?”

My wife and I have noticed that the eggs we’ve been getting of late are sticking to the fry pans, and there seems to be no way of getting them off. As a result, our frying pans are now covered with a thin, intermittent coating of flaky egg crust. It’s made me wonder what’s behind this development–perhaps some evolutionary adaptation to make eggs a less attractive choice to human consumers. If so, I’m curious as to what’s behind this change, the chicken or the egg?

We just got a letter from our city’s new school superintendent who said he was “appreciative to ____ _____ for leading the ___ School as Acting Principal.” I’m not sure if his sentence was technically ungrammatical but it sounded bad to my ears. And the superintendent might want to set a higher standard than your average neighborhood blogger.

This morning before school my 7-year-old daughter said exuberantly: “I am fully ready for winter.” I’m afraid I can’t say the same. I’m still harboring hopes of one last beach volleyball outing, and it appears that’s not going to happen. I need to adjust my attitude, as my daughter has already done, and embrace the change that is coming whether I like it or not…

I like to think that the relationship between a man and his drain cleaner is about as close as it gets. I’ve been seeing the same guy from Rooter Man for many years owing to a longstanding problem involving tree roots and our drain (“main line,” as it’s called). I’ve always thought that we got along well. That is until I got a message from him today on my voicemail saying: “Hello Steve… F_ _ _ you, a _ _ hole!” He later explained to me the usual line: It’s not me, it’s you. Or something like that. Actually he was having trouble parking his van because of street cleaning and some joker was giving him a hard time. The real explanation then was: “It’s not you, it’s him.”

I’m sick of the ads for Steve (Joe) Palooka who’s trying to fill Ted Kennedy’s Senate seat. The guy wants to tell us his positions on various issues and I say who cares? I could care less what that guy thinks about health care or anything else. So what if he earned a lot of money while working at Bain? How does that qualify him to fill Kennedy’s shoes? His TV ads suggest that we can do better. And I heartily agree. We can do better than Steve (Joe) Palooka.

I’m writing about Benjamin Peirce who was arguably the first mathematician of note at Harvard. I found that he wrote a history of Harvard from its founding through the Revolutionary War and ordered it through the library, thinking I might find something useful in it. What I found was that I had the wrong Benjamin Peirce. This guy was a librarian at the university; he entered college 16 years before his namesake, the mathematician. That’s never happened to me before. I have never gotten the wrong Benjamin Peirce before and, given the upset it has caused me, I hope I never get the wrong Benjamin Peirce again.

If you go through life thinking you’re an original—someone who routinely “breaks the mold”–the Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony can be a humbling experience. The event, held each year at Harvard University, celebrates weird science as you’ve never seen it before. That is unless you’ve attended an Ig Nobel ceremony or two. I’ve been to all 19 of them, and have seen some strange things over the years. Last night’s show was no exception. I came out reeling, as I do every year, struck by the realization that I’m actually pretty ordinary. The “wild and crazy” ideas that I come up with wouldn’t even rate a footnote next to the accomplishments of the true Ig Nobel laureate. When I’m done recounting what went on last night, you’ll know just what I mean.

Thursday, October 1, 7:27 pm I arrive in Sanders Theatre to a packed house, rife with anticipation. The house is so packed and so rife, in fact, that I have to ask a rather hefty woman to slide over so that I can squeeze into my assigned seat on the bench.

The natives are becoming restless, as they say, and a chant—“Ig, Ig, Ig Nobel!”—begins to circulate through the hall, starting as a faint rumble and building to a din. It’s a traditional Ig rallying cry, according to legend, “attributed to the first person who chanted it.”

7:30 A safety monitor of some sort discusses the types of activities that will, and will not, be allowed onstage. Laparoscopic surgery is one of the banned activities, as is a proposed sledgehammer toss from the balcony. But waterboarding is considered permissible. Sword swallowing is also on the “approved” list, and I sense some foreshadowing here.

7:36 The master of ceremonies Marc Abrahams, dressed in tux and top hat, takes the stage explaining that “tonight we’re going to honor achievements that first make people laugh and then make them think.” That’s been the party line for the past several years when they stopped using words like “psychotic” and “mind-numbingly stupid” to describe the things people were about to see and hear.

Abrahams, the editor of THE ANNALS OF IMPROBABLE RESEARCH, introduces the eight genuine Nobel laureates participating in the proceedings, noting that a couple of others may surface later. (Two, in fact, do surface later, although one of those is merely an image projected on a slide.) He also introduces some Ig Nobel winners from previous years including a scholar who investigated the effectiveness of Coca-Cola as a spermicide and another brave pioneer who successfully cured hiccups through digital rectal massage. Upon hearing about this technique, the crowd suddenly grows quiet.

7:47 Dan Meyer, a former Ig Nobel winner, swallows a long sword onstage, which is removed by two Nobel laureates. Which brings to mind the old gag: “How many laureates does it take to remove a sword from an esophagus?” I suspected that we would get an answer before the night was done.

7:59 Benoit Mandelbrot, the inventor of fractals, delivers the keynote address on “Risk” in financial markets, which is a topic he’s written about before. It’s also the theme for this year’s festivities. The speech is supposed to last 60 seconds, but it appears that Mandelbrot does not have enough material to fill even that brief interval. He stalls and is eventually rescued by “Miss Sweetie Poo,” an 8-year-old girl who’s charged with moving
the show along by letting speakers know when she’s bored. She’s not at all subtle, droning on and on—as 8-year-olds are wont to do—about how bored she is. The kid is effective, but her act can get tiresome.

8:04 The first part of a never-before-seen opera, THE BIG BANK, is presented. The title of the act, “Two bankers meet in a bar…,” sounds like the start of a bad joke. But the singers can belt it out. And the lyrics aren’t half bad either: “I love meeting people I’ve just met, especially if they know how to leverage debt…”

8:15 “Let’s get it over with,” Abrahams says, announcing the announcement of the Ig Nobel Prizes. Ten are to be given out in all. One for each finger. That is if thumbs are fingers—a point I hope we clarify later.

8:18 The Veterinary Medicine Prize goes to Catherine Douglas and Peter Rowlinson from Newcastle University, who discovered that cows that are given names by their keepers produce more milk than cows that are nameless. “There are many I’d like to thank,” says Rowlinson, upon accepting the award. “Some humans, but mostly cows. Thank you Bluebell, Buttercup, and Daisy. I could go on with lots of cow names that are very popular.” But fortunately, he does not, as Miss Sweetie Poo puts a stop to that one, but good.

8:26 Five from the University of Bern get the Peace Prize for conducting experiments that answer the question: Is it better to get hit over the head with a full bottle of beer or an empty one? The answer turns out to be a full bottle of beer, perhaps because you might get to sip some of it afterwards? Speaking above the laughter, one of the Bern scholars tell us that this is an important legal matter that frequently comes up in the courtroom. Not that Miss Sweetie Poo cared. She had begun her irrevocable death march, and the Peace winners were soon to become history.

8:34 The Chemistry Prize went to a trio from the National Autonomous University of Mexico who made diamonds (or at least diamond film) from a liquid. That has been done many times before without anybody winning an Ig Nobel Prize. But, of course, no one thought of making diamonds with tequila—a conceptual that put these three into the winner’s circle. Javier Morales revealed the key to their success: “If you drink a lot of tequila, you will see anything you want.”

8:41 Donald Unger, an 83-year-old allergist from California, wins the Medical Prize for showing that—contrary to what his mother, several aunts, and (later) his mother-in-law told him—cracking knuckles does not lead to arthritis of the fingers. At least in the case of his one experimental subject, himself. For 60-plus years, Unger cracked the knuckles in his left hand at least twice a day, while leaving his right knuckles alone. Neither hand ever developed arthritis.

Unger appreciated the acclaim he was now receiving, figuring he probably deserved some sort of award after 60 years of knuckle cracking. “Now the only thing left for me is to decide what I want on my tombstone,” he tells the crowd. Apparently, he’s already decided: “Here lies Don Unger, who has finally quit cracking his knuckles.”

8:50 Act 3 of THE BIG BANK. “The big banks took their revenue and shot it into the sky,” the singer croons. “What could be stupider? Sending money to Jupiter?”

8:58 Elena Bodner of the University of Chicago walks off with the Public Health Prize for designing a bra that can double as a pair of emergency face masks. “Isn’t it wonderful that women have two breasts and not just one?” she asks. “That means we can save not only ourselves but the man of our choice.” The device takes only 25 seconds for the average woman to use, she explains. “Five seconds to unlock and apply, and 20 seconds to decide who the lucky man will be.” To demonstrate, she slips off her bra, detaches it, and places masks on two Nobel laureates, Wolfgang Ketterle and Paul Krugman. She slips off a second bra, which she drapes around her mouth and that of another laureate, Orhan Pamuk.

Of course, Nobel laureates who participate in the Igs are used to such indignities. A few minutes later, another laureate, Martin Chalfie, serves as the booby prize in a Win-a-Date contest. Here’s how this illustrious man of science is described to the audience: “A folk guitarist who enjoys playing with worms and singing Swedish drinking songs while hopping like a frog.” Too bad the guy wasn’t just draped with a bra.

9:03 The sword swallower is back on stage. They’re going after a “world record,” with nine Nobel laureates retrieving the sword from his mouth. Although the feat proceeds without complication, I wonder whether this was one record that would have been best left unset.

9:12 Fumiaki Taguchi of Kitasato University gets the Biology Prize for showing how kitchen refuse can be reduced more than 90 percent when exposed to bacteria extracted from the feces of giant pandas. Taguchi begins to extol the virtues of panda feces, particularly its lack of smell, when young Miss Sweetie Poo decides enough is enough. And in this case she was right.

9:21 After the photo opps and farewell speeches, the crowd begins filing out of the auditorium. On my way to the exit, I dodge Francis Fessmire, the returning Ig winner (of digital rectal massage fame) who’s passing out anti-hiccup kits to any and all takers. I want no part of this, and keep walking without looking back.

The meeting between two celebrated bloggers, one hailing from the East Coast, the other from the West, went as smoothly as could be expected. The East Coast guy appreciated the fact that the Californian did not rub in the fact that he was the recipient of a coveted “Best of the Blogosphere” prize, only one of which has been awarded so far. Such restraint was probably warranted in this case, however, given that the East Coast guy was the one who handed out said prize.

Sometime in the next day or two, I am likely to meet a celebrated blogger face to face–someone with whom I’ve communicated in the blogosphere but never met before. It’s a big step & a moment I face with some trepidation, because I’ve enjoyed my blog interactions with this individual and can only hope that the direct interactions will be as pleasant.

Thirty years ago, when I was still a youngster, I used to live in a group house near Harvard Square across the street from two guys who I frequently saw walking their white poodle. Today, on my way back from coaching soccer, I saw those same two men walking a similar-looking white poodle. Only these men were now senior citizens, one walking with a cane and the other rather stooped. I guess they’ve aged a bit over the past 30 years, and come to think of it so have I.

Last year I wrote a nice column (or so I was told) about a guy who had retired from running a music school after 40+ years. The story was about what the guy was doing next in this new phase of his life. Only now it appears that we need to scrap that whole thing, as I ran into the fellow today (at the YMCA pool) and he told me that his replacement did not pan out and he was back to working full time, running the school once again. So much for retired life. And so much for my acclaimed column. (Or at least acclaimed by my mother-in-law who is no soft touch.)

MORE GREAT INSULTS IN THE HISTORY OF INSULT SLINGING AND HURLING, Part 567- by Steve Nadis

It’s Thursday, kind of late, and I’m kind of tired. Which means it’s time for another installment of “Great Insults in the History of Insult Slinging and Hurling.” Tonight we have a putdown from one of the world’s all-time greatest putdown artists, Grouch Marx, who once quipped: “I’ve had a perfectly wonderful evening. But this wasn’t it.”

Glancing out the window yesterday afternoon, I saw a Cambridge squad car pull up in front of my house. Then a police officer got out of the car and walked up the driveway toward our house. If I had any drugs, this would be the time to strain my wrists flushing them down. But I didn’t think the cops were interested in my Prilosec so instead I asked: “Is everything OK?”
“Fine,” replied the officer. “I’m just using your trash barrel.”

Trying to keep my newly-painted deck clean is, I realize, a lost cause. I don’t look favorably upon bird droppings, as a general rule, but yesterday a rare item was deposited on our deck–a furry lump that I later determined to be an “owl pellet.” My kids later dissected it, finding claws and other body parts. So that was pretty cool. And it made me wonder, has an owl taken up residence in the giant maple above our deck? Or was it just passing through?

I painted my deck over the weekend, and for the moment everything looks beautiful. In a few days, though, it will all be splattered with bird poop–a multicolored array thereof–and I’ll be wondering why I bothered.

The title pretty much says it all. But I still want to explain that all of the above is true and more. I had an egg on toast for breakfast today and bit into something hard, that I almost swallowed, which happened to be a thumbtack. That would have done a number on my already delicate digestive tract.
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But how did the thumbtack get there? And did I have a potential lawsuit on my hands against the purveyor of said eggs? After thinking it through, I decided there was only one plausible scenario. I had tried to get the eggs out of the carton but they stuck and the shells broke. So I poured them into the pan and stirred them up. In the process, a yellow thumbtack (coincidentally the color of eggs) fell into the pan unnoticed. How did the thumbtack get there? I realized that someone in my house had been making hardboiled eggs and thumbtacks are sometimes used to poke the egg before boiling. So a thumbtack must have accidentally fallen into the carton. And it eventually came out in the middle of my egg and toast, which I thankfully noticed before ingesting. Sorry if that’s “too much information,” but those are the facts of the case. I’ll have to save my lawsuit against Shaw’s for another day.

Today we’re introducing our “Best of the Blogosphere” feature with a guest post spot going to fellow blogger, Paul De Lancey [see Lords of Fun link at left]. Like my usual “Guest Post” slots, this one is reprinted without permission of the author. That is the custom here at CALL ME SNAKE and standard operating procedure throughout the publishing world. After all, who in their right mind would not want to be published in CALL ME SNAKE if given the chance? To ask the question is to answer it. Which brings us to Paul’s aforementioned post:

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He Didn’t Eat There

I recently saw a coffee shop. Its sign proudly proclaimed, “Fresh. Delicious. Unexpected.” I kept walking as I want a restaurant to expect its food to be fresh and delicious.

This reminds me of a Laurel and Hardy feature. They were driving onto the lot of Wonder Pictures. The studio slogan was, “If it’s a great picture, it’s a Wonder.”
Indeed.

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Editor’s Note: I heartily second that “indeed.”

I was doing some research on the web about a Finnish mathematician famous for his work on Riemann surfaces when I suddenly jumped to a different webpage–that of SLURPEE NATION. I’m still not sure how I got there. I didn’t push any button that said: Take me to SLURPEE NATION. But I ended up there nevertheless. I’m not a religious man but perhaps “somebody up there” has decided this is where I really belong.

What’s up with mosquitos of late? It used to be they buzzed around long enough so that you could kill them. Or at least they’d land on your arm long enough for a swat. Now they’ve become incredibly stealthy. The last two nights, a mosquito was buzzing around me for hours and I never could get it. It would move in close for a second and then disappear as soon as I tried to locate it (and hopefully do it in). I was unable to get it either night and now remember this happened a lot last year as well, especially in the fall when they seem to invade our house. If last year was any indication, I’ll be battling these wily mosquitos for another month or two. And probably unsuccessfully at that.

Today, CALL ME SNAKE is introducing a new feature, “Dream Reviews,” since introducing new features is one of the very best features about CALL ME SNAKE. In my dream last night, I was undergoing a home invasion. I asked the guy who was taking over our house whether he wanted the orange juice. Otherwise, given that I was thirsty, I thought I might help myself to some. I was about to ask him if he was going to tie me up, in which case perhaps he could so kind as to tie me up in front of the TV & then turn it on for me. But I never got around to it.

I contacted the aforementioned university professor whose blog I had supposedly commented on. Only the comment was written by somebody else who, for some reason, chose to use my name. The professor/blogger removed the spurious comment, upon my request. Which settles the one problem, while leaving the other(s): Who did this, and why? What possible motivation and payoff could there have been? Have I been punk’d elsewhere, without my knowing it? And will I be punk’d again?

EDITOR’S NOTE: Sorry if I’m misusing the term “punk’d.” It’s not really part of my vocabulary, yet it seemed appropriate here.

It’s Thursday so it must be time for Freaky Friday. I know that sounds confusing, but that’s how I always put it. (Or maybe I don’t put it that way and am just confused.) So here’s the coincidence–or I should say the first coincidence. I was biking home with my daughter after soccer practice this evening, passing through the Cambridge Common. I commented to my daughter how crowded the playground was, considering it was 6:40 p.m. and starting to get dark. Then I realized that there was a party for our former preschool going on. I suggested stopping to say hi to some old teachers but then remembered our favorite teacher was no longer employed there. So we kept going.

A minute later, on the other end of Harvard Square, we ran into that very same teacher, coming out of a Dunkin’ Donuts. He said: “You’ll never believe it, but I was just thinking of _____ [i.e., my wife]. I saw someone ride by on a bike and it reminded me of her.” I told him, you’ll never believe it but I was just thinking of you a minute ago, explaining how I’d thought of him as we passed through the Common. So his coincidence was matched by ours, making it a rare Double.

I’m not sure what it means to be, or have been, “punk’d,” but I think it might have happened to me. I noticed on Google that someone with my name (a rare one, to be sure) posted a comment on a blog about evolution. The blog was written by a guy who (I’m pretty sure) has the same literary agent as I do. He was writing about an event hosted by a physicist that I know. (He has the same agent too.) The comment–allegedly written by someone with my name–refers to a foundation with whom I’ve also had dealings. But I’ve never visited that evolution blog site before and surely did not write a comment that went on for about five paragraphs. So what’s going on here? Has this same person used my name when commenting on other blogs? Is this another case of blog comment identity theft?

I recently saw the documentary, “Harvard Beats Yale, 29-29,” with a friend (who happens to be the brother of a noted blogger). It’s about a 1968 Harvard-Yale football game and one team’s dramatic comeback. The movie starts slow but picks up steam and is pretty compelling by the end. The biggest surprise, for me, was Tommy Lee Jones, who played in the football game (on the Harvard team) and is one of the talking heads frequently interviewed. Of all the characters in this film, he seemed like the worst actor given that his responses were extremely ponderous, filled with uncomfortable pauses, unlike other characters who you came to know and like over the course of the film. That’s the opposite of what I expected since Tommy Lee Jones can be a terrific actor (Coalminer’s Daughter), whereas these other people are not actors at all. The trouble was that he wasn’t playing an actor; he was playing a professorial Harvard egghead.

A collaborator and I have had several conversations recently about working on a new mathematics book. Yesterday morning, I woke up at 7 a.m. thinking about this book (or hypothetical book). I started coming up with a rough outline of the book in my head, which was sufficiently demanding–and stimulating–that it kept me from going back to sleep. So I went to my office to transcribe those mental notes into a tentative working outline. Before getting to that, I saw that I had an email from my collaborator who said: “I’m on my way to London and will be back on Monday. In the meantime, you ought to give some serious thought to this book.”

Today’s entry represents a departure for CALL ME SNAKE as all Celebrity Guest Comments in the past have been comments posted on this blog. Today I’m referring to comments posted in the local newspaper in response to a column I wrote about the standoff between volleyball players and Canadian geese along the banks of the Charles River in or near Cambridge. The anonymous commenter referred to such an outdoor volleyball game as a “sordid activity that encroaches on the habitat of he oft-government threatened yet seemingly quite resilient Cambridge goose… The time has come for Cambridge activists to apply their seemingly limitless sense of outrage and their three-minute limited public comment to this anathema.” Strong words from “Mr. Anonymous” that I, for one, hope will provoke even an even greater public response.

A guy I occasionally run into is fixing up the office on the corner (formerly occupied by architects), trying to get it ready to rent out. “Too bad the weather can’t always be like this,” he said. “It’s gorgeous outside.”

“That would be nice,” I replied. “On the other, if the weather were always like this–one perfect day after another–we’d probably be dead.”

I was multitasking last Friday, listening to NPR while trying to write something. Science Friday was on the radio at the time, and the subject was multitasking. The expert was saying that despite the popularity of multitasking we humans actually can’t do that well. In particular, he said if you’re trying to do something like writing, then listening to a radio program that consists of words (rather than just music) will be a real problem. There was a simple solution to that problem, at least in my case: Turn the radio off.

I took two books on my trip to California and read them both but in some ways it was like reading the same book twice. The first one, WHITE WIDOW (written by TV news guy Jim Lehrer), was about a Texas bus driver who is secretly obsessed with a female passenger, which leads to a tragic end. His life is destroyed and several people die in the process.

The second book, THIS SWEET SICKNESS (by Patricia Highsmith) is about a New York chemist who is secretly obsessed with a woman, which leads to a tragic end. His life is destroyed and several people die in the process.

I had no idea when I grabbed these two books out of my pile that the story would be essentially the same. Maybe this is the basic story of humanity that is told throughout eternity, with the names and places changed but the rest essentially the same.

While visiting one of my Santa Monica cousins (I have two & saw both during the recent trip), I had the chance to play some roofball–a game at which my cousin excels. It’s a good game, though not a well-known one. There is even a roofball.com site on the web written by someone who claims that he and his brother invented it in 1970 as kids (aged 7 & 9) growing up in Rochester, NY. They play with a tennis ball, as does my cousin, though my cousin insists that a serve has to bounce twice whereas the Rochester experts make no reference to that stipulation. They do, however, discuss similar kinds of shots, such as the crosscourt, drop, and lob, so the game–both West coast and East–appear to be basically the same.

I guess I have some pretty talented relatives as the aforementioned cousin just may be Santa Monica’s reigning roofball champ. Meanwhile, I have another cousin in Nashville who has competed at the highest international levels of rock, paper, and scissors.

That’s a tough act to follow, and it’s a shame that their Cambridge cousin (the CEO & CFO of Call Me Snake) only engages in obscure sports like volleyball and handball. But maybe one day I’ll build a garage–two-car preferably–and have my own roofball court to practice on. Then the East vs. West matchup should be more balanced.

Take notice, ESPN. Roofball is ready for primetime. But is primetime ready for roofball?

CALL ME SNAKE is back from vacation in California where we saw, among other things, many people carrying surfboards on their bikes. I, too, have carried a number of things on my bike including two scooters, 4 pairs of ice skates, a pair of skis and ski boots, two sleeping bags and a tent, and six bags of groceries. But perhaps my life–or bike-hauling life–is not complete, as I’ve never ever carried a surfboard on my bike.

Over the weekend, as I mentioned, I spent a couple of days on the beach. Not wanting to leave my computer on during the extreme heat we’re having, I turned it off for 48 whole hours, which I never do when I’m in town. I have to say, it was kind of liberating to be offline for two days. Which brings me to my next topic: CALL ME SNAKE will be taking a little siesta, and we’re going to be taking our little siesta in none other than Cal-i-for-ni-yeah. So I hope we’re all going to come back from that hiatus refreshed, brimming with new ideas for the upcoming season.

Upon returning from the aforementioned beach volleyball outing, carrying the net, a beach chair, umbrella, and assorted articles, I walked onto our driveway and came within inches of having my head taken off. My neighbor is removing her chimney and had set up some ropes and pulleys to transport bricks from a window to a big pile on the driveway. A container full of bricks slid past me, coming within inches of my head. “If that had hit you,” my daughter wisely said, “you really would have had a good claim against her.” Yes, I thought. But I’m not sure I would have been able to collect it after I was dead.

It was a big beach weekend for this kid: Saturday afternoon at Nantasket Beach, where the water was more than 70 degrees (almost unheard of in these parts) and all-day Sunday at Nahant where the water temperature must have been close to 70 as well. My friends and I played volleyball all day long yesterday and for me beach volleyball and swimming makes for an outstanding day. And it would have been perfect if other commitments hadn’t forced us to leave at 3:30 while the sun was still blazing and the temperature still in the 90s.

Among the many “hats” we wear here at CALL ME SNAKE, one is our essential–and unique–function as a tracker of cultural references to handball. It’s just one of the many things we do here–important things that others, for some reason, have not bothered to do, perhaps because they know that we’ll take care of it. A guy yesterday said they are running repeats of the ROCKFORD FILES these days, and in one ofthe episodes some guy (Rockford’s partner) played outdoor handball somewhere. And that’s what we’re reporting to you here, so that you are the first to know. It’s just like that line you hear on NPR: You cannot get this news anywhere else. But there is an important difference: I’m not hounding you for money every second of every waking hour. We’ll wait until our Fall Fundraiser for that…

They’re running Google ads on my blog, which has happened without any authorization from me; I guess that’s how blog.com subsidizes this whole enterprise. The ads tend to be local (Cambridgey things) and the last couple have related to friends of mine: One was for a realtor I’ve known for a long time; he showed my wife and I homes years ago before he dropped us. I also used to see him at the Cambridge Y, which he only went to because he thought he was unlikely to run into clients who would pester him with real estate questions. (He had that problem at cushier clubs like Wellbridge.) The other ad was for a prominent high-tech research center where another friend of mine works. I guess I’m helping out in ways that, until recently, I didn’t even know about.

I need to send something to a mathematical publisher and was told by a mathematician friend that I ought to consider a German publishing company. I needed the name of an editor (or two) to submit the material to and was surprised to discover that this company has an office with two mathematics editors on Mass. ave. right in Central Square, a few blocks from my home. Do I live in some hometown or not?

We haven’t had many hot days this summer, but yesterday was one of them–about 90, with high humidity (100 degrees with the “heat index,” they said–the kind of days you expect in August around here. I had already done several errands on my bike earlier in the day and decided to take it easy in the afternoon so I’d have some energy left for my volleyball game along the river. All I had to do was replace the battery in my watch. So I biked to the watch store in Harvard Square to get the battery replaced. They couldn’t get to it right away so I had to leave the watch there and come back in an hour. I picked it up an hour later and went home, figuring I would just take it easy and work the rest of the afternoon. But the watch wasn’t working so I had to ride back to Harvard Square. They couldn’t get to the watch right away so I had to leave it again and come back later that day. So I made four trips to the watch store in the hottest part of the game. I arrived at volleyball shortly afterwards and promptly lost the first three games I played. I had a perfectly good excuse, of course (“I had to go to the watch store”), but no one was buying it. “Can’t you come up with anything better?” asked one of players. No, I replied. I’m too tired to be creative.

I’m at a creative impasse, which means it’s time for “MORE GREAT INSULTS,” which is rapidly becoming one of the most popular features here at CALL ME SNAKE. This insult, brought to my attention by one “Marco Polo,” concerns a famous exchange between Winston Churchill and Lady Astor. She remarked, “If you were my husband I’d give you poison.” To which he replied, “If you were my wife, I’d drink it.”

EDITOR’S NOTE: The question mark after “Part 3?” reflects my confusion. I apparently have posted parts one and 4 which makes this #3, I think. I am not sure what happened to the original #2 and 3 which evidently did not make it online. But don’t worry, they will be posted. The public demands it an will settle for no less.

My friend Paul De Lancey (see “Lords of Fun” link below) whom I’ve never met before (which is why we get along so well) recently reported that he got blog.commed–an expression that refers to the overhaul of his blog, without his say so, in which he lost his bio, picture, links, etc. It took a long time (and a lot of hair pulling) before he was able to dig out of that hellhole, as he puts it, and get his blog back the way he likes it. All the bloggers here at blog.com have been through something similar during the recent ransition to a new platform (or server [or whatever they call it]). Right now you could say we’re in the Reconstruction Era. Better watch out for all them scalawags and carpetbaggers trying to take advantage of us innocent prawns…

My cousin called yesterday from an airport. He was making a connection somewhere and, at first, didn’t even know which airport–or city–he was in. (It turned out to be Pittsburgh, and I’ll resist the temptation to make a joke about that.) That wasn’t the only thing he was confused about. He had a new girlfriend name Kirstin but was having trouble getting her name right as he’d just gotten done working on a movie with a Kristin & and a Kristina, which was really messing him up namewise.

His old girlfriend (“N”), with whom he recently broke up, had told him he ought to see a therapist. “I am seeing a therapist,” he told me. “My new girlfriend, Kirstin, is a therapist. But I don’t think that’s what N was talking about.”