CALL ME SNAKE

I’m honest enough to admit that not all trends in this nation get their start at Call Me Snake, although we’ve had our share–the national handball craze and bumper sticker contest competitions being just two recent examples. Here’s something I wasn’t the first to know about–the word “defriending,” which may be common usage by now but I only learned of it a few days ago from a friend who happened to overhear two women talking in a coffee shop. One said, matter-of-factly, “Oh yeah, I’m defriending her.” That’s a fun word, and I’m looking forward to using it soon. But first I’ve got to figure out which unsuspecting friend (or should I saw unsuspecting former friend?) is going to get the ax. I’m spinning the wheel right now. As for where, or on whom, it will end up, no one knows. It could be you.

Not to boast but… (How many times have I started with those words?) Yes, I’ve been published again–this time in an extremely exclusive venue, my college’s alumni newsletter notes section. And I was writing, ironically, about being published elsewhere, so we’re dealing with many levels of publishing here, especially if you consider online publishing to be publishing. Anyways, this is what I wrote in the newsletter and I’m repeating it here for no good reason other than I’m feeling kind of tired:

Inspired by the letter-writing success and prowess of fellow alumn ____ ____ , I managed to get a letter printed in the Cambridge Chronicle on the burning issue of Cambridge’s dearth of handball players. There are only five handball players left at the Cambridge YMCA, and I’m one of them–the youngest, in fact, which gives you an idea of the future prospects for this sport. (For awhile it looked like there were going to be six until the new guy, Daniel, ripped his Achilles, which put us back to five again.) My letter attracted a lot of attention locally, though no book or movie deals yet. Nevertheless, I have since become a columnist for the paper–perhaps on the strength of my handball manifesto. The Chronicle, by the way, is pretty much where my freelance writing career began and now, it appears, pretty much where it will end.

Who is labor’s greatest champion? Perhaps you might pick someone like Cesar Chavez, the former head of the United Farm Works who died 15 years ago. But if you picked Chavez, you’d be wrong for labor’s true greatest champion is none other than Mitt Romney. Why can I be so confident? Because Romney said so. Campaigning in Michigan, he presented himself as the greatest friend labor’s ever had, based on his experience at Bain Capital, where he was a job-creating machine the likes of which we’ve never seen before or since. But an article in Sunday’s Boston Globe challenged that assertion. While some of the compaies that Romney promoted in his role at Bain did grow and create jobs, other companies he advised shut down factories and laid of workers. Employment and the livelihood of workers was the last thing on Romney’s mind. He only cared about one thing–making money for Bain’s investors–and in that area he excelled. And that’s the one thing about the Zelig-like Romney (did you see him in the picture with Martin Luther King?) that you can bank on.

My wife and I met some friends at an upscale ethnic restaurant last night to celebrate two birthdays. It’s a very elegant establishment, with great atmosphere and convivial surroundings for conversation. And the food, moreover, was delicious. But by the end of the meal, both my wife and I felt sick to our stomachs; she wasn’t sure she could make it home on her bike (about two miles) owing to the fact that she thought she might die before we got there. But she did make it and gradually felt better; my general queasiness subsided as well. Taking stock of the experience, I said: “It’s a great restaurant. You just can’t eat the food.”

Call me old-fashioned but I’ve never had a phone with caller ID until now. Last week, I used it for the first time. I got a call I was unable to pick up from England and did not recognize it. It wasn’t my friends in Bristol or London, nor editors at London-based magazines I’ve worked with, nor physicists I know at Imperial College. So I did something I’ve never done before: I typed the phone number into Google to see what came up. To my surprise, the number came up at a website about unwanted phone calls called “800Notes.com” Here’s what someone else had to say about my mystery number: “I have recieved (SIC) numerous calls from this number. they make you think it is one of your credit [card companies?]…” With that mystery solved, I did not bother to call the number in England to see whom or what I missed. Because what I’d missed was a nuisance call, and Caller ID–combined with the power of Al Gore’s invention (aka, the internet)–spared me from some “important information concerning my credit cards.”

Last night I saw “28 Weeks Later” with the same friend I saw “28 Days Later” with a couple of years ago. While it is a solid entry to the horror genre, it also has the most stomach-rending makeout scene every put on film. That gave me pause. And when I look back over my life, I’m forced to conclude that I’ve seen an awful lot of zombie movies, starting with “Night of the Living Dead” 40 years back and including Dawn of the Dead, Shaun of the Dead, Trouble Every Day (an obscure French one), the 28 Days/Weeks series, and several others I’m sure I’m forgetting right now. Although some of these movies hold a bit of fascination for me–Shaun of the Dead was hilarious, and the “28″ pictures are extremely well made–I really don’t like zombie movies. There’s something about zombies; they kind of give me the creeps, especially the fast-moving ones of the 28 Days/Weeks saga, which are very nerve-racking. I prefer my zombies slow and lumbering, the kind you can easily outrun, although they do tend to be persistent. I’m thinking of doing something drastic here and swearing off zombie movies altogether. It’s probably time for me to move on to something new, even if that just means a new kind of monster. And I think I will stick with that resolution, at least until “28 Years Later” comes out…

I want to tell you about something exciting. Last night I was doing the dishes (don’t worry, that’s not the exciting part) while listening to the final 15 minutes of the Celtics-Timberwolves game on the radio. In this era, when a single sports bar may have a dozen large TV screens, listening to sports on the radio may seem rather passe’. But I have to say, listening to the end of that game on the radio–which the Celtics won by a single point–was one of the more thrilling experiences I’ve had as a sports fan, and with what’s been going on in Boston over the last several years, there’s been a lot to choose from. So don’t get rid of all your old radios in favor of large-screen, hi-def plasma TVs. Because that old radio can still deliver the magic upon occasion, as it did for me last night…

Who ever figured I’d be writing three posts about “3:10 to Yuma”? I never did. First I saw the original movie last year and made note of it (first post). Then I heard a new movie was in the offing (second post), which I finally saw last night (third post). Not as good as the original–a very shaky start–but it picks up in the second half and builds to a satisfying conclusion. The main reason I bring this up is to get back to our discussion of actors and cowboys. Some younger actors, I’ve argued, lack the gravitas to pull of a convincing cowboy turn. They just look like kids in a costume playing with toy guns. But Russell Crowe, who has been good in many other roles (the Irish-American boxing movie, for instance), is more than up to the challenge. Christian Bale put in a solid performance, as well, but it was Crowe’s acting that held this picture together and made it worth checking out if you go in for the cowboy genre, which I do though I know it’s not everyone’s thing.

Yesterday a friend (call her “Karen”) sent me a note I liked so much that I decided to reprint it here, essentially verbatim, save for a few minor tweakings, corrections, amendments, abridgements, and general wordsmithing:

“When you called, I think I was trying to feed C., get his bath ready, and assemble a pot of chicken soup that we could eat later this week. So I was a little bit harried.

I think I need to learn how to chill. I find that a lot of my time with C. is like that. Sort of like the mode you enter when you’re getting ready for a party and guests will be coming. So you’re running around trying to do 30 things at once…let me get this food ready, but first let me clean out the sink, oh, wait, let me mop up that spill, give me that plate, let me go to the basement to get more plates, well, if I’m going down there I should throw in the laundry, so let me change C. so I can wash his jeans, but first he should have a bath, and while that’s running, I’ll put away these newspapers, but only after I see if there are any recipes worthwhile in the Dining section, in which case I should cut them out and write the ingredients on the shopping list, and write on my to-do list that I have to go shopping, oh, yeah, I can’t forget to take out the garbage, so let me empty the diaper pail, and I might as well restock the diaper shelf, it looks like we’re running low on diapers so I should check to see if there are more in the basement, and what else was it I needed to bring up from the basement…? Etc. So. For me, life with a toddler is like constantly preparing for a party. A party that never actually happens.”

Here’s a novel idea: Let’s prosecute real criminals for a change. I’m tired of hearing about criminal cases filed against people like Marion Jones and Barry Bonds for lying about steroid use. Jones has been shamed, stripped of her medals, and stripped of her cash. Isn’t that punishment enough? The same goes for athletes like Bonds and others. The are real crimes against society that are going unpunished. Let the sports world deal with infringements of their reals, and let the criminal justice system go after people who are doing real harm to others.

I was throwing some clothes in a closet shelf over the weekend, when I got inspired to sort through the mess and see what items had accumulated there over the years. I found things I had forgotten all about. I also had a chance to take stock of my blue jean collection and was surprised to see that every one of them had a tear on the right knee. That seemed like a strange coincidence to me, so I started to wonder whether it was a coincidence. I’ve tried to pay attention over the last couple of days–say when I drop a napkin or clean up some milk that my youngest spilled on the floor–and I’ve made a discovery: I seem to be a righthanded kneeler. Or perhaps I should say a right-kneed kneeler. I’m not sure why that’s the case. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that I right lefthanded. Or the fact that I throw a ball righthanded. I can’t explain it, but the pants I’ve acquired over the last several years do not lie: The right knees are shot, whereas the left knees look fine.

The lesson here appears to be that you never know what you’ll find when you look through your closet. So far, thankfully, I have yet to turn up any skeletons.

A well-known computer scientist–someone I interviewed for an article quite a few years ago and have seen around town many times since–recently posted a singles ad on Craigslist with what strikes me as a great title: “Intelligent atheist white man seeks sweetie.” Like I said, I think that title’s a winner. But then again, I’m not the target audience. For starters, no one’s ever called me “Sweetie” before, and I’d just as soon keep it that way. Nevertheless, I wish this atheist the best of luck.

As reported in these pages just three days ago, a friend recently told me that he was “happy–that things were really good.” That might not seem so remarkable were it not for the fact that I rarely hear people apply that word to themselves, especially blurting it out without any provocation. And then it happened again yesterday. Another friend, apropos of nothing, told me he was “really happy. I haven’t felt better for years.”

What’s going on, I wondered. And, more to the point, what are they putting in the water these days? For a second, I almost caught the bug too, thinking I’d had a pretty good couple of days: The Patriots won on Sunday and our family had gotten through a three-day weekend without too much strife. Was I happy too? Fortunately I came to my senses before making a fatuous proclamation like that. Still I was shaken up to the point where I am considering it…

Recently I’ve been writing about the decay of the vacuum, which is how I’ve become familiar with the work of Harvard physicist Sidney Coleman. I wrote about Coleman, who was known by his colleagues as “the physicist’s physicist,” for the first time this week and just learned of his death in yesterday’s Boston Globe. Apart from being a deep thinker–a person who could help us know the unknowable–he was also a notorious night owl. Once he turned down a request to teach a 9 a.m. class, saying “I can’t stay up that late.”

We’re introducing a new feature here at Call Me Snake called “Finish This Sentence,” which no doubt will prove to be one of the most popular new features ever introduced here at Call Me Snake. I was walking home from the YMCA on Sunday morning and passed the entrance to a nearby church where some church functionary, holding some literature, said to another man: “which sounded like a hardship but…”

That’s when the inspiration for “Finish This Sentence” seized me. Here’s how I would finish it: “was really a challenge.” If you have any ideas, please let us know. The winning entries will be posted at a later date. Be patient if you have trouble getting through. We may well experience “bandwidth problems” in view of all the anticipated traffic.

Last night a friend spoke of a French woman who recently moved to Cambridge and is put off by the friendliness and cheerfulness and general “upbeatness” of Americans, which strikes her as phony. In France, she says, people say what they really feel rather than putting on a false front.

As an American, I see it a little differently. Yesterday a friend told me that he felt happy–that everything was going really well, and it struck me how rare it is that I hear something like that. In fact, I can’t remember the last time someone spontaneously told me, without being prompted or asked, that they felt happy. People are trained to say “fine” when asked how they’re doing. But we view that as just being polite, not acting especially cheerful. Or at least that’s how I see it. And I’d certainly prefer that to a bunch of complaints which I often hear anyway.

I almost never drive but had the vague sense I should check the mileage, figuring we were probably due for an oil change. When I finally did check, the odometer indicated that we had gone not just 3,000 miles but 13,000 miles! I could hardly believe it, as that’s more than we normally drive in two years, but there it was. The numbers don’t lie.

Still I could not account for such a reading and the only thing I could come up with was that my mother-in-law, who had used the car for a couple of weeks this winter, had ran up nearly 10,000 miles. But that too seemed hard to believe, and my wife resented me for even suggesting such a thing. I finally figured it out today: Somehow we’d switched over to a trip odometer and the numbers looked close enough to confuse me. They also confused the guys at the car repair shop who relied on those numbers as well. The long and short of it is: My mother-in-law is off the hot seat. And I, as usual, am back on it.

I’ve been wanting to see the movie “Once” for about six months now and finally got around to it last night. The expectations have been high for all this time and few movies can live up to a buildup like that. But this one did. The title is apt because it is an original movie like nothing you’ve ever seen before. I was particularly struck by a scene–and, in fact, a couple of scenes–in which the two leads, Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova, walk the streets of Dublin, with Irglova towing a vacuum cleaner during their jaunt. As I said, it’s like nothing you’ve ever seen before.

There’s something about buying milk that opens you up to all kinds of abuse. I bought a gallon at 7-11 last night and a homeless guy hanging out near the counter decided that gave him a free pass to hassle me. “A whole gallon?” he said. “You must really need the milk.” As I was wearing a hat at the time, he asked, “You don’t have a bald head, do you?” I tried to shrug him off to no avail, as he persisted with the pestering: “At least partially?”

I don’t really know what kind of connection he was trying to make between milk and baldness. But in my experience nothing brings on more ridicule than buying a gallon of milk. Except for buying two gallons of milk.

It should be obvious that I’m no fan of our former governor, Mitt Romney, who has a little problem with the truth. (They don’t see eye to eye, it seems.) I had hoped to see him trounced in Michigan and bounced right out of the race. It looks like we’ll have Mitt to kick around for awhile anyway. And the man does have money to spend.

Last night a friend told me she felt sorry for Romney. He’d made a lot of mistakes in his campaign, she said, because he wasn’t really a politician. I, on the other hand, felt no compassion whatsoever, saying, “He should have thought of that before he decided to run for president.”

For some people swimming offers a kind of time-out, a little break from the workday in which time can almost stand still. Yesterday when I swim, time did stand still. I went into the pool at 1:50p.m., swam a half mile, and came out at 1:50 p.m. Of course, the clock wasn’t working at the pool and the sense of time standing still was an illusion. Yet it was an illusion that I welcomed. I hope I’m not overreaching by saying we should all have moments like that from time to time…

During last-minute campaigning yesterday in Michigan, Mitt Romney was asked what kind of cars he owned. Romney stumbled for a bit, saying something like “let me try to remember…” And then he did remember: HE HAS A FORD MUSTANG, which he miraculously remembered while visiting the state of Michigan. We need a president with a good memory, and Romney has demonstrated that in this department he is more than qualified.

I just saw a note-perfect romantic comedy–a romantic comedy for people who, ever since Sleepless in Seattle, have decided they hate romantic comedies. It’s called BROKEN ENGLISH, and I’m not sure the movie has found its audience. Perhaps the problem lies in the marketing: “A must see for ‘Sex and the City’ Fan,” says the large (i.e., “money”) quote on the back cover, which makes it sounds like a date with a cheap floozy rather than the classy product it is.

An article in today’s Boston Globe asks the question: “Is plastic making us fat?” The premise of the article is that plastics in the environment can make people predisposed to obesity and could be a factor in the general weight gain in our population. But I’d like to suggest another hypothesis, namely that laziness is making us fatter. People spend too much time sitting in front of a computer (mea culpa) and in front of the TV set and, to make things worse, they drive everywhere or–in the case of children–are driven everywhere. At my gym, where people go to work out, they even take an elevator up one or two flights rather than walk. So while some scientists might blame it on plastics, I’m going to go with laziness for now.

The sports section of today’s Boston Globe had photos of two extreme sports I won’t be trying. One showed a guy (age 24) surfing in Half Moon Bay, California in waves more than 40-feet high. Another showed a guy (also age 24) flying 30 feet above the ground and above his motorcycle as well as part of some kind of extreme exhibition in Providence, Rhode Island.
“Did he die?” my daughter asked.
“Good question,” I replied.

Writing about Mitt Romney, Boston Globe columnist and Democratic consultant had this to say: “Is it just me or has Romney passed the president as the most detestasble Republican around? The other GOP campaigns can’t stand him either.” Payne goes on to say: “Romney’s is a candidacy of contrivance, consultants, cash, and cynicism.” Well put, Dan. I couldn’t have said it better myself.

Speaking of great lines, there was one in a haunting movie I saw last night called “The Dead Girl.” After having sex during a roadside tryst with a weird guy on a first date, the Toni Collette character asks him: “Can we please stop talking about serial killers for awhile?” Nice line, Toni. I couldn’t have said it better myself.

I had some questions, as most people do at some time or another, about tunneling probabilities and decay times in de Sitter space and how that all relates to the Poincare Recurrence Theorem. So I sent four related questions to the world’s top expert on this subject, a Stanford physicist. Thanks to the internet, my answers came back in just five minutes–a fact that still amazes me, even after having used the internet for a decade. So now I’m all set, if only I can understand his answer.

I was trying to write earlier tonight and started feeling a bit groggy. So I put the work aside and called a friend who I owed a call.  After talking for 10 or 15 minutes, he started getting tired and needed to turn in. I, on the other hand, felt positively renewed. Somehow I managed to sap his energy over the phone lines and get a fresh burst of energy that has kept me going for awhile now. In the electricity business, that’s called a “parasitic drain.” So if I start calling late at night, and you’re not ready for bed, you’d best not answer the phone. I’ll put your answering machine to sleep instead.

It’s time, once again, for a favorite feature here at Call Me Snake, “TV Shows I Won’t be Watching Tonight.” As the idea is pretty much self-explanatory, I’ll start right in with the list:

1. Auschwitz: Inside the Nazi State — Everyone should probably watch a show like this but it sounds really painful.
2. Amar sin Limites — Sounds self-indulgent, if you ask me.
3. The Celebrity Apprentice: Teams must produce ads to promote a pet-adoption program — I must be heart-hearted to turn my back on this one, but you’ve got to draw the line somewhere.
4. Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader? — From what I gather, most 5th graders can’t find the Pacific Ocean on a map. Finding out that most 5th graders are smarter than me is too depressing to contemplate.

That concludes today’s listing of “TV Shows I Won’t be Watching Tonight.” Tune in later for “TV Shows I Did Watch Tonight.”

Much has been made in the media of Hillary’s staged “genuine” moment when she got all choked up over how hard it is to stay motivated and keep her spirits up during a hard campaign. The pundits claim this was a key factor in her turnaround in New Hampshire. But can people be so stupid as to fall for these fake displays of emotion? (Probably.) How many times have her advisors told her to try to look real?

It’s not just Hillary, of course. Romney has gotten misty on the campaign trail, probably when thinking about how he did not march with Martin Luther King, Jr. Even our hard-hearted president, who thinks nothing of bombing people, gets emotional at times, perhaps in anticipation of a long-awaited day to clear brush.

While we’re on the subject, one other thing that’s bothering me: Hillary ended her victory speech saying “God bless.” To me, that shows great arrogance: She now expects to be the Democratic nominee and is practicing her God blesses so that it will sound natural by the time she’s running against a god-fearing Republican.

Here’s an idea for a movie: Someone calls out the name of a chipmunk, let’s say “Alvin.” After no response, he calls a little louder. Still no response. So this time the man really shouts it out: “A-L-V-I-N-N-N!!!” And there’s your movie. What do you think?

A friend of mine took his kids to see it–i.e., “Alvin and the Chipmunks” (which my 5-year-old is also keen on seeing)–and told me it’s not as bad as it sounds. Which reminds me of what Mark Twain said about the music of Richard Wagner: “It’s not as bad as it sounds.”

I haven’t paid as much attention to this primary as I have in previous years, partly because I’ve been so busy lately and partly because I figured that by the time we voted in Massachusetts, the whole thing could be wrapped up. Yet I did see the Democratic debate last weekend–the first debate I’ve watched this year. I’ve been wanting to like Edwards, as he impressed me a lot four years ago when he debated Cheney, but his performance on Saturday did not wow me. All that talk about evil corporations, while truer today than ever, struck me as old fashioned and unlikely to catch fire. Similarly I found Hillary’s ploy to embrace “change” to be transparent and unconvincing. Richardson, despite his great credentials, seemed like a sideshow. That left Obama who looked like the best bet to me, though I hadn’t been certain before. Coming into Tuesday’s primary, I got caught up a bit in the enthusiasm over Obama, which hadn’t happened to me before, so the results came as a disappointment. (What a bummah!) Especially after seeing how flat Clinton was during her victory speech compared to Obama’s stirring address. “She used to be an absolutely horrible speaker, but she’s a lot better now,” I told my wife. “Now she’s just poor.”

Yesterday I informed my mother-in-law, who’s spent her entire professional career in academia, that I was invited to give a humorous talk at a big scientific gathering–in fact, the biggest such gathering of the year. “Oh really, Steve? I never thought of you as humorous.”

One of my articles recently came out in a Swiss magazine but about the only words I recognized in it were my name, as it was published in German. I sent a copy of the magazine to my sister-in-law who is German to see how they did with the translation. She said the translation was fine, which I found reassuring at the time. But then the doubts crept in. How could she know when I never showed her the original text? Not that it was her fault; it was really more of a flaw in experimental design. Still she’s family and I’m going to trust her on this one, especially after hearing that she liked the story. With that statement alone, her credibility shot way up in my book. I’m sure she’s right about the translation as well.

My five-year-old loves Mexico and, at least for the tourist, what’s not to like: Warm sunny days in the middle of winter and warm, clear blue water to swim in. That’s just about all she talked about during the months preceding our trip. And yesterday morning, when we had to leave Mexico, she sat in bed crying, not wanting to go. When we got home later that evening, and she was happily playing with her stuffed animals, I said to her: “I know you like Mexico and all but it’s nice to be home, isn’t it? I mean would you rather be here or in Mexico?” After pausing for less than a picosecond she said: “In Mexico.”

Just returned from a week in (sometimes) sunny (sometimes rainy) Mexico. Critics have informed me that for a so-called volleyball blog, there is precious little volleyball on these pages and a good deal more about handball and even sudoku for that matter. So this time, I am going to stick with volleyball. Just the facts, ma’am, as they say.

But getting back to the beach (aren’t we all trying to do that?), I’m always on the lookout for a good volleyball ame. I don’t enjoy hitting it around with a bunch of drunks who don’t know what they were doing. After a couple of days there I saw some folks–a man and a woman, actually–at the neighboring hotel who really knew what they were doing. I worked my way into the game and played several games on their team. We won them all, though I had little to do with it. Both of them were amazingly good. But as for how good, I had no idea until talking with them afterwards. It turns out both played on professional teams in Europe. The man was a member of Mexico’s national team and would soon be playing in the Olympics. The woman was just about to start playing in the professional beach volleyball circuit. They were nice people and didn’t make a guy 30 years their senior–and rusty from not having played volleball for many months–feel too bad.