CALL ME SNAKE

I like writing funny footnotes when I can get away with it, but since they are just footnotes few people notice them. But online I recently found someone who wrote–“My favorite footnotes of all time, found!”–citing my 2006 article, “Deconstructing Astronomy’s Holy Grail.” I won’t repeat all the footnotes singled out by this individual but will mention one I wrote that I am fond of: “I can’t cite any official ‘source’ for this statement, but trust me, it’s true.”

As a matter of fact, I think that same statement applies to most of the things I put in this blog.

The preliminaries are over. We’ve had the Oscars and Golden Globes and any number of award ceremonies. Finally, the time has come for the only 10 Best list that really matters–mine.

“Why now?” some may ask. To which I reply, what’s the rush? It takes me awhile to get around to seeing the movies. I never saw “Milk,” for instance, until last weekend. But I’m finally ready with my picks, having seen most of the movies (although not all) that I think might have cracked the top 10. Here they are for anyone who is interested and even for those who are not:

THE TOP 10 MOVIES OF 2008
Slumdog Millionaire
Milk
The Visitor
Hamlet 2
Smart People
Big Bad Swim
Appaloosa
Young at Heart
Recount
Frozen River

Yesterday turned out to be a costly night, which is a shame because I’ve really tried to do some belt-tightening lately. First I gave in to all the begging for money from WBUR, the local NPR station. Then the phone rang; it was MASSPIRG asking for my annual contribution (plus to support some exciting new initiative!). The kids who ask are young, and how could I say no? A minute later, the phone rang again. This time it was Environment Massachusetts, asking for me to renew my membership (plus to support some exciting new initiative!). The kids who ask are young (were they the same kids?), and how could I say no?

The next time the phone rang, I was smart. I didn’t pick it up. But my daughter did. This time it was just a recorded message from her school, reminding me of something important that I should not forget. I’d tell  you what it was if I could remember. The phone didn’t ring again that night, which was just as well, since I’d already locked up my checkbook and thrown away the key.

A friend and local blogger and all-around fount of information directed me to a recent post written by an editor at Ski Magazine about the phenomenon of draping trees at ski areas with women’s undergarments. (Coincidentally, he’s the same member of the intelligentsia who told me about “manscaping,” which I’ve since renamed “the manly trim.”) I’ve known about this for many decades, having made many trips up a chairlift at Vail (#5) which evidently is famous for this. But my daughters and I just saw this–pants and bras hanging from trees–in Vermont a few weeks ago, so it is not strictly a Rocky Mountain thing. I’ve never understood who does this sort of thing, or why, and was looking for some answers in the report by the Ski Magazine editor. Unfortunately, I learned very little from his account. The best he had to offer was this: “Skiers love panties.”

I still didn’t get it until my friend (the knowledgeable one) put it this way: “I think the explanation is that people (and by ‘people,’ I mean men), want to announce to the world that they are getting laid. Even when they aren’t. And somehow throwing underwear on a tree sends that message.

I know you’ve got pretty high standards as far as what gets into your blog, so I won’t be hurt if I don’t read about it.”

EDITOR’S NOTE: Yes the standards at CALL ME SNAKE could not be higher. Yet I am always willing to make exceptions for friends, especially those who know a thing or two.

The following exchange was penned by “Marco Polo,” a frequent commentator on this blog. I got a kick out of it, which is why I’ve taken the extraordinary step of running this, our first ever “Celebrity Guest Post.”

Man 1: “Wow! What..  what was that??!”
Man 2:   “My sneaker.  I tried to hit the President.”
Man 1:   “Oh.  For a second there… I thought it was a U.F.O.”
Man 2:    “Well…  it was a U.F.O. … for that second!”

A mother at the Cambridge school my kids go to is heading for Washington to work in the Department of Homeland Security. That’s probably a good thing for our nation–or “homeland,” if you prefer. But what about my kids’ school, where this mom serves as “room parent”? It turns out those room parent positions are harder to fill than vacancies in the Obama administration. I guess this is another case of choosing homeland over home room.

Yesterday I spoke with a friend who’d been a reporter for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer for about 20 years. The paper, as many know, printed its last edition yesterday. When asked what he’d do next, my friend said he might try freelancing. Over living in his car. Or, more than likely, both.

My 6-year-old tells me that my handwriting is “horrible” and that I should join her 1st grade handwriting class. Many of the 1st-grade students, evidently, are already much better writers than yours truly, according to the resident expert. But do they have blogs? Sadly yes, as  the whole class has started its own blog. It appears that all my years of experience amount to naught and that vis-a-vis the younger generation I have retained no edge whatsoever.

You don’t hear the word wonderful that much these days, and that started long before the current “recession.” Yesterday, I heard the word twice, in the span of an hour or two. First, a mother stopped me on the way out of the public school to say that she volunteers in the math class and wanted me to know that my younger daughter is “wonderful.” She didn’t say what she meant–in what way my daughter was wonderful–and I didn’t press for details.

A short while later, a friend (and noted blogger, who knew enough to get out while the going was good) reported to me that his relationship with a woman he started dating a month ago was going “wonderfully.” So as days go, I guess yesterday really was wonderful. Today is another story. I’m getting depressed about the recession. Or should I say recessed about the depression?

A foot sufferer writes in response to my post (’The Best Cure Ever for Aching Feet’): “What a load of twaddle! Your foot obviously can’t have hurt that much, so your silly tale is not really of use to anyone who REALLY is suffering… [A] complete waste of time!” –ANONYMOUS

EDITOR’S NOTE: Well put, Anon. If you’re looking for twaddle, you’ve come to the right place. If you’re looking for practical advice regarding foot care, you’d best be off to podiatry.com or better yet foot.com.

A friend of mine (a noted blogger whose pen name–as opposed to blogging name–is “Malcolm”) was given some advice by a cousin after entering the dating game after being married for more than 20 years. Women these days, he was told, expect a guy to be presentable, and by that he meant they should be “manscaped,” which in turn means that hairs in certain private areas ought to be properly coiffed. It sounded like something straight out of Seinfeld, and if Seinfeld were still on the air today, we definitely would have seen an episode devoted to this. Only the term manscaping–although new to me, an innocent who has no idea what’s going on in the world of fashion–is already overused and passe’. I’d like to propose its replacement, which will–with your help–quickly surpass the original: “the manly trim.”

Normally when I return from one of my “fishin’” trips, I bring back some local color and nifty anecdotes that grace the pages of CALL ME SNAKE. But I  got none of that during this trip to Vermont, nothing that would do justice to CMS’s “Country Journal” imprimatur.

So instead, we’ll have to settle for a few minor comments. We got lost on our way to Ludlow, taking an hour detour by going to Chester. I can say that the scenery looked bleak while we were lost but looked much more beautiful when we had found the right path.

When I travel these roads with my mother-in-law, the Mr. Mike’s in Winchendon has an inexorable pull on us. We cannot avoid stopping there, it seems. On the homeward trip, we’d just finished a sumptious feast of haute cuisine at a place called Quatre Vingt Dix-Neuf (aka 99), and I thought we’d have no need for a savory at said Mr. Mike’s. But the kids clamored for a treat nevertheless, which they purchased while I filled the tank at our customary pit stop, Monsieur Mike’s.

Call Me Snake will be taking to the road for a few days to gather new material for the blog. Look for future installments of “Vermont Country Journal” next week. Until then, take it easy but take it…

I just stumbled across a cool movie title: “Morons From Outer Space.” I haven’t yet seen it, nor do I know if it’s available. But if the movie is half as good as the title, it might be worth a look…

Last night I watched the 1958 version of THE BLOB starring a young, and skinny, Steve McQueen. At the end of the movie we see the gelatinous, man-eating blob deposited somewhere near the North Pole. We’re safe, McQueen says, “so long as the Arctic stays cold.” Now (51 years later), with the North Pole melting, I’m  wondering whether we have yet another thing to be worried about–as if we didn’t have enough already.

I ran into my neighbor this morning while shoveling the sidewalk. We didn’t literally run into each other, but our shovels did more or less meet at the property line. She’s a PhD student at Boston University and was told the school was closed for “non-essential services.”  That gave her some pause regarding how to rate her own work and she ultimately decided to stay home.

If that standard were applied to my work, I’m not sure if I’d ever get anything done. And I certainly wouldn’t be blogging, as the world would carry on (in its rather dismal fashion, I must say) perfectly well without the likes of CALL ME SNAKE.

My coauthor has a thick Chinese accent, and my 6-year-old daughter has recently taken to doing impressions of him, talking in her version of a thick Chinese accent. She called yesterday to say, “Hi this is ___, calling about the book. It’s horrible.”