Syllabus #28

Last week/weekend was the first annual Eastside Comedy Festival!  It was the jam.  It was so much fun, everyone did a fantastic job, and it was super organized (my favorite trait in an event - no Fyre Festival up in here).  I personally feel like I crushed my set on Sunday, and even Andy deigned to say it was good...but dude, I forgot to record it.  It's nothing more than a fart in the wind now.  And I'm exhausted.

Which is unfortunate because this week is...Book Fair Week!  Which means it's also 'Scream into a pillow at regular intervals' week and 'Reapply hand sanitizer with enough frequency that it raises my blood alcohol level' week, because money is vile and disgusting and so are most children.  Except your kids.  Your particular kids are great, I love 'em.

I'd be willing to bet an entire paycheck that if either of these astronauts is married, one of their husbands at least thought about calling them on the space walk to ask her for a favor or inquire where a common household item is stored.

"Hey honey, next time you go to the store, can you get more pretzels?" 

"Are you fucking kidding me?  Yea, I'll get right on that as soon as I re-enter the Earth's atmosphere after completing THIS HISTORIC ALL-FEMALE SPACE WALK.  I would go right now, sweetie, but I DON'T THINK THE TETHER ON MY SPECIALLY DESIGNED LADY SPACE SUIT REACHES THE 250 MILES BACK TO EARTH."

What kind of tipper are you?  I'm a solid 20%er unless the service was truly terrible in a manner that is obviously under the server's control.  Watching my mom wait tables for years and working numerous service industry jobs myself (tipped and un-tipped) made me aware of how piss poor the pay is and how much bullshit those people have to smile through.

With celebrities that died in notorious ways long before our time, it's easy to forget that their death by whatever means was shocking and difficult for the people who cared about them.  This meditation by Allen Ginsburg on the occasion of Kerouac's death was strange and fascinating.

The thirst is so unquenchable we have to build bots to do the drinking for us.  I don't post a lot of stories, but got excited to share comedy festival info with the perhaps 5 real life humans who might legitimately view my jawns.  It was very weird that random influencers and music producers appeared to be viewing my stuff, but I figured it was some accidental poop scroll rabbit hole people were falling into based on my hashtags until I read this article.

I'm not the most cunning linguist, but the exploration of how language develops and changes, and varies across dialects, regions, and cultures is fascinating.  This article about the origins of "you guys" kind of blew my mind.  The current shift in the usage of pronouns (for example, they as singular rather than plural 3rd person pronoun) has ample precedent.  Apparently, up until the 1600s, English used to differentiate between singular and plural 2nd person pronouns.  Thee/thou/thy were used for the singular and you was strictly plural.  Directly addressing someone using the plural form came into fashion as a sign of respect, but then it was confusing because nobody could tell if 'you' meant just you, or collective you.  There's a big difference between saying, "I'm going to murder YOU (just the one of you right there)," versus "I'm going to murder YOU (every single last goddamn one of you)."

What this company is doing to bring more affordable connectivity and information access to Cubans, not to mention revenue streams for some, is pretty cool.  We went to a two-day Spanish immersion workshop a couple weeks ago and listened to a Cuban exile/expat/immigrant (?) talk about conditions on the ground there, and it's shocking how almost everyone lives in these dire straits while tourists can visit and live the high life.  One interesting thing he mentioned was how everyone remarks on the amazing old cars in Cuba.  Obviously we know that's the case because of embargoes, but he said few people realize what hideous Frankenstein monsters these cars are, because buying and selling even the existing vehicles is highly restricted so people have to keep repairing these 50-year old cars with whatever components they can find.

That's all.  If you are a religious sort, please pray for me this week as I suffer the trials and tribulations of another book fair.  I'm an atheist, so I basically just want you to unproductively waste your time thinking about me instead of some orphans halfway around the world.  Oh my god, I'm so sorry, that came out wrong.  I mean, I typed it, and have full control over this situation that's happening where I just was really rude and dismissive of your faith, whatever it may be or not be.  I respect your choices and beliefs (as long as they don't make you do or say bigot stuff), I'm just making jokes, at my own expense, because I am the jerk here!