American Television

Well after an extremely short search on the internet I found out how to write on my blog using my IPad. Yes, this is being written on an IPad. One of the very first things I did when I bought this thing was open up my blog and attempt to post. I was unsuccessful and I simply assumed Blogger simply isn't compatible with this new, fangled thingy. So instead of utilizing the full spectrum of homogenized technologies inhabiting the IPad (such as the internet, etc.) I just pouted and decided that it wasn't worth it to me to take the three seconds to figure out the solution to this minor of minor problems.


So this is the first time I have ever jumped so quickly onto a new product band wagon. This is the first time I have even purchased an Apple product. Those who know me well might point out that I do own an IPod Touch but to them I must point out I painted my mother-in-law's laundry room and as payment she gave it to me because she felt owning an IPod she never used and an IPhone was a bit redundant. Speaking of redundancy, I am reading a novel by Muriel Spark and she keeps referring to all these men as being redundant and having a tough time making ends meet. She is british and I suppose redundant in Brit Land is synonymous with "unemployed" on this side of the pond. But Spark gives very few clues to suggest this and I am no expert in the field of vernacular of the modern Britain. It probably took me far too long to figure out this simple semantic issue and perhaps she was writing with a purely British readership in mind but I still felt put off by the whole thing. I suppose, even on this dinky blog, I write far too "American" and use several phrases that would confuse the world's masses if they weren't being pumped hours of American Television every day.

one t-shirt larger

Fascinating story. On NPR this morning I heard the tail end of On Point, the brilliantly mediated discussion show, where Tom was talking with a linguist/cognitive neuroscientist, Arika Okrent, about invented languages. She brought up Klingon and Esperanto, two of the more well-known invented languages from recent history. And as interesting as it is to try to understand why people would invent languages I haven't been able to stop thinking about how lovely it is that naturally occurring language is so consistently disjointed, obtuse, illogical and contradictory.

It is obvious why it would be advantageous to devise a flawlessly structured, immutable language but the fact that our very humanness hatched the strange and hopelessly complex communication standards and patterns we use without even thinking about it says more about what it means to be human than could ever be explained by the means allowed by any language.

Oh, and speaking of NPR, at my place of business we just got in an NPR shirt bearing a faded pair of headphones, the National Public Radio logo and then the somewhat snarky phrase "Get Smarter" across the bottom. I think my wardrobe is going to get one t-shirt larger very soon.


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