A little dig

Sly closing remark by Bill Poser at the end of a Language Log post about garbled entomology in a Customs and Border Protection press release (with my spelling correction):

The odd wording appears to have originated with Customs, in this press release. (Customs is now part of the “Department of Homeland Security” but I avoid using this name. Whenever I see it, I hear “Reichssicherheitshauptamt“.)

Out of the garage

Maybe a little too close to home: Jon Mooallem checks out self-storage culture in suburban California:

“My parents were Depression babies,” [Tom] Litton told me, “and what they taught me was, it’s the accumulation of things that defines you as an American, and to throw anything away was being wasteful.” The self-storage industry reconciles these opposing values: paying for storage is, paradoxically, thrifty.

Tripping Wires

Brandon Gentry looks back on the production of a mighty fine CD from 1994, ¡Simpatico! by local band Velocity Girl. Alas, there are no quotes from singer Sarah Shannon in the piece.

Coalescing at the University of Maryland in the late ’80s, Velocity Girl specialized in winningly sharp indie pop steeped in resonant major chord melodies and spry, agile rhythms…. Focused and concise, the best Velocity Girl is some of the best indie rock D.C. – or any other city – can claim to have produced in the last 20 years.

News from the park

Some tidbits from the most recent newsletter from Friends of Huntley Meadows Park:

  • The crayfish population is up! Resource Management Intern Alice Millikin writes that water quality monitors as well as turtle and frog trappers reported increases. The nets used for water quality monitoring caught 28 individuals, more than the catch for the past five years combined.
  • King Rails (Rallus elegans) are back! Park Manager Kevin Munroe says in his message that a parent with four or five chicks was seen at least three times in the period 19 July to 27 July. Higher water levels, a habitat mosaic created by muskrats and beavers, and increased crayfish numbers are responsible.
  • Construction for the wetland restoration project has been delayed again. A dam breach analysis was recently completed, with the anticipation that the project can be qualified as low-hazard, and hence move through the permitting process. A 2010 date for construction is still possible, but 2011 is more likely.
  • Also in 2010-11, the surface and toe boards of the boardwalk will be replaced, this time with recycled plastic materials. Lower maintenance, and a greener message. The project is funded by the 2008 bond referendum.

Three on a match

Aunt Taki showed some of the diaries that she has been keeping since forever. Her secrets are safe from me, as well as her kids, since she keeps them in Japanese. She usually uses a book with a cool set up: entries for three years on each daily page—sort of the hardcopy equivalent of blog entries that link to this time last year. She gets her books from Hakubunkan Shinsha (alas, no English page to link to).

Takeaways: 4

making connectionsSome snaps from my recent trip to Sacramento and suburbs to move my mother into her new place. Mom wasn’t fazed by using my mobile to leave a message for her friend Priscilla.


making breakfastDoing what she loves doing (and is dang good at), my aunt Takeko (my mother’s brother’s widow), cutting melon for breakfast. At the end of the week, I used Taki’s guest room as an operations base. She’s camera-shy, like me.


mission accomplishedThis was the end state to which Rita and I worked for six days: an empty apartment, carpets vacuumed but hardly blot-free.


sic transitIn the neighborhood, the old Tower Records store on Watt will reopen as a thrift store next month. The Gottschalks down the block is also empty. But the staff at the Starbucks just north of here are the friendliest I’ve ever found.

The right direction

James Hohmann visits WMATA’s sign shop.

button for elevatorDiscreetly, nothing is said about the hand-made annotations to the elevator call buttons that are meant to keep us from pushing the emergency notifier when all we want to do is get to the train mezzanine.

Technological developments continue to change the way signs are made and installed…. In the… not-so-distant past, workers meticulously copied the wording from a sign they needed to replace. Now they snap digital photos.

Bang

One evening, after a week or two of rehearsals [of Our Mrs. McChesney], I was leaving the theater rather late, when most of the company had gone. George Hobart and I had had some changes to discuss. [Augustus] Thomas was still there. Near the door I called out across the stage, “Good night, Mr. Thomas.”

He glanced up. “Ah—good night, Miss—uh—uh—mmmm——”

“Ferber,” I prompted him, icily. He had seen me every day for weeks.

“Yes, yes, of course, Ferber. Ferber. I never can remember these Jewish names.”

“That must have been difficult for you when Mr. Frohman was producing your plays,” I retorted, by some lucky stroke; and slammed the door. Nothing slams more satisfactorily than a good heavy metal stage door.

—Edna Ferber, A Peculiar Treasure, p. 218

Takeaways: 3

How to clear out a one-bedroom apartment — with fifteen years of loving/living in it — in only six days: it helps to have worked a few theater strikes. Just because a 6-inch chunk of 2×4 with two screws broken off in it is a perfectly good piece of lumber is not a good reason to keep it.

It’s also essential that you get yourself a cousin who is an absolute mensch. I couldn’t have done it without you, Rita.