Month: April 2023

4.20.2023 – I said to my wife

I said to my wife
think might start taking a piece
of my childhood back

In reading the article, Yes, People Will Pay $27,500 for an Old ʻRockyʼ Tape. Hereʼs Why by David Streitfeld in the New York Times (April 18, 2023), I thought this passage stood out.

I said to my wife, ‘I think I might start collecting tapes,’” Mr. Carlson, 43, said. “I was taking a piece of my childhood back.”

Many others are, too. The stock market, real estate and cryptocurrencies did poorly in 2022, but the global luxury goods market grew 20 percent. People may have had less, but they spent more on fine arts and collectibles that serve no function except to provide pleasure.

The culture is bursting with new material — every day, thousands of new books are published and 100,000 new songs are released on Spotify — but the old stuff offers a sweeter emotional payoff for many. It could be tapes or posters or pictures or comics or coins or sports cards or memorabilia. It might be from their childhood or the childhood they never had, or it might merely express a longing to be anywhere but 2023.

I liked the lines, “People may have had less, but they spent more on fine arts and collectibles that serve no function except to provide pleasure.” and “It might be from their childhood or the childhood they never had, or it might merely express a longing to be anywhere but 2023.“

It might be from their childhood or the childhood they never had,

… or it might merely express a longing to be anywhere but 2023.

I work on an Island where one of the big attractions is bike riding.

I do NOT mean cycling.

While there are cyclists on the island with their … interesting … outfits and skinny little bicycles, I am talking about bikes and bike riding.

Bikes and bike riding from like when I was a kid.

Big fat tires.

Big fat seats.

Big fat seats on big fat seats I guess you could say.

No gears.

Back pedal braking.

No helmets.

I watch these people and I ask myself how could they spend all that effort and time and money to get to this island and then torture themselves on one of those bikes.

Then I understood.

The guy who flew in here on his private jet and stayed in his private place on the ocean, drove into town with his wife, parked outside a bike lot and said to his wife, “I am taking a piece of my childhood back”.

It might be from their childhood or the childhood they never had.

It might merely express a longing to be anywhere but 2023.

It would serve no function except to provide pleasure.

And the guy rented a bike.

A bike with big fat tires.

A bike without gears.

A bike with a pedal brake.

And the guy got on the bike, and put his big fat seat on the big fat seat and pedaled off.

He pedaled off without a helmet and felt the breeze in what was left of his hair.

It might merely be a longing to be anywhere but 2023.

It would serve no function except to provide pleasure.

He took a piece of his childhood back.

Put a price on that.

4.19.2021 – uncanny – was like

uncanny – was like
nothing that had ever come
to the world before

It was the miracle God had wrought. And it was patently the sort of thing that could only happen once. Mechanically uncanny, it was like nothing that had ever come to the world before. Flourishing industries rose and fell with it. As a vehicle, it was hard-working, commonplace, heroic; and it often seemed to transmit those qualities to the persons who rode in it.—

“Farewell, My Lovely,” ca. 1936; Essays of E. B. White, p. 162, and Farewell to Model T; From Sea to Shining Sea, pp. 16–17.

Part of the series of Haiku inspired by the book In the Words of E. B. White: Quotations from America’s Most Companionable of Writers (2011, Cornell University Press) by Mary White.

This book was compiled by Mr. White’s grand daughter and while I am grateful she pulled all these together in one book, I am not sure I don’t consider this cheating.

4.16.2023 – when all one’s prospect

when all one’s prospect
landscapes, portraits, flowers, are
nothing but a line

If my Readers have followed me with any attention up to this point, they will not be surprised to hear that life is somewhat dull in Flatland.

I do not, of course, mean that there are not battles, conspiracies, tumults, factions, and all those other phenomena which are supposed to make History interesting; nor would I deny that the strange mixture of the problems of life and the problems of Mathematics, continually inducing conjecture and giving the opportunity of immediate verification, imparts to our existence a zest which you in Spaceland can hardly comprehend.

I speak now from the æsthetic and artistic point of view when I say that life with us is dull; æsthetically and artistically, very dull indeed.

How can it be otherwise, when all one’s prospect, all one’s landscapes, historical pieces, portraits, flowers, still life, are nothing but a single line, with no varieties except degrees of brightness and obscurity?

From the book, Flatland — A Romance of Many Dimensions (1884) by Edwin Abbott Abbott (1838-1926).

I am struck by the line … when all one’s prospect, all one’s landscapes, historical pieces, portraits, flowers, still life, are nothing but a single line, with no varieties except degrees of brightness and obscurity?

I feel had Mr. Abbott been writing today he would be thinking of … Florida.

Something dull, æsthetically and artistically, very dull indeed.

How can it be otherwise?

I am also reminded of James Thurber’s long short story, The Wonderful O, about an island community where everything with the letter O in it is banned.

Geese are okay as long there are geese, but if there was just one bird, it’s goose was cooked.

Words with the letter O are banned.

When Father storms out the door and is asked, “Where are going?”

“UT!” he replies, and “UT he went”, writes Mr. Thurber.

For so long, if ever I was asked where I was going I would reply, “UT and UT HE WENT!”.

So much so did I say that, that when I saw a University of Toronto sweatshirt in a Toronto store that was emblazoned with a bold UT, my friends told me, “Hoffman You HAVE TO GET THAT!”

And I did.

And I wore it for years.

And I explained why as well, when ever I could.

The people of the Island put up with this O business for a while until they figure out that without the letter O you lose the word FREEDOM.

As Thurber writes:

Then they heard the ringing of a distant bell, sounding near and sounding nearer, ringing clear and ringing clearer, till all the sky was filled with music as by magic.

“Freedom!” Andrea echoed after him, and the sound of the greatest word turned the vandals pale and made them tremble.

Take away that word.

Take away that letter O.

And what do you have but a place where all one’s prospect, all one’s landscapes, historical pieces, portraits, flowers, still life, are nothing but a single line, with no varieties except degrees of brightness and obscurity?

… Flrida.