On a Long and Lonesome Highway, East of Omaha

We're troubled, folks.

Today, while driving home from a cat-food-related errand, the Metallica version of Bob Seger's "Turn the Page" came on the classic rock station. (DIGRESSION: Strictly speaking, shouldn't Seger's version be the "classic"? EOD) Not really wanting to listen to James Hetfield whining about how hard it is to be a famous rock-star with millions of dollars and unlimited access to groupie sex, we punched the preset button for another rock station, where we heard the opening notes of. . .the Bob Seger version of "Turn the Page"!!!!

We fled the car before accidentally chancing upon the Placido Domingo version on NPR.

Whew!

What a day, folks.

Friday started out so promisingly: It's absolutely beautiful here in the Bay Area, which comes as quite a relief after something like two straight weeks of rain. Sunny, mild, temperatures in the low 80's. Perfect timing, too, because today was the college's annual fundraiser for the Agricultural Sciences Department. This is a very popular community event: Local farmers from Richmond-San Pablo set up tables on the quad, and people get to go all "locavore," sampling fresh fruits and vegetables (sadly, no home-grown steaks this year). Best of all, though, at least for the Solipsist: Animals! You know us: The cats are great, but any time we get to play with a variety of animals, we are just like a pig in slop. Speaking of which. . . . Well, we'll get to that.

Things started to trend downward pretty quickly. The animal husbandry professor who was supposed to run today's festivities came down with the flu--not the swine flu, though: That would have been too ironic. Anyway, for legal purposes, a full-time professor had to be in charge of the proceedings. The problem is that, on Fridays, not too many classes are scheduled, so full-time professors are at a premium. And that, friends and loyalists, is how this near-sighted, middle-aged, Jewish boy from Queens became the master of ceremonies for a the rootin-est, tootin-est down-home-goodnessiest AgFair in the East Bay!

All right, we figured it wasn't that big a deal. We wouldn't have to do much: The college's maintenance staff had all the logistical stuff under control. About our only major responsibility was to say a few words thanking the participants. We could handle that. So, when the time came, we went up to the microphone. We were about to make our brief remarks, when a photographer from the school paper decided it would be just adorable to get a picture of us holding one of the animals. Now, obviously, we have no objection to holding an animal. The problem was that the only animal that was of an appropriately "holdable" size was a moderate-sized turkey. Not the cuddliest thing in the world. The turkey's owner, however, assured us that "Lily" (Lily?) was docile and would hold still for a quick photograph. OK. Give us Lily.

Lily was not quite so docile as we had been led to believe.

While she didn't object overly much to being held, something about the school photographer obviously bothered her, as she had a. . . reaction when the picture was taken. First, she. . .um. . . voided all over the place. This caused a corresponding reaction on the part of the Solipsist, along the lines of, "Aaaaaaaccck!!!!" And then we dropped the turkey.

Lily, sensing freedom we suppose, took off at a surprising speed, straight for the library. As she reached the doors, a student came out, letting the turkey in. We ran after Lily, accompanied by her owner and assorted well-wishers and thrill-seekers. Ultimately, we caught up with her in the "Classical Literature" section, pecking at a worn copy of Herodotus. After several minutes of quiet consultation (we were in the library after all), we came up with an elaborate plan involving a sack and. . . . well, really just a sack. Guess the plan wasn't that elaborate.

Thinking the worst was over, we stepped out of the library and into Hell. At least, that's what it smelled like. Imagine a piece of excrement, buried in another piece of excrement, stuffed into a sweaty gym sock, which is then soaked in even more excrement. That would have been preferable. We traced the odor to the pig exhibit. We questioned the pig farmer about the unforgivably foul nature of his charges' stench. Were the pigs sick? No, he assured us, these were perfectly healthy pigs. Well, did they need to be bathed or something? The farmer actually took offense at this: "These pigs have just been bathed."

"You're kidding!" Look, we know that we're all "citified" and we have little knowledge of farm matters. And we recognize that pigs are not generally known for their mild odors. But this was ridiculous! "You're saying these pigs are clean?"

"Yes, Sir! Shapooed 'em myself to get 'em ready for the fair."

"What did you use for shampoo? Road kill!"

"Sir! I used the finest organic pig shampoo."

"I find it hard to believe that you used the 'finest' shampoo!"

"Well, here's the bottle if you don't believe me! No artificial ingredients! This, Sir, is pure hogwash!"

Just like this story we're telling you now.

HAPPY APRIL FOOL'S DAY, EVERYBODY!

Well-Begun and All Done: The Plot Against America

The book: The Plot Against America by Philip Roth

First line: "Fear presides over these memories, a perpetual fear."

Last line: "The boy himself was the stump, and until he was taken to live with his mother's married sister in Brooklyn ten months later, I was the prosthesis."

Confession time: The Solipsist, as a literate Jewish man from New York, has not read as much Philip Roth as you might expect. Portnoy's Complaint, a couple of the "Zuckerman" books, and, now The Plot Against America. Based on this last one, we may have to go back and fill in some gaps in our reading.

Plot presents an alternate history, wherein crypto-Fascist Charles A. Lindbergh, capitalizing on isolationist sympathies among the American public, defeats Franklin Delano Rosevelt in the 1940 presidential election. As a result, the United States stays out of the war in Europe, England is left to fend for itself against Hitler's war machine, and those Americans ideologically opposed to Nazism flee to Canada to join their armed forces in the battle against totalitarianism.

Yes, folks: In this book, Canadians are the kickass defenders of world freedom.

Well, it is fiction.

Closer to home, though, America's Jews find themselves torn between loyalty to the United States--especially to the Democratic ideals promulgated by FDR--and fear for what lies in store for them under the Lindbergh administration. Events are related from the point of view of Philip Roth--that is, young Philip Roth, seven-years-old at the start of the novel, who relates the events that might-have-been. His father, a staunch liberal, sells insurance for Metropolitan Life, until he is asked to relocate to Kentucky as part of Lindbergh's "Homestead 42" Act, which, depending on whom you ask, is either an attempt to assimilate Jews into the nation's heartland or a divide-and-conquer maneuver to break up Jewish communities. Philip's brother Sandy is co-opted by his aunt to serve as an enthusiastic mouthpiece for Lindbergh's Office of American Absorption, the agency charged with helping Jews "fit in" as good American citizens. Meanwhile, Philip's cousin Alvin runs off to fight Hitler and returns minus his left leg.

The book is a thrilling creation; indeed, despite the book's fictional nature, one is tempted to call it a "re-creation" of historical events. The reader feels the deepening dread of the Jewish population as Lindbergh comes to power: One of the book's early chapters, wherein the Roth's visit Washington shortly after Lindbergh's inauguration, is an ominous masterpiece. The only complaint we have, honestly, is that the book's climax feels a bit rushed (but we might expect from the author of Portnoy's Complaint): Once the full extent of the anti-Semitic fervor whipped up by Lindbergh and his associates becomes apparent, the book wraps things up fairly quickly and, ultimately, optimistically. True, the perpetual fear remains, but overall we feel that the worst does not come to pass. Presumably because, if it had, we might not have "Philip Roth" around to tell the tale.

Negative Thoughts

Today we observed a math teacher in action. As a writing instructor, we find math satisfying. Something about the fact that one can arrive at an actual, unambiguous solution. We don't get enough of that in our everyday encounters with writing students. Sure, we can point out when someone goofs up a subject-verb agreement--and we do! Gleefully! But so much of the other content of writing classes is subjective. We can't say that someone is wrong when they choose a boring topic for a personal narrative essay: For all we know, this person just has an unbelievably boring life, a life of deadening routine, a life not worth living! It's hardly the kind of thing that lends itself to a clear-cut declaration of right-and-wrong, though. Math, though. Rules is rules! A + B = B + A! Any number divided by itself is equal to one! A negative times a negative equals a positive! Frankly, we've never understood that last one. It seems counter-intuitive: Two wrongs making a right, somehow. Except, not. We kind of figured out an analogy once: Imagine you borrow money from someone, and you're supposed to pay them back $10 a week. We can think of that $10 you're paying as -10. So, after one week, you're down $10 (1 x -10); after two weeks, you're down $20 (2 x -10). This represents the idea of a negative (the money) multiplied by a positive (the number of weeks) equaling a negative. On the other hand, if you go to pay the $10 (-10), but your creditor says, "Oh, don't worry about paying me this week," it's as if you've gained ten dollars. If this happens two weeks in a row, you've gained $20. So, the negative amount of money multiplied (in a sense) by two "negative" weeks leaves one with money in the bank. Makes sense to us. Hey, scoff if you must, but the next time you explain to someone why a negative times a negative equals a positive, you'll know whom to thank! (That would be the Solipsist.)

New! Improved! Shrunken!

An interesting article today reports that food manufacturers are disguising price increases by subtly reducing the size of their wares while charging the same price. Even more insidious, some companies actually charge more for the diminished offerings, claiming that the "new" product is "lower in calories." Be on the lookout for scams: Wrigley's single-stick gum bookmarks: $1.89 New and Improved extra-puffy Cheetos: Twice the AIR!: $4.59/lb. Extra LOW-CAL bottled water: $3.89/liter Special NON-METRIC extra LOW-CAL bottled water: $3.99/qt M&M ULTRA: Each candy stamped with TWO 'm's: $9.99 lb. Ol' Doc Simmons' Caffeine Free Oxygen: $99.99 a tank Solipsistography "Food Inflation Kept Hidden in Tinier Bags"

Setting the Record Straight

This is fun. A British website, iCorrect.com, established by businessman Sir David Tang, allows the famous and not-so-famous to rebut accusations and "inaccuracies." So if you're Donald Trump, and a Page Six tidbit reports that you have recently patented your hair, you can instantly log onto your iCorrect account to set the record straight: You applied for a patent but were turned down on the grounds that your hair was too similar to a sea anemone and thus unpatentable. As of now, iCorrect clients are primarily members of the British jetset, but as the website expands, we hope to see a plethora of postings from Charlie Sheen or Lady Googoo or Mel Gibson or their ilk. Still, the limited numbers of postings thus far do include some saucy items. Consider this exchange between Niall Ferguson, an eminent economist and historian and New York Times columnist and Nobel laureate Paul Krugrman. In a blog post, Krugman claimed to have won an argument with Ferguson:

"A few months back, in a dialogue in Korea with Niall Ferguson, I suggested a macroeconomic version of Godwin’s Law: the first person to bring up the Weimar hyperinflation is considered to have lost the debate. He was, um, not happy." -- Paul Krugman on his blog, 27 December 2010.

Ferguson set the record straight:

"My response to Krugman was that there should be a new Krugman's Law: the first person to claim he has won the debate has lost the debate. So comprehensively did Krugman lose this exchange that one Korean newspaper ran the headline the next day: 'A great Nobel Prize winner humiliated like a dog in Korea.' Unhappy? You now know which of us, um, was."

AWWWWWW SUH-NAPP! ECONOMIST SMACKDOWN! Personally, we like this contribution the most: Responding to an accusation that "David Tang is a creep," Sir David replied that "This is greatly exaggerated." While the Solipsist cannot afford the $1,000 membership fee, we would like to take this opportunity to rebut some baseless accusations that have cropped up recently: 1) We do not use our cats in Satanic rituals. That's what the guinea pig is for. 2) We never claimed that Canadians were responsible for the Deepwater Horizon disaster--only for the failures of New Orleans' levees after Hurricane Katrina. 3) It was mayonnaise! Solipsistography "For $1,000, Site Lets Celebrities Say It Ain't So"

More Musings

You know who we feel bad for? Physicists. Think about it: These guys (and, as former Harvard president Larry Summers pointed out, they're all guys) can't catch a break. They go out for a nice casual dinner with friends at, oh let's say Applebee's. Everybody's having a good time, enjoying the reasonably priced food and exciting selection of mixed drinks (Hey, Applebee's, "The Solipsist" is always looking for new sponsors!). Then, the bill comes. Inevitably, when the group tries to figure out who owes what, they all turn to the physicist and say, "Hey, you're the physicist! You figure it out!" Writing teachers don't have to worry about this. Nobody expects much from writing teachers. Aside from being called upon to mediate the occasional "who/whom" dispute, we can just enjoy the camaraderie of good friends and good times at Applebee's. By the way, "whom" is never right.