Disaster, Circa 1965

I was reading a New Yorker article about whether our brains are wired for mathematics (apparently, yes) when I came across a reference to “new math,” followed by the apposition “now widely thought to have been an educational disaster.”

I flashed back. I was a participant in this educational disaster, in the seventh grade.

I remember learning about number systems other than our so-called base 10, like base 2. We learned about set theory, including the empty (or null) set, and Venn diagrams, which could describe the overlapping (or intersection) of sets, and functions and properties and ...

I could go on, but I sense that you are falling asleep.

So imagine having that kind of stuff rattling around in your head at age 12, with the unspoken but clear implication from the teacher that if we Americans don’t all get this and get it pronto, the Russians are going to beat us to the moon.

The Russians, as you are aware, did not beat us to the moon.

But apparently the new math played no role in our success. And as well as I can remember, it was not in the curriculum beyond that one year.

Still, parts of it continue to rattle around in my head, though much closer to the back. For instance, this is how you would express my age in base 2: 110111. Base 3? 2001. Base 4? 313. While both addition and multiplication have commutative and associative properties, subtraction and division do not. And do you know what is the set of numbers overlapping two sets of prime factors, the first for 42, the second for 79?

Ha! This is a trick question! 79 is a prime number! There is no overlap (expressed by the null set, alternately {}, or the Greek letter ∅).

I could go on. But I’m falling asleep.

We Hardly Knew Me

(Inspired by assorted obituaries in The Mississippi Press.)


Friend, ex-husband, lapsed agnostic, middle-aged white guy, all these
words described Joe Rogers, who went home with the angels (perhaps while kicking and screaming) on [insert date here].

He was preceded in death by generations of ancestors he never could manage to trace on the Internet; pet cats Tiger, Penny, Son, Taco, Clouseau and others whose names became but misty memories, including one he backed over in the family car, for which he never forgave himself. Ever.

Mr. Rogers was born on June 28, near the middle of the 20th century,in Moss Point, Miss., and attended public schools there. The first three years he spent at Charlotte Hyatt Elementary (named for a teacher of his daddy’s); then to a middle school named for Dr. R. Carl Eley Sr., perhaps the oldest person he ever met; then junior high followed by high school, where he cut more classes than teachers (or his parents) ever knew but graduated without incident.

He gained admission to the University of Mississippi, where, despite pre-admission testing that indicated potential facility as an undertaker, he studied journalism. In that field he found gainful if unspectacular employment throughout his life, allowing him to indulge in his primary passions: Beatles trivia; Andy Griffith Show reruns; travel to Britain; competitive endeavors including tennis and pool; and the consumption and occasional manufacture of malt beverages.

He was a longtime member of the First Baptist Church of Moss Point, though,except to attend the first in his series of weddings, he basically stopped going at age 15 because of strong doubts about the existence of God. In his late 30s he renewed his association with a church, though not Baptist and while retaining strong doubts about the existence of God as a guy in the sky with a beard. Taoism became a guiding philosophy, despite its not-infrequent imagery of guys with beards.

Those left to cherish his memory [may] include a wife who is wondering whether he actually told anybody else that he wanted the nontraditional funeral she’d better be giving him. And the answer is that he meant to, so maybe he did.

Poetry Is Crap

Excuse the hyperbole of the headline. A more nearly accurate representation of my view would be something like Most Poetry Is Crap, or Contemporary Poetry Is Crap, but as you can see those lack the same punch.


This is not a new opinion but one that is reinforced every time I am so foolish as to read any of the poetry offerings in The New Yorker, my favorite magazine. I give you an example from the current issue, titled “Eh?”:

Eh he said and she
dreamed eh. It was
like that between them.

It goes on a good bit after that, and I invite you to read the rest, if you have masochistic tendencies or this is your religious season for self-flagellation.

Curiosity led me to check out the poetry of another poet, Elizabeth Alexander, selected by Barack Obama to compose an occasional poem for his inauguration. Here’s the start of her poem titled “Blues”:

I am lazy, the laziest
girl in the world. I sleep during
the day when I want to, 'til
my face is creased and swollen,
'til my lips are dry and hot. I
eat as I please: cookies and milk
after lunch, butter and sour cream
on my baked potato...

I don’t know about you, but to me that does not say “I am ready to follow in the footsteps of Robert Frost.” It says, “Here are my FaceBook ramblings for the day.”

If I must have poetry, give me the kind I read in college lit classes. Give me Pope, Auden, Thomas.

Short of that, at least make it rhyme.

Quickies

Texas has the best-looking state flag. Ohio has the worst.

Paul McCartney’s Christmas song seems to be getting much more play than John Lennon’s. Pity.

Someone has posted fliers in my neighborhood offering a $500 reward for their missing 18-year-old cat, a situation I find almost unthinkably sad. My cat Cato, who is in my lap at this moment, is 19.

Salma Hayak may be the most attractive woman in the world who is not my wife. If not her, it’s Halle Berry.

My food tastes are not refined enough for me to be a critic. They are basically binary: yes-no.

Geico’s ads are creative, but its insurance costs more than mine.

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is not nearly exclusive enough.

Oldies stations should identify the artist and year for every song they play.

My musical tastes expand as I age - but they expand backward, not forward.

Ole men + Earrings = Bad.

Neil Young’s singing hurts my ears.

Tuna salad without boiled eggs is not tuna salad.

I would like my life to slow down to the pace felt by an 8-year-old in the weeks before Christmas.

Whole Lotto Love

I buy lottery tickets from time to time, whenever the jackpot reaches an amount that I reckon sufficient to fantasize about. That figure is based on my computation of collecting one-eighth of the total amount: half off for taking it in cash, half off the remainder for taxes, and half off what’s left for my wife.

In my financial fantasies, there are no marital debates over spending.

The one-eighth I further compute into a yearly income, calculated on a 4 percent return from tax-free securities. I have no idea if that’s realistic, but it doesn’t seem overly greedy. Greed, I figure, reduces good lottery karma.

Two tickets is my usual investment. My friend Glenn advises that, as a matter of probability, a second ticket (and quite a few more) is statistically insignificant in terms of increasing my chances of winning. I’m sure he’s right, but I don’t care. To me it obviously doubles my chances.

I like to buy as far in advance of the drawing as possible, to maximize the fantasy time I get for my two bucks. A Saturday purchase, for example, gives me three days of imaginary spending until the Tuesday drawing -- which I stretch further by not checking the results until Wednesday or later.

Of course philanthropy factors in my plans. (Still listening, karma?) That generosity aside, yes, I plan some goodies for myself, too. I will not be one of those irksome dimwits who assert that, shucks, millions of dollars will not change their lives. I will:

Quit work.

Travel the world.

Take enlightening courses in subjects that appeal to me, like Asian philosophy, or home-brewing.

Buy a new house down South and put a home theater and gym and pool table in the basement.

And so on.

All of which will be made possible this coming Tuesday night, should the right numbers fall into place. Just in case, maybe I’ll start making a list of charities I could donate to.

You out there, karma?

Rhymes With Rain

Two score and some years ago, Wayne and Kay decided to merge their names to produce a new one for their No. 2 daughter. Thus was created Kayne.

My wife.

It isn’t a unique name phonetically, as anyone familiar with the biblical story of fratricide knows, nor by spelling, as was made clear when she was choosing an AOL screen name. But it has not been in the top 1,000 names for either sex in the United States during any of the last 100 years, according to Social Security, so it’s rare enough to carry a certain novelty.

Not to mention sexual ambiguity, which helps explain why she sometimes gets mail addressed to “Mr.”

But it has never seemed particularly hard for anyone to figure out how to pronounce, until lately.

This is the fault, of course, of one Kanye West, a Grammy award-winning rapper who enjoys considerably wider name recognition. His name is pronounced KON-yay (and, according to YeahBaby.com, means “honor” or “tribute” in some unspecified African language). Unfortunately, some people can’t seem to appreciate the slight - but significant - difference in spelling. (As a Google search of “Kanye West” will demonstrate.)

And so people who would never be stumped by Jayne or Payne or Layne (which happens to be the name of my wife’s younger sister) are suddenly at a loss as to pronouncing my wife’s name. They get out the “K” sound, but then verbally stumble around (Caen? Kaynee? Kane-yee?) with that implied question mark indicating “Boy, this is a tough one.”

It’s not. It’s Kayne. As in raising. Or candy. Or walking. Or sugar. It just looks a little different.

Sunday Blues

I grew up in a state where and a time when blue laws severely limited commerce on Sundays, and when I reached adulthood I opposed them on principle. These days those laws are basically gone from the books everywhere, but I find that I now have my own internal blue laws.

Maybe it’s fitting. I was born on a Sunday, after all.

My rules are rather curious, though.

It’s O.K to wash dishes or clothes, for instance, but not to sweep or vacuum. I won’t mow the yard, rake leaves or wash the car, but I will take out the trash, fill the car with gas or deposit a check at an A.T.M.

Put down storm windows, no. Clean cats’ litter box, yes.

Collect tomatoes or other food from the garden, yes. Stake tomatoes or otherwise tend to the garden, no.

Going to a store for some things is O.K., shopping online for anything is not.

I’ll buy groceries (which includes beer), medicines, and toiletries, but not clothing, appliances or athletic equipment. But doing something athletic or sporting is all right, and I consider shooting pool to be in that category.

I try to limit my reading to newspapers or books about philosophy, religion or spirituality and avoid fiction/entertainment. But I include martial arts under the broad heading of mind/body improvement, which qualifies as spirituality, and going to a movie or watching TV is allowable.

Listening to music is fine, even that Godless rock ’n’ roll.

Downloading music is not fine, though uploading pictures from my digital camera is.

The list of rules here is incomplete; and in fact I’ve never before considered enumerating them. I just know intuitively what I will and won’t do. Besides, on a lot of Sundays none of the prohibited activities come into play anyway, because I don’t really have time for them.

I work on Sundays.