In which we reveal how the mind dumps

The descriptive notes here are roughly 15 years old...

James Gatz — Mr Jay Gatsby's original name; cited first on this list as a hommage to the wonderful list of names at The Great Gatsby party scene, which — well-known literary fact — Fitzgerald pulled at random from a telephone book. Gatsby, by the way, is number 2 on the legendary top 100 of the 20th century as chosen by DWEMites. Atlas Shrugged is number 1 as chosen by you, the general public. You should be ashamed of yourself.


Anna Livia — Heroine of Finnegans Wake


Theophilus North — Eponymous hero of a wonderful Thornton Wilder novel. Oh, to be in Newport!

Bernard Baruch — the capitalist extraordinaire


Jeremiah Johnson — the Indian killer played by R Redford


Deanna Durbin — operatic rival to Judy Garland


Lois Flagstaff — the mother in the comic strip, Hi and Lois


Bertie Wooster — The employer of the incredible Jeeves, courtesy P.G.Wodehouse (whose nickname was "Plum")


Nick Chopper — The Tin Man of Oz's real name. There's a piece of obscure balogna, if there ever was one. It's in the books, not the movie(s) (and not the original Oz book, either, but in one of the sequels). And yes, there is more than one Oz movie, as well as more than one Oz book

Stuart Little — Too easy


Eric Blore — Wonderful screwball character actor of the 30s


Toshiro Mifune — Star of many a Japanese film, sort of the samurai John Wayne. Fans of the late Kurosawa know him well.


Benjamin Barker — Sweeney Todd's real name, a la Sondheim


Vlad the Impaler — Source of the Dracula legend


J. Fred Muggs — Chimpanzee star of the Today show in the 1950s


Uriah Heep — oily villain of David Copperfield (the book, not the magician)

Joel Cairo — He seeks the stuff that dreams are made of, in The Maltese Falcon


Clare Quilty — Quilty is guilty. From Lolita, another top-of-the-list 20th century book


Becky Sharp — Heroine of Vanity Fair (the book, not the magazine; that heroine was Tina Brown, and she is long gone)


Phoebe Caulfield — Holden's sister, Catcher in the Rye. We will be happy to join in a letter writing campaign to ban Joyce Maynard in all media


Dick Grayson — AKA Boy Wonder, AKA Robin


Harry Lime — The Third Man, and the most wonderful entrance by a character ever in a film, made by Orson Welles (the entrance, not the film)


Tony Buddenbrooks — Favorite feisty character from the Mann novel. Why draw the line at Hans Castorp?

Norman Bates — Motherly motelier 


Pete Best — The drummer before Ringo


Butterfly McQueen — the actress playing Prissie who knew nothin' 'bout birthin' babies in GWTW


Sebastian Flyte — Pronounce that first name with four syllables; courtesy of Waugh's Brideshead Revisited


Theron Ware — From the novel containing the damnation of same. Sounds like some sort of plastic storage container


Kaiser Soze — The villain of The Usual Suspects


Peter Quint — "Peter Quint, you devil" — but then again, who really is the devil in The Turn of the Screw?


Zuleika Dobson — The entire male student body of Oxford self-destroyed over Ms. Dobson, who was last seen heading for Cambridge. #59 on the Modern Library list!


Theodore Cleaver — AKA "The Beaver"

Andrew Loog Oldham — Original producer of the Rolling Stones


Hieronymous Bosch — painter of the bizarre
 (and hero of Micheal Connelly novels)

Mahatma Kane Jeeves — Writing pseudonym of W. C. Fields (in every movie, he said, there's always somebody turning to the butler and saying, "My hat, my cane, Jeeves")


Luca Brasi — sleeps with the fishes in The Godfather


Jud Fry — Poor Jud is daid, a candle lights his haid, in Oklahoma


Nathan Detroit — Good old reliable Nathan, of Guys and Dolls. Which should be pronounced ghees, like Guy de Maupassant, from the Riviera (i.e., a Nice Guy — this stuff only works if you read with your lips moving).


Egbert Souse — W.C. again, this time a character in The Bank Dick. The correct pronunciation is sue-say


Lemmy Caution — Alphaville private eye 


Rufus T. Firefly — Hail, Freedonia! Hail Groucho! Hail Duck Soup!


Rick Blaine — Everybody comes to Rick's. In Casablanca

aRupert Pupkin — The King of Comedy, a close runner-up in denironyms to Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver


Molly Bloom — Leo's wife, Yes I Will Yes, etc — from Ulysses, if you find Finnegans Wake too difficult (see Anna Livia, above), and still want to stick to that top 100

Pierre Bezukhov — He gets the girl in the end (of War and Peace)


Tristram Shandy — Sterne should have lived in the age of the Internet; we'd love to see his web page


N-X 211 — The Ryan airplane that flew from NY to Paris in 1927, piloted by one Charles Augustus Lindbergh


John Galt — Who is John Galt? Why is Atlas shrugging? Why is Les Phillips shrugging?


Perry White — Clark Kent's old boss


Ringo Kid — John Wayne's breakthrough part in Stagecoach


Paspartout — The manservant who went around the world in 80 days. It's also a French pun (so go learn French, since we're not going to explain it to you, since you didn't think much of Nice Guy, above)


Ub Iwerks — early animation pioneer, off-again, on-again with W. E. Disney


Grover Whelan — the man behind the 1939 N.Y. World's Fair, among other things


Antoine Doinel — the French nouveau vague again, this time a la Francois Truffaut


Charles L. Dodgson — the Reverend, AKA Lewis Carroll


Blanche Morton — neighbor of George Burns and Gracie Allen


Molly Brown — Unsinkable


Putney Swope — Who would vote for this man? Robert Downey, Sr.directed the eponymous film. Yes, Virginia, for every wayward Jr. there is a Sr.


Merkin Muffley — President of the United States, in Dr. Strangelove


Marion Davies — Inamorata of Wm. Randolph Hearst


C. K. Dexter Haven — first husband of the heroine of The Philadelphia Story


THX 1138 — Hero of the G. Lucas film, played by Robt Duvall; now reduced to a tradename for a sound system, also from G. Lucas


Sally Hemings — Possible Thomas Jefferson slave mistress, although it's hard to imagine Mr. Jefferson's televised Grand Jury testimony, him being such a mumbler and all


Jean Valjean — Un mis (Whoa — three French refs now. This is getting serious)


Polly Peachum — She'll marry anybody, including Macheath! In Three Penny Opera


Carmen Miranda — the woman in the tutti-fruitti hat — a hotsy-totsy Brazilian actress


Umberto Eco — Sign, sign, everywhere a sign — Italian semiologist


Emma Bovary — I am Emma, said Flaubert. Which I guess makes us Buglaroni.


Fala — FDR's dog


Leonard McCoy — Bones, Original Star Trek


Archie Goodwin — Nero Wolfe's amanuensis

Tex Ritter — "Blood on the Saddle" singer, John's father, "Please Don't Forsake Me, Oh My Darlin'"


King Oliver — New Orleans blues man who gave Pops (L. Armstrong) one of his first gigs


Bennett Cerf — Random House publisher, creator of the Modern Library, home of, yep, the 100

Ed Norton — Ralph Kramden's foil on The Honeymooners. Or young actor who should have changed his name after watching The Honeymooners.


Stella Kowalski — Stanley's wife at the end of the desire streetcar line


Billie Burke — Wife of Flo Ziegfeld, Good Witch of the North (and, apparently, the South), Mrs. Cosmo Topper


Nora Charles — Mrs. Nick, in pursuit of The Thin Man


Beau Geste — Another epohym, given a Viking's funeral


Marilyn Manson — Celine Dion's alterego. Have you ever seen the two of them together?


Gaylord Ravenal — Riverboat gambler, Magnolia's husband (Showboat's comin'!)

John Worthing — A man who knows the importance of being earnest


Roy Cohn — Lawyer for Tailgunner Joe McCarthy


Mabel Mercer — Legendary cabaret singer


Maynard G. Krebs — Dobie Gillis beatnik (the G. stands for Walter)


Lara Croft — Nostrumite's cyber-pinup girl


Isaak Walton — The Compleat Angler author


Edward Everett Horton — cf. Eric Blore, but throw in Rocky and Bullwinkle voicing


Amanda Wingfield — Hi, Mom. How's the glass menagerie?


HAL 9000 — I know that you and Frank are planning to disconnect me. Or, open the pod door, Hal. Subtract 6999 if you still don't get it. 


Glencora Palliser — Lady Glen. What's not to love? How could Trollope kill her off between novels?


Merrill Stubing — Captain of the original Love Boat


Esther Smith — The girl next door, who we'll be meeting in St. Louis


Rt. Hon. Sir Joseph Porter, K.C.B. — The monarch of the sea, the ruler of the queen's navy, in that infernal nonsense Pinafore


Fred C. Dobbs — Badges? We don't have to show you any stinkin' badges! Bogart's role in Treasure of Sierra Madre


Peachy Carnehan — Friend of the man who would be king


Julius Marx — AKA Groucho, suspected Communist according to recently released FBI files


George C. & Thurgood & John & Penny & Garry — The Marshall family: One general, two judges, two director/actor types


Charles Sherwood Stratton — AKA General Tom Thumb


Harry von Zell — George and Gracie again, this time their TV announcer


Rocket J. Squirrel — AKA Rocky the Squirrel


Basil Fawlty — A towering presence, at least on PBS


Sancho Panza — Don Quixote's amanuensis


Melanie Wilkes — She got Ashley, Scarlett got everyone else, in GWTW


Mortimer Snerd — Country cousin to Charles McCarthy (and, presumably, Candace Bergen) 


Edward Fairfax Vere — God bless 'im, he hanged Billy Budd


Truman Burbank — Another gimme. Cue the sun!


Marcia Brady — Still the cutest of the bunch


Sylvia Poggioli — The NPR reporter you always switch the dial from


Natty Bumppo — Go read your Leatherstocking Tales (if you can abide the literary sins of James Fennimore Cooper)


Kunta Kinte — The root ancestor of Alex Haley 


Eustace Tilley — Monocled mascot of the New Yorker


Jules O'Shaughnessy — The one person in America who is definitely not the Nostrumite

In which we satisfy your craving for beans, and plug the Ultimate Nostrum

At the end of the Manhattan Lodestone OriginalVaganza (all other Vaganzas are extra), Mr. Lo Pat thanks the following. There's 113 altogether. Don't bother googling them; I'll publish a guide Monday.

Which ones can you identify?

James Gatz

Anna Livia

Theophilus North

Bernard Baruch

Jeremiah Johnson

Deanna Durbin

Lois Flagstaff

Bertie Wooster

Nick Chopper

Stuart Little

Eric Blore

Toshiro Mifune

Benjamin Barker

Vlad the Impaler

J. Fred Muggs

Uriah Heep

Joel Cairo

Clare Quilty

Becky Sharp

Phoebe Caulfield

Dick Grayson

Harry Lime

Tony Buddenbrooks

Norman Bates

Pete Best

Butterfly McQueen

Sebastian Flyte

Theron Ware

Kaiser Soze

Peter Quint

Zuleika Dobson

Theodore Cleaver

Andrew Loog Oldham

Hieronymous Bosch

Mahatma Kane Jeeves

Luca Brasi

Jud Fry

Nathan Detroit

Egbert Souse

Lemmy Caution

Rufus T. Firefly

Rick Blaine

Rupert Pupkin

Molly Bloom

Pierre Bezukhov

Tristram Shandy

N-X 211

John Galt

Perry White

Ringo Kid

Paspartout

Ub Iwerks

Grover Whelan

Antoine Doinel

Charles L. Dodgson

Blanche Morton

Molly Brown

Putney Swope

Merkin Muffley

Marion Davies

C. K. Dexter Haven

THX 1138

Sally Hemings

Jean Valjean

Polly Peachum

Carmen Miranda

Umberto Eco
Emma Bovary

Fala

Leonard McCoy 

Archie Goodwin

Tex Ritter

King Oliver

Bennett Cerf

Ed Norton

Stella Kowalski

Billie Burke

Nora Charles

Beau Geste

Marilyn Manson

Gaylord Ravenal

John Worthing

Roy Cohn

Mabel Mercer

Maynard G. Krebs

Lara Croft

Isaak Walton

Edward Everett Horton

Amanda Wingfield

HAL 9000

Glencora Palliser

Merrill Stubing

Esther Smith
Rt. Hon. Sir Joseph Porter, K.C.B.

Fred C. Dobbs

Peachy Carnehan

Julius Marx

George C. & Thurgood & John & Penny & Garry

Charles Sherwood Stratton

Harry von Zell

Rocket J. Squirrel

Basil Fawlty

Sancho Panza

Melanie Wilkes

Mortimer Snerd

Edward Fairfax Vere
Truman Burbank

Marcia Brady

Sylvia Poggioli

Natty Bumppo

Kunta Kinte

Eustace Tilley

Jules O'Shaughnessy.



Excel at the DJ

We’ll get back to Summer Street next week. Meanwhile, I’ve been up to my ears in Excel at the DJ. As a general rule, my history in systems remains lost in the Primatene mists, but through a commodius vicus of recirculation I have gotten involved in a music project that has required me to export a very sloppy old db out of Lotus Notes into Excel, which, in non-technical terms, is roughly analogous to translating voice recordings of Prakit into written street slang. Notes is moribund, and those who understand its wiles are all six feet under, at least metaphorically. Excel, on the other hand, can do almost anything, if you’re willing to ignore the various international treaties against torture.

You’ve got this list of 35,000 records out of Notes, once you uncover the fields that had formulas where simple data ought to have been, with a small but annoying number of repeat records with one slight differing field, although all records do have a correct unique identifying number. There’s about 30 fields in each record, including rights information; there’s also attachments. You’ve got this independently generated list of royalties that shows annual income on a daily basis, by id number. You need to figure out how much money can be made by the songs earning income in iTunes that do not have rights restrictions. This means that you have to create a lot of moving targets (i.e., lookups) in a very big sheet that, if you don’t save it every five minutes, will probably crash or at the very least go out of memory on you. As it is, it likes to forget itself on occasion while pretending to be working by turning off the filtering or burying the odd overarching calculation. Cleaning it up means lots of calculating then special pasting as values and then sorting and filtering some more and some more lookups and more pasting. I woke up screaming =IF( a couple of times in the night, thanks to Excel’s tendency, if it doesn’t like the way you’re nesting things (and when it comes to Excel I’m a nesting fool), to switch your formula to =(IF for no apparent reason other than to remind you that some day you will die but Excel is forever.

This has, in other words, kept me busy.

In other news, I updated the Nostrum material on my website. Again. I was looking at it, planning for Series 3, which Jules insists is coming down the pike shortly, and I realized that the layout didn’t make that much sense. The thing is, if you’re going to dive into Nostrum, there’s probably an optimal way to do it, and the way I had it didn’t quite highlight that optimal way. I think it’s better now. I’m not quite sure when the new stuff is coming, so there is maybe a missing piece or two on the site, but assuming that Jules and the Nostrumite are marginally reliable, it’ll be there sooner or later.

Nostrum is back? Is Amazon buying them too?

I really don’t know what to make of this.

There was a posting yesterday on Jules’s Nostrum Nation blog that he and the Nostrumite were bringing back Nostrum. Again. They’re calling it Nostrum Series III, A Very Special (Batch o') Episode(s), (AKA the Codswallop Chronicles), and you now know as much about it as I do. He gave no timetable, and no indication why it was back or what it will cover. For that matter, he gave no indication of what he and the Nostrumite have been up to since they were last heard from a couple of years ago. Has all this talk about my writing somehow lit a fire under them to get back to their writing? Maybe they’re just jealous. I have no idea. I’ll see if I can track one or the other of them down over the weekend and get some details.

Anyhow, speaking of writing, this morning it was announced that Amazon will be buying Goodreads. Now I can’t say that I’m much of a follower of Goodreads; I don’t exactly need advice on reading, given how little I get to do on my own dime. And as the VCA knows, I’m not that big a user of social media. I especially don’t rely on the advice of strangers to recommend how I spend my time, or how I spend my mental energy. Trusted critics are one thing; the Great Unwashed are something else altogether. The Fifty Shades books, for instance, get an average of 4 stars according to Amazon customers. The likelihood that I would enjoy an average of 4 stars worth of Fifty Shadesness, however, is extremely small. If my daughter were to recommend a book I might like, however, I’d pick it up right away, and I’d probably like it. But that’s just me. Goodreads is a big deal in what you might call the reading community, and the last I heard, Amazon is something of a big deal in the bookselling community. Any question why I’m going to use Amazon as the outlet for The House on Summer Street? Amazon may or may not be the latest edition of evil incarnate, but when it comes to books, they are increasingly the only game in town. The are integrated vertically, horizontally, elliptically and widdershins. I can’t wait to hear how the publishing community takes this news. There are going to be some unhappy campers out there.

Come Monday, I’ll get back into writing up my adventures publishing the new book. This weekend should be fun; I’m popping down to NYC tomorrow for some museumness, and then dropping in on O’C, who is screening Willow for the assembled multitudes. Now, I can’t say I care one way or the other about Willow, but I do have a fondness for the assembled multitudes, which will include my daughter and JV and God knows who-all. Then Easter is a family day, out to eat at a local joint that does a nice Easter dinner complete with rabbit stew, which strikes me as either perfect or wildly inappropriate, much like having reindeer stew on Christmas Eve. It gets the Aged P out and about, however, which is a good thing once in a while. And then Monday night, we have a tentative workshop for the Sailor Speecho-Americans heading to the State finals, which means that I keep at least a marginal hand in such things for a little while longer.

Jules, on the other hand, is fomenting revolution somewhere in Overthereistan

For all practical purposes, Scarsdale is a single-flighted LD tournament. We start with one division, then go on to the next; the wrinkle is that some of the varsity is in the novice judging pool. Numbers being what they were, we were able to limit rounds judged to two per person, which isn't bad. When the tournament first started, it was more like every round, and we had to carry the varsity debaters out on gurneys.

Those were the good old days.

In the tab room, this means that while we're regularly engaged, there's not a lot of pressure, because we have all of this round to get out the next round. Meanwhile, PF runs in a traditional double-flight mode. Kaz and I were doing LD; O'C and CP were doing PF. In other words, the tab room was quite entertaining, with just about all of the usual suspects. For the record, O'C, when he now wanders off, says he's going to X, which according to him, means that he's not wandering off. Right. Meanwhile, due to the Penal Colony aspects of the school, you can't use your phone and there's no access to Sporcle, but CP managed to bypass that and we found the best game ever, identifying movies by letters of the alphabet. There were only the first 5 or so, though. Sporcle! Get going! We're depending on you.

I'm not sure what possessed my to compile the dictionary, but I'm polishing it up now, adding a few missing pieces and improving what needs improving. I hope to publish a permanent version, in alphabetical order, by the end of the week. This is what happens when I have extra time on my hands. Speaking of which, some random Bronxwegian came up to me to tell me he likes Nostrum; why is he telling me this? The Nostrumite was actually at the tournament. Why not tell him? Jeesh.

A Sunday State of Mind

I know that as a general rule the VCA looks on Nostrum much in the same way Churchill looked on the man he always referred to as Herr Hitler, but nonetheless, this isn't the worst time to try it if you haven't, or if you've been taking a much deserved break from it. I would suggest listening to the latest episode, given that it is laden with state of the art effects that will live with you forever. If you've never Nostrumed, and wish to pursue a full course of this particular drug, you should start with Series 1, a classic much like War and Peace or the new Snooki novel. The whole shebang is accessible on the Nostrum Nation blog.

Pack the shovel, Ma, we're a' headin' north!

I managed to record a Nostrum last night. This whole thing is getting way too weird if you ask me.

A blizzard seems to be barking at our heels starting tonight, but the weather looks clear for Bigle X this weekend. A Bigle X without at least six inches of new snow at some point is hard to imagine, but I, for one, would be able to find a way to live with it.

MJP will open tonight. Of course, at Lex, JV and Kaz do the Varsity honors while CP and I will handle novice and PF. Still, we’ll be there to help them out. At Jake, need of three people in the crunch of MJP was pretty clearly demonstrated if you really wanted to give everybody the best rounds possible. And there’s no point to it otherwise, so expect a busy, preoccupied tab room this weekend. If you must interrupt us, please go directly to JV and start your question with the word “When.” I love when people do that.

For dessert this weekend we have the RR. What makes this one special is that Day One ends with a bout of Bean Trivia. The rules are slightly different than the Sailor edition, or more to the point, the lifelines are different. First of all, there’s Ask Cruz with O’C right on the premises. This time out there are no bizarre debate trivia questions, but on the other hand, I think he can handle most of the Disney questions. Then there’s a new lifeline called Are You Feeling Lucky, Punk? You get CP to enter a Google query to bring up exactly one site to find the answer to the question. Can he do it first time out? Are you feeling lucky, punk? Should prove interesting. And last night I bagged up a load of crappy prizes, so all is ready.

It’s been a long time since I’ve done anything debaterly, so I’m looking forward to this weekend. Immediately following is the Gem of Harlem, to which we opened a lot of slots yesterday after some schedule jiggling, and to which I am also looking forward (especially now that we have that nice bistro across the street). Then a nice peaceful MHL while the rest of the world is shoveling the Georgia snow, then Newark and Scarsdale and UPenn, bing, bang boom. Bring ‘em on. I love winter!

Two—2—two, yes two Christian Bale questions. Yee-ha!

First of all, I have to keep O’C happy. It’s taken me a while to get all the results files posted from Regis, and with every passing moment, he bites down another fingernail to the nub. The thing is, because of NYSDCA we need to post the contestants in order (8 divisions), then there’s results for all the divisions, and 5 divisions of speaker awards. Quelle pain in the butt, as the Frenchies say. But, it’s done. He’s still got a finger left, which he no doubt wishes to give to me. Pfui.

Last night I buckled myself in and recorded what seemed like an endless Nostrum. Jules and the Mite aren’t putting them out with the frequency with which they published in the old days, but they are still plugging away, bless their corroded little hearts. And the VCA knows I love to do my bit for forensical fiction. If Nostrum didn’t exist, we might have to invent it, but thank goodness it does, so I don’t have to give it a second thought.

Tonight is, joy of joys, Bean Trivia night. The Sailors always celebrate the end of the calendar year with an evening of stupid answers to stupid questions. The crappy prize box is packed to the gills, and this year I’ve remembered in advance to bring the beans, the lack of which can seriously hinder the proceedings. I’ve also got some NFL degrees to hand out in order to get my hundred bucks worth of Rippin’ goodness. The only down side to trivia tonight is that I need to quickly replenish the questions for the Lexwegian RR, otherwise the Panivore will know all the answers. And unfortunately we’ll be turning off the Ask Cruz feature of the proceedings, since he’s studying English as a Second Language or something at Upper Schmegeggie Community College, but my daughter will be doing some lifeline duty, and I’ll drag in KS, the new nautical speech coach. She probably doesn’t know half as much about Disney as O’C, but then again, neither did Walt Disney.

And so, another first half of the year is put to bed. It says its prayers, we tuck it in, and we turn off the light, hoping that the monsters under the bed leave it alone for just one more day. Or not, as the case may be.

Hell's Bietzes, Cambridge awaits, whose pants are those, just a minute, man, and the resolutional reveal

I did a little bit of whining about Bump on TVFT last night, but mostly we talked about Brian Manuel’s ideas on a more regional approach to TOC. Bietz, having had his internet shut off at his office, called in for a while, but sounded like anyone would calling in from an L.A. freeway. At least he wasn’t on a motorcycle. I think I’ve solved my Darth Vader problem of heavy breathing, by the way, by lifting the microphone on the headset up above my nose, so none of my blowholes disrupt things. Seemed to work in the little bit I listened to.

The Cambridge Twins have sent me a new Nostrum to record; with luck I’ll get to that tonight. Depends on when I get home from dinner with my mother. (Yes, my mother. I do have one. Always have, for that matter.)

All the bills and receipts and checks for Bump are packed up and ready to be delivered, which I’ll do tomorrow on my way to Wee Sma Lex. The school tells me they have some Lost and Found crap to trade me for it. I’ll broadcast whatever they’ve found through tabroom.com. Probably ties, pants, Underoos, the usual sort of stuff left over at the proverbial end of the day. If it’s yours, you’re welcome to it. Over the years there has been a lot of L&F that no one has ever claimed, including a suitcase full of clothes that we couldn’t track down. You’d think the owner would have noticed. You’d think the people sitting next to the naked owner would have noticed. You’d think the parents would have asked, “And whatever happened to the suitcase we gave you?” But such never happens in the land of debate. What can I say? I eventually threw the suitcase into the Goodwill bins. There’s a homeless person out there who looks a lot like a debater…

Ah, WSL. I get to travel without all my crap like printers and masking tape for just once. Of course, at some point Saturday CP has to instruct me in the fine art of roomage, which I’m handling for Princeton. Fortunately last year’s stuff is around, so mostly I’ll just figure it out and transpose it. Other than that, I enjoy breathing the Lexwegian air. It’s a pretty little town, fun to roam around if you have a minute (and nicer to roam around now than at Bigle X, when it’s usually buried under twenty feet of ice).

And then, two weeks off! With the Jan-Feb rez coming in fast on the heels of the break. An interesting few weeks will be at hand. (If there’s any problem with the rez, I do have a substitute ready: “Resolved: Religions we don’t like ought to go back where they came from.” I’ll pay you five hundred bucks to debate this, if you want. I can’t imagine why you would want to debate it if I didn’t pay you.)

The last un-snowy day in Monticello

Saturday was the tournament we affectionately referred to as the Matt Thomas Pizza Toss IV, since O’C was there and he’s good with things like which roman numeral we’re at. Of course, this was the Monticello MHL, which I have to admit ran with a smoothness uncharacteristic of the breed. For some reason we were done with our four rounds much earlier than usual, and we even had to wait around a tad for the Policians to catch up. And we still got out of there by around six. Not bad. If helps when most of the problems are your own team. My judge was, to some, in a mode of disappearance, whereas in fact I had simply put her elsewhere because another judge, the Late Mr. C (who is always the last ballot in any division he’s judging), was, well, running late. And then a kid didn’t show up for a round, but it was my kid, who showed up for another kid’s round which is, I’m afraid, a forfeitable offense. It’s one thing to be confused about assignments, but when the school named isn’t yours, it’s a bit of a stretch of the not-paying-attention rubric. And a lesson learned, one hopes. Of course, other teams did cause some problems, like providing untrained judges and not checking their registrations and providing unacknowledged drops. Jeesh. For some reason, through it all there was a loose woman’s dress shoe in front of the ballot table. Presumably there was a loose woman’s foot somewhere in the cafeteria, but we never did find it. Also through it all, JT, as the students call her, kept us apprised of all the football scores. I have to say that O’C and I found this a less than vital addition to tab life, but ever since Mr. Favre went bananas and left Wisconsin or wherever he was, JT has not been the same. Neither have I, but I don’t think it’s related to Brett Favre. Then again, who knows. Stranger things have happened.

I took yesterday off from computing again, aside from checking my email over breakfast, responding to a friend request on Facebook from Queen Elizabeth, and filling the empty time before lunch with recording a new Nostrum. I’m getting to like this day-off-the-grid business. It clears the mind. I relaxed and read the Imagineering 2 book and made meatballs and generally charged up the batteries. They’ll need charging, with Bump coming up.

I find it curious that, no matter how we start, Bump always ends up looking roughly the same, with the same numbers year in and year out. Ol’ Reliable, in that regard. There are a few more souls courtesy of the novice PF division, but not many. I’ve managed to cover most housing, but not all, which is also roughly the same as always. Next year I may establish limits for per-team entries and housing, but no limits to the overall events. Less forbidding that way. In any case, it shuts down tonight, and then the judge rankings begin and I can shoot the housing list off to the appropriate authorities. Then on Wednesday, judge ranking shuts down and I start massaging the data in TRPC, with an eagle eye on the strikes.

And then it will all be over, and it will be your turn. Good luck and good night.

The "controversy" that would not die

One benefit to being alone for a few hours in the chez, after one tends to the feline invalids (or, I guess, the felinvalids), is being able to find the time to record a Nostrum, which I did last night. I pointed out to Jules that he was getting a lot of the information wrong, changing the names of things all over the place, and he finally admitted that maybe he and the Mite weren’t exactly concentrating as much on Series 2 as they had on Series 1. Not that anybody actually pays all that much attention, but it would help me, at least, as the one person who has no choice but to pay attention. But what can I do? They’ll both be at Bump, so maybe then I can sit them down and drill some sense into them. Although back in the day when they were on the team that never worked, so why I think it would work now is a mystery. Then again, what isn’t?

I noticed that somebody in one of my debate feeds was launching a series of debates on the November PF topic, in aid of the belief that issues like these are exactly what students ought to be discussing. It’s interesting how this one won’t die, and how people either think it’s an actual issue with two sides or an absolute travesty of an issue that is beyond sides. The VCA knows my opinion on this by now. Just because people in the world are arguing something stupid doesn’t raise the level of their argument beyond its native stupidity. Granted that turning the volume up on crap makes it noisier, but it doesn’t make it any less crappy. It was George W. Bush who thought that there ought to be public debates over whether evolution was a scientific fact in order to air “the controversy.” But it’s not a controversy. Scientists do not argue the fact of evolution. If they did, that would mean that it is controversial and, presumably, unproven, otherwise they wouldn’t bother arguing about it, the nature of science being what it is. The so-called Bushian controversy would pit people who don’t believe in science against people who don’t hold whatever religious belief is guiding those people who don’t believe in science. Where’s the debate in that? Similarly, where’s the debate in people who believe in the free practice of religion in this country against those who don’t? (If you call visiting a cultural center practicing your religion, but I’ll grant you this one.) I guess you could argue that for whatever reason we shouldn’t allow certain religions to exist or to practice their faiths, but I vaguely recollect that this country was built on the ideal, among others, of the free practice of religion. At the point where it’s the free practice of some religions, the ideal becomes a little tarnished. Not to cheapen the so-called debate over the November topic, but as I think I’ve asked before, how far away is the nearest sushi joint from the Pearl Harbor memorial? Shouldn’t we ban Germans from visiting Normandy Beach? And then, hell, the Jews killed Jesus, so we ought to be doing something about limiting them… As I say, the VCA knows my opinion on this by now. If adults want to waste their breath arguing this, let them. I can turn it off, and it’s not as if my entire life there haven’t been people in this country whose beliefs deeply disturbed me. (Notice, by the way, that I haven’t tried to shut them up, I’ve just turned them off personally.) Students we’re trying to educate? With them, I think we should be making the points I’m making here, explaining to them why this is not a good debate, rather than making them debate it.

Aaarrrghhhh!

Well aren't we the busy one?

First of all, not doing speech, while not as much fun as doing it, is a lot less hard on the calendar. Not having the weekly meeting and the daily angst is nice. On the other hand, I went home to an empty house last night while Liz was off taking some classes, meaning, first, I was an hour later than usual due to some hoo-ha at the dj, followed by a greeting from one elderly diabetic cat who will bite your arm off if you don’t feed him immediately and prodigiously but not too fast because he’ll throw up, and then you have to give him his insulin, plus there’s the lunatic in the cage in the other room who is way too energetic for all of this and wants to jump on everything the minute his collar is off (and no, I’m not going to make that joke), and I’m back and forth between them, opening and closing doors and cat food cans and wine bottles and microwaving soup and a whole lot of shakin’ goin’ on for very little reward. I did, on the positive side, advance a few levels of Angry Birds while waiting for Tik (pronounced teek) to use his box. I was very happy eventually to settle down and watch a DVD on Imagineering after all of this that I had picked up during the DiDeAd. Did you ever notice, Disney fans, how much more the audioanimatronic Jack Sparrow looks like Jack Sparrow than the audioanimatronic Barack Obama looks like Barack Obama? The president obviously needs more eye makeup.

Speaking of Jack Sparrow, did I hear correctly that Disney is not going to hire Keith Richards to reprise his role in the next film installment because of revelations in his new autobiography? I mean, this is Keith Richards. What didn’t Disney know, and when didn’t they know it?

And through all of this, Jules and the Nostrumite are bugging me about the next episode. Like I’ve got time for all of this?

Jeesh.

No way

I object to Jules's statement on his most recent Nostrum Nation blog post. I do not club baby seals. I never have clubbed baby seals, and I never will. Why? Because I'm a macho kind of guy. I only club fully grown seals.

You know, I do them a favor, reading their silly stuff, and that's the thanks I get for it. There's other high school debate soap operas out there I could be narrating, fellas. Just don't forget that.

Jeesh.

Yin and yang visit Sailorland

We don’t seem to be able to get rid of the Speechonauts. Although most of them remain stolidly unsigned up, they persist in showing up at meetings. I would like to take anyone who believes that “kids nowadays are all about computers” and take them by the hand and introduce them to some kids nowadays. The youth of America, as I have maintained often, are no more adept at computers than the fogies of America. Computism is not a skill inborn since 1995 or so. On the other hand, they can text in their sleep, but part of being able to text is having someone to text to, and there are a lot of teenagers out there sleeping with their cell phones, just waiting for someone to send them a text message. Adults, on the other hand, just sit around cradling shotguns in their crooked arms, rocking on their porches and waiting for kids nowadays to appear on their lawns. Thus the difference between myth and reality.

What I do detect, however, is that we have reached the full swing of the nautical pendulum from debate back to speech. Historically the ship of Hud has had either a dynamic speech team or a dynamic debate team, but seldom both simultaneously. I maintain this has something to do with the particular brand of nuclear fuel they’re burning at nearby Indian Point during the moment of conception. At the moment, the Speechonauts are a young team, and there’s some real talent there. They’ll be fun to watch over the coming years. Too bad I won’t be staying with them, although I’m toying with some ways of keeping my hand in a little bit. We’re hoping for a new coach for them by mid-October. We’re starting the interviews this weekend.

I have a vision of a one-person debate team next year. That doesn’t seem right.

After last night’s meeting I managed to get the latest Nostrum recorded, and, of course, I monitored the Pups for a while, but all there seems to be going as smooth as the proverbial goat. I’ve recharged my little MiFi for the journey, I’ve recharged my Starbucks card, I’ve recharged the iPad, I’ve tested the printer, I’ve drunk the Kool-Aid, I’ve seen the elephant, I’ve said yes to the panda, I’ve caught up on OKGO videos, I’ve packed my galoshes—in short, I am ready for the weekend in New Haven.

Do I sound eager for the season to begin?

Permission to come aboard, sir!

So maybe we have a couple of new Sailors. It’s hard to say. Two impressive recruits showed up last night, but one of them was ambivalent, having some sort of other stuff comprising the semblance of a life, and the other one for all his natural desire to argue about everything hasn’t yet taken the magic step of sending me the starter email. I promised them the stars and the moon, audiences with the great crowned heads of Europe, free bus rides to Lexington and Monticello and Newark, but nothing seemed to work. It will be interesting to find out how many Speechonauts return tonight. Sanguine I’m not, as they say (whoever they are).

All is quiet on the Puppian front. Presumably MJP is going well; no one has complained that the rankings aren’t working. CP has suggested that we use Google Voice for collecting data from the judges, which we may do, but now it looks as if we’re going to be based in one building for all of Saturday and one other building for all of Sunday, so by the time we get people trained Friday night to text us results, we won’t need them to do it anymore. It’s nice not to have everyone scattered to the winds over a broad campus. One is so much more likely to get the results back in a timely manner. But certainly with the Tiggers, where far-flinging was the rule, having the Voice account was dramatically useful, and timeliness held. You’ve got to love all these modern conveniences.

The People’s Champion wants to tab a tournament. I can’t imagine why, but I’m happy to bring him in when an opportunity arises, maybe at an MHL, especially if we don’t have any novices for him to cover as a judge. Lord knows that at the MHLs we are often a hand or two short in the back room. I can’t tell you the number of times we’ve had to run out into the street and haul a homeless person into the building to help us out. A cup of coffee and a baloney with Velveeta sandwich and you’ve got a friend for life.

Jules and the Nostrumite have sent me the next episode of Nostrum. Recording it tomorrow will be tough, so I’ll have to try to get to it tonight after the Speechonaut session. Forgive me if my voice is a little scratchy after trying to convince the folks at the meeting that life isn’t half as miserable as they think it is. Unless, in fact, it is. We’ll just have to see who wins the convincing contest.

A Wednesday sort of Friday; these consarned kids nowadays; antici pation

If this is Friday it must be Wednesday. Or, in other words, Nostrum is back. Granted I didn’t get to it in a timely manner, if a timely manner means a Wednesday publication, but anyone who has ever dealt with Jules and the Nostrumite knows that they are not exactly Old Reliable in a Can themselves, so having an episode arrive at my door in the first place is miracle enough, much less getting it recorded. Jules tells me he’ll try to be regular, and for what it’s worth I now pass that along to you. With my own schedule, I’m guessing that as a rule all Wednesdays will be Fridays in the future. So it goes. Gives you something to listen to on your way to tournaments.

The trickle in of emails from the Speechnonauts of tomorrow has begun, once again leading me to wonder why teenagers don’t have access to computers anymore. When I was a kid—oh, wait. When I was a kid we had Univac, and nobody had access to it. But nowadays I hear tell they got these thingummies they call personal computers, but apparently they’ve been banned in Sailorville. Or maybe my eyes deceived me at the inaugural meeting. Damned kids. Can’t get them to email you, can’t get them off your lawn…

I am starting to get excited about the Pups. It’s been so long since I’ve tabbed a tournament that my fingers are getting itchy. All that nifty MJP stuff, the chapel room that has no grounded three-prong sockets, getting to tell people who changed their judges after the deadline that they don’t get any strikes, praying that the bathrooms in the high school continue working for the entire day, sporcle.com, the rush of debaters when you post anything on the wall, even if it’s a notice not to rush you when you post things on the wall… Ah, smell of it is already in my nostrils. Especially those bathrooms.

Carry me back to old Virginny

Tonight I have my first meeting for the returning Sailors. Chez moi, of course, out back on the porch, watching the sun set over the Pacific (I’ve got a really great view from my backyard). I gather the Panivore is not allowed out at night anymore, something about her diurnal anti-vampire activities, but at least the People’s Champion will show up, and, I hope, a couple of this year’s sophomores. My guess is that I am now totally free of juniors. Bah! Who needs ‘em? They just mess up the litter box and drink all the whiskey when I’m not looking. We’re better off not having to carry their dead weights on our backs!

Did I mention that this year recruitment is really a crucial issue? If we don’t beef up the team a sizeable amount, I’m going to start coaching the Hen Hud tiddlywinks team, where the real action is. (I understand that the Tournament of Tiddlywinks Champions puts the debate TOC to shame. For the record, Hen Hud is still a quarters bid for the TOTC.)

Sept/Oct is interesting enough, of course, but oh, that vanilla wording. It requires so much setting of ground for debate. I remember well discussions of use versus possession and intent and whatnot. On the other hand, it is a subject of much depth. Iran wants nukes, NK may want nukes (it may just want extortion money), some countries allegedly have nukes, some countries admittedly have nukes… All have different reasons for wanting them or not wanting them, and the US is the only country that’s ever used them. Having them makes you a player. Not having them makes you want them, if you happen to be surrounded by players. Lightning round questions: why does no one in South America have them? What is “ought” in realpolitik? Is there “ought” in realpolitik? Can countries not prioritize political reality when it means their very existence? Do nukes threaten global existence? Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. As I say, tonight we begin bloviating on the back porch.

I’m pretty sure that Bump is ready on paper, including now the tabroom.com piece of it. It has apparently passed muster with O’C, possibly because he is the only person mentioned by name in the invitation, aside that is from the eponymous Malcolm A. Bump and the elusive Virginia. Maybe someday we’ll call it the Jon Cruz Invitational. He seems to enjoy it more than I do. But no one likes their own tournament. The amount of work is just crazy, regardless of how well you do it. I mean, you can have a perfectly dreadful tournament and still do just as much work as the guy down the road whose tournament is heaven on wheels. Oh, well. At least I don’t worry about snow anymore. Although I would like a Bump where it doesn’t rain all weekend. We’re getting to be like Woodstock without the music.

Oh. One last thing. I heard yesterday from Jules. No details on how he or the Nostrumite have been spending their hiatus, but he claims that they’ve begun working on the next episodes of their continuing drama, and he told me to start polishing up the old microphone for September. Sounds good to me. (But then again, I don’t have to listen to it.)

Yes, Your Majesty, No, Your Majesty; summertime blues; MJP blues; #DDA

Yesterday was O’C’s birthday. He told me he spent the day waving at the Queen. I could think of nothing to reply.

I have to admit I was taken aback when Jules told me that Nostrum was going on hiatus, especially since about two weeks ago he told me they weren’t going on hiatus. They like to stick to their guns, I guess, unless they're sticking to their other guns. Of course, back in the day, the guys always took the summer off (and the Jewish holidays, the Christian holidays, anniversaries of all scientific discoveries beginning with the letter K, and, I think, periods of heavy sunspot activity). Whatever. It gives me more time to go to the movies on these warm summer nights if I don’t have to narrate. Now all I need is some decent movies to go to.

Continuing the MJP discussion, Pajamas Wexler asks: “How difficult is it at larger but not huge tournaments (such as the Bump) to have all 1-1 or 2-2 judge match ups in round 6?” Well, Bump will stay community rankings, which means that it really doesn’t apply, but Joe and Sheryl are pretty religious about using all the judges in the pool as best they can. We tend to have a lot of range, and therefore a lot of flexibility. I’m imagining that at Big Jake and the Pup, using MJP, we’ll be able to match everyone to the exact same number every time, and that it will usually be a high (as in low) number, especially at Jake where O’C hires a couple or ninety extra national judges, including the ones he flies in from Pago Pago, so it would be by design that lesser numbers are used, to relieve the higher numbers, which we will do. In any case, I think we’ve got what has to be an ageless problem of students wanting the best judging and not thinking that inexperienced judges are the best. They’re right, but that doesn’t exclude the need for them to understand and win ballots from those inexperienced judges. At its heart, the activity involves all the basic tenets of public speaking, including knowing your audience and adjusting accordingly. Or, if you will, judge adaptation. No debater who can’t adapt is good. Period. End of story. You don’t have to like it, you just have to do it. It will make a better person of you in the long run: trust me on that. Keep in mind that we also often put lesser judges in the undefeated bracket because there’s less on the line. Since you’re going for speaks, how you get them becomes an issue. And a fascinating one.

Anyhow, I like July because it feels so non-debate. Of course, I have started wrangling Sailors for the Pup and I’ll be reserving motel rooms shortly, but that’s about it on the early early side. I had lunch with CLG yesterday (she’s freshly back from an Ireland trip), and I have to report that the one thing she was most intrigued by in activity news is the Disney Debate Adventure. Of course, I told her, we’ll be live-blogging it. Or at least twittering it to death. #DDA. Will O’C wear a fanny pack? Will Kaz get Cinderella’s autograph? Will Menick get even more Mickey tee shirts? A waiting world wonders.

Summer fever

I’m curious about the new Digg, which I heard Kevin Rose talk about this weekend on TWIT. This may be useful for debate stuff, or, maybe not. A new adjunct to the Coachean Feed, if not a replacement? It’s going live in a month or so. Anyhow, I registered with Digg today. We’ll see how that goes.

Roughly one month later, I still love my iPad, if you’re wondering. Notes: get the biggest one you can; I’ve already filled up the first 16 gigs. The Apple case is better than any other I’ve seen (a lot better in some cases). I don’t miss 3G because I have wireless both at home and at work; on school buses, I’ll watch Star Trek episodes. In the tab room, I’ll play Civ. End of connectivity story. Have figured out how to make FeeddlerRSS work really well (it connects to Google Reader: to enjoy the articles, don’t just use it as a list; go into the articles and then go from one to the other, which is how you’ll get the audio/video stuff). I’ve read one full book (Roughing It), and realized that this is the easiest way in the universe to catch up with your classics, given that they’re all free.

On the entertainment front, we saw Alan Cumming last week at Feinsteins. He was predictably entertaining and uncensored. Best line of the night was from an audience member after the show, a very old lady complaining to her companion, “Well, I didn’t think he was funny.”

I miss TVFT. For some people, summer in debate is just like winter only warmer. For the rest of us, it’s total cold turkey. Even Jules and the Mite are talking about hiatus. Jeesh. People were made of sterner stuff back in my day!

And I think I’ve grown tired of movies. That is, I’ve seen so many mediocre movies that I just don’t want to see any more of them, or even put myself in a position to possibly see any more of them. I did enjoy TS3, though, which is the only thing to get me out of the house in months, but even at home, I’m only watching old TV shows via my Netflix account. I guess I could watch artsy Afghan films or something, but a little of that goes a long way. Is it too much to expect intelligent popular entertainment? Maybe.

God, my life is tough!

Oh, what a day to be in Dublin!

Ah, yes. Now I remember. It’s called Camp WTF-a-Mucka. How could I forget something so simple? I did not, however, forget that today is Bloomsday. I’m thinking of banning myself from Apple to celebrate.

And I appreciate CP resolving the baffling question of which NY baseball team to prefer when the last time you saw a NY baseball game the Bambino wasn’t even famous yet. (Actually, this is not true. The DJ had a family day back in the ‘90s, which included tix for the nuclear F plus one hot dog per mouth. You had to buy your own beer: I only bought one. Cost me $258. I’ve never been back.)

There is a new Nostrum up and running, if that is your cup of tea. Not having Tuesday night meetings does free one up nicely for other activities. I’m even thinking of going to the movies, but I have to admit that Hollywood has not been forthcoming with anything to get me off my duff lately. Aside from TS3, which I assume will be the berries, it’s been one stinker after another, and predictably so. I mean, how many of us were champing at the bit for The Prince of Persia, eh? I like the game as much as the next yabbo, and probably got through about 25% of it on more than one platform, but that’s about the extent of it for me. It might have something to do with Jake G as action hero, but maybe not. It may just be, while I like action and adventure and whatnot, I’m getting a little tired of how low the common denominator is vis-à-vis Hollywood. Whatever happened to the thinking man’s action picture? For that matter, whatever happened to the thinking five-year-old’s action picture? Hollywood could solve all its woes at the box office by making better and, dare I say it, original pictures, but that’s not likely to happen anytime soon. I mean, even TS3 does have the 3 after it, but then again, one would be pretty nearsighted to look at Pixar and say that these guys are anything if not original. “Up”?

I’ll leave you with this thought. On one of the roads I regularly traverse, there is a billboard with a message for the ages. Look on this, and tremble. It is an advertisement for two doctors who bill themselves as “The Proctologists You Can Trust.”

Do we dare to consider the proctologists we can’t trust?