The Urban Etiquette Handbook

This article (articles actually) in New York Magazine goes on-and-on, but some of it is actually useful and some of it is funny. It’s subtitled, “New rules for getting along in an endlessly wired, ruthlessly crowded, sexually libertarian city.” Some examples:

Is it ever acceptable to talk to a stranger on an elevator?
If there are six or fewer people on the elevator, no. However, if the group is larger than six, you have achieved an Elevator Humor Quorum and someone must make a remark about the elevator’s lack of size or speed in order to relieve the tension created by standing in a tiny space with six or more strangers. If another member of the group makes the remark first, Elevator Humor Solidarity obligates you to chuckle mildly.

What are the rules for disciplining other kids when their parents are around?
The same rules apply to adjusting other people’s yoga poses when the teacher is around: It’s just not done. The only exception is in matters of safety when the other parent isn’t paying attention (throwing toys, biting). As they always say (and by “they” we mean Oprah), the only person you can truly change is yourself; similarly, the only kids you can change are your own. If the parents are deadbeat do-as-you-willers, all you can do is make sure your own kid takes away the lesson, like, “That little boy is not being nice by doing that, but we know not to rob liquor stores, right?” As a last resort, you can always decide it’s time to go home.

Best line of the day, so far

“This is a lot of gear for a sub-$40,000 car. To name but a few items: stability control, six air bags, xenon headlights, tire-pressure monitoring, power moon roof, heated outside mirrors with reverse tilt-down, speed-sensitive wipers, leather heated seats, and enough bins, compartments and squirrel holes to carry Rush Limbaugh’s entire personal stash.”

Dan Neil in a rave review of the new Acura RDX.

“The car will monitor its position relative to the sun and compensate for solar heating on one side of the cabin.”

The day the music changed forever

On this day in 1954, Elvis Presley recorded his first rock and roll song and his first hit, “That’s All Right, Mama.” Elvis had wanted to be a crooner, and in his first recording sessions he only sang slow ballads. But then, in between takes, Elvis and the other musicians started fooling around and singing a blues tune called “That’s All Right.” Sam Phillips asked them to start over from the beginning and recorded the song. He then rushed the record to the biggest DJ in Memphis, and it became Elvis’s breakout hit.

The Writer’s Almanac

The “other musicians” were, of course, Scotty Moore on guitar and Bill Black on bass.

Sam recognized it right away. He was amazed that the boy even knew Arthur “Big Boy” Crudup — nothing in any of the songs he had tried so far gave any indication that he was drawn to this kind of music at all. But this was the sort of music that Sam had long ago wholeheartedly embraced, this was the sort of music of which he said, “This is where the soul of man never dies.” And the way the boy performed it, it came across with a freshness and an exuberance, it came across with the kind of clear-eyed, unabashed originality that Sam sought in all the music that he recorded — it was “different,” it was itself.

They worked on it. They worked hard on it, but without any of the laboriousness that had gone into the efforts to cut “I Love You Because.” Sam tried to get Scotty to cut down on the instrumental flourishes — “Simplify, simplify’” was the watchword. “If we wanted Chet Atkins,” said Sam good-humoredly, “we would have brought him up from Nashville and gotten him in the damn studio!” He was delighted with the rhythmic propulsion Bill Black brought to the sound. It was a slap beat and a tonal beat at the same time. He may not have been as good a bass player as his brother Johnny; in fact, Sam said, “Bill was one of the worst bass players in the world, technically, but, man, could he slap that thing!” And yet that wasn’t it either — it was the chemistry. There was Scotty, and there was Bill, and there was Elvis scared to death in the middle, “but sounding so fresh, because it was fresh to him.”

Peter Guralnick, Last Train to Memphis: The Rise of Elvis Presley

NewMexiKen photo, 2006

Best line of the day, so far

“Superman and the Bible are plainly cut from the same template: baby Superman and baby Moses are both rescued from certain death, sent off by their desperate parents in a rocket ship/wicker basket, and are then raised by an alien family but always remember the ways of their people and spend their lives fighting for justice.”

Freakonomics Blog, in a posting entitled “Does Obesity Kill?”

Digital music — quick and dirty guide

The Mossberg Solution has a good primer on digital music.

Over 50 million Apple iPods, and lots of competing digital music players, have been sold by now — as well as over a billion songs and tens of millions of videos, since legal media sales took off a few years ago.

But many folks — even some who own iPods and other players — are still confused over how legal digital music works. So here’s a quick-and-dirty guide to the digital music world, in question-and-answer form. We’ve included the questions we are asked most frequently, plus a few other topics.

Continue reading.

Two Seconds to Sleep (Mac only)

Want the fastest way to put your Mac right into a deep, sleepy-bear hibernation-like sleep (no whirling fan, no dialogs, no sound — nuthin’ — just fast, glorious sleep). Just press Command-Option and then hold the Eject button for about 2 seconds and Zzzzzzzzzzzzzz. It doesn’t get much faster than that.

Apple - Pro - Tips

Build an ark

An astonishing rainstorm at Casa NewMexiKen this morning around 3. And, by my count, three lightning strikes way too close. You know, “One Mississippi, two Miss … oh damn, that was close.” NewMexiKen really doesn’t like lightning since my house was struck and set on fire in 1995.

Anyway, the rain was falling so fast and furiously I began to wonder if Lowe’s carried gopher wood.¹ Then I panicked when I couldn’t remember the conversion from feet and inches to cubits (did we learn that in school?). And would it be OK if I accidentally on purpose forgot to bring two scorpions and two rattlesnakes. (But I did remember I’d only need one New Mexico whiptail.) It was really raining!

But it slowed to nothing much after 25-30 minutes. The arroyo² next to my house is still running deep and fast, but things are returning to normal otherwise.

¹ Genesis 6

14. Make thee an ark of gopher wood; rooms shalt thou make in the ark, and shalt pitch it within and without with pitch.
15. And this is the fashion which thou shalt make it of: The length of the ark shall be three hundred cubits, the breadth of it fifty cubits, and the height of it thirty cubits.

² “Arroyo” is Spanish for concrete ditch.