My Word's
Worth:

a weekly column by
Marylaine Block

vol. 2 #28, February 21, 1997

THE ENCHANTED TOY SHOP



You know, I spend a good 10-15 hours every week just cruising the net, looking for new sites to add to my page, looking for, and trying out, information. The annoying thing about all this earnestness is, most of the time I forget what the internet truly is--one of the greatest toys ever created. Sometimes I just have to force myself to click on things just for the fun of it. When I do, here are some of the places I go.


Not surprisingly, some of them are magazines. After all, once a magazine junkie, always a magazine junkie, and it doesn't much matter to me whether the magazines come in bytes or on dead trees. I generally try to start the day with the Netizen. Of course, I always read Jon Katz's Media Rant column in it. He's a steady voice for free speech, and one of the few voices raised to support children's right to information. I don't always agree with him, and he does repeat himself a bit (understandably, since the man writes 3 columns a week, a feat which leaves me in awe). This was a campaign year, so I also read the daily campaign coverage by John Heileman, which was very snarky, very generation X--an unusual and interesting viewpoint. He caught a lot about the campaign that the middle-aged political reporters from the networks missed.


I am also a big fan of Salon, a magazine that includes a daily media critique, interviews, features, reviews of books, recordings and film, and regular columns by Ian Shoales and Anne LaMott, easily two of the most interesting voices on the net. Anne Lamott is an interesting, 40-ish ex-hippie writer and single mother, giving a very personal account of her life (her column is, in fact, called a diary), with wry wit and self-deprecating humor. I enjoy her company. Ian Shoales, on the other hand, is a professional snot, with a snide take on just about everything, but charming about it, withall.


You will have gathered that I like that sort of adolescent male take on the world--long on attitude and humor, and short on tolerance for authority. So, naturally, I regularly used to visit Joe Lavin's column, until I started having him just e-mail it to me. Joe is a scriptwriter who supports himself with various temp jobs. (When my son first read Joe's stuff, he commented admiringly that he had never before come across anyone who was so like him, yet still employable.) Joe discourses on movies (his recommendations for movies Bob Dole should see were memorable), girls, roommates from hell, temp jobs, lawyers and prospective lawyers (one of his temp jobs was at a law school), and various other topics, twice a week.


When he celebrated his first year anniversary, I wrote him an e-mail congratulating him. I told him I thought one of the great tragedies of this life is the way that life turns wildly inventive, crazy, imaginative teenage boys into prematurely middle-aged men worrying about life insurance and pensions, and thanked him for managing to not grow up and get boring. He wrote back that he might need to have me elaborate on my philosophy for his parents sometime.


I like to visit the Gallery of the Absurd, from the busy mind of Derek Royal--a compelling proof that Purdue does not keep its students, or possibly faculty, anywhere near busy enough. Here are gathered together images from advertising copy and homepages, all guaranteed to elicit the response, "Huh?" Like the ad for the Giant Electric Radar Frog, that goes ribbet whenever anyone passes within 12 feet of it, or for the Goon Institution School of Law, or for the Jimmy Hoffa room (Mr. Royal suggests it's the sort of place you go to cement a friendship), or for a tartar control product for cats ("because cats can't brush their teeth"). This is a place to keep going back to--there are way too many possible absurdities here to click on in any one visit.


I am also quite fond of the Hot AIR site, home page to the Annals of Improbable Research (formerly the Journal of Irreproducible Results). Here you will find ongoing scientific endeavors proposed by readers, such as the "Cork Model of Quantum Physics," or the "Periodic Table of the Presidents," as well as a few classic articles, such as "The Taxonomy of Barney," or the immortal "Feline Responses to Bearded Men." Well, they do want you to buy the magazine, so they're not giving all the good stuff away free on their page, but you do get to view Tables of Contents and work up a longing to read articles like "Independence Training for Lemmings" or "The Aerodynamics of Potato Chips" or "Side Effects of a Master's Program on Two German Shepherds." Of course, if you prefer to read this sort of stuff in book form, there are two collections, The Best of the Journal of Irreproducible Results, and Sex as a Heap of Malfunctioning Rubble (one of my candidates for best book title ever).


The scientifically challenged among us can always visit Dr. Science's site (Ask Dr. Science--he knows more than you do). Here we can get silly answers to silly questions, such as:



As a lover of language, I try to make time every now and again to visit Judi Wolinsky's wonderful Word Play page. Here you can find links to every known variety of word magic and buffoonery. For example:



Judi also gets you to the ultimate repositiory of Burma Shave signs. These were the 5-6 installment road signs, containing segments of a short verse and advice to buy Burma Shave, that littered the two-way highways my family traveled during my childhood. The Burma Shave signs died out, sadly, killed by the interstate highway system which sent people speeding by far too fast to enjoy them. Still, my mind retains those gems of driving tips (Train approaching/whistle squealing/Pause!/Avoid that/Rundown feeling) and grooming hints (When cutting whiskers/you don't need/to leave one half/of them for seed), and it was a treat to be reminded of some of the ones I had forgotten.


And every now and again, I also like to stop in at the Centre for the Easily Amused, to check out their Short Attention Span of the Week site, and maybe one or two of their Random Silliness sites as well.


So, you see, I do know how to go about playing on the internet, even if I do have to wait until our students go home for Christmas before I have time to do it. Anyway, here's hoping you'll enjoy my favorite sites as much as I do.



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NOTE: My thinking is always a work in progress. You could mentally insert all my columns in between these two sentences: "This is something I've been thinking about," and "Does this make any sense to you?" I welcome your thoughts. Please send your comments about these columns to: marylaine at netexpress.net. Since I've written a lot of these, some of them many years ago, help me out by telling me which column you're referring to.

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