Not as Stupid as I Sound

I'm concerned that my "Today I Learned" series is giving the impression I am a complete tard.

I didn't really think unfinished novels stopped in the middle of a word. But maybe at the end of a paragraph. When I was a kid and heard the phrase "Schubert's Unfinished Symphony," I imagined an orchestra playing a movement and suddenly the wind section dropped out, and then the cellos, then the timpani, and after a while you just heard the oboe part doodling along, till that petered out too. It seemed like a cool idea, that you could hear the way the composer's inspiration had died, in each separate area. Just having a missing movement or chapter seems less fascinating.

I didn't not know Crete was part of Greece! I just said it for comic effect. I'd asked my father for an atlas and he mentioned he was going to Crete; I asked, "Is that near Greece?" to show I really needed the atlas.

I'm sure my father was just as disgusted as my readers at this display of ignorance.

I'm not as stupid as some of these posts suggest. But I am quite uninformed, that's true. I seem to live in a weird bubble, not knowing most of the things other people learn. Once in the Ontario countryside, some friends and I stopped for ice cream at a roadside cafe and there was a sign for a "three-legged chicken." Everyone was making a lot of fuss about it and I finally said, "What's the big deal? Couldn't one of the legs just have fallen off?" There was a pause; then someone asked me, "Kristy, how many legs do you think a chicken has?"

So these basic facts were never brought in to me.

I blame society.

Today I Learned

that Cubans aren't allowed to have the Internet in their homes.

Courtesy of NPR.

It's a bit shocking to hear. It's easy to idealize a country that provides universal health care and used to have a goal of radical equality for all.

I know that equality didn't really transpire and certain people were persecuted. I don't know all the rest of the details. I was reading a biography of Che Guevera and the stuff about Castro was fascinating, but it's a giant book and I had to take it back to the library unfinished even after renewing it twice.

Paul Krugman has a really good editorial about poverty in the Times today.

That is all.

Today I Learned

that Colin Firth did make a good Mr. Darcy, after all.

Today I Learned

that I've gained 2 pounds from stress eating. Sux.

Yesterday I Learned

... that when a book is said to be unfinished, it doesn't stop mid-word (which I always pictured) but suddenly there isn't another chapter, and instead the editor writes, "Here Fitzgerald seemed to plan to have Monroe Stahr go through more tension over the screenwriters' union." Thud. It's very unpleasant because it seems the writer never actually thought the book through to the end.

I did enjoy it though. The Last Tycoon. Very smart, and perfectly timely about the nature of Hollywood and the instability of writers. At one point a character says that writers can't handle authority, and they are like children. Nailed it, I thought. If only the rest of the world understood that, and less was expected of us.

Today I Learned

Just when you've lost everything, you find that you can always lose a little more.

Just tryin' to get to Heaven before they close the door.

Yesterday I learned about some fungus called Aspergillus. I had an interview at a medical editing place. Are things like Aspergillus cap'd? You have to know what reference book to look it up in, first, which means you have to know whether it's a disease, a drug, a bacteria, a phylum, or what-all.

If you bailed on Science early, like I did, you're sunk.

Yesterday I Learned

that PJ Harvey is a lousy soundtrack to take to the beach.

The Shins, on the other hand, are delightful.

Today I zzzzz....

Two Days Ago I Learned

that in India there's no quality assurance for anything you buy, from batteries to toothpaste.

Then yesterday I learned there's a lot of bird flu in Indonesia

but actually it's hard to read the paper or concentrate on anything because of the lack of work, lack of income, drifty feeling.