A Protest Against Forgetting Issue #2: Don't 'Toast' it Up
Hello again. It's Kevin. Thank you for visiting.
I very much appreciate the feedback on our debut/rebooted issue of this publication and hope I can hang on to your interest and belief in the idea that choosing what we pay attention to and having "why" aligned with our values is the surest way for us not to live in a perpetual state of forgetting.
Opening argument: How to Give a Toast
Last time I had a whole traveling medicine show prepared on how to give a toast but we were running a little long. I I've included it here as part of our theme on remembering and forgetting. In this case, how to give a toast could just as easily be called How not to be Remembered for the Wrong Thing.
We remember bad toasts. Just as we remember bad food at a wedding or the guest of honor passing out at his own birthday party. It'd be nice if we only remembered the best parts of special occasions but the human mind is cynical and craven that way.
Don't be that person then, the one who "wings it" who thinks it's hilarious that "roast" rhymes with toast, who makes a joke older than the building in which you are currently standing.
Don't. You'll snuff out the light from a happy occasion and graffiti your stupidity all over the memory of those in attendance. You'll go down in history for exactly the wrong reason.
Here's how to do it right. And be remembered for that.
Let's start with what you are REALLY being asked to you.
A toast is being asked to say something nice about someone publicly that speaks to the occasion and your relationship with them.
Let's take those one at a time
-- Say something nice about someone. A toast is not a roast. A roast has multiple speakers and the person getting roastedusually gets to respond at the end. None of that is true for a toast so quit acting like this is the damn Friar's Club. Even if everyone's laughing, you still sound like an asshole saying not-nice things about the person being honored who isn't permitted to defend themselves.
--... publicly. Don't make private joke between you and the honoree if there's anyone else in the room. A toast is a public act not a soulful moment where the rest of the room doesn't know what the hell you're talking about. If you're going to tell a story then, you're going to have to add enough detail so the room gets it. Don't assume the room knows you and the toastee lived in Wilson Hall together and liked to tobaggen on the 24th of May. They probably don't know and don't care.
-- "that speaks to the occasion." A wedding toast is probably about celebrating love and commitment b/c that's what weddings celebrate. A retirement toast says "job well done." A birthday toast is "we're so glad you're in our life." This should sharpen the focus of whatever you plan to say a whole lot.
Don't mix them up. A wedding toast is not the time to joke about being tied town (no one got dressed up and ate a three tiered pile of white frosting in celebration of "being tied down") nor is a birthday the moment to poke at how old someone is (they gathered you all here for that?). A retirement toast is exactly the wrong moment to yuck it up about how overpaid or lousy at their job someone was.
Because don't forget....
-- "and your relationship with that person." Is the honored person your worst enemy? Some schmuck at work you really don't like?
Then quit making the honor you have been given about you. Encouraging laughter at their expense makes it about you. Telling a long pointless story makes it at least half about you. You know who takes someone's else's occasion and makes it about then? A jerk who really doesn't like the someone else very much.
Instead. Here's how its done.
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"Thanks everybody. I really appreciate the chance to honor ____ by saying a few words. Because that's really why we've all come so far and gathered here today, right?
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One paragraph (3-5 sentences) that illustrates your relationship with honoree and why that demonstrates honoree is a great person.
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Two genuine sentences of love and admiration for honoree. Look directly at them when you say this.
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Raise glass. "To honoree. And" then one sentence that generalizes what you said in line #2. "to friendship, to long nights and bottomless cups of coffee and conversations you never want to end" or something.
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Clink, clink, sit down and shut up.
Recap:
Not a roast, not about you, a public, not private act. Remember where the hell you are.
Clink clink and sit down.
Bookmarks:
A half-dozen essays, books and podcasts you need in your life right now.
- "The Day the Good Internet Died" by Katie Baker (The Ringer)
From a moment in recent memory (2013) when the internet did not feel like a cesspool of hatred and conflict. It's been said this turn to the darkside was an inside job.
- "Hotelier Damon Lawrence Created Stay Homage so Black Travellers can Rest" by Faith Adiele (Here Magazine)
Imagine the promise of the Green Book but without segregation.
- "How a Year Without my LIbrary Changed Me" by Lauren Du Graf (Lithub)
When did you last visit yours? When was it last safe to?
- "The End of Gangs" by Sam Quinones (Pacific Standard Magazine 2014).
In the 1980s Los Angeles had the worst streetgang problem in America. By 2009, they had all but vanished. What happened?
- One Year Podcast (Slate)
Limited audio series about lesser reported news stories of a single calendar year reminds us that the most important events of history aren't always the ones that get the most headlines. First year is 1977 and does not mention Jimmy Carter or New York going bankrupt or the Bronx burning.
- Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud might have been published nearly 30 years ago but this graphic history of visual storytelling is as brilliant, moving and meaty and relevant as ever. A must for anyone who wants to know exactly what is happening when you watch a movie or television, read a comic book or stand in front of a painting.
Card Catalog:
Topical factoids. Knowledge not news.
-- The month of August has two birth flowers--the gladiolus and the poppy-- but only one birthstone, the peridot.
-- Leo is the zodiac sign of August. Leos are typically self-assured, generous, natural leaders and rather bossy. Some unsurprising Leos include Bill Clinton, Jennifer Lopez, Madonna and Barack Obama.
-- The very first "Back to School Sale" is credited to chicago retail pioneer Montgomery Ward in 1944 who was looking to clean up its image while in the midst of a nasty nationwide labor dispute with its 12000 workers.
-- The Olympic Rings were designed by Pierre de Coubertin the historian responsible for bringing the games into the modern era. Legend has it de Coubertin drew the 5 interlocking rings at the top of a letter and suggested they stood for the earth's 5 continents and the colors contained in the flags of all nations.
-- Cemical retardants used in fighting wildfires are colored bright red (which happens by adding iron oxide to their mixture) for two reasons. 1) So the chemical drop is visible from the air and pilots do not duplicate each other's work and 2) Firefighting crews know where retardant has landed and containment lines can be planned accordingly.
-- MTV debuted 40 years ago this month, on August 1, 1981. The first words spoken on the channel (by one of the channel's 4 founders, John Lack) were "Ladies and Gentlemen, rock n' roll."
Tool Library
I've never been able to find a tool to tell me when a musical artist I like has a new record coming out. Other than going to my local record store weekly and being an annoyance about it.
Music Butler is a web service that scans whatever form you listen to music digitally (iTunes, Spotify, Apple Music) then sends you an email whenever an artist in your library has new material coming.
It's a terribly simple concept and does require a bit of wrenching around to get it right (Music Butler makes no exceptions for musicians no longer with us so a breathless alert from them that Nina Simone has a new record out is creepy).
Once you do, an alert from Music Butler (a visit? A stately introduction? There's a butler pun hiding in here) tuns the drugery of email newsletters into a note from a friend that they are passing through town. And a trip to one's local record store to become an inevitable pleasure instead of an annoyance.
Listening Room:
Every issue of this newsletter will contain a 10 song Spotify Playist. The theme will always be the same:
“Against Forgetting”
You will have probably heard of the artists on each playlist but the songs of theirs I chose will always be b-sides/deep cuts and overlooked gems.
This issue's playlist contains songs by Aretha Franklin, Depeche Mode, Devo, Wu Tang Clan, Yaz, and Patti Smith you probably have not heard.
Exit:
"And I remembered an old secret promise, deemed unwise to speak, though who could deny it, seeing these folk, humble yet adorned, nodding together on their way back to the sun?
And soon enough we got up again and wandered on into whatever we had to do on that day, though not unchanged, having accompanied a little distance on the morning road of their return those illuminated pilgrims."
Written while recalibrating. New logo by Dave Linabury