Things I learned while looking up other things, 2024.06.11
Dear friends,
This week I was trying to explain to a much younger person what it used to be like before large search engines and abundant online archives—how I would keep a little notebook of things to look up when I was at the library (different lists, depending on whether I was going to the Harold Washington or the Regenstein). Occasionally my notes to myself would be a little cryptic, so that I wouldn’t really remember what I wanted to look up. I’d be on the bus home before the note came into focus, and I’d have to expand the scribble and wait for the next trip. Sometimes I wouldn’t have enough time to look up everything on my list, and I’d need to do some on-the-spot reference triage.
Unlike now, when I can think “huh, there’s line dancing, and square dancing, and circle dancing, but how come there’s no triangle dancing” and thirty seconds later find that most references to “triangle dancing” are humorous (or efforts to teach via dance).
I was in Florida last week but I didn’t swim in the ocean much—I was on the Atlantic coast and the riptides were bad. Although I did learn about a Japanese swimming technique for rescuing drowning victims: evidently the first thing you do is punch them, so that in their panic they won’t take you down with them. I also did not attend the Sopchoppy Worm Grunting Festival (it was back in April).
Other events I haven’t attended (but would like to): the Grand Flaneur Walk; any shows by Portland’s all-femme David Bowie tribute band, the Major Tomboys; the Stradbally Steam Rally.
All I can say is, if this had been within my budget as a high-school student, there would have been many, many more pranks.
In the 1963 movie The Girl Hunters, the role of Mike Hammer was played by his creator, Mickey Spillane.
The action of straightening or evening up the edges of a stack of paper by tapping them on the table is called jogging.
Stay well!
Your friend,
Erin