Blogging at Work

On second thought, maybe getting caught blogging at work is a good thing. It seems to be a sure-fire formula for success and a 4-book deal. Maybe I could get a job working for Anna Wintour at an aquarium?

I don't think my bosses would do a search in English, so, je voulais juste dire que mon patron est un gros con! Ils sont fous, ses gens!

The Cheese Stands Alone

You know it's time to work less when your blog posts all relate to your job. On that note: another work-related post ...

Yesterday, a school-wide search ensued when Mimi the mouse (Mimi la souris, if you're nasty) escaped her cage in one of the kindergarten classrooms. This morning they found Mimi, cowering in a corner, exactly one foot (30 cm, if you're nasty) from her cage.

Maybe Mimi's the one who stole the wheel of cheese last week? Sheesh. This place is like a live-action nursery rhyme. I'm just waiting for someone to jump over a candlestick.

Speaking of blogging at work, I would like to take this opportunity to officially state my fondness and approval of my place of employment. And, while I'm at it, the NSA. And every aspect of the U.S. Government and its domestic and foreign policies. Especially surveilance, torture and hating the French. I wish I had a bumper sticker that says I (heart) Wire Tapping! and/or France: What's the Point?

Except that the last bit might piss off my employers, who are French. As this woman learned, having a blog about work can get you fired. And possibly sued.

Although I've carerfully never stated where I work or put any work-related photos on this or any other blog, you can never be too careful. So I'd just like to say that I love the French. Unless you're from the NSA. In that case, I think the French are a bunch of cheese-eating surrender monkeys.

Who Moved My Cheese?

Today we're super-busy at work, on of the busiest weeks this year, so naturally my first thought was: Time to make a blog entry!

Hopefully the above statement will not someday be read back to me during an Employee Review session. That would be awkward.

Anyway, I just had to report on the scandal here at work this morning: a giant wheel of Brie has gone missing. Where's Nancy Drew when you need her?

You see, we're in the process of organizing something called a Spring Fair (I work for a school). One of the few clown-free activities (don't ask) is a silent auction, where we sell stuff that companies or people have donated. Yesterday, a box of cheese arrived, perhaps under armed guard. We're talking expensive cheeses (did I mention it's a French school?). The kind of cheeses that are made by aescetic monks in the Pyreenées who have devoted their lives to coddling the curdling of the milk of pygmy sheep, as a pathway to God (that's what they get for giving up sex, but nevermind). In short, these people are more into cheese than the people who go see "Tony and Tina's Wedding" off-Broadway.

But anyway. A wheel of cheese - and no ordinary wheel - was stolen. How will the executives react? I think we can turn to Spencer Johnson, author of Who Moved My Cheese, to try to see the lesson in this challenge.

From Amazon.com: "Change can be a blessing or a curse, depending on your perspective. The message of Who Moved My Cheese? is that all can come to see it as a blessing, if they understand the nature of cheese and the role it plays in their lives."

Boy, sounds like a lesson for those monks. Not to mention the French in general. Or, specifically, the people getting upset over the stolen cheese. Instead, we should just see it all as a metphor and get over it.

I personally think this is just one more piece of evidence that our planet really is a research colony for some vastly more intelligent, albeit deeply disturbed, life forms. Some peon in the interstellar version of a Ph.D. program "introduced," say, reality TV shows into our living environment, and is studying our reaction. I hope he or she or It will at least get tenure out of it...

My Parasites & Me, The Sequel

Within the past week, I've had not one but three entirely separate conversations about Toxoplasmosis, a condition caused by microscopic parasites that make women want to go shopping (I wrote about it here back in January). Infection comes from exposure to raw or undercooked meat (esp. red meats, such as steak tartare), or through exposure to cat feces. The worldwide infection rate is about 30% , whereas in France, the infection rate is up to 85%. This is possibly because of the French fondness for eating raw cat feces, or, cat feces tartare.

Typically, infection is asymptomatic. However, if you're a woman, it might cause you to dress like a hooker, and/or a middle-aged French woman (i.e., you start wearing a leather bustier and stilletto heels to your job as a secretary at the phone company). And if you're a man, you might stop taking showers, and be chronically jealous, only in part because your girlfriend dresses like a hooker and you know you know other men smell much better than you ...

The other day I was trying to explain this concept to several of my co-workers, who are French. I think we were talking about how French women tend to accessorize much better, and (as much as I hate to admit it) look better overall than women from other countries. I tried to put forth the argument that the famous "je ne sais quoi" of les françaises has less to do with an inherent cultural superiority (as the French would, of course, have you believe), and more to do with parasites that are eating up their collective brains.

I tried to explain this idea in French, roughly translated into English as follows: See, there are parasites in the head. And they force you to buy more clothes. But the parasites come originally from rats. They make the rats not afraid of cats, thus endangering the rats, who the cats then eat. But afterwards, in humans, the women want to do the sex with many men, whereas men become jealous.

My co-worker responded. But of course, because their women are doing the sex with too many of the men!

Their expressions helped me to realize that I sounded completely bat-sh*t crazy (merde de shauve-souri?). Should have thought this through before talking ... But impulsiveness, as it turns out, is also a symptom of Toxoplasmosis.

From Wikipedia: There are claims of toxoplasma causing antisocial attitudes in men and promiscuity[11] (or even "signs of higher intelligence"[12]) in women, and greater susceptibility to schizophrenia and manic depression[13] in all infected persons. "

Wow, it causes "higher intelligence" in women? What are the chances???! Maybe it causes cats to ride bicycles, too?

Anyway, it turns out that the concept is just as hard to explain in English. Maybe harder. But I keep trying to explain it, because I'm fascinated by the idea of parasites that have evolved to alter the personality of host organisms. We're a "dead-end" host for this parasite, that gets to the cats (where it wants to be) via the rats (whose personality it alters). Ending up in humans is just an added bonus.

Or maybe, deep down, the parasites really just wanted to go to Neiman Marcus to buy impractical shoes, but lacked the feet? They went to Oz and the Wizard gave them a magical hot-air ballon made of cat feces, to take them home ...

L'Affaire Colbert

Apparently, the blogosphere is buzzing, or burning, or otherwise in the throes of alliteration over the "Colbert Affair." Which, if said with an authentic French affectation, kind of rhymes.

In case you're not a total dork (you're reading this blog, so the chances are not in your favor...), I'm talking about Stephen Colbert's performance on Saturday at the White House Correspondent's Association dinner. All I have to say is: I hope he's paid his taxes, because he is SO gonna get audited. That is, if he doesn't end up in a grave more shallow that the journalism jokes made by the W and his doppelganger, which, the President might have been disappointed to learn, is not a new menu item at Burger King.

First, I should confess that I did not actually watch the televised dinner on C-Span. Nor did I even download it onto my phone or iPod - and not just because I don't know how.

The thing is, politicians attempting to be funny is somehow not in the natural order of things. It's kind of like people who dress their kids up to look like Joan Collins circa 1986, and force them to sing "Papa Don't Preach" at the Junior Miss Pagent. It's supposed to be cute, but it really just makes everyone involved feel a bit uncomfortable.

So I didn't watch the show. But just because I have no "first-hand knowledge" of the event in question does not mean that I'm not entitled, as both an American and a member of the Blogosphere (both of which, fortuantely, require zero credentials), to have a strongly held opinion on the matter. After all, I did read at least two other blog entries on the subject ...

However, I did read the transcript, which I thought was brilliant - especially the White House press conference parody. That is, I thought it was hilarious until it occured to me that they might have gotten lazy and just copied the transcript of an actual White House press conference, because it was so much like the real thing. But nevermind.

On a few conservative blogs, I learned Stephen Colbert is not just a slanderous, disloyal traitor whose heinous treason should be subjected to the Death Penalty, which, thanks to the Godless New Yorkers, is not legal in New York. More importantly, I learned that people in the audience on Saturday weren't laughing - not because they were afraid of being audited or having their wives exposed as CIA operatives - but because it "objectively," and "in all seriousness," "just wasn't funny."

Let's face it - if you're liberal, you thought it was hilarious. If you're conservative, you didn't think it was hilarious, and only in part it didn't involve The Family Circus or a precocious black child. While watching Colbert, you might have been thinking: Why can't there be more shows like "Home Improvement" and "Family Matters"? That Urkel. He was a hoot ...

The dividing line on this issue seems fairly obvious. What gets me is how the main thrust of the argument - on both sides - was whether it was or was not "inherently funny." A huge debate ensued over the nature of satire and comedy. Someone says something that ruffles the feathers of the powers that be, and all of a sudden everybody's friggin' Aristotle. Conveniently, the debate was not over the content, but the categorical semiotics of the content - whether it is or is-not humorous. Overnight, everyone with a a newspaper column or a blog has a Ph.D. from Komedy Kollege.

Take Richard Cohen's article in The Washington Post. He begins:

First, let me state my credentials: I am a funny guy. This is well known in certain circles, which is why, even back in elementary school, I was sometimes asked by the teacher to "say something funny" -- as if the deed could be done on demand. This, anyway, is my standing for stating that Stephen Colbert was not funny at the White House Correspondents' Association Dinner. "

The problem with the rest of the article is that Cohen's introductory statement is, inherently, false.

Rule #1: If you have to say, "I am a funny guy" - you're not (as anyone who's ever attempted online dating can confirm). It's like the TV movies with the overly expository dialouge. "Mindy, you're my wife. I know you love me even though we've been having trouble in our relationship since my tire business failed last year. Anyway, I know it was wrong of me to cheat on you, but I really hope you won't use those Ginzu knives (close up: GINZU KNIVES, chopping a suitably phallic vegetable) in the third act to chop off my scrotum."

The rest of his article was equally unfunny, which is kind of ironic. But not in the funny-ironic sense, just in the "Americans don't really understand the definition of irony" sense.

One possible definition of irony, for instance, is Tucker Carlson telling us that Colbert was "unfunny." This is kind of like Tucker calling someone "white."

Anyway. What people do know - what Freud and Aristotle knew, what the Pope knows (but won't let on) - is that that humor is serious business. And deeply subversive. But that doesn't meant that anything is, or isn't "inherently funny."

Except the Germans. And bacon.

Happy Loyalty Day (TM)!

Happy May Day, almost-belataedly.

C'est le premier mai! One of my co-workers exclaimed this morning, with just a hint of carefully non-disguised disgruntlement (is that a word?). Many of the folks at work, most of whom are from France, were seriously annoyed that we didn't have the day off. In France, le premier mai is a sacred holiday known as la fête du travail, or the "festival of work," which is celebrated by ... not working. What separates it from most other days for the French is therefore not entirely clear.

The May Day lady was giving everyone those little white flowers shaped like a bell. They're called "muguets" in French, but I can't remember the English word for them, if I ever knew it.
I think it was erased from by brain by the horribleness of the word muguet. What kind of a flower name is that? Don't they know that muguet would be a better word for a bottom-feeding fish, or perhaps a transitive verb for cleaning the sludge out of one's refridgerator coils, or that noise that Karl Rove makes after burping up several of the babies he just ate before the White House press conference?

But nevermind.

May Day started in the U.S., in 1886 after Haymarket Riots in Chicago, when workers - inspired by the success of Canadian workers - demonstrated to bring about an 8-hour workday. The idea caught on, and International Workers' Day is now celebrated in most industrialized countries, except, ironically, the U.S. and Canada. We wouldn't want people getting any crazy ideas about working 8 hour days, or women getting the vote--I mean, getting equal pay, or not starting wars to support giant multinational oil companies.

Lest we go having any such radical ideas, May Day has been officially declared Loyalty Day in the U.S. (No, I'm not kidding.) I could make an ironic statement, but that would mean I hate the troops and also their kids and grandmothers. Oy veh. I'm all for supporting the unfortunate National Guard kids and anyone else who got sucked into what's politely refered to as a "quagmire," but constantly using the troops as a bullet-proof political vest (when they don't have enough actual bullet-proof vests, which would be much more useful to them) ... it just seems --well, tacky.