“It was all perfectly fine…”

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“It was all perfectly fine until you came along!”

As usual, a mild misquote on my part.

This comes from an episode of the Goon Show, “The Histories of Pliny the Elder”. Specifically, a slow-building gag about rowing as slaves on board a Roman galley:

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Orchestra, Grams: Seagoing music; boat-bound voices in background; ship sounds
Greenslade: And so, some months later, a Roman slave galley drew nigh to Ostia.
Slave Driver: In, out… in, out…
Eccles: Make up your mind…
Bluebottle: Have you ever rowed a gallery before, Ecclus?
Eccles: Is that what we’re doing?
Bluebottle: Yes.
Eccles: No, I’ve never done this before.
Slave Driver: Faster, you dogs!
Bluebottle: He wants us dogs to go faster.
Slave Driver: Silence, you scum!
Eccles: He wants us scum to go silent…
Slave Driver: Or do you want a kiss of the lash?
Bluebottle: No, thanks, I just had some cocoa.
Eccles: Oh, look, they’re bringing a new slave from the reserve.
Bluebottle: Goody!
Seagoon: Let me go, you devil, how dare you? Take your hands off me! Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. How dare you chain me to this oar? I shall write to the Times about this! In print!
Flowerdew: Shut up, you! It was perfectly quiet until you came along! You’re not the only man chained to the oars, you know…

— “The Histories of Pliny the Elder,” The Goon Show, Spike Milligan and Larry Stephens

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“I shall write to the Times about this!” also tends to be used as lexicon from this source.

Beige Volvos

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Early in our relationship — so, late 1980s or so — we were driving around, and Ulrika mentioned beige Volvos. And I said, “Beige Volvos? Do they even make those?”

Whereupon we saw about five beige Volvos in the next fifteen miles. (This was on an LA freeway. That’s a short distance.)

“Beige Volvos” has become our shorthand for something that is ubiquitous, but invisible, until your attention is called to it. (I think there’s a different term for it, but this is ours.)

Architect, heal thyself

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* From an interview in Der Spiegel, called “Evil Can Also Be Beautiful”:

SPIEGEL: Some people say that if architects had to live in their own buildings, cities would be more attractive today.
Koolhaas: Oh, come on now, that’s really trivial.
SPIEGEL: Where do you live?
Koolhaas: That’s unimportant. It’s less a question of architecture than of finances.
SPIEGEL: You’re avoiding the question. Where do you live?
Koolhaas: OK, I live in a Victorian apartment building in London.

{hat tip to John Massengale}

See it, know it

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Potter Stewart was the US Supreme Court justice who said, in the case Jacobellis v. Ohio (1964), “I shall not today attempt further to define (pornography)… But I know it when I see it…”

I was reading In Praise of Slowness by Carl Honoré, and he quotes Augustine: “What then is time? If no one asks me, I know: if I wish to explain it to one that asketh, I know not…” (Book XI, ~400AD)

So Mr. Stewart had a bit of prior art on that idea.

The Oberkassel puppy

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From my friend David D Levine comes a pointer to this post about a poignant burial site — which includes the oldest record we have of a domesticated dog. The skeleton of a puppy, from 14,000 years ago. Plus a woman in her twenties, and a man in his forties. Buried “with honour and ceremony.”

But there’s no question the dog was domesticated. It was nursed “through three bouts of distemper when it was four to five months old.”

More at this 2018 paper.

Like, but not comment

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Dave Winer writes: “If I see something on Micro.blog that I would Like on another system, I don’t comment, I just do nothing, not because I’m bashful or overly quiet, rather because this is a language, and a comment has different meaning from a Like.”

This is another example where science fiction fanzines had this situation decades before online venues. (Not a surprise — many online customs clearly have precursors.) In this instance, there’s an acronym. RAEBNC. Read And Enjoyed But No Comment.

I’ve said before among my circle on Facebook that the FB Like fulfills much of the function of RAEBNC. Twitter is somewhat different, because of velocity. Instagram, because of the implicit aesthetic assessment.

But both Like and RAEBNC are doing that same thing — I read it, I agree with it, and no more communication at this time, Captain. (snappy salute)

“People come back to places that send them away.”

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Dave Winer wrote that, back in 2005. “People come back to places that send them away. Memorize that one.”

I did, Dave.

Alert users might have noticed I make my posts linkeriffic. One of the things I’ve missed on Twitter and Facebook is the ability to link more than once, maybe twice. Because links are a form of footnoting, to me. Even Ted Nelson might appreciate that. And I want to reach beyond Wikipedia entries, and go to people’s own sites, if possible.