Ramblin' with Roger

Join Amy Biancolli for lunch at Friends of the APL Book & Author event, Sat., April 25

Amy Biancolli luncheon 4/25

PLEASE join

The Friends of the Albany Public Library

for the

Spring Book & Author Event

Saturday, April 25, 2015

Community Room, Albany Public Library, 161 Washington Ave

Second floor (across from the new children’s room), 1:30 p.m.

Speaker: Amy Biancolli

Topic: “Living and writing in Smalbany: A love story.”

Amy Biancolli was born in Queens, grew up in Connecticut and holds degrees from Hamilton College and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

She has published three books so far: one musical biography, “Fritz Kreisler: Love’s Sorrow, Love’s Joy”; and two memoirs, “House of Holy Fools: A Family Portrait in Six Cracked Parts” about her childhood family; and “Figuring Sh!t Out: Love, Laughter, Suicide, and Survival,” about her husband, who died in 2011, and dealing with the blessings of life in the aftermath.

Luncheon Buffet

University Club

141 Washington Avenue (1 block from the APL)

12 NOON

Good food for $20.00

Checks payable to the Friends of the Albany Public Library may be sent to:

Friends of the APL, 161 Washington Ave, Albany, NY 12210

Reservations by Tuesday, April 21, 2015

For more information, please contact Roger Green, rogerogreen@gmail.com

Photo credit: Danny Richardson. Bio via timesunion.com and figuringshitout.net

Flowers between the cracks in the sidewalk

If the first bus is late, or the second bus isn’t arriving when it does, I would have schlepped the bike around to no avail.

Somehow, I had a litany of things to do for work (prepare for a conference, do reference questions), and the Friends of the Albany Public Library (too many to count), and this Author/Illustrator thing at a local school on Saturday, and no time for much blogging, plus this couple I knew split up, and, per Yul Brynner, et cetera, et cetera. And I couldn’t sleep, because the brain was processing all of the above.

So let me note two just about perfect hours after work Friday. I had taken my bike to work (on two buses) and needed to take it (on two more buses) to the bike shop to get fixed. The 5:17 out of Corporate Woods to downtown had been notorious late all week, and indeed, is tardy most of the time. That day, I could have set my watch on it.

Get downtown, right when a bus going down Lark Street arrives so I can complete my journey to the bike shop. The Down Tube suffered a fire only a couple of months ago, and has more limited hours, only until 6 p,m., instead of the usual 7, but I get there with almost 15 minutes to spare. Have a nice chat with Eric, the store manager, while the bike’s quickly repaired.

Ride home – I’d missed that – drop off the bike, feed the cats. On the way walking to the barbershop, I yell to a family of four – the boy was running across the street, as a car was completing its left turn – alerting the mom to call him back before he got hit by the vehicle. A bystander said that it was fortuitous that I called out.

Get to the barbershop about 6:30 (it closes at 7), receive the desperately-needed haircut. Walk home, and actually find 20 minutes of alone time before the Wife and Daughter come home.

This was approximately 120 perfect minutes. If the first bus is late, or the second bus isn’t arriving when it does, I would have schlepped the bike around to no avail. I would have had to take it home on another bus, which would have probably put me in a more sour mood. My timing walking to the barbershop – if I had even bothered – would likely have been different, and who knows what would have happened to the kid.

Even amidst the slab of concrete of the last few weeks, a little greenery poked out.

Behind the 8-ball

“Behind the eight ball” seems to be similar in meaning to the word snookered.

Occasionally I get the darnedest questions at work. Someone wanted information about the toy The Magic Eight Ball, which used for fortune-telling or seeking advice. It is apparently manufactured in China, and someone wanted to know if the number eight was selected – instead of seven or nine – because the number eight is considered lucky in China.

I found no evidence of that. I assumed it was developed from a billiards reference, which it appears to be. But it was interesting to read about the derivation of the term behind the eight-ball:

…a common idiom meaning to be in trouble, stymied or thwarted, in an awkward position or out of luck. It is often assumed that the expression derives from the inability to use the 8 ball in a combination in the game of eight-ball—if the cue ball is directly behind the 8 ball a player has no direct shot route. Numerous billiards-specific and etymological publications state that the expression derives instead from kelly pool, or an early version of kelly pool called kelly rotation.

Billiards historians… indicate that ascribing the phrase’s origin to the game of eight ball results in an anachronism, the phrase being traceable to at least 1919, while the form of game that became “eight-ball” was not described by that name, and its rules were not published in any official rule book, until after 1940.

You should read the whole section.

“Behind the eight ball” seems to be similar in meaning to the word snookered, referring to snooker, “a game played on a billiard table with 15 red balls, six balls of other colours, and a white cue ball. The object is to put the balls in a certain order.” Moreover, it is “a shot in which the cue ball is left in a position such that another ball blocks the object ball. The opponent is then usually forced to play the cue ball off a cushion.” In other words, in an awkward position. The term is from the late 19th century, long before the established color scheme of billiard balls.

Incidentally, there are several Magic 8 ball sites online, such as HERE and HERE and several other places; I will not vet the accuracy of ANY of them. A list of the possible answers can be found HERE.

Book review: The New Jim Crow

Law professor Michelle Alexander wrote a book called The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, which has become not only a surprise best seller since its paperback version came out in January 2012, but arguably THE definitive book on mass incarceration, particularly of men of color.

From the New York Times: “The book marshals pages of statistics and legal citations to argue that the get-tough approach to crime that began in the Nixon administration and intensified with Ronald Reagan’s declaration of the war on drugs has devastated black America.

“Today… nearly one-third of black men are likely to spend time in prison at some point, only to find themselves falling into permanent second-class citizenship after they get out… Professor Alexander’s book [asserts] that the crackdown was less a response to the actual explosion of violent crime than a deliberate effort to push back the gains of the civil rights movement.”

Our church studied the book in February during the Adult Education hour. In brief, Alexander shows an imperfect, but palpable, link from slavery to the Jim Crow laws that took effect, from after the American Civil War to perhaps a half-century ago. That was followed by a NEW Jim Crow of mass incarceration, where the number of people in prison in the United States grew from about 300,000 in 1970 to over 2 million by 2000.

Check out Uneven Justice: State Rates of Incarceration By Race and Ethnicity and Breaking Down Mass Incarceration in the 2010 Census: State-by-State Incarceration Rates by Race/Ethnicity.

Impact

Moreover, that mass incarceration has had a devastating effect on communities. From the book:

What has changed since the collapse of Jim Crow has less to do with the basic structure of our society than with the language we use to justify it. In the era of colorblindness, it is no longer socially permissible to use race, explicitly, as a justification for discrimination, exclusion, and social contempt. So we don’t. Rather than rely on race, we use our criminal justice system to label people of color “criminals” and then engage in all the practices we supposedly left behind.

Today it is perfectly legal to discriminate against criminals in nearly all the ways that it was once legal to discriminate against African Americans. Once you’re labeled a felon, the old forms of discrimination—employment discrimination, housing discrimination, denial of the right to vote, denial of educational opportunity, denial of food stamps and other public benefits, and exclusion from jury service—are suddenly legal. As a criminal, you have scarcely more rights, and arguably less respect, than a black man living in Alabama at the height of Jim Crow. We have not ended racial caste in America; we have merely redesigned it.

The problem with having read this book is that, once you’ve done that, you know the basic premise to be self-evidently true, and don’t understand why EVERYONE doesn’t know this. The one saving grace is that, when Alexander first started investigating the issue early in this century, SHE hadn’t connected the dots either.

I will note that the author occasionally repeats the narrative, I reckon, so that she’s certain the reader gets the point she’s making. But these are important points. Moreover, the issues are still taking place. Read Jails: Time to Wake Up to Mass Incarceration in Your Neighborhood.

Bathroom statistics

What is your methodology for minimizing picking up the germs of the public loo?

The things I do for informational purposes. According to a recent article, there are 10 restroom rules people are constantly breaking.

Independently, this is something I’ve noticed in men’s public restrooms for decades. If there are four bathroom stalls, as there are in the men’s room on our floor at work:

If none are occupied – A man will often go to stall #1 or #4.
If #1 occupied – A man will generally go to #4 or #3.
If #2 is occupied – A man will almost always go to #4.
#1 and #3 occupied – A man will generally go to #4.

Those of you of the male persuasion: Is this your observation of public bathroom behavior as well? I’m curious if this is an American phenomenon.
Those of you of the female persuasion: Do women do this as well, avoid being next to the occupied stall? Or is it, as I’ve seen in too many mediocre movies, that women seek out the adjacent stall?

And while I’m on the topic, what is your methodology for minimizing picking up the germs of the public loo? This article recommends Why your public restroom should utilize touchless or automatic dispensers and faucets.

However, the men’s room in my building is not what I would call efficient. Both the toilets and urinals in the men’s room are supposedly designed to flush after being used. Here’s the problem: either 1) they flush too often, or 2) not at all.

I recognize this is a function of a germophobic society, and “efficiency,” but please give me a handle to flush.

A relative of mine posted this on Facebook: “Question? If you’re in a public restroom and a guy answers a conference call, are you not supposed to flush?”
‪
Curious minds want to know.

Incidentally, Dustbury settles the over/under toilet paper debate, at least to my satisfaction.

Toilet paper may have been invented in Albany, NY.