Sunday Stealing Archives - Page 4 of 33

Sunday Stealing — Living in the World, Not on It

refrigigator

“Welcome to Sunday Stealing. Here we will steal all types of questions from every corner of the blogosphere. Our promise to you is that we will work hard to find the most interesting and intelligent questions. Cheers to all of us thieves!

“This week, while looking for a blog we hadn’t hit yet, we discovered Living in the World, Not on It. This meme comes to you from ‘life in the slow lane of the unemployable, unworkable, disabled HR Manager/EMT’. Too bad she quit posting because she sounds interesting.”

Living in the World, Not on It

1) You’re on a trip taking a tour through the jungle. You have a backpack with some food, first aid supplies, a pocket knife, a flashlight and a couple bottles of water. Somehow, you get separated from your group. By night fall you haven’t found your group and haven’t heard them looking for you. How long do you think you would be able to survive on your own?

First, let’s be clear that I will never voluntarily take a tour through a jungle. It’s not my thing; maybe I’d do so at gunpoint or something. That said, how long I could last depends on how much water I could find, how hot it is, and what unsavory plants or animals I encounter. I could probably survive about a half a week on the avoirdupois of my body. Water is the basic thing; also, extreme heat – I don’t do well with hot and humid.

Liar

2) Do you think it’s okay to lie to spare someone’s feelings? Why?

Of course, especially about things of no great consequence. I’ve known so-called “truth-tellers” who use “honesty” merely to create pain and prove superiority over another human being.

That said, I’ve long been affected by Sissela Bok’s book Lying, which I read four decades ago and wrote about here almost twenty years ago. Even the “little white lie” has consequences for the teller and, if they find out, for the person being lied to.

Talk talk

3) If a talking doll were made to resemble you, what 3 phrases would it say?

I don’t know about phrases, but it would use the word accoutrement in a full French accent; French and Italian words are inherently sexy. It would say “refrigigator” as one of the words I enjoy mispronouncing. One phrase would be “That’s suboptimal,” which I swear I heard from some press secretary or Cabinet official in a Presidential administration. However, I can’t find out who; it is usually used as classic British understatement, I have read.

If You Could Read My Mind

4) If the superpower to read minds at will were possible, would you think it would be cool and helpful, intrusive and wrong, manipulative, or maddening?

It certainly would feel intrusive if I could read other people’s minds, and I’m sure it would feel the same if others could read mine. The idea of the Thought Police is frankly terrifying. I believe the idea of NOT saying things was a good thing. It would also be manipulative and maddening.

It might be helpful if you’re dealing with someone who cannot speak or otherwise communicate. Otherwise, I have not seen the upside, although I suppose if I could read my cat’s mind… Well, maybe I don’t want to know that either.

5) Are drunk confessions things people can’t bring themselves to say sober, or just the crazy ramblings of an influenced and intoxicated mind?

Based on observation, I think both are possible. Still, in my experience, most involve people confessing affection, expressing anger, or saying something they just can’t otherwise get out.

Sunday Stealing: Follow That Dream

jEOPARDY, Scrabble, and 500 rummy

Welcome to Sunday Stealing. Here we will steal all types of questions from every corner of the blogosphere. Our promise to you is that we will work hard to find the most interesting and intelligent questions. Cheers to all of us thieves!

This week we stole from Follow That Dream. Bonnie, who posted it, admits she stole it from Stella. Now here it is, just waiting for you to steal it for your blog …

Stolen from Follow That Dream

1. My bestie and I once …

One of them and I went to Las Vegas in September 2024, which was my first time and likely my last, though I had a good time.

2. When I’m nervous …

I look around a lot.

3. My hair …

Has been receding since I was 17.

4. When I turn to the left, I see …

A shred bag blocked the front window.

Adenia

5. My favorite aunt …

My great aunt Deana (Adenia) Yates was born in 1908, the youngest of my maternal grandmother Gertrude Williams’ siblings. She is to the right in the picture above with her sister, mother, and niece (my mom). There are more descriptions here.

My sisters and I visited the house that Deana and Gert shared, 13 Maple Street in Binghamton, NY, almost every day during lunch and after school during the academic year.

If I hadn’t been watching JEOPARDY with Deana on weekdays at noontime, I might not have become so obsessed with the program that I tried out for the show in 1998. I taught her canasta, and she taught me 500 rummy. She played SCRABBLE with me a lot. Sometimes, I would watch her “programs” with her and her sisters, the CBS soap operas Guiding Light, Edge of Night, and Secret Storm.

I was sad when she died in 1966, in part because she was a buffer between her sister and me. Gert didn’t think a boy should wash the dishes, which I did at home. More than once, Deana said to her sister, “Leave the boy alone!”

6. I have a hard time understanding ….

Consider this an expletive-filled rant about the politics in the last six months in the United States, and the capitulation by media (I’m talking about you, ABC, CBS…) More people will become sick and die.

7. You know I like you if …

I tease you and/or engage in circuitous wordplay.

8. When I was 5 years old …

Among other things, this.

Sunday Stealing — Spill It!

JEOPARDY!

This week is less a steal than a cheat. These are AI-generated responses to the request: “What should I ask to get a stranger to open up?”

Spill It!

1. If money wasn’t an issue, would you move to a new home?

I hate moving. I’ve moved north of 30 times in the last three scores and ten plus years. You know, I hate moving. I grew up in the first house I lived in for about 18 years. Now, I’ve been here in this house for a quarter of a century. I hate moving, going through, and getting rid of stuff. There will probably be a point in my life where I’ll have to move, and I will hate it. I suppose I should mention the fact that I hate moving.

2. Do you listen to different music when you’re happy than when you’re sad?

I have had some depressing music I would play when I was sad, but in general, I play what’s in the queue, tied to either some artists’ birthdays or Irish music around Saint Patrick’s Day, movie soundtracks the month of the Oscars, original soundtracks around the time of the Tonys in June, et al.

3. What’s your favorite way to unwind after a tough day?

Reading a book, a magazine, or a newspaper in a very comfortable chair, preferably with something to keep my legs up on.

4. What’s the first book you remember from childhood?

Play The Game, which I mentioned here.

Charisma

5. What made you smile today?

The picture above. This requires some context. I taped a couple of segments of JEOPARDY in Boston in mid-September 1998. Since it was relatively close by, WTEN-TV (Channel 10) in Albany, which airs the show, had sent a crew to the taping at the Wang Theater, much to my surprise.

From here: “When [WTEN’s] Bianca de la Garza had interviewed me before the show, I noted that just passing the test didn’t guarantee being on the show. So here’s the Bianca voiceover: ‘He had to have something else.’ Roger, talking: ‘It must be charisma, I don’t know.’ (I laugh.)

“Charisma. Apparently, enough people saw this [which aired in the days before the show aired on November 9] to make this the running joke in the office, not for a couple of days, or a few months, but for four or five YEARS, especially from Jinshui.”

So, somebody gave me this picture. It was buried with some other artwork in my house before my annual hearts game in March, but since then, it’s been sitting on my bookshelf in my office, not far from my desk.

Thank you for playing! Please come back next week.

Sunday Stealing — Just Another Manic Monday

Beethoven

World Almanac 2016 Welcome to Sunday Stealing. This week, we return to steal again from Manic Monday, a blog that is no more.

Just Another Manic Monday. Bangles

1. What is something you should throw away, but just can’t bring yourself to part with?

Old reference books. I have three different versions of The Complete Primetime Network and Cable TV Shows because the older versions have charts in the back that aren’t in the newer ones. I keep my Joel Whitburn’s Top Pop Singles book from 2008, even though I have the one that ends in 2022, because the older book fits on the shelf in front of me, while the newer one is taller, heavier, and thus more challenging to get to.

Of course, old reference books have a certain historical beauty. Atlases, in particular, are fascinating because they show the national borders after the two World Wars. Africa in 1958 and 1973 was radically different.

When I used to get the World Almanac, I used to hold onto the ones showing the results of the Presidential elections every four years, in 1973, 1977, 1981, et al. I would check out how specific lists would change: who are considered “celebrities,” what are the world’s largest cities?

2. When you make yourself a sandwich, do you cut it on the diagonal, straight up the middle, or not at all?

Diagonal, of course. One can never have too much hypotenuse.

Music!

3. What song or sound brings back memories of childhood?

Impossible! I’ve probably spent two decades writing about it in this blog. But okay, I’m looking at sounds that are sometimes part of the whole.

The first 15 seconds or so of the Huntley-Brinkley Report on NBC News was the beginning of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, Second Movement.

The Captain Kangaroo opening.

The last minute of the end credits of West Side Story, especially at 4:30, which never fails to make me weep.

The vocal third progression of the Beatles’ version of Twist and Shout from about 1:24.

Holy, Holy, Holy – the first song in what a late friend of mine called the real Methodist Hymnal

4. Who is the first person you call when you have good news?

It depends on the news. Some people appreciate certain types of information more than others. It’s usually my wife, but not always.

5. Have you ever set out on a walk in the rain?

A light rain, sure.

Thank you for playing! Please come back next week.

Sunday Stealing — What Would You Say At This Moment?

some guy named Paul

Welcome to Sunday Stealing. “This week, we were inspired by Lucky Zoan. She suggested themes for letters to particular people. Let’s change it up a bit and imagine conversations rather than correspondence.”

What Would You Say At This Moment to:

1) Someone you have hurt?

It wasn’t intentional. I was just an idiot.

2) Someone who has hurt you?

What’s done is done. I may be baffled as to why you did that, when you hated it when you-know-who did the same to us. But whatever.

3) Your favorite teacher from grade school?

The late Paul Peca, my sixth-grade teacher, whom I wrote about here. I continue to use the lessons you taught us. Yes, we WERE your best class, as you said, even if you told everyone that.

4) Your most hated teacher from high school?

The gym teachers from 10th and 11th grade were sadistic twits, I thought, but I have nothing to say to them. I don’t even remember their names.

5) Your best friend from college?

Hey, effendi: glad you’re still doing that activist thing. Boston Taco Party, indeed.

6) Your favorite recording artist?

It’ll either be Paul McCartney or Paul Simon. Once I’d bored them with how much their music meant to me for many years, I’d asked if they had any pull in getting Estelle Axton into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

7) Your favorite author?

I might tell John Green (no relation) that I promise to buy Everything Is Tuberculosis very soon, and I LOVED when Desi Lydic interviewed him on The Daily Show.

Library

8) Your first boss?

That would be the late Beccye Fawcett, a woman who attended my church, Trinity A.M.E. Zion, in Binghamton, NY. I was a page at the Binghamton Public Library c 1969, where she worked. Only two decades later, I went to library school. She was the first black librarian in Broome County, and though I never asked her about it directly, I heard she had a difficult time early on. I want to ask her what that time was like. “In the Press & Sun-Bulletin’s 1974 profile piece at the time of her retirement, Beccye Fawcett explained the approach she had taken towards her life’s work: ‘lift as we climb.'”

9) Your first love?

I’m delighted that we are in a good place with each other. That wasn’t always meant to be.

10) Your true love?

As much as I complain about you saying, “Let’s go” as we’re leaving church or another event, only to get involved in another conversation, it doesn’t aggravate me anymore. It just is.

Thank you for playing! Please come back next week.