You’re So Fine, And You’re Mine

October 30, 2009

For no good reason, here’s me at age 4, dressing up as Madonna. I’m still wearing my pajama top — but not, apparently, the bottoms. I am also, apparently, wearing one elbow-length glove, while the other is tucked into my “belt.” I may have had Madonna slightly confused with Michael Jackson.

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What Happens When I Don’t Blog For a Week

October 27, 2009

Dear Everyone,
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I’m great! How are you?

When I don’t blog for a week, my mom emails me to ask if I’m either very happy or very sad (the only reasons my mom can fathom for my not taking photos of subway advertising and dissecting the grammatical foibles therein). My friend Gene kindly emailed to ask if I was “puking.” Far from it! Think of all the things you can think of that are better than puking, and there is a probability of 1 that I have been doing some of them!

Over the last month, I have scored a perfect 1600 on the GRE and a 780 on the GMAT, and have been teaching numerous other people to do the same. I also attended an anti-global-warming march — or was it pro-global warming? I forget. (Note: Nothing rhymes well with “renewable energy.”) I also shot a Public Service Announcement for Books for Africa. (Hear that? Some people want books and cannot afford them! I spend altogether too much time tolerating people who can afford books, yet choose not to read them! I am hoping to counterbalance the universe!)

I have now memorized 54 or so digits of pi.

I have more posts coming soon — as long as subway advertising is stupid, I’ll be here for you.

Sincerely,

Jen

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Real Genius

October 16, 2009

The other day, I clicked on something on Facebook and ended up on Mensa’s page — yes, Mensa is on Facebook! But:

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Due to the recent complaints of profane and unacceptable behavior, the status of this group is [sic] changed from Open to Close [sic].

(I don’t know if the above solecisms are Facebook’s or Mensa’s).

Oh, those crazy Mensans! Stabbing each other with their compasses! Insulting your mother in a sesquipedalian (but nevertheless excoriating) manner! Arguing about whose IQ is three points higher than someone else’s in vituperative encounters that inevitably devolve into bludgeoning one another with Richard Dawkins tomes!

Of course, Mensa has little interest in maintaining a Facebook presence, because it is still a members-only “club” that collects dues and mails out paper membership cards with membership numbers on them! It is as though I have joined the Shirelles Fan Club in 1963!

Mensa mails me a magazine every month; the latest one looks like this:

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At first, I thought this was High Times magazine. Note the article being advertised on the bottom left:

What to do when someone talks down to you (Page 11)

Not a great endorsement for genius as measured by IQ tests, hmmn? I think if you’re a “genius” over the age of, say, nine, you should have this one all worked out.

By the way, the title of this post is also the title of the official movie of my college co-ed fraternity (when I try to explain it to people not from my college, I usually say “co-ed computer science fraternity,” just to give the right impression). You must now go watch Val Kilmer in this film, immediately.

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And What a Party It Must Have Been!

October 15, 2009

Can you find the hilarious misplaced modifier in the Daily Mail?

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Just in case anyone was still under the impression that the British are more erudite than we are.

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Our Tax Dollars At Work

October 14, 2009

I think the New York Public Library is turning me into a fiscal conservative.  I saw this sign on the door of the Kips Bay Branch:

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Pimp your MySpace!  Or just play on the laptops!  

Um, no.  Read a fucking book or get out of the fucking library.  

Kids: my tax dollars are giving you Kafka and SAT manuals, or nothing.  I really, really, truly don’t care whether underprivileged children have equal access to thinly-veiled come-ons from webcam whores.

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Not How Apostrophes Work

October 13, 2009

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34th St near 7th Avenue

Thinking about apostrophes reminded me of an article I read in my alumni magazine about a Dartmouth alum, Jeff Deck, who went around the country fixing typos on public signage. I discovered that the Typo Eradication Advancement League (TEAL) had been “compelled by federal court order” to replace its usual website with “a faintly propagandistic statement mandated by the judge and approved by the prosecutor,” apparently as part of a court case involving the vandalism/improvement of signage in a National Park.

This statement rather hilariously points out that the penalties for vandalizing a sign in a National Park can include “a year or more of banishment from all National Parks and public lands”!

Do people even say banishment anymore? Are we the Catiline to Yosemite’s Cicero?

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D’Zura!

October 12, 2009

This was in People magazine; apparently, there is an actress whose last name much resembles my own.

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According to Wikipedia, she is of Irish, Italian, and Polish descent (it’s the Polish bit that gives us those names).

Her D’Xena trick, above, is pretty cute — there’s no good analog for “Dziura” (I mean, “D’Zura” is an accurate pronunciation guide, but Zura is not the same of a completely awesome Sapphically-inclined ’90s action heroine).

Sometimes, Polish people inform me of the correct pronunciation of my name (my family started pronouncing it more or less phonetically sometime in the last century).  My grandmother, who was not Polish (but had married my Polish grandfather) liked to whip out the correct pronunciation for kicks.  ”You know how you really say your name?  ZHOO-ra!”  This was sort of mystifying to a kid who had at that point had the ability to say and spell her own name for, say, less than five years.

Incidentally, I’ve recently discovered at least two other Jennifer Dziuras on Facebook.  Please don’t go looking up the high school one; that’s creepy.

The other day, a Starbucks barista with whom I am friendly commented that it was “ironic” that a Polish person could work as an SAT tutor.  Whee, my very first ethnic slur!

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Badvertising: Synecdoche, New York

October 9, 2009

As the final installment in Badvertising Week, allow me to share this photo I took on E 27th St:

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(Here’s a better photo).

I don’t actually object to this. In fact, it is an excellent example of synecdoche (just as was the name “Hot Lips” on M*A*S*H).

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Badvertising: Descartes Abuse

October 8, 2009

René Descartes famously wrote, “I think, therefore I am.” Actually, he wrote “Cogito ergo sum,” because in 1637, important things had to be said in Latin.

Notice how “Cogito ergo sum” isn’t quite as catchy as “I think, therefore I am.” It takes this little bit of parallelism in English to convince Coach Kelly from Dumbfuckville, North Carolina to print up team t-shirts that say “I cheer, therefore I am!” Dumbfuck spirit award!!!!

Never has a philosopher been more abused!

Observe this ad, which I photographed at JFK airport:

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Not even a verb.

Descartes was not suggesting that our existence is predicated upon whatever hobby we might happen to best identify with; it wasn’t simply the case that he really loved thinking, and that made him feel most like himself, and therefore he posted “I think, therefore I am” as his Facebook status update, where it remained for 16 hours, until he changed it to “Dude, I am so wasted. Imma discourse on your MOM’S method!”

Descartes was attempting to build a case — using deduction alone — to justify belief in God. Like this:

    Perception cannot be trusted!

  • I doubt everything!
  • However, even when I am doubting absolutely everything, I am engaging in the action of doubting!
  • If I am doubting, there must be someone doing the doubting!
  • It’s me!
  • I’m here! Hi!
  • Okay, now we know exactly one thing about the universe. I will now start doing the actual philosophy, by reasoning from the one thing we know for sure! You guys are still building on a foundation of shifting sand, but I’m founding modern philosophy! Eventually Roberto Rossellini will make a movie about it! In this movie I will get the chambermaid pregnant.

Let’s see more ads:

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I Modern Art Therefore I Am (a Douchebag!)

This is a bit like extracting the “I have a dream” quote, noting that you yourself have the dream of winning American Idol, and printing yourself an insipid t-shirt suggesting that your dream of corporate superstardom must necessarily be fulfilled as a matter of social justice.

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I eat food. I am a special snowflake!

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Haha. Sex and the City! I totally watched that whole show and I exist! Amazing! Haha.

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Badvertising: The Tremendous Literalists

October 7, 2009

This installment of Badvertising Week is just cute.

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This sign has been up for years (in the E 30s). I think these laundromat entrepreneurs received a promotional sign from one of their suppliers (Vend-Rite, apparently) and didn’t understand its hyperbolic promise: Do your laundry in only 4 minutes! 2 minutes to drop it off! 2 minutes to pick it up!

Sure, that’s not exactly it. You have to bag up your laundry and carry it to the laundromat. And what if there’s a line? That might take 4 — or even 6 — minutes. It might not be convenient to stop by when the laundromat is open — and once you’ve picked up your laundry, you really need to go straight home with it. So it’s really more of a 15-20 minute errand. But we get it. You’ll do our laundry for us. It’s fast!

I wonder if some obnoxious customer actually demanded his laundry back, clean and dry, within 4 minutes. It seems unlikely. Did the laundromat owners simply think the sign had a typo? They actually crossed out the “2 minutes” business with a thin-tip Sharpie marker!

You’d think that someone who disapproved of so much of a sign’s content would’ve simply tossed the sign, and just made a new one: Your Wash Done in 40 Minutes! That would be impressive — perhaps impossible. Are they drying your clothes in a wind tunnel? Washing them at the speed of sound?

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