PEARLS & AMBER

BOZOSITY

Okay, so my inner clown is chagrined that it is the last to know of this amazing new word:

BOZOSITY

I saw it in an article about Guy Kawasaki (a venture capitalist among many accomplishments) and his ten power points for a business presentation.  I was alerted because I thought maybe it was a misprint, and what was meant was 'bogosity'.

So I Googled the word--

And a whole new world jumped onto the screen of my laptop, and I knew God.

I totally admired those with the ability to coin word.  And Guy Kawasaki has a vivid word going on here--

Bozosity.     

Bozosity means deteriorating into mediocrity. 

Let me try:

"I saved the day from bozosity by failing to divert the comet from Earth."

"The meal spiraled into bozosity the minute the butter burned."

"Bozo the Clown has taken umbrage to the new word 'bozosity', as it implies that what he does for a living is nothing more than slapstick."

Slapstick is bodacious, Bozo.  There's nothing at all bozocious about what you do.

DERBY WINNER WAR EMBLEM WON'T

It seems that War Emblem, winner of the 2002 Kentucky Derby and Preakness races, has since then been unwilling to fulfill the time honored tradition of making five hundred thousand new little foals in his image and speed.

He was purchased by a huge stud farm in Japan, given his own room, surrounded by the finest, most luscious, nubile and willing mares, and sent out to do the studly thing.

War Emblem refused. 

In a world where quantity counts, he has, since 2004, sired a paltry forty-two or so foals.  

So, he is in therapy.  And maybe he senses that.  And it pisses him off.  They say, you see, that he's always been the fussy sort.  The kind of race horse who didn't like other horses or people, for that matter.

Maybe he didn't like having to work for a living at such a young age.  Just because he was fast didn't mean he wanted to run around in public proving just how fast.

Maybe now he wants to get to know a mare before he has sex with her.  Like what her real first name is, or how many other guys has she had before him.  That kind of thing.

He lives (in splendor) in Japan.  Maybe he's just a spoiled ornery brat.  Maybe he needs to do major gratitude work. 

But he's an American horse.  Maybe he doesn't like it there and wants to come home.  Maybe he should do major resentment work.

Maybe he needs a new therapist.

Or maybe he should be set out amongst the foals, and thus be able to get in touch with his own (never nurtured) inner foal.  And in so doing, maybe he could resolve some issues with that lost childhood, and then, just maybe, finally be at one with where he is now--

Which is grown-up, and expected to make nice with all kinds of gorgeous females.

Most guys would kill for this life, War Emblem.  I do hope you can find your way to...make the most of your fate.

CAMERA SAYS YES TO SMILE

I've TAKEN UMBRAGE...again.

Now it turns out one can buy a camera which can't miss when it comes to capturing that all illusive smile.

I had no idea so many people had so much trouble getting a picture of their subject smiling.

I thought wrong.

Apparently it was felt to be of great importance to add yet one more option to cameras--the option (ie 'Smile Shutter Mode' or 'Smile Shot') where it won't take the picture until the subject is smiling...which begs the question--can the camera tell the difference between a tooth ridden grin and a tooth ridden temper tantrum?

I read about this in the Wall Street Journal.  The reporter seemed to be taking the whole enterprise seriously.  I kept waiting for even a whiff of amusement.  But, near as I can tell, it has become socially correct to welcome cameras seeking smile, indeed heave a sigh of relief.  As the writer said, it takes "the pressure off the photographer."

Thank god.

There are also new re-touching tools, like Happy Face retouch (Sony, in this case) which is supposed to  come in handy for that tricky group photo where there is always somebody who can't manage to freeze his smile long enough for the photographer to quit fiddling. The writer was not enthusiastic as to the deftness of these results, however, because it only picked out one unsmiling face to correct.

My own weak point is that I am beginning to fear gadgets as they get more god-like and opinionated.  I pray my car, dvd, laptop, can- opener, wallet and garden hose don't get any more user-friendly or user-helpful than they supposedly already are. 

Because I have run out of happiness at being introduced to the latest 'magic' I know is one infra-red light away from going dead, taking my whole gadget ridden life down with it.

And I especially don't want, now or ever, a camera thinking it knows better than I, the picture I want to take.

EARTH DAY

I could wax poetic.

Even though I wasn't a poetry major.

I could paint a painting--

Even though I am afraid of spilling the paint.

I could go sit outside and soak it all in-

But there is so much, too much.

So I'll just look through my recent photos, I took of my part of this beautiful world we live on in around above and underneath.

I'm happy today is Earth Day.

And of course I'm sure that everybody really knows that everyday is Earth Day.

Right?

FRONTAL...ER....

I was thrilled.  Male frontal nudity.  On purpose, in a mainstream romantic comedy, not just in arty, little seen, independent and foreign films.

Like wow!

Vindication!

For years, I tell you, years, I've complained to anyone who would listen that I thought it was as unfair as hell that we women were being deprived of our fair share of shots of the male genitalia.  While at the same time we were having bare breasts crammed down our throats.

Must I remind all of you in the movie industry that women get to look at a perfectly fine pair of bare breasts everyday of their lives? So the ...thrill of bare, on screen, isn't?

This weekend a movie arrived in which male frontal nudity prevails.  'Forgetting Sarah Marshall'.  A big to-do was made of this earth-shattering moment.  While I was put off by the male entitlement that seeped in between the lines...nowhere was anyone announcing this nudity was being done to gratify us poor, deprived women.  No, the hype was that Jason Segal (the star and writer of this film) and Judd Apatrow and crew, thought it would be a hoot to finally show some scrotum to break a few taboos.

Okay, beggars can't be choosers.  I closed my ears to the male reasons why this grand moment was nigh, hired a jet, and flew up to LA from the OC, just for the occasion.  I brought binoculars.

Well, darn it.  I mean it.  DARN IT. 

It was no big deal.  It was so no big deal, I was simply reminded of married days, in the morning in the bathroom, getting ready to go out.  My naked breasts, his naked scrotum, brushing our teeth, gargling. 

All there was was a flash, at the beginning of the movie, and at the end, just so we wouldn't feel deprived. A flash of Jason Segal's family jewels hanging there quietly, minding their own business, while his girlfriend, fully clothed, breaks up with him.

HAR HAR?  Or, all the sexiness of a naked baby standing there sucking his thumb.

So I ask myself, what did I want?  All these years whining about the lack of male nudity in films, what had I expected?

Well, all I know is, in a zillion years I hadn't expected Jason Segal's naked you know to remind me so fondly of the comforts of married life.

BRAIN WORK

There are two things one can do to save their brains, other than boring old crossword puzzles, says either the New York Times or AARP Magazine.  I forget which.  It could have been in LA Times Health section  for that matter, but again, I don't remember....

...it would seem I have come upon this information just in the nick of time.

The first is to learn the piano.  Specifically the piano because it is so hard, it requires all the hard won fortitude of the ancient (in this case I refer to all those over the age of fifty) to even remotely succeed at it.

I wonder if learning the piano counts if one took piano lessons when young.  Because I did, and so I know in advance how frustrating the whole enterprise is.  Especially the part about keeping the wrists lifted.  And, you know, learning to read music.  So for me, would it still be creating new brain grooves?

The second is learn a new language.

This directive also begs certain questions:

Does it count if one already knows a second language? 

Is there any one language that will help me save my brain better than another?  Like, would Japanese count for more brain food than French? 

Does learning how to write a new language (see 'learning Japanese') add even more brain food, like eating a third helping of vegetables? 

Would immersing oneself in the foreign culture where the chosen new language is spoken make an even headier advance?

So, okay, I could play a mean 'Moonlight Sonata' once.  And I kind of remember the French I once spoke with a Belgian accent (it's a long story).  Does this mean I can just stick to my crossword puzzles and not worry about losing brain power?  Or certainly keep it at bay?

Or am I avoiding the point that what is being suggested here is that adding new skills to one's life is a good thing.  And that the harder they are the better.

So, what language would I pick?  Where would I put the piano?  How much do pianos cost?  The whole thing makes me tired-- 

Naps are good. The powers that be assure me that naps are very healthy things to do in the aging process.

So, adding the skill of napping WITHOUT GUILT is certainly a possible new brain skill.

IRONING BOARD

Most recently, in Dwell Magazine, was a photograph of an ironing board, loaded up with a charming bunch of freshly laundered cotton clothing.  It was sitting in a room especially created for laundry.  Not just a small slot for the washer and dryer.  No, this was a large room designed so the owner of the house could leave the ironing board out, all ready to go.  In the background were billowing curtains, and streaming sunlight.

I fell in love with the story here.  So Dutch.  So French.  So twentieth century.  So lace.  So geraniums.  So snowflakes at Christmas.  So warm and fluffy, and everybody in this house just got along so perfectly. And whoever was in charge of the ironing was so confident and at peace with this most mundane of household tasks, she wished to create a visual ode to the art of ironing.

Way back, mid last-century, my mother ironed.  She never seemed to mind it.  And if I was lucky, she let me iron my father's handkerchiefs.  An extremely zen-like process.

Later, during marriage, the husband involved used to relax by ironing six or seven pairs of his slacks.  In the bedroom.  As we were getting ready for bed.  It too had its eider-down comforter elements.

Still later, my grown son asked me to show him how to iron a shirt.  Somewhere during his formative years he must have missed watching his father iron those pants.  And obviously he missed me ironing at all.

This is because I don't iron...because of the ironing board. 

I can never, and I mean never, get the ironing board to close.  Therefore I am intimidated by the ironing board, much like how I felt about horses when riding one was introduced to me by my daughter.

Until help arrives, in the form of someone who does not have a fear of closing ironing boards, my ironing board sits, blocking traffic, slanted across the narrow hallway where the washer and dryer are. It is belligerent in its claim to the area, fixed in its desire to remain out in the open, amongst the family, just like the respected, indeed beloved, ironing board in Dwell Magazine.

But so, is this a trend?  The custom fitted laundry room?  The bespoke ironing board?  The filigreed iron? 

Not to mention the opulent wardrobe worthy of such surroundings?

There are worse things to go nuts over--

RINGO LOSES HIS HEAD

There was always the odd girl out whose favorite Beatle was Ringo. 

Ringo was all right, if one went for the goof ball with the pillow lips and and hang dog eyes.  The least favorite.  The...er...smallest.  And oldest. 

The Beatles came from Liverpool, which as a result has a certain panache it would never have had otherwise.

And this year they were designated the European capital of Culture, and in honor of the event a topiary of the Beatles was created.  Ringo was asked to come and...pay homage? 

Ringo came, and god knows what he was thinking, god knows what he'd been through that day, or in years gone by, at the hands of Liverpool, but he chose to comment on the fact he misses nothing at all about Liverpool.

NOTHING AT ALL?

The good citizens don't like to be maligned by no-good celebrities who ought to have a little gratitude.  Just look at how mad Pittsburgh got at...er..what's her name...Sierra...Sienna Miller...yes...when she said Pittsburgh was no fun, or something like that.

I don't know what Ringo said about the topiary of him and the rest of the Beatles.  

But the topiary was, forthwith, relieved of Ringo's head.  Slashed right off, by vandals.

I don't think I'd use the word vandals here.

I'd refer to whoever perpetrated this act of revenge as friendly people just doing the right minded thing.