PABNABbed

I spent all of my career in the technology sector, and a good slug of it in technology for financial services, so I am no stranger to rampant sexism in the workplace. Or in the tradeshow place.

One company I worked for ran a print ad that showed the rearview of a leggy blonde in a miniskirt. She was standing at the entrance to an office, her legs spread in a wide V, and within that wide V you could see the leering faces of Wall Street types pretending to man their terminals. I’ve forgotten what the ad was for, but I wish I’d kept a copy as a reminder of the good old days.

Then there was the meeting of the strategy team for financial services at one of the late, unlamented companies I worked for. I was the lone woman on the team, and boys being boys, one could not resist saying that our strategy was so brilliant that “fin serv would be lying there, legs outstretched” – that V again – “eagerly waiting for us to penetrate.” Ho, ho.

At one industry trade show I went on yet another company’s behalf – an expo run by some security industry association (perhaps even the Security Industry Association) – there were models in micro-mini French maid outfits, complete with fishnet stockings and spike heels, walking the floor giving out packets of Twinings Tea for British Telecom. At least I wasn’t at that conference to talk about AutoBJ (Automated Box Jenkins forecasting), a product that I was gloriously the product manager for. (Believe me, I’ve heard every AutoBJ joke there is out there.)

Plenty of trade shows I attended had plenty of companies which staffed their booths with eye-candy spokes-models who knew nothing about the company or products they were representing. The goal was to lure the guys into the booth, and then have someone with half a clue talk to them. At one such show, I actually needed to get some product information from a company. I scoped out the booth and noticed that, among the beauty queens in skimpy black cocktail dresses and high heels, there was a perfectly average nice looking woman in a sensible black dress and sensible shoes. I walked right by the booth babes  - not that they wanted to talk to me, either – and spoke with Ms. Sensible Shoes who was, in fact, a product manager who knew her stuff.

But this was all decades ago. Should not the world have smartened up a bit? Should we not be a bit beyond the most overt and idiotic use of women for come-ons and worse in a professional setting? (In which the profession is something other than providing sexualized entertainment; I’m all for Beyonce.)

The answer, sadly, is no. At least for attendees at the recent BIO International Convention, held in Boston in early June, the greatest show on earth for biotech innovators.

The convention itself wasn’t the problem. It was an after-show-hours party known as PABNAB, the Party At BIO Not Associated with BIO, and event with “a reputation for bringing over-the-top themes and festivities to an industry networking event.”

Attendee Kate Strayer-Benton was expecting edgy, but ended up:

…shocked and frustrated by what she saw: At least two topless women dancing on mini-stages, their bodies painted with logos of several of the companies that had sponsored the party.

In a photo that Strayer-Benton took at the event and shared with STAT, a dancer wears only a crown of flowers, a pair of boots, and bottoms resembling a bikini; her body is painted with the logo of the investment firm Alpha Blue Ocean on her abdomen and the biotech company Selexis on her right thigh.

“It felt like a line had so obviously been crossed,” said Strayer-Benton, director of strategy at Momenta Pharmaceuticals. “Objectifying women — in this case, even physically branding them with sponsorship of companies in our industry — it just felt so wrong.” (Source: STAT News)

Strayer-Benton wasn’t the only one disturbed by this spectacle. The chairman of the group that runs the conference:

…told STAT he was “horrified” to learn of the party. He said BIO is warning member companies that sponsored this year’s PABNAB that if they sponsor the event again in the future, they’ll be kicked out of the trade group.

This might be a bit of an overreaction, as it doesn’t give PABNAB the chance to agree to rein things in a bit next time around. But PABNAB does sound like a piece of work. Several sponsors of this year’s event claim they had no idea how their logos would be used. They thought it would be on drink glasses and bracelets – not on the bellies and thighs of near-naked women.

PABNAB has long been edgy/artsy, but, I take it, more along the lines of Cirque du Soleil style acrobats. They did get in PETA-esque trouble a few years ago for having attendees party with a camel.

The theme of this year’s party was supposed to be the Day of the Dead.

Even though June is not Day of the Dead territory – that would be November 1 (All Saints Day) and November 2 (All Souls Day – this them could certainly have been plenty edgy and artsy without resorting to logos painted on bellies and thighs.

“We can talk all we want about diversity on panels and in the boardroom, but when events like this are commonplace, I just think it undermines all the progress” being made by industry groups and drug companies, Strayer-Benton said. “I just think we take giant steps backwards when something like this is considered acceptable.”

I’m with Kate.

There’s plenty of place for naked dancing women out there, mostly in strip clubs along the Route 1’s of the world. Just not at industry-related events where people network and even get down to business. All something like the PABNAB event does is set up an environment where women (and any man who might find himself offended) find themselves sidelined or written off as spoil-sport prudes.

Enough.

Jockeying for position on the front lawn

When I was growing up, my family took a lot of “spins” – my father’s word for hopping into the car and driving around to look at things. We took spins on summer evenings, and winter Sunday afternoons. Sometimes the spins were purposeful, like going to Brookfield Orchards for a bushel of macs. During Christmas week, we took a rare winter’s night spin to see the decorations. But some spins were less mission-driven: just drive around and stop somewhere for ice cream. Summer spins always involved ice cream from the Cherry Bowl, Verna’s, Smithfield, DQ…

When we drove around, one thing we liked to observe was the decorations that people had on their lawns.

Our neighborhood was bathtub Madonna territory. Gazing balls. Pink flamingos. The odd birdbath.

My favorite house passed on the spins was a white, late 19th century farmhouse out in one of the burbs. It had a lovely front porch and a sloping front lawn that featured a small pond with sail boats in it.

It wasn’t on a spin route, but my all time favorite lawn-decorated house ever was the “elf house”, which was near my grandmother’s in Chicago. Shortly after we arrived on our biennial visit, we would clamor that my father take us on a walk to see the house with all the elves in their yard. Elves on swings. Elves splaying cards on toadstools. Those folks knew how to live! What I wouldn’t have given to have a few elf statues in our yard. But we didn’t even have a bathtub Madonna. We just had trees, shrubs, and flowers.

Back on the spins, we could tell we had entered a classy, high-tone neighborhood by the presence of lawn jockeys, holding their lantern to guide people on the path to the house.

Back in the day – we’re talking 1950’s and 1960’s – the lawn jockeys tended to be black, with Negroid features. At some point, black jockey statues were no longer acceptable, and I remember seeing a couple where the faces were painted over with white paint. Yes, white paint. Not pinky-tan, or the color in the Crayola 64 box formerly known as “flesh.” The whitewashing looked really silly.

Anyway, I no longer go on spins, and I haven’t given any thought to lawn jockeys in ages.

That is, until my sister Kath texted a picture of a custom-painted lawn jockey, with the comment “Alas, too pricey for Yankee Swap.”

We may need to raise our $20 limit, given how awesome the custom-painted lawn jockeys are at Saratoga Signature Interiors.

It, of course, makes plenty of sense for a shop in Saratoga to sell lawn jockeys. It’s a racetrack town – completely charming (I’ve been there) – and I’m guessing that it’s a lot of fun to have one of these buddies out during track season.

Horse owners, breeders, jockeys and horse racing fans alike enjoy the heraldry associated with these 40″ statues.

Dan Czech of Saratoga Signature Interiors is the interior designer now jockey artist who paints each jockey. Registered silks are always popular but making up one of your own is fine too. The statues are 100% aluminum so can stay outside and not be effected by weather. Jockeys are shipped all over the country by UPS.

Aluminum is something new, I’m thinking. Lawn jockeys of yore were cast iron, and you can play plenty for one of them (in some cases, over $2K) on eBay, where they have both black and white lawn jockeys. Collectible Americana.

Saratoga Signature Interiors doesn’t mention the use of lawn jockeys as Yankee Swaps, but they do put this idea out there:

Consider a custom painted jockey as a wedding gift to the groom (or bride). Customize using your wedding colors, date on base and a gold ring instead of traditional black.

Imagine the surprise, the sheer delight, when the bride (or groom) opens that gift.

There are a lot of different options, by the way: corporate logos, college or university, sports teams. Whatever fits your fancy.

Here are a couple of my favorites:

That jockey sporting the powder blue is representing Columbia University, which would have been my alma mater if I’d stuck with the PhD program. Which I most decidedly did not.

Then there’s the Irish boyo, with his nifty tri-color jacket and shamrock. (I’m happy to see that it’s a shamrock, and not a four-leaf clover, which in my book is like saying Patty’s Day rather than Paddy’s Day.)

The jockey with the identity crisis – half Red Sox, half Yankee – is, of course my favorite. What an awful idea. I suppose there are mixed marriages. But still. And what’s up with that strategically-placed bat?

The boyo, or a full-bore Red Sox jockey would, I must say, make an ideal Yankee Swap item: weird, impactical… Maybe this year we should raise the limit.

Even more of the nth degree. (This is it. Promise.)

The last two editions of Pink Slip have been more or less Public Service Announcements on interesting and slightly out of whack degrees that can be yours for the asking. The list of such degrees came from a piece published on Fastweb . Here’s the remains of this very entertaining list.

Is it me or does it seem a bit odd that Texas A&M – which is landlocked, smack-dab in the middle of Texas – would offer a degree in Nautical Archaeology? Not that they don’t have every right in the world to provide study of “the remains of boats and ships and the cultures that created and used them.” One of the courses offered is called outfitting and sailing the wooden ship 1400-1900. Now I don’t imagine there’s a lot of call for this, but the article does list job prospects in maritime archaeology and conversation. I suppose that’s a typo for conservation, but, hey, wooden boats can be a conversation starter (or ender), too.

This, of course, puts me in mind of one of the worst movies I ever saw. Coaster is a documentary about some guys from Maine who hand-built a schooner and then took it on a voyage to deliver lumber to Haiti and return with a cargo hold full of rum. Anyway, the entire enterprise was just ridiculously pretentious – including the schooner-builders singing authentic sea chanteys while they handcrafted their vessel – and the even more ridiculous upshot was that the schooner sunk off the coast of Long Island and the Coast Guard had to rescue the crew. Anyway, my sister Trish and I were laughing so hard when we left the Exeter Street Theater that we had to sit on the curb to compose ourselves.

Oceanography and Coastal Sciences at LSU seems to be a completely valuable and relevant program. We need a lot more folks to help figure out what we’re going to do before salt water starts lapping the ankles of folks in places like landlocked College Station, Texas. But some of the courses? Fisheries acoustics? Fish recruitment? We offer an open office environment, and leading-edge benefits including flextime and tuition reimbursement?

I will admit that one of the most fun colleges I took in college – back in the day when college wasn’t exactly known for fun courses – was a film class in which, each week we watched a movie and then shot the shit about it. The only film I remember was Birth of a Nation, which included a subtitle that read “The love strain is still heard above the land’s Miserere.” Which I remember because for months/years after one of my friends and I would put on fluty magnolia accents and repeat this line while fluttering our eyelashes. So who am I to criticize a degree in Popular Culture, where you study “Everyday life, including but not limited to everything that is mass produced by us and for us. Its subject matter is the world in which we live, relax and have fun.” This degree can set you up for a job in PR or advertising, in marketing, in teaching, in museum work. And, as degrees go, this sounds like one big BS-y chunk o’ fun.

As opposed to Puppet Arts. Which sounds scary. Not clown scary, but scary enough. What are they thinking down there at UConn? But it sounds like a kinder and gentler degree than one in Race Track Industry, which for all the mint julep grandeur of the Kentucky Derby and the Triple Crown just sounds kind of sleazy.

We’ll all have a lot more free time when the robots and AI take fully over, so a degree in Recreation and Leisure Studies could prove valuable. And since we’ll all have a lot more free time when the robots and AI take fully over, a degree in Sexuality Studies might come in handy as well. Think I’d skip the course in primate sexuality. Yes, I realize that we’re primates. But I did have an odd experience many years back in which a young bonobo (pygmy chimpanzee) whose belly I was scratching grabbed my hand with one of his feet and guided it down to his erection. Which pretty much put me off primate sexuality, as it relates to that kind of primate. 

Surf Science and Technology is offered, not as one might imagine in Southern California or Hawaii, but at Cornwall College in the UK. Surf’s up, dude. Gnarly.

Theme Park Engineering is a degree on offer at Cal State. It involves studying electrical, civil, and mechanical engineering – all of which seem to me more practical degrees than Theme Park Engineering.  At Penn State, you can get a degree in Turfgrass Science. Sorry, but the very thought of golf makes me yawn. But I get that this is a big deal for those running golf courses. And, oddly enough, this is something I know a tiny bit about, as my husband’s aunt and uncle (who were my virtual mother- and father-in-law) partly owned and totally operated a golf course. They converted their tobacco farm to do so. Bill and Carrie’s house was pretty much on the golf course, and over the years I learned plenty about greenskeeping, the pro shop, running a family business, and local and familial politics.

This series of posts was prompted by an article I saw on an MBA in Wine offered by Sonoma State, which got me looking for other offbeat degrees. For an undergrad degree in Viticulture and Enology, where you study “the science and practices of growing grapes and making wines,” you can head to Ithaca where, high above Cayuga’s waters, you can get a degree at Cornell.

Wildlife sounds like a fine degree. Who doesn’t want someone who wants to preserve species, enhance wildlife habitats, and control wildlife problems?

Anyway, that’s it for the degrees you could have had if you hadn’t been slogging through English or Economics or Engineering.

Thank you Elizabeth Hoyt of Fastweb for pulling this marvelous list together.

More of the nth degrees

Last week, I came across a piece on Fastweb on “weird-but-cool” college majors. Sure, you may already decided that it’s worth going back to school for your nth degree – this time in Bagpiping or Citrus or Bowling Alley Management. But just in case there was nothing in the first part of the list that caught your academic fancy, here goes some more of it.

Comic Art students at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design learn how to work as cartoonists or as comic book authors/illustrators. Well, you can luck out and end up with all sorts of cool, East Coast elite, brainiac cartoons in The New Yorker and become the next Roz Chast. Or you can hit comic strip paydirt and create a strip (think Dilbert or Garfield or the granddaddy of ‘em all, Peanuts) that turns into a merchandise empire. Or you can prick a lot of balloons with political cartoons. But even if you don’t strike it rich, comic artist would be a fun way to (try to) make a living. And with graphic novels – which, for the most part, I don’t enjoy; other than Maus -  becoming more popular, you never know.

If you’re at Florida Southern and you’re not interested in studying Citrus, they also offer a degree in Diving Business and Technology, where you can learn, among other things, how to deal with the bends. And if you decide to transfer to Brown from Duke, you might have to surrender your Canadian Studies degree for one in Egyptology. I’m a big believer in a liberal arts education, but I don’t think that there are many parents who’d be thrilled to write a check for $75K each year to find out that their offspring had taken a course in ancient Babylonian magic and medicine. Forget “my son the doctor”. Think “my son the ancient Babylonian medicine man.”

At the University o Nevada Las Vegas, you can study Entertainment Engineering and Design, setting you up for a career doing casino shows. I suppose if you actually wanted to live in Las Vegas, a degree that happens in Vegas may let you stay in Vegas.

Maybe I’ve been hanging around a PT clinic that specializes in the care of runners – don’t ask what I’m doing there -  for too long, but studying Exercise and Movement Sciences at UVM doesn’t sound particularly odd to me. There are a ton of folks interested in fitness and wellness, and as the Boomers get older and grayer it’ll be critical to have folks who’ve studied fitness for specific populations.

Both my grandfathers ran family businesses. For my Irish grandfather, it was the Rogers Brothers Saloon. The Saloon went out with Prohibition, and my grandfather went out shortly thereafter. (The other Rogers bro didn’t even make it to Prohibition – both died young, but at least my grandfather made it to his 40’s.) My German grandfather had a grocery store that my Uncle Jack, who was 21 when Grandpa Wolf died, somehow ended up running. (Can this be possible???) My Uncle Bob, who was 11 when my grandfather passed away also worked at the store. I remember seeing him there. Bob was 10 years older than me, so he would have been in his late teens. “The boys” turned the business into a ships chandlery, servicing merchant ships in the port of Chicago. (Got to go make a delivery with “the boys” one time. Very exciting being with my handsome uncles as they hefted cartons of supplies down the gangway.) I don’t know quite when and how that business disappeared. But I’m guessing “the boys” could have benefited from someone with a degree in Family Enterprise, a major at Stetson U that “emphasizes ‘self-awareness, family systems, utilizing family involvement as a strategic advantage and how to consult with family enterprises.’”

Before he figured out that the car would replace the horse and wised up and opened his bar, my grandfather Rogers was a blacksmith. Without the benefit of having studied Farrier Science, I might add. And he ran his saloon without the benefit of any knowledge of Fermentation Sciences and without having taken any course the covered the sensory analysis of beer.

Floral Management is a major at Mississippi State. Isn’t knowledge of “sourcing, purchasing, distributing, marketing, designing with, and selling floricultural products” – that would be flowers – the sort of stuff you used to learn on the job? Kind of like horseshoeing. And bagpiping. Is there really a need for degrees in certain professions?

Anyway, if you (or my grandfather) wanted to go beyond the horseshoe aspects of blacksmithing, Southern Illinois offers a degree in Metalsmithing/Blacksmithing. Among other things, this concentration sets you up for be an independent artist. One of my college friends dated, and later lived with, a fellow who dropped out of MIT to become a metal sculptor. He was actually pretty good, but fast forward 20 years. I ran into him at a tech conference and he’d become a software developer.

Mortuary Science sets you up for working a funeral home. Or managing the corps des corpses at a medical school. Or in other places where you deal with the deceased. If theories of embalming and disposition sounds like fun, have I got a degree program for you…

At the other end of the circle o’ life, Sullivan University (a for-profit outfit) lets you study Nannying where, among other things you learn “how to prepare nutritious meals and snacks”. This seems to me to be something that you can learn by googling “how to prepare nutritious meals and snacks.” It also offers more up-level course on child development and learning opportunities for kids. Maybe a degree in Early Childhood Education would get you the same credential without having the limiting title of a degree in Nannying.

Still haven’t found the major of your dreams? We’ll be wrapping up this highly educational series tomorrow. Perhaps you’ll find something there.

To the nth degree

The other day, I saw an article on Bloomberg on what I took to be a pretty unusual business degree: an MBA in Wine. It’s offered by Sonoma State University (which makes plenty of vineyard-y sense). Across the pond, there are a couple of business in/of wine degrees offered, including one from the Burgundy School of Business.

For those looking to own or run a winery, the degree from Sonoma State makes sense, as it’s very focused on networking with wine biz execs.

John Stayton, executive director of SSU’s graduate and executive business programs, points out that many of their graduates are now in executive roles, or are even winery owners.

In other words, the courses are a good way to skip the traditional ladder-climbing in learning to run a winery, which usually starts with pouring wine in a tasting room or working in the office. For owners, they offer a quick way to gain essential knowledge, whether their wineries are tiny startups or entail lavish investments. (Source: Bloomberg)

MBA’s didn’t used to offer such pinpoint concentrations, at least not when I was in business school. Not that I actually have an MBA. When I was at Sloan/MIT, ahh, nearly 40 years ago, they didn’t offer an MBA degree. You got a Master of Science in Management, which no one in the hiring world understood unless they’d also gone to Sloan. My class was a big advocate for normalizing the program, and shortly after, Sloan started conferring MBA degrees.

My concentrations were completely geeky: Applied Economics and Applied Marketing, which set me up perfectly for my first post-MBA MSM job developing forecasting models for the corporate world. Talk about geeky. (Talk about nonsense…)

Anyway, the article on the wine MBA got me wondering just what other out-of-the-ordinary degrees there are out there.

The Google brought me to a piece on Fastweb on “weird-but-cool” college majors. As someone with a decidedly non-weird/non-cool undergraduate degree in Sociology (with a Political Science minor), I was naturally intrigued.

To get a degree in Adventure Education, I wouldn’t have to go that far. Just up to New Hampshire to Plymouth State, where I could take courses in fundamentals of rock climbing and canoe paddling.

There are a couple of schools where you can get a degree in Astrobiology, which is an “exploration of life outside of Earth.” Since we’re currently on the glide path to wrecking this Earth, I’m delighted that there are students studying planetary habitability.

There’s a community college that offers a degree in Auctioneering. Among other things, you learn the “auctioneer’s chant”. Forget economics. This is something that my husband could have easily taught. No, he never actually worked as an auctioneer, But he went to plenty of tobacco auctions when he worked on his uncle’s tobacco farm in Western “Massachusetts. (Yes, there are tobacco farms hereabouts. They grow shade tobacco used for cigar wrappers.) And Jim had a fast mouth. One of his parlor tricks was doing a tobacco auction spiel. “Gimme twenty-dollar bid…”

Carnegie Mellon offers a degree in Bagpiping, which qualifies you to work as a bagpiper or teach bagpiping. As long as there are Irish-American cops and firefighters in particular, and Irish-Americans (and Scots-Americans) in general, I suppose there’ll be a demand. Last Saturday I did a walk for ALS run by one of those Irish-Americans, and we had a piper (kilt and all) piping for us at the halfway mark.

Bakery Science is offered at Kansas State, where you can take a course in flour and dough testing. Which seems a lot more practical than getting a degree in Beatles, Popular Music and Society. It’s gear! It’s fab! It’s offered at – where else? - Liverpool (UK) Hope University. And it sets you up to become a Beatles historian. (This is a career path?)

Hipsters aside, I’ve read that bowling is on its way out as an activity. So it might not make all that much sense to study Bowling Industry Management and Technology and take courses like pinsetter maintenance. Job prospects would be, I imagine, pretty grim. A stat I found in USA Today from a few years back says that:

From 1998-2013, the number of bowling alleys in the U.S. fell to 3,976 from 5,400, or by about 26%.

There will, I suspect, always be a demand for a Citrus degree, however.  So Florida Southern College will likely keep offering courses like citrus grove management.

At Duke, you can get a degree in Canadian Studies. They have a program that “seeks to provide the student with an understanding of Canada.” Talk about something I’d like to understand. We look an awful lot alike. So how’d they get to be them while we got to be us? The degree qualifies you to teach or work in a museum. I propose that they add a course in why Canada gets Justin Trudeau and we get Donald Trump, and another course in applying for immigration. Eh?

Chemical Hygiene and Safety seems like a safe career bet, as there will always be science labs to run. At least I think so. Science still exists, no? At least it must in Canada.

Plenty more interesting degrees where these came from. Pink Slip will be back with a few more of them on Monday.

Recycling direct to landfill…

I’m pretty religious about recycling. Oh, every once in a while I’ll sneak a pair of worn out shoes into my trash bag, knowing full well and guiltily that those worn out shoes will gradually – very gradually – rot away in a landfill somewhere in Upstate NY. Sure, there’s the best case scenario that those worn out shoes will be incinerated in some incinerator with the temperature of the inner circle of hell. But that leather isn’t getting repurposed, that’s for sure.

The odd shoe aside, I’m mostly an avid recycler.

Most recently – i.e., Tuesday afternoon – I went to H&M on Newbury Street to recycle two bags full of clothes that weren’t good enough to bring over to St. Francis House. I had finally done a more-ruthless-than-usual culling of my stores of clothing (including plumbing the depths of an ironing basket that had last been empty in ought-four), and was searching for a place to dump them (other than the dump). Online, I found that H&M has a recycling program which has these three components:

• Rewear – clothing that can be worn again will be sold as second hand clothes.
• Reuse – old clothes and textiles will be turned into other products, such as cleaning cloths.
• Recycle – everything else is turned into textile fibres, and used for things like insulation. (Source: H&M)

Plus, for each bag your surrender, you get 15% off your next purchase. Now I just need to find someone who shops at H&M…

Anyway, clothing from now on will go to H&M. Just as magazines, junk mail, catalogs, pasta boxes, tuna cans, jam jars and just about everything that can and should be recycled goes out back, Monday or Friday, in a clear plastic recycling bag.

And I assume that, from out back, it all decamps to some recycling center, from whence it will find its glorious way back to me at a later date in some transmogrified new form.

But I may be living in a recycling fools paradise.

In recent months, in fact, thousands of tons of material left curbside for recycling in dozens of American cities and towns…have gone to landfills.

In the past, the municipalities would have shipped much of their used paper, plastics and other scrap materials to China for processing. But as part of a broad antipollution campaign, China announced last summer that it no longer wanted to import “foreign garbage.” Since Jan. 1 it has banned imports of various types of plastic and paper,and tightened standards for materials it does accept…

“All of a sudden, material being collected on the street doesn’t have a place to go,” said Pete Keller, vice president of recycling and sustainability at Republic Services, one of the largest waste managers in the country.  (Source: NY Times)

Unfortunately, some of it’s finding a place to go: landfill.

Another outcome of the China policy change is that some of the items that had previously been allowable recycling matter, like egg cartons, are no longer recyclable. (They must mean those god-awful plastic egg cartons, not the old-school cardboard ones. Surely, those are still good to go.) I’m guessing Boston hasn’t been especially impacted by the Chinese change of recycling heart – most of the areas caught up in it are in the West. In any case, the city hasn’t sent out info on changes. In fact, the last communication I recall is the one letting us know that pizza boxes are okay if you pick the goop out of them.

In reading the article in The Times, I also learned a new term: aspirational recycling, which means putting stuff in the recycling bin (or, in the case of Boston, those clear recycling bags) that you’re hoping is recyclable. Some of those aspirational items were pretty wild.

Mr. [Brent] Bell, the Waste Management executive, said he had seen everything from Christmas lights to animal carcasses to artillery shells come through the company’s recycling facilities. “Most of our facilities get a bowling ball every day or two,” he said.

I do believe that, had I one or the other in my possession, I would have been able to figure out that artillery shells and bowling balls don’t belong in the recycle bag. But I must confess that I have probably been guilty on occasion of some aspirational recycling, slipping in the odd frayed power cord, assuming that, surely, this can be reused somehow. Guess I’ll have to figure out something else to do with the yards and yards of bright orange Ethernet cabling occupying cabinet space in my office.

While the Chinese situation is mostly hitting the West, we haven’t been exempt locally.

Ben Harvey, the president of E.L. Harvey & Sons, a recycling company based in Westborough, Mass., said that he had around 6,000 tons of paper and cardboard piling up, when he would normally have a couple hundred tons stockpiled. The bales are filling almost half of his 80,000-square-foot facility.

Wonder if some of my old Economists and LL Bean catalogs are biding their time out in Westborough. Hope not.

I hate to see my faith in recycling undermined, my hopes dashed.

But I should know better.

I once worked at a company that equipped each office with a regular wastebasket and a bright blue recycling container. One day, when I was working late, I watched as the cleaning person rolled her trash barrel down the aisle, stopping at each office to grab both the wastebaskets and recycling containers and dump them in to her barrel. Single stream trash vs. single stream recycling?

I have observed our guys often enough to know that the trash guys pick up the black plastic bags and the recycle guys take the clear plastic bags. So I’ll keep on recycling, managing my waste the best that I can.

Sorry I missed this chance to get me a flamethrower…

I’ve seen a lot of war movies, so I know what flamethrowers are used for, which is mostly to flush out the enemy from their caves, tunnels, and bunkers. I’ve watched a lot of news, so I know what flamethrowers are used for in non-military settings, and that’s to quell a wildfire. As in fight fire with fire.

And I suppose farmers could use flamethrowers to clear their fields of weeds.

When I was little, there was a field in back of my grandmother’s house (where we lived until I was six-and-a-half). Nanny’s next door neighbors were an ancient German immigrant couple – as far as I can tell, the only other Germans in Worcester other than my mother. Anyway, the Ladners had been in farmers back in the old country, and each spring, Grandpa Ladner – well into his nineties – would set the field on fire. It wasn’t his field, and it wasn’t planted with any crops, but Grandpa L was having some sort of flashback to his prior life and, so, set what he thought was his field on fire to clear it for his crop growth. Thankfully, Grandpa L didn’t have a flamethrower.

But I hadn’t really thought that any civilian (non-soldier or first responder), other than a farmer, would have any use for a flamethrower.

Elon Musk, however, apparently has 1,000 friends who dropped what they were doing and made their way to one of his outfits,The Boring Company HQ in California, to pay $500 for a Boring Company flamethrower.

Sure, we’ve all worked for boring companies at one point or another in our careers, but if you’re not familiar with The Boring Company:

To solve the problem of soul-destroying traffic, roads must go 3D, which means either flying cars or tunnels. Unlike flying cars, tunnels are weatherproof, out of sight and won't fall on your head. A large network of tunnels many levels deep would fix congestion in any city, no matter how large it grew (just keep adding levels). The key to making this work is increasing tunneling speed and dropping costs by a factor of 10 or more – this is the goal of The Boring Company. Fast to dig, low cost tunnels would also make Hyperloop adoption viable and enable rapid transit across densely populated regions, enabling travel from New York to Washington DC in less than 30 minutes.

Well, if The Boring Company can get someone from NY to DC in less than 30 minutes, that pretty much means they can get someone from Boston to NY in less than 30 minutes. So, let’s go, The Boring Company!

One of the ways that Musk engages his fans and helps fund The Boring Company is selling them stuff.

In this case, the first 1,000 who signed up for the latest sale paid $500 for a flamethrower. If my arithmetic is correct, that would amount to $500K, minus the cost of the flamethrowers. Boring had previously sold 50,000 ball caps for $20, which rolls up to $1M. And they’ve also sold another 20,000 flamethrowers. That’s a cool $10M.

So, the grand (gross – pre cost of goods sold) total seems to be $11.5M. Factor in the additional cost of the free churros that Musk fed to the 1,000 flamethrower buyers, this doesn’t seem like a lot of money to go towards funding a company that’s going to cut the time to get from NYC to DC to 30 minutes by boring – get it, boring – a tunnel. But I suspect that these sales are more about publicity than about raising money. And there’s always Kickstarter…

Anyway, Musk-ovites came from near and far to claim their flamethrowers.

“Imagine if you had the opportunity to get a kite and a key from Benjamin Franklin,” said [Dennis] Dohrman, 45, an environmental scientist who drove 39 hours from Hampstead, North Carolina, referencing the Revolutionary War-era inventor and statesman. (Source: Bloomberg)

I don’t know if this analogy quite holds up. I don’t believe that The Boring Company will be using flamethrowers to bore their tunnels. And I don’t know if Ben Franklin funded his experiment by selling souvenir kites and keys. But the mention of BF has, of course, set me off in a direction that my brain didn’t need to go in.

Imagine if you had the opportunity to get a phonograph needle from Thomas Edison? Imagine if you had the opportunity to get a slug of type from Gutenberg? An air sickness bag from the Wright Brothers?

The other direction my mind has been set off in is making a brain beeline to a ditty we sang in grammar school that included the words:

Benjamin Franklin, inventor was he.
Out in a storm with a kite and a key.
Found how electric that lightning could be…

Ah, but we’re hear to talk about flamethrowers, not Benjamin Franklin. And 1,000 folks lined up find how flaming a flamethrower can be:

At the front of the line, customers wielding demonstration flamethrowers roasted marshmallows as staff showed them how to power the flames…

While a few in line said they planned to resell the limited-edition $500 flamethrowers online, where they already fetch a premium, most said they plan to keep them.

I guess if you’re looking for something just slightly overkill-y to toast your marshmallows, The Boring Company flamethrower’s your man. As for other ideas:

Musk offered suggestions for those wondering how to use their new flamethrowers, such as lighting fireplaces and barbecues. "No more need to use a dainty ‘match’ to ignite!" he wrote on Twitter.

Forget three on a match. It’ll be three on a flamethrower. You could lose your eyebrows that way.

This all seems slightly dangerous to me, especially living as I do in a densely occupied urban environment where there are no fields to de-weed. A cap would always come in handy, but I missed the window of opportunity there. As for the flamethrower, I’m a bit sorry I missed this chance to get me one.

I’ll have to keep my eye on the next merchandise offering their planning for this winter: an ice blaster. Now there’s something that a downtown Bostonian can absolutely use. Wonder how it will work on bricks.

Here’s a job I’d be willing to take on–on one condition

The other day, I heard that when the FBI takes into their possession your paper files, they include the contents of your shredder in their grab. And they have a process for reconstructing those documents. If you’re envisioning straight-arrow guys in suits sitting their piecing together shreds of paper, you’re likely imagining a scenario that’s so yesterday. Having googled ‘how to recover shredded paper files’, I learned that there’s software that can help with the job. You scan in all those pieces and, thanks to AI, you may be able to get them into some semblance of readability

Anyway, I’m guessing that the FBI has access to this software.

Not so the White House, it appears.

When it comes to putting together documents that are in bits and pieces, they have it done the old fashioned way: by hand.

They’re not, however, dealing with files that were shredded in an actual shredding machine. No, they’re piecing together documents that were shredded into bits and pieces the old fashioned way: by hand. And these documents were shredded into bits and pieces by the tiny HUGE hands of the man who currently occupies the Oval Office.

Seems that there’s been more to the president’s day-to-day than just tweeting and “Executive Time.” He’s spending some of his valuable time tearing up “documents he is legally required to preserve has concerned White House aides.”

Two of the fellows charged with reconstructing - records management analysts making over $60K a piece – were Solomon Lartey and Reginald Young. They used to do more high-level archiving work. But once Trump blew into town, Lartey and Young, along with a number of colleagues, were tasked with taping the president’s papers back together again. That is, until they were laid off this spring – no notice, just frog marched out the door with no explanation, other than that they “serve at the president’s pleasure.” And his nibs was no longer pleased. Or maybe they just needed to make room for some lower-end members of the kakistocracy and found all these career record managers in their way.

Or maybe it’s that the records management group decided to purchase the AI software and no longer needed actual record management analysts who are good a figuring out puzzles.

It’s not because Lartey and Young were leaking, by the way. Their story came out after the fact of their dismissals, and came about when they were being interviewed about what they felt to be their wrongful pink slips. When they were asked what their jobs entailed, they noted that their work had been somewhat downgraded from what it had been under previous administrations.

Armed with rolls of clear Scotch tape, Lartey and his colleagues would sift through large piles of shredded paper and put them back together, he said, “like a jigsaw puzzle.” Sometimes the papers would just be split down the middle, but other times they would be torn into pieces so small they looked like confetti.

It was a painstaking process that was the result of a clash between legal requirements to preserve White House records and President Donald Trump’s odd and enduring habit of ripping up papers when he’s done with them — what some people described as his unofficial “filing system.”

Under the Presidential Records Act, the White House must preserve all memos, letters, emails and papers that the president touches, sending them to the National Archives for safekeeping as historical records.

But White House aides realized early on that they were unable to stop Trump from ripping up paper after he was done with it and throwing it in the trash or on the floor, according to people familiar with the practice. Instead, they chose to clean it up for him, in order to make sure that the president wasn’t violating the law. (Source: Politico)

Well, all thanks and praise to those White House aides who wanted “to make sure that the president wasn’t violating the law” in this case, but where are they when we really need them?

All this said – plus it being said that I would not want to touch anything that DJT had touched - I would probably be pretty good at the task of piecing together ripped up documents. As would my sisters.

We come by our logical minds and puzzle solving abilities naturally, as our mother was a big one for complex jigsaw puzzles and any sort of word puzzle – from regular old crossword puzzles to the tricky diagramless. My sisters and I are all crossworders, with Kath taking the cake for being able to do those British punning puzzles that I’m clueless with. My allegiance has mostly switched to Sudoku, but I still do an occasional crossword puzzle.

We also do jigsaw puzzles when we’re at Kath’s on the Cape. Here I believe Trish gets the “mother’s daughter” award. She’s both good and persistent.

So all three of us could be called upon, in case of a national emergency, to piece together the Trump confetti letters. But I think I speak for all three when I say that we’d only be willing to do so if the document in question were a confession or a resignation letter.

Suicide is painless? Not really…

Before reading about her last week, I didn’t know all that much about Kate Spade. I knew, of course, about the pocketbooks – my niece Molly is among the brand’s fans – and her other design work. For myself, I’m the possessor of a Kate Spade phone case. (White with big black polka dots.) I knew that she was David Spade’s sister-in-law. And I knew that she’d built a pretty good business for herself. Other than that, I don’t know much and can’t recall ever having seen a picture of her.

Reading about Kate Spade after her death, I learned that she grew up in an Irish-Catholic family in Kansas City, and that her maiden name was Kate Brosnahan – a fact that I suspect really struck my cousin Ellen, as this is the maiden name of her daughter. I learned that Kate Spade went to parochial grammar school and a Catholic girls high school. And she looked like pretty much everyone I went to parochial grammar school and Catholic girls high school with. After going to an average, nothing-special university, she landed an entry-level job at Mademoiselle. And the rest is history: design a signature bag, build (with her husband) a major brand/business, sell the business for $$$ to spend time with her only child, a daughter, now 13 years old. Kate Spade was only 55, a couple of years younger than my younger sister. She could have been the kid sister of anyone I went to parochial grammar school or Catholic girls high school with.

Reading about her background, I found myself oddly proud of her and what she had achieved, and so very sorry about her death, with special sorrow reserved for her family, especially her daughter.

I was going to post about her, but what did I have to say?

On Friday morning, I went through my usual a.m. routine, which always starts with my looking through my Twitter feed, There I read the shocking news that Anthony Bourdain had killed himself.

I “knew” Anthony Bourdain a lot better than I “knew” Kate Spade.

Years ago, I had enjoyed his original essay on the restaurant world in The New Yorker, and his follow-on book Kitchen Confidential, which I round hilarious and hilariously snarky. As a veteran of the restaurant biz, there was so much in there that I could completely appreciate.

I pretty regularly watched his show No Reservations, and occasionally watched his later show, Parts Unknown.

I mostly thoroughly enjoyed watching him eat (and drink) his way around the world, his exuberance, his wit, his seeming zest for living, his raunchiness – and the fact that the shows always included a side of culture, history, politics. There was room on the plate in those shows for an awful lot besides food and bev.

I say I “mostly” enjoyed the shows, it’s because of all those times I turned away, my stomach churning even though I was thousands of miles away and months of production time removed from the supper at which something truly ghastly was consumed. One in particular I remember was an egg that contained a nearly–hatched chick, feathers and all. Talk about having control over his gag reflex: I give you Anthony Bourdain. (Fortunately, I missed the show in which he ate warthog rectum, “flavored” with sand and fecal residue.)

My favorite shows included the one in which he ate noodles and drank beer, in a hole-in-the-wall spot in Hanoi, with Barack Obama. who on Friday morning tweeted this tribute:

“Low plastic stool, cheap but delicious noodles, cold Hanoi beer.” This is how I’ll remember Tony. He taught us about food — but more importantly, about its ability to bring us together. To make us a little less afraid of the unknown. We’ll miss him.

What a good time those two guys seemed to have had…

My other favorite was the one in which he dined at a maple sugar shack in Quebec where everything on the menu features maple syrup/maple sugar and, if I recall correctly, some form of pork. It was so ridiculous, so joyous, I just laughed out loud as a I watched.

Anthony Bourdain’s exuberance, his generosity of spirit, his curiosity, his acceptance of the other, his larger-than-big, bigger-than-large personality, his humor and intelligence. He will be so missed, even by those of us who are complete strangers.

And for all his loud-mouthed, bad-boy-ness, there was always a kindness and compassion about Anthony Bourdain. Here’s a link to a Buzzfeed article recounting his standing up for an 88-year-old North Dakota restaurant reviewer whose review of The Olive Garden was being wildly mocked across the Internet. (Bourdain ended up helping publish a collection of Marilyn Hagerty’s reviews. I just ordered it and am much looking forward to reading it.)

Six degrees of separation, by the way, is alive and well. My friend Pat’s sister is married to Anthony Bourdain’s brother, and Pat knew Tony – his name among family and friends – pretty well. I wrote to her on Friday and she wrote back that “it is devastating on so many levels and complicated by the public glare.”

Devastating on so many levels, especially for his daughter – only eleven years old, even younger than Kate Spade’s.

Most people of a certain age recognize the theme song to M*A*S*H. But you may not recall the lyrics, which include in its refrain the words “suicide is painless.”

No it’s not.

Until it’s over, I suspect that suicide and the thoughts and feelings that lead up to it are plenty painful for the person who takes his or her own life. And it’s plenty painful for those left behind, too.

In the case of Kate Spade and Anthony Bourdain, the pain is, as my friend Pat says, so “complicated by the public glare.”

Kate Spade. Anthony Bourdain. All those thousands of folks unknown in parts unknown who are grappling with depression. So very, very sad.

Here’s hoping that the deaths of two celebrities will bring about some good.

Ancient Chinese secret

Back in the day, there was a TV ad for Calgon water softener that was set in a Chinese laundry. The customer asks the proprietor what his secret is to getting her shirts – or, this being the early 1970’s, her husband’s shirts – so clean. “Ancient Chinese secret,” he tells her. At which point his wife comes out of the backroom waving a Calgon box and announcing that they’re out of Calgon.

Calgon may not be one of them, but I have come to appreciate that there are ancient Chinese secrets, and one of them is acupuncture.

I’ve had a frozen shoulder for over a year now.

It’s not as a bad as the frozen shoulder I had a few years prior.

That one was truly awful. At one point, I could barely turn a key in a lock without intense pain.

But PT got me through it.

PT’s taking a lot longer this time.

I go three times a week, suffer through a painful stretch once a week, and do stretching exercises several times each day. I also use arnica gel on it. (I say arnica, but I think I’m going to start using the term wolf bane instead.)

It’s not that I can’t use my arm – no problems turning a key in a lock – but certain motions (like putting dishes in an upper cabinet) are difficult.

So after consulting with my friend Timo from the Gymo, a fellow PT patient who’s become a buddy – it was Timo who introduced me to arnica wolfbane – I decided to go to his acupuncturist. My first appointment was yesterday.

The acupuncturist, who is also a nurse, works out of her house in Cambridge. I was treated in what I believe was at one point her dining room

If the setup is eccentric, LP – the acupuncturist – is anything but. Smart, funny, thorough. Knowledgeable about the ways of Western medicine – she’s a nurse – and of the wonders of acupuncture. Pretty amazing.

In addition to attending to my frozen shoulder, LP took a look at my wonky ankle.

The wonky ankle is no big deal. I had an MRI and “all” it is is some tiny tears in the ligaments and tendons. It doesn’t keep me from getting in my 4-5 Fitbit miles every day, but it’s sometimes sore. I do PT to strengthen the muscles around the problem area, and use an NSAID ointment on it to relieve the nighttime pain. Not to mention that the only shoe that’s comfortable is a sneaker with a ton of support – one of the pricey ones (ASICs or Brooks are my favored brands), and I’ve even taken to wearing sneakers as slippers. So while the ankle isn’t a showstopper, it’s a PITA, metaphorically speaking.

If the ankle went truly bad, there is a ghastly surgery that was described to me by the orthopedist I saw. He wasn’t recommending it at all. Not at my wonky ankle stage. But I did half listen, and the operation seems to involve relocating your ankle, after which it puts you on your back with you foot elevated for 10 weeks. What a treat for my sisters! Coin toss for the first 5 weeks vs. the last?

Things haven’t gotten to that stage, but the ankle has been irksome.

So I got acupunctured, high and low, which involved little to no pain and included lying around a heated bed under heated blankets, which isn’t a bad way to spend an hour or so.

No, I’m not cured. But that frozen shoulder has thawed out a bit more than it does during my average PT session. And the ankle feels a bit less wonky. I’ll be interested to hear what my PT guy says when I see him today.

Whatever Jake has to say – and I’m a big believer in the power and glory of Jake – I have a return appointment to see LP next week for another acupuncture session.

For now, ancient Chinese secrets ‘r us. What else have you got for me?

Robots, robots who need people….

I’ve been fretting for a good long while about what it is that people are going to do once artificial intelligence and robots replace almost all the jobs out there. As an occupational hazard – and, yeah, there still is demand for people who can understand and cogently write about tech stuff (at least for now) – I read a lot about tech stuff. And a lot of the tech stuff I’ve been reading and writing about is related to AI and robots. The bottom line is that they’re good and getting better.

So, truck drivers and Uber drivers, beware. Objects in mirror – those autonomous, self-driving vehicles – are closer than they appear. And don’t get too complacent, you coders. Machine learning’s got its eye on programmers.

What is it, I ask myself all the time, that people are going to do for work?

Sure, we’ve had these fears before. Remember the Luddites out there smashing all those looms?

What has always ended up happening is that when one profession ebbed (buggy whip maker) another one flowed (Ford production line worker). On so on. Sometimes the jobs aren’t an even exchange financially. Those more recently-displaced Ford production line workers made more than home health aides do. Sometimes the pay and working conditions are an upgrade. Programmers make more than Ford production line workers.

This time around, things seem different.

But are they?

Scientists and academics meeting this week at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Media Lab to discuss the future of artificial intelligence seemed sure of one thing: there will be plenty for humans to do—especially tasks that require the kind of intuition and emotional empathy that computers are nowhere near able to match. (Source: Boston Globe)

Reading about intuition and emotional empathy reminds me of the “conversations” we used to have, decades ago, with ELIZA, an early AI/natural language processing system that ran on mainframes. You’d sit there and type a question, and ELIZA, playing therapist, would come back with some sort of superficial response, generally a follow-on question, keying off words in your query and putting something out there that would get you to type in something more. It was stupid, but fun and entertaining, in a superficial kind of way. And was a nice after-work time waster. But none of us were worried about ELIZA replacing us any time soon.

Since then, AI has come a mighty long way. But as our friends at MIT (who were the ones who brought us ELIZA to begin with) point out, it’s still not high on intuition and emotional empathy.

MIT roboticist David Mindell, speaking at the MIT EmTech Next conference, said that in studying decades of human interactions with robots, he’s learned one inescapable truth—the machines always need help. “When robots succeed,” said Mindell, “they’re never alone.”

Will those be the jobs of the future, then? We’ll be the companions to the robots, rather than the future that most of us have been anticipating, in which the robots are the companions to us. Turnaround is fair play, and I’m nearly teary-eyed with gratitude that humans will still be needed.

Hey, all you robots out there: you’ll never walk alone.

The assurance from MIT that robots will need people is all well and good. But just how many humans are robots going to need? 

Of course, what they’re really talking about is human endeavor complementing the work of robots. Robots/AI will still be taking a lot of jobs, just not all of them. They give the example of attorneys. AI is increasingly doing much of the discovery work that newly-minted associates used to take care of. But you still need humans to write briefs and argue in court.

Surprisingly, the MIT conference wasn’t promoting STEM careers.

“I think we need to teach people how to deal less with computers and more with people,” said Iyad Rahwan, associate professor of media arts & sciences at the MIT Media Lab. With computers getting smart enough to program themselves, Rahwan said there will be less need for software engineers in coming years.

Some overall advice: focus on building “softer”, human-centered skills and take those humanities courses.

Great news for all those sociology-English-religious studies majors out there. So far, you’re irreplaceable.

British royal expert outed. It’s good old Tommy from Upstate.

Even though analysis revealed the disturbing information that my DNA is 12% English – Jaysus, is my grandmother rolling in her grave muttering that the taint must be from my grandfather’s side – I’m not what you might call a monarchist. If I had to pick a side, well, Brits Out!

Nonetheless, I did keep an eye on the Meghan-Harry nuptials. After all, my husband and I were watching Suits in season one, when no one knew who Meghan Markle was. But we did: she was Rachel Zane. And after all, Harry is definitely the cute prince-brother. (Wha’ happened, Wills?)

Not that I got to watch it – I was traveling that day - but I did see news about the wedding. And I did buy the People magazine dedicated to the blessed event. So I know that Amal Clooney’s outfit was a canary yellow that even she can’t carry off. That Oprah’s dress wasn’t flattering. That Princess Eugenie looked like a PanAm stewardess from 1965. (Or was that Princess Beatrice?) That Princess Beatrice looked like some weird-order postulant. (Or was that Princess Eugenie?) And what was up with that jewelry designer who paired a navy blue jumpsuit with a hat that wouldn’t have looked out of place on Alice Longworth Roosevelt, c. 1906.

The best news, though, to come out of the latest royal wedding is the identity of a key commentator, Thomas J. Mace-Archer-Mills.

Mace-Archer-Mills – don’t think I’ve ever seen a triple-hyphenated name; well played – is the founder of the British Monarchist Society & Foundation. He’s written a couple of books on royal tipples. He’s a radio personality and frequent TV guest as an expert on the monarchy, where his commentary is given in a plummy, just-so British accent that I suppose would have made my British forebears proud.

Turns out that Thomas Mace-Archer-Mills is actually Thomas Muscatello from Upstate New York who acquired his first British accent when he appeared in Oliver! in high school. It was the Wall Street Journal that found him out. But it seems he Tommy had already found who he was:

“I found where I'm supposed to be and who I am supposed to be,” Mace-Archer-Mills told the newspaper, explaining that he feels more connected to Britain than the United States. He even found an elderly British man who agreed that Mace-Archer-Mills could call him his grandfather. He met him outside Buckingham Palace as a teenager. (Source: WaPo)

Good on’ ye (as the Irish would say), Tommy Muscatello, for figuring out where and who you’re supposed to be. I think I’ve got half of it covered. I really am supposed to be in Boston. Still working on who I’m supposed to be, unless I’m willing to accept that I’m it already and that it’s too late to be Maureen Dowd or Joyce Carol Oates. As from Thomas,

He often appeared in a bow tie, tweed jacket and cap. Speaking to a Norwegian TV channel just ahead of Meghan Markle and Prince Harry's wedding in May, the American emphasized “keeping integrity, keeping formality and making sure that the traditions and heritage that we have as British people remain at the forefront.”

Forget the bow tie, tweed jacket and cap. Sometimes Thomas gets totally tarted up. And forget Oliver! He looks more like Liza Doolittle’s father about to burst into “I’m Getting Married in the Morning” from My Fair Lady.

And what’s with that royal “we”? Come on, Tommy from Upstate.

Anyway, before becoming a toff-ist, Muscatello sold real estate, “and gave himself a hyphenated last name, adding DeLaCroix to the end to give himself a boost in business with French Canadian clients.” Real estate, it seems, is good experience for learning how to pull off a great imposter, although in the case of Thomas Muscatello-Mace-Archer-Mills there doesn’t seem to have been any fraud, foul, or harm. (If you look at the video embed from this Vanity Fair article, you might even conclude that he has a touch of the comedian in him.)

As Mace-Archer-Mills, he’s got plenty of irons in the fire. In addition to his royal commentator projects, he’s got a new mag Crown and Country:

This extraordinary publication is a unique blend of Royal themes, luxurious advertising and quality editorial which does not expire, thus making this publication one of the finest Royal periodicals in the world.

Yikes! Just how many “Royal periodicals” are there in the word?

Thomas Mace-Archer-Mills also does public speaking training, during which he provides handy tips like don’t rattle change and paper clips in your pocket. Good advice! So I’ll add the good bits I picked up in presentation skills training decades ago: If you’re wearing a skirt, make sure there are pocket in it, as putting one hand in a pocket gives you something to do with the hand you’re not gesturing with. (I had pockets added to all my suits after this.) And the night before any preso, rehearse it out loud in front of a mirror and talk through every point you’re going to make, even if you think you’ve got it down cold. (You won’t use the words verbatim the next day, but going through each point out loud makes you think through what you need to say and will keep you from finding yourself in a verbal dead end.)

It is almost inevitable to report that Mace-Archer-Mills has also come out with a new cryptocurrency. I would have called it Coin of the Realm, but he went with Royal Coin. So Bitcoin, look out.

I hope that Thomas Mace-Archer-Mills can keep his multiple enterprises (except that Royal Con Coin). Despite blood that’s seemingly more British than that of Thomas Mace-Archer-Mills, other than looking at the Will-Kate cute kid pictures and royal headgear, I’m personally not all that interested in what the royals are up to. But if there are multiple publications devoted to the royals, there’s apparently a market for what he’s got on offer. And, let’s face it, it probably won’t be too very long before Prince Philip is off to that Balmoral in the sky, and Queen Elizabeth can’t last forever, either. So we have their funerals, and the coronation of King Charles (the person, on the dog breed) that will be crying out for commentary.

You’re adopted country will be needing you, Tommy boy, if only to remind King Charles to keep the paperclips out of his pockets.   

“Has anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?”

On June 5, 1968, I was home from my first year in college, and had just started working for the summer at Big Boy’s Restaurant in Webster Square, Worcester. I was on the lunch shift that day, so that morning I was just lolling around, getting up the energy to go iron my company-issued hideous waitress outfit: dark brown heavy cotton skirt, white light cotton pleated short-sleeved shirt, and orange heavy cotton apron. (This ensemble – which couldn’t have been duller and more boring if they tried – was completed by the addition of white waitress shoes and a hairnet. We also had to wear lipstick, something I’d never worn. I experimented with white, but landed on some shade of pink – a nice complement to the pale yellow eye-shadow I favored. Oh, yes, and a nametag that we were instructed to wear well above the breast so that no wise guy would ask “Maureen, eh, what’s the other one named?”)

My family didn’t watch late-night or early-morning television, and I always envied my friends who knew what Johnny Carson was up to on Tonight, and who were familiar with the stars on The Today Show. These friends always seemed so much more worldly, knowing and sophisticated than I was. What was up with my parents? Way too mired in Ellery Queen mysteries and Book of the Month Club selections I guess.

Anyone, on the morning of June 5 1968, no one had turned on the radio, either, so we didn’t know until my father got to work and called home that Bobby Kennedy had been shot in the wee hours in California, and was clinging to life.

On with the TV, but there was nothing like the coverage you get now. There was some information, but I pretty much watched a bit and then chugged off to Big Boy’s from my 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. shift.

My parents were Democrats, but not fanatically so. (I think they both voted for Ike over Adlai.) They liked JFK, but they weren’t Kennedy fanatics by any means. I don’t remember the candidate they were supporting in 1968. They actually didn’t talk politics all that much. But I imagine they were more Hubert Humphrey Democrats than anything else.

Personally, I had adored JFK, swooning for him when he was elected just short of my 11th birthday and going into full-scale mourning when he was killed just short of my 14th. But I wasn’t a big supporter of Bobby Kennedy. Earlier in the year, I’d rung doorbells in Jamaica Plain and in New Hampshire for Eugene McCarthy. And I was on my way to being soured on the pack of them.

I will admit that at the St. Patrick’s Day parade in South Boston in March, I’d been excited to see Bobby whiz by in a car – could it possibly have been an open convertible? the day was cold and rainy…

Mostly though, I was pissed at Bobby Kennedy for jumping in after McCarthy had done the heavy lifting to get LBJ out. Kennedy privilege… I was fuming.

But hearing that he’d been shot was a gut punch. Medgar Evers. JFK. Martin Luther King. Why were the good guys always getting killed?

Bobby Kennedy hung on that day, June 5, 1968, but we woke to the news on June 6 - the TV on for once in our house in the morning – to learn that Kennedy was dead.

There wasn’t the same shut down of life there’d been when JFK was killed, but things slowed down.

Between shifts at Big Boy’s, I watched the coverage on our black and white TV.

I choked back tears when Teddy Kennedy gave his eulogy at St. Patrick’s Cathedral, and let the tears flow when I watched the people lining the tracks as the train carrying Bobby’s body made its way from New York to Washington for his burial.

People amass for all sorts of events these days, as everything has become a “thing.” But all those people – in the city, great crowds; in the country, oneside-twosies. Black and white, mostly in appearance working folks. Spontaneously appearing to pay tribute ;to a man who had clearly connected to them. (Here are two Paul Fusco pictures, which were included in a recent New Yorker article.)

And for everything else he was and wasn’t – ruthless opportunist? sainted hero? -  Bobby Kennedy had two tremendous capacities: the capacity to evolve from a nasty little Joe McCarthy pal to someone who spoke to our better angels; and the capacity to connect with people. 

I don’t believe that the world would be a perfect place if Bobby Kennedy had lived. But there sure are a lot of ‘what-if’s’, starting with the greater likelihood that we would have made a speedier exit from the Vietnam debacle.

A few months after Bobby Kennedy was killed, there was a popular song, recorded by Dion (he of “The Wanderer” and “Runaround Sue”) called “Abraham, Martin, and John.” It couldn’t have been cornier, but it was plenty catchy (and timely). And it’s been rattling around in my brain the last few days.

Has anybody here seen my old friend Abraham,
Can you tell me where he's gone?
He freed a lotta people, but it seems the good die young
But I just looked around and he's gone.
Has anybody here seen my old friend John,
Can you tell me where he's gone?
He freed a lotta people, but it seems the good die young
But I just looked around and he's gone.
Has anybody here seen my old friend Martin,
Can you tell me where he's gone?

He freed a lotta people, but it seems the good die young
But I just looked around and he's gone.
Didn't you love the things they stood for?
Didn't they try to find some good for you and me?
And we'll be free,
Someday soon it's gonna be one day.
Has anybody here seen my old friend Bobby,
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up over the hill
With Abraham, Martin and John.

Well, this conflation of Lincoln with JFK is pretty absurd. Lincoln was arguably the greatest president of all time. JFK, well…Not terrible, but no Lincoln either. And “freed a lot of people”? The Civil Rights Act was passed thanks to LBJ, not JFK.

Bobby Kennedy? Who knows…

Still, it’s worth remembering a time when a song like this could make it to nearly the top of the charts and sell a million or more copies to become a golden record. And when a million or more people – black and white - would line the railroad tracks on a hot summer day to bid farewell to a politician who connected with them.

Fifty years. Hard to believe. Seems like just yesterday…

What, me smartphone dependent?

Last Thursday, the unthinkable happened. I was separated from my smartphone for 17 hours. Oh, the horror! Oh, the humanity! (Mine.)

For years, I’ve been making fun of those for whom their mobile is another appendage. What’s wrong with someone that they can’t put that infernal device down for even a minute? Who wants it? Who needs it?

But over those years, I’ve become fairly addicted myself.

Oh, I’m still perfectly capable of going out, looking at the person I’m with and carrying on an actual face-to-face conversation without placing my phone on the table where I can glance at it (and pet it). And when I’m volunteering in the kitchen or clothing distribution at St. Francis House, the phone’s in my locker. Four hours phone free! Just imagine…

On the other hand – the hand holding my Galaxy 6 in the black and white polka dot Kate Spade case – when I’m out for a walk, and realize I’ve forgotten my phone, I backtrack and retrieve it. What if I passed out? Or got knocked out by some long-boarder? That phone contains my emergency contacts, thank you. Plus if I feel the need to check my precise Fitbit steppage, or see what Lawrence O’Donnell, Chris Hayes, or Lauren Duca is up to on Twitter, I can check right in.

When I’m at PT/the gym, I used to leave my phone in the locker. More recently I started keeping it by my side. Just in case, in the middle of a row, I can check my email or look at Twitter to see what Lawrence O’Donnell, Chris Hayes, and Lauren Duca have to say for themselves.

And of course, that smartphone is marvelously handy for looking all sorts of useless things up. Which was what I was doing that resulted in the temporary but quite painful separation from my increasingly precious smartphone.

On Thursday, I was out in Worcester with my cousin Barbara to do our annual family grave visit.

The smartphone had come in handy earlier in the day, when I took pics of the graves of my parents and my sister – the plan being to send them off to whatever outfit I can find that will clean the mold off their gravestones.

Back at Babs’ house, we were sitting around talking and Barbara mentioned a former neighbor who had held a high governmental post. Barbara and her husband aren’t much for using their smartphones for information retrieval, so I of course jumped in and volunteered to sleuth. Having found the info we “needed” on that neighbor, I placed my phone on the table next to where I was sitting, and there it sat while we adjourned for dinner.

When I take off from someplace other than my own home, I generally do an obsessive check to make sure that my phone is in my pocketbook, or in my hand. But for some reason, on Thursday night, as we headed out so that Barbara and Dick could drop me off at the train station, I didn’t. (And, as an aside, I will point out that I did not have any wine with dinner. So I was in full possession of my faculties.)

As the train was pulling out of the station, I did think to check my pocketbook and my backpack. Uh-oh.

Now, if you’ve ever had a Longchamps bag, you’ll recognize that they are completely “open concept”: no multiple compartments, other than a skimpy little patch of material capable of holding a key or a folded panty shield. But not a smartphone.

Similarly, there’s no place to hide in an Anello backpack, which held my gardening gloves and the tools I’d used for grave-tending.

Nevertheless, I persisted in checking and rechecking.

I would have borrowed someone’s phone to call Barbara but, of course, I have no idea what her phone number is.

In fact, the only phone numbers I know by heart are the landlines of my sibs and a couple of friends. (That and the phone numbers of people who are long dead. If I need to call my mother or my Aunt Margaret, or the parents of my high school friends, well, I’m on it.)                         

The first thing I did when I got home – after an I-feel-naked-without-my-phone walk home from the Back Bay Station – was use my landline to call my cellphone. I was hoping against hope that I would hear that reassuring ring, emanating from a heretofore unknown slot in my pocketbook or backpack. Perhaps it had slipped into one of those gardening gloves…

On the other end, I could hear Barbara trying to answer my phone, but it’s tricky.

I went to call her and realized I had no idea what her number – cell or landline – is. If she lived in her old home (which she’d left 13 years ago), I would have known her number. But they’d upped sticks and had a “new” number. I.e., a number from the post cell-phone era. So I called information. For some reason, Barbara and Dick’s landline is unlisted. But the operator hopefully offered the number of their same-name son in Bedford, Mass. So I gave him a ring to get his mother’s numbers.

It almost goes without saying that no one in their house picked up. Who answers when they don’t recognize the number?

I use one of my handful of remembered numbers – a lifeline - and called my sister Trish to get Barbara’s number.

Finally, we connected.

Fortunately, on Friday, Barbara was coming into Bedford, Mass for her book club meeting. She would meet me at 12:30 at the Riverside T-Station to hand me my phone.

I needed to get to PT in the a.m. and wanted to set the clock. When was the last time I used my alarm clock? Years. I use my phone. It took my a mo’ to refigure out how to the alarm clock works.

I also realized that I wanted to know what the time was so that I could make sure I would get out to Riverside on time. When was the last time I used a watch? Years. I use my phone. On Friday morning, I had to find a jewelry store to replace the battery in my long-dormant watch.

Fortunately, I made it out to Riverside with a few minutes to spare. I had thought that I’d be able to use a payphone there if I needed to call Barbara. But, even though this is both the terminus of a rapid transit line and a long-haul bus station, there was no payphone. If I had to call Babs, I would have had to rely on the kindness of a stranger to lend me their phone.

Fortunately, Barbara was right on time. Like a reverse of the wife of Charlie on the MTA, who went down to the Scollay Square Station each day to hand Charlie a sandwich through the open window, Babs slowed down and, through the open window, handed me my phone

Talk about mother-and-child reunion. Although all I had was 3 percent battery juice, I was elated to see my best ol’ buddy, my precious little always-by-my-side friend.

Seriously, how did we live without them?

Oh, to be middle-aged again. (Elder hostile much?)

Today is my half-birthday. Which makes me 68.5.

I’m an elder. An older person. A senior. A senior citizen. An old geezer. (Or is it geezeress?)

There’s no denying that there are some benefits. Medicare’s great. So’s the half-price Senior T-Pass that lets me ride the commuter rails, buses, and rapid transit for short money. Discounts – movies, museums, Friendly’s: all good.

Still, it’s tough to think of yourself as, well, old. Which is why most baby boomers don’t. The first wave of boomers turned 70 last year. And you know what I read? Boomers define old age as starting at 73. I suspect that, in a couple of years, that number will have been extended by a couple of years.

Some people say that “age is just a number.” But that, as us golden agers know, is bull-sheeetttt. The reality is that, if you’re old and plan on getting older, you’re old and getting older. Things fall apart. The center cannot hold. You sag and bag. You don’t bounce back as quickly from slings and arrows, healthwise. You get crepey skin. People die on you. And it’s no longer “just” your parents. It’s spouses. It’s sibs. It’s friends. Sure, there’s something attitudinal about being old. But, let’s face it, age isn’t just a number. It’s an actual number. And numbers in real life don’t end with infinity.

Nonetheless, I don’t consider 68.5 old. Or elder. Or senior (except where it comes to the senior discount). But by some standards, I’ve been old/oldish for a while.

My husband could recall with absolute clarity where and when he was first called “Sir”. (Textbook section of the Harvard Coop. He was in his mid-twenties and was “sirred” by a clerk.) I don’t recall my first “ma’am-ing.” But I do recall shrieking when, at age 49, I read an article in the paper in which the victim of a fire was characterized as an “elderly woman.” She was 47.

And when I took the first survey in which I had to lump myself into the 64 and older category, I gulped.

Apparently it’s not just us old folks who are sensitive about what we’re called. Middle-aged people – a cohort (40-65) that I’ve barely grown out of and, in truth, still consider myself a member of – are bristling at being called middle-aged. They’re even considering rebranding themselves.

…a 52-year-old Maryland woman, Lisa Nagel, is suggesting “mid-century modern.” It’s an idea born of disappointment with the term “middle aged” (it’s an “anchor”) and appreciation for the current decorating craze. (Source: Boston Globe)

Another suggestion is “’perrenial’ because it’s ‘vibrant, everlasting, and forward thinking.’”

Okay. I’ll give them 2 out of 3. They get credit for vibrant and forward thinking. But everlasting? Where’ve they been, sitting around their mid-century modern houses congratulating themselves on their sense of style and good bones? Are they out of their everlasting minds???

WGBH Radio host Henry Santoro wants to eliminate the middleman, errrrr, middle age, and make things binary:

“You’re either young or you’re old,” he said. (This is definitely appealing, but imagine the war that would be waged over where to draw that line.)

I kind of like this one, but it’s all relative, situational. When I’m at the Sunday matinee of an Actors Shakespeare Project, I’m the breath of spring. When I’m meeting with clients – most of them in their 30’s or early 40’s (max) – I’m old, even if they don’t realize just how old old is. (Unless they read today’s post, that is…)

Maybe the thing to do is forget about generational catchalls. Maybe we should go for more precision. I’m in my sixties. Or I’m (alas) in my late sixties.

And all I can say to those decrying their being labeled as middle age is a quote from 74-year-old Joni Mitchell:

Don’t it always seem to go, that you don’t know what you’ve got ‘til it’s gone.

Yesterday’s middle-age is tomorrow’s old person.