The People’s Forum

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Stick a fork in it, my people!

Because I encourage it, I get a fair amount of feedback, grievances, and downright weird commentary about this humble column.  I devote today’s piece to my people and their rantings.  And away we go.

Mt. Kisco, NY: “How about someone gets a snake tattoo when young and then adds a few dozen pounds.  By the time they’re done, the snake looks like it swallowed a goat.” (Or the tramp stamp, located on a particularly spreadable area, the Saddlebag.)

Westport, CT:  “I am ruffled by the way corporate and utility bills that come in the mail keep urging us to Go Green—not because they give a flying burrito about the planet, but so they can save on payroll and postage, which is to say naked greed. Automate the heck out of everything.  And bury your customer service number deep within your website. Have just two employees with minimal benefits and no customer service beyond recorded loop nonsense. All in the name of Going Green. Yeah, okay.”

Randolph, VT:  From a friend in her 80s, “At my age, Honey,  a nose job means melanoma removal.”

New York, NY: “This from my 11-year old niece: ‘Boys are nothing but problems.’ Wise beyond her years.”

Washington, DC:  “As film studios  and advertising agencies throw bizarre apocalyptic movies and disturbing television commercials at us, we urge: ‘We’re banged-up creatures in a post-9.11 world suffering from global disaster burnout, not  heartless rocks impervious to your scenes of contagion, explosions, and angels crashing on city pavement.’  What the heck are they thinking? Were the people who cooked this violence up born after 9.11? Possible. Employers like to hire people who’ll work for nothing because they’re still living with their parents—even after college.”

 Hanover, NH:  A friend e-mailed and I saved, “My new mantra so I don’t crack: No one escapes.” I wrote her back to ask what word I had mistakenly cut off at the end. No one escapes what?  Her reply: “Nothing. That was it. ‘No one escapes.’”

 Somewhere in the Heartland:  “I, too, eschew the news.  It’s what drove me out of my parents’ house when they generously let us, our birds, and our rescue cat stay there.  The TV was always on, tuned in to bad news followed by court TV followed by more news!  Waaaaait a minnnnute….”

Los Angeles, CA:  “It’s weird is how, almost instantly, you can tell how old basketball footage is from the shorts. Long shorts have been in so long it’s time for them to go out. Which is bad for those of us entering the Long Shorts—and Big Jewelry—years.”  (Also the Big Glasses years. They were in a season ago and you can still find monster ones that cover half your face. As for the short shorts, well, giant hair from the 80s never came back. So there’s hope.)

New Chappaqua, New York:  “My harp teacher sent me the Top Ten Tips To Remember About Playing In Public” (thematically abridged by UVG):

1. It’s a harp. They’re gonna love it.

3. Even if you do make a mistake and do telegraph it, they won’t care. It’s a harp. They’re gonna love it.

6. Noodling in the middle is perfectly acceptable until you can find your way back to the tune. It’s called improvising. They’ll think you did it on purpose, and since it’s a harp, they’re gonna love it.

8. People aren’t as tired of the old standards as you are. Go on, play Greensleeves. On a harp, they’ll love it.

10. You are sharing yourself in a way few people do, and you have a right to be proud of that. And since you are doing it with a HARP…They’re gonna love it.

Westchester, PA:  “On an Islamic holy day, my teenage son’s friends were all hanging out in town and one kid’s mother called him to reprimand him about praying, so he went into the Dunkin’ Donuts bathroom and said his prayers.  I couldn’t help myself; I asked my son, ‘How did he know to face east in a room with no windows?’  The answer, ‘Duh, his cell phone, Mom.’”  (Try the Compass app, you’ll lerv it!)

My doctor’s favorite bumper sticker:  Reality Is Not What You Think.

My suggested bumper sticker:  Just a minute, Officer. I’m texting.

Vanity Plate Spotted on Route 4:  PUZZLES

My next Vanity Plate:  PUZZLED

Feel free to send your deepest thoughts. For inspiration, play Deepest Purple, Deep Purple’s best of album (think: Space Truckin’).  Good day.

Ann Aikens can be reached via Facebook (ann.aikens.7), e-mail at uppervalleygirl@gmail.com, and Twitter at @uvgvt (http://twitter.com/uvgvt)

It’s Just Better ~ Tunbridge World’s Fare Part Deux

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This year’s TWF poster, by Wendy Judge of Royalton

When I’m not huffing Vicks VapoRub®, canoodling, or making embarrassing typos like “right up your ally,” I’m culling the herd of Deep Thoughts in my noggin to fill again this humble space for your amusement. This week’s deepest thoughts were memories of when, years ago, a friend and I were seeking a place to live and kept driving across the border between Vermont and New Hampshire looking at towns that came recommended.  Every time we crossed into Vermont, we breathed easier.  “It’s just better,” she said.  Which I propose now, 15 years later, as our new state motto.  No disrespect to the Granite State.

One reason Vermont rocks is its annual Tunbridge World’s Fair, or as one fan put it, “Sugar, lights, grease, noisy crowds…wow, an American dream.”  We go for the music, the animals, native Vermonters, rides, maple cotton candy, games of “skill”, and that blend of meats you can’t get at home—and wouldn’t want to but somehow crave once a year. It’s a draw, not a drawback.

Happily, this year’s Dairy Costume Class was the best ever. That’s where kids dress up their young cows and selves in sartorial representations of, say, Surgeon and Nurse. The three winners were Cop and Criminal, Burger and Fries, and Milk and Cookies, all brilliantly realized.

Burger and Fries

Cookies and Milk

Cop and Criminal

When the real-life cop manning the Applause-O-Meter pointed to the girl of Cop and Criminal, I yelled, “Lady cop!” and the guy next to me cried, “Conflict of Interest!” It’s that kind of gig and is my favorite, along with the Livestock Cavalcade (Supreme Dairy Cow, crazy goats, crazier humans in goat carts), which is second only in audience participation to the Coin Drop Cavalcade motorists enjoy on the way in.

The Livestock Cavalcade

I also like to vote on the Art and view the dioramas comprising the Children’s Decorated Vegetables. This year’s eyecatchers were the quilts, and a child’s ridged, skinny squash painted like a blue whale. Remarkable! Outside, my dad ran into an acquaintance in the know. This man said there used to be a Dance Hall where the maple hut now is, and the point was “to go in with your wife, and leave with somebody else’s,” (hey, it was the 60s) and that one year there was “mud wrestling.”  Here’s the convo:

Upper Valley Girl: Mud wrestling?! In the Beer Hall?

Knowledgeable Man:  No, in the field behind the barns.

UVG:  Oh, some kind of impromptu free-for-all after a rainstorm?

KM: Let’s just say this was not a fair-sanctioned event.

UVG:  It was ad hoc?

KM: It was more than that.

Sorry I missed it! Thank you, Knowledgeable Man. We didn’t get into the Girlie Tent years. Way my mom tells it, my great-grandfather was kicked out of the house in Barnard for having come home with lipstick on his collar from that particular “attraction.”  As my Dad tells it, it was something to do with a Girlie woman named “Sally.” What I wouldn’t give to have seen any of it, them in a lather in their old-tymey garb and pre-deodorant BO.

Children’s Decorated Vegetables

This, the 139th year, was the Year of the Chicken and Rabbit. I personally didn’t see much of either except in the overpriced box of greasy popcorn chicken I hauled around for 2 hours before chucking. You can only eat so many of those babies—unless you’re one of the Harringtons of Pomfret, in which case you can eat a whole bucket while watching the Larkin Contra Dancersfor hours on end.

Swine Show

Ah, the TWF. Well, another reason Vermont is so cool is the community vibe. I’ve been lonely in big cities but, upon achieving the Green Mountain State, never so. The laffs are early and often even at choir rehearsal, where everyone reverts to high school chorus behavior and a mosquito laden with EEE, West Nile Virus, and malaria can put the fear of God where it belongs—into the tenors.

So if you’re looking to relocate and you want nutty events and community—and hairy people in pilly sweaters with animal fur on them who don’t dye their hair or shave properly (Green Mountain casual) —it could be for you. It’s also a good place to get zuked. That’s when you leave your car unlocked and someone puts a giant, unwanted zucchini in your back seat. Lock your doors. Good day.

Giantest Squash competition.

How Many Barbies is Enough Barbies?

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They’re so…Barbie.

~ To form a kick line?

~ To constitute a quorum?

~ To populate a viable sweat shop?

~ To unionize?

~ To be just one too many stinkin’ Barbies?

In college, with the help of the drunken tarts I called friends, I created a prototype for Party Barbie®. She had one broken high heel, chipped nail polish, bruises, Walk of Shame hair, torn clothing, a cigarette glued to her hand (or was it a fatty?), a black eye ~ you get the picture.  Mattel wasn’t interested.  Bunch of stiffs.

Just to See How it Turns Out

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Look at that little face.

Sometimes you come across something so interesting you want to stick around just to see how it turns out. This can be true of children.

Not everyone agrees, of course.  A friend once said: “I’m not really interested in children I’m not related to.”

Pretty sure I’m related to Spike here. He crawled many feet to see me. That’s family! I wish I could see how he turns out.

Just Google It

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In high school, a classmate’s grandfather would say, “Now we’re cooking with gas!” to mean, I think, “Now we’re rolling along, getting things done with modern rapidity.” The comedy being it wasn’t even electricity yet; gas was just a step above wood.  I’ve repeated this for 35 years and no one got it until recently when a woman replied, “My mother used to say that.”  If you’ve read this humble column, you may think I don’t care whether people know what I’m talking about. But it is rewarding when they do.

In college, a friend would sigh, “We live and learn,” when something went amiss. I dug it, but we were only 18. How much wisdom were we really nailing down at that point?

When asked for their most and least favorite expressions, people respond with an alarming if thrilling vigor. I offer you my favorites plus a random sampling from the nutters I call friends. Some were unprintable. Some made the cut. Let’s start with modern expressions.

Girls make this charming new sound when they see something cute, akin to the “Cha!?” of indignation from the 90s.  I can’t get the sound into print without using a musical scale, so if you see me at the bar at Harrington House I’ll do it for you.  I also like when, say, a guy going on a date comes down the stairs dressed like a loser or weirdo, and his friends greet him with, “Seriously?” Seriously? is akin to Really?, which a New York friend detests: “Really? has freaking taken over. To express irate incredulity…” [The rest is unprintable; basically, she’s mad but using it herself uncontrollably.]

I myself loathe the modern Just Google it. Oh? You mean there’s a place I can go besides you for information? Something called the I-n-t-e-r-n-e-t where one can learn f-a-c-t-s?  Oklahoma, OK! Why would I expect you to explain what you’re talking about when I can just go “look it up?” Are you my parent and I’m in sixth grade? But onto the real winners.

UVG Lervs:  A snowball’s chance in Hell; Hell’s bells; Like watching paint dry; The inmates are running the prison; Every which way from Sunday; She’s a real ticket/pistol; rough sledding; My money’s on (whomever is more likely to win the improbable competition just suggested); No walk in the park; Let the fur fly; barnburner; sandbagger; I could care less (false positive); She’s got a bee in her bonnet;  I don’t want to throw ants on your picnic but; As crazy as the day is long; Geez Louise; While we’re young! (said angrily to person in charge by people on a long line going nowhere); Box your own weight (dating); He caught the bullet; Driving the porcelain bus/Talking to Ralph on the big white phone (hurling); I’ve got to see a man about a horse.

Contributors Lerv:  Your barn door is open; I’m not dead yet; All Hell broke loose; Going to Hell in a hand basket; Put the pedal to the metal; MacGyver it; He’s a friend of Dorothy; As welcome as a skunk at a lawn party; It’s colder than a witch’s [cold part]; Not for nothing; In a New York minute; Having one’s knickers in a twist; You’re the bomb; She has a face that could stop a clock; I need an adult (film industry-ese for:  “I need a higher-up/decision maker.”);  To a man with a hammer, every problem is a nail to pound; hot mess; Older than dirt; Having more money than God; Paying through the nose; He could talk a dog off a meat wagon; Lie down with dogs, get up with fleas; Catch more flies with honey than vinegar; and, of course, That’s what s/he said.

Crazy:  A couple cards short of a full deck; A few sandwiches shy of a picnic; She doesn’t have all her cups in the cupboard; One bubble off plumb.

Vermonty:  Wicked (as adverb); Yeah it does; Clear as mud; The illogical but addictive So don’t I when one is actually in agreement.

Military:  SOL; Loose cannon; Whisky Tango Foxtrot.

Tree surgery: Mind the angle of the dangle.

Southern:  There’s still a little chicken left on that bone (when someone misses a putt); Wanna come with?; He’s just as smart as he can be (i.e. not that smart).

Contributors Hate:  It is what it is; Bring your A game; The Grass is always greener; Nudge, nudge, wink, wink; That’s the ticket; Get used to it; Don’t go there.

Confusing to me or others:  Sleeping like a baby (did ya sleep well or not?); No skin off my teeth; This fish is either real smart or real dumb (Quint in Jaws – suggested by krazy friend, am unsure of its applications); I can’t afford spats for a hummingbird (Robert Blake in an interview, among other oddities).

What do these mean? Hey, what am I, some kind of source of information? For the love of [deity], just Google it. Good day.

***

Unprintable submissions, more or less in order of ascending foulness

Mother of God; holy mother of God; holy balls (Catholic grandma’s—I can only hope it was the “great balls of fire” type of balls); holy Hell; Jesus, Mary and Joseph; that really chaps my ass/burns my fanny; as welcome as a turd in a punch bowl; as useful as tits on a bull; as tight as a hawk’s ass in a power dive;  busier than a one-armed paperhanger with crabs; he’s got a bug up his ass; they’re blowing smoke up your ass; Christ on a cracker; shit on a shingle; when the shit hits the fan; shit for brains; shitting like a goose; built like a brick shit house; shit sandwich; [Doing something for] shits and giggles; Are you shitting me? — and it’s Elizabethan cousin, “I shit you not.” (Which, according to my Shakespeare expert, should really be, “I shit thee not.” ); I’d tap that.

I leave you with a friend’s gorgeous rant on a hated expression
The most inane and therefore the most popular is “It is what it is.”  Not only is this expression redundant – -“It is” would do the trick — it is entirely unhelpful as an observation when your initial question was “What the fuck is it?”  I think the expression gained popularity after Bill Clinton proposed in his Lewinsky scandal defense “that depends on what the meaning of  ‘is’ is,” and totally blew our minds. “Is” was debatable then. Now it’s not, and neither is “it.”

Ann Aikens can be reached via Facebook (ann.aikens.7), e-mail at uppervalleygirl@gmail.com, Twitter at @uvgvt (http://twitter.com/uvgvt), or her blog at www.uppervalleygirl.wordpress.com. Comments welcome.

And the Livin’ is Easy

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And don’t forget to play.

I found this list in a used book I bought this summer. Don’t think I didn’t consider executing it.

Hey RB, if you call me, I’ll drop by. Don’t let your parents’ concern throw you~we’ll have fun!

The only RB i can think of offhand is Roberto Benigni. We’d hoot so loud we’d have to close his parents’ windows. [Rent Night on Earth and watch the Italy segment. I’ll give you a dollar if you don’t laff so hard your pants break.]

My Work Here Is Done

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Polar Bears, GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!

In a world full of inequity, famine, and marauding rodents, nothing beats laffs. That’s why at a religious retreat this week (I know: UVG and…religion???) my personal best was getting 25 strangers to go Polar Bear in the Atlantic Ocean at 7 a.m., this via a multi-pronged strategy of advertising, freakanomics, extortion, bribery, lying, and begging.  Our paltry daily turnout early in the week had made it clear that the delicious treat of early ayem ocean dipping was going unnoticed, unused, and totally unappreciated.  No more!  My head of marketing and photography did most the work and I’ll take most of the credit. What matters is: everyone was practically drowning from the laffs. Practically.

Who Doesn’t Dig Time Lapse Photography?

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There’s too many to watch (trust me), so pick what ya like. The first 2 are my faves. The others are shorter.

TIME LAPSE OF OUR SKY DURING EARTH’S ROTATION

Gorgeous + calming.  Love the moon and shooting stars. 4:18 long.

THE LONGEST WAY “FACE TIME LAPSE WALK”

The Chinese pop music…the people in the background…“Witness a decline.”  5:18

9 MONTHS OF GESTATION IN 20 SECONDS

Boom.

84 DAYS IN 48 SECONDS: BODY TRANSFORMATION TIME LAPSE

A self-proclaimed slob that gets buff. Not shy about showing his pkg. Dig his pink tights.

 LIVING MY LIFE FASTER – 8 YEARS OF JK’S DAILY PHOTO PROJECT

He gets more or less handsome depending on your prefs; acne comes and goes.  1:45

 TIME LAPSE OF A BABY PLAYING WITH HIS TOYS

His primary mode of locomotion appears to be rolling.  With the heart of a pirate! 2:40

SHE TAKES A PHOTO EVERYDAY FOR 3 YEARS

Makes the passage of time poignant. Maybe it’s the piano. Again with the acne. 1:12

CHICK ZOMBIE TIME LAPSE

The magic of makeup. Cheesy as hell.  :59

DURAN DURAN CONCERT SETUP

Girls on film!  Shortest such I could find at :18 long.

STAPLES CENTER IN L.A.

Staples Center in downtown L.A. hosts 6 sporting events over 4-day period.  2 minutes.

EARTH HD| TIME LAPSE VIEW FROM SPACE, FLY OVER | NASA

LERV the Earth at night. From International Space station. 5 minutes but v. cool.

DISCLAIMER: This is not as good as I wanted it to be but there’s a lot of krep on YouTube, seems like.

The Freedom Chronicles

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Stuart IV gets a whiff of freedom.

Usually they move too fast to photograph, but I assure you the Stuarts are happy to be freed from their “merciful”  POW-style containment box. Stuart III was the exception, a little baby that actually went back inside the trap. Stuart IV, pictured here, departed at a somewhat leisurely pace as well.

Astonished by his good fortune, Stuart IV heads for the hills.

This is from the film strip they show mice in middle school to discourage them from taking drugs, but that effectively makes them want to take drugs.