One for the Books

OK, so let me quickly give you the background to the very amusing stuff you're about to read.

For many years, the International Herald Tribune, which is now known as the International New York Times, ran a column called "Meanwhile." "Meanwhile" was awesome. It was just, like, this little space in the Opinion pages for amorphous-like think-pieces. I had always wanted to write a "Meanwhile" column, and in 2014 finally got an idea for one. However, when I went to pitch the piece I had written, I found out that the "Meanwhile" column had been scrapped. (The decision to end the column had been made when the "International Herald Tribune" was rebranded as the  "International New York Times.")

OK, I thought at the time, that's quite the setback. However, I still wanted to get the piece published. After all, the topic that I had written about was universal: my piece was about cell phones and all the things we miss out on in real life when we're staring down at our screens. It was good stuff. So I figured I'd try a different tack. I thought I'd try pitching the piece as an Op-Ed. Granted, the piece wasn't perfect as an Op-Ed -- it was perfect as a "Meanhile"! -- but I tried.

And I didn't succeed. After being turned down by, like, Op-Ed editors from, like, 40 newspapers, I reached out in a personal email to an editor for the New York Times' Op-Ed pages, writing her something of an impassioned pitch letter. Never got a response. But, hey, Hail Mary passes usually aren't successful, either.  

Anyway, below is the impassioned letter than I wrote to this Times editor, Trish Hall. (Trish, if you're reading this: Why? Why, Trish? Why didn't you ever write back? I'm joking.) But this letter I wrote her is quite "interesting," and all the more so now that a lot of time has passed since my originally having penned it. The actual manuscript that I was pitching is below the letter. Enjoy.

****

Dear Ms. Hall, 

Hang on -- I'm going for broke. 

Though I would usually just tip my hat and be on my way after submitting a manuscript to opinion@nytimes.com and receiving no response, the piece I recently turned in is so in line with the type of content that you said the Times’s Op-Ed editors search for, I had to give it one final shot. 

So here’s the pitch:

You have a smartphone, right? So do I. After all these years, I recently got my first one. And I was a quick convert. I enjoyed the ability to look up words, write emails or check Twitter from wherever I was.

But after a few weeks, I noticed that when I was using the device, I was missing out on things, both large and small, occurring in the immediate present: making eyes with a pretty girl on the subway, the sound of children laughing in the park, a crane flying over a pond -- an oncoming car!

Was I the only one missing out on so much, I wondered? I surveyed many of my friends and acquaintances to find out. And guess what? Nearly all of them also said that their smartphones seriously made them miss out on the here and now. And the specific examples they cited were eye-opening. 

So I decided to write an opinion piece (roughly 1,200 words) on just what it is that we smartphone users are missing out on when our eyes are glued to those little screens. (Much, it seems. One survey participant told me she feels that her phone preoccupation often makes her miss out on connecting with her 2-year-old child.) 

And what lends a greater sense of urgency to my piece is the fact that in late September, about 10 passengers in a San Francisco municipal tramcar were so absorbed in their smartphones and other gadgets that they failed to notice that a man in their midst, a fellow passenger, had brazenly brought a .45-caliber pistol into open view about five times. The man wound up shooting to death one of those passengers seconds after that passenger and he disembarked. Police say the act was random. This story is referenced in my piece. 

Ms. Hall, we’ve heard about the dangers of texting while driving and how rude it is to check your email at the dinner table. But what about *all* that we’re missing out on when we’re absorbed in our smartphones?

In your piece demystifying the Op-Ed process, I noted that you said that the opinion pages editors want to hear “personal perspectives on universal maters,” that they want to hear “things that no one else seems to be saying.” 

Here’s one. I think it works. Whaddaya say? 

All my best, 

Chad Smith

P.S. Some info about me: I’m a freelance reporter with a master’s degree in journalism from N.Y.U. My work has appeared in, among other publications, the New York Daily News and the New York Times (“A Closer Look at the Art, Until ‘Beep!’” July 9, 2010, N.Y. / Region). I recently moved to Germany, but prior to that, I worked for two and a half years as a general assignment reporter at a small -- yet bustling -- daily newspaper in Pennsylvania called the Pocono Record.

****

So I finally did it. I finally got a smartphone. After all those years of holding out. After my 71-year-old mother got one and my friend’s 7-year-old son did, too. After all those years of people saying to me, “But you’re a journalist. Isn’t a smartphone a crucial tool for a journalist?”

I had held tight to the belief during those smartphone-less years that the devices eroded meaningful relationships. And besides, mostly everything available on a smartphone was available to me anyway -- on a desktop computer.

But then things happen. Plans change; people change. In my case, I moved. And when it came time to buy a new mobile phone, it actually paid for me to get the smartphone.

And it was very interesting at first. I must say I was a quick convert. I live in Germany; my family lives in the United States. So this newfound ability to send my relatives a “selfie” from the Hamburg port or write an email to my American friends as I waited for the U-Bahn was great. As was my being able to look up foreign words on the spot or read the news as a friend shopped for clothes. How about scrolling through breathtaking pics of the Grand Canyon that my mom took in Arizona as I waited in line to buy groceries. It was incredible.

But then, a few weeks into owning the phone, I started to notice something. I was in the subway waiting for a train and I had shared a nice glance with a young lady standing next to me on the platform. She chose to enter the car I entered. Once seated, though, I immediately began looking at my phone. When I looked up a few minutes later and glanced in her direction, she pursed her lips and quickly looked away from me. She didn’t even look my way when she exited the train. Had I just missed out on an opportunity to flirt -- surely one of life’s greatest joys -- because I was pecking away at my keypad? What else was I missing out on? I learned several days later when I was walking in a fashionable Hamburg neighborhood scrolling my Twitter feed and failed to notice that a member of perhaps Germany’s most famous rock group, Die Aerzte, had just strolled by me.

There were even some points when paying attention to the smartphone jeopardized my safety, like when I was sitting in a car cropping a photo on the device and neglected to notice that the driver of the car, who was distracted by another passenger, was swerving as he was entering an autobahn at 70 mph. Mostly, though, I noticed that my smartphone was leading to my missing out on important instances and events in my real life. And so I thought, "Is it just me who’s feeling this way?" I decided to take an informal survey of my 20- and 30-something-year-old friends and acquaintances in the U.S. and Europe to see if they felt the same way. Turns out, they do.

Amelie Krueger, 27, a tax consultant from Hamburg, for example, says she listens to music on her iPhone almost everywhere she travels. Thus, she says, “I sometimes feel like I’m missing out on the sounds outside. I’m not hearing people laugh, children, birds....”

Toby Sabatine, 36, a healthcare worker from Pennsylvania, said that even though he is an avid hiker, he often finds himself in the woods “Facebooking instead of enjoying nature.” 

Advertising agent Dawn Friedman, 28, of Virginia, said that "at least half of the people" at a Nine Inch Nails Concert she recently attended "were viewing the show through their phones because they couldn’t just watch it; they had to record it, too!”  

And certainly the consequences of being perpetually wrapped up in the ever-pinging, ever-vibrating, all-purpose devices can run much deeper. 

Vivian Martinez, 32, a nurse from New York, said that the separation she and her fiance recently underwent was due largely in part to smartphones. “We were so glued to our phones -- whether we were on email, Facebook or any other social networking site -- that the intimacy we once shared was compromised.”

Beth Cenci, 31, a social worker from New York, said that constantly having her smartphone by her side “can sometimes lead to me missing out on connecting with my 2-year-old son, Nicholas. Sometimes, when I am tired or bored or just not fully there, I pull out the phone to mindlessly scroll Facebook and look at things that I just don't really care about, things that have no real meaning in my life. The problem is, the thing I care about most is sitting right in front of me and definitely needs my attention more than the phone. I do not neglect or ignore him...but maybe instead of looking at Facebook or playing Words with Friends, I could ask him to get another book or help him build the block tower he is working on.”

Understandably, there is often some guilt associated with one’s allowing oneself to be stolen from the present by a nifty little gadget. (I personally feel bad when I’m at a party and I stay a few minutes longer in the bathroom to read my Twitter feed.) But there are clear reasons why these high-tech devices are so good at capturing our complete attention. 

“It's not like reading a book or reading a magazine or even watching television," Los Angeles-based behavioral health expert Rob Weiss, who studies the effect of technology on society, was recently quoted saying. "Today's devices require a constant stream of interaction, and that requires much more brainpower than passive watching or listening.”

And nowhere is the point that smartphones are deeply hampering our ability to enjoy and even function in the present better illustrated than in a piece of news, which came out of San Francisco on Sept. 23. 

Authorities say that riders of a municipal tram were so engrossed in their smartphones and tablets that they failed to notice that a male passenger in their midst was brazenly brandishing a .45-caliber pistol. The armed passenger actually brought his weapon into open view three or four times during the tram ride, but no one noticed -- not even when he pointed the weapon across the aisle or when he wiped his nose with it. Only after he shot dead a 20-year-old man who had also been riding in the same car just after both men disembarked did anyone notice a problem. Police say the killing was random. 

And so, I guess it’s fair to ask now, what does this all mean? That smartphones are “going to be the end of us,” as one participant in my survey told me? Are we all going to turn into zombies, living in uber digitized societies where no real social cohesion or allegiance exists? I don't think so. Traditional human connections are still strong. 

But I must say, I now think twice before answering a ping on my phone. Sure, I may be missing out on something. But I also may be missing out on something. 

Mike Shinoda, Writer

I just wanted to give a shoutout real quick to Mike Shinoda of Linkin Park because I think his writing on grief in the last few years has been really fresh.

Just take the song "One More Light," the title track from Linkin Park's final album. In 2015, an executive for Warner Brothers Records who had helped Linkin Park out in the early days died. As a tribute to her, Shinoda co-wrote "One More Light." However, in the song he doesn't blather on about how amazing this woman was or how much she is missed. Instead, he talks about the sense of defiance he feels at the hackneyed things people often say about death.

Specifically, Shinoda takes aim at people who, after someone dies, say things akin to, Who cares if just one person dies when there are so many billions of people in the world ("Who cares if one more light goes out in the sky of a million stars") or, Should we really spend time worrying about one person when a human being's lifespan is just a flash in the pan? ("Who cares if someone's time runs out if a moment is all we are.")

We know that these people's ideas on death don't resonate with Shinoda because he answers that central question, "Who cares if one more light goes out?" in the song: "I do," he says.

Wow. What a fresh take on grieving and what a way to give concrete form to a deeply personal idea.

The next song of Shinoda’s that I think shows the freshness of his writing on grief is “Over Again.” This tune, of course, is about Chester Bennington. But what makes it great is, just like with “One More Light,” Shinoda manages to attack the matter from a completely new angle.

Mike Shinoda at the Reading Festival in 2018. 

To great effect, Shinoda zeroes in on the idea that when someone dies, that person is often still so present, and we still need them so dearly, that we keep remembering them, reliving them and, of course, saying goodbye to them. It’s almost like when that wave of grief hits, we are right there again at the graveside.

The message Shinoda is trying to convey is driven home even more with the repetition of the word “over" at the end of the last verse: “And all I wanted was to get a little bit of closure/And every step I took, I looked and wasn’t any closer/Cause sometimes when you say goodbye/Yeah, you say it over and over and over and over...”

So, yes, in each song Shinoda is talking about a specific person, but the tracks, I think, have found such a wide audience because they discuss the complex nature of grief and the ideas ultimately expressed in the music are, God knows, universal.

"Stan"

I love this WhatsApp message I sent to one of my students today. Good times.

12/6/18, 12:55 PM - Chad: Ok, one last thing on Eminem. Here is what is thought to be Eminem's very best song. It's called "Stan" and it's about an obsessed fan who takes Eminem's songs too literally.

This song is very special because unlike "The Way I Am," there's not one superfluous word in it; each word, more or less, tells something, is integral. Also the song is written in the style of a letter. So, the first three fourths of the song is written by an obsessed fan named Stan writing to Eminem -- even though it's just Eminem himself singing -- and the last verse is Eminem replying to this "obsessed fan."

Just for technical purposes, in case you're interested, "Stan" is what's known as an "epistolary" song -- meaning, it uses a series of letters rather than narration to tell a story.

This is actually very sophisticated stuff, Marina, right up there, in my opinion, with the Beatles' "Eleanor Rigby," another very literary minded song.

https://open.spotify.com/album/6t7956yu5zYf5A829XRiHC

Comma Or No Comma

Here's a dope correspondence my mom and I had over email today. I hope you like it.

***

Hi Ma,

It's time to play that game, "Comma or No Comma?"

Now, the old Chad, who thought he was Hemingway, would not have put a comma after the word "email" in the second sentence (below).

But after having read Warriner's and its authors' rationale, I'm starting to insert commas in such places.

Would you go for the comma there, like I did?

-Me

---

Dear Ms. x

You are a lifesaver. I will have my gf arrange all the paperwork. Do you want the documents via post or email, or should I bring them to you?

All my best,

Chad

---

P.S. Just for kicks, here is an excerpt from "The Old Man and the Sea." The lack of commas in this one sentence must be a stylistic thing, because I think grammar books definitely would call for commas:

"But tonight the smell of the land breeze came very early and he knew it was too early in his dream and went on dreaming to see the white peaks of the Islands rising from the sea and then he dreamed of the different harbours and roadsteads of the Canary Islands."

***

Hi Chad,

According to "The Harper Handbook," a comma belongs there.  You're separating two independent clauses joined by a simple coordinating conjunction.

Mom

Poem

Here's a poem I wrote while on a walk today. I figured I'd reproduce it here; let it see the light of day. Enjoy.
___

When I look at ravens, I'm at peace with death.
When I look at ravens, the end is not grim.
Something about their endless black and mysterious ways
Makes me feel it'll be OK.

The world just is, it is, it is; it was and it will be.
The world is just a tiny flake
On the blackness of eternity.

So when I look at this raven here, hopping on the lawn,
A dirge is not a dirge instead
A dirge is a beautiful song.

Song Lyrics

When I was younger, every now and then my mom would hear a song that I was listening to and say of a particular lyric, "I like that. What is that?"

Here are two of the lines that she had said she liked (in such a manner):

"With the birds I'll share this lonely view" from the song "Scar Tissue" by the Red Hot Chilli Peppers" and "I know the pieces fit 'cause I watched them fall away" from the song "Schism" by Tool.

Just thought this remembrance was a bit interesting, that's it...nothing more, nothing less.

Seeing Between the Lines

Anyone who knows me knows I love John Lennon; I know a ton about him.

But I have come to learn that you should never get too comfortable with your “knowledge” because even when you think you have everything understood and you feel you simply can’t be surprised or shocked, life comes along and just knocks you off your butt.

Such was the case the other day when I was listening to the very last interview that John Lennon did. It was in his apartment in the Dakota on the day of his death, December 8th, 1980, and it was with RKO Radio.

I had been very familiar with this interview.  I was also very familiar with the very last photo shoot that John Lennon did. It was on the same day of the interview, it was with Annie Leibowitz, and it was where we got that iconic photo of Lennon, naked and clinging to Yoko.

Another photo of Lennon that came out of a separate photo session with Leibowitz that day, a session that excluded Yoko, is a photo that is a little less known. It shows Lennon in the Dakota, sitting on a windowsill looking cool, wearing casual clothing and this nice black leather jacket.

As far as I had always thought, the RKO interview and that picture of Lennon at the windowsill were just two separate things that related to, or were a part of,  Lennon’s last day.

But then just recently, I had been again listening to the RKO interview and I picked up on something very interesting.

You see, for the interview, Lennon arrived late. In fact, if you listen to the recording, RKO spends a good amount of time initially just chatting with Yoko, because John is MIA.

But when listening again to the interview the other day, I heard for the first time what Lennon actually says when he does finally show up.

He makes an apology.

He says he is sorry that he is tardy, he hadn't meant to be, but “I’d just put on me jacket to leave, and she said, ‘Ooh, can I have one with the jacket?’ So we took one with the jacket.”

Lennon, it seems, had been downstairs in the Dakota with Annie Leibowitz doing that photo shoot, the one that yielded that shot with the leather jacket.

So, I was able to gather that the only thing that had separated the last interview Lennon ever did from that photo shoot was, perhaps, an elevator ride.

And for a moment, things became a little clearer. I was able to imagine Lennon’s last day a little better. It wasn’t just something in a book; it wasn’t just an idea. Here we had a person, a real person, who was in his home apologizing to a room full of people because the photographer who had been taking pictures of him had held him up.

It might be crazy to say it, but by learning more about those two events and how the one affected the other, I was able to go behind the scenes for a moment, to see a little bit between the lines -- not "read" but  "see"  -- and being able to do so both exhilarated and scared me.

Requiem

One Saturday night in February of 2007, I went out on a final date with a girl I had been seeing. I say "final" because, by that point, I knew that this girl's and my days were numbered, as I had met someone else in whom I was more interested.

Nevertheless, on this particular Saturday night, this girl and I decided to see a movie. At the time, I was often in Manhattan, as was this girl, so we settled on a movie theater near Lincoln Center.

The movie we saw that night was "Pan’s Labyrinth," a beautiful, sad and affecting tale about a little girl who lives in a highly oppressive environment, but escapes to a fantasy world, of which she may or may not be the ruler.

In addition to the great plot and the overall magical mood of the movie, another memorable aspect of it was its soundtrack.

One song on the soundtrack that stands out in particular is called "Long, Long Time Ago," and anyone who saw "Pan's Labyrinth" will recognise the song. It's a dramatic, spooky, heart-tugging little piece, and these days whenever I hear it, I almost think of it as a requiem for that relationship I told you about.

Here's the song.

Life is Poetry

Sometimes life is poetry. That's all I really have to say. It's something I've always believed. In fact, I think that some of the best art is just reality, a little dolled up. The best art is reality, or truth, whatever you want to call it, just made a little more beautiful, a little more glossy...edited a little more.

Below is an example, in a way, of what I'm talking about. It's an email I sent to my mom today. I'm not going to explain what the background to this email was; I'm simply not in the mood. Just have a read, and I think you'll easily get what's going on and what might have gone on. I hope you like what I wrote. Really, it's just reality, only a little more polished.

Chad Smith <chadreidsmith@gmail.com>	1:11 PM (9 hours ago)
to mom

Now that it's had some time to marinate...how good is that song "One More Light" by Linkin Park!  I mean, wow, talk about substance. And the words match the melody so well, don't you think!

I also think it's really clever and pretty awesome how, when you first read the title of the song, "One More Light," you're sort of inclined to think "one more light" as in, "Hey, let's just have one more party" or "Give me one more light" or "There's just one more light that's on." I think we, as in the audience, tend to think, initially at least, that the words "one more" are being used to convey "an additional." 

But then, when we learn in the song that something is actually being taken away -- "Who cares if one more light goes out?" -- and that the words "one more" are really being used to convey "any ordinary"...  well, I think all of that is just all really poetic and beautiful. Again, what do you think?

--me

P.S. In case you're wondering (and I'm pretty sure you are) if I put a lot of effort into this email, I did. It took me a while to write. lol. 

The Driving Force

Here in Hamburg it’s not an uncommon sight to see poor people begging for money in the subway. These down-on-their-luck folks usually ask pretty politely if they can have a bit of change. They also ask if anyone might have some food or empty bottles that they can return for the deposit.

My attitude toward these people ranges. If I’m in a good mood, I might give a little money. But more recently, I haven’t been giving much. I’m not sure why, but that’s just the way it has gone.

Today, however, I had to give. And it wasn’t even really my decision. Let me explain.

I had been inside a subway car, by the exit doors, doing whatever on my cellphone, when all of a sudden I looked up. Standing before me was a man -- he must have been 20 to 25 years old -- who looked South American. He was barefoot and his feet were filthy. In fact, much of him was just…black with dirt. His hands were dirty and covered in dirt, his pants were dirty. But his feet, those were the worst. They were covered in a dirt that was so opaque it looked like soot. He was making his way through the subway car and he had just stopped in front of me.

I remember that the second I saw him, I said to myself, “Oh, no,” as in, “Give me a break. I don’t feel like dealing with this now.” But then something moved me. It literally felt like it moved me. The next thing I knew, I felt myself reaching into my pocket while saying something under my breath like,  “This guy, wow…,” just some kind of half complete thought like that. I found a 2-euro piece and before I knew it had placed it in his hand.

But again, it felt like something had completed this motion for me, because I didn’t just place the coin in his hand, I pressed it, as if to say, “Dude, take this. Take care of yourself, man.”

What was really touching, though, now that I’m thinking back to this whole experience, was the man's expression when he saw that the coin was a 2-euro piece. It was a look of thanks mixed with surprise, with a tiny, tiny bit of awe in there.

I was happy that I had given the money to the man, and I didn’t even feel self conscious after having done it, even though there were a lot of people around me. But again, it felt more like the driving force that was behind the action was more external than internal.

Very interesting stuff.

Poem I Wrote

Today I was pretty mad at someone and I just channeled my feelings into a poem. Below is that poem.

"Mea Culpa"

You better start drafting your mea culpa to me.
Your apology better be an endeavour that you take seriously.
I want to hear you're sorry and I want to hear what for
And if you're not contrite
I want to hear from you no more.
No more hesitation
No more I don't know why
Save it for the corner
When you cry.
So grab a piece of paper
Find yourself a pen
Mea culpa. Got it?
Beginning. Middle. End.

Because It Touched You

Last week, while doing a menial task at my desk, I decided to listen to Linkin Park's last album on Spotify. Now, I have to say, though I recognize that Linkin Park is a good band -- I saw them once and they did rock -- I never really liked them. Which makes the conversation I had with myself while listening to "One More Light" all the more unusual. All I can say by way of giving you some context is that the music was definitely making me feel nostalgic, which is kind of weird, because I always tell people I know that I simply don't feel any nostalgia for the early 2000s. 

At any rate, here is that inner dialog:

--That’s really weird: it actually hurts a little bit when I think that Chester Bennington is dead. 

--Why, though? Really, he’s just a celebrity.

--OK...But why do I actually feel something?  

--Dude, it's because his music. Though you may not have realized it, it really touched you. It touched you, Chad. That's why you feel it.

"I Died For Beauty"

You know, it’s crazy how much you can discover if you try.

For the longest time, I had been familiar with the poem “I Died for Beauty” by Emily Dickinson, but I never really could quite get past the first line:

I died for beauty, but was scarce,
Adjusted in the tomb

What did Dickinson mean by that? That beauty was scarce? I didn't get it.

Then yesterday I had another look at the poem and finally noticed what she was saying. It's easy to see once one realizes that the poem's first line continues on in the second:

I died for beauty, but was scarce,
Adjusted in the tomb

Ah, so after she died for beauty -- whatever that might mean, but OK -- she scarcely had had a chance to get adjusted to her new home, the tomb, before something happened. That something, of course, provides the substance of the rest of the poem.

Let’s have a look.

I died for beauty, but was scarce
Adjusted in the tomb,
When one who died for truth was lain
In an adjoining room.  

He questioned softly why I failed?
“For beauty,” I replied.
“And I for truth,—the two are one;
We brethren are,” he said.  

And so, as kinsmen met a night,
We talked between the rooms,
Until the moss had reached our lips,
And covered up our names.

OK, pretty cool. I kinda got it. These “people” in the tomb were after two things, “beauty” and “truth,” and they died in pursuit of them.

But I still felt I didn't understand the poem all that well,  so I went to a blog about Emily Dickinson poems called "The Prowling Bee." There, I learned that the nucleus of "I Died for Beauty" is actually a line from the John Keats poem "Ode on a Grecian Urn"

“Beauty is truth, truth beauty, — that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.”

OK, even cooler. But now I had a new idea to think about. After forming my own thoughts on the Keats line,  I texted it to my girlfriend, as I still wanted more input. I liked her response so much I thought I'd post it here.

Of the Keats line, she said:

I like it, I guess, cause it seems to me that the meaning is cooked down to the very essence. The structure of the quote is very simple but then there is a lot to think about. So this little quote brings you to a deeper layer of sensing, feeling, knowing…

Pretty cool -- her comment and the line, and the poem...all of it. As I said, it’s crazy how much you can discover -- about writing, about people's thoughts on writing, whatever -- if you try.

The Henny Lady

I saw something in a documentary on YouTube yesterday that I thought captured the American entrepreneurial spirit very well.

The documentary was about a rapper who lives in an impoverished area of California, near Los Angeles.

In the documentary, the rapper, who is a gangster rapper, one could say, was taking a film crew around his neighborhood, showing its members all the important spots and explaining just how people in the area live.

At one point, when this rapper and all his friends were partying, he told the film crew that the lady with whom he had just had an interaction was the Henny Lady.

At first I had no clue what the rapper was talking about. However, when I finally got it, I was in awe.

As a service, the rapper says, a woman in this California neighborhood will deliver Hennessey to your doorstep. Not only that, she will do this at any time, day or night, and “she’s faster than Dominos.”

Moreover, the Henny Lady will not only bring the cognac, but also a liter of fruity soda, the kind  often mixed with Hennessey, as well as red plastic cups.

After getting straight exactly what this woman does, I rewatched the part in the video with her in it to see her again in action. After she completes the transaction, she just blends back into the scenery, her actions nothing more than prosaic.

At first, the Henny Lady and the service she provided seemed absurd to me. But after some consideration, I thought she was quite smart, and after even more consideration, it actually seemed to me that she embodied the American entrepreneurial spirit!

I would say that to posses the American entrepreneurial spirit, one has to have brains, gumption and discipline, and this woman totally had all three.

Here's to the Henny Lady!

Lucky Day

I saw him on my way in, and I hadn’t given him much thought.

But on my way out, I had just eaten creamy lentil soup, which I had continually dipped my falafel into. I felt revived, and this time he was making eye contact with me.

It had been raining and had lightened up, but more substantial rain was starting to fall again. I walked a little bit past him, almost like I was going to pass, but then I stopped and opened my backpack and began rooting around in the pocket where I keep my money.

Two euros, no. Another two euros, no ... Don’t I have, like, 20 or 50 cents? Another two euros? God, I've never had so many two euros pieces. Is that all I have? 

Come on, Chad. Sometimes it’s just that way ... We all have lucky days. 

With a two euro piece in my hand, I walked over to the man and dropped the money into his cup.

Reread List

So have you heard of this book called “The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up”? It’s by a woman named Marie Kondo, a life coach/organizational master from Japan, and the main tenet of the book is this: If anything you own does not bring you joy, throw it out.

Among the things Kondo thinks we own too much of are books.  She thinks that we could probably throw out about nine-tenths of all the books we own and never feel it. Her rationale: People hardly reread books, despite what they say.

When I read that line, it got me thinking. How many books have I actually reread in my life? I thought I'd create a list of them, just to see if Kondo had a point. (Spoiler alert: she does.) Here is that list.

BOOKS I'VE REREAD

“The Catcher in the Rye” 
by J.D. Salinger
“The Sun Also Rises” by Ernest Hemingway

“The Seven Habits of Highly Successful People”
 by Stephan Covey
“The Stranger”
 by Albert Camus
“Dubliners”
 by James Joyce

Wow, that’s really pathetic, considering that I read every single day. I guess maybe I should really think twice before I again say, “I might read it” as an excuse not to throw out a book!

"Fahrtrichtung"

Here is something that I thought was cool.

A few weeks ago, my girlfriend and I were on a train heading to Frankfurt. The train was beautiful, an Intercity Express, better known as an ICE, and we had been fortunate enough to get a great seat, one of those with a table in the middle.

About 15 minutes into the ride, a woman and her daughter stopped in the aisle right in front of us.  The woman told us that two of the four seats facing the table were reserved for her and her daughter.

Neither I nor my girlfriend saw anything that said that the seats were reserved – usually, it’s posted – but we took the woman’s word for it and began rearranging our things and making room.

As I was putting my duffel bag on the overhead rack, I asked the woman if she would like to sit in the direction that the train was moving in. Sitting in the opposite direction doesn’t bother me, so I figured I’d ask. The woman said yes and then took a seat on the aisle.

Later, my girlfriend told me that she really liked that I had asked the woman if she would like to sit in the direction of the train.

So what did I think was cool? That my girlfriend had taken note of, and liked, my gesture.

Harmonizing

Here’s something I’ve noticed: Artists, all kinds of artists, often use little tricks -- maybe call them tricks of the trade -- to make their art better. For example, a painter might elongate a shadow more than necessary in one of his paintings to fool the eye and make the object look truly three dimensional, or a poet might reuse a certain preposition only because it’s versatile.

Musicians have tricks, too. One, in my opinion, is harmonizing. Harmonizing, the type that I’m talking about anyway, is when one musician sings one melody line while his band mate, or whoever, simultaneously sings one that is nearly identical but different by a note or two. When the technique is done correctly, it produces a rich and intriguing sound.

I call harmonizing a trick, though, because it can be very hard to do if you’re just one person. You obviously can’t sing two melody lines at once, which can be frustrating and may often lead you to wonder, "Why does the song sound so much better when they sing it?"

I mention all this because recently I had been trying to sing the chorus to the Beatles’ “Don’t Let Me Down” and had noticed that something was a little off. Was it “Don’t let me dow-n” that was sung or was it “Don’t let me dow-ooh-ow-n”?

Well, the answer is . . . both. John Lennon and Paul McCartney were -- you got it! -- harmonizing. One was singing “Don’t let me dow-n,” while the other was singing “Don’t let me “dow-ooh-ow-n.”

Because I would never be able sing the chorus as I had wanted, I thought I’d get creative. On my phone, I have two voice recording apps. How about, I thought, making a super rudimentary two-track recording?

So that’s what I did. On one app, I recorded “Don’t let me dow-n” on a loop and then, while it was playing, I opened the other recording app and started singing the other melody line over it, so the final track has both melody lines, just like on the record.

Here is the result. Enjoy.

bzw.

Have you ever been frustrated?  Of course you have. I used to be frustrated whenever a German person would use the word “beziehungsweise” — and they use this word often — and then not be able to explain to me what it meant.

Well, I finally understand what it means, and I'm super proud that I do.

“Beziehungsweise,” sometimes abbreviated to "bzw.," simply means, “or rather.”

I absolutely love big boats, or rather yachts.
He was one of the most famous men, or rather infamous men, from last century.
I love Indian food, or rather Indian food that is popular in the U.S.

We use “beziehungsweise” when we want to be more precise in our wording.

Here is how those examples above look in German:

Ich liebe Schiffen bzw. Yachten.
Er war einer der berühmtesten Männer bzw. berüchtigten Männer des 20. Jahrhunderts.
Ich liebe indisches Essen bzw. indisches Essen, das in den USA beliebt ist.

How novel this little "bzw." thingy is. I really like it and look forward to using it!

Total Chad Moves

Total Chad Moves. This is what I call actions of mine that are totally idiotic but are characteristically me.

For example, putting the toilet paper pack in the refrigerator or an empty bag of chips back in the cupboard are Total Chad Moves.

Usually, Total Chad Moves, or TCMs, as I sometimes call them, don't serve me well, and anyone who witnesses me make them thinks I might have screw loose. But yesterday I did a TCM and it wound up being very much to my benefit.

I was in class and I had wanted to make copies of an article for my students. However, when I got to the copy room, I noticed that I just had the first page of the article with me. I didn't want to go back to the classroom to get the magazine because I felt as though the students would think I was an idiot.

I was just standing there wondering what to do, when for some reason, I decided to open the copy machine, and, boom, I suddenly had my answer.

Another Total Chad Move had saved me.

It turned out, when I had been in the copy room earlier in the day, making copies for another class, I had left the magazine in the copy machine.

So, I figure now that the mathematics of TCMs goes something like this: When you add one TCM to another, they cancel each other out!

Chaos and Control

Here is a very interesting story from my past, one that shows that life truly is chaos and that we really never have all that much in our control even though we think we do. 

In the summer of 2015, I had been giving English lessons regularly at the airplane manufacturer Airbus, in Finkenwerder, Germany. One day after class, one of my students, a mechanical engineer, asked if I’d like to have a deeper, more thorough look at one of the planes in the Airbus fleet, the A-320 passenger jet. I said I would, and he and I then set off to one of the many massive hangers Airbus has on its sprawling premises.

Inside the hanger, we walked up to the A-320, a sleek, single-aisle aircraft known for its versatility. After pointing out a few recent advancements that had been made to the plane's tail and wings, we climbed a set of metal stairs and went inside the aircraft.

Right away, I was attracted to the cockpit and wanted to have a look inside it. The cockpit was small, smaller than I had imagined, and filled from top to bottom with all kinds of buttons and screens and gears. It was pretty cool.

As we were leaving cockpit, my student put his hand on the cockpit door. “It’s very strong,” he said. “Once the pilot locks it, no one’s getting in.” I knocked on the door myself, appraising its sturdiness.

Of course, my student -- who really had become my tour guide -- mentioned the door due to 9/11. I'm sure he had thought it would be interesting for me to know that cockpit doors nowadays were super sturdy. And it was interesting. I was glad that improvements had been made to airplane cockpit doors, so that nothing like 9/11 could ever happen again.

Sadly, though, this experience with the student was thrown into a totally different light when only a few months later, the copilot of a Germanwings plane en route from Barcelona to Düsseldorf locked the captain out of the cockpit and crashed the aircraft into a mountain, killing himself and the other 143 people on board.

Life truly is chaos.

Self-fulfilling prophesy

Here is a good example of a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Let's imagine that we have bus driver, a discontent bus driver. Let's imagine that one of the reasons why this man is discontent is because he thinks that everyone who gets on his bus is an idiot. Perhaps many people don't board properly or they generally make too much noise. Whatever it is this bus driver, right off the bat, doesn't have too much respect for the people who board his bus.

Now let's imagine that the bus driver not only thinks bad things about his passengers, he radiates his negativity through his actions. If the bus driver let’s it be known -- perhaps by failing to make eye-contact or just grunting when asked a question -- that he holds the passengers in contempt, there is a better chance that a person boarding the bus will make some kind of mistake when buying a ticket. Don’t you agree? Isn’t it fair to say that when we feel uncomfortable, we are more prone to mistakes?

So let’s imagine this exact scenario: A person gets on a bus and asks to buy a ticket. The bus driver makes no eye-contact with the person and just looks grumpy. The person senses bad vibes and tries to get away from the bus driver and into the bus as quickly as possible, but in doing so, he forgets to take his change. The bus driver notices the oversight and says, "Please take your change, sheesh!" The man takes his change and after he does, the bus driver thinks to himself that this passenger, just like all the others, is an idiot.

The prophecy has been fulfilled, and the cycle continues.

John McCain

This is just going to be a small little note. Recently, as you know, John McCain died. Now I’m not immune to feeling a bit of sadness when famous people die. But lately, with the Internet and all, it seems like every five minutes we're learning that someone well known has passed away. All the information can have a numbing effect.

But I have to admit I felt a little something in my soul when I learned that John McCain had died. I really can’t say why. It just seems like he was a guy who was always there. During the last 20 years, as I have matured as a person and have become more and more interested in journalism and politics, John McCain was just always around. He was always in the news, always up to something.

And he was always a guy you couldn't help but root for. He had an amazing backstory, and he just seemed like the embodiment of American ideals.

In the paper today I read that John McCain had wanted “Danny Boy” played at his funeral. Here is my favorite rendition of the song.


Oh Danny boy, the pipes, the pipes are calling

From glen to glen and down the mountain side
The summer's gone, and all the flowers dying
'Tis you, 'tis you must go, and I must bide

But come ye back when summer's in the meadow
Or when the valley's hushed and white with snow
'Tis I'll be here in sunshine or in shadow
Oh Danny boy, oh Danny boy, I love you so

But when ye come, and all the roses falling
And I am dead, as dead I well may be
Go out and find the place where I am lying
And kneel and say an "Ave" there for me

And I will hear, tho' soft your tread above me
And then my grave will warm and sweeter be
For you shall bend and tell me that you love me
And I will sleep in peace until you come to me

"Perspective"

The other day I wrote a blog entry about how the words “perspective” and “context” are sometimes used interchangeably but do of course have separate meanings.  In the entry, I defined both words and then gave clear examples of them in action so the differences could be understood.

Well, life recently handed me a great example to help illustrate the meaning of "perspective."

Someone that I know -- let’s call this person a “good” friend -- was recently due to fly back to Germany. Before this person went on the plane ride, however, she and I had had a telephone conversation in which she had expressed her slight fear of flying. She said that she wished she didn’t have to fly and wouldn't it be great if she could just take a train back?

Basically, the upcoming flight was making her think a little bit about mortality. After all, when we fly, we do test the gods.

At any rate, I reassured her that everything would be fine. Still, she was upset and spoke of how nervous she often feels before flying.

When her plane landed, I was supposed to pick her up from the airport, at "Arrivals." However, I was five minutes late in getting there. When I finally came face to face with this person, who had happened to land early and had wound up waiting for me, she was super upset.

Why was I late? Couldn’t I get things right for once? She was super disappointed.

Gone, however, were the thoughts of mortality, of arriving safely, of perhaps never seeing the ones she loved again. All she could focus on was that I had been five minutes late.

That, my friends, is a loss of perspective.

Bloody Mary

Remember that myth about Bloody Mary? Supposedly, if you stood in front of a darkened mirror and repeated the name “Bloody Mary” 13 times, an evil spirit would be called up. 

This myth, which I had learned about as a kid, always freaked me out, and I was never able to bring myself to say "Bloody Mary" more than a few times in front of a darkened mirror. 

Which makes me think that I must have been feeling especially brave in a dream I had last night.

When it opened, I was standing in the bedroom of my childhood home, looking into one of the two large mirrors hanging on one of the walls. For some reason, I was annoyed and felt like just testing the gods. I looked in the mirror and started saying, “Bloody Mary! Bloody Mary! Bloody Mary!”

Suddenly, the room  became a little darker and a wind started to whip a curtain that was behind me, but the strangest thing was that I started to feel a squeezing sensation on my hand.

"Oh no," I  thought to myself, "a squeezing sensation on my hand after I just changed Bloody Mary?! That can't be good."

Then I woke up. It was pitch black in my bedroom and the sensation that I had felt in my dream was actually my girlfriend. She had been squeezing my hand, trying to coax me out the dream. I don't remember much else, but I remember that she had also mumbled something in a soothing way as she gripped my hand. Phew.

The funny thing is, this morning I asked her if she remembered waking me up last night and she said she didn’t.

Nowhere Man

You know, it’s funny how the mind works. Let me explain. Today when I was out walking my dog in the park, I just started daydreaming. For some reason, my mind shot back about six years, to the time when my mom and I were on a winding, two-lane road driving to Jim Thorpe. If you don’t know, Jim Thorpe is this cozy little northeastern-Pennsylvania town nestled in the Lehigh Gorge. The place looks like something out of the 1800s and it has even been called the Switzerland of the U.S.

Anyway, I specifically thought back to a particular conversation that my mom and I had had during the car ride. We had been discussing the Beatles, and I was giving her some insight into the band and into what exactly made them great, as her knowledge of the Beatles is not as in depth as mine.

In particular, I was explaining to her one of the things that I thought made John Lennon amazing. I told her that, yes, of course John Lennon was a great songwriter, but what made him so good was his ability to meld his songwriting with another talent of his.

See, in addition to songwriting, John Lennon had been into, well, plain old creative writing. He especially liked to write nonsensical, pun-filled sketches of made-up characters. These wild writings of his -- to see what I mean, get a copy of “A Spaniard in the Works,” the 1965 book they were published in -- are good. But that’s it; they’re nothing more than good.

However, when John Lennon would apply these fiction-writing chops of his to his real craft, songwriting, the final product was often, just, amazing.

To illustrate my point, I cited the song “Nowhere Man.” See, on the one hand, “Nowhere Man” is a song about a person who is lost; on the other, it’s a song about an actual character named Nowhere Man, and Nowhere Man is a creation that could have come straight out of the kooky pages of “A Spaniard in the Works.”

So that was one place where my mind drifted to when I was daydreaming in the park. The other place seems a little less random considering the story I’ve just related, but I find the whole train of thought fascinating nonetheless.

I was transported back to my dorm room in Fitzgerald Hall.

Fitzgerald Hall was the red-bricked, two-story rectangular building where I lived for two years when I attended SUNY Cortland, my college. It’s also the place where I met my first love, as she had also lived in the dorm.

The moment that I thought back to was one from an afternoon in the spring of 2002. I had just nailed the solo to “Nowhere Man” on guitar, and after I did, had called this girlfriend of mine at the time into my room to have a listen.

And just like it was yesterday, I was able to recall the scene exactly. I was sitting at my roommate's desk and she was sitting on his bed, and when the song got up to the solo, I began playing along, note for note.

After I had finished and had shut the music, she told me she thought the whole thing was pretty cool. However, she didn’t give me any over-the-top praise. Still, I know she was a Beatles fan, so I’m pretty sure she had meant what she said.

Poetry in the everyday

You know, I’m a big believer that there is poetry in everyday things. Case in point, today I was working with one of my students and he was having trouble understanding the word “sympathy.” Which makes sense. For German learners of English, "sympathy" is a false friend. Germans often think that our word “sympathy” is the same as their word “sympathisch,” when it isn’t. “Sympathisch” means “likeable," "easy going.” So, for example, “Er ist ein sympathischer Typ” translates to, “He is a likeable guy.” Fine. The problem occurs when a German speaking English says, “Oh, Frank…? Frank is great. He’s a real sympathetic guy.” You see? It doesn’t work.

Anyway, so there I was trying to explain to my student how "sympathy" is a false friend. Doing so wasn't really all that hard, but then he decided to throw in the word "empathy," to ask what exactly that word meant. And then shortly thereafter, he was having questions about the word "compassion." Things were getting super tricky. So instead of trying to explain it all orally, which really would have been cumbersome, I decided to write out example sentences for him, so he could see the words in action.

It's funny, they say a picture is worth a thousand words. I really feel as though an example is, at least in language teaching. At any rate, after I wrote all the example sentences for him, I noticed that the little chunk of text I had produced really had some poetry in it. I hope you think so, too.

sympathy = Her husband just died. That must be awful. I'm sorry for her. empathy = Sarah, I'm so sorry that your husband just died. My husband died two years ago, and I know exactly how that feels. Sarah, it's going to be hard, but you will be OK. I never thought that I was going to be OK, but I'm better. compassion = I'm so sorry that your husband died. You know what, you don't have to come into work today or next week. And you will still be paid. I want you to take this time for yourself. Don't worry. We'll find someone to do the work. 

chess game

So when it comes to chess, I’m usually my toughest critic.

Let me back up a minute. I love chess. It has been a passion -- an obsession -- of mine since 2001. If I could do anything straight for an entire day it would be play chess. As it is, I play every single day, but only for about 45 minutes.

OK, so that's the backstory. Back to my being my toughest critic.

Usually, after I play a game of chess, I think to myself, "That was not that great." And that's even if I win. I know where I have made errors, and if an error was made, I don’t feel fully satisfied. Only rarely do I play a game and think, “Yes, that was awesome...that’s what it’s all about.”

Well, today I played such a game. Click on this link and you'll be taken to the game, which I've annotated, so you can see what I was thinking throughout.  Enjoy.

Bzzzzzz

Here is a story:

Yesterday as I was lying in bed, getting ready to go to sleep, I heard a noise coming from a lamp I had on at the far end of my room. Upon closer look, I saw a small shadow knocking around inside the shade. I thought that a moth was in there, as moths are attracted to light.  But it was actually a wasp.

This revelation didn’t bother me. I don’t mind wasps. On my balcony there is a wasps' nest and I often find myself marveling at the industriousness of these little creatures, which all day long fly in and out of an opening that leads to their domicile. I figured I would just leave the wasp alone and let it find its way out of its predicament.

And then I heard a droning noise by my head. Inside the shade of the lamp on the nightstand next to me was another wasp. I was a little more concerned here. I mean, I like wasps, but it’s a little disconcerting to have one right by your head when you want to sleep.

I wasn’t exactly sure what to do. Could I possibly help the winged insects out somehow? Usually, when a spider is in my apartment, I just trap it with a cup and throw it outside. But these were wasps.

And then I had an idea.

I got up and shut the lamp on the far end of my room and then shut the lamp on my nightstand. My room now was completely dark. For a few moments I heard droning but not after long it was silent.

A good point

You know, German people can be a doozy. What I mean is, in addition to being very precise, it doesn't take much for a German person to take issue with a point you make or anything else you might say. For example, ask a German person if he likes chocolate -- a question most people in America would answer with a simple yes -- he is likely to respond, “It depends.” Ask a German person if he did anything interesting over the weekend, it is not unlikely that he will respond with a flat no. Reason being: he truly doesn't believe that anything he did on Saturday or Sunday would interest anyone. One time, for an article I was writing, I asked a guy who was a major antique collector if he had any other “hobbies.” Instead of answering my question, he stopped dead and said, “This here” -- pointing around to his antiques -- “is not a hobby.” He had taken issue with my having used the adjective “other.”

Bottom line: Germans don’t liked to be pinned down and are very aware of the train of logic in any given argument. Perhaps this sensitivity has to do with their culture. Germany is known for its philosophers, and arguments and language are very important in philosophy. Perhaps it has to do with WWII and how language was very much manipulated by the Nazis. I don’t know. What I do know is many Germany people at least in my experience like to argue, to verbally spar, to ask, “What exactly do you mean by that?” to raise counterarguments to your argument.

One of the best counterarguments that I've heard from a German recently was in a Letter to the Editor in a local newspaper. The writer of the letter was responding to an article about an animal-rights group having protested the pony rides at the local fair. The writer's argument was so sharp and was such a good illustration of what I mean when I talk about the German argumentative spirit, it needs no introduction. Enjoy.

***

What exactly is animal cruelty? 

July 30: Another protest against the pony rides at the fair. 

Why are animal-rights protesters making so much noise about the pony ride at the fair? Sport horses often have to spend 22 hours a day in a box because they are not allowed to go out to pasture due to risk of injury. Furthermore, horses are transported in stuffy hangers and are exposed to a lot of uncomfortable noise at tournaments. Then they are locked away again.

The ponies, on the other hand, get to move throughout the day, don’t spend their day in a box and get plenty of attention from children. Maybe it's time to rethink what we mean when we talk about "animal cruelty."

Up on the roof

I had a very interesting dream last night, and when it opened up, I was at the top of a very high tower with some sort of acquaintance. Though the guy and I didn’t know each other well, we were stuck in the same predicament. Both he and I needed to get down from the tower, which was about 50 feet off the ground. A ladder was attached to the tower, but unfortunately it ended 30 feet above the ground. The guy, who was heavyset, gave me instructions on how best to descend the tower. First, he said, I should take off my shoes and place them on the ledge. Then, when going down the ladder, I should keep my eyes straight ahead of me and at no point look down.

I was skeptical. Below us were several people with whom this guy and I were friendly. They were telling us that we had to come down, that we had no other choice, and that we should stop being afraid. After all, they said, they had come down the same way. But this guy and I were hesitant. Finally, the guy decided to go. He followed his own advice and for a while it all seemed to work. But then, after he had gotten down as far as he could on the ladder and had jumped -- I guess that had been his strategy: to jump the rest of the way, even though it was a major drop -- he landed on a surface that had looked like earth but was actually ice, and sank.

Obviously, this didn’t make me more enthusiastic about jumping or following the guy’s advice. I had thought that I was trapped and I really didn’t know what to do. Then, I noticed that there was a building next to the tower. I noticed that if I was careful, I could climb from the tower onto the building via the roof of a doorman booth, which for some reason was wedged between both structures. 

I worked up the nerve to climb over the small roof and was successful. From the building's roof now, I looked down on my friends and laughed at them “See!” I said. “You don’t have to do it the way you guys said I should. I did it my own way and it was perfect!"  For some reason, though, I had to go back to the platform of the tower. I had left some important papers on it or something. I was very unenthusiastic about this because I had just reached safety. But in the dream I felt it was my duty to go back. Luckily for me, my friend Kaivan was there -- he was one of the friends who had been waiting for me below -- and he did just want a good friend would in such a situation. He came up onto the roof where I was and told me that he would accompany me back onto the tower.

"Field of Dreams"

Last night I had a dream and when it opened up, I was sitting in a dark room with a teenager. For some reason, I was supposed to give him tips on how to write better. The only really thing that stood out about this guy, besides his seeming nice, was that he had tattoos  — including face tattoos — and he had had his earlobes stretched. I remember saying to him, half kidding, “In my day, we just got our tongues pierced. And that was crazy enough.” This kid had a book with him, one that he had heavily annotated. The book was “Field of Dreams.” I'm not sure if "Field of Dreams" is even a book, but in my dreams, it was. I remember thinking to myself that "Field of Dreams" was a super strange book to have, just really random. But he had underlined and highlighted lines and passages that he liked, and was eager to have me help him with the writing that he wanted to do about the book.

Dream

Last night I had a dream and in it I was sitting in a classroom full of kids. The kids were about 15 or 16 years old. It was an ESL, or English as a Second Language, class and when the dream opened up, the teacher had just begun handing back tests we had taken. 

As I sat there waiting for my test to be returned, I felt a bit antsy. I was very curious about what my score was going to be. The funny thing is, I couldn’t see the teacher, or couldn't really, anyway.  I knew the teacher was female, but all I could see was her bottom half, sorta like how they used to do it on the "Muppet Babies."

Anyway, after a minute or so of just sitting there,  I began chatting with the student next to me. I think I might have been chatting with a few students, but I’m sure that I was chatting with at least one. I remember feeling nervous because I knew that if I got anything less than a “1” -- in Germany,  a "1" is the highest grade you can get -- the students around me were going to think that I was not very impressive. After all, English is my native tongue.

Finally the test was put down on my desk. I got a 1. The first thing I did after getting the result was show it off to the student I had been speaking to.  “Boom, see!" I said, “of course, I’m going to get a one,”  I said and I started laughing. Everything at that moment felt harmonious and proper. When I looked at the test, I saw that out of 90 questions, I had gotten all correct but three. Still, that qualified me for a 1.

A little German practice

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

According to Urban Dictionary, “Flexin” means to “show off the stuff you got.” Well, I have been studying German a lot lately and I thought I would just use this blog post to show off the stuff I got. It’s also good practice for me, just to actually write out some of the things I've been learning. After all, I learn best, I think, through writing. Here we go.

P.S. If you have no experience with the German language, this post won’t make much sense to you.

Das Loch meines braunen Schuhs ist groß. The hole in my brown shoe is big. If there are two holes in the brown shoe, it would be, Die Löcher meines braunen Schuhs ist groß.  If we want to pluralize both the "hole" and the "shoe," it would be, Die Löcher meiner braunen Schuhen sind groß.

Let’s see . . . what else . . . OK, so we have der Hund, das Hotel, Die Frau, "the dog," "the hotel" and "the woman," respectively. Here we go, ready? Der schöne Hund ist groß. Das schöne Hotel ist groß. Die schöne Frau ist groß. But . . . ready for this? Ein schöner Hund, ein schönes Hotel, ein schöne Frau. 

Want some more? I got some more. Ich liebe den Hund. Ich liebe das Hotel. Ich liebe die Frau. Not enough? Ich liebe meinen Hund, ich liebe dein Hotel, ich liebe die Frau. Even more: Ich liebe den schönen Hund, ich liebe das schöne Hotel, ich liebe die schöne Frau. But if that wasn’t hard enough: Ich laufe mit meinem Hund, ich bleibe im Hotel, ich laufe mit meiner Frau.

But what if we want to add adjectives before those nouns? Well, buckle up! Ich laufe mit meinem schönen Hund, ich bleibe in einem schönen Hotel, ich laufe mit einer schönen Frau.

Now, let's just make a little story.

Ich ging in ein wunderschönes Hotel. (I went to a beautiful hotel.) Ich trug einen schönen Pullover. (I was wearing a really nice sweater.) Doch hat der Pulli ein Loch. (But the sweater had a hole.) Die Größe dieses furchtbaren Loch war groß. (The size of this stupid hole was big.) Ich fragte eine Frau, die für dieses schöne Hotel arbeitete (I asked a woman who worked for the beautiful hotel), "Wo finde ich einen Laden, der Pullis hat?" Sie hatte keine Ahnung. (She had no idea.)