Noun: Person, Place or THING with the THING
0 Comments Published by Chris on Saturday, December 02, 2006 at 11:35 AM.
Actual conversation with a woman on the phone who was trying to buy tickets:
ME- We have row H seats 7 and 8.
HER- Ok, well I'm on your website right now and I...do you have...uh...where can I find...the thing that...shows the ...thing?
ME- (stunned silence over her complete mastery of the English language*) You mean a map?
HER- YEAH, that's it!
*I know what you're thinking, but you're wrong English WAS her first language!
Labels: Anger, Blue Man Group, Lakeview Neighborhood, Phone, Work
The Lakeview East Chamber of Commerce is having a month-long public art exhibition. Despite the fact that I work in the neighborhood on a daily basis, the only proof I have of that fact are the brochures that litter our office. Here is the average description of the installations on display.
"Operation Planet Earth: A multimedia experience in which the students of Nettlehorst School participate in and celebrate saving the environment. Costumes and handmade musical instruments in a public parade lead down N. Broadway will enliven streetscape with awakening the importance of a month long educational recycling program and its importance with practicalities in daily creativity."
Here's the TV Guide version of that: Kids have a parade, recycle, learn lesson about environment.
I have seldom heard more tortured prose outside the walls of an asylum. Enliven the streetscape? I think she means that the kids will be loud and obnoxious in that way that only little caffeine-fueled, sugar missiles can be. And you know what? Punctuation likes you, why don't you like punctuation?
What is educational recycling? I had a history teacher in junior high that had been at the school since my parents were in junior high. Max Geers was his name. He used the same text books and the same study guides for all of those years. His theory was the history hadn't changed and he wasn't going to either. THAT is educational recycling.
This was clearly undertaken by someone who writes grants for a living. Strunk and White must be on a rotisserie spit in hell right now.
Labels: Arts and Crafts, Belmont, Boystown, Chicago, Lakeview Neighborhood, School
