Celebrations: The Pocket-in-a-pocket employed - a guest post.

Well, due to such a fine turn-out on the previous post, I thought it befitting to ask a one Kate Zuccarello to further her thoughts on the pocket-in-a-pocket piece, et al following that ensued. Please welcome to the platform... Kate. She'll be here all week.


“There’s a Pocket in my Pocket” or rather “A People’s History of the Pocket in a Pocket” By Kate Zuccarello

[a guest post for a swiftly tilting planet of people]

The Pocket in a Pocket has become quite the trend these days. Some might surmise that this was another of those fabulously American phenomenon from the same people who brought us the concept of “supersizing”, the Flowbee vacuum powered home barbershop, and “inspected by number 17” tags [these aforementioned ideas all falling into my own category of “what is the need for that?”] It has been rumored as well that the Pocket in a Pocket is the handiwork of Steve Jobs as just another place you can store your gumstick size Ipod Shuffle. This is also not the case. Might I suggest that said Pocket in a Pocket might have a longer tale to relate; a tale that spans the ages and speaks of history, mystery, and wonder? For all practical purposes, we will call this the tale of the Pocket in a Pocket, an evolving and practical societal trend.

The first Pocket in a Pocket dates back to the ages of Yesteryear and Yore, actually with its first recorded sighting in the time of Christ and the Caesar’s. Though there were no Levis to be spotted then, there were plenty of togas and tunics to have the occasional Pocket in a Pocket innovation. Yes, Julius Caesar, paranoid that he had no hair, started the lovely “wreath of greenery” headband trend to cover up his balding problem. But while he was at it, he had to invent a place to store the extra ivy leaves should his wreath grow sparse when a wind might pick up throughout the day. Thus, you need a hidden pocket, and we see the birth of the Pocket in a Pocket. Jesus picked up on this trend storing the occasional parable cliff notes, should he forget the clever tale he was relaying, and even that doubting Thomas [still a doubter in the early years] kept a few hidden fish and loaves in his [increasingly smelly I might add] Pocket in a Pocket, should the promised feast not deliver.

As we walk toward the middle ages, we are greeted by Martin Luther, who used his Pocket in a Pocket to store the occasional, nails, tacks, and post-it notes, because he never really knew when he would have a thesis that he might have to post on the doors of many. Napoleon felt that his Pocket in a Pocket made him look taller. All of Charles V’s wives kept a list of his other wives in their Pocket in a Pocket so holiday gatherings wouldn’t be awkward when you forgot the other wives names. Science and the Arts didn’t skirt the Pocket in a Pocket either. Before “David” lost his clothes, you can bet they contained the Pocket in a Pocket. And Jonas Salk – Penicillin wasn’t discovered in a Petri dish, but instead in the mold growing inside of Salk’s Pocket in a Pocket on his lab coat. The Wright Brothers kept the occasional wingnut and bolt stored in their Pockets in a Pcoket, and unfortunately Amelia Earheart’s fifth pocket was on her other set of flight pants, because in it she usually kept her compass.

Which brings us up to modern times. The Pocket in a Pocket has stored the name of the whereabouts of Jimmy Hoffa, the guitar pick of Elvis Presley, Nixon’s Watergate Hotel key, the missing bullets from the Kennedy assassination, Monica Lewinsky’s dry cleaning bill, the lipstick of Tammy Faye, and the Sweet n Low of Cher. It truly has a plethora of handy uses. Think on such things the next time you need to store your Celebrations candy. You are in a long line of users…

Celebrations?

I'd like to know what, exactly, it is that I am to be celebrating AND if the size of of these treats is an indicator... just how long am I supposed to celebrate?

I don't know if these are such a good idea for our society.

Johnny Cash makes me want to be a better person

There, I said it.

First off, public thanks to Derek for the book. Derek read my poorly written bit about the movie "Walk The Line" where I stated I wanted to read as much as I could on the guy. Derek said, "I can do something about that. I work at Borders. Christmas is coming." And he did, in fact, do something about that. He bough "Cash: autobiography", and now I love this dead man.

The book is just a really good, earthy read. Good storytelling. Good American music history. But overall, this guy was just a really good guy and I'm reading about his sense of family, and his love for his friends and his value of people and it's saying a lot to me about how to live a good life. And I don't mean it in a "well we just all live a good life and the world will be nice" sort of way, but I mean "good" like, just really saturated with the concept of good as "goodness" was meant to be back when things really were. Like, way back to the garden, before we tripped and fell.

I don't know. I'm not good at book reports, and if your read my post on the movie, clearly not good at movie reviews either, but I'm just really loving this book. I read the Bible for a lot of reasons because I think the Bible is a lot of things, but one of the things it is is an anthology of lives and biographies that are important to read - people's lives that have things to hear about and emulate, or chalk up, understatedly, as a bunch of really bad ideas of "things I should not try at home" for valuable reasons as well. But as that stands, then stories that carry on the faith thread through people's lives and legacy's should continue to be read for those reasons too. I think I put this book in that category.

It's just a really good story about a person's life and I've been moved to be something more which is ok. I didn't expect that when I picked it up. I didn't expect to want to read it again. I didn't expect to walk away thinking, "I hope I can be that... kind, loving, generous, open, hospitable, wise, able...", etc. I just didn't. But I do.

So, there's my attempt to "sell" the book to you. I would recommend that you read it. You can tell me what you think. See if your attempts are as riveting as mine.

Hung Up

I think I just lost a battle with a pile of hangers.

I moved out of my house the first of November and have been living somewhat nomadically since then (In pursuits of buying a house... not because I thought I'd like to wear on people's good graces for a while). I have been in one place for a month now and just decided to set up one of those temporary curtain rods that expands. I hung up my clothes. This instead of continually placing them back in the rubbermaids they were stored in, once again negating the nice dryer-fresh scent they had acquired from a nice wash and taking on that warm and cozy smell of... rubber. mmm. nice.

My hangers were at the Anderson's, who I'd like to give a congenial shout to for storing my crap longer than they had planned. I went to get them and there it began. Hangers, unlike no other thing on this earth, i think, can challenge one's mental stability. AND no other entity understands solidarity like our main character, the hanger. These devils stick together. Sometimes just in two's or three's. Most often in large packs. They do not like to go silently... or alone...

I managed to get my clothes hung up, but not without a fight. I had reached for one and just when I thought it was emerging without tether, I discovered a nasty web of metal maze that needed acute attention. They're very needy, these hangers. I tried reaching for some of my larger plastic ones and the necks broke under the burden and strain of tugging at them. They can hold my wet wool winter coat, but they cannot withstand a slight pull out of their lair... That's not bad design, that's intentional belligerence.

When I was hanging up my pants, I reached for strong metal ones that have clips on them. They're open ended at the length of the triangle. This posed a whole other issue adding a new dimension to the tangled. This variety could attach itself to any of the others and unite, not only because they had more open ended lines of metal but also because they could now inadvertantly become clipped to the other hangers.

Granted, these things are trying to be freed from a box, but it's the same business in the closet. They get caught in some intimate overlapping position which makes you wonder what's really going on in the closet. Or they clip on to one another getting clips caught because one hanger swung wrong as you pulled the garment off. Also, maybe a hanger began to fall and got caught grabbing on for dear life to another hanger (they're all very frightened of the undusted abyss that lies below... as we all are).

Of course, shaking them doesn't work. Oh sometimes you might get a weak one that wasn't prepared, but overall, they know what you're trying to do and most often, I think, this makes them angry and so they hold on tighter.

But they know you need them and they know your clothes would just stay on the floor, in the chair, on the dresser, or wherever else they fall, clean or dirty, if you didn't have them at your disposal. I know most of you do that with your clothes anyway but I don't think you do it with the excuse of "I'm just a clothes thrower..." No... I think you simply lost a battle with hangers once, too, and just aren't ready to admit that, perhaps, a nasty row with an inanimate object is something you lost. You'll feel better when you come to terms with this I think.

I'm a bit spent from that encounter. There's still a box of the hangers left over, taunting me, in the hall. They're still in a rather messy state. They know what they're doing and that annoys me. I had to walk away. I have to tell myself I'm not alone in this because, well, I don't believe I am. This is comforting. But does anyone have a better design in mind or does the ugliness just continue?