Iced.

Matisse draws a busted refrigerator, courtesy Dall-E

Hello. Today we discuss what happens — and life lessons learned — when your refrigerator suddenly and dramatically dies, as mine did. But first, a Gene Pool Gene Poll, perhaps the most important you will ever take. It was suggested by Thomas M. Shroder.

Make sure your answers are locked in. Okay?

Good.

Those who answered “Fine” should sit out this next question.

For all the rest:

Choose the best / most important of the following answers. What about it most bothered / disappointed you?

A) You are in a creative profession, and this could mark the beginning of the end of your ability to make a living.

B) It made you feel like a fool for having your emotions manipulated by a machine.

C) It goes deeper than B —it exposes as a lie the idea that art is about communicating profound human feelings.

D) It goes even deeper than C — it demonstrates that the idea is false that humans are spiritual creatures.. We do exactly what AI does. We are machines ourselves.

Okay, good. You are probably beginning to fill with thoughts, complaints, observations. You want to send them here, so I can see them in real time and respond:

Something happened to me last week that had never happened before. My refrigerator up and died. The illness came on pretty quickly. First, the appliance started clucking at us obnoxiously, a sound almost exactly like the way men with gold chains and pinkie rings compliment pretty ladies in the street. So we called a refrigerator repairman.

Lessons learned, episode 1: Refrigerator repairmen are idiots.

The repairman checked it out, told us there was nothing wrong with the refrigerator, that everything was hunky dory — and because he didn’t hear it clucking, he decided that whatever problem existed was no longer there, and he charged us $70 for his services. One hour after he left, the refrigerator started clucking again, and stopped delivering water and ice from the dispenser in the door. Then it began to suffer from urinary incontinence, leaking water sporadically from the same spigot in the door that no longer worked on command. We re-summoned the refrigerator repairman, who informed us that, hm, it turns out it needed a new motherboard! He tried to install one but could not figure out how to program it, so he left and said he’d be back the next day, and literally as he left he informed us that the new motherboard — the one he had put in on his own without asking, but that didn’t work — would cost, um, heh, $700.

Lessons learned, episode 2: Measure three times — better, four — cut once.

I texted my landlords (my daughter and son-in-law, Julien) to inform them that they were about to be bitch-slapped by a refrigerator repairman, and they said the refrigerator is 12 years old, on its last wheels, and they’d rather buy a new one. Molly and Julien were in Lusaka, Zambia at the time, but Julien said he’d handle the purchase just fine online. He asked me to measure the space into which the refrigerator fits, but I could find no tape measure, so, being an enterprising reporter, I used computer paper, which I knew was 11 inches long; the possible slight imprecision of this didn’t turn out to be important, because the space it fit into was basically an empty wall: Almost any dimension would work. I relayed this happy information, and Julien order a big-ass machine, 34 by 34, and everything was swell, so Rachel and I went out to dinner, during which we got a somewhat anxietous call from Julien, who wanted to know if we had thought to measure the width of the doorways through which the refrigerator would have to pass through before it got to the kitchen. Of course we hadn’t.

So I went home and deployed my stationery again. The door into the house, and then the door into the kitchen, were 30 and a half inches wide. Sadly I informed Julien of this, and he cancelled his order and looked for a smaller machine. Not long later, he texted to say he’d learned that the deliverers remove the refrigerator door before entering the house! That eliminates several more inches, and the big-ass refrigerator would have fit. So he ordered a new one, even bigger, but that was only 28.8 inches at its narrowest point with door removed.

Then I realized something: While I had measured the door to the house and the subsequent doorway to the kitchen, I had not taken into account the one doorway between those two doorways. By this time I had secured the services of a tape measure, and I must tell you as I measured that doorway, my heart was a triphammer. It looked smaller. It turned out to be 29 and a half inches, so there is a vast, almost-three-quarters of an inch gap to exploit.

The big problem was that the earliest anyone could deliver the refrigerator was six days away, and the old refrigerator was now un-motherboarded, unplugged and unhelpful. We would have to empty the fridge tout suite, lest the house stink and we would have to fight off a maggot infestation. (I looked it up, and there is such a thing as a maggot infestation, and it can get pretty gnarly. The only detail I will pass along here is that one way to end it is by luring them away with beer. That might work for a MAGAT infestation, too, actually.)

So, no refrigerator for six days. How bad could it be? The mother of a man I once knew was an elderly Geordie — she lived in rural Northern England, and owned neither a refrigerator nor a car. Every morning she would walk a half a mile to the local market and buy only the foods she would eat that day. It seemed to me this was, in some ways, an idyllic way to live. Always fresh food. Exercise daily. Nobly green. (Incidentally, I loved the regional accent. Geordies pronounce “country” by aggressively stressing the first five-letter syllable, then stopping a half beat before the second. Made me laugh every time.) But I digress.

We could have imposed on neighbor’s refrigerators, but didn’t want to. For years, we had observed the common practice of refrigerator attrition — throwing things out haphazardly when you notice they aren’t at their best anymore — but we hadn’t fully cleaned our appliance out in, um, ever, so we saw this as an opportunity. Before doing this, we bought a cooler chest for the few things we would try to keep for six days, and Rachel mentioned, dourly, that we were going seriously retrograde — graduating from a refrigerator to an “ice box.”

The dumping of food began, which leads to:

Lessons learned, episode 3 — They make refrigerators waaaay too big.

You don’t really think about what you are putting in your refrigerator when that refrigerator seems infinitely commodious — you don’t think about whether what you’re jamming in there is something you are ever likely to visit again. Unused things tend to migrate to the back, which is kind of out of eyeshot, so deep is this box. Our refrigerator turned out to contain a jar of some substance that might have been yeast, and it had been there ever since we moved in five and a half years ago and decided to keep it in case it turned out to be important. There was a jar of maple mustard that we also had not purchased; it had a sell-by date of January 2022. There was a baggie of something bony that resembled a decomposing human hand, and there were two of those highly recognizable boxes of white rice from Chinese restaurants; we tend to keep these in case the dog has diarrhoeia, and then we forget about them when she doesn’t. A very brief examination of both showed the contents to be the color and topology of broccoli. There was a single, forlorn oyster that was at least three months old. I was shocked and delighted to find that it still resisted being opened, so I used an oyster knife, hoping that the feisty sucker was still alive and waiting to be et. What was inside was the size of a raisin and the color of a cockroach. Apparently the shells were being held tight by the vacuum of rot.

Lessons learned, episode 4 — Do not trust the food industry spokespersons

We had a dozen eggs in there. They’d been at room temperature about 12 hours. I checked the Web: A group calling itself The Egg Safety Center wrote: “After two hours, one hour in warm temperatures, you'd be safer to throw those eggs out and get a fresh dozen rather than chance it.” Two hours, max! I threw them out. Then I had a slap-to-the-forehead revelation. I once frequented a nice all-day breakfast joint that had a giant stack of eggs on their counter, right near the stove, two feet high, and simply worked their way through them all through the day, without any digestive mishaps that I could see. That ice-boxless little old lady Geordie, who bought her groceries in the morning and ate ‘em at night, was never sick a day in her life. I rechecked the Web. The Egg Safety Center is supported by a consortium of egg farmers. Of course they want you to throw out your eggs and buy more.

Lessons learned, episode 5 — Freeze, sucker.

The freezer was the worst. Almost nothing there was reliably identifiable. We had baggies filled with things that we once knew what they were and even labeled in Sharpie, which, it turns out, does not always survive freezing. All of these things we kept in the optimistic hope we would later build a gourmet delicacy out of stock, or stock out of carcasses. But we seldom did. And what carcasses were they? And what stock? And how old were they? And they were warm and sodden. They all had to go. Also, the following conversation occurred:

Me: This is labeled “pork leaf fat,” by the company that produced it.

Rachel: Yes.

Me: What is that?

Rachel: I am not sure.

Me: Why do we have it?

Rachel: I thought we could make lard out of it.

Me: Why would we do that?

Rachel: Well, then we’d have lard. We could lard stuff.

The web says pork leaf fat is “rendered from the visceral fat surrounding the pig's kidneys and loin, which keeps it un-hydrogenated in its purest form, making very easy to spread even at room temperatures.”

So apparently you can use it like butter. We kept the pork leaf fat, because it was vacuum packed. In the end almost everything we saved from the freezer was some form of liver — chicken, duck and calf — for the simple reason that liver freezes into a solid rock that takes so long to defrost that it was still a rock by the time everything else was goo.

Lessons learned, episode 5: Do NOT use the top of your refrigerator as a storage shelf.

It is is usually the highest technically accessible part of one’s home, ergo one seldom accesses it,, but it is a convenient place to store seldom-used things. We recently bought a cheap second-hand toaster, because we felt we needed a toaster. Yesterday, when clearing off the top of the refrigerator, we found two cheap second-hand toasters.

Anyway, Costco has helpfully given us a “window” for delivery of the new refrigerator on Wednesday. The window is, I swear, “7:30 a.m. to 9:00 p.m.”

—

The other day, at a little Swiss restaurant named Stable, I happened upon a small bottle of brandy and realized it was made for me. It is a fancy brand the restaurant markets, made from dried fermented plums. It is called Vieille Prune, which means “old prune.” In short, me. We bought one. It tastes sturdy, a bit rude, and vaguely disturbing. Me.

Finally, on the subject of food, here is today’s Fud feature — a great recipe that can be summarized in four sentences or fewer. It is for matzoh brei (or as my young kids mispronounced it, “monster pie”). It is a Jew thing, usually served as a hearty breakfast but could also be dinner. We made it yesterday because matzoh stays fresh forever outside the refrigerator. Forever.

1. Boil water and preheat a deep dish, wide frying pan with at least a half stick of butter, .

2. Crack several shingles of matzoh into bite-sized pieces, put in a colander, then pour the water over and right through the matzoh, so it gets wet but not soaking wet.

3. Scramble as many eggs as the number of matzoh shingles you used, then put the matzoh into the preheated pan, and pour the egg over it, starting to mix immediately.

4. Continue mixing, cooking on medium high, salting liberally, until the matzoh begins to brown and is no longer really floppy, which is maybe ten minutes, then serve with cottage cheese and the jelly or jam of your choice.

Okay, here is the point where the Gene Pool becomes real-time live. I will respond to your observations, questions, ruminations. Please remember to keep refreshing the page between roughly noon and roughly one p.m. to see new questions and answers.

Most of the questions / ruminations this week involve my call for sosumis — things you don’t like that most people do — and Nickelbacks, which are things you like but most people don’t.

Again, here is the handsome orange button for your questions or thoughts:

Q: Nickelback — I love exceedingly long baseball games, and if there's a rain delay, even better. As a Nationals season plan holder, I have been privileged to attend eighteen opening days, two no hitters, a 20-strikeout game, three World Series games, and sixteen other home playoff games. But the best times I've had at the ballpark have been when time and weather have conspired to drive away all but the die-hards. When it's after midnight, and only the crazies are left. When a couple hundred of us are gathered in the seats behind the home dugout, and a few others are scattered like dots around the ballpark, preferring to have an entire section to themselves. When the best players in the world are battling it out in the late innings, and you can actually hear them calling for the ball, or cheering from the dugout. And when your team actually pulls it off with an early morning walk off HR, you are one of the few who can say you were there to be a part of the insanity.

A: This is really unusual, and I like it.  Not that I agree with it.  Molly, Julien and I were at the Nationals playoff game against the Giants, which took six and a half hours before the Nats lost it in the 18th inning. It was tooth-chattering cold.   Went to the bathroom every half inning just to get warm.  One of the crappiest experiences of my life.

Q: Along the lines of your story about Dr. Dick Chopp hiring similarly aptonymic doctors for his urology clinic, a lawyer in Des Moines named Vivian Jury married another lawyer whose name was Verne Lawyer. She became Vivian Jury Lawyer and they formed the appropriately-named law firm of Lawyer & Lawyer. Ted Dreyer

A: That is fabulous.

TIMELY TIP: If you’re reading this right now on an email:   Click here to get to my webpage, then click on the top headline (In this case, “Iced…“ ) for the full column, and comments, and real-time questions and answers. And you can refresh and see new questions and answers that appear as I regularly update the post from about noon to roughly 1 p.m. ET today.

Q: My Nickelback: Proselytizers. I'm a liberal, slightly religious, agnostic Jew. But I appreciate people who politely approach me to try to share their truth: that if I do not accept Jesus Christ as my lord and savior, I will suffer eternal agony. Yes, I am quite sure they are wrong. Yes, it's rather condescending of them to think that they know the truth that the rest of us don't. But given that they DO believe that, it's quite gracious of them to spend their time trying to spare me the flames of Hell, when they could be at home relaxing on the couch.

A: Good one, and you are probably a rarity.   I am sort of in the middle of this.  I do not resent these people, and kind of respect them for the same reason you do.  But I don’t want to waste either my time or theirs.  I usually stop them just seconds into their spiel, and tell them the truth: They have approached the wrong house.  I tell ‘em I not only don’t believe in the divinity of Jesus, but don’t believe in God at all, and nothing they say will ever change my mind, just as nothing I say will ever change their mind.  I do this with a smile, and wish them luck and say that I hope the rest of the nabe is more receptive.  This is usually greeted with gratitude.  They don’t want to waste their time, either. 

Q:Well, as to what you are calling Nickelbacks - good name - The first thing that comes to mind is capsaicin, the chemical that gives spicy foods their spice: I love it. Now, perhaps this is not a valid Nickelback. As I understand it, most people are supposed to hate what one loves, and certainly there are plenty of people who join me in liking food that melts one's earwax right out. You know: The kind where you start to sweat when the waiter bringing you your plate ENTERS THE ROOM. However, I am reliably assured, even by most of them, that I carry the matter to extremes. I will happily slather even the spiciest sauces onto my dinner, and before you reply that I have burned out my tastebuds and destroyed any culinary discernment I might once have had .... not so. Hot sauce has a distinct flavor, once you get past the burn, and I am, and have been, a devotee of same for -- good heavens -- about 60 years now. I didn't get into it until about the age of 16 or so. One of my favorite memories occurred in a bar, where I had ordered a Virgin Mary. As a long recovered alcoholic, I don't drink alcohol, but when I do visit a bar with friends, I generally order a Virgin Mary, into which I pour a good three tablespoons full of Tabasco Sauce. That is not an exaggeration. On the occasion of which I speak, some redneck jerk in a bar heard my order and decided to give me grief over it. You know the stuff - what kind of wimp orders a drink without alcohol. So I told him if he could drink my drink - completely - I'd buy him a cocktail of his choice. He drained it in one gulp - chugged it right down. The results were eminently satisfying. The redness of his neck rose slowly until it covered his entire head. It did cost me the price of a drink, but it was worth every cent.

A: There is an old practical joke, allegedly true, chronicled in the excellent  The Compleat Practical Joker, by H. Allen Smith, about a joke allegedly played on hicks by people in the Northeast.   Hick goes into a bar in Maine and orders a dozen oysters.  Says he’s always wanted to try oysters.  Barkeep gives him a dozen.  Guy takes the first, slurps it right down, whole.  Guy at the bar next to him says, “My God, man, you didn’t chew it!”  Guy says, “nope.  Why?”   “That thing’s alive!  It’ll eat you up from the inside out!    “Omigod, what do I do?”  Bartender, who is in on the joke, passes over a full bottle of hot sauce, says, “quick you have to drink at least half of this.  It’ll kill the damn thing.”   Pain and hilarity ensues…

Q: My daughter trained as a pediatrician and Ophelia Weiner could have been her name, almost. Checking young males testicles is part of a physical to make sure they’re in the right place etc. She had a 3 year old that she warned ( as is the practice) that she was going to check his testicles ( or whatever term she used) and he said “ just don’t touch my penis!” Guess his parents had used the correct term which I didn’t know until I was older. 

A: We once had an Invitational contest to come up with things a service provider might say to persuade you to get the hell away.  One of the winners was:  An OB/Gyn refers to your body parts by their street names. 

Q: Nickelback – Others are aghast when I tell them I like to read the last page of a book before reading it. In my estimation it makes the book a lot more fun to read. Contrary to popular belief, more often than not, nothing is revealed on that last page to ruin my enjoyment of the book. Seeing a character’s name etc. on the last page only enhances my reading. When I am introduced to that character I try to guess how that character gets from the beginning of the book to that last page I already read. 

A: My ma would always do this, even with murder mysteries.  I think she was nuts.   By the way ….. Do not attempt this with Burr, by Gore Vidal.  Or any Agatha Christie.  

Q: Well, I answered 'Fine" to the first question, so you instructed me to sit the second one out. But this much I want to say: I have always known that humans are machines. Meat machines. We work on electrochemistry, there is nothing which sets us apart from all the other meat machines on the planet, or the plant machines either, except for our degree of intelligence and self awareness. And it is important that we realize that.

A: Agreed. But the real question is, wouldn’t you think / hope we’d forever be the best machines? At least in terms of what we’re notably human for? Creativity, emotion, humor, etc.?

Q: For matzah brei, there is clearly a split on the soaking time. You seem to be on the extreme, where the matzah is not even submerged in water. I, on the other hand, like it to turn nearly to mush. This requires a longer cooking time but results in a nice contrast between soft (but cooked) parts and browned and slightly crispy parts.

A: You are Wrong. I am the monster pie king.

Q: Vieille Prune--sounds like Slivovitz, the eastern European plum brandy. Another use for this beverage is as paint stripper.

A: This is not as strong as Slivovitz, which I’ve tasted. This is subtler.

C:  I may have to forgive you your sosumis because of your Nicklebacks (except for Nickleback). That children's book made me VERY curious about orgasm b/c I used to make myself sneeze by scratching my septum (but I was also struck by an illustration of someone being hit on the head by a falling wooden block with a caption that said "it feels a little like this"). When I moved to a new area, in the pre-internet era, I chose practitioners based on name. first, I'd look for an aptonym (Dr. Farbman--Colorman in German--was the closest I ever got until finding the orthodontist Dr. Toothman), then I'd look for funny or at last fun to say. One of my kids' friends had the last name Blood, which is very cool. But her dad's first name is Peter AND HE DID NOT BECOME A UROLOGIST. this is inexcusable. We could never be friends.

 I also like Necco wafers and candy cigarettes because they are chalky. I like my circus peanuts and Peeps as stale as possible...but i will not eat Hershey's chocolate bc it is gross and waxy and just tastes like Sweet Brown. I like Moxie soda because it tastes like molten Necco wafers and defiance.

A:  Chalky!  Yes!  I missed that descriptor.  And yes, I like candy cigarettes, too.  Same reason. 

Q:  How do YOU feel about AI, vis a vis the poll?  

A:  If all of the above had been a choice (it couldn’t have been; would have been too easy) I would have chosen it   But forced to choose, in retrospect and rewrite, I’d have to go with C.  I’m not sure if this is an existential danger to humankind, but it’s surely an attack on our art presumptions.

Q:  "Anna Cross led the questioning for the Fulton County District Attorney’s Office. " 

A:  Yes, thank you.  And it was, in fact, both cross examination and Cross examination. 

Q: I have been pondering this for some time (okay, maybe a couple of minutes) and decided that only the "Oracle of DC" has the philosophical chops and deep understanding of his fellow man to enlighten me. What's with making non-meat products into products that look like meat ?

A: Depends what you mean.  I have no problem with crafting the stuff into a “hamburger.”  What else would you do?  Make it look like a pile of goo?   But when you get into the arena of the “tofurkey,”  it becomes a little grotesque.

Q: This is Marylander105. I'd like to see the order of States for the U.S. Presidential Primary Elections be subject to a lottery in which each of the 50 States has an equal opportunity to be first (not just New Hampshire each time). And second, and third, etc. Professor Scott Galloway has said that the current lineup of States all but guarantees that an old white man will be elected President. 

A: I like this idea but it is probably politically ridiculous.   What if the first three states are, say, New York, California and Massachusetts?  Are the Republican voters in such states really representative of Republicans nationwide? 

Q: I wear a necktie every day. Baby Boomers’ really only advancements to culture were carefree sex, recreational drugs, rock-and-roll and Casual Friday ( which soon morphed into Casual Every Goddamn Day). I strongly resisted the latter and never stop wearing ties to the office. Since retiring, I continue to wear a tie each day, including weekends . Around our small town, I am well-known as “ that guy ( a-hole) who wears a tie all the time.” The Croats invented the necktie; their soldiers brilliantly wore them to use as tourniquets if wounded in battle. I was in Croatia last year and was a minor celebrity for my devotion to their most famous, though now greatly abandoned , contribution to fashion. The principal disadvantage of my loyalty to the forsaken necktie is that anyone who needs to give me a gift gets off very easy.. I get a lot of small, flat boxed presents…just like Ward Cleaver on Father’s Day.

A: I mean no offense by this.  You write well and I respect that.  But you are the classical pencil-necked geek.  At least you do not wear bowties.

Q: This is Marylander105. I'd like to see the order of States for the U.S. Presidential Primary Elections be subject to a lottery in which each of the 50 States has an equal opportunity to be first (not just New Hampshire each time). And second, and third, etc. Professor Scott Galloway has said that the current lineup of States all but guarantees that an old white man will be elected President. 

A: I like this idea but it is probably politically ridiculous.   What if the first three states are, say, New York, California and Massachusetts?  Are the Republican voters in such states really representative of Republicans nationwide? 

Q: Nickelback: I wear a necktie every day. Baby Boomers’ really only advancements to culture were carefree sex, recreational drugs, rock-and-roll and Casual Friday ( which soon morphed into Casual Every Goddamn Day). I strongly resisted the latter and never stop wearing ties to the office. Since retiring, I continue to wear a tie each day, including weekends . Around our small town, I am well-known as “ that guy ( a-hole) who wears a tie all the time.” The Croats invented the necktie; their soldiers brilliantly wore them to use as tourniquets if wounded in battle. I was in Croatia last year and was a minor celebrity for my devotion to their most famous, though now greatly abandoned , contribution to fashion. The principal disadvantage of my loyalty to the forsaken necktie is that anyone who needs to give me a gift gets off very easy.. I get a lot of small, flat boxed presents…just like Ward Cleaver on Father’s Day.

A: I mean no offense by this.  You write well and I respect that.  But you are the classic pencil-necked geek.  At least you do not wear bowties.

Q: I like okra in all forms. Some people only like highly- breaded, fried okra. I like the slimy, snot like boiled okra, most people don't like to think about. It's its purest slippery tasty form BTW if you were a woman and waited for an orgasm, you would have a better take on its relationship to a sneeze that eventually makes itself so evident that you know it is coming to the point you want it, cannot force it and when it "comes" it is welcomed!

A: I have made this point before, but “come” is a poetic word.  No AI could ever have thought of it, IMO.

Q: My nickelbacks: Like the Czar and Empress, I love black licorice, but candy corn is my addiction. It’s my crack. Like most adults, I don’t necessarily like it, and I don’t crave it when it’s not around. However, when there’s a bowl of candy corn on someone’s desk, I have to take some… no, I have to take a lot. And I despise my weakness in its presence. I think it’s the texture. Something about dried Elmer’s glue in sweet pyramidal runes speaks to me. Or they put crack in them.

A: Hm.  This encapsulates me and Sweet Tarts.  I’ll buy that whole stick of them, and eat ‘em all till my mouth burns.  It sometimes burns for a half day. 

*

Q: Nickelback: I am one of very few people who likes Black Jack chewing gum as it is black licorice-flavored. It is hard to find and more expensive than most other gums. It does not come in a sugar-free variety either, so I do not chew it that often which makes it special. It also makes me feel more like a rebel when I do indulge.

A: AND they blacken your teeth.  What’s not to like? 

Q: My Nickelback: drinking milk. I usually have a glass every morning with breakfast, and also when I eat peanut butter (which is at least three times a week). I was at a party once and some guy started talking about how he didn’t know any adults who drank milk, how disgusting it was, etc. then when he was done I told him I was a milk drinker. He blushed and excused himself (I assume he was afraid that I, with my milk-engorged muscles and bones, was going to pummel him, but all I really wanted was for him to get out of the way so I could get to the beer).

A: I once had a relative by marriage, a grown man, who always ordered milk with his food.    He died young. Just FYI.

Q: Nickelback – I love mayonnaise on my hotdogs. No mustard, definitely no onions, maybe some guacamole. If you’ve never had guac on your hotdogs, you’re missing out. When I mention the guacamole to people here in San Antonio, most of them think that’s something they should try. But almost everyone thinks mayo on a hotdog is gross. 

A: I’ll try guac AND mayo.  In my tongue’s eye, I can see each working.

Q: My Nickelback is that I love my work. My work is not important. I am not important. I am a cog in a wheel and after I retire I will not be much remembered. I don’t care. I believe with great fervor that when I am called to my judgment I will be assessed on whether I used the talents I was given. Those talents have been suited to the workplace. I think this is true for some people! I love my family. But I was made for work. I dislike leisure and have very structured hobbies (when I undertake them) that resemble work. I like volunteer activities that are work. In today’s society this attitude is frowned upon and considered strange. Too bad.

A: This was not the most scintillating response, but it was the most interesting.  

Q: Shakespeare in Love is one of my favorite movies ("films" if you are pretentious.) I also like Nickelback's song, "I wanna be a rock star."

A:  I have been cruising the Web.  Yes, it is almost universally despised and contemned as historical silliness, rom-com silliness, wildly overly dramatic, etc.   But lurking out there is a review by the late and great Roger Ebert.   He gave it all four stars.     He saw it as a sly and subtle homage to Shakespeare, featuring all of Shakespeare’s memes and tropes. I have not seen it but suspect you are right. 

Q: The time to worry is when AI devices start creating art to be enjoyed by other AI devices.

A: Right. Even worse: When AI devices start doing things without being prompted to do them. They’d become like Hal in 2001.

Q: My Nickelback:  Bagpipes, accordions, harmonicas and those who play them well, and haggis. No explanation needed, they are just great!

A: Copout.   An explanation WAS needed.  Fortunately, I agree with you, and I will supply one.   I play the harmonica, ineptly.   I listen to good harmonica players because of the range of sounds they get out of a $15 instrument, sounds I could never coax out of mine.   I think the same way, from a distance, about the accordion and bagpipes.   Instruments that seem to have been made for the inept amateur, but that in the hands of an artist, can soar. 

Q: My Sosumi: Cars with automatic transmissions. And I have to drive one now because two years ago I needed a new car and wanted to get a VW Beetle. I searched so many used car sites and could not find one with manual transmission that was reasonably close to me so I wouldn't have to pay a huge amount of money to have one driven across country to me. My first car in 1970 (I was 18 and a new one cost $1995) was a Beetle so I wanted to go back to one, but it seems hard to find any cars in this county that offer manual transmission. I will keep looking but unless VW starts making the Beetle again the cars will just get older and older. Mine is a 2016. RLP

A: I don’t really need to respond to that.  My  position is clear.  I own a 2008 Civic stick.   Civic still makes manual transmission cars, though they have cut back; you can no longer get manuals on the Accord. .   And their cars are still great. 

Q: When asked how she wanted her steak done, my ex-mother-in-law (RIP) used to say, "Just walk it through a warm room". She knew…

A: Excellent.

Q: My sosumi is movies for adults based on comic-book characters. Comic books are for kids. Sosumi!

A: Not all comic books, but the kind that tend to get made into movies, yes.

This is Gene. I am calling us down for the day. Please keep sending in questions / comments here, and I will answer them in the Thursday Invitational Gene Pool:

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