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LOVE BEGINS A PICTURE: An Anthology of Google Voice Transcriptions Formatted and Annotated As Poetry

(written for 3QD)

Google recently introduced Google Voice, which routes calls among different lines, performs other screening and call handling tasks, and automatically generates a written record of each phone message using voice transcription software.  I've had it for months.  I'm not going to complain about the transcription software's high error rates, although lots of people do.  It's free, for crying out loud.  Where do people get off complaining so much about free stuff?  They don't have to use it if they don't want to use it. 

But that's not my point.  My point is, I think I've noticed something about these Google Voice transcriptions:  I see an authorial sensibility taking form, like a face emerging from a cloud bank. These transcriptions can be read as poetry.

At its most accurate, Google Voice gives a surprising dignity to some simple messages merely by rendering them in written language.  At its most interpretative, the results could give a Surrealist vertigo. 

Roll over, Brion Gysin, and tell Bill Burroughs the news:  There's a new sheriff in Cut-Up Land, and his motto is Don't Be Evil.  Below are some real-life examples of this new poet's work, taken from my own phone messages.  Since the transcript/poem often bears little resemblance to the actual words spoken, who are the real authors - the Voice, the callers, or some synergistic combination of forces beyond our limited understanding?

Here:  Decide for yourself.

i might be procrastinating now

Remembering a star: The Taco Bell chihuahua has died.  Her finest acting moment, the one that showed her range, was undoubtedly the "Put Down the Chalupa" ad -- the one with the SWAT team and all the other first responders trying to stop that guy from eating his delicious meal.  She achieved just the right blend of intensity and world-weariness.  We believed her.

"Just put it down, man."  Classic!

Gidget, we honor you.

Okay, okay.  I'm going back to work now.

Andy Rooney as an Artificial Intelligence Protecting the Earth From Interplanetary Collisions

(and now for something completely different:  my latest essay for "3 Quarks Daily" on Andy Rooney as an AI protecting the earth from space objects)

You know, I don't like asteroids.  I don't know why. I just don't like them.

The International Commission On Planetary Dangers was formed in the year 2011 to protect Earth from asteroids, comets, and other space objects.  One such object created a 15 megaton explosion when it hit the remote Tunguska region of Russia in 1908.  A larger strike could well cause the extinction of all life on the planet.

An orbiting ring of space stations was created to meet the threat, each armed with an array of telescope 'eyes' and a set of nuclear missiles.  The system's computers were linked via the "Interplanetary Internet" so that they formed a seamless whole, a meta-computer capable of simulating cognition and intelligent behavior.

The only thing missing was an overall "personality" for this intelligent system.  After all, it would need to interpret incoming information, make decisions, and be prepared to act decisively - and it had to be willing to do so for all eternity.  A human model was needed, one with precisely the right combination of drives, obsessions, and talents.  After an exhaustive search the team settled on an aging but still-popular newsman and television personality: Andy Rooney.

Rooney's personality was ideally suited to the task.  Researchers found that he was capable of forming lasting dislikes for inanimate objects ...

Asteroids?  Lovely?  Not in my book.  They're stubbly, gray, and pockmarked. 

If Richard Nixon were a planet he'd be an asteroid.

I just don't like the look of them. 

He had an irresistible urge to catalog the objects of his dislikes ...

Remember when I brought all those cereal boxes onto 60 Minutes and showed you why I hated them?  I'm going to do that with asteroids now. This one here is just too dark. It's a "C" type, or "carbonaceous" asteroid.  Don't you think it's dark?  I think it's dark. Too dark, if you ask me.

This one is an S - what they call "stony" or "silicaceous" - but it's not any better looking than the first one.  Granted, it's lighter in color.  I suppose that makes it easier to see.  But in this case, I don't think that's a good thing.  Do you?

Oh, and then there's the other kind - the U's.  They're all the ones that don't fit into the first two categories.  How ridiculous is that?  Defining something by what it isn't?

I don't know about you, but I'd happily blast any of them into smithereens if I had half the chance.

He had an old newshound's relentless thirst for detail ...

You see that little gray "S" type out there by Jupiter?  The one whose orbit is a little wobblier than usual?  That orbit bothers me. I don't know why. It makes me feel I can't trust it, like it could start moving in our direction. 

I'm going to watch that guy.

And an underlying seriousness of purpose.  A "gravity," if you'll excuse the choice of words ...

You think I'm kidding?  I'm not kidding.  Give me half a chance and I'll show those bastards what humanity is made of.  Not for nothing was I a cub reporter for Stars and Stripes.

And those goes for you other asteroids out there in the Kuiper Belt, too.  I know you're almost outside the solar system.  But don't think I'm not watching you. 

The scientists had difficulty programming and training the "ARAI," or "Andy Rooney Artificial Intelligence," as it was called.  Sometimes they found it ... cantankerous ...

You want to lecture me about asteroids, Professor Know-It-All?  I think I know a thing or two about asteroids.  And I know more about genuine shoe-leather reporting than you'll ever know. I'm a journalist.  What are you - a blogger?  

(the entire piece is here)

Barbara's About.Com Buddhist blog has this:  "Via the Rev. Danny Fisher, elephant journal has a list of the Ten Worst Buddhist Movie Characters."

But the best of the worst - or at least my personal favorite - has been left out!  I'm thinking of Kevin Kline as Otto in A Fish Called Wanda.  Best dialog lines:  "Otto, what are you doing?"  "It's a Buddhist meditation technique.  Focuses your aggression.  The monks used to do it before battle."

And then there's Jamie Lee Curtis' tirade when she just can't stand it anymore:

Now let me correct you on a couple of things, OK?  Aristotle was not Belgian.  The central message of Buddhism is not every man for himself.  The London Underground is not a political movement.   Those are all mistakes.  I looked 'em up.

Other satirical figures are included, so I'm nominating Otto as an addition to the list. 

As for the movie itself, I have to admit I was uncomfortable sitting through it.  Those John Cleese disaster-in-the-making scenarios are really funny, but I get too identified with the discomfort of the characters.  That was always my problem with Fawlty Towers, too.

That's my fate:  Too soft for comedy.

them aint' boots you got on, them's brogans.

The Iraqi shoe-throwing incident?  Not appropriate behavior.  Consider this the obligatory murmur of disapproval.   I was, however, very impressed by the President's speed and agility in ducking first one, then the other piece of what Merle Haggard once called "manly footgear."  (In "Okie From Muskogee":  "Leather boots are still in style for manly footgear.")

But mostly, the shoe-chucking episode brought to mind the old Bo Diddley line quoted above (from "Say Man").  One of my favorite non sequiturs ever.

The guy who threw the shoes was a journalist.  Is that why they call it shoe-leather reporting? 

I know, I know.  Then make up your own joke.

_____________________

Other Bo Diddley related posts (because it's all about the Sheriff in the end): 

Bo Diddley Was a Gunslinger
A Few Minutes With Andy Rooney About Bo Diddley

I Can Fly This Plane Just Fine, Darn It!

Why, hello there, folks! May I call you "folks"? I'll be your pilot today. What? Am I "qualified" to fly this jalopy? You betcha! Why? Because I'm a mom, that's why. No, I don't know what all these switches and handles and whatnot are. I don't CARE what they are, to tell ya the truth. The important thing is that I'm ready, I'm willing, and (wink) I'm eager as heck to get the job done! THAT'S what matters.

Doncha think?  O-kay then.  Here we go!

Whoops! Whew. That's a lotta noise. And just a teensy bit of fire back there. But what the heck, right? It's fuel, and energy happens to be my specialty.

What?  Who's that fella yellin' over the radio?  Air traffic control?  Well, who the heck cares?  No, honestly, really:  Who cares? I sure as heck don't, and I don't think my passengers do either.

What's my heading?  What's my heading?  We're on the right track and we know where we want to go, that's for darn sure.

No, I'm not going to give you my "bearings," or whatever it is you call those little numbers. Look here, Buster, I might not answer those questions the way you or the other pilots might like. But you know what? I'm going to talk straight to my passengers here, without the filter of any darned air traffic controllers or FAA or whatever the heck you all are calling yourselves now.

I mean, how good can you guys be at your jobs, anyhoo? There are just a heck of a lot, I mean a HECK of a lot of plane crashes all the darn time. So real people like me and my passengers figure it's time for some fresh air in this whole flying business anyway.

What? What are you saying there in your fancy-dancy tower down there? We don't have towers like that on Main Street in Wasilla, buster, you can bet your life. Nope. Just a whole heck of a lot of common sense, which is all too rare in this world today, doncha think?

And if I can handle a crying baby and ban a book and milk the federal government for all the pork my little town can hold, all at the same time, then for cryin' out loud don't you think I can fly your darn little airplane?

What?  are you TALKING again?  Saying that most crashes are due to pilot error?  Like, because the pilot didn't KNOW stuff?

There you go again with your LOOKING BACK. We'd rather look FORWARD where I come from. But then, heck, I guess that's just the darned difference between you and us, isn't it? But you're a good talker, though. I'll give ya that.

Why aren't I changed my heading to zero-one-niner as instructed?  Because I'm the mommy, that's why, Mr. Smarty-Pants.  I think I've got enough sense to know when to turn a darn airplane.

What's that? Raise flaps? Raise FLAPS? Raise flaps or we'll CRASH? There you go again, raising the white flag of surrender just when we ....

..... [static] ...

Wait. Team, I think we found a survivor. He's in critical condition - looks like he'll need surgery right here at the crash site. But a routine depressurizing of the skull should save his life. Thank God the neurosurgeon's here. Save this one, Doc.

Oh, heck. Ouch. That's gotta hurt, right? No, I didn't go to any fancy-dancy medical school but I'm a Mom so believe-you-me I've seen a booboo or two in my day and if somebody around here just has a sharp thimgamajig we'll have you fixed up in a jiffy. Don't worry. This won't hurt a bit!

Heard Any Good "John McCain's Got a Lot of Houses" Jokes?

Me neither.  So I made up a few.  Try some of your own -- and yes, I know he may have more than seven houses.  Some say it's as many as twelve. He doesn't know.

But don't you think seven's a funnier number?  So here we go (with apologies to the memory of Joey Adams.)

_________________

Boy, does that John McCain have a lot of houses.  Lemme tell ya ... If they were all in one place he'd be Cleveland.

What?  John McCain doesn't know how many houses he owns?  Can't he ask Joe Lieberman?

Know what else?  John McCain doesn't know if any of his houses share a border with Pakistan.

Now his campaign is saying Cindy does all the house-buying so he can't be expected to know.  What a sexist!  He makes his wife do all the  shopping!

John McCain's dog is so fat that when it sits around the house, it sits around ... (Oh, wait, he has seven houses so this joke doesn't work.  He'd have to have a whole pack of dogs.  I'll get back to you on the dog joke.)

Don't blame McCain.  He couldn't resist that "buy six mansions, get one free" sale at Countrywide.

Hey, didja hear?  John McCain has so many houses they're giving him his own monopoly board!

Seven houses?  That's one for every day of the week!  What a coincidence! I've got a 'Friday' house, too. That's because Friday's payday ... and it takes my whole check just to keep it.

John McCain's getting an unfair rap for buying all those houses.  Come on, now!  He needed SOMEPLACE to put all those swimming pools!

Hey, remember that horrible "joke" about putting Cindy in the topless beauty contest?  I hear he was really in the "dog houses" after that. (Sorry ... still can't nail the dog joke.)

The McCains have a lovely needlepoint their realtor sent them. It says "Home Sweet Home Sweet Home Sweet Home Sweet Home Sweet Home Sweet Home."

As John McCain likes to say, there are no places like home.

Hey, I know it SOUNDS bad.  But they needed someplace to put all those lobbyists!

They don't count the motor home because its only got four bathrooms and there's nowhere for the gardeners to sleep.

I hear that the McCains are doing a vacation house-swap with the Romneys.  Sure, it'll take seven  trips, but then they won't be very busy next year anyway.

Knock knock knock knock knock knock knock.  Who's there? John McCain's mansions.

If a man's home is his castle, then John McCain's got the whole chess set!

Seven houses?  That barely fits the twenty thousand bikers he promised could "crash" at his "pads" if they cheered for him.

Dog joke:  John McCain thinks every home should have a dog.  So he bought the Iditarod dogsled team. 

- and my final boy-does-that-John McCain-have-a-lot-of-houses joke:

Hey, John McCain can't remember how many houses he has!  It's not his fault, though.  He had the number written down but he left it in his other plane.

Is Karl Rove the Anthrax Killer?

(Caution:  Irony alert.)

Okay, I know it's a surprising conclusion, but hear me out.

As far back as April of 2001, the man some call "The Architect" wrote in a memo to Paul Wolfowitz that the anthrax vaccine was "a political problem for us."  That's right.  Rove was worried about the very same thing Bruce Ivins was allegedly worried about:  the anthrax vaccine.

And consider the targets of those anthrax attacks: As Senate Majority Leader, Tom Daschle was the Democrat most strategically placed to block Rove's political agenda. Then there's Patrick Leahy. As chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Leahy was in an excellent position to investigate whatever shenanigans Rove was already planning over at the Justice Department. (That attack was a rare tactical error on Rove's part, however. As a longtime Grateful Dead fan, Leahy is unusually drug-resistant.)

Tom Brokaw at NBC was yet another target.  Rove was publicly embarrassed on NBC during the 2000 election when he claimed Florida for Bush and was contradicted on-air by Tim Russert. And who was NBC's anchor that night? Chill alert: Tom Brokaw.

(People, including me,  gave NBC's David Gregory a hard time for "dancing" with Rove last year. But if we knew then what Gregory knew - about what the man is capable of doing when angered - well, heck, son. You'd dance too.)

The there's the Big One, of course: These attacks contributed to an atmosphere of terror that allowed Rove to win (at least temporarily) the political dominance he'd always craved.

Okay, that pretty much covers motive. Then there's the matter of character. Our suspect, a man in his fifties, has a history of grievous misbehavior that dates back to his college days. He acknowledges entering a Democratic politician's office at the tender age of 19 and stealing materials in order to carry out an elaborate deception.  And accounts of his high school student years characterize him as "a nerd and a motor mouth,"  which covers the "weirdness" angle that all these accusations of high-profile murder require.

Did I mention that he likes to go quail-hunting?  With a rifle?  A deadly weapon?  And now our potential "perp" is under investigation by the Congress of the United States for a number of alleged crimes.

So let's see: We've covered "motive" and "character." That leaves "opportunity," which is an easy one. As a close confidant of the President, Rove had access to pretty much every government resource (civilian or military) that he wanted.  That would include grades of anthrax that, unlike those discussed by the FBI yesterday, were powdered and weaponized.

Do we really believe Karl Rove is the anthrax killer?  Of course not.  This is satire, not some wacky conspiracy theory. And after all, who in their right mind would accuse someone of something so serious with such sketchy and circumstantial evidence?

Oh.  Right.

what's wrong with the inverted pyramid??

Today blogger/writer Ezra Klein sparked a small controversy by asserting that editors should be willing to "break with" the "inverted pyramid," a writing convention used by journalists for generations. 

Klein, writing in his blog for liberal publication "The American Prospect," made this claim in a larger piece that criticized both the form and content of traditional newspapers.

Criticisms of print newspapers are common among bloggers, that subset of writers whose work is primarily disseminated in an electronic medium.  But at least one other blogger/writer, the author of this piece, took exception to Klein's assertion.  This author feels that Klein's assertion is overly broad.  He believes that the "inverted pyramid," far from being a (presumably outmoded) "stylistic convention," is a valuable tool for optimizing the time of readers anxious to sort through and absorb large amounts of information in a limited period of time.

The primary reason for this objection to Klein's assertion lies in Klein's own words:  "There's no reason newspapers can't be written in a more immediate, aggressive way. "  What is more "immediate" or "aggressive," this author contends, than providing readers with the key elements of a story - who, what, when, where, and why - in the first couple of paragraphs? 

(He refrained from adding:  "If it was good enough for the great ones ...")

This author also used the occasion of this dispute to recall with fondness his days on the student newspaper - days during which he was first exposed to these conventions of journalistic form.  He strongly disputed the suggestion that these forms have been rendered obsolete by online journalism.  He prefers to consider them part of a writer's full set of tools, regardless of the medium used. 

This writer believes that Klein has valid overall criticisms of the newspaper form, which has grown stale, but that Klein  goes too far in his assertion that the "inverted pyramid" should be abandoned altogether.  He believes that the one newspaper Klein cites approvingly, the Wall Street Journal, still uses the pyramid form as part of its writers' arsenal.

Klein could not be reached for comment.  More precisely, we did not attempt to contact him.  Other activities of various kinds, both personal and professional, prevented us from doing so. 

Those activities included ...

Today blogger/writer Ezra Klein sparked a small controversy by asserting that editors should be willing to "break with" the "inverted pyramid," a writing convention used by journalists for generations. 

Klein, writing in his blog for liberal publication "The American Prospect," made this claim in a larger piece that criticized both the form and content of traditional newspapers.

Criticisms of print newspapers are common among bloggers, that subset of writers whose work is primarily disseminated in an electronic medium.  But at least one other blogger/writer, the author of this piece, took exception to Klein's assertion.  This author feels that Klein's assertion is overly broad.  He believes that the "inverted pyramid," far from being a (presumably outmoded) "stylistic convention," is a valuable tool for optimizing the time of readers anxious to sort through and absorb large amounts of information in a limited period of time.

The primary reason for this objection to Klein's assertion lies in Klein's own words:  "There's no reason newspapers can't be written in a more immediate, aggressive way. "  What is more "immediate" or "aggressive," this author contends, than providing readers with the key elements of a story - who, what, when, where, and why - in the first couple of paragraphs? 

(He refrained from adding:  "If it was good enough for the great ones ...")

This author also used the occasion of this dispute to recall with fondness his days on the student newspaper - days during which he was first exposed to these conventions of journalistic form.  He strongly disputed the suggestion that these forms have been rendered obsolete by online journalism.  He prefers to consider them part of a writer's full set of tools, regardless of the medium used. 

This writer believes that Klein has valid overall criticisms of the newspaper form, which has grown stale, but that Klein  goes too far in his assertion that the "inverted pyramid" should be abandoned altogether.  He believes that the one newspaper Klein cites approvingly, the Wall Street Journal, still uses the pyramid form as part of its writers' arsenal.

Klein could not be reached for comment.  More precisely, we did not attempt to contact him.  Other activities of various kinds, both personal and professional, prevented us from doing so. 

Those activities included ...

Five Minutes About Bo Diddley With Andy Rooney

You know, I liked Bo Diddley.  Bo Diddley was a good guitar player.  He could really play the guitar.

There have been a lot of good guitar players over the years, and Bo Diddley's one of them.

You think it's easy to play guitar like Bo Diddley?  It might seem easy - but it's probably not.

And he had to think up those guitar parts.  He didn't just play them, you know.  He thought them up.  That's probably not as easy as it looks.

He made up a lot of good songs, too.  A lot of people remember those songs.

And then there was that beat.   You may remember the Bo Diddley beat.  Or you may not.  But take it from me:  A lot of people do.

That beat came from Africa, and from the Deep South.  Probably some other places I don't know about, too.  He made it sound pretty good.  And he put some good songs on top of it, too.

And about that guitar playing:  If you think it's easy, you ought to try it some time.  You might be surprised.  Because I tried it once, and you know what I found?

It's not as easy as it looks.