The Lexicographer's Rules

She sent me an e-mail thanking me for something, and she put “thank you” in a number of different languages. One of them said “shenoragalem.“ I sent her a message back saying, No problem, but what the hell language is “shenoragalem”? In the meantime, I hit the Internet trying to figure it out. I find out that it’s Armenian, so I send her another message that says happy holidays and happy new year in Armenian. Before she got this message, though, she sent me one with a “clue” to the meaning of “shenoragalem.“ It says something like “has to do with Flemming.“ What? “Flemming”? I couldn’t find squat out about it. I think I spent an hour trying to figure out what the hell “Flemming” meant. Now, remember that I had already figured out “shenoragalem” without the so-called clue. Lois’s secretary speaks some Armenian (which is where Lois got the “shenoragalem” from in the first place), so when my reply was translated, Lois was extremely impressed that 1) I figured it out and 2) that I sent back something else in that language. Meantime, when I complained about the “Flemming” clue she said it’s a solid clue. I told her “horseshit,“ cause by that time, even though I figured out what language “shenoragalem” was, I was frustrated that I couldn’t connect her clue to the right answer. She sent me another clue: “007/Goldfinger”. Of course I went nuts. That’s not how you spell Ian Fleming’s name! Everybody knows he created James Bond! You said the clue was solid! You spelled his name with two “M"s! That’s not a solid clue! And what in God’s name does he have to do with Armenia or Armenians? She said: “Ian. You know, lots of Armenian names end in -ian” No kidding. Yossarian from Catch-22. Benjamin Bagdikian, the media critic, etc. That’s the lamest clue I ever heard in my life. She said I was upset ‘cause I didn’t figure it out, and I guess that’s mostly right. Stupid clue, though.

This Week In The News. In a week, three of us stand
and laugh, having a good time.
But we are a person short
so we go home early. The next week, I call. My friend’s roommate
answers and we both laugh after a second
and keep on laughing cause we both know
I forgot my friend was out of town
for quite a while. So I write a letter and put extra stamps on
to make it arrive quicker. The third week, a woman down the block
has a cat for give away. I know
just the person, I tell her. She, I say, is recently
without a cat. If you can imagine it. I try to figure out a way to send the kitty.
Can’t just put kitty in a box. How would I do this? We would need a smart cat,
with a keen interest in exchange rates
and customs regulations. Kitty could probably go for cheap,
for maybe for a child’s price.
I don’t think they have a kitty rate,
but I’d ask. I’d put a note under the collar
saying, “My name is Kitty. Please seat
me by the window and pet me a lot.
I want a margarita from the drink cart.“ Maybe kitty would get lucky and the
flight would be empty and she could
lounge around in a big first class
seat and look out the window.
But I think she might have
a problem making the connecting
flight in Miami. She has short
kitty legs and it’s a big airport. The fourth week, I stand in line. Some
guy says he likes pad thai. I say: Pad thai! Don’t talk to me
about pad thai! I know this girl
who can eat pad thai like it ‘s
coming back in style. He says: Pad thai? I said, that guy. I was
talking about a friend of mine. Yeah, me too. Me too. The fifth week the bottom falls out of
my personality. Ego and id jump from as
high as possible so it’s a sure thing. I wish my friend was here. I always feel cool
when I hang around with her. The sixth week I start to tell a story and
everyone on the receiving end looks at me.
What? Did I tell this one already? Yeah, we heard it all before, they say. You mean the one about my friend and how she…? Yeah, yeah. We heard it. Seventh week I see this chick in funky disco clothes.
Her skin sparkles and her eyes don’t shut. I think it’s my friend. Turns out it’s somebody
famous, which is close, but still not my friend.
I follow her around for a while anyway. Eighth week I run into a mutual acquaintance
of me and my friend. I haven’t seen him in a while.
He asks about my friend. Are you kidding? I say. She’s been gone for two
months, like, forever. I wish I was this guy, cause as far as he knows
my friend is still around. He’s got the idea he can be called by a bunch of
pet names at anytime,
just by picking up the phone and dialing my friend. He can’t. I write my umpteenth letter. The post office tells me I can’t ask for a return receipt
from another country. It’s not that she’s not writing letters, I say.
It’s not her handwriting on it that I have to see. The woman hands me my change. It’s that I want to see if I can send something
to another continent and have it come back. She hands me my cat stamps.

Listening to the radio, I hear the crowds cheering at election primary rallies. They sound fake. College-aged women yelling “wooooo” and the ball-cap hatted undergrad men yelling individually in imitation of the roar they perceive when watching television. There is no difference between the crowd noise, no matter the politician, no matter the location, or the day, or the rally. They are the same. The noises are forced, emitted by cookie-cutter cardboard cutouts. In-authentic, un-genuine. As well as boring. A crowd of politicians in waiting. A group of incompletely educated upper middle class youth bused in to spread their willful ignorance of details via the content-less message of hooting and hawing and hollering. These are the same people who, when in a group about to be photographed, perhaps at a formal dance, or fraternity party, or on the beach at Padre Island, lean in together toward what they perceive as the center of the frame. They are conscious of the end result. They have a distorted idea of what is necessary to be properly perceived on film. A distorted idea of how their cheering sounds to the microphones. Naturally, there is plenty of room in the frame. They need not lean in. Were these arena-sized crowds, individual voices would disappear into the throng. They do not. They are isolated, and so their failures are revealed. The shouts are unsustained. They lack spontaneity, do not respond to the text, do not respond to context. Were their cries original, a shouted slogan, a personal appeal to the stumper at the podium, of the moment, there would be something more authentic. Instead, there is lock-step chanting, started by organizers on the sidelines, who are concerned with forcing the noise of 577 people to resemble the noise of 1077 people. Crowds do not yell at the right points, perhaps because they are uninspired. Their shouts are perfunctory, the sole goal to give themselves and onlookers the impression of high volume, a rising river of support, an unstoppable candidate. Candidates do not know how to deal with the crowd noise. They talk over it. Or they stumble, stop. They, too, are aware of the microphones. They perceive the crowd noise drowns their small voices. No projection, no confidence in the mix. They want silence, but they want cheers. They are poor orchestral conductors. The best speeches I have heard have a man who pauses at the natural pauses in his speech. He has designed the speech in such a way as to cue applause, cue cheers, cue the stomping and sign-waving. It is not written on his script. It need not be. If there is no pause in his speech, he does not stop. His crowd goes mad because they are drawn to it.

Year before last, a 350 some-odd dollar debit showed up on the bank account. Not my debit. It said “bn.com” on the bank statement. Barnes & Noble. I said to myself, What did I buy? Oh, I bought a book. In the store at Union Square. But it was more like 35 dollars. Call the store. What is the deal with this charge? They bump me up to a manager. I say, A mysterious charge has appeared on my debit checking banking Mastercard card. “Oh, sir, that’s a charge from our online store. Not from one of our locations.“ Call the online store. It’s clear to me I did not make the charge. Nobody argues with that. The online store’s gray anonymous but cheery voice, with very little prompting, gives me all the details of the order. Three medical textbooks were ordered. Delivered to an address in Romania. “Bucharest,“ she says. “That’s in Germany.“ She gives the name, the address, the email address. Everything. I need only ask. Looking around the net, I find the email address. Seems like the person hosts a Quake club. Coupla of other places. Find linked addresses, same user. The name, it turns out, is a woman’s name. That doesn’t jibe. Call one of the service providers for the email address. It’s a free service. They tell me nothing. Call another email address provider. They tell me everything. I need only ask. Another name. Another address. A confirmation email address that matches one I had already discovered. All of this attached, somehow, to Romania. The new name is a male name. More like it. Send a message to all of the email addresses.

An unknown charge has appeared on my credit card, charged to bn.com. It appears that you are the possessor of three copies of the same medical textbook. I hope you find them useful. What’s the cracker/hacker scene like there, in Bucharest, anyway? How did you do it? And where did you have the books delivered to? A girlfriend’s house? I have canceled the card to prevent further unauthorized purchases, so don’t bother.

He replied.

“sorry. please don’t take it personally. i need the money!!!! i had them sent to my mam. please don’t bother her. it was easy to do!!! encrypted browsers mean nothing if they do not protect the informations when they get it. cracker scene here used to be small, maybe 100 or 200. now more like 6000!!!!! too many. good luck.“

Considered for a minute flying to Romania, showing up on his mother’s doorstep, and demanding my books. But the bank reimbursed all of it. And I figured, Why bother? And there is no international enforcement. What to do? Called the service providers. Explained. Faxed supporting documents from bank, bn.com, his email accounts, his response. All four accounts were shut down. I hope medicine improves in Bucharest.

She tells me she has to leave New York after she finishes her master’s degree. She’s been here eight years, minus a year and a half in the Peace Corps in Ecuador. She’s a social worker, operating as a community organizer in the Bronx, in Manhattan, in Brooklyn. It’s not what she thought it would be. “I thought it would be the single greatest place in the world to be a social worker. There’s a concentration here of people who need help. It’s a city of millions with immigrants and a declining blue collar employment base, and I kind of felt like, This is the place where I will make a difference. “But it’s not like that. The political climate here is unbearable. The very people I’ve come to help are terrorized, de-legitimized. They’re under siege. Social services are cut; it’s virtually impossible to put together funding for even the simplest program. “One project we’re working on teams senior citizens with young children after school to stimulate the integration of generations as well as provide the more practical opportunity for parents to have their children taken care of for a few hours until they, the parents, can return from work. The project is functioning in cities across the country and we have a conference call each month between project leaders in various states to share ideas. “It’s so obvious when we have these calls that something is going wrong here. Here in the city. Leaders in Illinois and Albany, they’re not having any problems finding space, finding money, finding volunteer staff. They’re chipper. “But in all of New York we have only two project leaders and therefore only two projects. In a metropolitan area of 16 million people. And we can’t find the funding. Where are these Wall Street bonuses going? Where is the boom economy? It’s not showing up, and we’re struggling to put the pieces together. The city is pursuing the poor and the desperate as if they are pre-criminals, criminals in waiting, criminal larvae. Charities do not work together; they all want the glory for themselves. Non-profits are usually divided internally by hostile camps that battle for control and as a result squander money on half-finished campaigns and programs. “It’s a simple concept: seniors and children together for a few hours after school. The seniors read stories or tell tales or help with homework or teach the kids the foxtrot. The kids talk about their school work and learn about other decades and hopefully find themselves in the arms of a new friend who can give them guidance. “But it’s not working. City funding is cut. City services are cut. Private organizations are stretched thin. And we’re struggling. “When I arrived here, straight out of college, I had fantasies of making a difference. I would daydream about setting a kid onto a path of self-respect and education and she would become something brilliant. Now I have fantasies of leaving New York City, going where people at the top care, where I don’t have to help those that need it alone. “I know there are other people here in the city that feel as I do. But I can’t find them. And I can’t do this by myself.“