Happy Birthday, Grandma.

Friday would have been my grandma's 85th birthday. She was a sweet little lady, always ready to laugh at your jokes, always ready to sing you an oldtimey song ("mares eat oats, and does eat oats, and little lambs eat ivy -- a kid'll eat ivy, too -- wouldn't you?"), and always ready to slap a flaming hot cloth diaper on your congested throat. Oh, and the killer merthiolate on your cuts, too. But it was all in the name of grandmotherly care.

She had soft, soft skin that just got softer as the wrinkles multiplied. When she laughed her whole face smiled. She made delicious clam chowder to warm cold kiddies on rainy days in the Oregon beach house. She loved purple and pink in shades that should be illegal, raided bargain bins wherever she found them and then tried to unload her ill-advised purchases on anyone she could. She collected music boxes and bells and loved to sing in the ward choir. And she put random words in quotation marks...I dunno...just to make 'em look alive?

She was loved by most everyone who knew her, even by her children-in-law, parents-in-law, and siblings-in-law. When her rebellious black sheep son was interviewed as an adult by a local paper, he said that his mother was his best friend. She loved gardening and taught me how to not kill African violets and hydrangeas. She loved a round of Mad Libs with the grandkids, and told us we were clever even when we chose words like "pus" and "phlegm."

And while she was a church-going, mission-serving, and devout Mormon lady, she enjoyed a naughty joke now and then. One day I played my cousins a song I'd heard on Dr. Demento, and was a bit embarrassed when Grandma walked in mid-song. To our surprise she laughed and laughed and made me play it for her several more times so she could laugh some more.

Grandma, in honor of your birthday, here is "The Scotsman," one more time. (Listen really closely -- you can hear her laughing!)


Well, a Scotsman clad in kilt left a bar one evening fair
And one could tell by how he walked that he'd drunk more than his share
He fumbled round until he could no longer keep his feet
Then he stumbled off into the grass to sleep beside the street
Ring ding diddle diddle I de oh, ring di diddly I oh
He stumbled off into the grass to sleep beside the street

About that time two young and lovely girls just happened by
And one says to the other, with a twinkle in her eye
"See yon sleeping Scotsman so strong and handsome built?
I wonder if it's true what they don't wear beneath the kilt?"
Ring ding diddle diddle I de oh, ring di diddly I oh
"I wonder if it's true what they don't wear beneath the kilt?"

They crept up on that sleeping Scotsman quiet as could be
Lifted up his kilt about an inch so they could see
And there, behold, for them to see, beneath his Scottish skirt
Was nothing more than God had graced him with upon his birth
Ring ding diddle diddle I de oh, ring di diddly I oh
Was nothing more than God had graced him with upon his birth

They marveled for a moment, then one said, "We must be gone --
Let's leave a present for our friend, before we move along."
As a gift they left a blue silk ribbon, tied into a bow
Around the bonnie star the Scot's kilt did lift and show
Ring ding diddle diddle I de oh, ring di diddly I oh
Around the bonnie star the Scot's kilt did lift and show

Now the Scotsman woke to nature's call and stumbled toward a tree
Behind a bush, he lifts his kilt and gawks at what he sees
And in a startled voice he says to what's before his eyes.
"Lad, I don't know where you've been, but I see you won first prize!"
Ring ding diddle diddle I de oh, ring di diddly I oh
"O lad, I don't know where you been, but I see you won first prize!"

Young girl -- they call it the diamond blog.*

This posting is in honor of my new sister-in-law, who opted out of the engagement ring thing.

Now, I'm not opposed to engagement rings if they represent pure devotion and true regard and are not just a sparkly cattle brand (for the boy) or an eight-cow* certification (for the girl). I am opposed to the ridiculous insanity and obsession associated with the whole institution, and no place is there more engagement ring insanity than my beloved alma mater, BYU. My feelings on the topic are well summed up by the following, which is the snarkiest college paper I ever wrote -- a textual analysis of a local engagement ring ad that ran in the student paper. If you click on the above image you'll be able to read the text of the advertisement I was dissecting. It's a real stinker.

My professor's final note on the paper was, "Really funny, Marie! Are you truly so cynical?"

When it comes to engagement ring frenzy, yes. Yes, I am.

However, to show that I'm really a romantic under it all, I've added engagement pictures of my adorable friends and family, looking blissful in spite of the diamond vampires. Proof that it's possible. The second-to-last photo is my brother and cousin doing a fake engagement photo shoot to freak out the grandparents. And if you endure to the very end of this long post, you'll see a picture of the guy I was trying to impress when I wrote this paper. He laughed when he read it, just as I'd hoped, but as you can see, he ended up in the arms of another woman.** I'm sure he loves her for her snark-free soul.

Oh well.



English 425
November 3, 1997

Selling Beyond the Mark

It's enough to turn the stomach of even the sturdiest R.M.*: a quarter carat diamond blown up to roughly 20 carats, sparkling like the evil eye of a lovesick coed, stares back at him from the Daily Universe*. And that's just the graphics. In the text of this shameless Wilson Diamonds ad, a chatty, empathetic voice establishes a you-and-me-buddy relationship between the author and the reader, while an array of rhetorical devices are pulling the poor bachelor's every string. And all this man-to-man confidence is a facade -- even while the ad is reasoning calmly with the poor bloke, it screams right past him to his fiancée who stands behind him, entranced and drooling. The ad hollers to her in a frequency imperceptible to the male ear, "Hey, sister! Tell him if he loves you, he'll take you ring shopping at Wilson's!" To accomplish this amazing feat in two different keys simultaneously, the ad employs ethos and a mother dose of pathos, woven into an intricate unisex code.

Firstly, this "ideal" business feeds the unhappy Boy an unhealthy dose of ethos at a time when he is largely incapable of defending himself. Why is he so helpless? Well, for this particular decision there are few people he can truly trust. His starry-eyed fiancée does not have his best interests at heart, and whether or not she sympathizes with the ring's drain on her Beloved's finances, he knows she longs for a sparkly to put that wench in her Y Group* to shame. His parents are likely hovering between the Hope Diamond (which will reflect well on their boy and, by extension, them) and a Cracker Jacks ring (which will mean one less interest-free loan to the happy couple in the lean years ahead). And his buddy's telling him, in all sincerity, to get her the best cubic zirconia that money can buy and live with the guilt. Wilson's descends upon this scene with the voice of the Love Veteran (as well as a couple of strategically placed capital letters) to calm the tempest in the young man's heart, head, and pocketbook. "Relax," the ad croons in its best Condescending Psychiatrist tone, and gently settles the feverish fiancé onto the leather couch for a masterful healing-and-dealing session. This single word sentence, "Relax," solidifies the inherently manic nature of the ring-buying venture and the young man's inability to cope with the pressure alone. And while other ring dealers are shamelessly hounding him and "are busy showing cheaper and cheapest," Wilson's simultaneously slaps the Band-aid of Reason on his angst and establishes itself as the Diamond Mecca with the introduction, in the ad's fifth sentence, of the "Ideal Cut" diamond. No explanation is ever given of what exactly the "Ideal Cut" is, or if it is a respected standard in Diamond-dom. And yet the capitalization of those first letters lends the whole ad a definite air of authority. The prestige of carrying the aforementioned "Ideal Cut" diamonds is reinforced by an official-looking logo in the lefthand corner of the ad, which proclaims Wilson's to be "Utah Valley's Ideal Cut Diamond Jeweler." The ad has first established that Wilson's merchandise meets an absurdly high standard with the use of capitalization, and now assures us that no other jeweler in Happy Valley* meets that same standard.

Ethos is at work on Ms. Right, as well. Her faith in Wilson's good sense is cemented in the ad's heading which proclaims, "Buy Your Ideal An Ideal." Right from the beginning, her merits as a prospective wife are compared with the best diamonds in existence, giving the folks at Wilson's instant credibility in her mind. And again the capitalization of the word "Ideal" gives the ad a sort of divine, scriptural aura, as if they were talking about Truth or The Word or some other spiritual absolute. The little slogan right above the Wilson Diamonds logo boasts an especially clever breed of ethos -- a sort of Emperor's New Clothes tactic. It says, "The More You Know About Diamonds The Better We Look." In other words, the ad is saying to the discriminating bride-to-be, "If you are wise and have any taste whatsoever, it will be obvious to you that Wilson's is the ultimate diamond authority." (And of course the implied, "If you're skeptical about our claims to superiority, then you're so thick he could give you glass and you'd never know the difference.") The slogan makes her knowledge about diamonds, which is probably limited, the key to deciding whether or not the ad's assertions are sound -- and no girl wants to holler "Wilson's claims are as naked as jaybirds!" and be branded as stupid and low-class by every "discriminating" female in the suckered crowd.

And we mustn't forget that the ethos of this masterpiece feeds directly off the pathos of the whole prenuptial situation; first, pathos as it afflicts said Boy. The voice is first one of empathy, citing how "hard," nay, "impossible" it is to track, capture, and tag the perfect girl while staying sane and financially stable. A voice of camaraderie, a voice of commiseration. "I've been there, man," the Wilson's salesman seems to say with a half smile and a knowing chuckle in the first two sentences. There is also an appeal to the guy's feelings of pride in both his fiancée and his own ability to choose diamonds and women. The ad is quick to agree wholeheartedly with Boy's glowing opinion of Girl by referring to her as "the ideal mate" -- no skeptical comments like those he gets from his roommate, who has actually met her. The ad also suggests with the reference to "finding a diamond worthy of her," that she is worth a whole lot, but that that worth is easily converted into diamonds and/or Deutschmarks. (Note that "priceless" isn't an adjective that comes up a whole lot in jewelry ads, to describe either women or the diamonds they supposedly deserve...)

The ad's author knows how tidal Girl's emotions are on the subject of her upcoming marriage, yet he/she is not above exploiting them. Girl believes that a good marriage must be built on a rock, but she's not sure if that's figurative or not. Even if she knows that her man would go to the end of the earth for her, she secretly wouldn't mind having hard evidence of that devotion to flash at girlfriends, archenemies, and innocent passersby. The ad tells her that if she can convince her beloved that Wilson's is the diamond dealer of choice, she will be doing him a favor because they carry "Ideal diamonds [he'd] be proud to give," and she of course wants him to be proud of the Ring which symolizes their Love. Also, she likely has a genuine concern for her fiancé's fianancial situation (which will soon be her financial situation, too). So the ad emphasizes that her honey can get her an extraordinary Ideal Cut diamond for "less at Wilson's than an ordinary diamond...elsewhere." Apparently, she can have his cake and eat it, too. By handing her true love this Wilson Diamonds ad, she can practice being the supportive and frugal wife she so longs to be, while simultaneously securing her very own Ideal Cut Diamond which will ward off potential competitors for time and all eternity*.

Writing an advertisement as brilliant as this one is no small achievement. The author realizes that the guy is paying and is therefore ultimately the one who has to be convinced of the product. And yet with something like an engagement ring, it's hard to tell which half of the happy couple is the ventriloquist and which is the dummy. In fact, (to strain this metaphor even further) the two are so hopelessly tangled in the marionette strings that a wise advertiser must make sure that every word speaks to both halves. The Wilson's ad seems spontaneous and conversational, but it is as perfectly crafted as (and more convincing than) most campaign speeches, using a complex combination of ethos and pathos to steer the star-crossed lovers into the welcoming arms of the Wilson's family. In fact, The More You Know About Rhetorical Devices, The Slimier This Ad Looks.

* = Mormon/Utah/David Bowie references. If you're a no-Mo or no-Bo, Google 'em or ignore 'em.

** = Lest you wonder, I have no ongoing obsession with this fellow nor with the woman who won him -- I started saving engagement photos in high school for all my friends and family and so they're just part of that larger collection. The collection itself might indicate mental illness, however. I won't deny it's a bit odd.

Mmmmm.....identity crisis.

This is my Simpsons self-portrait. Perhaps I flatter myself. I certainly don't have that waist-to-hip ratio. But I do think I'd look smashing in a Blinky t-shirt.




















And here's what the computers at Simsponizeme.com think I look like, based on an uploaded picture. I resent that they gave me too-short pants based on just a headshot.







Here's what the Simpsonizeme computer made of my niece's photo. My niece has almost no hair, and what she does have is very light brown. She was not standing in the photo. She never wears black.








And here's what the Simpsonizeme computer did with my beloved Daniel Day-Lewis: turned him into Dennis Miller. Oh Danny -- I'm sorry I fed you to the swine!

Say you forgive me!

Take back the rainbow. And the phone book.

Did you get a copy of the Salt Lake City Gay Pages on your doorstep last week? Well, I did.

Maybe someone thinks I have a little secret? I swore I'd never make another lesbian joke upon walking into a work party with a female friend, but maybe one time is twelve too many?

Just in case the Gay Pages Fairy didn't choose to bless you with a copy, I'll share some highlights. I don't know how much the Gay Pages says about the actual Salt Lake gay community, but it says some interesting things about how business owners perceive them.







This would be the first gay-targeted engagement ring pun I have ever encountered. Eww. Tacky. Someone needs to shut down all DeBeers spawn. Ring pops for everyone! Eighty carats for $1.00. And tasty, too!













"Abs sculpting" is nowhere on the female-focused list of procedures, in spite of that background picture. Maybe the owner of that washboard had his man-breasts reduced by the good doctor? Don't women suffer enough of this nonsense for the entire human race? Run away, boys! It's a trap!














When the advertising competition is thin, scary dudes can afford multiple full-page ads. I particularly like Orson Welles lawyer dude doing his bulldog P.I. stare in black and white in an otherwise full-color ad. Film noir aspirations?








"Enhance" just doesn't seem like an innocent verb choice in this context.









If I were gay I'd find this offensive, but they've got two full-page color ads, so they must have a lot of confidence in their marketing strategy. And even if you get over the choice of language, how do you get over the "no pineapple" thing? If there's anything I hate more than bigots, it's pizza snobs.














Harem dentist isn't very clever. Yes, sex sells. But you must know your audience, fella.














Hijacking "pride" and the rainbow to sell real estate. And is that dude supposed to look like a Village People guy? (A Village Person?) It might be offensive if it weren't so dopey.



















There should be an asterisk on this one.

*Unless you're in a bar full of burly homophobes drunk on Bud Light.






In case you're wondering, the biggest sections in the Gay Pages are defense attorneys, jewelers, chiropractors, doggy daycare, and pet grooming (curiously, all pet groomers are listed twice: once under G for "Grooming" and once under P for "Pets, grooming"). I have no comment on this. Just thought you might find it interesting.

Unfortunately the Gay Pages is missing a product that would be a really hot seller: the solar-powered Rainbow Spinner. It is made by Kikkerland, a German company that designs the most delightful little gadgets. I'd been lusting after it online for years, so when I came across it in the MoMA giftshop a couple years ago I knew it was a sign that I needed to finally purchase it. It hangs on my front room window and creates this fabulous disco swirl of rainbows every morning when the sun hits it. Kitty runs around, rainbow-blissed, and I'm transported back to my childhood for a few minutes each day.

My sister, who has been a rainbow nut ever since our Pollyanna days, told one of her gay friends that she was miffed at his people for hijacking the rainbow. He said, "You take back the rainbow, Liz! Take it back!"

I'm not sure I need to take it back -- I think we can share it. But if it turns out I'm getting the Gay Pages because the neighbors see rainbows glinting out of my living room window every morning and think it's some kind of Gay Bat-signal ("I'm in the closet, and I can't get out!"), then this is all getting very silly.

Does anybody want this phone book? If my mother sees it lying around my apartment she'll have a heart attack.

Musical meiosis.

Emily says she sounds like the lovechild of Leslie Feist and Jeff Buckley. I think she sounds like a female clone of Jeff Buckley. Whether you prefer your musicians sexually or asexually produced, and whether or not you're a Jeff Buckley fan, I think you'll like her.

She's Leah Siegel. Checker out. And here.

It's not that easy, bein' frugal.

Sniffle, sob.

I just put one of my all-time favorite CDs up for sale on eBay: "Sing: The Songs of Joe Raposo." If you are a big Sesame Street fan or know someone who is, please go check it out. Here's a review from the AllMusic Guide. And here's one from Entertainment Weekly.

I would not part with it, but I'm trying a new system to keep my media greed from eating me alive -- it's called, "Yes, you can buy that, but only if you sell something else first." So in order to fund my latest lust (the entire Muppet Show Season Two on DVD! Madeline Kahn! John Cleese! Steve Martin! Peter Sellers! Cloris Leachman! Woo hoo!), I must auction off one of my pricier preciouses.

The CD contains songs written for Sesame Street by Joe Raposo, who was the show's composer from its beginning in the 1960s until his death in 1989. Other than one track (an unfortunate Elmo cover of a Raposo song), the collection is delightful, and according to the AllMusic Guide, nine of the twenty tracks are not available on any other CD (including out-of-print CDs). Guest performers are Ray Charles, Gladys Knight and the Pips, Patti LaBelle, and the Carpenters. My favorite tracks are "Would You Like to Buy an O?," "A Little Bit at the Beginning," "I'm an Aardvark," and "Bein' Green" sung by Ray Charles, but how can I leave out "Peanut Butter" and "C is for Cookie" and.....! Ten years ago I bought the CD for $7 but now it's been out of print for years and usually sells for $50-$75.

Okay, yeah, that's a lot of money. But if I can get it to sell for more than $30 (the cost of the Muppet Show DVD that I want to buy), I'll donate the rest to the charity of your choice or to a perpetual microloan on Kiva.org.

So if you love your old school Sesame Street, check it out.

If you don't check it out, I'll still love you, but Mr. Snuffleupagus may not. He doesn't cope well with rejection.

Gorilla in the room.

Okay, I just have to register this comment. If you were watching, last week Ryan Hamilton got eliminated from the running on Last Comic Standing.

I know judging humor's a very subjective thing, but I'm really sick of comedians whose whole schtick depends on their appearance, and a lot of those who did make it to the next round were that kind of comedian. Large guy who does nothing but fat jokes. Unattractive female who does nothing but spinster-with-cat jokes. Attractive female who does nothing but I'm-so-hot jokes. Guy with southern accent who does nothing but hick jokes. And of course the gorilla mask guy doing gorilla jokes (though he was eliminated awhile back).

First of all, it's lazy. Second of all, it gets old really fast -- you wonder how you'd endure a 15-minute set in a comedy club with one of these people. And third of all, it's more depressing than funny in a lot of cases. That's why I loathed Chris Farley's humor. It was ALL centered around his fatness and stupidness and crippling insecurity and I felt that laughing at such stuff was just a hair's breadth away from your basic cruel-mob-mocking-the-village-dimwit-in-the-town-square. And then of course his sad demise just cemented this for me.

So anyway, I'd like to propose that in future seasons of that show, they award extra points for comedians who don't rely on a single obvious theme for all their laughs. And gorilla masks -- ban 'em.

Walked and walked and walked and walked.

In 1847, my great-great grandfather Hezekiah Thatcher and his first wife buried their infant son at Winter Quarters, Nebraska and headed west in the first wave of Mormon pioneers to the Great Basin. Hezekiah went on to become one of the most prominent early settlers; only Brigham Young was wealthier. In the late 1850s he made the largest tithing payment to that point in Church history and he and his sons formed the financial backbone of Cache County, establishing mills, stores, a bank, and an opera house. Brigham Young said of Hezekiah's remarkable sacrifices of personal wealth for the good of the Church, "I do not believe that any other man in the Church would have done it." His son, Moses, was called as an apostle and was known for his powerful speaking. Moses boldly reminded Brigham Young that it was not in keeping with the Word of Wisdom for ZCMI, the church's mercantile chain, to sell booze. Brigham Young agreed with Moses's forward-thinking and unpopular observation, and the practice ended as a result.

A typical Pioneer Day ancestral tribute, and every word is true.

I love Pioneer Day. I love Church history, and particularly the Utah chapter of Church history. I love the stories, I love the heritage, I even love the creepy Victorian decorations made of human hair and the jars full of flies in the Daughters of the Utah Pioneers Museum. But the question in studying your own religious history is: can you handle the truth?

In studying church history, many of my sacred cows have been tipped. The story of the heroic rescue of the 1856 handcart companies, for instance:

"The teenaged boys carried most of the exhausted company over the Sweetwater River." False. They carried many, but most of them walked across or rode across in wagons.

"The icy river was up to their thighs and they labored most of the day." False. The river was about ankle-deep and the crossing more likely took a few hours since they reached the river in the afternoon and were all over before the early winter dark set in.

"All the boys later died of complications due to their ordeal." False. They all went on to live healthy, productive, and long lives by frontier standards and there was no evidence that they died of causes related to the river incident.

"Brigham Young declared that that one act of kindness would assure those boys salvation." False. There is no proof that he ever said such a thing.

"None of the members of the Martin or Willie Handcart companies ever left the church." False. Many were furious, and some did leave the church, concluding that the Church leaders were uninspired.

In telling faith-promoting stories, we seek to understand our heritage. We want to know why embarrassing or disastrous events happened if God was at the helm. We seek for the best moments and magnify them. Sometimes we magnify them until they become false.

Back to my own family story -- here are the parts I left out. Hezekiah Thatcher arrived in the Salt Lake Valley in 1847 and thought it looked like a miserable wasteland. Two years later, directly defying Brigham Young's orders to stay and help build Zion, he took off for the Gold Rush and quickly made a huge fortune in the hotel and restaurant businesses. Ten years later he returned to the fold in Utah and was obedient to the end of his life, but the family tradition of independence that he had begun was not always a blessing in the communally-minded Utah Territory. His son Moses, who was later made an apostle, was crippled by his addiction to opium as a painkiller. He defied the prophet Wilford Woodruff by publicly and vociferously refusing to sign the Political Manifesto. Though he was not excommunicated for his disobedience, he was subsequently un-apostled and died in semi-disgrace.

I didn't hear this half of the story until I was in college, and I was dismayed. These were not my "blessed, honored pioneers"! These were a bunch of stubborn cranks. They were so....ordinary.

But as I've allowed myself to absorb the entire truth, something new has happened. I realized that these cranky mere mortals somehow managed to make remarkable sacrifices in the midst of all their pettiness. One day they were like me, whining about the unreasonable demands of Sainthood, and the next day they were bravely playing their part in the miracles. And the day after that -- who knows?

The details of my family myth are no longer those of my childhood. No longer can I allow myself to believe that great epic suffering automatically forges men into heroes for the ages, as we often imply in our Pioneer Day tributes. But at the same time, I can no longer allow myself to believe that because I do not live in a time of great epic suffering, I am destined to be spiritually mediocre next to my ancestors. No longer are they more than human. No longer can I hold them at arm's length as freaky-good and say, "Whew -- I'm glad it was them and not me, because I just don't have what it takes to do something like that." Knowing their very ordinary shortcomings makes their accomplishments and sacrifices all the more powerful because the people doing them are like me. And the most powerful messages of their lives remain, even in the full light of truth.

"Great suffering has the power to amplify our goodness if we choose to let it." True.

"Ordinary people can do extraordinary things in the midst of their ordinary lives." True.

"God is at work, even in moments of disaster, confusion, and doubt." True.

"Sacrifice is not measured by agony, but by willingness." True.

"Your great acts of faith become the guideposts for your descendants, in spite of your warts." True.

So I honor these ordinary people who, with greater or lesser motivations, walked 1,300 miles to this desert and became my ancestors. I don't know if they traveled cheerfully or grumpily (no family history ever says, "Great-Grandpa George whined his way to Zion"), but I do know that they ultimately chose their faith over creature comforts. They may have first chosen the church because it offered them a ticket to America where they could escape poverty and own land. Many European converts joined the church for this reason, just as many people join the church today because of its remarkable welfare system. But somewhere along the way they all found their faith and taught it to their children, and that faith has dripped down to me, purer and more satisfying because it was filtered through the plain gray rocks of their ordinariness. Plow, plant, harvest, repeat. Swallow your pride. Keep your cow out of Brother Hyde's garden even though his pigs ate your lettuce patch last week. Try to not smoke your pipe so often so you don't smell bad in the temple. Teach your children to be better than you are.

These are some other ordinary heroes of my family who walked across the plains between 1847 and 1869.

Robert Reeder who was part of the Willie handcart company and lost his father, David, and sister, Caroline, on the journey. George Seamons, who at age 15 lost both parents and a brother in his trek to Utah. Anna Cajsa and Charles Anderson Frank from Sweden, who were married on the plains. Jonathan, Abigail, and Nancy Jane Taylor Smith, Elizabeth Patrick Taylor, George and Alice Hancock Done from England; Johann, Anna, and Elisabeth Naef from Switzerland.

I don't know their whole stories or what they were really like. I don't know if they were better or stronger than your pioneers. But they are mine, and their best moments have become my mythology. One day I will get all of their stories straight, from their very mouths. Until then, most of the details will remain hazy, but the picture is clear -- it is a picture of faith, hard won.

A fool and her money are soon parted.

I collect pretensions. Random trivia from PBS specials (peanuts aren't really nuts). Archaic words (firkytoodling). And Shakespeare plays. In fact, as of last week, I am just three plays away from having seen every one of Shakespeare's surviving plays (or four, if you include Two Noble Kinsmen).

To help me complete my collection, I need y'all to be on the lookout for Utah productions of the following:

1) Cymbeline (Sharon's seen it and says it sucks beyond belief)
2) Antony and Cleopatra (I could have seen it last year and sanely refused to pay big bucks to see what everyone said was a stupid play, but I now regret stifling my inner snob)
3) Titus Andronicus (I may not have the stomach for this bloodbath -- maybe I'll have to content myself with an "all but one" boast?)

I was sitting by my brother during the intermission of Lear, proudly telling him and his wife that I had seen all Shakespeare plays but four.

"Which ones do you have left?" he asked.

"Well, Pericles, for one," I replied.

"You've seen Pericles," he said.

"No, I haven't. Don't you think I'd remember if I'd seen Pericles?"

"You've seen it."

He was right. I had seen it. I have zero recollection of it. Seeing forgettable plays is a ridiculous and irresponsible way to spend my money, but the allure of the complete collection is becoming irresistible as I approach the finish line. As I shell out $40 to see Timon of Athens, I think how great it will be to be at a party playing that what-have-you-done-that-no-one-else-here-has-done game and say, "I've seen every Shakespeare play." All heads will turn. Men will suddenly find me fascinating. I will win the wiseguy tiara and wave modestly to my adoring public. Morning news shows will interview me, and my advice will be:

"Never ever let anyone drag you to Henry VIII."

However, my latest rare Shakespeare acquisition was actually very good: Coriolanus. It's playing this season in Cedar City and if you have the opportunity to take it in, you should. It's been used as propaganda by both Nazis and Communists and was banned by Allied forces for several years in post-WWII Europe. In fact, most citizens of modern democracies hate the play with its proud patrician protagonist (say that five times fast). I'll spare you the full review, but if you just can't get enough of my hot air, head over to the Shakespearean Festival blog, where I left a loooong comment on the play.

As a pompous old codger once said, "Brevity is the soul of wit."

And so I end.

The rest is silence.

[Exit.]

Ladies and gentleman, we have a new alpha male in the ward dating pool.

He did it! Our official ward comedian, Ryan Hamilton, made it into the finals of Last Comic Standing! Only thirty-something were chosen from the thousands who auditioned in England, Canada, Australia, and the US.

He was smart to go with his speed dating bit. "Emotional Whack-a-Mole" is brilliant. Brilliant!

At Farrah's request, here he is performing. As funny as Sinbad, circa 1992? You, America, shall be the judge.


Ryan Hamilton on Comedy Central

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Bye bye, Bob.

Of late the nation has been mourning the retirement of Bob Barker, but I have been cheering. Why, you ask? Well, pull up a La-Z-Boy and I'll tell you....

It was summer 1998, and we, the BYU Writing Center tutors, were road trippin' to sunny Cali, golden tickets in hand. No, not the Chocolate Factory: The Price Is Right. The glitter! The kitsch! Only our ringleader was a fan of the show, but we were all American enough to know that we were on a pilgrimage to one of the greatest and oldest shrines to Consumerism. Truly a holy errand. Would we win a dinette set? A boat? Eternal youth? A "Hi, Mom" on national television? The possibilities were endless.

We lined up outside the studio on that hap-happy day in our specially-made t-shirts (see picture). Even the most jaded were all bounce and giggle as we got our name badges and were interviewed by the Enthusiasm Judges outside the door.

Judge: "Why do you want to be on the show?"

Normally Sullen Male Coworker: "Because, you know, it's just, like, an American institution! And I want to meet Bob Barker! Woo hoo!" [demonstrates his Price Is Right bounce-and-clap]

Of course, Normally Sullen Male Coworker was not ultimately chosen as a contestant because, despite his articulate enthusiasm, he lacked big bouncy bosoms.

We filed into the studio and.....

....it was tiny. And dim. "This can't be right!" we muttered to each other, but sat down obediently anyway. After twenty minutes Rod Roddy appeared in his satin leprechaun jacket and tried to cheer us up.

"Are you excited to be here, folks?"

"Yay! We love you, Rod!"

"What was that?"

"We LOVE you, Rod!"

"Well, save some of that love for our host, Baaaawb Barker!"

The stage lit up, the crowd went wild, and I was transported to the dimestore Babylon of my childhood. Out stepped the good old boy of daytime TV, all white teeth and hair. I felt dizzy. Was this reality? The game proceeded like a hazy dream. Yadda yadda Barker's Beauties! Yadda yadda [insert racy comment here]! Yadda yadda come on down!

However, the trippy fun was interrupted as Bob threw a tantrum on Contestant Number Three, who had failed, like Contestants One and Two, to win anything.

"All right, folks, this is pathetic. In the entire history of The Price Is Right there have only been two shows in which no one has won a SINGLE THING. Did you hear me? Only TWO! If you don't start winning soon, we're going to have to scrap this show and retape, because America won't tune in to watch a bunch of LOSERS!"

He continued in this vein until we had all resolved to 1) locate the Hand of Opportunity and 2) bite down on it like rabid dogs. Again the cameras rolled.

"And our next contestant....Caitlin Andreason -- come on down!"

Our friend Caitlin gleefully trotted down the aisle and onto the stage to represent ol' BYU before the nation. We knew she would do us proud, as she was as intelligent and witty as she was buxom. The dirty old man looked her over and noticed her t-shirt.

"Ohhhh, dear," he said. "This shirt is a problem." He turned to the stage crew. "Hey, we're going to need our legal guy out here -- they've used our logo on their shirts. You didn't get permission, did you?"

Caitlin was looking a bit panicky.

"You know that's trademark infringement, don't you?"

"Um, I guess..."

Bob was clearly enjoying her distress. He refocused on her bosom and read the small print.

"Hmmm. Well, audience, it says here that the BYU Writing Center loves Bob Barker. I guess if they really love me, maybe we can let them off the hook....this time."

He smiled slyly and we exhaled in relief. I sent her a psychic postcard: "Grab the toupee and run!" but apparently she didn't receive it.

Bob must have felt our righteous indignation, because he behaved from that point on and Caitlin went on to win the first prize of the show -- a $300 china set with an ugly sailboat pattern. Not too exciting, you might say, but she saved the whole audience from the wrath of Bob and the lowest circle of Loser-dom.

And thus we see how a small band of Utah yokels can win out, in spite of a cranky old devil pickled in his own hair gel. How they can restore faith in The American Dream, The Free Lunch, The Fifteen Minutes. Come to think of it, with our Norman Rockwellian wholesomeness and our legendary pluck, perhaps we Mormons should hijack this all-American institution now that ol' Bobby has passed on to his shuffleboard days.

Soooo....

Vote Mitt Romney for New Host! He may waffle on core moral principles, and he may strap his dog to the top of the car, but he's never strapped his AUNT EDNA to the top of the car -- not even after she was completely dead. And no one's better at turning losers into piles of money.

Plus, that hair's got real potential.

Every lactose disaster has its silver lining.

This week in Yick

Someone asked if I was the mother of the groom.

Flat feet informed me that shoes without arch support will no longer be tolerated. If I fail to comply, they will walk out on me.

I turned thirty-one. Sir Paul turned sixty-five on the same day, thus outliving his song both age-wise and happy-marriage-wise. We knocked back a few cold ones at the corner pub and sang of yesterday.

Due to said birthday, I am about to be booted from my beloved singles' ward and left to the mercy of predatory 50-year-old divorced men and migratory bands of terminal commitmentphobes.




This week in Yippee

Adorable little brother got married but.......see above.

Nasturtium seeds finally sprouted.

A bunch of new people wandered onto my blog on my birthday and told me I was funny.

Family gave me the most fantastic rose bouquet in the history of rose bouquets. I'm not a fan of hybrid tea roses, but these made me a believer: orange, red, and pink -- Cinco de Mayo in a vase.

Night out in the canyon with the hi-larious girls. Acquired useful new phrase, "gettin' your Gucci."

Loot: Funky Regina Spektor import. Gorgeous new astronomy book.

Sprang for the pricey sour cream and got free relationship advice. I win!