Life in the USA

Saturday, July 19, 2003 3:16 PM
part 8

There was a book fair at UCLA. There were many stalls, each of which had a banner showing the name of the company/sponsor/individual/etc. One such stall had a banner calling itself "Land of Hypocrisy". The stall itself was empty, which would make a great joke if it were intentional. Another stall was selling book fair merchandise - see the festival, buy the cup! Oh yes. One of the larger stalls had a sign proclaiming that Gene Simmons would besigning books, but since no-one was visible from the outside, one would have to join the (already very long) queue to see if it was *that* Gene Simmons. Judging from the number of Kiss t-shirts visible on, in, and around, people in the queue, the majority of them obviously thought that it was.

UCLA has a sculpture garden. One sculpture is a steel column with the imaginative title of ..."Column". Apparently, the drain in the ground nearby is not a sculpture, but it was hard to tell. Perhaps its plaque had been removed, as was definitely the case with another sculpture. Can a sculpture have its "sculpture" status revoked? A third sculpture was named "why?". I agree.

A cookie should fit in one's hand, not cover it entirely, but since the M&Ms cookie is a lump of dough that contains an entire packet of M&Ms, I suppose that such a large surface area is required.

The standard names here for portion sizes of junkfood are small, medium, and large. They should really be large, huge, and enormous. There's even a super-size for potato chips and similar things - the bag is longer than my arm.

Amyn and I visited JP at his home. It's quite a long way from my place, so Amyn drove me there. Amyn drives a fancy convertible car, and it was a sunny day, so he put down the top. Driving quickly on the freeway, the wind in my flowing mane (it's been months since my last haircut), tranquil Indian music turned up loud and blasting from the speakers (Amyn loves his Indian music) countered nicely the hostility of the other freeway drivers. It was a good day.

Sighted in a supermarket: the same box.

The sign at the bottom of a trench said "open trench". That is, no doubt, for those people who find themselves asking the question "how did I get here?". For those whose question is "where am I?", perhaps a sign that said "you are here" would be a sufficient answer.

The sign said "chundo sunbup". Really. I thought that it might be a kind of slang, since the question "'sup do'?" is an accepted form of greeting here. Perhaps an obscure local dialect, such as "Lookie here, I can dig grease and butter on some draggin' fruit garden" or "Knock yourself a pro, slick". ("Oh stewardess, I speak jive"). In fact, it's Korean, and it refers to a traditional healing therapy.

During one night, I was carrying a small round container out of the building. There are cameras everywhere, and either someone thought that the container looked suspicious or that person could read the label. Why anyone would be suspicious of someone taking a "bomb" *away* from a building seems to me to be a strange idea, but there it is. In any case, at the moment of leaving the building, I was surrounded by security guards. Once they realised what had happened, they were probably less disappointed about the false alarm than that I didn't bring spoons for everyone. The container contained icecream.

Lifestyles of the rich: your very expensive car stops in the middle of a busy intersection. Do you

a) get out and leave it where it is?
b) attempt to move it to the side of the road?

This person did (a). Next question: you have left your very expensive car in the middle of a busy intersection. Do you

a) call a towing company to get your car towed away?
b) call someone else to bring another very expensive car to take you away?

This person did (b). Yay.

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