File Under: Bright Ideas
Little red cards. Everyone would receive five per year, and, since everyone had five, everyone would know and respect the meaning of the cards. They would be reserved for distribution at key moments. For example, last Thursday, I would have gladly used my first card of 2005.
Medeski and Martin left the stage leaving only Wood out there with his standup bass. The lights went from green to purple. Most of the audience stood on tiptoe, to pick out each soft note. Except the two guys next to me...they were spending the bass solo discussing base...ball. In front of them, some girl wearing too much green eye shadow was attempting to kiss some dude who was trying to ignore her....
Why - why couldn't we all just listen to the music? Take three hours off from perpetuating the small dramatic events which give our lives momentum and just listen to the music??
I was trying to hear the notes, or at least absorb the general melody of the solo, but it would meld in with the conversation next to me in a kind of binocular rivalry of the ears - with one fading into the other and back again...D D G A Arod dude, ....C D D G....
If only I had my cards. I can picture them now - universally distributed and respected by all; five per year. Little red cards reading "Shut up."
When I told Greg about this idea, he told me that some guy with whom he went to school was in the habit of carrying around one yellow and one red card in his two back pockets, and would regularly card people who were doing anything that did not agree with him, such as - Greg said - wearing purple sweatpants in the dining hall. He then illustrated this on the sidewalk by lunging forward, eyes closed, one hand in the air, muttering "that's a yellow card," then shaking his head with his eyes closed.
See that works, but only for one eccentric guy (who, turns out, besides the funny carding thing was actually "kind of a bastard") - the advantage of the shutup cards is that they work for everyone. There would be no one who would not understand - the guy next to you at the Mexican place explaining his thesis topic to his date would have to smile and nod as you handed him his card; the girl at the bar, carded in mid-sentence while discussing her plans for a haircut in the near future, would get mad temporarily but only until she remembered how she herself had carded her mother only hours before for beginning the "I want grandchildren before I die" routine. People who speak loudly in public about nothing would suddenly realize how annoying they are, as one-fifth of someone's yearly allotment was used on them almost daily.
Yes, if we only had "shutup" cards, life would be beautiful. And quieter.
Medeski and Martin left the stage leaving only Wood out there with his standup bass. The lights went from green to purple. Most of the audience stood on tiptoe, to pick out each soft note. Except the two guys next to me...they were spending the bass solo discussing base...ball. In front of them, some girl wearing too much green eye shadow was attempting to kiss some dude who was trying to ignore her....
Why - why couldn't we all just listen to the music? Take three hours off from perpetuating the small dramatic events which give our lives momentum and just listen to the music??
I was trying to hear the notes, or at least absorb the general melody of the solo, but it would meld in with the conversation next to me in a kind of binocular rivalry of the ears - with one fading into the other and back again...D D G A Arod dude, ....C D D G....
If only I had my cards. I can picture them now - universally distributed and respected by all; five per year. Little red cards reading "Shut up."
When I told Greg about this idea, he told me that some guy with whom he went to school was in the habit of carrying around one yellow and one red card in his two back pockets, and would regularly card people who were doing anything that did not agree with him, such as - Greg said - wearing purple sweatpants in the dining hall. He then illustrated this on the sidewalk by lunging forward, eyes closed, one hand in the air, muttering "that's a yellow card," then shaking his head with his eyes closed.
See that works, but only for one eccentric guy (who, turns out, besides the funny carding thing was actually "kind of a bastard") - the advantage of the shutup cards is that they work for everyone. There would be no one who would not understand - the guy next to you at the Mexican place explaining his thesis topic to his date would have to smile and nod as you handed him his card; the girl at the bar, carded in mid-sentence while discussing her plans for a haircut in the near future, would get mad temporarily but only until she remembered how she herself had carded her mother only hours before for beginning the "I want grandchildren before I die" routine. People who speak loudly in public about nothing would suddenly realize how annoying they are, as one-fifth of someone's yearly allotment was used on them almost daily.
Yes, if we only had "shutup" cards, life would be beautiful. And quieter.
posted by KD at 2/28/2005 12:05:00 PM
2 Comments:
That is a pretty bright idea...I'm sure there'd be more fisticuffs in the world if this came to fruition, but still, I'd love to have those five cards at my disposal.
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