Pass the Test

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

I encountered a phrase a few years ago that I think should be used more commonly. Where I saw it, though, I do not remember. It appeared to be a typo, but if it was written like this on purpose, it looked like an artful accident. The writer described a learning experience as a “learning curb.” A great word pair.

I wish I could claim credit for this one, but I can not. I wish I could credit this writer—but does he or she know that there were was this epic phrase in their post? As I said, it looked like an accident, a typo. In the context it looked like they thought they had typed “learning curve.”

Many of my learning experiences did not have gently sloping learning curves or even steep learning curves; indeed, many were “learning curbs,” on which I banged my forward progress to a sudden stop or flipped my (metaphorical) vehicle.
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Today in History: Sept. 30

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

The massacre of Kievan Jews at Babi Yar, near Kiev, Ukraine, concluded on this date 75 years ago. When the slaughter was over, 33,771 men, women, and children, civilians all, had been machine-gunned by the Nazi Sonderkommando soldiers in only two days. It set a record for speed combined with bloodthirstiness: other massacres resulted in more dead, but few took so little time to accomplish.

The ravine, a beautiful piece of Ukrainian countryside inside the city of Kiev, was a popular killing spot for the Nazis and collaborators. Later massacres of Soviet prisoners of war, and then of those accused of being communist, and then of the Roma population, followed; historians estimate that as many as 100,000 people were slaughtered on this one piece of otherwise quiet land during World War II.

It was not quiet 75 years ago today. The order had gone out to the Jewish population of Kiev on September 26 that each Jew was to report, with papers, to a specific street corner on September 29 at 8:00 a.m. and that any who failed to show up would be shot and killed on sight. The Jews in Kiev complied because the Holocaust was not yet a rumor (mass slaughters were starting to happen, but not in a seemingly organized fashion) and resettlement away from the war zone was what the Nazi government always promised. The Nazis always came through, just in the worst way possible.
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Zing! Went the Strings of My Wallet

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

In honor of #NationalCoffeeDay: ‘Zing! Went the Strings of my Wallet’ by The Gad About Town. #Starbucks #PSL http://wp.me/p49Ewg-32z

Mark Aldrich's avatarThe Gad About Town

“But what is it?” my friend asked.

I repeated what I had just said: “It’s a Starbucks ‘Caramel Apple Spice.'” (I think I even said “Starbucks,” even though we were at that moment sitting in a Starbucks and we certainly knew where we were, because it is impossible to mistake a Starbucks for any other anything. But sometimes when I open my mouth, an advertisement flies out.)

“Yes, but caramel apple spice what? Coffee? Tea? Soup?”

I did not have an answer. What is it indeed? “I don’t think it’s coffee.” I fell back on the charm of insane repetition, something I have not perfected over the years: “Its a Starbucks Caramel Apple Spice,” and I used my eyebrows to tell my friend that she wanted her own cup of one, too. (Picture Groucho Marx.)

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