counting clicks

Sure, they say it is all about clicks, and "they" are talking about calculating website visitations, drilldowns, pageloads, pauses, meanderings, and that sort of digital thing. SEO. All that. Not that I for one have ever been fully persuaded by such sales pitches and alleged monetary equations. Back in 2008, when I first started my business, I had people pitch me this or that "SEO optimization" scheme with robust assurances that such clicks would yield the sound of coins jingling in my pocket, or the silent chafing of high-denomination bills in my pants. I never fell for such outsized pitches, not for the type of work I was doing and still am performing. But I want to make a point about "clicks," and the point is this: is there any more resolutely and resoundingly certain a click than the sound of clicking shut the plastic top of your shampoo container in the shower? (I don't use conditioner, so we're talking shampoo, unless the shampoo has a conditioner built in.) Click. I love that sound, its unmistakable identity, its signature backstory of rushing water, frothing hair, cascading suds. Click. The signal of an act completed, the transition to rinsing and then the steaming nudity of inescapable self. Click. Where there is no counting, save the solo aria of One. (Or is it Zero?) Click. 

water

Several years ago, I said to a friend in Dallas, during a severe and prolonged drought down there,


"Where you gonna get your water from?"

or

"How you gonna get your water?"

He laughed uproariously at that, thought it was just hilarious.

Haha.

Water as a resource is not a problem in the Lake Ontario region, and won't be.

Hahaha.

water(brain)washed

I went to a high school graduation today. At Bishop Ludden Junior-Senior High School. Naively, very naively, I was surprised, though shouldn't have been, to see vending machines near the entrance, in the hall. For beverages. No, no, not beer. Nothing like that. Juices and stuff. And water! Bottled water. Commercially bottled water. Can you tell me why? Nearby, in the hallways, were several water fountains. In fact, the gym was hot so I made use of those water fountains two or three times during the ceremony. The water was fine. Perfect.

I noticed how people were happy to shell out money to get bottled water from the machines. That's how brainwashed we've become. The water I drank from the clean water fountains was likely cleaner than the bottled water. Most people do not realize, or accept, that municipal water standards are typically stricter than the standards for bottled water. The water from the fountains was pure and clean and cold and tasty. And free. (Not counting taxes or fees, but I don't live in that town; maybe my county taxes figured into the equation.) We'll say virtually free. The point is, municipal water is way cheaper than commercially bottled water.

Of course, people who felt that they'd be repeatedly thirsty could've brought a container (as can school kids, presumably). Or we can -- get this -- walk (!) to a water fountain.

Syracuse-area water is among the best. Why does anyone have to buy water bottled by Pepsi or Coca-Cola?

Why?

Marketing, brainwashing.

Now, kids at Bishop Ludden, those of you who have not yet graduated, here's an Earth Day project for next year: unplug and empty those vending machines. Demonstrate. Boycott. Stop using bottled water.

Stroll to the water fountain.

Now that's environmental radicalism.

'This Is Water'

Bookstores grant me a galvanic pleasure bordering on the manic, or the erotic, or both. I want to draw in the delight of delicious words: by digestion, in morsels or by the mouthful; by injection; by osmosis, by obsessive-compulsive-disorder savant memory; by paper or electronic note taking. I am the kid in the candy shop with eyes as big as donuts.

Tonight I borrowed from the shelves a collection of W.S. Merwin poetry, a collection of poetry by Amber Tamblyn (Bang Ditto), The Complete Works of Michel de Montaigne (Everyman Library edition), and This Is Water: Some Thoughts Delivered on a Significant Occasion, about Living a Compassionate Life, by the late David Foster Wallace.

I sat down in the cafe and read some of Amber Tamblyn's poems. Very witty. Telling. Scathing. Confessional. I truly enjoyed one poem about hating haiku (not necessarily what you think) (actually, I read that while standing by the shelf, just as I earlier pored over Dinesh D'Souza's What's So Great About Christianity?, an apologia, as we used to say in Latin) as well as Amber Tamlyn's "Hate, A Love Poem," if I remember its title correctly.

But finances and time being what they are, I read David Foster Wallace's "manifesto" in one sitting. Was I borrowing? Or stealing? Rest assured, I felt little guilt. After all, I first encountered reading in a bookstore at City Lights Books, in San Francisco, in 1974. (You lie, Pawlie, or else why would you be writing about such issues?)

This Is Water is adapted from a commencement address David Foster Wallace gave in 2005 to the graduating class at Kenyon College. He never gave another such address, the book-jacket flap says. Someone decided to publish it, handsomely, after his death in 2008.

I had browsed through the book once before; this time I felt an urgent need to read through it. Not sure why.

And I freely confess I was rather floored by its title, This Is Water. [Some versions of this still float around the 'Net, but I felt better about linking you to a site for purchase of the "authentic" version of this pamphlet.]

Was it serendipity or unconscious connection to pick up this book, following on the heels of my last post, on water?

I once met David Foster Wallace very briefly, which is a semi-humorous story in itself for another time.

He died last year, a suicide. I found out about his tragic death after returning from a friend's wedding, in Ithaca, on a day that also happened to be my son's birthday (which is how I remember the exact day).

Many of those who eulogized David Foster Wallace (who happened to have Ithaca connections), this year and last, in The New Yorker, and on a PRI radio feature, spoke achingly of his gentleness and wit and understanding of American culture.

All of those things come through in this little gem of an essay, made all the more haunting and sad by its references to suicide.

I will not dare (or be so rude) to summarize This Is Water. I already feel like a cheapskate in not having bought it. I do not want to cheapen its message, or its delivery. (Not to say I can't buy This Is Water at some point, for myself or someone else or shave my head and give copies to pedestrians on South Salina Street.)

I can, however, report that I am glad I read it tonight, sitting in that cafe. Yes, it made me rueful (hey, if one can be rueful, can one also be rueless?). But it also made me a bit wiser.

Wrong word.

Attentive?

Braver?

Alive?

Aliver?

Water You Know, the Seaquel

Back in my early days of blogging, I caused a stir by suggesting it was hypothetically possible, maybekindasorta, that people pee in the shower, maybe even Laughoristic bloggers tinkle en passant de shower. O, the comments on that post! A new shower thought has spouted forth: Do you ever drink the water that comes from the spout? Do you ever open your mouth and just take satisfying gulps of water, albeit in spray form, from the shower head? Until recently, I never did, ever, in all my years. Why not, I don't know. Then I tried it. No harm done. But I typically purse my lips while showering, habitually preventing the water from raining into my mouth. As for why, I leave that up to the armchair psychoaquatherapists. What about you? Ever drink shower water? Why? Why not?