Saturday, August 06, 2005

patent pending

"So are you up for doing something again this year?"
"Sure."
"Do you want to know what it is?"
"No, I'll wait for the e-mail and learn at the same time as everyone else."

Two years ago, I ended up trying to compose haiku while rushing off to a New Years' Party. Last year, I was given the task of inventing a recipe despite not being able even to follow a recipe composed by somebody else. This year: I'm supposed to invent something. This is the unusual role I have take on in providing the least-prized part of the winner's prize package in my friend Rob Clark's Famous NFL Football Pool.

This year's pool is the most elaborate ever, and will be updated for the world via the new RCFNFLFP weblog. Note that the invitation is for the more the merrier, so if you follow the NFL and are not unseemly, consider it. (I personally hardly follow the NFL at all, but did stage an astonishing late-season comeback when I switched to my "Which team has the more feisty-looking logo?" algorithm and come within a game of winning two years ago.)

Nostalgic public sociology moment: My side career of creating things from Rob Clark began with his wedding, where I was asked to deliver a homily appropriate for a secular ceremony for two sociologists.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Re the nostalgic moment (since I'm afraid I don't have much to say about NFL pools and all I know about this stuff is the little I learned from a student's paper) I just wanted to say that the footnotes were a nice and I guess necessary touch. Shocking though to learn that there are no magic shops in Madison. I've always heard that Madison is a really cool place, but how is that consistent with not having a magic shop?!

Anonymous said...

personally, I would be interested in knowing if Georg Simmel was married and what direction he took. in regard to having either a love that was complete or one that was lasting--that may be something one does not have control over.

jeremy said...

Eszter: As far as I can tell, there are no magic shops in Madison. We do have a do-gooder natural foods grocery store named Magic Mill, however.

Cris: Simmel married a woman who I believe was a philosopher of reasonable repute in her own right. To my knowledge, their marriage lasted for the remainder of their lives, although I have no idea what kind of marriage it was.

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the additional info. This is getting worse though. Not only is there no magic shop, but there is a wannabe? Pretty sad.

Anonymous said...

You know, I think of this thing every time I pass a closed DQ in the winter. I would ask how you composed something so grand at the last-minute, but I have no doubt that it must have been a sincere expression.