The way we see things

There's a fruit exchange at Glyph this week.

Wait, is this like Secret Santa where each person submits and retrieves a random fruit from the pool?...Or is this less formal, like saying, "Yo, I might like your fruit, you might like my fruit, let's trade fruit" ?

Yes, says the Evil Dictator, one of our project managers on the game team. And he believes a formal fruit exchange might be in order (We do, after all, have an interest in keeping one another alive).

Then, a negotiation process happens. These participants are one item short, and E has to owe somebody. He feels more comfortable owing Pinyin Minion because they are deskmates, or podmates–

"–Podlings," says Pinyin Minion.

E hands Pinyin Minion a giant Green Bluff peach and tells her to eat two-thirds. PM cuts it up and offers a slice to Mr. Crowd Control, who ends up with a pluot (plum-apricot hybrid, shown in photo) in this multiplayer game of musical non-pears.

So it's Mr. Crowd Control, in the kitchen, with the pluot. He peels off the dinosaur sticker and eats the pluot, or what we've been purposely mispronouncing as "plout".

Plout rhymes with umlaut (which is the Germanic version of the two-dot diacritical mark above ü, such as in "Für Elise"). Does it taste like a giant grape? E suggests that "it has grape-like tendencies."

One of our newer coworkers, Jacques, came in to work in a Tintin shirt the other week. I was really excited to recognize the specific book from which the design came – The Blue Lotus, fifth installment of this Belgian comic series. Jacques was equally excited to have someone recognize his shirt.

The series' protagonist is a young Belgian reporter, Tintin, who solves mysteries and busts rings of organized crime, getting involved in historical events adjusted for fiction and diving into fictional countries that mirror the real. He's like MacGyver, except younger and with different hair.

Tintin is seldom shown working his normal news job. His life is an exciting flurry of narrow escapes and global conspiracies, with the companionship of his loyal white terrier Snowy (named Milou in the original French) and a slew of human friends such as Captain Haddock, Professor Calculus, and the clumsy detective twins Thomson and Thompson.

The Blue Lotus, published in 1936 as one of the comic artist Hergé's earlier works, was the first of many Tintin books recognized for historical accuracy (see also its WikiPedia entry)

The story takes place in 1931. Tintin originally goes to Shanghai to help a friend, but he ends up investigating an opium smuggling ring and the kidnapping of a professor who can cure a particular drug-induced insanity. Below is the full 2-part episode (work safe – the series aired on Nickelodeon in the 1990s).

Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson later collaborated on a 3D animated Tintin film in 2011(IMDb), whose storyline was a mash-up of several books. 

Glyph has a brand new microwave and shiny toaster. This is yet another way we know our company is growing – we've upgraded to a larger and more effective microwave, with a sensor mode that decides your cook time. Someday they'll also invent a self-vacuuming carpet or a clothes-folding dryer, inventions long overdue. 

Glyph provides comprehensive translation and design services of user manuals, so we've seen a great variety of them come through. This one's got a great guide page about food density, size, shape and quantity, all characteristics that affect the way food should be arranged in its vessel before Go Time. These are not specific instructions but are models for decision-making...I guess most of the operating procedure still hinges on the user.

The best part about this manual might be the Mom cartoons, and food cartoons. These aren't full-on comic strips – just little anime illustrations at the top of each page to match the section's covered functions.

Also pictured here is the, uh, universal symbol for "Omelet" which, according to the recipe, suggests milk + eggs + butter = omelet.

My friend Hollywood and I had breakfast at sunrise on Sunday, watching waves come in to the Oregon shore. It was a safe enough distance to talk about the ocean without it eavesdropping on us.

We were in the presence of a majestic spirit, dangerous, mostly inaccessible to human exploration, home of Kraken and Poseidon, and the ancient source of Earth's atmosphere. Myth, storytelling, fear, war.

"When God comes back, I think he'll be a whale," Hollywood said. He tells me he wants to live the rest of his life near the ocean then move to the desert when he's old.

That was the climax of this road trip out to the coast. We counted all of our water memories in the car before we arrived. We were born in water, are made of water, and we grow with water – it would make sense that we remember the pursuits we've made in conjunction with that risk and beauty. Childhood swimming. Wading in rivers. Fishing in coves, playing on beaches, and running in rainstorms. Maybe we mark time with water because it's tactile, or maybe it's because we're born with the ancient recognition that this water vibrates like ourselves.

Hollywood and I reached sand by sundown and made a fire, tucking ears of foil-wrapped corn into the heat. We were proud to be humans making fire. We watched meteors stripe across the sky under our casual watch. He drew me Scorpio.

The ocean mist settled on us as condensation. We were oblivious like the stranded starfish we found waiting for high tide. I'd lick my lips on the metro the next afternoon to realize I had been baptized in salt, from the pursuit of the three sources of salt water that Isak Dinesen knew to be magical cures: sweat, tears, and the sea. We came back covered in sand and salt, but we came back with healing.

I relax on Landline's porch later, after Hollywood drives me back to town. I shake the sand out of my shoes while Landline fixes his bicycle. Cool Mike sits on the porch couch writing rap on a typewriter.

We laugh, and suddenly it sounds aquatic. 

One of our recent staff polls was about misheard lyrics... What lyrics have you misheard, whether as a kid or later in life? Here's a selection of responses from Glyphers:

Preying Semanticist: "'Deck the halls with balls of jolly' is what my youngest daughter could be heard singing at Christmas "

Preying Semanticist: "'Deck the halls with balls of jolly' is what my youngest daughter could be heard singing at Christmas"

Traveling Salesman: Back before there was an easy way to find out what the actual lyrics of a song were, there were many of us who though Jimi Hendrix sang, “S’cuse me while I kiss this guy”  (whereas it was really “S’cuse me while I kiss the sky” from Purple Haze)

LexiCon Artist: "[My girlfriend and I] were watching a video of "Little Deuce Coupe" by the Beach Boys and she was flabbergasted that the lyrics were not 'My little two scoop..' (she thought it was about an ice cream cone??)"

What lyrics have you misheard? Please share!

It was about 9 p.m. and I was in Oakland looking at my other mama's house artifacts.

"Pretend you live here," she said earlier, telling me to poke around for whatever I might need. She's groggy and recovering from being sick, and I suspect that I woke her up.

It's a quick sighting. She tells me those towels are clean and I always have a home here. Then she herds the dog into the other room and mosies off to bed pretty quickly. As always, she is taller and more grey-haired than I remember, and just as elegant as the version of her that I reconstitute in my head – even when she's tired and sick.

Pretend you live here. Moms don't tell you things they don't mean. I love that she talks like she's singing. I love the way she leans against walls and doorways during conversation. She doesn't ask where I've been – she only asks where I'm going.

I'd spent most of that weekend in transit. Running off to the airport, hurtling through space, taking shuttles and BART, walking across SF and the East Bay, taking a road trip down Highway 1, admiring old lighthouses, and getting lost in the woods north of Santa Cruz. It was only when I got to her house that I sat still and did nothing. It was the only place all weekend in which I'd stopped running – from whatever I think warrants escape.

There is something magical in this house. Maybe there is such a thing as a richly ideal environment for the birth of ideas that strike like the Big Bang, ideas that come barreling down the road like sandstorms. I couldn't tell if it was the housefeel (the love that permeates the walls) or the many books. She and her partner are constantly surrounding themselves with the ideas of other brilliant men and women from past and present. The way turtles grow to the size of their containers, we grow according to the spaciousness and radiance of our own containers.

I thumb through her numerous books, books on theater and scriptwriting, and full lyrics of Stephen Sondheim works. She and her partner have put family photos on the mantle and tucked life-affirming quotes into the mirror. The couch is as pink as your grandmother's bathroom. In almost every corner of every room is a box of tissues – the super soft kind – because not only is it important to blow your nose, it's OK to buy the tissues that feel nice.

Culture is the overarching collection of artifacts we generate while we're chasing our dreams. Maybe nanoculture can be what we call our own collections, the way we are each curators of our own museums.

Pretend you live here. 

At Glyph, like any extreme subculture, we've developed a laundry list of long running inside jokes. There's not enough space here to go into detail, but in the past few months, they have been mostly related to cats, bath salt zombies, crows, giant bunny rabbits, NASA moon landings, sneezing, and short-term limping. 

It turns out that different cultures have different preferences for what constitutes a funny joke, according to LaughLab – We're approaching the 10-year anniversary of Richard Wiseman's search for the world's funniest joke (which seems a bit relative) The research study is here and the winning joke is on page 4.

Interesting finds from the study:

• People who could take an accurate visual estimate of word counts were also likely to prefer complex jokes (the one that ends, "I'm not trying to outrun the lion; I'm trying to outrun you!") rather than simple ones (A fish's least favorite day is "Fry Day"). They're guessing it has to do with flexible thinking.
• Different cultures had differing preference for jokes that were absurd, used wordplay, featured characters portrayed as inferior or stupid, or made fun of stressful or sad topics.
• Duck jokes got better scores than other animal jokes.

It's been 10 years now and things may have changed. Many more cultures are readily accessible for surveying, in places not included in Wiseman's 2002 survey that covered mostly Western cultures (survey subjects were from Germany, France, Denmark, UK, Australia, Ireland, Belgium, USA, New Zealand, and Canada)

What types of jokes are funny in your culture? Your home country? Your region? Your industry? What is the funniest (clean) joke you have ever heard? Do you have any jokes that are so obscure that nobody gets them?

Awhile back, we asked Glyphers about their favorite cultural celebration, holiday, or family ritual. Our Linguist Whisperer (one of our project managers) moved here from Morocco a few months ago and has been sharing some wonderful memories about Ramadan, a month-long Islamic celebration that is currently underway.

We had a big lunch conversation yesterday about ritual fasting, and how for the first time in a very long time, LW is not able to fast to observe the holiday (she's expecting a baby). Still, she says, to observe Ramadan here in the States doesn't feel the same as it does back home in Morocco – where the whole community is involved, there is a profound feeling in communal prayer and devotion, and the celebration penetrates all facets of the days:

It's a month that we devote every year to worship, charitable deeds and acts of compassion...

I remember the glittering street light-ups and traditional decorations, and the street stalls that open from early afternoon 'til late into the night, selling a wide variety of traditional food, fashion, textiles and handicrafts....

Every end of a day and just before breaking the fast...kids and family sit around the table trying to expect what extra-tasty food will be served today...(it was always something fun to think of as everyone coming over will bring something tasty with them to serve!) and then after eating, we would sit around play games or just enjoy the valuable moments we spend with friends and family...It will always be the greatest celebration month I can think of!

Photo credit: Muhammed Muheisen, Associated Press. This was taken in the Old City in Jerusalem and published in 2010. 

Recently, Pinyin Minion and I (the Verbivore) were talking about our Mid-Autumn Festival after our "what's your favorite ritual" survey question. She and I have cultures with similar folklore (Taiwanese and Vietnamese), so we got to swap stories over lunch and and laugh for days about the details, because the story behind the holiday involves a woman who gets stranded on the Moon with a lazy man and a rabbit. Pinyin Minion had this to share about this holiday that takes place on the 15th day of the 8th month of the Lunar calendar (Septemberish): 

My favorite was Mid-Autumn Festival --“中秋節”! 

The mythology itself was fascinating to me: There was a beautiful woman by the name of 嫦娥. Due to a number of reasons, she ended up ingesting a forbidden potion when her husband was out shooting arrows. To her surprise, 嫦娥 started floating and eventually flew all the way out of the window and onto the Moon. Luckily, that is where she meets Jade Rabbit (玉兔) whose job is to crush medicinal herbs, and 吳剛--not only was be banished to live on the Moon, he was also given the eternal chore of chopping down a laurel tree that grew back every time he became lazy. Naturally, there’s a lot of drama and backstory to this whole ordeal. 

(I still remember when someone boldly asked the teacher to verify if Neil Armstrong and 嫦娥 had the opportunity to meet)

The tradition is for families and neighbors to have a BBQ and admire the Moon on this outdoor dining night.  This is the one night out of the whole year, where the moon is at its fullest and brightest. Traditional foods include moon cakes and “yuzu” (Japanese citron). There were a few times my sister and I thought we actually saw the Rabbit. These nights were harmonious, magical, full of storytelling, and totally memorable...

The Rabbit and the Moon landing

I kid you not, astronaut Buzz Aldrin (listed as LMP – lunar module pilot) received a quick update from Houston (mission control center) about Jade Rabbit shortly before the touchdown on the Sea of Tranquility – the side of the Moon that faces Earth. This occurs at the time code 03-23-17-28, in tape #61/3, i.e. page 270 in the transcripts released by NASA in the "Apollo 11 Technical Air-to-Ground voice transcription" (July 1969) You can download that transcript here at NASA's history portal.

Houston mentions the rabbit in a set of weird news briefs called the Black Bugle, which includes updates on Miss Universe (with measurements of the winner), the latest in baseball, and a segment about Woodstream Corporation having supposedly built a better mousetrap. There doesn't seem to be other mention of the Black Bugle elsewhere in the transcript, but throughout the Apollo 11 mission, the team received a lot of "lighter news" briefs...lots of updates on American baseball, a report from a Houston astrologer about the astronauts' personalities (03-00-34-02) and a brief about submarine exploration in the Loch (00-23-14-23).

Here's that segment about the Moon Lady and the rabbit:

CAP COMM: Among the large headlines concerning Apollo this morning, there's one asking that you watch for a lovely girl with a big rabbit. An ancient legend says a beautiful Chinese girl called Chang-o has been living there for 4000 years. It seems she was banished to the Moon because she stole the pill of immortality from her husband. You might also look for her companion, a large Chinese rabbit, who is easy to spot because he is always standing on his hind feet in the shade of a cinnamon tree. The name of the rabbit is not reported.

ALDRIN: Okay. We'll keep a close eye out for the bunny girl.

Our latest poll was an open-ended question: What is your favorite cultural celebration, holiday, or family ritual? It can be anything, from ethnic or community festivities to your uncle's annual fishing expedition....Tell us about your favorite repeating celebration.

Responses varied across the board, from family dinner to Ramadan – and this variation was not at all surprising, based on the diversity of personal backgrounds here at Glyph. Some of the responses were mini-stories, so we'll be publishing some of them in installments such as this.

Our TETman shared a family ritual:

One of the adventures that we did every year when I was a kid was a fishing trip to the head of Flat Creek. The road was so unbelievably scary – 4-wheel drive only. There was always a section of road that my Mom made us all get out of my Dad's Land Cruiser and walk. I clearly remember watching my Dad driving on such a sideways incline that we always thought he was going to tip over. Once we got to the top of the creek, there are these huge ponds that had some of the most unbelievable fishing and camping. (The photo of me on our Glyph profile is from there. Here is [a map of] where we went.)