This is pretty sad. And a library, no less.

http://tinyurl.com/55ajl

The mistakes wouldn't even register with a true artisan, Alquilar said.

"The people that are into humanities, and are into Blake's concept of enlightenment, they are not looking at the words," she said. "In their mind the words register correctly."

Is she kidding?! I am willing to consider that she was being serious, not being an artisan true or false, but. Was she aware that this mural was done for a library? Where people come to learn things??

I think I'd better go away for a while now; I've used italics in the last 3 things I've written; don't want to get myself all het up over stuff. But ooh, I am so tempted to write her an outraged letter!! Or at least Yahoo. Or somebody. What a maroon.

"Our library director is very frustrated that she has this lovely new library and it has all these misspellings in front," said city councilwoman Lorraine Dietrich, one of three council members who voted Monday to authorize paying another $6,000, plus expenses, to fly the artist up from Miami to fix the errors.

Why pay her more to do what should have been done correctly the first time?

"The importance of this work is that it is supposed to unite people,"
"Dummies Unite!"
Alquilar said. "They are denigrating my work and the purpose of this work."
No – only the incorrect spelling that it contained. PAY ATTENTION!

There were plenty of people around during the installation who (sic) could and should have seen the missing and misplaced letters, she said.
“Knot my fault!”

"Even though I was on my hands and knees laying the installation out, I didn't see it," she said.
Perhaps she should have been working instead.

"The mistakes wouldn't even register with a true artisan, Alquilar said.
"Woidsmiths are knot 'true artyzins', so chill out will ya?"

"The people that are into humanities, and are into Blake's concept of enlightenment, they are not looking at the words," she said. "In their mind the words register correctly."
“Yeah, u no wat I mean u people, dont fus over thos peskee woids, their knot reel ott anyway.”

(sigh)...OK, I feel a bit better now, O'bow

Well, usually I say to him, "Al, take a break and have a nice cuppa tea."

ya know, it's one thing to misspell some gnarly ol' words; but these were people's names.

I agree on that. And while you may not have noticed it, I subscribe to a personal code of ethics which requires that I not use the name of an individual as a pun. That's hitting too close to home in my book. I've probably made an exception or two, but not very many, and certainly not with friends' names.

But it's almost impossible for me to ignore a good straight line.

Speaking of which, you saw I'm sure, that Rodney Dangerfield passed away this week. I and thousands of his fans are going to the West Coast to pay our first respects.

TEd

It seems to me that the artist and the library are both culpable. One for being illiterate and the other for being inattentive when accepting delivery.

I'm with jheem, and TEd, couldn't you just say, "abracadabra"?...

Nah. I don't believe in that hocus-pocus.

What this artist lacks, I think, is the ability to see things through other people's eyes, not that she cares--apparently. The misspellings pull people away from her work and to that critical area of editing--and I don't think that's what she wants her work to do. Who wants a work of art to be edited mentally by viewers rather than received by them for whatever intellectual, emotional, transformational impact the artist had hoped for in conceiving the idea in the first place? If I were of visual artistic bent of disposition (and ability), I surely would not want a group of editors sitting around noticing the spelling of a word rather than the work, forcing them into seeing trees, as it were, before the conceptual forest.

The misspellings pull people away from her work and to that critical area of editing--and I don't think that's what she wants her work to do

I agree, Wordwind.

But this artist has inadvertently done more for the cause of literacy [and good spelling] than any other artist in the land, I fathom.

This mural will end up on every blackboard in the country, thanks to this artist. Her name will go down in pedogogic history.

$6,000 is a very cheap price to have the artist come back and correct her spelling mistakes under the glare of all this censorious publicity.

Whoever is behind this muralgate deserves the "Librarian of the Year Award".

"And a library, no less."

Yes, "no less" and "none better" ... except the wall of a public school, perhaps.

The misspellings pull people away from her work --
and I don't think that's what she wants her work to do

Certainly not, Wordwind.

But before we judge Maria Aquilar, perhaps we should first consider her values [as posted on her website for all patrons of her art to consult before they engage her]:

Installations

Maria believes that the most important elements that should exist in a Public Art Work are the following:

The work must have universal appeal for the users of the site on all levels, intellectual, emotional and spiritual.

The users of the site should be considered at the planning stage.

The visitors to the site must be able to interact with the art at one or more of the aforementioned levels.

http://www.maria-alquilar.com/2level/2installation.html

And, perhaps, we should also consider her background and the inspiration for her work [also published on her website]:

Looking inward to an imaginative world of fantasy inspired by her Latin-American and Russian background, Maria Alquilar creates a personal mythology with universal appeal. ... Maria's richly detailed paintings and sumptuously stained and patinated metal sculpture draw inspiration from Russian Icons and Mexican Retablos They bring together mythic elements from many cultures, transformed by her vivid imagination into strong works that remind one of Rousseau and Frida Kahlo, but are unremittingly her own. Catholic symbolism, animism of tribal cultures and elements of Maria's own history come together in her paintings.

http://www.maria-alquilar.com/

Who is the victim here, friends?

Maria? Or those who commissioned her work without a sympathetic understanding [and anticipation] of her limitations?

What a terrible injustice to a visionary artist!

What a helpless scapegoat of those who have failed her!

I withdraw my recommendation for the "Librarian of the Year Award".

It is the library adminstration which should be scolded and humiliated, not Maria.

I do agree with you that good itself will come out of consideration of this situation.

However, Grapho, you left out a phrase that is important to understanding my viewpoint:

"The misspellings pull people away from her work and to that critical area of editing..."

I think I could have improved my meaning by adding the word 'instead'. Read this adjustment:

"The misspellings pull people away from her work and instead to that critical area of editing..."

You copied and pasted without the phrase that I think explained my point, and I quote your quote of me (without the critical phrase) below:

"The misspellings pull people away from her work --
and I don't think that's what she wants her work to do"


I do not imply that the misspellings categorically pull people away from her work. I do imply that in the process of editing (automatic editing as a result of our instant editing capacity), people are pulled from the immediate impact of the work itself because their minds are busily and automatically editing. It's an act comparable (on a much smaller scale) to that of considering a lovely woman, beautifully dressed, who smiles and reveals a plug of spinach caught between her front teeth. (That's an old tale, but it illustrates my meaning. Off topic: I remember someone retelling this illustration in such a way that you fell in love with this lovely woman who had such zest for life that you'd give her her spinach and a plug of tomato, too! )

I argue with your point just because it concerns your taking part of a quote and jumping to another point, thereby showing a direct relationship between one thing and another, when, instead, I meant that one result (specifically, people's not thinking about her work directly) had been caused by something not directly related to the work itself at large (the critical act of editing those spelling errors). Sloppy editing caused her work not to be taken immediately for what it was, whatever that was. If I were in her shoes, I'd be embarrassed, but, then again, I'm inordinately embarrassed to make any kind of editing error in formal work. And I consider a completed work of art to be a formal work, at least in the case of an expensive museum piece.

Maybe I shouldn't have written about this at all. I was just trying to step into the shoes of the Artist at Large, and through empathetic capacity imagine what it would be like to realize that my audience was editing my spelling when, in fact, I wanted the audience to consider my point. It's probably a fool's errand to try to understand hypothetical beings since the hypothetical beings that we all live with have so little relationship to the hypothetical beings that live within others. We're hypothetical strangers living in hypothetically foreign caves...at least when considering professions that are realistically foreign to us. I'm a bit idiotic considering at all what it is like to be a visual artist since I bore myself in two minutes flat trying to draw any object, any design, any visual conception at all. Forgive my idiotic plunging into the world of art. I am very much (and obviously) out of my depth.

Hope this helps. Probably not. But I tried.

the only way that this artist is not responsible is if the library had given her a list of names it wanted on the mural and they were mis-spelled on that list.

Interesting site, Grapho. Thanks for posting. And very well-written, too,--and even word-laden. Didn't spot any spelling errors there in a fairly quick reading of it other than one capitalization error that wasn't important.

and to that critical area of editing..."

I didn't gloss over your point because I disagreed with it, Wordwind. I did, and do, agree with it.

I glossed over it because the issue here is not the distractions caused by the artist's misspellings [they certainly are distracting], but who is ultimately to blame for those misspellings?

The artist values consultation with the community, as we know from her website.

Is it possible that those who commissioned her work did not ask her to submit a detailed illustration of the work which they commissioned?

If they failed to request such an illustration for review and approval in advance, who is to blame? The professionals responsible for issuing the commission, or the artist whose reputation is founded on her art, not on her mastery of english literature?

Those who commissioned this work of art, Wordwind, failed not once, but twice, to prevent the obvious spelling errors. [This is not what lawyers call a "latent defect" which cannot be detected with ordinary visual inspections while the work is in progress.]

First they failed to approve the final design in advance. Then they failed to inspect the work either before it was completed or immediately after it was completed while the artist was still on the site and the mortar was still moist.

Who of us would undertake an expensive renovation of our own home, perhaps a kitchen, without monitoring the progress of the work and insisting upon a final inspection before we make the final payment to the contractor?

Why should we expect less of people, like library administrators, who are responsible for taxpayer dollars?

Actually, these people failed Maria most egregiously a third time. They failed to own up to their own responsibity for her unsupervised, uninspected, unintended errors.

re Didn't spot any spelling errors

I'm not surprised you didn't spot any spelling errors on Maria's website, Wordwind. It appears to me that the copy was written by an admiring and erudite art critic.

I'm glad you found the website interesting, Wordwind. After visiting it myself, I have become an admirer of Maria's work.

I fear Maria's reputation as an artist could be unfairly damaged by this brilliant mural with its regretable spelling distractions.

I wonder if Shakespeare or Einstein or any of the others honored in that gorgeous mural, undertaken by a Russian-Mexican iconic symbolist and colorist, would really mind?

I wouldn't ask Maria to teach an english class, Wordwind. But I wouldn't ask a librarian to paint a mural either.

But you said as much yourself, and that is fair of you.

In reply to:

---

I wonder if Shakespeare or Einstein or any of the others honored in that gorgeous mural, undertaken by a Russian-Mexican iconic symbolist and colorist, would really mind?

---

yes, because she didn't take the time to see whether or not she spelled their names correctly.

yes, because she didn't take the time to see whether or not she spelled their names correctly

Agreed, etaoin. Let's call it contributory negligence with the lion's share of the blame falling on those who commissioned the work without reviewing and approving a final design in advance, and without monitoring the progress of the work or conducting a final inspection.

No doubt, Maria and the library have both learned a valuable lesson from this.

But the greatest benificiary of this artistic oops (as the newspaper called it) is the municipality of Livermore, California, which now has a $40,000 mural and a busload-a-day tourist attraction completely funded by the national media, all achieved at a 15% premium over the original cost of the artwork.

Maria Aquilera has put Livermore, California on the map. They should open up a Maria Aquilera Museum and sell postcards showing the original misspellings. I'm not kidding!

And this says nothing of the profound impact Maria's artwork has had, and will continue to have, on the cause of literacy and proper spelling.

"Why is proper spelling important?" Just ask Maria Aquilera.

If all the stakeholders in this "artistic oops" got their heads together - the librarian, the municipality and Maria herself - Maria Aquilera could become a willing and sympathetic national poster figure for the importance of book learning and proper english, and, last but not least, for the importance of dominant-culture sensitivity in a multicultural society.

artistic oops

Worth repeating.

Jackson Pollock's artistic oops "blazed an astonishing trail for other Abstract Expressionist painters to follow".

De Kooning said, "He broke the ice'', an enigmatic phrase suggesting that Pollock showed what art could become with his 1947 drip paintings.

It has been suggested that Pollock was influenced by Native American sand paintings, made by trickling thin lines of colored sand onto a horizontal surface. It was not until 1947 that Pollock began his ``action'' paintings, influenced by Surrealist ideas of ``psychic automatism'' (direct expression of the unconscious). Pollock would fix his canvas to the floor and drip paint from a can using a variety of objects to manipulate the paint.

http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/pollock/

Does this remind us of anyone?

The intuetics of W. B. Yeats, perhaps?

"The rational thinking of scientists and scholars is continually opposed to the inspiration or intuition of the artist in Yeats’ poetry, as it was in almost all forms of romanticism."

Or the intuetics of Maria Aquilera?

Gee Golly Grapho, Jackson Pollock's intuitics? Pollock was an opportunist...a con artist of savvy talent, who imitated the styles of several great and several not so great original artists. But that is not the point.

The point is that Maria Aquilera's art is imitative too, even though she seems to have transcended the style that she has adopted. Maybe she is a bit mad, maybe, but like a fox. A crass cunning captialistic fox, like Jackson Pollock.
But I've changed my mind, that is not the point, the point is...

The Forty Thousand Bucks that paid for the misspelled unfathomable public mural cane from the poor taxpayers of California. Those who approved and then imposed this way- out-of-the-mainstream mural of questionable worth upon the long suffering public should be quarted.
Quarted, that is, in a remote loft in SoHo and away from the doings of women and men who work.

Three-point manifesto art should be restricted to hang only among the lovely red worker works (say this three times real fast ) of the former Soviet Union. If misspelling words is art...then take this you...you... phony lexiphanic nates.

re Would Shakespeare really mind? ... yes, because she didn't take the time to see whether or not she spelled their names correctly

I think you and etaoin should compare notes, themilum.

OK grapho, me and etoin compareed our notes and found your aside amusing and self-congradulating but sadly so; a totally unnecessary diversion from the central point, you know, like a slippery lawyer's argument when he argues to divert rather than address the lack of evidence in his flimsy case.

Besides, no one knows for sure who Shakspere was. Maybe Shakspare was a woman, just like the Mona Lisa, who, as we know today, was a man.

"The importance of this work is that it is supposed to unite people," Alquilar said. "They are denigrating my work and the purpose of this work."

*Chortle*

Sorry. And the irony here is comical to me, at least. We're obviously divided, at least on this issue. Funny how a little thing like misspelling a few words can part the sea of people's acceptance and unity like Moses.

We're obviously divided

If it's any consolation, her art's about as good as her spelling.

My feeling is that she is attempting to deflect fair criticism by putting spin on it. She's basically saying that those who complain about the spelling of the names are bad people who are abusing her personally and are blind to the lofty goals of her noble work. The criticism of her work is in fact valid, and if it makes her feel "denigrated" then she is too egotistical. (It is proper for her to feel a bit of embarassment over this by the way.)

If you had to choose between two artists in the future for a public works project, which would you choose: one who graciously rectified a problem or one who tried to make herself out to be the victim of some horrible injustice?

All members of this board fully agree that our government should not decree by law the spelling of the words we use, yet conversely, we meekly agree to let pseudo-intellectual governmental bureaucracies declare to us that which is Art.

But moreso, we then allow these dinosaurs of aspheterism to impose their silly vogue ideas of Art upon the plodding but hardworking taxpaying citizens of this great country; honest folk who seldom get the point.

Ha ha, the joke is on the honest folk; their hard earned money pays for the joke!

Now let's hear it from someone else out there in Awadland. Can anyone here explain the joke?
________________________________________________________________________________

we meekly agree to let pseudo-intellectual governmental bureaucracies declare to us that which is Art.

Not sure what country you live in. [insert smile here according to your dictates] The country I live in used to fund art, until they decided to fund churches and wars instead. (I hear that the US Constitution makes a great fire-starter.) I personally would rather my tax dollars be spent on art (from Rockwell to Maplethorpe) than bailing out failed and (morally and financially) bankrupt businesses or promoting new dictators in faroff lands. YMMV.

YMMV

Your Mileage May Vary

Now jheem, read what you wrote...

See! What you said had no relationship to the point of my post, now did it? Now please try again and see if you can answer my little query. First please allow me to restate the question...

(a) Most Americans do not want their government legislating their use of words.

So why do..

(b) We Americans continue to pay taxes to a tiny "effete corps of intellectual snobs" who haphazardly spend our hard earned dollars on their personal choices in public displays of what they decide is universal Art.

Got an answer?

re Who would you choose: "the one who graciously rectified a problem or one who tried to make herself out to be the victim of some horrible injustice?"

Personally, I would choose the best available artist with the best design.

But I would require her to submit a detailed illustration of her work for approval in advance [which is standard business procedure in such matters] and I would monitor the progress of the work and conduct a final inspection before making the final payment [also standard business procedure in such matters].

Seems everyone is overlooking the people holding the purse who left Maria holding the bag for their own oversights.

This is the same excuse used by the CEO of Enron. "I was too busy running the company."

The jury didn't buy it. Neither should you.

Let's see. First you wrote:

All members of this board fully agree that our government should not decree by law the spelling of the words we use

And then you rewrote:

(a) Most Americans do not want their government legislating their use of words.

Yeah, I agree. So?

Next you wrote:

yet conversely, we meekly agree to let pseudo-intellectual governmental bureaucracies declare to us that which is Art.

Before emending it to:

(b) We Americans continue to pay taxes to a tiny "effete corps of intellectual snobs" who haphazardly spend our hard earned dollars on their personal choices in public displays of what they decide is universal Art.

A language academy would tell us what consitutes the English language. The NEA, (I think you mean that with your tiny "effete corps of intellectual snobs"), gives money to artists based on their works. They do not legislate what art is. Nor does Congress. If the US government wanted to start a language academy that sponsored poets and other writers, I'd be all for it. What's the problem? In the end it's up to me and the rest of my fellow citizens to decide whether we like the works, but that doesn't mean I would want to stop funding artists. They're quite cheap compared to other things that my woney gets squandered on. And I get a lot more bang for my buck. (For the record, I own property, work for aliving, and pay taxes.) If you don't like it why not get the expletive out of Dodge? Move to Albania or Liberia.

"It is proper for her to feel a bit of embarassment over this"

I agree AlexWm, it is proper for Maria to feel a bit of embarassment over this, but the people who should bear the primary responsibility for this are too busy dumping on Maria to accept any blame for themselves.

It is always easier to blame someone on the outside than to blame ourselves, or our own.

I accept that Maria bears "a bit" of responsibilty for what happened, but she doesn't deserve to be the 'whipping boy' for the Livermore library's incompetence.

jheem: ...If you don't like it why not get the expletive out of Dodge? Move to Albania or Liberia.

No jheem, I will not get the expletive out of Dodge, I will simply make mental note that you are a very very serious person. Good Luck.

If you don't like it why not get the expletive out of Dodge? Move to Albania or Liberia.

This sounds uncharacteristically strident of you, jheem.

You and I may disagree with themilum, even passionately, but there is no reason to take anything themilum wrote personally.

Or am I missing something here?

To be perfectly frank, I'm glad themilum has found a new soundboard for her exotic opinions. But I don't want themilum to wear her new soundboard out too soon.

themilum is maleum.

this artist (I haven't bothered to remember her name) could have saved herself a bit of embarrassment and the taxpayers a bit of money by just taking a bit of time to look up Einstein and others. (Shakespeare may not have cared a fig as there were various spellings floated during Elizabethan times, but that's debatable -- I think someone alluded to this above with a couple of variant spellings.)
http://shakespeareauthorship.com/name1.html

This sounds uncharacteristically strident of you, jheem.

Oh, but, grapho, I'm sure that themilum knew I was just joking. Surely?

No jheem, I will not get the expletive out of Dodge

Oh, dear me. I was sure that you, themilum, would take my little joke in stride, but it seems you're not a humorous person. You may joke, but nobody else is allowed to. That is you may dish it out, but you cannot take it. How unyielding. Oh, my.

Please accept my abject apologies. I wouldn't want to capsize our fun little boat and drown.

(Note, I'm less serious than you make me out to be. But, so be it. Adieu.)

this artist ... could have saved herself a bit of embarrassment and the taxpayers a bit of money

We all agree, myself included, tsuwm, that the artist bears some responsibility for what happened, but why is everyone so inattentive to the larger share of responsibility here? That is what perplexes me, truly.

In law, there is a concept known as "contributory negligence". It recognizes that in the real world there is often a combination of mistakes or failures which leads to a particular pecuniary loss.

This is not a complex, legalistic notion. It is a common sense notion arising from ordinary, everyday experience.

If a traffic cop leaves his post at a intersection for an unauthorized coffee break during rush hour, and an accident occurs while he is absent, is the cop without blame for the accident?

If he had been doing his job as he was paid to do, there wouldn't have been an accident.

If the Livermore library adminstration had been doing its job in first approving and then overseeing Maria's work, or if they had just carried out one of these customary duties and not both, the spelling mistakes in question would never have occurred.

Their failures cost the taxpayers of Livermore $6,000.

Why are we so eager to make a scapegoat of Maria?

That's the part I just don't get, tsuwm.

Why turn a blind eye to the failures of the establishment?

I don't recall anyone here making arguments exonerating the administrators; but one person has gone way over the edge in attempting to forgive the Artiste.

see, that's a big problem in today's culture. no one is willing to take personal responsibility for anything. blame all problems on some invisible committee, cabal, cult or conspiracy.

oops, I had better add a , lest someone think I'm being serial.

but the people who should bear the primary responsibility for this are too busy dumping on Maria to accept any blame for themselves.

Well they are the ones footing the bill to have the corrections done.

In reply to:

---

see, that's a big problem in today's culture. no one is willing to take personal responsibility for anything. blame all problems on some invisible committee, cabal, cult or conspiracy.

---

Amen.

blame all problems on some invisible committee, cabal, cult or conspiracy

Exquisitely put. And indeed, a lesson to be learned.

blame all problems on some invisible committee, cabal, cult or conspiracy

Exquisitely put. And indeed, a lesson to be learned.
Hey, great idea! Where do I sign up? I love to blame others for my mistakes.

see, that's a big problem in today's culture. no one is willing to take personal responsibility for anything. blame all problems on some invisible committee, cabal, cult or conspiracy

Why, tsuwm, you must have been reading "Confessions of an Heirhead".

May I use you for a testimonial? Some people think it's just for "Heirheads".

Shoot. No one wants to address my question. Oh well, I guess I'll just tidy up some of the linguistic detritus left behind by some of the posters to this thread and then move on.

"To be perfectly frank, I'm glad themilum has found a new soundboard for her exotic opinions. But I don't want themilum to wear her new soundboard out too soon"

Exotic opinions? What's exotic about logical extensions , grapho? Repeat after me...

The government should not legislate language.
The government should not legislate culture.
The government should not legislate religion.
The government should legislate Art.

A strange sequence, huh, grapho, exotic even, but a sequence held only by a misguided few. Certainly not me.

And hey, while I've got you on the horn, what the heck did you mean by this?

(to jheen) " ...I'm glad themilum has found a new soundboard for her exotic opinions. But I don't want themilum to wear her new soundboard out too soon.

Is this just secret talk between you and jheem? If so I'll hang up. But if it was intended for the larger group can you please be a little more coherent and forthcoming and explain to we the other posters exactly what you meant. Thank you.



"themilum is maleum."

Dear Wordwind,
If you must expose my hidden maleness to the voyeuristic world at large please be klnd and say -
themilum is much maleum - instead. Thank you.


Now for a test...

Which of the four following words in blue is different from the other three words in blue and is included in this sequence only as an emotive buzz-word to rally the True Believers?

" ...blame all problems on some invisible committee, cabal, cult or conspiracy "

Right, gang, the knee-jerk word is conspiracy

Honestly, themilum, I don't see your point about government legislating art. How is that part of the argument? The issue is not the aesthetics of the artwork, and it isn't being legislated anyway. It was artwork commissioned by the city. The complaint about government imposing weird art that appeals to snobs only doesn't fly either. As far as art goes, it is a quite conventional, representative sort of artwork that depicts historical figures for the purpose of edifying viewers. That's not exactly avante garde stuff.

Alex said:
______________________________________________________

"Honestly, themilum, I don't see your point about government legislating art. How is that part of the argument? The issue is not the aesthetics of the artwork, and it isn't being legislated anyway. It was artwork commissioned by the city. The complaint about government imposing weird art that appeals to snobs only doesn't fly either. As far as art goes, it is a quite conventional, representative sort of artwork that depicts historical figures for the purpose of edifying viewers. That's not exactly avante garde stuff."
_____________________________________________________

Quite true, Alex, but I assumed that the thoughts exchanged here would go beyond assigning blame and lamenting the misspellings; discussing root cause of such hokey doings is what grown men and women do rather than laugh and whine.

To be clear - I like some of Maria's art and I consider myself a bit of a pretentious art snob, but go yourself and walk around any city of any size worthy of its two Wal-marts and check out the objets d' art scattered around and about the public buildings and then come back and tell me of your enthusiasm.

Yes, Alex, Maria's artwork wasn't legislated but rather it was commissioned by the city. "Commissioned" of course means "given the approval to undertake a particular act of art". Paid for, of course, by the hardworking taxpayers of the city.

Sadly, much of the art of today is a con game, and when that art is commissioned by the committees of our government, everyone's money supports the scam.

To be clear - I like some of Maria's art and I consider myself a bit of a pretentious art snob, but go yourself and walk around any city of any size worthy of its two Wal-marts

"To be clear" - I've got to hand it to you, themilum, that's a good opening - but in spite of the fact that there is nothing awfully clear about anything you say, at least to a terrestrial observer, I almost get it.

That's what really shakes me up, themilum, I almost get it.

Are you a man or a woman?

If you're a woman, I think you're kinda cute. [You are definitely 'way out there' -- and that can be cute in a woman.]

If you're a man, I would like to introduce you to tsuwm, or maybe etaoin. I think you guys would hit it off -juxtapositionally, that is.

>I think you guys would hit it off.

that does it - I think I'm going to hire a hit man.

I think I'm going to hire a hit man

When I've finished my present contract, I'll make you a present of my services.

When I've finished my present contract

We don't "wack" people any more, we "finish" them.

It's a matter of professional courtesy.

It's a matter of professional courtesy

In our line of work, we could get finished ourselves before we finish the job.

Sunday Chicago Tribune, 17 October: "Iz eet stil art iph its speld incorectlee?" City manager has convinced Maria to correct it. Maria, "I really want people to see the work's meaning so they stop making issues of things that are unimportant." Corrections will be made when "the issue cool(s) down. I'm not racing out there right away ..."