Tag Archives: New York Times

Cut and Paste

Cut and paste: (adj) assembled or produced from various existing bits and pieces:

I do not think there is anything we used to do that is better than what we’re doing now.

I know, as I get older, I should be cranky about losing favorite practices, which have been swept away by trending winds.

I just don’t feel that way.

I think the human race has one endearing quality. We like to find an easier way to do things and then later pretend it was complicated—developing a story about our struggle.

Years ago, I published a street newspaper. It was a combination of news stories, commentary, cartoons and a sprinkling of creative notions. There were no home computers which could be used to lay out this newspaper simply by punching buttons and shifting keys—and if there were, they were experimental, being tested at the New York Times.

We had to cut and paste.

All we had to assist us was a word processor, on which we typed the articles, a pencil set used to draw the cartoons, a pair of scissors for cutting out the pieces so they would fit into the space provided, and a jar of rubber cement, which was put on the back of the stories so they could be glued into their proper place. Then the master was run through a printer and translated, ala Gutenberg, onto newsprint.

Two things were necessary—a ruler and patience.

The ruler was needed to put the stories down straight so they wouldn’t look crooked. And patience—because miscalculations caused the formatting of the master copy to be a-kilter.

The only salvation was convincing oneself—and I mean thoroughly—that cutting and pasting copy onto a master layout was great fun. Matter of fact, nothing had been so delightful since Belgian waffles received their first dousing of powdered sugar.

Yet I would never want to go back to that era.

I don’t think it was better.

But I do think we have many journalists, cartoonists, writers and contributors who believe all they have to do is splatter some random paragraphs onto a screen, and suddenly they’re vying for a Pulitzer.

funny wisdom on words that begin with a C

Abrade

by J. R. Practix

dictionary with letter A

Abrade: (v.) scrape or wear away by friction or erosion.

It sounds brilliant to me. At least I think it deserves a good old college try.

Rather than being on a diet, I’m going to be on an abrade.

All these years, I’ve tried to internalize weight loss by healthy eating, low calories, no fat, few carbs … well, the list goes on and on.

I never thought about approaching it from the angle of “abrading.” Hear me out on this–at first it may sound a little weird.

What if I started out by bathing in pure lemon juice, encouraging skin shriveling? I follow by taking large jars of vanishing cream and smearing it all over the fat forts on my body. Then, purchasing a very mild or fine-grained sandpaper, I begin to just gently rub on my love handles. I should not do it to the point of abrasion or blood-letting, but maybe it’s possible, if I abrade enough, that I can wear down the onslaught of the attack of the blubber monster.

Maybe you have other ideas, too. Maybe binding my flesh for a few minutes every day with some sort of tape or wrap, to teach my excess flesh container to gel into a more concise form, would be beneficial.

Because I cannot tell you that dieting, as a whole, has been an extraordinarily successful proposal for me, or actually for millions of others. Some of us can not afford a personal trainer or will not be selected for the cast of The Biggest Loser. We also don’t particularly like to throw up from over-exertion in a gym as a means of dispelling unused calories.

Perhaps this “abrade” process could, shall we say, clean “the outside of the cup” instead of messing around with all of the inside difficulty.

At this point, I am not prepared to support the theory, nor am I ready to write the book, which would certainly become a best-seller on the New York Times List. I do have a working title, though: Abrade, Abrade: You’ve Got It Made.

But I am ahead of myself.

I guess the first step is working up the energy to squeeze 7,322 lemons … to draw my bath.