the boy detective as autochoreographer

So, for the past four years my friend Rob has organized an NFL pool. The grand prize includes not just money from the other competitors, but also something original from me, to be posted on this blog. Only when Rob sends out his mass e-mail announcing the pool at the start of the season do I learn what it is that I will be expected to create. The first year, it was just an original haiku. Then, it was an original recipe. After that, he asked me to invent something on behalf of the winner (I would say "original invention," except thats redundant). This year, my task is to devise an original dance, to be posted at halftime of the Superbowl.

Anyway, today I clinched victory in the pool--my first win--even though the Superbowl is still three weeks away. Which means that now I have to come up with an original dance in honor of myself. Alternatively, partly in anticipation of this possibility, I've actually entered the pool under the name "Dorotha Harried," so I could create an original dance for someone else's blog pseudonym.

I don't have any idea what I'm going to come up with for this dance. More than this, I don't even know how one goes about posting an original dance on one's blog. Is there some standard dance notation? Should I draw little stick figures? Should I pay professionals and upload it to YouTube? Should I act it out with marionettes? Let me know if you have any dance or dance-representation ideas.

Also: So long as I'm previewing coming attractions, readers can also look forward to a Super-Secret Special Guest Poster potentially making a series of appearances soon.

speaking of spelling...

(section of the bulletin board in my office)

New addition to my bulletin board: the sign language J-E-R-E-M-Y I received as an Xmas present from Dorotha. Presumably I will string them together with something more suitable than a green paper clip at some point, although the clip does remind me of a certain friend from college whose office supply fetish resulted in her getting a tattoo of three linked green paper clips on her leg.

BTW, beneath the letters is the current state-of-the-art for being able to collect people's DNA inexpensively through the mail. You spit in the blue part, and the white part is a lid that contains this preservative with a clear plastic seal. When you screw on the lid, the seal breaks, and the preservative combines with your spit to preserve it. Why I have one of these kits tacked to my bulletin board is a different story.

frayedy cat

Winter is coming. For six years now, winter has meant Jeremy breaks out his extra-long black-and-gold scarf. Back when Dorotha and Henry were working on a comic book about me--I know, whatever happened with that--the scarf figured prominently in the rendering of my character, making me look sort of like a hypercomely Madison version of The Fourth Doctor Who. Anyway, the scarf has become increasingly worn, but I like it's distinctiveness, so I wanted to buy another one. I originally got it at a shop selling Iowa Hawkeyes paraphenalia, but as far as I can tell it's been discontinued at Hawkeyes outlets. I despaired, but then Dorotha found it from a store called Angry, Young, and Poor online:


(my scarf, exactly, only new)

I was so excited I ordered two. But then I got an e-mail from them saying it was out of stock and that they had it in red-and-gray. I told them that I had an immutable color preference and asked if they could give me the manufacturer's name so I could try to track it down. Being Angry, Young, and Poor, they didn't write me back. I hope they stay poor and age rapidly and ungracefully.

Meanwhile, on the self-motivation front, I downloaded the cover image from The Boy Detective Fails, photoshopped out the "Fails" and the author's name, printed it out, and have tacked it to my bulletin board. I should color in his tie black and gold.



Meanwhile: I've declared that this boy detective is grounded until he makes real progress on the paper he's working on. I'm incorrigibly bad about being the boss of me, but time is getting tight and this wandery child needs to be brought to heel, or he's stands no chance of cracking The Case of the Embodied Explanans.