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| Writings on The Schmidt House Walls |
Gypped by Evolution? (The Writings on the Schmidt House Walls, May '08)
Spring is in the air. This means two things: one, the end to another long and dreary Michiana winter.
And two, winter gear is on clearance at the mall. If you’re a notorious mitten-loser (like Erin), you may
want to consider stocking up for next year.
One of our great finds in the clearance mitten-and-glove bin at the mall was a pair of paws. They’re
furry mittens with leather claws attached. You put them on, look down, and it looks like a black bear’s
wearing your coat.
Claws– that’s one thing the human race got gypped out of by evolution. They’d come in handy in bar
fights, of course. But they’d have tons of other uses, too. We could use them to open bags of potato
chips, or to climb trees. We wouldn’t need paper shredders if we had claws.
Having bear claws would have its drawbacks, though. It would make scratching delicate itches tricky.
And when the kids got into fights, watch out. Really, if we’re going to have claws, we should have
retractable ones, like cats have. Ever watch a cat clean its claws? They can retract and extend those
babies one at a time. That way, they have something humans don’t: as much or as little claw as the
situation demands. Opposable thumbs and the ability to walk on two legs are great, but we really got
the short end of the claw stick.
We also got the short end of the hibernation stick. Every February 2nd, when Punxsutawney Phil sticks
his head out and sees his shadow, wouldn’t you like to crawl into bed for those last six weeks of winter?
(And he always sees his shadow. It’s never an early spring!) If you were a bear, you could do just that.
Even better, those five or six pounds that everybody puts on around the holidays would finally serve a
purpose! It would be our duty– nay, a matter of life or death!– to start gaining weight in the winter. No
more would we feel guilty for eating the entire bag of mini Snickers that we bought “for the trick-or-
treaters” at Halloween.
We could go nuts at Thanksgiving. Nuts, as in pecan pie. Cranberry sauce? Forget it. Everything that
can’t be covered with gravy or whipped cream would be banned from the table to make room for the
really fattening stuff. Everyone who didn’t go back for seconds on pumpkin pie . . . well, it’s their own
faults if they starve to death during hibernation.
According to the rules of nature, we should be heading off to sleep by the time the winter solstice hits.
The whole point is to sleep through the really cold, snowy, depressing part of winter, after all. But who
wants to sleep through Christmas? So we’d have to start the hibernation right after Christmas dinner.
Right after an enormous Christmas dinner that puts Thanksgiving to shame. “Please bring us some
figgy pudding” would no longer be merely an obscure latter verse from “We Wish You a Merry
Christmas.” It would be our cry for survival.
The really hard part would be waking up from hibernation. By the time it felt warm enough outside to let
us know that it was time to rise and shine, it would be April 15th. And who would do our taxes while we’re
asleep? Trained monkeys? Sadly, evolution gypped them out of higher math skills. Having your taxes
prepared by trained monkeys is a good way to get audited.
Okay, so we didn’t get retractable claws, and we don’t get to hibernate. It could be worse, though. We
could be the panda bear. Evolution made the thing huge, and then equipped it to eat bamboo. And
only bamboo. There’s barely enough nutrition in bamboo for an adult panda bear to survive, much less
reproduce. Maybe that’s why it’s so hard to get them to mate. No panda likes the thought of eating for
two.
So I suppose the next time I’m tempted to complain about how the winter is dragging on, or about my
lack of sharp weapons embedded in the tips of my fingers, I’ll try to be thankful that I’m not a panda.
How boring would that be, existing on the same tedious diet of cold greens, day in and day out?
Oh, wait. I do exist on the same tedious diet of cold greens, day in and day out. They’re called salads. I’
m still trying to lose those five or six pounds from Christmas dinner
Erin Schmidt (Staff Reporter, Copy Editor)
and Kevin Schmidt (Guest Columnist)
Posted April 7, 2008
Spring is in the air. This means two things: one, the end to another long and dreary Michiana winter.
And two, winter gear is on clearance at the mall. If you’re a notorious mitten-loser (like Erin), you may
want to consider stocking up for next year.
One of our great finds in the clearance mitten-and-glove bin at the mall was a pair of paws. They’re
furry mittens with leather claws attached. You put them on, look down, and it looks like a black bear’s
wearing your coat.
Claws– that’s one thing the human race got gypped out of by evolution. They’d come in handy in bar
fights, of course. But they’d have tons of other uses, too. We could use them to open bags of potato
chips, or to climb trees. We wouldn’t need paper shredders if we had claws.
Having bear claws would have its drawbacks, though. It would make scratching delicate itches tricky.
And when the kids got into fights, watch out. Really, if we’re going to have claws, we should have
retractable ones, like cats have. Ever watch a cat clean its claws? They can retract and extend those
babies one at a time. That way, they have something humans don’t: as much or as little claw as the
situation demands. Opposable thumbs and the ability to walk on two legs are great, but we really got
the short end of the claw stick.
We also got the short end of the hibernation stick. Every February 2nd, when Punxsutawney Phil sticks
his head out and sees his shadow, wouldn’t you like to crawl into bed for those last six weeks of winter?
(And he always sees his shadow. It’s never an early spring!) If you were a bear, you could do just that.
Even better, those five or six pounds that everybody puts on around the holidays would finally serve a
purpose! It would be our duty– nay, a matter of life or death!– to start gaining weight in the winter. No
more would we feel guilty for eating the entire bag of mini Snickers that we bought “for the trick-or-
treaters” at Halloween.
We could go nuts at Thanksgiving. Nuts, as in pecan pie. Cranberry sauce? Forget it. Everything that
can’t be covered with gravy or whipped cream would be banned from the table to make room for the
really fattening stuff. Everyone who didn’t go back for seconds on pumpkin pie . . . well, it’s their own
faults if they starve to death during hibernation.
According to the rules of nature, we should be heading off to sleep by the time the winter solstice hits.
The whole point is to sleep through the really cold, snowy, depressing part of winter, after all. But who
wants to sleep through Christmas? So we’d have to start the hibernation right after Christmas dinner.
Right after an enormous Christmas dinner that puts Thanksgiving to shame. “Please bring us some
figgy pudding” would no longer be merely an obscure latter verse from “We Wish You a Merry
Christmas.” It would be our cry for survival.
The really hard part would be waking up from hibernation. By the time it felt warm enough outside to let
us know that it was time to rise and shine, it would be April 15th. And who would do our taxes while we’re
asleep? Trained monkeys? Sadly, evolution gypped them out of higher math skills. Having your taxes
prepared by trained monkeys is a good way to get audited.
Okay, so we didn’t get retractable claws, and we don’t get to hibernate. It could be worse, though. We
could be the panda bear. Evolution made the thing huge, and then equipped it to eat bamboo. And
only bamboo. There’s barely enough nutrition in bamboo for an adult panda bear to survive, much less
reproduce. Maybe that’s why it’s so hard to get them to mate. No panda likes the thought of eating for
two.
So I suppose the next time I’m tempted to complain about how the winter is dragging on, or about my
lack of sharp weapons embedded in the tips of my fingers, I’ll try to be thankful that I’m not a panda.
How boring would that be, existing on the same tedious diet of cold greens, day in and day out?
Oh, wait. I do exist on the same tedious diet of cold greens, day in and day out. They’re called salads. I’
m still trying to lose those five or six pounds from Christmas dinner
Erin Schmidt (Staff Reporter, Copy Editor)
and Kevin Schmidt (Guest Columnist)
Posted April 7, 2008
Local Couple Loses Mind
What were we thinking, trying to start a newspaper by ourselves?! Sure we got the first issue written,
formatted and printed. We almost lined up enough advertisers to pay for the printing. Delivery . . . well,
that didn’t go as smoothly as we’d hoped (as you know, if you were one of the people whose copy ended
up in the street, in a mud puddle, or lining the nest of the owl that lives in your toolshed). So, what made
us think we could do it?
Well (to quote Ulysses Everett McGill in Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?– see Movie Picks), you may call it
an unreasoning optimism, or you may call it obtuse, but I’m simply determined to keep writing. I love to
write. I’ll do just about anything (within reason) to see my words in print. I love words, which brings us to
the topic of this month’s Writings on the Schmidt House Walls:
wordplay.
(Note: there’s a really cool Jason Mraz song called “Wordplay.” You may want to download it and listen to
it as you read the rest of this column.)
A friend once said to me, “If ‘live’ spelled backwards is ‘evil,’ does that mean that it’s evil to live?”
“Only if you live backwards,” I replied.
To live backwards is impossible, of course. Ever try to eat an omelet, then cook it in the skillet, then mix
the ingredients, then break the eggshells, and then finally put whole, unbroken eggs back into the
refrigerator? It’s not easy. (And if you have tried this, please tell me you have the photos to prove it. I’d
love to see them.)
But it is easy (and fun) to make palindromes with words like “live” and “evil.” “Rats live on no evil star,” for
example. Not only is that sentence the same backwards and forwards, but it’s also true. Stars, being
enormous balls of radioactive gases, are an inhospitable living environment for mammals such as rats.
Rats, as far as we know, live only on the earth. (Some may have stowed away in NASA equipment, but
they’re unlikely to have established colonies on Mars or the moon, what with the lack of oxygen and all.
Rats love oxygen.) Whether or not the earth is evil may be debatable, but at least we can all agree that
the earth is not a star.
Speaking of mammals that live on no evil star, the unsurpassed loyalty and unconditional love of a dog
has caused some to remark that it is no coincidence that “dog” is “God” spelled backwards. “Dog god” is
a palindrome, of course, as is “God’s dog.” Imagine God’s dog for a moment, his leash extending up into
the clouds. You don’t have to imagine it; there’s an illustration of it in Ana, Nab a Banana, a terrific book
of palindromes and cartoons by Craig Hansen. I know what you’re thinking, and yes, it would be more
impressive if his name was Craig Giarc.
By the way, do you think God scoops the dog poop, or just zaps it and makes it disappear? Or does God
turn it into a new mountain range? If that’s the case, God must walk God’s dog on other planets.
Otherwise the whole earth would be nothing but mountains by now.
My personal favorite palindrome is “Mr. Owl ate my metal worm,” which I believe is from one of Jon Agee’s
books of palindromes. They include Go Hang A Salami, I’m a Lasagna Hog and So Many Dynamos. His
titles are palindromes, unlike Mom and Dad Are Palindromes by Mark Shulman and Adam McCauley. You
can’t make a palindrome with “palindromes,” of course, because “semordnilap” is not a word.
But oranges are not the only fruit, and palindromes are not the only kind of wordplay. Take
Spoonerisms . . . please. They result from mixing up two sounds in a sentence. According to The New
York Public Library Literary Companion, the Reverend William Archibald Spooner (who was English) was
famous for them. As when he once meant to toast “the dear old queen” and instead raised a toast to “the
queer old dean.” A more modern example: Police Chief Wiggum on The Simpsons arrested Sideshow
Bob and told his officers, “Bake him away, toys!”
There is also the malapropism, named for a character in a play called The Rivals. Mrs. Malaprop (whose
name is a kind of wordplay; mal a propos is French for “out of place”) innocently uses wrong words that
sound similar to the right words, but mean very different things. As if, for example, you meant to say, “The
minister’s sermon was very profound today,” and instead reported to your grandmother that “the minister’s
sermon was very profane today,” nearly giving your grandmother a heart attack. Shame on you. That’s
why you should always carry a pocket dictionary.
So should Homer Simpson; he once designed a car and suggested that it have “rack and peanut
steering.” He meant “pinion,” of course. Pinion is a fun word, by the way. It means all of the following: a
gear, a wing, and to alter a bird’s wing so that it cannot fly. It is unrelated to opinions, or to the edible pine
tree seeds known as pinyon nuts. “Pinion” is also a song by Nine Inch Nails. Listen to that one when
you’re done with “Wordplay.”
There are all sorts of fun things we can do with words, from the silly sounds of onomatopoeia to the
dangers of the double entendre. Word games are also a lot of fun. And Johnathan and I worked very
hard to create a word search and crossword puzzle for Mishawaka Press, so if you haven’t already played
our games, download the .pdf of our first and only (so far) print issue!
Erin E. Schmidt, Staff Reporter
Posted June 14, 2008
What were we thinking, trying to start a newspaper by ourselves?! Sure we got the first issue written,
formatted and printed. We almost lined up enough advertisers to pay for the printing. Delivery . . . well,
that didn’t go as smoothly as we’d hoped (as you know, if you were one of the people whose copy ended
up in the street, in a mud puddle, or lining the nest of the owl that lives in your toolshed). So, what made
us think we could do it?
Well (to quote Ulysses Everett McGill in Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?– see Movie Picks), you may call it
an unreasoning optimism, or you may call it obtuse, but I’m simply determined to keep writing. I love to
write. I’ll do just about anything (within reason) to see my words in print. I love words, which brings us to
the topic of this month’s Writings on the Schmidt House Walls:
wordplay.
(Note: there’s a really cool Jason Mraz song called “Wordplay.” You may want to download it and listen to
it as you read the rest of this column.)
A friend once said to me, “If ‘live’ spelled backwards is ‘evil,’ does that mean that it’s evil to live?”
“Only if you live backwards,” I replied.
To live backwards is impossible, of course. Ever try to eat an omelet, then cook it in the skillet, then mix
the ingredients, then break the eggshells, and then finally put whole, unbroken eggs back into the
refrigerator? It’s not easy. (And if you have tried this, please tell me you have the photos to prove it. I’d
love to see them.)
But it is easy (and fun) to make palindromes with words like “live” and “evil.” “Rats live on no evil star,” for
example. Not only is that sentence the same backwards and forwards, but it’s also true. Stars, being
enormous balls of radioactive gases, are an inhospitable living environment for mammals such as rats.
Rats, as far as we know, live only on the earth. (Some may have stowed away in NASA equipment, but
they’re unlikely to have established colonies on Mars or the moon, what with the lack of oxygen and all.
Rats love oxygen.) Whether or not the earth is evil may be debatable, but at least we can all agree that
the earth is not a star.
Speaking of mammals that live on no evil star, the unsurpassed loyalty and unconditional love of a dog
has caused some to remark that it is no coincidence that “dog” is “God” spelled backwards. “Dog god” is
a palindrome, of course, as is “God’s dog.” Imagine God’s dog for a moment, his leash extending up into
the clouds. You don’t have to imagine it; there’s an illustration of it in Ana, Nab a Banana, a terrific book
of palindromes and cartoons by Craig Hansen. I know what you’re thinking, and yes, it would be more
impressive if his name was Craig Giarc.
By the way, do you think God scoops the dog poop, or just zaps it and makes it disappear? Or does God
turn it into a new mountain range? If that’s the case, God must walk God’s dog on other planets.
Otherwise the whole earth would be nothing but mountains by now.
My personal favorite palindrome is “Mr. Owl ate my metal worm,” which I believe is from one of Jon Agee’s
books of palindromes. They include Go Hang A Salami, I’m a Lasagna Hog and So Many Dynamos. His
titles are palindromes, unlike Mom and Dad Are Palindromes by Mark Shulman and Adam McCauley. You
can’t make a palindrome with “palindromes,” of course, because “semordnilap” is not a word.
But oranges are not the only fruit, and palindromes are not the only kind of wordplay. Take
Spoonerisms . . . please. They result from mixing up two sounds in a sentence. According to The New
York Public Library Literary Companion, the Reverend William Archibald Spooner (who was English) was
famous for them. As when he once meant to toast “the dear old queen” and instead raised a toast to “the
queer old dean.” A more modern example: Police Chief Wiggum on The Simpsons arrested Sideshow
Bob and told his officers, “Bake him away, toys!”
There is also the malapropism, named for a character in a play called The Rivals. Mrs. Malaprop (whose
name is a kind of wordplay; mal a propos is French for “out of place”) innocently uses wrong words that
sound similar to the right words, but mean very different things. As if, for example, you meant to say, “The
minister’s sermon was very profound today,” and instead reported to your grandmother that “the minister’s
sermon was very profane today,” nearly giving your grandmother a heart attack. Shame on you. That’s
why you should always carry a pocket dictionary.
So should Homer Simpson; he once designed a car and suggested that it have “rack and peanut
steering.” He meant “pinion,” of course. Pinion is a fun word, by the way. It means all of the following: a
gear, a wing, and to alter a bird’s wing so that it cannot fly. It is unrelated to opinions, or to the edible pine
tree seeds known as pinyon nuts. “Pinion” is also a song by Nine Inch Nails. Listen to that one when
you’re done with “Wordplay.”
There are all sorts of fun things we can do with words, from the silly sounds of onomatopoeia to the
dangers of the double entendre. Word games are also a lot of fun. And Johnathan and I worked very
hard to create a word search and crossword puzzle for Mishawaka Press, so if you haven’t already played
our games, download the .pdf of our first and only (so far) print issue!
Erin E. Schmidt, Staff Reporter
Posted June 14, 2008
