first day of school

"an article on tyra banks is way better than anything from a communications textbook." *
- D. Silver

*there was more about gender, media, culture, and stuff, but i prefer the soundbite-no-context sorta quote.

culture braid

tonight on the bus i sat near a man speaking hindi on his cell phone, and just when i had nestled into the cadence of his speech patterns, the edgy recognizable spurts of english broke through for the span of a phrase, then retreated to his native tongue.

i love hearing people blend languages, cultures, and histories. i'm used to moments like these on the bus, the most common of which are the twists and turns of spanish and english. later during the same night, a german woman cooed to her child, and then responded in english to her seat mate.

what stuck with me though, was one of the english phrases peeking through hindi, "he has conquered lots of things--Texas, Turkey, Christianity, and Muslim."

indeed.

the country's torso

since when did we start using anatomical-ish terms to describe regions of the US? i just heard a news anchor say, "the nation's midsection." how 'bout the torso, or the abdomen?

and while i'm at it, when did people start calling the east coast "back east?" i'm pretty sure its origin is coastal--we didn't say it in the "flyover states"--but why "back?" what if i haven't been there before?