Babylonian numerals. The base-60 (sexagesimal) system. As I understand, this is why we have 60 seconds in a minute/60 minutes in an hour. Seems odd to use a 4,000 year old idea for the finer division of time when the calendar has been updated a number of times.
The French republican calendar.
One more thing about Mesopotamian math.
When I get off the elevator, my ears do the thing that happens in pressurized air planes because it's a nice high speed elevator that I love dearly. But I can't really hear very well until I swallow. And I believe the secretary says "Good morning" or "Hello" or "Professional greeting, Insert name here." But I never really know because I can't hear her. So I say, "Hi" or "Good morning" or "Professional greeting." But I think I say this while she's greeting me. I should tell her that I'm 90% deaf until I swallow - which is normally about 10 or 15 feet past her desk. I hope she doesn't think I'm weird.
These elevators that I love so much... the ceiling has these beautiful corners. The walls meet at right angles, but they are these amazing rounded corners (if it's not really a sharp, stragiht line, it's still a corner - correct?). Imagine one set of parallel walls with rounded corners (so it would sort of be like a train car if you wrapped a skin around it). Then imagine the other set is rounded, too. So the ceiling conceivably has 4 seams in it that come together in the middle. That's what this is like. But they got overly excited about this lighting fixture in the elevator so you can't really see the ceiling. You have to labor to see the corners that I love so dearly.
I'll only tell you this because I've already spent so much time talking about elevators, but this morning on my way up I shared it with a pair of 30ish men dressed exactly alike (no longer interesting to me - I see it too often, I've become disenchanted with this phenomenon) and a 50ish man whose collar was playing the role of the Hands in a game of Peek-a-Boo with his necktie. I was playing the role of Boy Who Smells Like Lemon-Lime Gatorade and Cookies.
And I only write this because, well, I just wrote that. I was sharing the elevator on the way up with someone and, like most elevator trips, it was remarkable only in its silence. She, like me, was wearing glasses. I had an urge to take them off her head and see how bad her eyes were then say "If we had kids, they would have such bad eyesight! Let's do it!" Because, you see, having children based on the prospect of having a child with freakishly bad eyesight is a bad idea - there are no guarantees its eyesight will be bad. After I didn't say that, after she didn't say anything, after the sexual tension between us had dried out and fallen to the floor as a sugary dust, I was exiting the elevator and wanted to say something that you would read in a yearbook that was written by someone who doesn't really know the person who owns the yearbook: "Well, it was nice talking to you. Have a cool summer. Keep in touch." But I don't think she would've gotten that because I'm not sure there's anything to actually get.
When I worked for The State there was a curious institutional insistence on a wildly inefficient system of filing. First there was the hanging file - labeled. If 2 or 3 pieces of paper went together, you would put them in a letter sized foler (labeled) and place this folder in a legal sized folder (also labeled). We weren't at a want for more folders, but we could've done without the legal sized one, I think. Hence the hanging ones could've been letter sized and space would've been saved.
The other thing is that in 18 months I never saw anyone retrieve anything from those files. But I think you should keep the stuff around because going through really old stuff is fun. Once when I was there I found a management report from the mid 80s that had a graph. The graph was hand drawn (with the aid of a ruler, I guess). The title of it was in black feltpen and had yellowed a little.
And that gives me another idea for wall decorations: wall paper a room with old office memos and narratives - the kind that were written on a typewriter. Or that would make an interesting table top.
Uptown Girls, the movie. You might be thinking "They should make more movies about Billy Joel songs." And your wish already came true because they've been doing this forever:
River of Dreams : A River Runs Through It, The River Wild, Spy Kids 2: Island of Lost Dreams
We Didn't Start the Fire : Backdraft, A Pyromaniac's Love Story, Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure/Bogus Journey
Downeaster "Alexa" : Das Boot, The Perfect Storm, Pirates of the Caribbean
Scenes from an Italian Restaurant : Big Night, Lady & The Tramp, Godfather II
Piano Man : The Pianist, The Pianist, The Piano
She's Always a Woman : Crying Game, Mrs. Doubtfire, Tootsie
Goodnight Saigon : Good Morning Vietnam, Mrs. Doubtfire
My Life : My So-Called Life, My Big Fat Greek Life
I Go to Extremes : Aspen Extreme, Extreme Ops
