I Love Sporcle and You Should Too

In my daily unemployed house-bound daze I have been obsessively playing geography games on Sporcle. As of this past week I have learned all the countries in the world, their capitals, how to spell them, and where they are. At trivia last week at Red Hook Brewery, I told my friends that I would be utterly useless unless there was a question on countries, in which case I would own it. I was feeling pretty pleased with myself as I dug into my nachos, only to have my friends' friends show up soon after and spend a good five minutes listing off all the European countries that end in -ia. Eff my life.

This afternoon I was playing a game on Sporcle in which I had to list the top baby names from 2000-2009 that are also countries. (Can you tell how much of a life I don't have?) I guessed the obvious ones--Chad, Jordan, Georgia--before I ran out of ideas and started listing Slovakia and Liechtenstein and St. Kitts & Nevis. If you guessed a country that was not among the top baby names but about which the creators of Sporcle (to whom I will collectively refer as "Mr. Sporcle") found something snarky to say, they would include the country at the bottom of the list, unnumbered, with their comment.

I guessed China and Mr. Sporcle told me that "Grace Slick named her daughter this, but it never caught on." After Cuba he wrote, "I loved him in Jerry Maguire." (And holy crap, Mr. Sporcle, did you see Radio?) After Cameron, "The country is Cameroon." Thanks, jackass. I know.

My favorite was when, running out of time, I guessed Seychelles and he pointed out, "Someone should name their kid Seychelles." The same went for Kyrgyzstan. "[Duke basketball] Coach Krzyzewski should have totally named his kid Kyrgyzstan." Yes and yes.


There was sass shooting in from all angles on some of the tamer countries, but Mr. Sporcle was disappointingly silent on such guesses as Democratic Republic of the Congo, North Korea, Kiribati, and Cote d'Ivoire. And seriously, over 7 billion people in this world and not one of them is named Federated States of Micronesia?

Unrelated to this topic, but related to Sporcle: I just found a game called "A-less countries." The directions tell you to "name the countries that do not contain the letter A for each letter," followed by a list of all the letters with a blank space after them. This list of letters? It starts with A. Now, I know some pretty damn intelligent people in this world but I don't think even they could name a country, beginning with the letter A, that does not contain the letter A. Correct me if I'm wrong.

Poetry Corner Monday

This week I'm posting some pieces (full and excerpted) by Jim Moore, who I discovered by chance when I pulled a book of his poems off of a shelf in my library's threadbare poetry section. The first two are single stanzas plucked from larger pieces, but the final two are complete. Enjoy!

Love in the Ruins

1

      I remember my mother toward the end,

folding the tablecloth after dinner
      so carefully,
as if it were the flag
     of a country that no longer existed,
but once had ruled the world.


Five Charms in Praise of Bewilderment

3

     Sitting quietly at dusk, I'll admit

my life goes like this:
     dark branches
scratching the still darker window.


(I dedicate this next one to my darling Casey. Case, I love you very very much but when I move to Melbourne I don't give a good damn how much you hate flying, you ARE coming to visit me. It's a 15-hour flight--start prepping now.)


Waiting to Take Off

I try not to listen to the direction
     to the emergency exits,
how close they are,
     how very well lit.


Those Others

     We lived at the end of an empire.

Sometimes we gathered in huge auditoriums
     and tried to understand.
Our shame did not save us,
     nor our sadness redeem us,
as we came to understand
     how others, far into the future,
would look back at us,
     shaking their heads: we hoped
in sorrow; more likely, anger. 

Current Musical Obsessions

You're welcome!

Brandi Carlile - "Before it Breaks"

Gorgeous lyrics, gorgeous voice. Plus she's adorable.

Missy Higgins - "Hello Hello"

There is nothing I don't love about her. Nothing.

Islands - "Hallways"

This song just oozes summer, though I could do without the mutinous dancing skeletons, all of whom have better rhythm than me.

Sara Bareilles - "King of Anything"

I know this has been out for a while, but I just can't get over it. Or the music video.

Scars on 45 - "Change My Needs"

They're British, they're beyond adorable. I dare you to find something wrong with this.

Poetry Corner Whenever I Feel Like It

Preservation

By Kathleen Flenniken

Bobo awaits my third grade class
at the forgotten end of the museum. I explain
when they finish beating their chests

that Bobo was a famous gorilla I saw at the zoo
when I was seven, that here he looks false
because he's stuffed and mounted upright, like a man.

We take in his flared nostrils and hair, the virility
of his chocolate-colored chest. Everyone, even Dylan,
falls silent for a moment, long enough to remember

you left me four weeks ago yesterday,
a rubber band snap to my inner cranium
for the thousandth time today.

Bess and Tran point to photos of Bobo as a baby,
dressed in a nightgown, being fed a bottle. Bobo "smiling"
at his birthday party. Happier days. I think irrelevantly

of the milk expiring in my refrigerator,
how attached I am to the date on the carton,
the day before the world went sour.

Even milk obscures the rites of decomposition,
the holy rites that Bobo was denied.
Is that so wrong? Roy Rogers

stuffed and mounted Trigger, his companion.
Wasn't that sweet testament, if sad and strange?
Bobo, do you understand the impulse?

I gaze into your fake glass eye but you decline
to answer. I'm talking to myself, your look implies.
We both stand awkwardly with nothing to say.

The kids are restless. They're talking about ice cream
and the bus outside. He was real, I remind them
but they're running up the hall.

The last time I saw him, he was alive.

You've Been a Big Help, Google Maps

I have plans today to meet someone in Monroe, which is only about 15 minutes away from my house but is a place I'm not very familiar with. I Googled directions to our rendezvous location and I would like everyone to observe the results I was given.

Start:
1. Turn right onto NE 195th St                                        0.4 miles
2. Turn left onto Woodinville-Snohomish Rd NE              0.5 miles
3. Take ramp left and follow signs for WA-522 East        3.4 miles
4. Turn left onto US-2 / Stevens Pass Hwy                     0.2 miles
5. Turn left onto N Kelsey St                                          0.1 miles
6. Turn left onto road                                                      0.0 miles
7. Turn left onto road                                                      0.0 miles
8. Turn left onto road                                                      0.0 miles
End: Arrive at road on the right                                       0.0 miles

I don't see how this could possibly go wrong.