The Story of the Snowflake
Sitting here on my couch, sipping (eating?) a cup of Pop's Water Ice -- Ichiban of water ices, for those who may be intrigued -- my inner cellphone junkie (who uses about 4,000 minutes a month) is getting a little frustrated. I'm trying to make a call over to Rome for a major project, but there's some kind of issue and if this keeps up I'm not keen on interrupting anyone's dinner. Grr.
As Father-Mentor always said, "In an Italian house, it's the sacred hour of the day." Despite being 5'11 and unable to top 130, I'm still the son of an Italian mother and understand this completely.
But back to business... well, housekeeping.
Question #1 from readers is always, without fail, "Why 'snowflakes'?" I read beautiful hypotheses and disturbed ones, but it's become a favored guessing game which is quite amusing for me. The answer is not as involved as one might think.
As if it doesn't show enough, I'm a gran tifosa of the comedian Lewis Black -- the sizable number of Daily Show fans in this audience know of whom I speak. Well, one night over a couple beers, I was watching some Black stand-up, and he was talking about the nuclear fallout warnings of his childhood. (I pride myself on my Black impersonation; maybe if I get some speaking gigs I'll be able to regale the snowflakes with that.)
Anyway, so Black's screaming about how, "And they SAID that if we all got under our DESKS, we'd be able to survive a NUCLEAR. EXPLOSION!" He then went off on some rant about New Age-y gurus and their approach to teaching, impersonating them in saying, "Each of you is unique, innocent and beautiful. Like a snowflake. You are all snowflakes." He kept returning to this in the course of the evening, and for some reason it made an impression.
So that's the story behind the snowflakes. It's probably not as tittilating as you expected, but oh well.
-30-
As Father-Mentor always said, "In an Italian house, it's the sacred hour of the day." Despite being 5'11 and unable to top 130, I'm still the son of an Italian mother and understand this completely.
But back to business... well, housekeeping.
Question #1 from readers is always, without fail, "Why 'snowflakes'?" I read beautiful hypotheses and disturbed ones, but it's become a favored guessing game which is quite amusing for me. The answer is not as involved as one might think.
As if it doesn't show enough, I'm a gran tifosa of the comedian Lewis Black -- the sizable number of Daily Show fans in this audience know of whom I speak. Well, one night over a couple beers, I was watching some Black stand-up, and he was talking about the nuclear fallout warnings of his childhood. (I pride myself on my Black impersonation; maybe if I get some speaking gigs I'll be able to regale the snowflakes with that.)
Anyway, so Black's screaming about how, "And they SAID that if we all got under our DESKS, we'd be able to survive a NUCLEAR. EXPLOSION!" He then went off on some rant about New Age-y gurus and their approach to teaching, impersonating them in saying, "Each of you is unique, innocent and beautiful. Like a snowflake. You are all snowflakes." He kept returning to this in the course of the evening, and for some reason it made an impression.
So that's the story behind the snowflakes. It's probably not as tittilating as you expected, but oh well.
-30-
posted by Rocco Palmo at 13:50
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