THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, June 2, 1995 TAG: 9506020080
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E9 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Jennifer Dziura
LENGTH: Medium: 71 lines
AS SEEN FROM my little sphere of existence, the workings of the world are as follows: I write a column. The column is printed. People call Infoline to comment. Some callers offer encouragement. Some threaten to abduct my goldfish from his bowl and harm him severely.
But are these Infoline calls just thrust into meaningless black void chock full of antimatter from which there is no escape? Of course not. I listen to these very messages, usually sometime between when I write my column and when I get bored watching C-Span. And, occasionally, I dedicate a column to addressing the issues addressed by those whom I address as ``the readers.'' As the more perceptive amongst you may have guessed, this is such a column.
My March 12 column, ``Confucius says you won't get a bad omen in your dessert,'' was met with additional queries about Chinese cuisine. For example, one reader pointed out that there exists an entree called ``general chicken.''
Is this dish, I wonder, the opposite of ``specific chicken''? Perhaps ``specific chicken'' is kind of like when you sponsor a needy child in a Third World country and Sally Struthers sends you a little portfolio all about the child. In this case, you'd know exactly which chicken you were eating - where she grew up, what her friends called her, what her favorite game show was. . . as a souvenir.
An April 14 column, ``The SAT is headed in opposite direction,'' poked fun at the ``Scan-tron tyranny'' of the exam, especially the analogy section, which features questions such as ``INTERNATIONAL DRUG CARTEL is to MONKEY WRENCH as THE FINNISH WORD FOR A DEALER IN LYE is to. . . ''
As an alternative to the analogy section, I suggested a rhyming section. As an example of a difficult rhyming question, I offered ``Roses are red/Violets are purple/Your uncle is really good at algebra/Scandinavia had good . . . ''
The idea, of course, was to suggest that a few of the more difficult questions on the SAT don't seem to have answers. After all, no English word rhymes with ``purple.'' One ambitious 65-year-old reader, however, called in with a solution: ``It must be `maple surple.' ''
A few columns ago (a ``column'' is a measurement of time consisting of one 26th of the earth's revolution around the sun), I interviewed aspiring young alternative-type musician Deral Fenderson, author of such breathtaking lyrics as the following: ``The sight of you in flames will make me cry/But it's just some ash particles in my eye.''
Well, Deral has seen fit to grace us with his wisdom once more; he called Infoline to make the following comment on the procedural issues involved in dialing 640-5555, entering code 6778, and pressing one to leave a message: ``But what if I don't feel like pressing one? What if I felt like pressing two? What would happen if I pressed two? Or maybe if I pressed three? Suppose I was feeling really adventurous and decided to press zero? Would I get the operator? Would the operator come on the phone and ask me what phone number I wanted to dial? Hmmmm. . . ''
The answer to this question is no. If you go to all the trouble of dialing 640-5555 and entering 6778, and then you rebel against the Infoline establishment by pressing zero, you just get that computer-synthesized woman (kind of like the computer on ``Star Trek'') nonchalantly saying ``You may enter a category number now.''
But if you're in the mood to conform and press one when instructed to do so by my prerecorded voice, then feel free to call Infoline and leave your comments. MEMO: Jennifer Dziura is a junior at Cox High. Her column is published twice
monthly in Teenology.
by CNB