Wired Mesh

Shimmy Shine

Every day, at least twice a day, I am trapped in a small compartment hurtling vertically, standing beside people who often cough into their fists in a manner suggesting that lingering death is imminent for all of us, then turn to me and smile. These 90-second ventures into the Erlanger Medical Mall elevators are my daily taste of odd personalities and the occasional gleam of the brilliant aside.

Yesterday I wandered into the center elevator, and found a janitor buffing the metal of the door with a cloth covered in some cleanser that smelled of citrus and various less healthy acids. The middle-aged woman next to me was fascinated by the metal's new gleam. "That smells good," she said to the janitor. "What brand of cleaner is it? I want to use it on my car."

The man looked down at the cloth in his hand. "It's some kind of shimmy shine," he pronouced, and went back to scrubbing.

This, I decided, was one of the best evasive answers I'd ever heard. He was completely confident that he'd satisfactorily answered the question. I'm still convinced that "some kind of shimmy shine" needs to become shorthand for "a blatantly vauge, unhelpful answer to a precise question." It's up to you to bring this fine saying into the limelight. Off you go.

I'm taking it a little easy in the office today after staying up until five in the morning finishing my last Covenant paper. I just ran across a wonderful audio link from KCRW radio in Santa Monica, California -- a live in-studio performance by the Magnetic Fields of eight of their 69 Love Songs. This is easily one of my top five albums of all time, so it's surprising to discover that some of these tracks, especially "Asleep and Dreaming" and "Yeah! Oh Yeah!" sound even better played live. And there's a nice moment when the host blithers that Stephin Merrit's music covers every aspect of love.

"Well, most," Merrit corrects him. "No pedophilia."

Posted by mesh at April 7, 2004 03:05 PM | TrackBack