ON THE AVENUES: Better access, quality of life, public safety, and various other Orwellian aspects of the New Albanist’s experience.
From the "Beer Money" files: A New Albanist’s Dictionary (Oct. 15, 2009).
---
BEER MONEY: A New Albanist’s Dictionary, Volume 2.
Originally published on January 6, 2011
Let’s begin the year with another revolving and evolving list of words, terms and concepts that provide a specialized vocabulary of life in the Open Air Museum. The first collection appeared on October 15, 2009.
It is my earnest goal to periodically refresh and expand this list, and your assistance is requested in doing so. Please send corrections, additions and comments to istanbul85(at)yahoo(dot)com, and help define the forever stunning depths of the New Albanian zeitgeist.
Annexation
A wonderful thing to do, so long as you neither complete nor use it until long after the current council’s sell-by date.
Axis of Banal
The Price/Coffey conjoined council obstruction club, usually with anywhere from one to seven other members quite eager to make it into a risqué threesome.
Bike boy
Term of affection used by anonymous troglodytes to describe anyone who rides more miles on a bicycle in a given day than they’re capable of doing in a year.
Blue Laws
Sunday retail sales restrictions lovingly fetishized by Councilman Cappuccino, implying the restoration of rotary dial telephones, one-piece bathing suits, asbestos insulation and mail delivered by Pony Express.
Buy Local
Saving gas by shopping at the mega-chain retailer nearest one’s house.
Caucus
A city council meeting that isn’t, as attended only by those council members who won’t admit aloud to being Republican, as opposed to the single one who will. Quorum due to expire in November, 2011.
Citizens Faux Accountability
Hilary Clinton fan club, run by a chain smoker from a post office box near a Gucci outlet somewhere in Italy.
City Council
Place where the high school civics class kids are obliged to go ... for detention. (DS)
Clere Channel Network
Where communication is a one-way street, and the street has no name.
Conservatism
Political trait that Floyd County Democrats typically claim to possess to a greater degree than their Republican rivals, who themselves are somewhere to the right of Attila the Hun, leaving the remainder of us stuck inside of Weimar with the Birdseye blues again.
Controversy
The insertion of rationality, usually unintentional, into a given political discussion during city council meetings.
Discussion
At city council, any stray verbiage randomly issued as a means to avoid contemplation of the actual issue(s) at hand.
Cracker Barrel
Long-awaited Nirvana for downtown revitalization advocates who really don’t understand downtown revitalization at all.
EDIT
Crucial economic development monies designed to remain inert until needed by office holders as penny-wise, pound-foolish subsidies, rather than economic development monies.
Freedom of Speech
1. Local blog that does not allow reader comments
2. Condition that applies to you but not the person with whom you disagree.
Handicapping
A New Albany voter’s perpetual calculation: Is an incorruptible politician who is wrong 100% of the time better or worse than a corruptible politician who is right half the time?
Happy Hour
60 affectionate minutes with your hip flask before the council meeting starts.
Historical Preservation Commission
Power-hungry zealots who refuse to admit that the rental property you’ve chronically neglected for decades merely is a dilapidated building suitable only for tenants.
Infinite Monkey Theorem
Expression of mathematical probability suggesting that if given enough time, an ape typing at random would eventually write Shakespeare's “Hamlet” -- or an ordinance outlawing the Historical Preservation Commission.
Leotards
Skin-tight leg wraps that threaten the fragile masculinity of a former Gang of Four council stalwart; also called “tights,” as in, “Let’s all get tights, and vote in my garage for a change.”
New Albany Bicentennial
A time for remembering what it was like in 1813, and for accepting that we’re mostly still there.
New Albany Bicentennial Public Art Project
Placements of art intended for the edification of the common man, consequently eluding the comprehension of the council members whose downtown districts house them.
Open Air Museum of Ignorance, Superstition and Backwardness
- 1. City-wide folkways theme park devoted to the reality of life in New Albany: “We have met the enemy, and he is us.”
- 2. "Give us more fish. Don't you dare teach us how to fish."
- 3. Place where tolls (in squandered modernity) already are being collected.
Neighborhood Parking Permit
A plan to surrender public street space for private use, to appease private property owners who are unwilling to give up their own privately held property for the exact same purpose (JG).
One Southern Indiana
- 1. Organization dedicated to preserving the wealth of its highest-standing members by erecting a wall running the length of the Ohio River.
- 2. Synonym for “blatant hypocrisy.”
Post-Partum Depression
Your empty flask AFTER the council meeting.
Reclaim Our Culture Kentuckiana (ROCK)
Group suffering from a chronic allergy to 2010 calendars, and seeking the curative measure of “reclaiming” things they cannot define, because those things never existed. See also: Torquemada Twist, Wickensianism.
Saint Daniels
The reason why we have incense, prayer, One Southern Indiana, charter schools and bridge tolls.
School closings
- 1. Rituals of solemn necessity preceding a pay increase for an impoverished superintendent.
- 2. A heaven-sent occasion for conniving school board members, often Republicans, to plot their next political campaigns.
- 3. An atrocity that Superman (R-72) curiously missed.
Sewergeddon
The Potty Police’s plan to employ diggers and reclaim the city’s culture by flushing raw sewage through street-side ditches past the mayor’s house, at a fraction of the cost of conventional sewage treatment.
Steve Price
Synonym for “no,” spoken in Dewey Heights dialect.
No comments:
Post a Comment