Over the summer I read The Partly Cloudy Patriot by Sarah Vowell. Many of her essays talk about being a nerd and one article proposes that nerds need to be self-deprecating in order to be accepted. She claims that all of her nerdy peers are skilled at mocking their own intelligence when they start spewing forth on a topic. This makes them less intimidating to their friends and colleagues. She speculates that the absence of this skill resulted in Gore, Dukakis and other intellectuals loosing key elections.

I found this intriguing. Perhaps she's right but as a nerd from a slightly older generation than hers, I failed to adopt self-mockery as a way of gaining approval. When talking about a book, film, documentary, etc. I get into the subject matter and forget about how I'm being perceived. I don’t think of myself as knowing more than the next person, I’m just eager to share with others what I’ve learned and see if they have anything to add. Does this make people uncomfortable or think me arrogant? Perhaps sometimes it does.

I’ve thought about Vowell’s self-deprecation theory more than anything else that I read in what was a topical and light-hearted book. On the one hand, I totally agree that Gore’s intelligence alienated the populace but should he really have made fun of himself? Society is currently besieged with right-wing fanatics with little or no edification making bold statements of misfact and never backing down. Their bravado seems to be the only thing that carries the day because they are so unstudied. If the nerds of the world added bravado to their aptitude, maybe they could accomplish something.

Nerds might not be loosing political battles because they intimidate people, they might be loosing because they fail to intimidate. Returning to the author’s hypothesis for nerd effectiveness, however, I’ll submit by saying that I’d love for Vowell or anyone else to give me a counter argument that shows why I’m wrong.

See Also

• Wikipedia Entry for Sarah Vowell
  An American author, journalist, humorist, and commentator.

Being born on St. Patrick's Day, it's never been hard to find a party on my birthday.  But Carol threw me a a birthday party last night that reached a whole different level of party coolness.  Coolness not measured by the quantity of green beer someone could choke down (before choking it back up), but by the quality of the people I am lucky enough to count as my friends.

The question I heard most last night, of course, was "So, how does it feel turning 50?"  At first, my quick reaction was to say, "Not much different," but as I spent time with folks at the party—or on the phone with folks that couldn't be there physically—my answer morphed into, "It feels great!"

It felt great to have a house full of very good friends—long-time friends from grade school or college to recent friends, near friends who walked to the party to distant friends that live out of state (even out of continent!), friends decades younger, friends my age, and friends decades older.

The party invite requested no gifts, but I am grateful to many of you that made donations to the ARPKD/CHF Alliance to help fund ongoing research into kidney disease.

It was also fun to receive a wire sculpture of a virus (above) from Stef Kopka.  (If you're not familiar with Stef's work, stop by Peaceable Kingdom in Ann Arbor and check out his life size sculpture of Shaky Jake.)  My new virus sculpture will soon be hanging in my office near the Albert Einstein marionette and the "prisoner Bush" figurine my brother carved me for other birthdays.

And I'm always pleased when cover-girl-athlete-super-achiever-Irish-cream-connoisseur-and-former-seidl-kid-nanny Marney Smiley (left) brings me a jar (yea, a jar) of her very good (and strong) homemade Irish Cream.  So I was triply pleased when, this time, she brought me three!

Thanks again, everyone!  And a special thanks to Carol for making it all happen.

I never finished my homework

'cause my brother made too much noise

I never finished my homework

'cause my sister stood in an unnatural poise

 

Suddenly

it dawned on me

that the strange and weird noises

and unnatural poises were from sleep

 

Whew!

I looked at the clock and read 2

 

Wait!

A.M.