general A few observations

Posted November 13, 2006 • Comments Off on A few observations

In the bathroom at work this afternoon, I observed that if you stare at little black tiles with white grout for a few seconds, you start to see pretty tiles in shades of maroon and navy blue and hunter green and other dark, subtle colors, but if you look away for an instant they turn black again.

On the train home, I observed a woman reading a book, marking her place with a bookmark made of a strip of photos from a carnival photo booth. In each photo, a smiling couple (the woman on the train and a nice-looking young man) were holding a handmade sign. In the first photo, the sign said “SAVE.” In the second, “THE.” In the third, “DATE.” And in the bottom photo, “August 26, 2006.” The bookmark was a save-the-date card from her wedding. I thought that was just adorable.

And just now, reading something about September 11, I observed that somewhere about fifteen years ago, and I didn’t notice, the term “skyjacking” disappeared. “Hijack” used to refer to trains and ships. The Achille Lauro was hijacked. I remember that. For a while, airplane hijackings were called skyjackings. When did that stop? If a train or ship were hijacked now, would the term “hijack” still be used, or would it be reconstructed in the other direction?