I started the i-cord for the Greek pullover last night.

I've read that i-cord is a shorter, perhaps more "politically correct" version of "idiot cord," which is its real name. "Idiot cord" either because it looks like a rank-beginner sort of mistake (not knitting right on dpns), or, alternately, because it's an "idiot's delight" - that is, something simple and repetitive and time-consuming. (There's a form of solitaire that's sometimes called Idiot's Delight).

But I think i-cord can also stand for

interminable,
irritating,
and I-can't-believe-I-have-80"-of-this-to-do.

But it looks good.



****

I read somewhere that there's a new invention - sort of an MP3 chip - that can be set up in the horn assembly of a car.

So, people can now drive down the street and when they hit the horn, a snippet of, say, Gwen Stefani's latest plays.

This is among the things in modern life that frustrate me. I do not like the endless noise pollution, the endless aesthetic pollution (i.e. - being forced in public to listen to someone else's choice of music, because "no music" is apparently not an option).

I do not particularly like "ringtones." In isolation, they're not so bad - but when you're at a meeting with fifteen people and over the course of the meeting four people's cell phones go off, it gets tiring. (And it's also tiring when someone's SO FOND OF their ringtone that they let it run and run before they answer the phone - I've seen that too).

I do not like it when people drive up and down residential streets - particularly late at night - with their current music choice blaring from speakers in their car. I own a house, in part, to avoid being subjected to other people's music choices. Having someone driving up and down the street with that "Milkshakes" song blaring defeats that. (I am quite sure my neighbors would not appreciate my driving up and down the street early in the morning with Edith Piaf on the stereo, and that set on "11").

I do not like obtrusive "public music" or especially televisions. Now, I understand - sometimes it's necessary to cover up a certain amount of noise (as in a restaurant). But. There are music choices that help and music choices that do not help. (I remember once I was in an Italian restaurant and was very amused to realize that the - quietly played - music was all either Italian-themed or by Italian-American singers: Dean Martin, etc. That worked. But it was quiet.). Also - there is now noise-cancelling technology (and I bless the names of the people who discovered that, and frankly, wonder why it's not more widely used - it seems these days to mostly be confined to gadgets aimed at the sort of people who shop at Sharper Image). But I really don't like being in a store (e.g., Wal-mart) and having to listen to/watch what's being shown on overhead televisions. Please. I am already in your store. Can you stop advertising to me for five minutes while I pick up a carton of milk?

The last time I was at the dentist he had a big television in the waiting room, tuned to, apparently, The Dentist Channel - it was an ongoing loop of ads for various cosmetic procedures. Now, it doesn't help an already dentist-averse person to have to watch video of people getting veneers and such on their teeth while she is waiting to go in to the dentist.

But, this horn thing is kind of the last straw.

For one thing - it totally destroys the functionality of horns.

My understanding is - and perhaps I'm totally wrong here, but I'm going by what the retired truck-driver who taught Driver's Ed at my high school told me - horns serve a couple specific purposes.

They can be a warning. ("Look out! You're drifting over into my lane!")
They can be a careful notification ("I can't see very clearly out the back of this drive, but I'm backing out - be forewarned")
They can be a nudge ("Hey - the light's green! Can you please get moving?")
They can be a rebuke ("Hey, you! You just cut me off!")

I know people also use them as a greeting (and I hate that because I interpret hearing a horn as "something is wrong and there may be about to be an accident" so I spend the next few moments looking around myself in a mild state of panic to see where the incipient accident is).

But - if the typical HORN horn is replaced by a snippet of music (and, oh, I can think of SO MANY inappropriate music choices, beginning with Amy Winehouse's "Rehab"), people will cease to recognize the horn as a horn. And I predict there will be more bad accidents, and more people failing to notice stuff.

And, just the general ongoing noise-pollution of our landscape - 'cos if you've paid a lot of money for a horn that lets you play music, you're going to use it at the slightest provocation, no?

I don't know. Individuality is a good thing in many ways. But sometimes I think our crazy drive to "personalize" everything (how our phone rings, how our cars sound) may be contributing a bit to the continued fraying of society - it's like everyone has a different purpose and everyone is a law unto themselves. As if some people may be saying "I don't care if other people understand this formerly-accepted signal any more, but dang, it sure sounds good to me." Kind of the law-unto-ourselves kind of thing.