How You Can Be Cool

Understand this:  I’m not knocking origami.  Beautifully crafted miniature animals created out of fine decorative paper.  Pretty little things for your coffee table or bookshelf.  An incredible display of form.

If you’re looking for the true triumph of both form and function, however, nothing beats the paper airplane!  With it’s graceful flight and streamlined design, a well made “Foolscap Flyer” is a marvel to behold.

It defies all logic.  A sheet of paper simply should not be able fly like that, and yet, with enough practice and just the precise number of folds, your plane can make a mockery of this petty thing called gravity.  After witnessing it dare to soar to such fantastic heights, your friends will all clamor, “Hey, let me have a try?!”

And remember, before there was e-mail, MSN, texting, facebook, or twitter, the only way you could get a message to your friend across the classroom was with a well thrown paper airplane.

You know the story.  You’re walking along, minding your own business when suddenly a tourist asks you to take a photo of them in front of a steam-clock or something.  They’ve picked you out of the crowd for being trustworthy enough not to run off with their camera so you’re now faced with a big responsibility, and a perfect opportunity for cool.  Remember these 3 rules:

1) Know something about digital cameras.  Nothing undercuts your cool like uttering the phrase, “Where’s the zoom on this thing?” or “Is the flash on?”

2) Know something about photography.  This means you have some sense of framing and lighting.  Create for them a better photo then they could have taken themselves, and, most importantly…

3) Know something about people.  The only thing people care about in their photos is that they themselves look good.  Mentally rate your subject.  If they are a 6 in real life then they damn well better be at least a 6 in the picture.  If not, that’s when you utter the phrase, “One more for safety”.  Now, if you can make a 6 look like and 8, you’re not just playing cool, you’re playing God.

Eating the turkey is delicious, but carving the turkey is gross.  It’s bony and greasy and it slides around.  It’s doesn’t cut straight, it’s rubbery and usually it’s steaming hot.  But damn it, it needs to be done.

The carving of the turkey is the final peg in an enormous military-like operation of timing, precision and display.  The potatoes have just been mashed, the stuffing is being put in pots and the cranberry sauce is on the table.  The meal is moments away and, for everything to sync up properly, the toughest job, the carve, needs to be carried out quickly and efficiently.  That’s where you come in.

In the clan’s eyes, you will be the Messiah of the Meal.  As you place those perfectly cut slices down on the table, everyone will forget that you sat around all day drinking beer and watching football.

(in the cadence of Dr. Seuss)

Speaking in rhyme is a skill that’s as old as that time long ago when first stories were told.

Poets and Criers and Bards used the style to dazzle their listeners and make people smile.

The tradition caught on, it’s been used like crazy, from Shakespeare to Keats to Whitman to Jay-Z.

As children it helped us to learn things in school and now that we’re grown it just sounds oh so cool.

But what truly we love when we hear someone rhyme is the magical way that they wrap up each line.