A quiet Friday

I think I know what happened to those hours I seemed to lose the other day. They somehow got added to this Friday morning and afternoon, which, for the longest time, just would not end. This evening, though, I’ve just been lying about the house, more or less dog-sitting, while my parents are seeing South Pacific on Broadway. I could joke that I only see Broadway productions starring Angela Lansbury, since in the past year I’ve managed to see her in both Blithe Spirit and A Little Night Music. But the truth is, I much preferred having a quiet night at home. I fried up some eggs and a little leftover Chinese food for dinner, read a few stories in Poe’s Children — having finished Interpreter of Maladies on my train ride home — and watched a couple episodes of The Mighty Boosh and In the Loop.

All in all, a very pleasant, albeit low-key, evening.

Right now, I’m lying here on the bed with the dog beside me, waiting for my parents to call if they need to be picked up at the train station. The dog seems a little miffed that a) they’re not home yet, and b) that he isn’t yet asleep. He does have a schedule to keep, after all.

The drunk button

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about This American Life‘s show about the alcohol consumption at Penn State. (“A football school with a drinking problem,” is how the oft-quoted quip goes. And as someone who worked on campus during many a football game weekend, I can tell you, it’s often not far from the truth.) One of the students interviewed on the show said, “If there were a drunk button, I’d buy one.”

Well maybe now there is:

An alcohol substitute that mimics its pleasant buzz without leading to drunkenness and hangovers is being developed by scientists.

The new substance could have the added bonus of being “switched off” instantaneously with a pill, to allow drinkers to drive home or return to work.

The synthetic alcohol, being developed from chemicals related to Valium, works like alcohol on nerves in the brain that provide a feeling of wellbeing and relaxation.

But unlike alcohol its does not affect other parts of the brain that control mood swings and lead to addiction. It is also much easier to flush out of the body.

Finally because it is much more focused in its effects, it can also be switched off with an antidote, leaving the drinker immediately sober.

As Chris McLaren points out, this leads to all sorts of other questions — not to mention science-fictional, world-changing extrapolations. How, just for starters, would it impact this kind of clever molecular mixology? But I think there’s definitely something to this. Personally, I don’t drink very much, or often, and the kind of excessive drinking that TAL made seem like the norm at Penn State is, to me at least, just staggering. (Honestly, three drinks and a slight buzz over the course of a long evening is as extreme as I ever get.) But if we can simulate the pleasures and benefits of social drinking, while at the same time eliminating all the dangers inherent in excessive alcohol consumption and public drunkenness, shouldn’t we maybe look into doing so?

Random 10 1/22

Last week. This week:

  1. “Calling America” by Electric Light Orchestra
    Talk is cheap on satellite
  2. “Television” by Robyn Hitchcock
    You’re the devil’s fishbowl, honey
  3. “Ego Tripping at the Gates of Hell” by the Flaming Lips
    I was waiting on a moment
  4. “Kiss Me ‘Til it Bleeds” by Nina Gordon
    Inciting a riot on my radio
  5. “Jump Around” by House of Pain
    Try and play the role and the whole crew will act up
  6. “House of the Rising Son” by Public Enemy
    The gun didn’t know I was loaded
  7. “Poetry of the Deed” by Frank Turner
    They’re quicksilver wracked by some invisible heat
  8. “Take This Heart of Mine” by Marvin Gaye
    Sounds like a real bad case of a girl who needs a guy
  9. “Somebody” by Aerosmith
    Said I won’t be choosy, you could send me a floozy
  10. “Mutiny, I Promise You” by the New Pornographers
    What’s the weight of the world worth to ya, kid?

Guess the lyric, win no prize! Good luck!