Back in the 1940\u2019s, when dinosaurs roamed the Earth, there was a musician named Duke Ellington who led one of the greatest jazz bands of that era (or of any era, for that matter). At that time, each band had a signature song. For Duke Ellington, the song was \u201cTake the A Train,\u201d which recommended that particular subway route as the quickest way to get to Harlem (the one in New York City, not the one in the Netherlands \u2013 that\u2019s Haarlem).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The\nrecommendation, Dear Reader, appears to be a sound one, and not only when you\nare heading uptown to 125th<\/sup> Street. What you do not want to do under\nany circumstances is take the F train, particularly during morning rush hour.\nWhy? Because at 7:15 a.m. on a recent morning, fellow passengers on the\nnorthbound F train noticed a dead guy serenely sitting in one of the seats.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The NYC gendarmes have not determined a cause of death for this poor fellow. However, the discovery raises an interesting question: how could they tell that the guy had croaked? Think about your own early morning commuting experiences. There you are in your almost somnambulant state, slumped in your seat on the shoulder of the passenger next to you, or hanging limply from the safety strap affixed to the ceiling of the subway car. How can anybody tell that YOU are not dead? Every<\/em><\/strong> passenger appears to be dead. So how did the other passengers decide to checkup on the vital state of this particular blob of flesh? I can only assume that he rolled onto the floor or committed some other act unusual for the time of day, it being well before the usual cocktail hour. But how did they tell that he was dead?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Methods\nto determine if someone is alive or dead are numerous, but are generally considered\nbad form. The simplest, of course, is to poke the individual in question and\nsay \u201cHey buddy, are you OK?\u201d This generally elicits an informative response or\nnon-response, as appropriate. There are, of course, more sophisticated alternatives.\nOne of the best collections of such methods for determining animate vs.\ninanimate conditions is set forth in the opening scene of the classic film \u201cCharade.\u201d\nOne is to hold a mirror in front of the individual\u2019s gaping mouth. If the\nmirror fogs up, the individual is alive. My favorite is to stick the individual\nwith a pin. If he or she shrieks and jumps out of the chair, he or she is\nalive. Unfortunately, if you use any of these methods, if the individual turns\nout not<\/em><\/strong>\nto have shuffled off this mortal coil, you run the severe risk in the current\nVictorian political climate of being accused of harassment, either immediately\nor thirty years later when you are attempting to run for President. Even worse,\nthe object of your ad hoc<\/em> vital signs\ntest may punch you in the chops or stab you with a shiv.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So\nstay off the F train.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Back in the 1940\u2019s, when dinosaurs roamed the Earth, there was a musician named Duke Ellington who led one of the greatest jazz bands of that era (or of any era, for that matter). At that time, each band had a signature song. For Duke Ellington, the song was \u201cTake the A Train,\u201d which recommended […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-1156","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/P38V5o-iE","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/funwithdoom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1156","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/funwithdoom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/funwithdoom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/funwithdoom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/funwithdoom.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1156"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/funwithdoom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1156\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1159,"href":"https:\/\/funwithdoom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1156\/revisions\/1159"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/funwithdoom.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1156"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}