Cannot Complain Enough

Speaking of meerkats, or more precisely, lemmings (actually imprecisely, since lemmings don't actually do the thing that we all credit them with)—GRRRRR. A whole article in the NYTimes talking about how hipsters and the uninvited blogosphere is abuzz with secret pool parties in Gowanus where people are swimming in cleaned up DUMPSTERS?

[Yana Paskova for The New York Times]
Even if it was just me and Rob and Nina swimming around in a container in our yard with no filter, no chlorine, no oxygenation—how long would that water be clean!?
Hipster swimsuit salmonella? Rotavirus? Gangrene?
This secret club NY stuff (secret restaurants that are just someone's house, secret bars that just pretend, secret parties that are just simply private affairs)—secret plastic tubs full of water that are now secret swim clubs? I just can't take it anymore. Must we fetishize everything?
(Also, all this capital-D Dumpsters . . . are they a brand name?)

Lost in Translation?

You're still sweet on the brilliant ads in Snacklish; I'm still stuck on moments from the June holiday. While trying to be aware of signs or symbols that are clear for peeps of all nations, I noticed some communications in London that are charmingly country-specific. Humps instead of bumps is a pretty easy one to figure out.

However, the neighborhood watch sign that's prominent in Sydenham, south of London, stumped me. When I asked my friend and hostess if ferrets headlined the sign because they poke up out of holes to monitor things (lame or what? heck! I was on vacation, as was my brain), she replied that the critters are meerkats, which are universally acknowledged to be neighborly and vigilant.

In this particular case, I was clueless and in my own local head (um, I think of the meerkat as the comic relief in "The Lion King"), not to mention unschooled in the ways of the real animal kingdom. Perhaps Lord Attenborogh and his brother have educated the British public in the ways of the cooperative and generous members of the mongoose family. Do meerkats signal community to you?