Recurring voices

Three distinct voices — already familiar to many — will be resonating together in Cambridge soon.

Cambridge’s own published poet Marc Zegans, profiled here, will be performing along with another local artist, musician Arthur Nasson of Arlington, as well as Canadian singer-songwriter Donna Creighton at the Lily Pad on Oct. 2.

Nominated in 2008 for a Canadian Folk Music Award, and the four-time winner of the London Music award, Creighton toured for ten years with Borealis recording artist, Sirens, and has appeared on stage with artists like Lisa Loeb. Nasson has released five albums in the past four years, including his most recent work, False Prophets.

And poet/spoken word artist Zegans will be previewing material from his soon-to-be-released second album, Marker and Parker, recorded with legendary jazz pianist Don Parker. Zegans has previously released the album Night Work in 2007, as well as a book of haikus titled Pillow Talk.

The show starts at 7 p.m.

Meaningless point #4

For those of you who care — and especially those of you claiming not to care — pay attention.

The all-too-frequently mutilated phrase intended to express indifference is, “I couldn’t care less.” Think about it, and suddenly all the other mutations of this expression seem as silly as they are off target in stating true apathy.

Very often, we hear, “I could care less.” Simply put, this means the speaker does in fact care, at least to some measurable degree.

But the butchering of the expression gets even sillier.

Many times, I’ve heard something like, “I could care o’ less.” I have no bloody clue what this means, other than it makes the speaker look stupid.

My guess is that this bizarre phrase is an inbred descendant of the properly structured, “I could not have cared less.” (I’m not sure, but I’d bet over time the “have” became “of,” and the “not” was simply dropped. Eventually, the “of” changed its position in the sentence and became “o,’” and the phrase completed its journey to the swamplands of illiteracy.)

Andy Warhol may have been correct in predicting each of us will have his/her own 15 minutes of fame. Think about the impression you’ll make.

Dear Bob in heaven

You’ve heard it.

Somewhere, you’ve encountered that fingernails-on-the-chalkboard experience: a little child trailing its parent repeatedly yelling (with increasing loudness), “Mom! … Mom! … Mom! … Mom! … Mom! … Mom! … Mom! … Mom!” It’s the kind of thing that can spur homicidal tendencies in anyone.

Then it dawned on me.

Every day I’m telling God to damn this or damn that; bless this or that schmuck who just sneezed; or thanking God for for one thing or another that, most likely, is pretty damn trivial. Maybe this was precisely what the 3rd Commandment was designed to prevent: using God’s name in vain. If a single child screaming “Mom! Mom! Mom!” can make someone crazy, I just can’t imagine what billions of people doing the same thing on a daily basis would do.

So to provide God with some relief, I’m planning to change my ways. From now on, I’m calling on Bob. TV remote doesn’t work? “Bob damn it!” Someone cuts you off in traffic? “Bob damn you!”

Like any great plan, this one is totally customizable. You can pick anyone you want to do your damning/blessing: Jim, Gary, Sue, Linda, etc. Not to mention that this is designed in such a way that the workload gets shared. Think about it: there must be what, at least two or three Bobs in heaven? I’m sure they can easily divide up all of my daily requests.

Of course, this new approach includes the flexibility to scale my responses based on the situation. If I’m in a dire need of getting my favorite snack fix, and the local CVS actually has peanut butter M&Ms in stock, well, “Thank Bob.” But if I’m a passenger in a plane that has to make an emergency landing, and everyone walks away from the wreckage unharmed, well, on that occasion, I might direct my gratitude over Bob’s head.