Columnist Scott Dickensheet: Let's talk cliches, the '80s and monkeys

SORRY, BUT fans of my usual reasoned analysis, sparkling commentary and X-ray cultural diagnoses will have to turn elsewhere today; let me suggest the comics pages. Instead, we'll unzip the e-mailbag and see what actual readers have to say, and what I have to say about what they have to say.

In last month's treatise on cliches, I admitted I couldn't figure out what "a stitch in time saves nine" meant. Silly me; the answer was right behind me all the time, according to one writer. "A stitch in time refers to that little stretch in the back seam of your pants before you bend over at an auspicious occasion," he writes. Stop right there, mister -- I don't want to know what saves nine refers to.

Not long ago, I clucked in dismay over '80s nostalgia, specifically radio station KMXB's "Flashback to the '80s" party. Silly me. "1985 was a great time in the life of most 25-30 year old women," writes Cindy Schloss, KMXB general manager. No wonder I look back with loathing; it's a gender thing. The artifacts of nostalgia -- neon leg warmers, Molly Ringwald movies -- reconnect these people to memories of "a time when life was simpler," if any era with a best-selling band called Kajagoogoo can be considered simpler. And what of '90s nostalgia, Cindy wonders. "What will we remember most -- tattoos and navel rings?" When they're on Drew Barrymore, yes -- but that's probably a gender thing, too.

"Mr. Dickensheets," writes a guy named James. "As someone who feels trapped between the lessons of history and the promise of the future, I appreciated your commentary on the nature of nostalgia." Gadzooks! A reader taking me seriously! That's what I'll remember most from the '90s.

This James fellow is "dismayed at the obvious attempts of those in my generation to ... relive the 'glory days' of their younger years." His suggestion: Relive the glory days of their younger years in a different way. "Members of the new-wave generation should renew the vigor of their anti-status quo attitudes," he writes. In other words, stick it to The Man!

A correspondent named Carol is angry -- not at me, fortunately. "I'm very upset that there is this continuing argument about the format of (university radio station) KUNV," she writes. As I've never addressed this issue, I didn't know why she was e-mailing me -- until I read this: "I also wanted to send this message direct to KUNV and the student government," but she couldn't find their e-mail addresses. "Could you please forward this to them?" Lifestyle columnists -- is there nothing we cannot do?

Of course, not every writer is responding to something I've written or wants me to handle inconvenient mail-forwarding errands. Some just want to update me on the latest wild monkey news. A reader sends along this AP dispatch, about a mountain monkey terrorizing Osaka, Japan: "Police had the animal cornered briefly, but had to back off after the monkey seized two kittens." Now that's vigorously anti-status quo!

Trying to capture the animal, "the policemen moved in pairs, one carrying a large net and the other holding a pole with bananas dangling from the end." Amazing -- that's exactly how I was recruited for this job.

I also received a letter about mail-order condoms, but, of course, that's too vigorously anti-status quo for a family paper.

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