My oldest daughter Julia graduated from sixth grade in 1997.  It was right about then that she started to use the word “random” with some frequency.  It remains a somewhat prominent word in the slang vocabulary of young people.  I am fond of it.  It is a perfectly fine conventional word used in a slang sense that is not easily defined.  The difference between conventional “random” and slang “random” is slight but important.   I use “random” in the title of this post in both the conventional and slang sense of the word.

Eve Kushner told me about 1608 MLK and its random.

She walks Berkeley a lot and her office is on MLK.  Every week she writes an essay about one of the 2,136 Joyo kanji, the characters needed for daily use in Japan.  The project will take her just over 41 years.

How about that?  Every Monday for 41 years – a new essay.  Each essay has photos.  Really something.  I urge you to visit her website.  I urge you to buy an essay.  I urge you to consider subscribing.

Anyways, though, she sent me to see 1608 King/MLK. She knows quirky when she sees it, and as a bonus for her, there is kanji among the random.

The last photos slay me.

I pray for Wendy.  Do not lose faith in yourself Wendy.

I pulled the draft of this post up on my friend’s computer in his work room, which is evolving nicely into a Danish modern paradise.  He was leafing through some color photos from I Love Lucy, which led him to reflect on the role of black and white in the human existence.   He was happy to look at the photos from King.  He too likes the word “random.”  He claims that he was using it in a slang sense in the late 1960s.  I don’t know about that, but I think he liked the photos, because he said: