430-499: Most. Unmotivating. Dewey. Section. Ever. Just 70 digits of language dictionaries, 60 of them allocated to various European languages. So imagine my pleasant surprise at finding that my old friend Leo Rosten wound up amongst the Germans! I knew Rosten from his wonderful character, H*Y*M*A*N*K*A*P*L*A*N, a fictional adult ESL student whose personality was as colorful as his signature. But Rosten was fluent in Yiddish as well as English and wrote a wonderfully schlocky (see what I did there?) guide to Yiddish as spoken in America by Jews and goyim alike, and that is how he ended up in 430-439.
Some people object to the jokes that were old before Rosten was even born. Others might object to outdated social attitudes. Myself, I just found out that even Leo Rosten cannot persuade me to read an entire dictionary front to back in a period of three to six weeks. But, as dictionaries go, this is a good one! And his kids have updated it, so, there's that. If you want to learn some Yiddish, this is the way to do it!
Sunday, December 24, 2017
Sunday, December 10, 2017
420-429: English. Eats, Shoots and Leaves, by Lynne Truss
On the back cover of Eats, Shoots & Leaves, a panda walks into a bar... and by the time he walks out, everyone has vowed to be much more careful about the placement of their commas. And their apostrophes, and even their ellipses! Truss surprised herself by writing a best seller about punctuation, and then took it to the next level by issuing a special edition equipped with a "punctuation repair kit" for the correction of any errant signage one might find in the wild: sticker commas, question marks, and, when all is lost, cute little circles that admonish, "THE PANDA SAYS NO!" (Just... no. Stop with your banana's and pretty, little, green houses already.)
There is a 10-page preface and a 34-page introduction. At least one of these, and possibly both, is disposable. But once you get into the meat of the book, the considerations of proper uses of each of the marks, you will find plenty of food for thought. The text is embellished with many examples of punctuation gone wild ("Giant Kid's Playground" is one of my favorites. Odd how the equipment all seemed normal-sized...).
The most impressive thing I learned is that there is no complete consensus on the proper use of commas!! This revelation has pretty much ruined my professional life. I used to confidently pronounce rules like, "A subordinate clause must be set off by a comma if it introduces the main clause, but not if it follows it," and, of course, "never use a comma before a coordinating conjunction unless it could be replaced with a semicolon," but it turns out those are both style choices, not natural laws along the lines of "multiplication undoes division" or "an object in motion tends to stay in motion." Snap! Now I just tell kids, "These are the rules being tested. You may have learned different rules. Your rules are not wrong, but you will lose credit if you follow them in this situation!" Welcome to reality.
And, if you still can't figure it out, apparently you can just ask the panda.
There is a 10-page preface and a 34-page introduction. At least one of these, and possibly both, is disposable. But once you get into the meat of the book, the considerations of proper uses of each of the marks, you will find plenty of food for thought. The text is embellished with many examples of punctuation gone wild ("Giant Kid's Playground" is one of my favorites. Odd how the equipment all seemed normal-sized...).
The most impressive thing I learned is that there is no complete consensus on the proper use of commas!! This revelation has pretty much ruined my professional life. I used to confidently pronounce rules like, "A subordinate clause must be set off by a comma if it introduces the main clause, but not if it follows it," and, of course, "never use a comma before a coordinating conjunction unless it could be replaced with a semicolon," but it turns out those are both style choices, not natural laws along the lines of "multiplication undoes division" or "an object in motion tends to stay in motion." Snap! Now I just tell kids, "These are the rules being tested. You may have learned different rules. Your rules are not wrong, but you will lose credit if you follow them in this situation!" Welcome to reality.
And, if you still can't figure it out, apparently you can just ask the panda.
Sunday, October 22, 2017
410-419: Linguistics. Words on the Move, by John McWhorter
Subtitled "Why English Won't-- and Can't-- Sit Still (Like, Literally)", the purpose of this book is to make the case that it is predictable, okay and actually kind of fun that "people" insist on using words incorrectly. McWhorter is all, "Language change is inevitable! Embrace it!" Then he's like, "If we didn't write it down, you wouldn't even realize it was changing!" (PS He also says that there are wrong uses-- those that are idiosyncratic and therefore unintelligible. Which brings up a chicken-and-egg question: where did these not-ready-for-prime-time yet widely accepted uses, like alternate expressions for "he said," come from? Didn't somebody have to be the first person to use them? Sadly, this question is not addressed.)
McWhorter first introduces us to the idea that besides the parts of speech we learned about in Schoolhouse Rock, English is full of words the primary purpose of which is to clarify the emotional content and grease the social wheels of the conversation. He posits that these words are doing one or more of four jobs. The first is to address issues of factuality. Here's where he addresses the dreaded "literally." His claim is that while "literally" can literally mean "literally"-- by the letter of what I am saying-- as in, "It was literally 6 below on the back porch," it has, in a completely normal process that many other words we use every day have already undergone, completed a metamorphosis to also mean "This is obviously an exaggeration that could not possibly be true but that accurately expresses my emotional state." So, for this usage, if it was +2 degrees Farenheit, you can say, "I was literally freezing my toes off," because it was indeed very ("verily") cold, but we can check-- your toes are still there. You are exaggerating the factual information to get across the experiential information. But you can't say "It was literally 6 below," because we can check, but we're not going to, and we will now be misinformed about the temperature. You also can't say, "It was literally 70 degrees" in San Diego, because it's always 70 degrees in San Diego, and whether "literally" is used literally or figuratively, it always conveys a sense that something is happening counter to expectations, which brings us to the next two functions of these kinds of words.
Acknowledgement recognizes that not only the speaker but also the hearer has knowledge and feelings about the information being shared. This is the obvious task of "you know." It is also the important task of such underrated words and phenomena as changing the subject with the word "So..." which, in that context, does not mean "therefore," but rather serves as a sort of "new paragraph" marker in speech. The much-maligned habit of uptalk: "So I was coming home from work yesterday? And I saw a squirrel?" is doing the same thing, inviting the listener to confirm that he is with you, much as you might sing, "I met him at the candy store-- he turned around and smiled at me, you get the picture?" Beginning a sentence with "well" can also be part of this way of speaking, but I think the author underrates its function as a marker that a condescending explanation is on the way. The explainer is hoping that the "well" will soften the blow of the disagreeing factuality marker "actually" that immediately follows, but the gambit is transparent, and now we all know where a mansplainer gets his water.
"Totally" often also expresses some counterexpectation: "Do you think I'll get the job?" "They'll totally hire you. They'd be idiots not to." Mild vulgarity will now ensue as I use my favorite example of a counterexpectational marker: the suffix "-ass." I first started paying attention to this marker after I heard it used in a staff meeting. The usage was something like this: "What are we going to tell students about problem 24? It looks fairly straightforward, but it turns into this big-ass problem that most of them don't have time for." For some reason, I found it hilarious to describe a math problem as "big-ass." But I began to realize, to my continued amusement, that just about anything can be described this way as long as it is bigger than anyone could have reasonably expected. So, you can't have a big-ass whale, because all whales are big. But you can have a big-ass rodent. Note that this word seems to be doing a different job from either of the uses of "literally," because the thing of unusual size must be, as far as I have ever heard, an actual noun that can take the adjective "big." That said, this versatile little marker of surprising largeness can be appended to all kinds of words: you can have a "grown-ass man" and a "long-ass book" and maybe even a "cold-ass day," although I still think most people would prefer to say they are "literally freezing my ass off."
The final need in our language is for easing, that is, making the listener feel more comfortable. IRL we laugh, chuckle, nod, and smile to take the edge off what we are saying, but in writing we "LOL" or "haha" or maybe just 😀. Much has been written about the rapid evolution of these easing words, and I follow it with interest so that my texts and emails won't alarm people haha or make them roll their eyes at my out-of-it-ness 😆, but I wouldn't dream of trying to summarize it here.
Instead, I will talk about the beautiful word "like," which seems to do all four of these jobs, sometimes more than one at a time.
"Like" is one hard-working word. It can mean "in the same way as" ("like a boss") or "resembling a,"and, of course, on Facebook it is primarily an indicator of acknowledgement, but it does lots of other good things. It can gradiate factuality, signal counterexpectation, and ease dialog-- and it has become a dialogue marker. Consider this conversation:
"The jury I was on had to decide on, like, 17 separate charges!"
"Actually, it was 20."
"Yeah, so, like twenty charges! So I was like, 'You guys, we can't get through all these before lunch! We have to, like, order in!"
In three sentences "like" has 1) signaled that the speaker is giving you an approximation 2) let you know that the word following is both true and unexpected 3)introduced a direct quote and 4) moderated a command to become a suggestion so the listeners could accept it more easily. Noice!
So as the language changes all around you, while writing and the SAT struggle -- or don't even try-- to keep up, don't get mad-- have fun with it! Join in, experiment and rejoice in all the ways we can express ourself with our beautiful language!
McWhorter first introduces us to the idea that besides the parts of speech we learned about in Schoolhouse Rock, English is full of words the primary purpose of which is to clarify the emotional content and grease the social wheels of the conversation. He posits that these words are doing one or more of four jobs. The first is to address issues of factuality. Here's where he addresses the dreaded "literally." His claim is that while "literally" can literally mean "literally"-- by the letter of what I am saying-- as in, "It was literally 6 below on the back porch," it has, in a completely normal process that many other words we use every day have already undergone, completed a metamorphosis to also mean "This is obviously an exaggeration that could not possibly be true but that accurately expresses my emotional state." So, for this usage, if it was +2 degrees Farenheit, you can say, "I was literally freezing my toes off," because it was indeed very ("verily") cold, but we can check-- your toes are still there. You are exaggerating the factual information to get across the experiential information. But you can't say "It was literally 6 below," because we can check, but we're not going to, and we will now be misinformed about the temperature. You also can't say, "It was literally 70 degrees" in San Diego, because it's always 70 degrees in San Diego, and whether "literally" is used literally or figuratively, it always conveys a sense that something is happening counter to expectations, which brings us to the next two functions of these kinds of words.
Acknowledgement recognizes that not only the speaker but also the hearer has knowledge and feelings about the information being shared. This is the obvious task of "you know." It is also the important task of such underrated words and phenomena as changing the subject with the word "So..." which, in that context, does not mean "therefore," but rather serves as a sort of "new paragraph" marker in speech. The much-maligned habit of uptalk: "So I was coming home from work yesterday? And I saw a squirrel?" is doing the same thing, inviting the listener to confirm that he is with you, much as you might sing, "I met him at the candy store-- he turned around and smiled at me, you get the picture?" Beginning a sentence with "well" can also be part of this way of speaking, but I think the author underrates its function as a marker that a condescending explanation is on the way. The explainer is hoping that the "well" will soften the blow of the disagreeing factuality marker "actually" that immediately follows, but the gambit is transparent, and now we all know where a mansplainer gets his water.
"Totally" often also expresses some counterexpectation: "Do you think I'll get the job?" "They'll totally hire you. They'd be idiots not to." Mild vulgarity will now ensue as I use my favorite example of a counterexpectational marker: the suffix "-ass." I first started paying attention to this marker after I heard it used in a staff meeting. The usage was something like this: "What are we going to tell students about problem 24? It looks fairly straightforward, but it turns into this big-ass problem that most of them don't have time for." For some reason, I found it hilarious to describe a math problem as "big-ass." But I began to realize, to my continued amusement, that just about anything can be described this way as long as it is bigger than anyone could have reasonably expected. So, you can't have a big-ass whale, because all whales are big. But you can have a big-ass rodent. Note that this word seems to be doing a different job from either of the uses of "literally," because the thing of unusual size must be, as far as I have ever heard, an actual noun that can take the adjective "big." That said, this versatile little marker of surprising largeness can be appended to all kinds of words: you can have a "grown-ass man" and a "long-ass book" and maybe even a "cold-ass day," although I still think most people would prefer to say they are "literally freezing my ass off."
The final need in our language is for easing, that is, making the listener feel more comfortable. IRL we laugh, chuckle, nod, and smile to take the edge off what we are saying, but in writing we "LOL" or "haha" or maybe just 😀. Much has been written about the rapid evolution of these easing words, and I follow it with interest so that my texts and emails won't alarm people haha or make them roll their eyes at my out-of-it-ness 😆, but I wouldn't dream of trying to summarize it here.
Instead, I will talk about the beautiful word "like," which seems to do all four of these jobs, sometimes more than one at a time.
"Like" is one hard-working word. It can mean "in the same way as" ("like a boss") or "resembling a,"and, of course, on Facebook it is primarily an indicator of acknowledgement, but it does lots of other good things. It can gradiate factuality, signal counterexpectation, and ease dialog-- and it has become a dialogue marker. Consider this conversation:
"The jury I was on had to decide on, like, 17 separate charges!"
"Actually, it was 20."
"Yeah, so, like twenty charges! So I was like, 'You guys, we can't get through all these before lunch! We have to, like, order in!"
In three sentences "like" has 1) signaled that the speaker is giving you an approximation 2) let you know that the word following is both true and unexpected 3)introduced a direct quote and 4) moderated a command to become a suggestion so the listeners could accept it more easily. Noice!
So as the language changes all around you, while writing and the SAT struggle -- or don't even try-- to keep up, don't get mad-- have fun with it! Join in, experiment and rejoice in all the ways we can express ourself with our beautiful language!
Friday, September 15, 2017
400-409: Introduction to All the Languages in the World. Chitchat by Isabella and Boake
Fun fact: I was a graduate linguistics student for one year. When I got married and moved away from my university, I thought I would just finish up somewhere else, but it turns out graduate linguistics programs are not thick on the ground, and then life happened, and what with one thing and another, I mainly used my training to study my children's language acquisition. But you would think that with this history, I would be superstoked about the 400s, especially since my undergrad was in French, I sort of speak Spanish, and I currently make a living teaching English, among other things.
You would think.
But I've been having a hard time getting into this chunk of the library. I mean...
400: Overview of language
410: Linguistics (which is different from the overview of language how?)
420: English
430: German
440: French
450: Italian
460: Spanish
470: Latin
480: Greek (ancient and modern, in case you were wondering)
490: Other languages (you know, Swahili, Hindi, Mandarin, Russian, Arabic, etc. 10 numbers should be plenty for them, apparently?)
And all I can think is, "Oh, glory, I have to read an entire book about German? And then another one about Italian? Ugh." The good news is that in the 420s I get to read Eats, Shoots and Leaves, which I have never read before, which is just plain ridiculous given that, as previously mentioned, I teach people where to put commas for a living.
Anyway, even my little local library agrees about the superfluity of 400-409. There were literally no books numbered as such in the adult section, which is how I ended up reading a kids' book called Chitchat, by Jude Isabella and Kathy Boake.
More fun facts I learned from the brightly illustrated pages of this book for middle grade readers, and then verified for you through minutes of painstaking research:
- Ancient languages had no name for blue, and neither do a few living languages. People speaking such languages perceive blues as shades of green or black. Thus, perhaps, Homer's "wine-dark sea." (Or maybe he just figured you already knew what color the sea was. We don't actually have a clue.) People who grow up with a different set of color words think of the whole color spectrum differently. I don't think I can ever unsee ROYGBIV, but I love that some cultures use the same word for "black"and for all dark colors. When I went back to school for Art, I learned in Painting 1 that there's no such thing as pure black (or white, for that matter), and we were made to mix all our "blacks" from colors. So we could learn to "unsee" something our language had taught us. Maybe with a few more years of training, I could unsee the distinction between green and blue?
- There is a group called "The Long Now Foundation" that has etched 1500 human languages on one palm-sized disk. This Rosetta Project is named after the famous Rosetta Stone that, by carving the same text in three languages, unlocked Egyptian heiroglyphics to the modern world. So, that's pretty cool. Only you need a microscope to read the carvings, so I hope the people 2000 years from now who find this thing will have one. Also, I hope they can find it, since it's so small. The foundation seems to have considered some of these issues, and they are certainly right that digital records are quite undependable in the long run.
- Hildegard Bingen, that turn of the (12th) century polymath, invented an alphabet and language, possibly as a result of divine revelation. (She also wrote music and medical texts.) In the present day, making up languages is a whole thing, whether to lend verisimilitude to a fictional narrative like The Lord of the Rings or Star Trek, or to bring about world peace, as Esperanto was meant to do.
- Akbar the Great once conducted an experiment wherein a large group of children were brought up in one building with nurses who could not speak. The idea may have been to see whether they developed any kind of speech, and, if so, what known language it resembled, but the actual result was that they only made noises-- and may or may not have used sign language, which they may or may not have learned from the nurses. There's much uncertainty about the nature and outcome of this experiment, since it took place so long ago, but what is known is that communities with large numbers of deaf inhabitants typically work out sign languages that are adopted by even the hearing members of the community. Chitchat references the Al Sayyid Bedouin community, which is particularly exciting to linguists because the whole process of language development has taken place within recent history and is continuing as we speak. Similar processes produced a local sign language on Martha's Vineyard which has since died out, and in Nicaragua, where the language is still developing.
Wednesday, July 12, 2017
Clothes make the woman: Fear and Clothing by Cintra Wilson
May I say first of all that this book was a pure pleasure to read. It was funny and intriguing and -- fair warning-- opinionated. Skip it if you don't want to be exposed to some feminist polemics. Skip it if you are not open to the possibility that a homeless guy's fashion statement might be just as valid as an Ole Miss alumni's. Skip it if you really love Reed Krakoff's designs, because she trashes them hilariously and without mercy. But if you want to be inspired to pay a little more attention to your own fashion statement and to what other people are trying to say, if you want to think a little bit about what clothes mean (and if you don't mind a little rude language), all while getting a cultural tour of the US and having a LOT of laughs, this is your beach read.
Wilson's central thesis is that "fashion is a joyful and important way to empower yourself," and she travels the country looking for people who do that. But first she tells us about her own fashion journey. I could see that we were going to be friends when she mentioned her "nearly pathological Victorian prudishness," and I knew I had something to learn from her when she discussed her "insatiable craving" for "aggressive fabulousness." I don't know that I myself have the energy or commitment to be aggressively fabulous on a daily basis, but I certainly admire those who go for it.
In Utah, Wilson writes about Elizabeth Smart that "she had endured the most intense case of social brainwashing via fashion victimization since Patty Hearst... even Elizabeth Smart herself didn't know who she was." (It's a great line, but it turns out Smart herself tells the story differently. So just bring the salt as you read.)
In Wyoming, she writes about the power of a hat to transform. Oh yes. If you know me, you know I'm there already. Mary Poppins hat? Check! Mary Tyler Moore snow beret? Check! Crocodile Dundee hiking hat? Of course! All worn with great sincerity, of course.
In Miami, she writes about the origin of Lilly Pulitzer prints-- apparently, they are designed to hide juice spills!
And in the Kansas City, Kansas/Missouri area, Wilson made up for what she may have got wrong about Elizabeth Smart by getting a rural midwestern clothesline exactly, beautifully, lyrically right:
...well-loved, embroidered cotton pillowcases, hand-stitched aprons, appliqued napkins and tablecloths, secured on a fuzzy white rope with hingeless wooden clothespins, waving in the breeze before a wall of pine trees. It actually brought tears to my eyes; it was like stumbling on a time capsule full of lost femininity...
I didn't want to love it, but there was something so careful, constructive, and deeply good about that ravishing laundry. It was a genuine example of home-making as a verb-- a creative act that reifies the idea of "home." There is a lost paradise evident in these mundane niceties that is very moving to me. The most undervalued thing in this world is the time, attention, concentration and patient effort of unhurried human beings. There is a distinct improvement in the quality of life when one is the midst of that uncelebrated cornball magic known as the "female touch': that mythical lattice-crusted pie made with blackberries from the garden, cooling on the windowsill...It's the kind of modest, good-faith creative energy that exists only to dignify and spruce up the immediate vicinity. It is a drive to beautify that never seeks anything so vainglorious as outside affirmation, because it would never put on such ludicrous airs as to call itself "art." These elegant works are merely (merely!) well-practiced, gorgeously skillful experessions of care.
Again, if you know me, you know I react to a piece of hand work in a thrift store the way some people react to a puppy at the SPCA: I must adopt it, take it home and love it with all the honor it deserves. Somebody's "time, attention, concentration and patient effort" is recorded in every stitch, and, in turn, our attention must be paid.
Wilson winds up in Brooklyn, where she observes that "Many items in New York's more avant-garde boutiques have entirely relinquished any pretense of being viable clothing." This section, by the way, is where I started chuckling on the beach. Yup, LOLs in the 390s, hot fun in the summertime. She then goes straight to a comparison of Madison Avenue in Manhattan and Jamaica Avenue in Brooklyn, both home to purple furs and giant handbags... either way, she quips, "The New York fashion statement is, essentially, a bank statement." She's obviously most at home in New York and also makes a brilliant observation about pricey (but well-made and non-experimental) clothes; "If you try on a piece of clothing that is perfect, you should buy it... I calculate that every time I have denied myself a perfect garment, I have bought at least six, and sometimes up to ten inferior versions of it, for years afterward." Preach!
Take this trip through the sunny heart of America with Wilson. She'll annoy you at times, but she'll also entertain you, and maybe you'll get an idea for a new hat.
Wilson's central thesis is that "fashion is a joyful and important way to empower yourself," and she travels the country looking for people who do that. But first she tells us about her own fashion journey. I could see that we were going to be friends when she mentioned her "nearly pathological Victorian prudishness," and I knew I had something to learn from her when she discussed her "insatiable craving" for "aggressive fabulousness." I don't know that I myself have the energy or commitment to be aggressively fabulous on a daily basis, but I certainly admire those who go for it.
In Utah, Wilson writes about Elizabeth Smart that "she had endured the most intense case of social brainwashing via fashion victimization since Patty Hearst... even Elizabeth Smart herself didn't know who she was." (It's a great line, but it turns out Smart herself tells the story differently. So just bring the salt as you read.)
In Wyoming, she writes about the power of a hat to transform. Oh yes. If you know me, you know I'm there already. Mary Poppins hat? Check! Mary Tyler Moore snow beret? Check! Crocodile Dundee hiking hat? Of course! All worn with great sincerity, of course.
In Miami, she writes about the origin of Lilly Pulitzer prints-- apparently, they are designed to hide juice spills!
And in the Kansas City, Kansas/Missouri area, Wilson made up for what she may have got wrong about Elizabeth Smart by getting a rural midwestern clothesline exactly, beautifully, lyrically right:
...well-loved, embroidered cotton pillowcases, hand-stitched aprons, appliqued napkins and tablecloths, secured on a fuzzy white rope with hingeless wooden clothespins, waving in the breeze before a wall of pine trees. It actually brought tears to my eyes; it was like stumbling on a time capsule full of lost femininity...
I didn't want to love it, but there was something so careful, constructive, and deeply good about that ravishing laundry. It was a genuine example of home-making as a verb-- a creative act that reifies the idea of "home." There is a lost paradise evident in these mundane niceties that is very moving to me. The most undervalued thing in this world is the time, attention, concentration and patient effort of unhurried human beings. There is a distinct improvement in the quality of life when one is the midst of that uncelebrated cornball magic known as the "female touch': that mythical lattice-crusted pie made with blackberries from the garden, cooling on the windowsill...It's the kind of modest, good-faith creative energy that exists only to dignify and spruce up the immediate vicinity. It is a drive to beautify that never seeks anything so vainglorious as outside affirmation, because it would never put on such ludicrous airs as to call itself "art." These elegant works are merely (merely!) well-practiced, gorgeously skillful experessions of care.
Again, if you know me, you know I react to a piece of hand work in a thrift store the way some people react to a puppy at the SPCA: I must adopt it, take it home and love it with all the honor it deserves. Somebody's "time, attention, concentration and patient effort" is recorded in every stitch, and, in turn, our attention must be paid.
Wilson winds up in Brooklyn, where she observes that "Many items in New York's more avant-garde boutiques have entirely relinquished any pretense of being viable clothing." This section, by the way, is where I started chuckling on the beach. Yup, LOLs in the 390s, hot fun in the summertime. She then goes straight to a comparison of Madison Avenue in Manhattan and Jamaica Avenue in Brooklyn, both home to purple furs and giant handbags... either way, she quips, "The New York fashion statement is, essentially, a bank statement." She's obviously most at home in New York and also makes a brilliant observation about pricey (but well-made and non-experimental) clothes; "If you try on a piece of clothing that is perfect, you should buy it... I calculate that every time I have denied myself a perfect garment, I have bought at least six, and sometimes up to ten inferior versions of it, for years afterward." Preach!
Take this trip through the sunny heart of America with Wilson. She'll annoy you at times, but she'll also entertain you, and maybe you'll get an idea for a new hat.
Friday, June 16, 2017
390-399: Culture: Fashion, Manners, Daily Life, Holidays, Celebrations, Folklore and Myths
Speaking of which. Looking good occupies about two shelves in the not-huge public library where I visited today, but you already knew that was a huge concern of our society. How to look good, why to look good, whether we should care at all.... How could I resist a book called Fear and Clothing? And then Cintra Wilson revealed herself as a kindred spirit in at least one respect, speaking of her upbringing in a houseboat community in the 70's: "The casual approach to nudity... gave rise to my firm belief in the magic of garments, a nearly pathological Victorian prudishness, and a lifelong horror of nudists." Well, you may not be sold on the value of fashion, but I hope that little piece of flash memoir will at least impress upon you of the value of clothes. Wilson makes it clear in her introduction that she is not interested in what makes people beautiful but what makes them look like themselves-- not actually in fashion but in style. I chose In Your Face, by Shari Graydon, from this section as well, because I also can't resist a book that promises to attack "the culture of beauty." Graydon's book proves on closer examination to be written for "youth." It's never too early to provide some counterprogramming to all the "pretty princess" and "little heartbreaker" stuff our society mainlines into us from birth.
Bill Bryson's author promo page opens with "Everyone loves Bill Bryson, don't they?" That's what I thought, so I selected At Home: A Short History of Private Life even though it's the size-- and has the look-- of an academic textbook. It's the kind of book I want to like, but I dunno. It's so long (540 pages). It's so heavy-- several pounds, I'd guess. It looks so much like a textbook (I know, I already said that, but really, the resemblance goes beyond striking)!
The Art of Civilized Conversation is by Margaret Shepherd, better known (by me, anyway) as a fantastic calligrapher and author of many foundational manuals of calligraphy. Stands to reason she would want to present the spoken word as elegantly and graciously as she does the written. And she is very thorough, covering all kinds of conversational situations. A sweet little read if you need a pep talk about the value and feasibility of talking to humans.
Wednesday, June 14, 2017
380-389: Business, communication and transport. My Korean Deli, by Ben Ryder Howe
Have we talked about how much I love stunt memoirs? Books like The Year of Biblical Womanhood and I Was (Blind) Dating but Now I See and even The Reading Promise, which, although it described some stunts, might not technically have qualified, since the writer didn't do them just for the purpose of getting material, will always leap off the shelves and into my hands. Near the end of Ben Ryder Howe's My Korean Deli, someone asks him, "You bought the deli so you could write a book, didn't you? Admit it." If so, I hope he got his money's worth-- it's a charming book and deserves a wide readership.
I don't live in New York, but I go there quite regularly. I have been in my share of corner stores, always with the same sense of trepidation I feel when walking into a small diner on a blue road in the midwest, a trepidation that is caused by not the worry but the certainty that "they" will know I don't belong and will a) shoot me dead on sight b) pretend I don't exist or c) charge me double what the regulars pay. Turns out it's not me, it's them: "At a deli you don't really try to sell people things," Howe confesses, "instead, you act as if you want to kill them, throw their s*(& in a bag, and glare at them until they leave the store."
Howe is a funny guy and excruciatingly self-aware, but his descriptive powers also gave me nightmares. Literal nightmares. Salim's deli "appears to be rapidly falling apart, as if a passing truck could make the whole thing crumble. There's even-- and now of course I know why the lease is so cheap-- a hole in the ceiling the size of a volleyball, as if an elephant's leg had come through, and that hole is currently dripping little bits of plaster. Other parts of the ceiling appear to have caved as well... but these have been covered with sheets of aluminum, then painted, and now support little stalactites of dust that wave back and forth in unison..." That's some scary stuff, there. Especially when you realize not for nothing are these joints called delis. They actually will make you a sandwich right there that you are supposed to put in your body. Lord, have mercy.
Howe's experience was a fascinating glimpse of life behind the counter in the city that never sleeps. Recommended!
I don't live in New York, but I go there quite regularly. I have been in my share of corner stores, always with the same sense of trepidation I feel when walking into a small diner on a blue road in the midwest, a trepidation that is caused by not the worry but the certainty that "they" will know I don't belong and will a) shoot me dead on sight b) pretend I don't exist or c) charge me double what the regulars pay. Turns out it's not me, it's them: "At a deli you don't really try to sell people things," Howe confesses, "instead, you act as if you want to kill them, throw their s*(& in a bag, and glare at them until they leave the store."
Howe is a funny guy and excruciatingly self-aware, but his descriptive powers also gave me nightmares. Literal nightmares. Salim's deli "appears to be rapidly falling apart, as if a passing truck could make the whole thing crumble. There's even-- and now of course I know why the lease is so cheap-- a hole in the ceiling the size of a volleyball, as if an elephant's leg had come through, and that hole is currently dripping little bits of plaster. Other parts of the ceiling appear to have caved as well... but these have been covered with sheets of aluminum, then painted, and now support little stalactites of dust that wave back and forth in unison..." That's some scary stuff, there. Especially when you realize not for nothing are these joints called delis. They actually will make you a sandwich right there that you are supposed to put in your body. Lord, have mercy.
Howe's experience was a fascinating glimpse of life behind the counter in the city that never sleeps. Recommended!
370-379: Education. A Mother's Reckoning, by Susan Klebold
Where would you shelve a book by the mother of one of the most notorious school shooters in American history? Is it a book about parenting? Is it about mental illness? Is it a true crime story? Nope, turns out it's a book about a high school, one whose greatest claim to fame is the number of people injured and killed in one horrible incident, and it can be found right between books about why to homeschool (yes, fear of violence is a factor) and about how to get into college.
There are so many reasons NOT to read this book. From before the first page, you know how it's going to come out. Even if you are interested in memoirs of grief or of mental illness, you know this is the worst one you will ever read-- a memoir of a grief that also bears guilt and of illness that wreaked havoc. In almost any category, Klebold and her story are outliers.
It's not an easy book to read-- or listen to, in my case. But, if my original motivation was partly morbid curiosity or some sense of the twisted satisfaction that comes from knowing that someone else's life is worse than yours, I quickly realized that there was much more I could learn from Klebold's experiences.
It's always been very difficult to be a parent and very difficult to be a child because relationships are difficult. But somewhere in the middle of the 20th century, psychology and religion agreed that there are formulas that will guarantee you success with your children, that if you did the right things they would "come out," as if they were cakes, and that if you yourself did not seem to be a successful human, it was because your parents hadn't followed these formulas. The interesting thing was that, although everyone agreed a formula existed, no one could agree on what the formula was. Poor Klebold followed one formula-- family night, organized sports, parental involvement, good schools, nice neighborhood-- and it worked for every other kid at Columbine who didn't shoot up the place.
The story of Columbine is the story of 90's kids raised by this formula, and of their paranoid parents and teachers. It's the story of intruder or lock-down drills (a weird practice that continues to this day), of disaffected, attitudinal white suburban boys (is there any other kind?) being packed off to psychiatrists and counselors by the thousands, of MySpaces and basement places being searched and stalked because what kind of parent doesn't know there are pipe bombs and NeoNazis in their house?!!? In reading this book, I remember why I did some of the weirder things I did, and why my friends still thought I was slacking. It almost makes me long for the Cold War, when we kids hid under our desks to protect ourselves from the Atom Bomb. At least we were hiding from a theoretical enemy, not a theoretical heavily armed friend!
In response to all that paranoia, Klebold's insistence that she was an engaged parent, that she did talk to her kids, that she knew their friends, that she took every reasonable precaution, reinforces what a lot of us discovered: teenagers are very, very good at dissembling, and we, no matter what we would like to think, are crap lie detectors. She cites a study, which I can't track down now, wherein parents, policemen, and customs officials were called in to discern whether 4-year-olds were lying about having done something they had been told not to do. The parents got it about 50% of the time... the trained professionals, less. The policemen and customs officials did worse than blind chance in discerning the truthfulness of four-year-olds.
It's not easy to tell when someone is being truthful. Pretending that you are okay and hoping someone will notice that you're actually not is a fool's game, but it's one teenagers play all the time. Unfortunately, in Klebold's case, the results were deadly, because for Dylan, linking himself to his psychopathic friend Eric and walking into a school with a gun was the best way for him to be sure that he would be successful in ending his own life.
This is where Klebold ends up-- as a member of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. She believes that if she had understood that her son was suicidal-- if she had read his journals and gotten even further up in his face when he seemed discouraged and grilled him about his relationship with Eric-- she might have been able to save his life and the lives of his victims. But I don't know. Part of what makes mental health issues so difficult is that those who are struggling with them so often can't accept that help is what's needed or don't believe that help is really going to be helpful.
A Mother's Reckoning didn't really seem like a book about a high school. But maybe it is a book about being a high schooler.
There are so many reasons NOT to read this book. From before the first page, you know how it's going to come out. Even if you are interested in memoirs of grief or of mental illness, you know this is the worst one you will ever read-- a memoir of a grief that also bears guilt and of illness that wreaked havoc. In almost any category, Klebold and her story are outliers.
It's not an easy book to read-- or listen to, in my case. But, if my original motivation was partly morbid curiosity or some sense of the twisted satisfaction that comes from knowing that someone else's life is worse than yours, I quickly realized that there was much more I could learn from Klebold's experiences.
It's always been very difficult to be a parent and very difficult to be a child because relationships are difficult. But somewhere in the middle of the 20th century, psychology and religion agreed that there are formulas that will guarantee you success with your children, that if you did the right things they would "come out," as if they were cakes, and that if you yourself did not seem to be a successful human, it was because your parents hadn't followed these formulas. The interesting thing was that, although everyone agreed a formula existed, no one could agree on what the formula was. Poor Klebold followed one formula-- family night, organized sports, parental involvement, good schools, nice neighborhood-- and it worked for every other kid at Columbine who didn't shoot up the place.
The story of Columbine is the story of 90's kids raised by this formula, and of their paranoid parents and teachers. It's the story of intruder or lock-down drills (a weird practice that continues to this day), of disaffected, attitudinal white suburban boys (is there any other kind?) being packed off to psychiatrists and counselors by the thousands, of MySpaces and basement places being searched and stalked because what kind of parent doesn't know there are pipe bombs and NeoNazis in their house?!!? In reading this book, I remember why I did some of the weirder things I did, and why my friends still thought I was slacking. It almost makes me long for the Cold War, when we kids hid under our desks to protect ourselves from the Atom Bomb. At least we were hiding from a theoretical enemy, not a theoretical heavily armed friend!
In response to all that paranoia, Klebold's insistence that she was an engaged parent, that she did talk to her kids, that she knew their friends, that she took every reasonable precaution, reinforces what a lot of us discovered: teenagers are very, very good at dissembling, and we, no matter what we would like to think, are crap lie detectors. She cites a study, which I can't track down now, wherein parents, policemen, and customs officials were called in to discern whether 4-year-olds were lying about having done something they had been told not to do. The parents got it about 50% of the time... the trained professionals, less. The policemen and customs officials did worse than blind chance in discerning the truthfulness of four-year-olds.
It's not easy to tell when someone is being truthful. Pretending that you are okay and hoping someone will notice that you're actually not is a fool's game, but it's one teenagers play all the time. Unfortunately, in Klebold's case, the results were deadly, because for Dylan, linking himself to his psychopathic friend Eric and walking into a school with a gun was the best way for him to be sure that he would be successful in ending his own life.
This is where Klebold ends up-- as a member of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. She believes that if she had understood that her son was suicidal-- if she had read his journals and gotten even further up in his face when he seemed discouraged and grilled him about his relationship with Eric-- she might have been able to save his life and the lives of his victims. But I don't know. Part of what makes mental health issues so difficult is that those who are struggling with them so often can't accept that help is what's needed or don't believe that help is really going to be helpful.
A Mother's Reckoning didn't really seem like a book about a high school. But maybe it is a book about being a high schooler.
Friday, May 19, 2017
Prison Fellowship's Position Paper on Criminal Justice Reform: Outrageous Justice, by Craig DeRoche, Heather Rice-Minus, & Jesse Wiese
Week One: "The police can lie to you?" "Sure they can. It's illegal for you to lie to the police, but the police can lie to you all they want."
Week Four: "When you come in, you hear them say, 'fresh meat' and 'new fish,' and you think, 'I ain't no meat, and I ain't no fish.' "
Week Six: "What can we do to change the prison culture?" "It all comes down to the warden. If he doesn't think the prisoners deserve better treatment, nothing will change."
These are not lines from a documentary. These are just a few of the many memorable moments I experienced while discussing the book Outrageous Justice with a group from my church.
Outrageous Justice is a team effort by staff members of Prison Fellowship, most of whom have done time themselves. I first learned of this ministry when I read Born Again, by Chuck Colson. (NB: the link goes to the comic book, while I read the actual book, but I just couldn't resist sharing this wonderful abbreviated version. Decent portrait drawing, too! )
So, Outrageous Justice. There's a book, a DVD, and a Bible study guide. For those of you unfamiliar with the last genre, it is a series of lessons to be used in an adult Sunday school or small group format. It will generally include or reference some Scripture, summarize or supplement the content of the book or DVDs to which it is tied, and provide lots of questions for the individual or group to complete.
In this case, both the DVD and the questions seemed to assume a group that was not very familiar with the criminal justice system or the realities of prison. However, we were privileged in our setting to have several members who had been in prison, worked or volunteered in prison, and/or been crime victims. Indeed, the biggest takeaway of the whole experience was how extensive the US prison system is and how much it affects all of us.
To get a very quick overview of why Prison Fellowship might call our criminal justice system "outrageous," you might watch this episode of Adam Ruins Everything. Or maybe John Oliver could explain it to you. Or you could even commit to 13th, the full-length documentary that explores why our prison system is, as a new book says, The New Jim Crow. But actually, there's no better way to understand what's wrong with the way we do things than to sit with a room full of lawyers, social workers, mental health professionals, mental health consumers, people in recovery, people who have done time, and people who have lost property and even loved ones to crime, and discussing questions like, "How easy is it to rejoin society after being incarcerated? How easy should it be? What can I do to make reentry more manageable for those who want to change?"
Aspects of criminal justice that are outrageous and should be reformed are many. There's the paucity of support for victims, both inside the system and culturally. We typically think of rape victims when we think of this problem, but really any crime can be more devastating than we usually imagine. There's the fact that at any given time, almost half a million Americans are in jail not having been convicted of any crime. Most of these folks will lose their jobs because of nonattendance; many will also lose their families. Some will have their charges dropped when the real perpetrator is found; some will plea to a lesser charge whether they are actually guilty or not, just to avoid running the risk of being convicted of a greater charge. Some, of course, will eventually be tried, found guilty and sentenced. Those whose only crime was looking like someone an eyewitness described, or being with someone who had perpetrated a crime earlier, or having the same name as a known criminal, will lose their jobs and their families just as surely as those who actually committed an offense.
There's the belief that prison should be punitive, that prisoners do not "deserve" opportunities to better themselves. Margaret Atwood wrote a wonderful novel about a man who puts on Shakespeare plays with inmates; it turns out this is a thing that really happens. But, as in the novel, in real life, many people question why those who have committed crimes should have the privilege of education, particularly arts education, or of being paid a living wage, or of having money to buy soap and toothpaste when they have outstanding fines. In other words, many people would love to return to the Victorian world depicted by Charles Dickens! This is indeed outrageous.
Once I started learning about the issues with our prison system, I started to see more information about it everywhere. This book is a fantastic introduction mainly because it includes lots of stories from prisoners, victims and volunteers. If you don't have such a group in your own circle of acquaintance, this might be a good placebo!
Week Four: "When you come in, you hear them say, 'fresh meat' and 'new fish,' and you think, 'I ain't no meat, and I ain't no fish.' "
Week Six: "What can we do to change the prison culture?" "It all comes down to the warden. If he doesn't think the prisoners deserve better treatment, nothing will change."
These are not lines from a documentary. These are just a few of the many memorable moments I experienced while discussing the book Outrageous Justice with a group from my church.
Outrageous Justice is a team effort by staff members of Prison Fellowship, most of whom have done time themselves. I first learned of this ministry when I read Born Again, by Chuck Colson. (NB: the link goes to the comic book, while I read the actual book, but I just couldn't resist sharing this wonderful abbreviated version. Decent portrait drawing, too! )
So, Outrageous Justice. There's a book, a DVD, and a Bible study guide. For those of you unfamiliar with the last genre, it is a series of lessons to be used in an adult Sunday school or small group format. It will generally include or reference some Scripture, summarize or supplement the content of the book or DVDs to which it is tied, and provide lots of questions for the individual or group to complete.
In this case, both the DVD and the questions seemed to assume a group that was not very familiar with the criminal justice system or the realities of prison. However, we were privileged in our setting to have several members who had been in prison, worked or volunteered in prison, and/or been crime victims. Indeed, the biggest takeaway of the whole experience was how extensive the US prison system is and how much it affects all of us.
To get a very quick overview of why Prison Fellowship might call our criminal justice system "outrageous," you might watch this episode of Adam Ruins Everything. Or maybe John Oliver could explain it to you. Or you could even commit to 13th, the full-length documentary that explores why our prison system is, as a new book says, The New Jim Crow. But actually, there's no better way to understand what's wrong with the way we do things than to sit with a room full of lawyers, social workers, mental health professionals, mental health consumers, people in recovery, people who have done time, and people who have lost property and even loved ones to crime, and discussing questions like, "How easy is it to rejoin society after being incarcerated? How easy should it be? What can I do to make reentry more manageable for those who want to change?"
Aspects of criminal justice that are outrageous and should be reformed are many. There's the paucity of support for victims, both inside the system and culturally. We typically think of rape victims when we think of this problem, but really any crime can be more devastating than we usually imagine. There's the fact that at any given time, almost half a million Americans are in jail not having been convicted of any crime. Most of these folks will lose their jobs because of nonattendance; many will also lose their families. Some will have their charges dropped when the real perpetrator is found; some will plea to a lesser charge whether they are actually guilty or not, just to avoid running the risk of being convicted of a greater charge. Some, of course, will eventually be tried, found guilty and sentenced. Those whose only crime was looking like someone an eyewitness described, or being with someone who had perpetrated a crime earlier, or having the same name as a known criminal, will lose their jobs and their families just as surely as those who actually committed an offense.
There's the belief that prison should be punitive, that prisoners do not "deserve" opportunities to better themselves. Margaret Atwood wrote a wonderful novel about a man who puts on Shakespeare plays with inmates; it turns out this is a thing that really happens. But, as in the novel, in real life, many people question why those who have committed crimes should have the privilege of education, particularly arts education, or of being paid a living wage, or of having money to buy soap and toothpaste when they have outstanding fines. In other words, many people would love to return to the Victorian world depicted by Charles Dickens! This is indeed outrageous.
Once I started learning about the issues with our prison system, I started to see more information about it everywhere. This book is a fantastic introduction mainly because it includes lots of stories from prisoners, victims and volunteers. If you don't have such a group in your own circle of acquaintance, this might be a good placebo!
Tuesday, March 14, 2017
360-369: Social Problems, Solutions and Organizations
This category is full of books I would like to read anyway. Half the Sky was made into a documentary. It's Nicholas Kristoff and Sheryl WuDunn's exploration of the plight of women and girls worldwide. A Path Appears is also in this category, the eponymous path being the path out of poverty. Both books are very much like Kristoff's weekly column in the New York Times.
Eldercare 101, by Mary Jo Saavedra, and Passages in Caregiving, by Gail Sheehy, are obviously two approaches to the same topic. The former is very practical, detailing folders that should be set up, professionals that should be consulted, and other concrete actions. The latter is, to no one's surprise, more philosophical, and includes, again to no one's surprise, stages of caregiving. I started Eldercare 101, but I am so far along the path that it was just depressing to read about all the things I should have done 10 years ago. In fact, I am so, so very far along the path that, within the last three weeks, my eldercare journey seems to be drawing to a close, and the absolute last thing I want to read is someone else's philosophizing about how to sit at the bedside of a dying person. That's the problem with books like this: when they are not relevant, you wouldn't want to wade through them; by the time you do see their importance, you don't have the energy.
Eldercare 101, by Mary Jo Saavedra, and Passages in Caregiving, by Gail Sheehy, are obviously two approaches to the same topic. The former is very practical, detailing folders that should be set up, professionals that should be consulted, and other concrete actions. The latter is, to no one's surprise, more philosophical, and includes, again to no one's surprise, stages of caregiving. I started Eldercare 101, but I am so far along the path that it was just depressing to read about all the things I should have done 10 years ago. In fact, I am so, so very far along the path that, within the last three weeks, my eldercare journey seems to be drawing to a close, and the absolute last thing I want to read is someone else's philosophizing about how to sit at the bedside of a dying person. That's the problem with books like this: when they are not relevant, you wouldn't want to wade through them; by the time you do see their importance, you don't have the energy.
Wednesday, February 22, 2017
Extra Credit: March, by John Lewis (Political Science)
People must have started talking about March as soon as it came out, and, really, what's not to like: The Civil Rights movement, from the perspective of a participant, in graphic novel form, is a trifecta of my favorite things. So it went on my Christmas list-- but then, so did a lot of other things that didn't cost $50.
What do you know-- it's the one I got. The person who got it for me immediately wanted to borrow it... and then immediately wanted me to hurry up and read it, not least because I was planning on participating in that other march for the preservation of the rights of women and minorities.
Lewis's experiences were inspiring, sure... but mainly they were humbling, and not in the way that winning a Grammy is (apparently, so I've heard) humbling. No, more like in the way that thinking you are doing something big by getting up at 5 AM to spend a Saturday in Washington DC suddenly looks like a walk in the park (oh wait, actually IS a walk in the park, the National Mall park that is) compared to going to a lunch counter or a voter registration location or bus station to sit or stand or march until you get beat up or hosed or arrested, and then getting up the next day and doing it again until you end up in the hospital or dead.
As bad as things are right now, I don't even have a place to put what American elected officials and American law enforcement did to American citizens on American soil in the '50s and '60s. People, we have been in worse spots than this before, and we have prevailed, but only because forefathers like John Lewis did not value their own lives more than justice.
So. Read this book.
What do you know-- it's the one I got. The person who got it for me immediately wanted to borrow it... and then immediately wanted me to hurry up and read it, not least because I was planning on participating in that other march for the preservation of the rights of women and minorities.
Lewis's experiences were inspiring, sure... but mainly they were humbling, and not in the way that winning a Grammy is (apparently, so I've heard) humbling. No, more like in the way that thinking you are doing something big by getting up at 5 AM to spend a Saturday in Washington DC suddenly looks like a walk in the park (oh wait, actually IS a walk in the park, the National Mall park that is) compared to going to a lunch counter or a voter registration location or bus station to sit or stand or march until you get beat up or hosed or arrested, and then getting up the next day and doing it again until you end up in the hospital or dead.
As bad as things are right now, I don't even have a place to put what American elected officials and American law enforcement did to American citizens on American soil in the '50s and '60s. People, we have been in worse spots than this before, and we have prevailed, but only because forefathers like John Lewis did not value their own lives more than justice.
So. Read this book.
Saturday, January 28, 2017
350-359: Mainly Military History and the Art of War
The whole point of this project was to read nonfiction in areas outside my natural interests, so I should have been happy when I got to the 350's. Definitely never read anything from this section before. Definitely never expect to again. So I kind of skated by, choosing a book that can be read out loud in a couple of hours, and at least I can now say I have read one book about military strategy.
Indeed, to hear some tell it, the ONLY book about military strategy. Or about strategy in any kind of adversarial situation. Forbes loves it--a lot. After all, as Mr. Wonderful from Shark Tank says, "My attitude is business is war. You send out your soldiers every day in the form of your capital, and you want them to come home with prisoners. You want to salt the earth that your competitor is lurking on. You want to steal their market share. You want to destroy them and get their customers." Lifehacker.com loves it-- the enemy is that bad habit you are trying to break. Jessica Hagy turned it into charts (Forbes again!), seemingly applying every paragraph to a different peacetime challenge. My late pastor loved it, applying it to spiritual warfare against the world, the flesh and the devil. Even librarians love it!
Well. I'm sorry, but for me it's simply a book about military strategy, specifically about how to overrun some other guy's territory and force him out of it, and I think this kind of thing:
Indeed, to hear some tell it, the ONLY book about military strategy. Or about strategy in any kind of adversarial situation. Forbes loves it--a lot. After all, as Mr. Wonderful from Shark Tank says, "My attitude is business is war. You send out your soldiers every day in the form of your capital, and you want them to come home with prisoners. You want to salt the earth that your competitor is lurking on. You want to steal their market share. You want to destroy them and get their customers." Lifehacker.com loves it-- the enemy is that bad habit you are trying to break. Jessica Hagy turned it into charts (Forbes again!), seemingly applying every paragraph to a different peacetime challenge. My late pastor loved it, applying it to spiritual warfare against the world, the flesh and the devil. Even librarians love it!
Well. I'm sorry, but for me it's simply a book about military strategy, specifically about how to overrun some other guy's territory and force him out of it, and I think this kind of thing:
 |
| Jessica Hagy for Forbes.com |
is a stretch. But if you want to read this book devotionally, meditating on all the possible applications of each phrase to your daily life, knock yourself out. You'll be in good company.
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