I’ve decided to copy my wife's “dog-eared” feature. These posts will contain quotations from books, music, movies, and whatever else I feel like sharing.
Wittgenstein’s Mistress
Was it really some other person I was so anxious to discover, when I did all of that looking, or was it only my own solitude that I could not abide?
In either event people continually looking in and out of windows is doubtless not such a ridiculous subject for a book, after all.
Even though Emily Brontë once struck her dog so angrily that she knocked it out, simply because it had gotten onto her bed when she had told it not to get onto her bed, which is the one thing Emily Brontë did that one wishes she hadn’t.
Even if, as I have perhaps said, there are also things Emily Brontë did not do that one wishes she had.
Although which may well be none of one’s business either, it finally occurs to me.
And meantime I would appear to have completely forgotten my russet cat’s name.
David Markson, Wittgenstein’s Mistress, page 134.
Practically every single day at Corinth, for instance, when I did remember to let the cat back in, I said good morning to it.
Good morning, Rembrandt, being exactly how I said it practically every single time.
Russet as a color that one automatically associates with Rembrandt having been the origin of this, naturally.
Even if russet is perhaps not a color.
In any case it is surely not a color that has anything to do with painting, although admittedly it may be a color that has something to do with bedspreads. Or with upholstery.
Although not being a painting a cat can be russet too.
And being russet is apt to be named Rembrandt.
Which in fact no less an authority than Willem de Kooning found to be a perfectly suitable name, on an afternoon when the identical cat happened to climb into his lap.
Perhaps I have not mentioned that my russet cat climbed into Willem de Kooning’s lap.
My russet cat once climbed into Willem de Kooning’s lap.
I’ve decided to copy my wife's “dog-eared” feature. These posts will contain quotations from books, music, movies, and whatever else I feel like sharing.
Morrissey
Morrissey was asked what he thought of t.A.T.u.’s cover of “How Soon is Now?” He said he thought it was magnificent but admitted that he didn’t know much about t.A.T.u.
The interviewer explained, “They’re teenage Russian Lesbians.” To which Morrissey replied, “Well, aren’t we all?”
I do not like t.A.T.u.’s cover.
Note: I cannot believe I didn't already have a "Morrissey" tag.
I’ve decided to copy my wife's “dog-eared” feature. These posts will contain quotations from books, music, movies, and whatever else I feel like sharing.
The Need for Mountains
I climbed out of my father’s pickup at a train stop in Minidoka, Idaho, then I’m getting on a train bound for Chicago and I had never been east of the Rockies, for God’s sake. And when I got to Harvard, something wasn’t right. There was something gnawing at me. And it took me probably three or four weeks to figure out what it was—I couldn’t find the horizon.
Lou Dobbs, What I’ve Learned, Esquire Magazine, February 2010, page 94.
As someone from the west, I know exactly what he’s talking about. Those who were raised around mountains deeply feel their absence when there aren’t any around. At least I do. I’ve talked about this a great deal with many people when discussing some of the things about living in Chicago that are hard for me, and I don’t think anyone from the Midwest truly understands.
Note: Of course I imagine the same is true when easterners talk about how they miss living in a “real city” when they move out west.
Also note: Lou Dobbs is not one of my favorite people, but I liked the quotation so here it is.
I’ve decided to copy my wife's “dog-eared” feature. These posts will contain quotations from books, music, movies, and whatever else I feel like sharing.
Words that Have to Do with Poop
. . . [A] tip for scatologically minded word-lovers: many of the most weirdly cognate and thoroughly obscene, cloacal, and stercoraceous words in the English language appear in unabridged dictionaries between coppice and copse.
From Garner’s Modern American Usage, 3rd edition, page 204 (the last paragraph in the entry “copse; coppice”).
Yes, I haven’t posted anything in quite some time. I don’t really know why.
I was checking out the website of this guy I kind of know. It was very nice, part weblog, part other stuff. Anyway, one of the things he had on his site was annual lists that contained every book he read, movie he watched, etc, over the course of that particular year. I thought it was cool. I want to try to do something similar and figure the best way to do it will be to create monthly lists so I remember to stay on top of things.
I am a Sagittarian (see the “Dog-eared 14” post immediately below).
Anecdote
I was in my car with a woman I was trying to woo. We had spent much of the day together in a group with a common purpose and there was clearly some mutual attraction, or at least desire, but we hadn’t yet gotten to that moment when the mutual interest was made clearly known. It was late at night and we were driving through the trees [n.1]. We had just started driving and I excitedly turned to her and said: “Do you want to hear the saddest song I’ve ever heard?” [n.2] Simultaneously I reached for my iPod and started scrolling through my playlists with alacrity. [n.3]
Note 1: Not literally, of course.
Note 2: “Levi Stubbs' Tears,” by Billy Bragg. The lyrics of course, and the guitar—my God the guitar—it just rings with sadness and pain. [n.2a] [n.2b]
Note 3: She very delicately and politely laughed and said yes, but later, suggesting something a bit lighter for the moment. It was remarkably deft handling.
Note 2a: Billy Bragg is in my top-five of all time. He has a solid shot at #1.
Note 2b:Anne and I just saw the Four Tops in concert, but sadly Levi Stubbs is dead.
I’ve decided to copy my wife's “dog-eared” feature. These posts will contain quotations from books, music, movies, and whatever else I feel like sharing.
Garry Shandling, Sagittarian
Romance has always been a challenge for Garry. Despite his expansiveness on most other topics, he’s evasive about love. “I have spent a lot of time studying the issue of relationships, how I grew up, my parents’ influence on me,” he says when I ask him why he’s single. “I’ve talked to a therapist, I’ve looked inward spiritually at myself, and what it seems to come down to is—” the slightest pause—“that I’m a Sagitarius. Please don’t make me reveal more than that. It’s tough enough as it is.”
From “The Comedian’s Comedian’s Comedian” by Amy Wallace, August 2010 issue of GQ.
And I’ll add: I had no idea how interesting, and how just plain cool, Garry Shandling is.
I saw a Sherwin Williams truck today with this logo painted on the back:
After this whole BP Deepwater Horizon thing, I think Sherwin Williams might want to reconsider that logo.
What’s in a Name?
There was a time a couple months back when Carver’s class had 12 kids in it and three of them were named Dylan (one boy, two girls). One of the girl Dylans is always referred to as Dylan _____, the blank signifying the name of a currently much maligned red wine. The first time I heard it I thought, my God, that poor girl’s parents gave her a wine as a middle name. But it turns out _____ is her last name and is spelled differently.
I’ve decided to copy my wife's “dog-eared” feature. These posts will contain quotations from books, music, movies, and whatever else I feel like sharing.
2666: Pheasants
He talks about the friendship of Courbet (the artist) with Proudhon (the Politician) and likens the sensible opinions of the latter with those of a pheasant. On the subject of art, a politician with power is like a colossal pheasant, able to crush mountains with little hops, whereas a politician without power is only like a village priest, an ordinary-sized pheasant.
On the back of the May 3, 2010, New Yorker, there is an ad for Apple’s iPad. Here is a description of the ad: top right corner – Apple logo and “iPad”; photo dominated by a straight-on picture of an iPad displaying a page from an “e-book,” obviously being held (and thus read) by a woman (manicured lady hands and feet in women’s shoes blurred in the background).
The e-book displayed on the iPad reads as follows (sections in brackets are not displayed—I just included them for fun (the reason there are partial sentences in brackets is that the woman reading it in the ad is starting to “turn” the page and the “page” is starting to fold over)):
The Last Song
[He paused, chastened. “You’re right. I’m sorry.” He reached for his glass again. “What did the judge say about her shoplifting?”
“Just what I told you on the phone,” she said with a resigned expression. “If she doesn’t get into any more trouble, it’ll be expunged from her record. If she does it again, though…” She trailed off.
“You’re worried about this,” he started.
Kim turned away. “It’s not the first time, which is the problem,” she confessed. “She admitted to stealing the bracelet last year, but this time, she said she was buying a bunch of stuff at the drugstore and couldn’t hold it all, so she tucked the lipstick in her pocket. She paid for everything else, and when you see the video, it seems to be an honest mistake, but…”
“But you’re not sure.”
When Kim didn’t answer, Steve shook his head. “She’s not on her way to being profiled on America’s Most Wanted.] She made a mistake. And she’s always had a good heart.”
“That doesn’t mean she’s telling the truth now.”
“And it doesn’t mean she lied, either.”
“So you believe her?” Her expression was a mixture of hope and skepticism.
He sifted through his feelings about the incident, as he had a dozen times since Kim had first told him. “Yeah,” he said. “I believe her.”
“Why?”
“Because she’s a good kid.”
“How do you know?” she demanded. For the first time, she sounded angry. “The last time you spent any time with her, she was finishing middle school.” She turned away from him then, crossing her arms as she gazed out the window. Her voice was bitter when she went on. “You [could have] come back, you know. You could have taught in New York again. You didn’t have to travel around [the country, you] didn’t have to move here… you could [have stayed part of] their lives.”
Her words stung him, and [he knew she was right. But it] hadn’t been that simple, for reasons they both understood, though neither would [acknowledge them.]
The charged silence passed [when Steve eventually cleared] his throat. “I was just trying to [say that Ronnie knows right from wrong. As much as she asserts her independence, I still believe she’s the same person she always was. In the ways that really matter, she hasn’t changed.”
Before Kim could figure out how or if she should respond to his comment, Jonah burst through the front door, his cheeks flushed.
“Dad! I found a really cool workshop! C’mon! I want to show you!”
Kim raised an eyebrow.]
So, some comments:
(1) When I read the text of the book in the ad I thought: I bet that’s Nicholas Sparks. My guess was based on the subject matter and how bad it is, but there’s a chance that I subconsciously remembered that the recent movie The Last Song, staring Miley Cyrus, was based on a Sparks book.
(2) As for how bad it is, I’m temped to rewrite the whole thing to demonstrate how it is awful, but I don’t feel like taking the time. Examples of things that have to go: “she said with a resigned expression”; “‘If she does it again, though…’ She trailed off”; “she confessed”; “Her expression was a mixture of hope and skepticism”; “She turned away from him then, crossing her arms as she gazed out the window. Her voice was bitter when she went on”; and “Kim raised and eyebrow.”
(3) This dude sells many, many books, despite how bad the writing is. He clearly knows how to tell a love story that a large segment of American women find enthralling. So one could say who am I to say Sparks is awful. But I’m saying it anyway and I’m right. Call me a snob if you must.
(4) This is the original reason I wanted to write about this ad: Of all the books Apple could’ve put on the screen, they pick that? Really? They couldn’t aim a little higher, offer a challenge? But then I remember, Sparks sells a lot of books. Maybe they are trying to attract those currently thinking about beach reading, which for some reason many people consider as the time to lighten it up. Maybe they have a deal with the publisher.
(5) Maybe this isn’t the best ad for the back of the New Yorker?
(6) There are some who think the iPad ads are sexist. The claim is that the ads featuring women show the women either reading Nicholas Sparks or organizing their photos, while the ads with men show the men reading the New York Times. I haven’t paid enough attention, or seen enough of them, to figure out if there is anything to this.
(7) I saw a Kindle ad on TV where a woman was reading Where the God of Love Hangs Out by Amy Bloom. The man she is with is reading something on his Kindle but I can’t make out what it is. I know nothing about this Bloom book.
I’ve decided to copy my wife's “dog-eared” feature. These posts will contain quotations from books, music, movies, and whatever else I feel like sharing.
It’s Family
“I have been supportive of my wife since the beginning of time, and she has been supportive of me. It's not sacrifice; it’s family.”
Martin D. Ginsburg, husband of Justice Ginsburg, as quoted here.
[Soundtrack for this post: Aimee Mann’s The Forgotten Arm; Tom Waits’s Small Change]
On to the eighth essay in Michael Chabon’s Manhood for Amateurs (for previous posts on Michael Chabon and MfA, click here). [n.1]
The Wilderness of Childhood
In this essay Chabon writes about growing up in his suburb in Maryland (I’m pretty sure it’s Columbia, a planned community outside of Baltimore), specifically how he and the other kids used to roam his neighborhood and the nearby woods. He also talks about how things have changed, and how his kids, and pretty much all kids these days, don’t get that experience.
I grew up in an exurb of Los Angeles that is completely ringed by hills that buffer it from the surrounding towns. It was a remarkably safe place in the ’70s, ’80s, and early ’90s when I lived there—it probably still is. It was pretty consistently ranked the safest city in America with a population over 100,000, and even when it wasn’t number one it was always still in the top three. [n.2] I don’t think I ever once thought I was in any sort of real danger when I roamed my town.
And roam I did. I have memories of walking with a friend to the closest shopping center when I was six. Maybe even five. And because my house was almost square in the middle of our expansive housing tract, the store was about a mile and a quarter away. Through the course of my childhood I made that walk countless times. We used to go to the liquor store or the pharmacy and buy baseball cards and bubble gum, and later the video store to rent movies and games. When we got a little older we’d ride our skateboards or bikes, and we’d go much farther. We’d go to the movies, or Target, or a restaurant, or the hills, or wherever. The park, the library, friends' houses. Sometimes I’d go alone but usually I was with at least one friend. Often we rode in a pack—a little bike or skateboard gang racing down the hills. It was great. We explored everything, we took care of ourselves, and we did it all the time. We even did it in the middle of the night, when our activities were almost never malicious but were often…impolite.
Those sorts of things are things I can’t imagine letting Carver do. Chabon talks about this, about how things have changed. But what’s changed isn’t the level of violence, or abductions—he cites Department of Justice numbers that say the frequency of these things hasn’t really changed all that much, and that abductions by strangers (possibly the biggest fear of many parents) are extremely rare [n.3] —it’s that the horrors are much better known; that parents are practically encouraged to develop deep, irrational fears about things happening to their kids; that we’ve developed a cult-like obsession with protecting our children to a level of absurdity. But he acknowledges that he’s like that too, that he’d never give his kids the kind of freedom he had.
This change is most unfortunate. This is at least the second post I’ve written about how I’m concerned that my children’s childhood is going to be different than mine and thus extremely disturbing. But I honestly think there’s more to it than just a “kids these days” and “the world is going to hell” thing. Chabon talks about how children wandering their neighborhoods and the nearby wilderness is a historical thing that pretty much every generation so far has shared. And I think that’s true. My grandfather and father were raised in very different places (my grandfather in depression era Prescott Arizona, my father in post-war Los Angeles), but they still shared a similarity in their childhoods that were rooted in parentless adventures. My dad used to tool around his town on a Flexi Flyer or Flexi Racer and was in near constant peril of smashing into or under a moving or parked car. He has stories of riding his bike around town, going fishing, sand skiing, heading down to the beach, et cetera et cetera, without a hint of parental involvement. Much of my childhood was the same. I sometimes liken it to the movie Stand By Me—it was always a group of kids making their own adventures, heading out on their own quests, walking down railroad tracks out in the middle of nowhere, with no adults involved (or even informed). [n.4]
These parentless adventures were invaluable in creating independence, developing problem solving skills, socialization, and so on. I have been a fiercely independent person since I was about 13, and while I was a child in many ways for many years after that, I was quite capable. I was very prepared to leave home at 18, and I’ve never felt like I needed help in getting by (except when it comes to dry-wall repairs and electrical work—that’s an inside joke). What happens to the kid who doesn’t have that? I don’t know; all the people I knew very well when they were in their late teens and early twenties had it.
So when I think about this issue I can’t help but think about whether it would be better to live in the suburbs, or a small town, rather than in the city. Everywhere I’ve lived in the last 10 years has been near a city center. I want to live in the city. But I’m not sure if living in the city is the best thing for my son. My wife grew up in the city of Chicago, but I don’t know enough about her childhood to discern how it compared to mine pros and cons wise. All I know is that just about everything I loved about my childhood was possible only because I lived in a safe exurb. But I also don’t really know what I was missing by not being in the city as a child. So I don’t know.
But even if we were to move to a suburb or exurb or small town, would it even then be the same or similar to my youth? Or are parents so paranoid even in those places that that lifestyle of unsupervised children roaming the streets and hills and woods is gone everywhere? I think it might be. Chabon mentions how one of his kids got a bike and wanted to ride around, but the only thing he was comfortable letting her do was to peddle to the store with him walking behind her. He also mentioned that there are two nine-year-old kids on his street (in Berkeley), one kid a couple houses up the street and another a couple houses down. These two nine-year-olds have lived a few houses from each other their entire lives and have never met. So he notes: even if he were to stifle his fears and let his daughter ride around on her bike without supervision, who would she ride with? No other kids are out there doing it.
Note 1: I just looked back and realized that it’s been more than a month since I wrote a substantive post (stuff other than lists of what I’ve been reading on line and words from Sutree). I’ve also been thinking that I’ve been dragging out these Manhood for Amateurs posts for way longer than I thought I would. I’m hoping to get through the rest of the posts much more quickly.
Note 2: Thousand Oaks, a neighboring town, and Irvine were always the other two.
Note 3: 115 total in 1999.
Note 4: Coincidentally, after I wrote this part of the post (it’s taken me a few sittings), I got an email from a friend who mentioned that he always thought of one of our mutual friends as the Corey Feldman character from Stand By Me of our group.
No reading here either: A great, great 84-minute interview of David Foster Wallace split into 10 parts on YouTube. You can find part five here (the others can be found from there). It contains these gems: (1) "There's a lot of narcissism in self-hatred." and (2) "Most of the problems in my life have to do with my confusing what I want and what I need."
Instructions from Charles Mingus on how to toilet train a cat. Charles Mingus!
A Huffington Post post with a link to one of the most awesome videos on YouTube: Bronte sisters action figures! The video is a must watch. Seriously.
Coach Rodriguez gets his hair cut by my old Ann Arbor barber!
Pictures of Donald Judd's personal library. This is incredibly cool. I practically insist you go look at it. Read the instructions on how to browse (on the map, click on the shelf section you want to look at; on the picture, place your cursor on each shelf and it'll summarize what's on it; click on the shelf you want to see and it will show you that shelf; when you're looking at a shelf, if you place your cursor on a book it will tell you what it is). It's so great, I'm telling you.
The syllabus from a literary interpretation class David Foster Wallace taught at Pomona College (I assume) in 2005. It's seven pages and amazing.
A video of Axis of Awesome doing their "Four Chord Song" medley. It's fun, if not exactly fair.
Love and Theft. A short video for National Film Board of Canada's online short film contest. Forbidden Tree is also worth watching. The Last Passenger and The Report Card are also good.
I’ve been reading Cormac McCarthy’s Suttree. Never in my life have I had to look up so many words when reading something. Here’s a list of the Suttree words I looked up in getting through chapters two through six (about 76 pages of text). The words from chapter one can be found at the bottom of another post. [n.1]
Chapter 2
Moiled – (moil) To work hard; to whirl or churn ceaselessly; twist.
Concatenate – To link together; unite in a chain.
Revetment – A facing of masonry or the like, esp. for protecting an embankment.
Brogans – Heavy, sturdy work shoes.
Nates – Buttocks, rump.
Limn – To represent in drawing/painting; to describe.
Chapter 3
Adenoidal – Pertaining to the adenoids (lymph glands near the pharynx), having enlarged, esp. to a degree that interferes with breathing.
Leptosome – A person of asthenic build; slight; weak; thin.
Bewenned – (be-wenned) Wen = harmless cyst, fatty secretion of a sebaceous gland.
Chapter 4
Anneloid – (annelid) Worms or wormlike animals of the phylum Annelida.
Marcid – Withered, shrunken, wasted away.
Accretion – Natural growth or extension by gradual external addition.
Barbican – An outwork of a fortified place; a defensive outpost.
Lazaret – Same as lazaretto = Hospital for those with contagious diseases, esp. leprosy; a quarantine ship.
Comestibles – Edibles.
Excrescence – (1) An abnormal outgrowth; (2) A normal outgrowth (hair, horns).
Electuary – A pasty mass composed of a medicine, usually in powder form, mixed with a palatable medium (e.g., honey, syrup), esp. for animals.
Decocted – (decoct) To extract the flavor/essence by boiling. [n.2]
Beeves – Plural of beef (!).
Abbatoir – (s/b abattoir?) Slaughterhouse.
Cambrelled – (cambrel) British for gambrel; hock of an animal, esp. a horse; gambrel stick = a device for suspending slaughtered animals.
Blueflocced – ? (Floc = a tuft like mass; floccus = a small tuft of wooly hairs)
Piscean – Person born under the Pisces sign; of/pertaining to the sign (here it probably means fish, or fishlike).
Dolorous – Full of, expressing, or causing pain or sorrow.
Slaverous – ? (slaver = Dealer/owner of slaves; slobber, drool) (Here it probably means drooling).
Mummes – A person who wears a mask or costume while merrymaking; an actor.
Shriving – (shrive) Impose penance; grant absolution; hear confessions; confess.
Chancel – The space about an alter, usually enclosed and restricted to church officials.
Glaucous – Of a pail grayish or bluish green.
Sedge – Any of numerous grass-like plants of the family cyperaceae, having solid stems, leaves in three vertical rows of spikelets of inconspicuous flowers.
Relict – Organism or species of an earlier time surviving in an environment that has undergone considerable change; widow.
Ebonfaced – Ebony faced.
Wapsy – Waspy (having many wasps?).
Batboard – (batting = fabric, cotton, often used as stuffing) Here it’s likely a compound—board made of batting.
Jakes – Latrines, privies.
Serried – Pressed together, crowded, esp. in rows.
Brisket – Chest of an animal (the cut of meat was clearly not what was intended here).
Scupper – Opening on a ship deck or roof to let water run out.
Caustic – (as a noun) A caustic material or substance; a hydroxide of a light metal.
Adumbrate – To give a sketchy outline of; foreshadow; disclose partially or guardedly.
Chapter 5
Ermine – Of or pertaining to weasels.
Shako – A stiff, cylindrical military dress hat with a metal plate in front, a short visor, and a plume.
Baize – Cotton or woolen material napped to imitate felt and used chiefly as a cover for gaming tables, often bright-green.
Chapter 6
Kudzu – An Asian vine of the legume family used for forage and erosion control; a serious weed in the S.E. United States.
Creepers – A creeping plant/vine.
Datura – Any of a genus of widely distributed strong scented herbs, shrubs, trees, of the nightshade family.
Phlox – Any of a genus of American annual or perennial herbs that have red, purple, white, or variegated flowers.
Suppurating – (suppurate) To form or discharge pus.
Midden – Dunghill; refuse heap.
Talus – A slope formed esp. by the accumulation of rock debris; the debris at the base of a cliff.
Sleech – Thick river mud/sludge/slime.
Vitreous – Relating to/resembling glass; glassy; made from glass.
Chrysalis – A pupa, esp. of a moth or butterfly, enclosed in a firm case or cocoon.
Whelk – Type of marine snail; inflamed swelling (pimple or pustule).
Apostate – One who has abandoned one’s religious faith, political party, cause, etc.
Birdlime – A sticky substance that is smeared on branches or twigs to capture small birds.
Warfarined – (warfarin) A white crystalline compound (C19, H16, O4) used as a rodenticide and as an anticoagulant.
Pneuma – The soul or vital spirit.
Niello – Any of several black metallic alloys used to fill an incised design on the surface of another metal; such a decorated surface; the art or process.
Slattern – An untidy, dirty woman.
Hipshot – Having the hip dislocated; hence having a hip lower than the other.
Winksome - ?
Dogstar – Sirius (but that doesn’t seem to be what he means here).
Ordurous – Of or pertaining to ordure (dung, feces); filthy.
Dishabille – Partially or very casually dressed; casual or lounge attire.
Cordite – A smokeless explosive powder.
Tawed – (taw) To convert (skin) into white leather by mineral tanning, as with alum and salt.
Note 1: The definitions are mostly my abbreviated versions I noted when I looked each word up.
Note 2: I can’t hear or see the word “essence” without thinking of the scariest movie of all time—Dark Crystal. Watch this, if you dare. It is extremely disturbing. I can’t believe people let kids watch this:
(1)Anne, Carver, and I went to the Lincoln Square neighborhood of Chicago last Saturday evening, and we stopped in a bookstore called “The Book Cellar” (clever, eh?). We found the store to be charming and cool. Carver needed to have his diaper changed so we used the restroom, and Anne, perhaps having acquired one of my public-bathroom-using neuroses, mentioned that we were probably then obligated to buy something. That is a dangerous suggestion to make to me in a bookstore. My self-imposed severe restriction on book buying, which had been going well until a few months ago, went right out the window. So I decided to get Anne a bonus Mother’s Day gift and bought a copy of Asterios Polyp. I wasn’t sure if she had any interest in graphic novels, but I’ve had people whose opinions about books I trust tell me that Asterios Polyp is insanely good and people who haven’t read it should drop everything and read it immediately. And even if she didn’t like it, I want to read it (yeah, not the most thoughtful gift perhaps, but hey, it was a last minute bonus gift).
So here’s the point I want to make: I derived some small satisfaction from buying the book at a small, independent bookseller, rather than from Amazon or one of the big chains (not that I don’tlike Amazon or Borders or Barnes and Noble—I actually like them all and buy lots of books from them). But the thing is, I paid list price for the book + the absolutely insanely high highest in the country sales tax that is imposed on those who dare buy anything in Chicago = around $33. Had I ordered it from Amazon I would’ve paid $19.77 total, and it would’ve been delivered to me (I don’t have to pay for shipping from Amazon and there’s no sales tax applied). A difference of $13 and change is nothing to scoff at when you’re buying a book with an MSRP of $29.99.
I’m reminded of the time shortly after I moved to Ann Arbor when the Borders employees were striking and demonstrating outside of the original Borders (Borders #1) on East Liberty and they were singing songs of solidarity and such, completely blocking the sidewalk, and then some jackass got in my face about “crossing their picket line” when I dared to, you know, try to get from point A to point B using the sidewalk. At which point I told him: to fuck off; that I was only trying to use the sidewalk and didn’t so much as hint at going in the store; that the level of arrogance and self-centeredness required to think that every East Liberty sidewalk user should be required to accept being put out, annoyed, and accosted by him and his comrades because they are chagrined at Borders is mindboggling; that while I had no intention of going in the store, now, after our little chat, I was going to go in the store and I was absolutely going to buy something just to spite him; and that he can go fuck himself. Anyway. So my thinking at the time was: how do they expect Borders to remain competitive, and by extension remain in business, if Borders has to pay their employees $13 or more an hour and provide them with health insurance? Borders has a hard enough time battling Barnes and Noble as it is, and they clearly cannot come close to competing with Amazon when it comes to price. I’m not one of those people who thinks physical bookstores that you can go in and browse in are going to all be gone in the next decade, but they do have serious challenges they have to face, challenges that are bad enough without paying a clerk $15 an hour to do the exact same thing the cashiers at Ross and McDonald’s do (who you know are making way less than that) and providing them with health insurance. [n.1]
So, yeah, supporting your local independent bookseller, while worthwhile, is sometimes an expensive endeavor.
(2) I was in Borders in Lincoln Park on Monday. While I was in the store I decided I wanted to look at a copy of Native Son. So I went to the fiction section and looked in the Ws for “Wright.” There were no books by anyone named Wright. I thought: there’s no way they don’t have a copy of Native Son, a famous and relatively widely read book that is based in Chicago, that was stacked tall on several tables in front during African-American History Month. After spending a couple minutes very carefully examining the entire “W” section of the shelves, in disbelief, I could not find it or anything else by Richard Wright. So I go to the computer they have set up for people to search for books and such. The computer told me that they had Native Son in stock . . . in the African-American Literature section. So I went to the African-American Literature section and, sure enough, there stood many copies of Native Son and other books by Wright.
I also noticed that the fiction section did not contain anything by Colson Whitehead—all the Whitehead books were in the African-American section. I noticed a pattern, and it was somewhat disturbing.
I don’t really want to use such a loaded word, but the Lincoln Pak Borders (all Borders?) has segregated its books. By putting Colson Whitehead’s books, and Richard Wright’s and lots of others, only in the African-American Literature section they’re doing a bad thing. They’re limiting interest in those books (trust me, wrong as it is there are plenty of people who would enjoy those books who would be turned off by the label “black fiction”), books that are very good and important, books that are precisely the sort of books someone who would be turned off by the “black fiction” label should read. But I also understand that the existence of the African-American Literature section is a good thing; people who are interested specifically in black fiction probably appreciate that the section exists, that the sort of books they want to find are neatly collected in one place. Ideally, I think, the store would have the books in both places, but I also understand that a bookstore probably wants to avoid doing that—it complicates their stocking and inventory and such. It’s a complicated issue, for sure. But I still think it’s messed up that black fiction gets excluded from the seemingly catch-all category that is “fiction.”
Note 1: I recognize that the Borders employee would tell me that they do much more than act as a cashier, that they’re educated readers who are helpful in recalling and suggesting books, and so on. [n.1a] Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t want that service, it isn’t a service I’m going to use, and I don’t want to pay for it. I just want someone there who will take my payment as quickly and courteously as possible so I can leave the store with the items I want without getting arrested.
I also want to note that I am not anti-labor. It’s just that I think unions have a place, and that place isn’t Borders. I also think strikers should not harass people on the street, block traffic, et cetera. And I am also often suspicious of unions as organizations—I have personal experience with more than one union that was led by obviously corrupt leadership and that also clearly had interests other than getting the best wage, benefits, and working conditions for its members. I could say way more, but this post isn’t the place.
Note 1a: This reminds me of two things: (1) that scene in You’ve Got Mail where Meg Ryan’s character, the small bookshop owner, is checking out the mega bookstore that just moved in around the corner and is going to put her out of business, and someone in the children’s book section is looking for a book that she can’t remember the name of. The mega store employee is not at all helpful, but Meg Ryan’s character not only knows what book the lady wants but has a whole warm conversation with the customer about the series or something; and (2) I was in a Borders in Lincoln Park a few months ago and witnessed a Borders clerk attempt to help two black women who were looking for a book to give as a gift to a relative. They wanted a particular type of black fiction, and this was clearly not the clerk’s area of expertise (if he had one). It was painful to watch. In the end he said, “Oh! How about To Kill a Mockingbird? I Just read it and it was great!” Umm, yeah. That’s a service worth paying a premium for, right?
[Beer for this post: Dark Horse Brewing Co.’s Crooked Tree IPA]
[Music for this post: The Magnetic Fields I]
Anne and I went to see the Magnetic Fields a couple months ago (March 8) at the Harris Theater. [n.1] The show was really great, as I expected it would be. The Magnetic Fields are, as I’ve mentioned before, one of my top-five favorite bands ever. Stephin Merritt—the ukulele player, a vocalist, and the lyricist and principal songwriter for the group—is pretty much a genius. [n.2]
While I expected to love it nearly beyond compare, I was very pleased that Anne did too.
The band, and Merritt, is perhaps best known for its magnum opus 69 Love Songs, a three CD album that is one of the most remarkable achievements in music. But all of their other stuff is good too (I don’t love every single song they’ve ever done, of course, but generally it is awesome). I should create a Trent’s Favorite Magnetic Fields compilation, but until I do here’s a small list (in no particular order) of their really great stuff that you should listen to and love unless you’re soulless:
I Thought You Were My Boyfriend; I Wish I Had an Evil Twin; I Don’t Believe You; It’s Only Time; The Nun’s Litany; Seduced and Abandoned; I Think I Need a New Heart; The Book of Love; When My Boy Walks Down the Street; If You Don’t Cry; You’re My Only Home; My Only Friend; Papa Was a Rodeo [n.3]; The Way You Say Good-Night; I Shatter; Busby Berkeley Dreams; Yeah! Oh, Yeah!; The Night You Can’t Remember; I Have the Moon; and many more. [n.4]
In 2006, I saw Merritt perform with Daniel Handler (of Lemony Snicket fame) at a benefit show for 826 Seattle. They played “The Night You Can’t Remember” and “The Book of Love” along with a couple Gothic Archies songs. I loved that performance too, but it was made much less enjoyable by my fellow audience members who seemed intent at laughing at everything, even things that weren’t funny. Now, I recognize that the event was mostly funny stuff, it was meant to be a good time. OK. But I mean, watch this:
Here’s the play-by-play of the video:
[Laughing…laughing…laughing…laughing…]
Before you left your garrison
you'd had a drink, maybe two.
You don't remember Paris, Hon,
but it remembers you.
[HAHAHAHHAHA]
It's true, we flew to Paris, dear,
aboard an Army jet
the night you can't remember,
the night I can't forget.
[HahahHHAHAHAHAHAHaahahahaHAHHAH]
You said I was terrific,
it meant zilch to you, ah, but I
have our marriage certificate
and I'll keep it till I die.
[HAHAHAHhaahhAHHAH—oh yeah, unrequited love that a person holds dear until death—hilarious!]
You were an Army officer
and I just a Rockette
[HAHAHhahummmm—All that leg kicking, and the sense of worthlessness, damn that’s some funny shit]
the night you can't remember,
the night I can't forget.
No rose conveyed your sentiments,
not even a petunia,
but you've got vague presentiments
and I've got little Junior.
[HhhahAhahhahmmm—Ah! Yes, a fatherless child. Ha! Man, you’re killing me.]
You said, nobody loves me,
and I said, wanna bet?
The night you can't remember,
the night I can't forget.
But the guy sitting directly in front of me laughed way more often than what you hear in the video. He found just about every line side-splittingly funny. I so desperately wanted to kick him in the back of the head. The crowd was also laughing loudly and obnoxiously, and often, during “The Book of Love.” What’s funny about that song? It’s lovely and beautiful, but it isn’t funny. Maybe it, like “The Night You Can’t Remember,” has a few moments where a sort of knowing, wry smile is appropriate, but not guffaws. I mean, come on. I recognize that I am not the sayer of what level of humor should or may be found in something, but come on. I also recognize that Stephin Merritt may have meant some of this stuff to be funny, but I think I’m reading it right. I think he means there to be a tinge of humor, however you quantify that, where knowing smiles are anticipated, but that’s it (at least with those two songs). At the show we just saw in March, we got to see a little insight on this point.
(I wish I wrote this right after the show so I’d have it exactly right, but this is the gist of what happened and was said) Toward the end of the first set Merritt was talking during a break between songs and he mentions how the next song is sadly appropriate, or coincidental, or something like that, referring to the recent earthquake and tsunami in Chili and I think also to the tsunami in Indonesia, and then he introduces the song as “Suddenly There’s a Tidal Wave.” Guess what happens. About a quarter of the crowed erupts in laughter. And Merritt says something like, “Why is that funny?” More laughter. “Yeah, thousands of people died. Ha ha.” Shockingly, still more laughter, albeit from far fewer people.
So, why the laughter? Is it that when people go out they just want to have a good time and laugh? Is it that they want to be in on the joke so they laugh when they think there is one (even if there isn’t)?
We saw Kaki King perform a couple nights ago and a slightly similar thing (in my mind) happened: Kaki and her band were playing “Doing the Wrong Thing” (I think, which, HA!), and toward the end the band slowly faded out and the lights were flashing about once a second with a very noticeable clicking sound. It was very clear, to me at least, that the song was not over, and given that no one really applauded, I think the bulk of the audience understood that this was part of the act, the song was still in progress. But it was quiet, the band had completely stopped playing, all that we heard was the click of the lights. At this point the guy in front of me said, not quietly, something like “What the fuck are they doing?” and shortly after that a number of other people took the opportunity to shout things to the band. Why couldn’t they let it be? Why couldn’t they endure more than eight seconds of relative, obliviously purposeful quiet before they had to start making their own noise? Why can’t people stand quiet? What are they so scared of?
I do think it is fear, of a kind. There’s fear behind those shouts, and there’s fear behind that laughter. My knee-jerk reaction when this stuff happens is to think the offenders are just jackasses. But I’m trying hard to be a more understanding person, so I’m trying hard to understand what’s behind that fear.
Note 1: The Harris Theater, by the way, is hideous. The interior of the actual theater, where the seats are, was fine, but the lobby areas and such are eye-gougingly ugly. Anne likened it to a subway station. It’s pretty clear that they were going for a modern look, but it just doesn’t work. The walls are covered with shiny white panels, the lighting is like pink and green florescent or neon stuff that is not only ugly in itself but also makes everyone in there look less attractive. It’s a nightmare.
Note 2: See him at work here. That’s a video from NPR that shows him create a song from start to finish (once you're redirected, click on the image of Merritt on the left that's marked "video").
Note 3: “Papa Was a Rodeo” always makes me think of Brokeback Mountain, something that would probably horrify everyone involved with either project.
Note 4: That’s not even counting stuff by The 6ths and the Gothic Archies, two other Stephin Merritt bands that have great stuff of their own.
We had lain thus in bed, chatting and napping at short intervals, and Queequeg now and then affectionately throwing his brown tattooed legs over mine, and then drawing them back; so entirely sociable and free and easy were we; when, at last, by reason of our confabulations, what little nappishness remained in us altogether departed, and we felt like getting up again, though day-break was yet some way down the future.
Herman Melville, Moby-Dick.
First Clown: . . . . Here's a skull now; this skull has lain in the earth three and twenty years.
Hamlet: Whose was it?
First Clown: A whoreson mad fellow's it was: whose do you think it was?
Hamlet: Nay, I know not.
First Clown: A pestilence on him for a mad rogue! a' poured a flagon of Rhenish on my head once. This same skull, sir, was Yorick's skull, the king's jester.
Hamlet: This?
First Clown: E'en that.
Hamlet: Let me see. [Takes the skull.] Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio: a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy: he hath borne me on his back a thousand times; and now, how abhorred in my imagination it is! my gorge rises at it. Here hung those lips that I have kissed I know not how oft. Where be your gibes now? your gambols? your songs? Your flashes of merriment, that were wont to set the table on a roar? Not one now, to mock your own grinning? quite chop-fallen? Now get you to my lady's chamber, and tell her, let her paint an inch thick, to this favour she must come; make her laugh at that. . . .
Shakespeare, Hamlet.
And listen to this, one of my favorite songs of all time (song starts at 0:17, I strongly encourage you to stop it by 3:23 as the music they use for the end credits totally kills the mood):
Two Words I Used Earnestly in a Five-Day Period
(1) Cad – I referred to someone as a cad.
(2) Swell – When a friend asked if I’d like him to share some information with me, I said it would be swell if he did.
Relatedly: About six months ago I referred to someone as a “dickweed.” Immediately after it came out of my mouth I was shocked by it. That word was an often-used piece of my vocabulary when I was in my early teens, but I don’t think I’ve heard anyone say it in at least 17 years or so.
Words from Suttree
I just started reading Cormac McCarthy’s Suttree. I’ve never read any of his stuff before, except for the first 10 pages or so of No Country for Old Men (I didn’t stop because I didn’t like it, I was just browsing the books on my mom’s bookcases). Never in my life have I had to look up so many words when reading something. There’s a saying about reading Infinite Jest: make sure you have two bookmarks and the O.E.D. handy. But, so far, on a words per page basis Suttree blows Infinite Jest out of the water on the words-Trent-doesn’t-know scale. So here’s a list of the Suttree words I looked up in getting through the first chapter (25 pages of text, but the dialog sections have way fewer words that I need to look up, so the words here are almost all from the 15 or so pages of non-dialog): [n.1]
Foetal – Variant of fetal/fetus
Alluvial – Detritus from running water
Hawser – Large rope for towing/securing/etc a ship
Interstitial – Relating to / situated in a gap
Striae – Stripe/line, groove, channel
Stele – The central vascular portion of the axis of a vascular plant, usually cylindrical
Pinchbeck – Fools gold, a counterfeit thing
Rictus – The gape of a bird’s mouth
Mucilage – Gelatinous substance of various plants
Reticulate – Resembling a net or network
Plover – Type of bird, like a sandpiper
Viscid – Sticky, having an adhesive quality
Volute – Spiral or scroll shaped; a type of mollusk
Gambrel – A stick or iron for suspending slaughtered animals
Incruent – Bloodless
Homunculus – A little man
Instanter – At once
Grapnel – Small anchor, usually with 4 or 5 flukes used especially to recover sunken objects
Stob – Stake, post
Flowage – An overflowing onto land
Rimpled – Wrinkled, crumpled
Agoggle – (Agog) Full of intense interest
Cerements – A shroud for the dead
Sulcate – Scarred with furrows, usually longitudinal
Davited – (davit) a crane that projects over the side of a ship
Catenary – The curve of a cord that hangs between two fixed points
Cannelured – Ring like groove, the groove near the butt of a bullet
Breeks – Breeches, trousers
Parget – Any plaster or rough cast used to cover walls/etc
Gaitered – (gaiter) A covering for the ankle, calf, shoe top, compare to “upper”
Amphoric – Resembling the deep, hollow sound made by blowing across the mouth of a bottle
Note 1: The definitions are mostly my abbreviated versions I noted when I looked each word up. Also: A few of the words in the list are somewhat familiar to me (e.g., alluvial, interstitial, pinchbeck), and others are of the sort where I could’ve made a decent guess (e.g., viscid, instanter, riven), but I wasn’t sure so they made the list.
[Music for this post: Ben Harper’s Fight for Your Mind; and Billy Bragg & Wilco’s Mermaid Avenue]
[Beer for this post: Sierra Nevada Pale Ale]
Stat Counter
So, to get right to the point, a little over a month ago I added a stat counter to this blog—you may have noticed the little “StatCounter.com” icon at the very bottom of each page (but I’d be surprised). Anne has had one up on her blog for a while, but I had been avoiding adding one, that is until something happened that made me decide I really needed it.
I was avoiding it mostly because I didn’t (and still don’t, for the most part, really) want to know how many page hits I was getting and where my readers were coming from. See, I assumed my only readers were probably my dad, Anne, and a handful of my friends, but I also harbored a very small, secret hope that maybe I was getting a few more hits from other friends and perhaps even the occasional stranger. What was important, and what I didn’t want crushed by the information from a stat counter, was that these were assumptions that I was happy to make and did not want tested. My fear was that if I installed a stat counter I’d learn that no one was reading this, that the five or so people I thought cared enough to check it out occasionally actually didn’t, and also that my little hope of the occasional extra was foolish. There are a lot of websites out there, a lot of blogs, and to assume that people would take the time to read my ramblings, most of which are relatively personal and not specifically designed to be of wider interest, requires a certain amount of arrogance that I guess I have but don’t trust and am not comfortable with.
But I decided to add the tool after Anne told me that someone from the federal courts in D.C. had come to her blog through mine. This was shortly after I had applied for a clerkship with a federal judge in D.C., one who interviewed me in 2008 and who I’d love to work for. [n.1] Now, this reader (or viewer, at least) could have been anyone, it could’ve been a coincidence, but if I had to guess I’d say it wasn’t. To get to my blog and then follow one of my links to Anne’s would require someone who was interested enough about me and my wife to bother with that. It could’ve been a mutual friend, but we couldn’t think of anyone we know who is currently in the D.C. federal court system. If I had to bet, I’d say it was either the Judge or (much more likely) one of her clerks. So, I decided to add the stat counter to see if this person came back to my blog.
What the stat counter tells me, if I go look at it: (1) number of hits in the current day, the previous day, the current month, and “total”; (2) the city, ISP, and IP address of each visitor; (3) how each visitor got there (a link from somewhere else, a Google search, et cetera); and (4) a bunch of other stuff that I don’t really ever look at. So, for example, if my dad views the blog today, and I go look at my recent activity, I’ll see that on April 29 someone in Montebello, California, using the network at Teac America, visited my blog by searching for “Howling with Mirth” using Google (Teac is my dad’s employer).
The information is very interesting. But if you’re reading this and are worried that I’ll figure out who you are and how often you read it, you shouldn’t be too concerned: first, because the information is usually too vague to make anything out of it; and second, because I don’t look at it that closely for the reason I talked about up above (I just don’t want to know). But when in scanning the thing I see something weird, I take note. Here are some examples of things I’ve discovered:
- I had a visitor from Qatar who viewed my post entitled “Catholic High School Girls in Trouble.” He (I’m confident it was a he) managed to get to it without a “referring link” (he didn’t directly follow a result from a search engine) which is kind of strange.
- I had a visitor from Saudi Arabia who viewed my “Reading the New Yorker with Me…” post and got to it by searching “Play tits” on Google. I blame James Cameron.
- A visitor from Tehran, Iran, got to my blog by searching “hymen break videos” on Google. I guess that’s what I get for writing about Bad Lieutenant.
- And, the most disturbing one by far, a visitor from Frisco, Texas, who got here by searching “pre school little lolitas.” Fucking sick bastard. I write about one of the most beautifully written novels of all time and I get this sort of traffic. If any law enforcement officers from Texas or the FBI are reading this, he (obviously) connected via Grande Communications and his IP address is 72.48.62.230.
Other, less disturbing things I’ve discovered:
- I’ve had visitors from every continent except Antarctica. If anyone knows anyone at a research station down there, please ask them to visit my blog so I can complete my tour of the continents.
- I have semi-regular readers in Australia, Ireland, England, and a few other places. Who knew?
- If you really want to know, and I don’t but I can’t delete it from my mind, my daily average is about 10 people (with spikes occurring during the two days after I post something new), which is more than I would’ve dared to guess.
Thanks for reading, it means a lot to me.
Why I Write this Blog
I don’t write it because I think I’m going to become the male version of Heather Armstrong, a “daddy blogger” who can support a family on blogging revenue. [n.2] I don’t write it because I’m arrogant enough to think lots of people who don’t know me care about what I have to say. This is probably going to sound sappy, or whatever, but I write it because it is good for me. I write this to share.
Those who know me well, particularly my wife and ex-girlfriends, know that communication is far from my strong suit. I’m intensely private about many things and I tend to keep to myself most of what goes on in my head (which has to sound strange coming from someone who writes a pretty personal blog, but it’s true). But for some reason, and I realize I’m not unique here, I can write things I can’t say. I can share things here that I can’t share in another manner. [n.3] Some might think this is an example of what’s wrong with people today, what’s wrong with the Internet, this distanced, impersonal, electronic communication. They’d say that surely a face-to-face chat would be better, and maybe they’re right, I can understand that, but some of this stuff I am simply not going to say otherwise. I can’t share some of the things I’ve shared here in one-on-one conversation. Call it a fault of mine—it probably is—but this is what I’ve got, and I can’t help but think this is better than nothing. And in my defense, sort of: on top of the limitation caused by my usual inability to expose myself in person (heh), I think there is a depth achievable in writing that is hard to match in conversation. But whatever.
I’ve written stuff here that has touched certain people very deeply, made them cry with joy, and I’ve written stuff here that has led to friends sharing important, personal things with me that I am confident they never would’ve shared otherwise. This is not boasting, it’s the truth, and it’s my point.
I write about what interests me, what pisses me off, what I care about, et cetera and so on, because I want to communicate with other human beings. I’m reaching out. I’ve had people tell me that I should be really careful about what I write online, that I should restrict my communication, that I should self-censor. And I am careful, generally (e.g., I removed the Facebook link that displayed my full name on this site), but there’s a part of me that refuses to restrict my communication, that recoils at self-censorship. The point here for me is to share, to open myself to others, and I’ll be damned if I cut that short because I’m worried about what someone who doesn’t even know me will think about it.
Every time I read something or hear someone say that you need to be careful about what you put online, I think, “If someone doesn’t want to give me a job, or whatever, because of what I write here, or my often strange and easily misconstrued Facebook status updates, then fuck them.” [n.4] But I have to admit, when I was faced with that idea more concretely, when it became clear that the Judge I applied to (or one of her clerks) was probably looking at this blog, I thought about what I’d written here and kind of regretted some of it. But I quickly came back to where I was before: if they want to make a hiring decision based on what I’ve written here, without understanding where I’m coming from, my perspective, my slant, my humor, et cetera et cetera et cetera, then screw them. This stuff is for people who care about me, in one way or another.
Note 1: My instinct suggests that second "who" should be "whom," but I figured it would looked forced if I put it there.
Note 2: But I am convinced that there’d be a market for a decent “daddy blog.” The problem is that it would require a much tighter focus on fatherhood, and I want to write about what I want to write about without being concerned about staying on topic.
Note 3: No, writing letters or private emails to the people I want to share particular stuff with is not a viable alternative for me. Trust me.
Note 4: But I should note that I am not one of those people that has many hundreds of pictures, many of which involve bodyshots and/or extreme drunkenness, of me on Facebook. Or anything of the sort.
