Retraction of irritable rant

Eats, Shoots and Leaves has won me over. First of all, I had to get over the author's peevishness (see freethepeeves.com for an admirable campaign against grammatical peevishness). Then I slowly realized that she wasn't offering a systematic philosophy of punctuation. Her main purpose was to entertain, and she was doing a magnificent job of it. "If there is one lesson to be learned from this book," she writes (p. 125), "it is that there is never a dull moment in the world of punctuation." What makes her readers love her - no matter what they think of the serial (Oxford) comma - is simply that she cares about these things, and she's very, very funny.

Atkins

Today I drove by a Carl's Jr. and did a double take when I saw that their sign said "Agnus Dei."

Sometimes there is a good reason for a double take. The sign really advertised an "Angus Diet."

Irritable rant about grammar

I have started reading Eats, Shoots and Leaves and am already annoyed with it. There are a lot of people who think that the English language needs to be protected from the people who use it, and they're just wrong. I loathe the slimy and manipulative way she snuggles up to the reader and implies that we are all part of this elite layer of society that understands what no one else understands. It is ironic that she wrote her book for what she thought was such a narrow audience and then it became a mad success. Everyone likes to think they're included in this mysterious secret tribe of sneering grammarians. I'm very curious what she's going to actually do in the book, because the introduction is not promising. I know I should wait until I've finished it before I comment.

self-disclosure

I doubt anyone will feel like reading this whole article (and it's a behemoth of an article), but it is really interesting. It deals with a lot of things I've been thinking about, like the inadequacy of obituaries, and things that I've talked about with some of you, like the audiences we write for, the desire to be known, and the fear of being known. Plus it is enormously relevant to blogging. So here it is.

Mothers and souls

My comment about the kids' souls wasn't so much a condemnation of their actions as a sort of motherly surge of anxiety. It just seemed to me that they were having to face a ton of more disturbing things, and they seemed so young. Part of it was their more mature clothes. You know the thing parents always say, "They grow up too soon!" I don't know where that is coming from in my case, but I just want to protect them. Not that that would do them any good. So it was a strictly emotional comment, not a moralistic one.

To respond to the moralistic critiques, though, I would say that Harry's breaking of the rules is not necessarily laudable but certainly understandable. I think realistic characters are good. I don't know what kind of fiction these conservative fathers read. Probably none.

About the ineffectiveness of the adults, I think that's true to a certain extent. There are seemingly a lot of bumbling adults. But I think a lot of it only results from the kids' refusal to be helped. Dumbledore is just what Harry needs - a powerful person he can trust - but Harry avoids him. He's always afraid to tell him the truth. It is the classic stiff-necked Israelite scenario.

Sirius is an example of an adult with some serious flaws and insecurities. Lupin has some problems, but I think his power is understated. So is Dumbledore's. Understatement is one of the things I most admire about the books. J.K. Rowling is able to let misunderstandings remain for a long time before she corrects them.

Many cities

He left me crying late one Sunday night, outside of Boulder.
He said he had to find himself, out on the road.
- Jo Dee Messina, "Stand Beside Me"

Last time I saw her it was getting colder
But that was years ago.
Last I heard she had moved to Boulder
But where she's now I don't know.
- Garth Brooks, "What She's Doing Now"

The next challenge is to find or write songs that include the names of all the cities I will spend a night in before July is over. They are:

Eugene, Oregon; Chicago; London; Addis Ababa; Mekelle, Ethiopia; and Philadelphia.

Bonus points for including cities where I have a layover: Phoenix, Las Vegas, and Amsterdam.

Good luck.

Life of Pi

I finished Life of Pi several weeks ago and am just now getting around to responding to popular demand and posting my thoughts about it.

Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed the book and was glad I read it. The basic setup is that the main character, Pi, and his family are moving from India to Canada and are taking their zoo animals with them; Pi's father is a zookeeper. The ship they travel on sinks in the Pacific, and Pi is left on a lifeboat with zoo animals as his only companions. The book gets a lot of mileage out of the sheer novelty of this. It surprised me how many times it can be funny to see nautical terms and zoo animals in the same sentence, like, "That was a cramped space; between the broad back of the zebra and the sides of the buoyancy tanks that went all around the boat beneath the benches, there wasn't much room left for a hyena."

Martel also tries to get some comic mileage out of having Pi be (or claim to be) Christian, Hindu, and Muslim at the same time. This is occasionally, but only occasionally very funny, and unlike the zoo animals, it doesn't have any real relation to the plot itself. While having a hyena on a lifeboat actually influences the events that take place, having a Hindu aboard apparently does not.

My only complaint is about the ending, which was very disappointing, in that some of the magic of the rest of the book disappears.

Textual explication

Here is the document I mentioned last week, published for the first time ever, at your very own Crawdad Hole:

Textual explication of "The Lion" by Roald Dahl

Roald Dahl's "The Lion" is a short lyric poem in iambic pentameter couplets. The length of the poem, four lines longer than a sonnet, expresses Dahl's theme of overturning tradition, subverting the conventional, and escaping quotidian norms.

The poem is addressed to the reader, an unconventional device in adult literature but a perfectly acceptable one to the child reader. This is heavily ironic, since the child to whom the reader expects the poem to speak will be the type of reader most likely to be deeply disturbed by the grim and crushing end.

To overturn or subvert tradition, a writer must first establish the tradition which he or she expects to undermine, and this is glibly done in the modest, unthreatening first couplet. In fact, the conciseness and precision of expression are perfectly worthy of the 17th century's notion of wit. The idea expressed is not new, and is put simply in keeping with its import.

Repetition of the word "tender" in lines 2 and 4 is the first subversive element of the text, hardly noticeable upon a first reading yet influencing the entire mood of the poem. The reader is put in a vulnerable, innocent state of mind, aided as well by the conventional and unassuming couplet noted above.

Lines 5-9 amass culinary references, evoking [change of writer]what are most likely pleasant dining experiences in the mind of the impressionable young child, and setting up the reader to expect a pleasant ending, most likely ending with lion and speaker joining one another in pleasant repast. The fact that the lion refuses the first four scrumptious suggestions is no major impediment; four more suggestions await in lines 11-15. [change of writer] In these lines, though, the character of the inquiry changes. Less food items are proposed in a line, and eliciting information from the lion about its favorite meal becomes more difficult. Also at this point, the speaker is becoming nervous; there are the first direct hints of the shattering ending. Flattery like "lion dear," "lovely steak," and "entice" conjure a mental image of the speaker, in belated recognition, backing away from the lion.

[change of writer] The ominous change from present to past tense in line 15 comes as a bitter shock to the innocent reader. The backing away came too late; the trap is set. Line 14 is the last we hear from the child; it is significant that "rabbit" and "hare," two small, quiet, gentle animals, are offered as the lion's choice of cuisine: Dahl obviously associates the child with the rabbit.

In the final lines, the lion speaks, and we find that we have been subtly prepared for his pronouncement by the depth of imagery which has gone before. Tragic, yet, as all true tragedy, inevitable.

Azkaban

I've never been to a movie before where the audience clapped when the previews ended and it started playing. The audience was really into it. It was quite a pleasure to watch.

The main thing that struck me about the movie was that everything - both characters and cinematography (I hate people who use the word "cinematography," but it really seems to fit here, and I must admit it is pleasurable to join the masses in using the word without any qualifications to speak on the subject) had seemed to take a great leap in maturity. Each little witch or wizard who showed up was fascinatingly different. It reminded me of those 7/11 documentaries or whatever they're called (what are they called?), where they go back and interview the same people every seven years and show what's happened to them. I was annoyed with how stick-thin Hermione was. The kids weren't wearing their school uniforms as much, more of a eurogrunge attire, and some of the scenes were altered in color to produce an artistic effect. It wasn't just the kids who had changed but the whole aesthetic of the movies. I would have to watch the previous ones again, but it seemed to me like there was much more focus on the landscape, the changing seasons. There were visual comments about time everywhere you looked. Of course it's an important element of the plot, but it goes beyond that. Draco Malfoy and the goons had drastically reduced roles; Harry was usually around adults doing very serious things. Hogwarts seemed different from the previous movies. I find myself less worried about all the magic and wizardry that the characters must master, and more worried about the states of their souls as they start becoming adults.

Light reading?

I love it, Snap - "nothing worth mentioning" and then you calmly publish 46 fascinating critiques, including comparisons to authors' other works as well as any relevant writings on the same subjects. Clearly the Dragon is in her element here. I want to hear more about Confessions of a Slacker Mom. Does it lead to greater understanding of the transmogrified mom? What makes her a "slacker"?

Valuable Manuscript Unearthed

As I was perusing the writings of Dahl this morning, I discovered a historic document folded within its pages. It appeared to be a textual explication of one of the great one's poems, coauthored by four critics in serial fashion on a sheet of notebook paper. Because of its uniqueness and enlightening content, I considered publishing it on the blog, but I thought it might be more meaningful to you if you read the poem first. In deference to copyright laws, I will not print the poem here, but I will give you a week to purchase or check out Roald Dahl's "The Lion" (from Dirty Beasts), after which I will post the never-before-published explication for your exclusive viewing. It appears no one (except nerzhin) is reading anything worth mentioning these days, so I trust you can find time to skim this classic, pungent 18-liner. Look forward to Monday, June 7 for the unveiling of the manuscript!

More reading

I've just started Life of Pi by Yann Martel, which so far I'm finding very enjoyable, very fun to read, but I suppose it remains to be seen if it has staying power. I most recently finished Wole Soyinka's Brother Jero plays, which were short and funny but not nearly as good as Death and the King's Horseman which I read for an African Lit class and which made me want to read more of Soyinka.

Other than that I've been slogging through Boyce and DiPrima's Elementary Differential Equations. Though this is a classic text, and one that I'm more interested in than 99 percent of the population, I still must admit that it is somewhat less entertaining than the average novel.

What I'm reading

Lemony had the brilliant idea of showing what each of us is reading over in the sidebar. Unfortunately I haven't figured out how to make this updateable by each of us, but in the meantime maybe we could each just post it normally.

Right now I'm rereading Ulysses, not with much hope of ever finishing, but it's a blast. I think the book is so intimidating we don't realize how funny it is. Reading that has made me sort of revisit A Portrait of the Artist As a Young Man, which is not very funny and much less enjoyable. Books I have recently started and failed to finish are Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee and Zorba the Greek. Also, this morning I reread Roald Dahl's The Giraffe, the Pelly, and Me, which I highly recommend. It is a jewel. RD said short illustrated books for children were the hardest genre of all to write. He wrote 314 pages of discarded versions before coming up with the final 34.5 typewritten pages. So those exquisite surprises that keep the corners of your mouth quivering and your ribs throbbing in pain throughout the story were hard-won by the author. Make sure you read this with someone by your side. There are few worse things than reading The Giraffe, the Pelly, and Me and having no one to share it with.

Malls

Last weekend I was taken to the Frisco Mall, a building of staggering size that you can see from miles away. Driving in under the shadow of the vast logo-decorated wall, I felt the stomach-turning sense of insignificance that often attacks me as a consumer.

Everything was bright, shiny, and new, not the woebegone mallscape that has been lamented in recent press coverage. It made me think of other architectural forms that are meant to belittle the occupants: cathedrals, for example.

Does a gigantic mall serve a similar purpose? To iron out our inconsistencies and make us one body? Do we like that feeling?

Here is another article about malls, and also about pedestrian issues, that I found interesting. Neither of these articles is particularly relevant to my cathedral comparison, but I offer them to anyone who feels intrigued by the topic.

Walking man

As an advocate of walking rather than driving (influenced, of course, by the mighty Tree of Valinor) I found this article on alternet to be very refreshing and interesting. I like especially the closing thought, that the way to persuade people to walk is not through guilt trips about the environment but by simply showing them how fun and rewarding it can be.

On March 18, Tree wrote in this space (see the archives) about a research project involving how far people are from their cars at any given time. I wonder if, for some of us, the further we are from a car the happier we are.

I have almost resolved not to own a car when I move to Boulder in August. Can I stick to my morals, or will I be sucked into the convenience and Americanism of the internal combustion engine?

It was a review of The War for Righteousness, so unfortunately, finding the evidence would involve reading the book. Which I probably won't ever do. It just seemed interesting. You're probably right, it's a bunch of baloney.

I wouldn't rank this one in my top ten birthdays, but some sobriety is appropriate, since anyone who's 27 has outlived the poet Keats.

Christian books

For those of you who have connections in the Christian book publishing industry, I thought you might enjoy this proposed book title that I stole from Real Live Preacher:

What Would Jabez Do If He Was Left Behind With Someone Whose Only Purpose in Life Was to Force-Feed Him Chicken Soup?

Hope you enjoy.

war talk

There's a book review in the May Atlantic Monthly, talking about how those intellectuals and religious leaders who sold World War I as a messianic crusade, "the war to end all wars," were the liberals and the progressive Christian leaders, whereas those who opposed the war were the conservatives and fundamentalists.

And now, as everyone knows, we have W saying things like this: "Freedom is the Almighty's gift to every man and woman in this world. And as the greatest power on the face of the Earth, we have an obligation to help the spread of freedom."

I am no pacifist, but the weird apparent reversal of roles that this book review suggests makes me scratch my head.

Maybe I shouldn't muddy up the Crawdad Hole with silly war talk. I just thought this was interesting and noteworthy.

spring dragons

Thank you for the birthday sentiment, Lemony. It should be noted that Snap Dragon and I share a birthday, along with many other excellent qualities...

Who could be cooler than Lemony, though, who is part of a dragon in a parade! She exceeds the very gamut of coolness.

Yes, indeed:

Tetherow Way
Terrebonne Town
Smith Rocks rise in windy skies...

For those unfamiliar with central Oregon, Smith Rock is located outside the hamlet of Terrebonne, which isn't even registered on epodunk.com. And there's a song about it by an obscure group from Eugene, Spiritfarm, which also seems to lack a web presence.

All this to say, I'm sure there are avalanches of Boulder songs that can be heard in the bars and coffeehouses of that municipality on open mic nights.

Boulder song challenge

I think the elven one, having lived there, should know if there is a Boulder song. If not, can we commission an original ode? Does academic writing dull the ode instinct, Arwen?

If there's a song for Terrebonne, Oregon, there has to be one for Boulder. Maybe not a famous one...

Songs part two

Tree, don't forget the classic:

Going through the big D don't mean Dallas
I can't believe what the judge had to tell us
I got the jeep, she got the pallace -
Going through the big D don't mean Dallas

Now I just need to keep my ear out for songs about Boulder. For some reason I don't think there will be many.

Cities of song

It's comforting to live in a city that has songs written about it. Here are some of the facts about Dallas, according to Jimmie Dale Gilmore:

Dallas is a jewel.
Dallas is a beautiful sight.
Dallas is a jungle.
Dallas gives a beautiful light.
Dallas is a woman who will walk on you when you're down.
When you are up, [Dallas is] the kind [of woman] you want to take around.
Dallas ain't a woman to help you get your feet on the ground.
Dallas is a rich man with a death wish in his eye.
[Dallas is] a steel and concrete soul with a warm-hearted love disguise.
[Dallas is] a rich man who tends to believe in his own lies.

It's hard to say whether any of this is true yet, but I will report back in a year or so.

Face recognition

This weekend I went to a reception for an art show, mostly because I know one of the artists; I'm not really much of an artsy person, myself. The girl I knew only had three paintings in the show, and I took a pretty good look at those, glanced at some of the other artwork, chatted with the two people I knew who were milling around, ate a cookie, and was pretty much ready to leave, having spent a total of maybe twenty minutes there.

As I turned to go, I saw a face I suddenly recognized, someone I hadn't seen in at least wo years. I used to write her email on a fairly regular basis, and she even came to visit me on her spring break one year. What struck me about it was how I instantly recognized her, without doubt or hesitiation; it was definitely her. And even though she disappeared in the two seconds I took to collect myself and try to think of something reasonable to to say to someone I hadn't seen in years, even though I only saw her for half a second and haven't seen her since, I am certain it was really her, that she was really there.

How many faces are there in my mind, floating around, waiting for me to see them again?

notes from Arkansas

Arkansas is a new frontier for the Tree of Valinor. But the climate brought me back home to Virginia's Blue Ridge. There are countless small differences, like the presence of armadillos and loblolly pines in Arkansas. But in the Ozarks in early spring, what the skin feels and the nose smells is the atmosphere of the woods of my youth. At night it stays warm. The pretty rolling hills are blurry on a moist day. The rain creates a sweetly decaying fragrance rather than the papermill scent you get around Eugene or the sharp bitterbrush scent around Sisters.

There are big signs as you pass Hope and Hot Springs, announcing Bill Clinton's birthplace and childhood home. Texas isn't the only state with a sense of pride. Texas seems overrated in many areas, in fact. I'm not sure it lives up to all the boasting.

the death of rap

A sad article came to my attention after those happy descriptions of the Academic Elf's students. This writer seems to think rap is a dying genre:

"Such profanity once drew attention to ghetto life, forcing conservatives, policymakers and critics into sociological debate; now hip hop is more likely to suffer admission into the American literary canon."

Art moves on, I guess. It would be silly to compose like Haydn in 2004 or to write like George Eliot. Thomas Kinkade is trying something like that. People feel sorry for you.

But are there genres that don't go stale? We still get excited to see some really good musicians go crazy when the summer jazz festival comes to town. And what about narrowly prescribed games like basketball that people play again and again to ever-admiring crowds? Maybe I am getting off track here with the sports example.

It seems like what we admire in the young Arizona freestylers (and in the Dixieland band and the basketball team) is their performance within the constraints of an existing genre, not any new contribution to the definition of art. Creativity exists within genres, although we seem to admire most the people who invent or redefine genres: Cervantes, Beethoven, Elvis, Fosbury.

Happiness and purpose

This is only barely related to the discussion about money and contentedness, but I haven't said anything in quite a while so I thought I'd say something. In War is a Force that Gives Us Meaning by Chris Hedges, which I recommend, he says that both (1) happiness and (2) a sense of purpose are important to a balanced life. Happiness without purpose ends up being boring and empty, while a strong purpose without some sort of happiness becomes a mania or obsession, which is the main thing he's concerned about in the book.

As I try to choose between two positions that offer me $15,000 a year in two of the most expensive cities to live in in the United States, I wonder about both. Will graduate school really give me a sense of purpose, and will that even be enough money to subsist in Boulder or Eugene?

about money

I think the mistake comes from thinking either one is desirable: poverty or money. Poverty is not noble because you spend all that time in misery obsessing about where your next meal comes from. Riches aren't noble because you end up obsessing about how to impress someone completely unworthy of being impressed with the meal you're going to invite them to. Money is not evil in itself, just like the meals aren't evil in themselves. The evil is in caring about the wrong things. Not being able to respect someone else because you're hungry and crabby and working all the time, or not being able to respect someone else because you're so busy and full of yourself and deluded about what's important.

So the key is to be happy where you are. Easy for the rich person to say!

Voila the Tree's two cents' worth.

Suggested research topic

Has anyone done research on the average distance between a person and their automobile? This seems like it would be interesting to study. In America, at least, when a car is seen, it is safe to assume the owner is nearby. We don't really think about this. When we sleep at night, the car is in the garage. When we're at work, the car is in the parking lot. Vehicles are necessary appendages.

It's time to end the bondage! Sell your car now!

Spy notes

The manipulator of likenesses finds herself recognizing people she has never met. She's scanned them in, sharpened the contrast in their faces, removed their blemishes, traced the outline of their hair, blown them up, sized them down, and slid them all around the pages of publications. Then she runs into them at the oil change place and stares at them a little too long before she realizes she's a complete stranger to them.

The Tree sings of spring

The Tree of Valinor wonders if errant tongues are still in danger of sticking in Chicago. Is the city hiding its Big Shoulders under copious coats? What color is Lake Michigan?

It's been exactly a month since the last, lone snow in Dallas, a legitimate wintry symbol to the Texans for half a day, appreciated by the leisurely Tree as a lacy Valentine rain. Now the fruit trees are shedding petals on the sidewalks and spraying perfume in the air, along with the lilacs and hyacinths. Many little colorful things are out, but the Tree disdains tulips.

Green leafy vegetables that are preferable to lettuce

Spinach

Memorable phrases from Dallas

The two key words are: caution and flammable.

Do they do worship, or do they just sing hymns?

Now write this down. What God desires, he wires. And what he wires, he inspires.

Bubba Hotep

Bizarre is the best and probably the only way to describe this film. It strikes me as precisely the kind of thing bored college students would dream up late at night when they should be studying, but beyond that it is difficult to describe. To say that's it about Elvis and JFK who are both still alive in a nursing home in East Texas and have to fight an Egyptian mummy who is destroying the souls of the other nursing home residents is to completely fail to do the movie justice. If you like bizarre movies, see it; otherwise, stay home.

Come on in!

Welcome to the blog! There's nothing like reading the other blogs out there to make you feel like you're just like everyone else - self-obsessed and greedy for attention. Flying over the suburbs or shopping at Target gives me the same feeling of sameness and lack of contribution to the world. Everyone thinks that buying some rug that 200,000 other people have is an expression of themselves.

This blog is an escape from that. Here you will find gathered not rugs, not suburban homes, but the thriving thoughts of some very interesting and articulate people. No blog can escape navelgazing at times, but the diversity of our places of origin and the fertility of our imaginings will help us get out of our own heads and swirl in the intoxicating happiness that other people's unexpected words can provide.

So, from this nice warm blog in the suburbs of blogger.com, take a deep draught of intellectual companionship, and be propelled to the stars! What vision! What a lofty future awaits us!