And in the tradition of Sunday posts wherein WNYC's 'On the Media' on the way home from church always seems to relate directly to whatever I had been thinking earlier in the day, here goes:
'On the Media' was on the Internet today. Well, it's always on the Internet if you want to find it, at http://www.onthemedia.org, but this time it was on the subject of the Internet. Here is the link for 'On the Media' on the Internet, on the Internet.
The show was an exploration of aspects of 'digital democracy,' in which such issues as maturity, anonymity, restraint, tolerance, hate, and even my old stand-by, compassion, arose. Surely our print selves, even with name attached and bound in book form, are not identical to our living, feeling, physical, social selves; the relationship between the two is, in many cases, increasingly tenuous the further away from the nexus of social reality, relationships, name, and reputation the writer gets. And anonymous comments on the Internet are about as void of social context as anything could be.
Some people cleave to politeness and consideration regardless of venue. On the other hand, while Ira Glass on the show told of vicious, hurtful things written anonymously to the subjects of a sad and deeply personal vignette on the 'This American Life' comments section, I've seen shockingly and unconscionably mean postings on web forums about religious life and vocations, in which troubled individuals pour out their hatred by calling non-habited religious, or religious of this or that community, all sorts of disgusting things. In the latter case, I should think the self-selection involved, in which all readers are presumably hoping for and working toward the same thing, would have precluded such puerile and nasty behavior.
And yet anonymity, and by extension all the Web, seem to offer an unlimited license to let the Id run free, to discard normal conventions and even ethics in pursuit of untrammeled expression of whatever caliber. I don't know that it's gotten worse in general, or that there are simply so many more people using it, but it does seem like now a greater number of rational arguments than before in every type of venue quickly degenerate into 'You're just stupid,' to which the counterargument these days runs, succinctly, 'F- you!'
...greet the brand new day.'
Showing posts with label politesse. Show all posts
Showing posts with label politesse. Show all posts
Monday, July 28, 2008
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
So the Bartender Says to the Horse --
Why the long face?
Alright, so I explained why I like and respect thinky atheists. But there are plenty of stinky atheists, too, and my bonhommerie is as stressed in thinking about them as it is with the feelgood self-help pseudopagans who take their spiritual direction alternately from 'Prosperity Gospel' quacks and shrink-wrapped plastic 'I Ching' sets from Barnes and Noble.
Part of the stinkiness I can't bear is their frequent supercilious meanness. Anybody who believes anything is dumb, not just different, wallowing smugly in willed ignorance, so restraint isn't called for: the idiots won't get the joke, anyway. Of course, religious people can be just as intolerant as this in their rhetoric, as well -- and knowledge of that fact is sometimes fodder for the mean atheists' lack of consideration. But for now I'm leaving uncharitable believers alone, since they really make my head bleed, and sticking with the angry atheists.
Now, before you say, 'And what about all those rants about Calvinists on here, Vif?', let me remind you they were not about real Calvinism nor even about John Calvin. When I go off on Calvinism it is about the entrenched and invisible secularized vestiges of Calvinism that underpin so many of our attitudes, habits, and neuroses here in the U.S. It's a bit like Althusser's ideology, a bit like Barthes' mythology, and a lot like a troublesome patch of morning glories which, despite having all the flowers and stems and leaves mowed down, are just as present as ever because their roots have already spread widely through the garden. You don't have to believe in the existence of God or John Calvin or even Geneva in order for these Calvinistic assumptions or aspirations to affect your view of culture, commensality, kindness, pleasure, and success. You just have to live in the United States for a while.
So, that having been resolved to all parties' satisfaction, my stinky atheist of the day is Mr. Eddie Izzard, who appears to believe that declaring his atheism over and over earns him a de facto Genius rating and the right to make jokes ridiculing the most heartfelt and sincere of beliefs. He likewise lampoons God and Jesus themselves in extended fashion as bumbling idiots, with Jesus as a sort-of sad sack sucker-Messiah who doesn't know what he is doing and doesn't much care.
Honestly, there are ways to do religious humor. I've seen plenty of stuff that succeeds mightily and yet doesn't offend even when it pokes fun at or contrasts particular beliefs or practices. And I don't just mean brilliant Jewish insider humor, but as well stuff from outside that yet manages to convey a level of respect for the subject. It is not impossible, not at all, but it requires subtlety, maturity - and compassion.
When people cry 'Is nothing sacred anymore???' they seldom intend their lament literally. Rather, it is a wish for a return to some measure of delicacy, consideration, and politesse: what most mean is 'Is nothing off-limits anymore? Is nothing private anymore?' and 'Is nothing beyond the bounds of decency and common courtesy anymore?' It has nothing to do with religion, and everything to do with politeness.
And this is where Izzard's juvenile monologue about idiotic Creators and half-wit sons loses my interest. It was, and should have remained, settled a couple centuries ago that the natural sciences can tell us little of value about religion, and that religion likewise can tell us much about the cultivation of the soul but rather little about geology, or geometry, or cattle-breeding. That an individual has come to this epiphany in the 21st century and is shocked to find religion lacking in scientific insight (as in Izzard's version of Noah) just seems odd to me. A person can find himself unmoved by religion for various reasons, but that there is inadequate discussion of thermodynamics in John of the Cross is one, were it me, that I would feel slightly silly proffering as the crux of my atheism.
But I would also say that even if the individual believes the experiences of John, or Jonas, or Rumi or Rahman Baba to have been 'all in their heads,' ridiculing their interior experience, in addition to being uncharitable, mean-spirited, and thus indefensible morally, is also simply as stupid and pointless in a pragmatic sense as making fun of a friend who thinks he looks better in his new haircut than he does: it's his haircut; let him live in it. You have a right to your own path of haircut self-discovery, and if on it you decide you prefer to continue with the tried-and-true No. 3 in perpetuity, you absolutely are under no obligation to get a copy of your friend's style.
This reactionary approach moreover conduces to the sort of us-v.-them mentality that - you guessed it! - religion is famous, and endlessly parodied and excoriated, for: they're stupid, we're not, so join our club. That an atheist presumably above the fray should resort to the same dirty tactics he would quickly condemn in others is, while not shocking (since we're all only human) still lazy - and, again, puerile. I would cringe and wince and undoubtedly throw up a little in my mouth if I had to read my high school journals filled with every pithy quote from Camus and Gide and Rimbaud that I felt could serve to prop up my (age-appropriate, let me add) stance that Religion is idiotic crap for crappy idiots who like crappy things. Thank God no one gave me a microphone, because in my defensive and angry posture I, too, sounded a bit like a crappy idiot.
Although it helped me terrifically with French!
Alright, so I explained why I like and respect thinky atheists. But there are plenty of stinky atheists, too, and my bonhommerie is as stressed in thinking about them as it is with the feelgood self-help pseudopagans who take their spiritual direction alternately from 'Prosperity Gospel' quacks and shrink-wrapped plastic 'I Ching' sets from Barnes and Noble.
Part of the stinkiness I can't bear is their frequent supercilious meanness. Anybody who believes anything is dumb, not just different, wallowing smugly in willed ignorance, so restraint isn't called for: the idiots won't get the joke, anyway. Of course, religious people can be just as intolerant as this in their rhetoric, as well -- and knowledge of that fact is sometimes fodder for the mean atheists' lack of consideration. But for now I'm leaving uncharitable believers alone, since they really make my head bleed, and sticking with the angry atheists.
Now, before you say, 'And what about all those rants about Calvinists on here, Vif?', let me remind you they were not about real Calvinism nor even about John Calvin. When I go off on Calvinism it is about the entrenched and invisible secularized vestiges of Calvinism that underpin so many of our attitudes, habits, and neuroses here in the U.S. It's a bit like Althusser's ideology, a bit like Barthes' mythology, and a lot like a troublesome patch of morning glories which, despite having all the flowers and stems and leaves mowed down, are just as present as ever because their roots have already spread widely through the garden. You don't have to believe in the existence of God or John Calvin or even Geneva in order for these Calvinistic assumptions or aspirations to affect your view of culture, commensality, kindness, pleasure, and success. You just have to live in the United States for a while.
So, that having been resolved to all parties' satisfaction, my stinky atheist of the day is Mr. Eddie Izzard, who appears to believe that declaring his atheism over and over earns him a de facto Genius rating and the right to make jokes ridiculing the most heartfelt and sincere of beliefs. He likewise lampoons God and Jesus themselves in extended fashion as bumbling idiots, with Jesus as a sort-of sad sack sucker-Messiah who doesn't know what he is doing and doesn't much care.
Honestly, there are ways to do religious humor. I've seen plenty of stuff that succeeds mightily and yet doesn't offend even when it pokes fun at or contrasts particular beliefs or practices. And I don't just mean brilliant Jewish insider humor, but as well stuff from outside that yet manages to convey a level of respect for the subject. It is not impossible, not at all, but it requires subtlety, maturity - and compassion.
When people cry 'Is nothing sacred anymore???' they seldom intend their lament literally. Rather, it is a wish for a return to some measure of delicacy, consideration, and politesse: what most mean is 'Is nothing off-limits anymore? Is nothing private anymore?' and 'Is nothing beyond the bounds of decency and common courtesy anymore?' It has nothing to do with religion, and everything to do with politeness.
And this is where Izzard's juvenile monologue about idiotic Creators and half-wit sons loses my interest. It was, and should have remained, settled a couple centuries ago that the natural sciences can tell us little of value about religion, and that religion likewise can tell us much about the cultivation of the soul but rather little about geology, or geometry, or cattle-breeding. That an individual has come to this epiphany in the 21st century and is shocked to find religion lacking in scientific insight (as in Izzard's version of Noah) just seems odd to me. A person can find himself unmoved by religion for various reasons, but that there is inadequate discussion of thermodynamics in John of the Cross is one, were it me, that I would feel slightly silly proffering as the crux of my atheism.
But I would also say that even if the individual believes the experiences of John, or Jonas, or Rumi or Rahman Baba to have been 'all in their heads,' ridiculing their interior experience, in addition to being uncharitable, mean-spirited, and thus indefensible morally, is also simply as stupid and pointless in a pragmatic sense as making fun of a friend who thinks he looks better in his new haircut than he does: it's his haircut; let him live in it. You have a right to your own path of haircut self-discovery, and if on it you decide you prefer to continue with the tried-and-true No. 3 in perpetuity, you absolutely are under no obligation to get a copy of your friend's style.
This reactionary approach moreover conduces to the sort of us-v.-them mentality that - you guessed it! - religion is famous, and endlessly parodied and excoriated, for: they're stupid, we're not, so join our club. That an atheist presumably above the fray should resort to the same dirty tactics he would quickly condemn in others is, while not shocking (since we're all only human) still lazy - and, again, puerile. I would cringe and wince and undoubtedly throw up a little in my mouth if I had to read my high school journals filled with every pithy quote from Camus and Gide and Rimbaud that I felt could serve to prop up my (age-appropriate, let me add) stance that Religion is idiotic crap for crappy idiots who like crappy things. Thank God no one gave me a microphone, because in my defensive and angry posture I, too, sounded a bit like a crappy idiot.
Although it helped me terrifically with French!
Monday, March 17, 2008
Hydra-cephalic Phonology
I have so little to complain about that the blog is suffering. I could write about the apparent epidemic of somewhat inept and apathetic volunteer coordinators in this city -- but that's more boring than writing nothing. I could tell you that I a) actually went to a Barnes & Noble today (very specific desire, and one best met by a warehouse of a store, yet always still a deeply tragic voyage) and b) was forced to leave before making my purchase because the music was that intolerable. (I don't know her name, but yet another of the baby-voiced, on-the-verge-of-tears female singer-songwriters.) Or I could describe how the neighborhood sphinx is causing me to be cognitively impaired and narcoleptic with his indecipherable and unslakeable cries for something at all hours of the night. Or that, as a result of this ongoing REM deprivation, I slept from one AM to four PM today and could thus not go out for a glass of wine with a friend, as that would have meant having wine for breakfast, even if breakfast were being served at eight at night.
However, in an earlier post when writing about ways not to seem alternately boorish and mincing in the handling of import words in English, I mentioned 'Paree' as always being de trop, and 'intaglio/seraglio' as keeping some, but not all, of their Italian heritage in the course of their Anglicization. While looking for something entirely different today (why I speak Spanish like a Salvadoran) I came upon an old thread on phonoblog in which a few posters struggle mildly to figure out through what principle or principles in US English 'Chartres' comes close-ish (minus the difficult Gallic r's, that is) to the original, while 'Paris' never does, and why a more native pronunciation of Latin American place-names seems to mark one as a leftist still, and also does not carry over into the individual's pronunciation of words in other languages with which he might be equally familiar. I also learned that the English pronunciation of 'Catalan' is supposedly the same as for the primitive plastic. Since the time I first knew what Catalan was, it seems I have been pronouncing it in an off-putting way for most native English speakers -- but, luckily, perhaps, equally in a manner not likely to suggest to antique dealers that I am in the market for an earring-and-brooch set in the shape of a raspberry cluster.
Nothing was resolved in my mind as to why we use foreign endonyms for some things and exonyms for others, nor why we say 'Filleep/Feeleep Paytann' and 'Sharl d'Gall' (I don't have easy IPA access, so we'll make do) in reasonable, good-faith, and (also important) not unduly encumbering English approximations of 'Phillipe Pétain' and 'Charles de Gaulle' yet also canonically say 'Catherine the Great' ('of Russia' at times) and 'Philip of Macedon.'
I think in casual conversation the rules vary according to the group, but for what it's worth, I do say ΥΔΡΑ, with a thelta sound and minus an 'h,' for the island I lived on, instead of 'Hydra' with the 'h' and with an unaspirated 'd' -- the way Americans pronounce the mythological monster. But I don't in English say 'Makeδonίa' for the area of Greece, or any variant of 'Makedonija' for what nationalistic Greeks derogatingly call 'FYROM' and which many other people call 'Macedonia' or 'the Republic of Macedonia.' And I still don't know the ways in which I sound Salvadoran except for one, and now due to my abortive mission to the hideous book barn, I can't use a new Latin-American Spanish Dictionary to figure out the mystery. At least I am well-slept!
However, in an earlier post when writing about ways not to seem alternately boorish and mincing in the handling of import words in English, I mentioned 'Paree' as always being de trop, and 'intaglio/seraglio' as keeping some, but not all, of their Italian heritage in the course of their Anglicization. While looking for something entirely different today (why I speak Spanish like a Salvadoran) I came upon an old thread on phonoblog in which a few posters struggle mildly to figure out through what principle or principles in US English 'Chartres' comes close-ish (minus the difficult Gallic r's, that is) to the original, while 'Paris' never does, and why a more native pronunciation of Latin American place-names seems to mark one as a leftist still, and also does not carry over into the individual's pronunciation of words in other languages with which he might be equally familiar. I also learned that the English pronunciation of 'Catalan' is supposedly the same as for the primitive plastic. Since the time I first knew what Catalan was, it seems I have been pronouncing it in an off-putting way for most native English speakers -- but, luckily, perhaps, equally in a manner not likely to suggest to antique dealers that I am in the market for an earring-and-brooch set in the shape of a raspberry cluster.
Nothing was resolved in my mind as to why we use foreign endonyms for some things and exonyms for others, nor why we say 'Filleep/Feeleep Paytann' and 'Sharl d'Gall' (I don't have easy IPA access, so we'll make do) in reasonable, good-faith, and (also important) not unduly encumbering English approximations of 'Phillipe Pétain' and 'Charles de Gaulle' yet also canonically say 'Catherine the Great' ('of Russia' at times) and 'Philip of Macedon.'
I think in casual conversation the rules vary according to the group, but for what it's worth, I do say ΥΔΡΑ, with a thelta sound and minus an 'h,' for the island I lived on, instead of 'Hydra' with the 'h' and with an unaspirated 'd' -- the way Americans pronounce the mythological monster. But I don't in English say 'Makeδonίa' for the area of Greece, or any variant of 'Makedonija' for what nationalistic Greeks derogatingly call 'FYROM' and which many other people call 'Macedonia' or 'the Republic of Macedonia.' And I still don't know the ways in which I sound Salvadoran except for one, and now due to my abortive mission to the hideous book barn, I can't use a new Latin-American Spanish Dictionary to figure out the mystery. At least I am well-slept!
Monday, February 18, 2008
Blowin' in the Wind
I was finally brave enough to tackle the wine cabinet redo, and I don't know what to think. I do
know I did as best I could. As you can see in the 'after' pictures, the cabinet is covered in nice marquetry veneers. I say 'nice' because it looks nice and took some time to do, but also because the piece is old so the depth of the veneer exceeds that of paper.
However.
I have a deep-seated and possibly pathological desire to be polite, commingled with a distaste for shopping. These two tendencies taken together (and so far, I haven't been able to take them apart) mean that I sometimes encounter great difficulties when trying to buy things. I don't go into stores to browse: I go in stores to get the one, or three, or six things I know in advance I want or need to get from the store. If it turns out they do not have the items, I leave. I am not, in other words, tempted to buy a bathtub because there are no more pruning shears, nor a new lampshade because the store ran out of my brand of stockings. I recently went to a lot of antique stores looking for a particular type of settee, and one with upholstery I would not have to change immediately, as well. The settee still eludes me, but I did not turn to dining sets or hall stands to anesthetize my feelings of setteelessness.
Still, though.
The situation is different when in response to an advertisement for an item I go to someone's house. I cannot contemplate the horror of a day spent going to several strangers' houses to look at various single items. If you place an ad and I call you, it means that I want to come your house, buy the item, and take it away, assuming the photos and description are more or less accurate. However, once I am there those conditions shift. I realize I am in your house and in that house I am passing judgment on an item you own. Yes, I am not a guest; yes, this is, despite the surroundings, a business transaction -- but I don't want to be mean. Rude. And I don't want to have got your hopes up for nothing.
Moreover.
By this point, as well, I have driven, at great risk to myself and other travelers, to wherever it is that you have your house and your possibly-unattractive-in-person piece of furniture. Perhaps, as was the case with the wine cabinet, I did so in the dark and was in the process nearly driven into a cow pasture at the urging of a less-than-inerrant GPS. At some point -- and almost four-wheeling in a farmyard is as solid a point as any other -- it is simply the case that I am 'all in': I am going to buy that hideous piece of Bombay Company MDF loathsomeness photographed through Vaseline and described as 'gorgeous settee 1880s Victorian Eastlake must see xlnt cond' no matter how much it hurts to do so, for to do otherwise would make me look like a fool for having driven so far for nothing. At least to myself it would make me look like a fool. And since, as you all know, I'm a) the only one who has to live with me and b) not one to suffer fools gladly, I can't afford that sort of rancor between me.
But still also I don't want to hurt your feelings.
So, prior to looking at the wine cabinet in person, I asked what were those 'designs' on the front in the two faraway photos, and what were they made of. The very nice lady said she thought one was a flower, and the other, well, she couldn't quite tell. She was happy enough to send me photos of them, but they were huge and I was as ignorant as her as to how to scale them down for viewing from within this solar system, at least on a then-dying computer with about three programs left on it. Fair enough, I thought, the rest of it looks quite sexy, and I've never been out to that village (but I bet they have livestock nearby!).
In short, the cabinet was unusable in its state at the time. The Seventies were a challenging period, I realize: so much change, tumult, and uncertainty, as though all the moorings were coming loose everywhere, equally, fully. Fashion, popular music, design, and graphic art reflected the confusion. By the middle of the decade, 'hippie look' design was mainstream in clothing as well as home decor. Housewives sewed granny dresses and quilted skirts, découpaged and scalloped-edged everything in sight, and stuck cork embellishments on anything not actively running away from them.
Such was my cabinet's fate.
This unlucky chump had been the victim of the Seventies hat trick of cork, scalloped edges, and the ubiquitous mushroom-as-decorative-motif. The mushroom, moreover, and the 'flower,' which turned out to be a leaf, appeared to be products of a Ladies' Intro to Metalwork class. Plucking the metallic flora merely solved the glare problem; there was still the issue of the incongruous texture, shape, depth and appearance of the cork appliqués, which were painted in shades ranging from black, brown, and 'natural' to metallic gold.
I first thought of taking the hacksaw to it, and getting the depth of the appliqués to a sliver, over which I would simply paste something more in line with the original lines and look of the piece. They would still protrude a bit, but not two inches and, more importantly, not hideously. Then, positioning the tool first one way and then another, I realized there was no way that attack would be possible as the plane of the front is interrupted by molding at the top and base. I could have someone else do it, of course, someone who knew about these things, someone with expertise, but that would be cheating.
Now, I don't receive much child support from my exhusband, so it is a good thing he came in handy on a Christmas visit when he stuck his penknife a bit under one of the cork bits and emboldened me terrifically by his revelation that the adhesive was loose and elastic, as well as by his prediction that removing the grisly duo would be simple and quick. Still, he is an exhusband, and it took me a few more weeks before I grew the confidence to begin to test what I still considered to be no more than a hypothesis about the state of my glue.
My glue, it turned out, was quite healthy.
Accordingly, I slathered both doors with copious amounts of oil in hopes of loosening it and the cork ovals without damaging the veneer unduly. The scheme largely succeeded, and no veneer ripped off, but once the cork was removed it turned out that the final embellishment to the ovals, the dark brown paint around the outermost edge, was applied after they had already been glued on. Additionally, although I hadn't damaged the veneer, there were in fact gouges in it which appeared to have been what precipitated the 1970s modifications. I sanded enough to even out most of the surface, but there would have been no way to get below the absorbed paint and the deeper gouges.
So, I decided on two-tone gold leaf under stain in a geometric pattern that echoed the existing geometric pattern. Yes, it is not original, but not much about this cabinet was by the point of making that decision. I know it is not more authentic, and I am not sure it is much better, but I am absolutely certain it is not as bad.
know I did as best I could. As you can see in the 'after' pictures, the cabinet is covered in nice marquetry veneers. I say 'nice' because it looks nice and took some time to do, but also because the piece is old so the depth of the veneer exceeds that of paper.However.
I have a deep-seated and possibly pathological desire to be polite, commingled with a distaste for shopping. These two tendencies taken together (and so far, I haven't been able to take them apart) mean that I sometimes encounter great difficulties when trying to buy things. I don't go into stores to browse: I go in stores to get the one, or three, or six things I know in advance I want or need to get from the store. If it turns out they do not have the items, I leave. I am not, in other words, tempted to buy a bathtub because there are no more pruning shears, nor a new lampshade because the store ran out of my brand of stockings. I recently went to a lot of antique stores looking for a particular type of settee, and one with upholstery I would not have to change immediately, as well. The settee still eludes me, but I did not turn to dining sets or hall stands to anesthetize my feelings of setteelessness.
Still, though.
The situation is different when in response to an advertisement for an item I go to someone's house. I cannot contemplate the horror of a day spent going to several strangers' houses to look at various single items. If you place an ad and I call you, it means that I want to come your house, buy the item, and take it away, assuming the photos and description are more or less accurate. However, once I am there those conditions shift. I realize I am in your house and in that house I am passing judgment on an item you own. Yes, I am not a guest; yes, this is, despite the surroundings, a business transaction -- but I don't want to be mean. Rude. And I don't want to have got your hopes up for nothing.
Moreover.
By this point, as well, I have driven, at great risk to myself and other travelers, to wherever it is that you have your house and your possibly-unattractive-in-person piece of furniture. Perhaps, as was the case with the wine cabinet, I did so in the dark and was in the process nearly driven into a cow pasture at the urging of a less-than-inerrant GPS. At some point -- and almost four-wheeling in a farmyard is as solid a point as any other -- it is simply the case that I am 'all in': I am going to buy that hideous piece of Bombay Company MDF loathsomeness photographed through Vaseline and described as 'gorgeous settee 1880s Victorian Eastlake must see xlnt cond' no matter how much it hurts to do so, for to do otherwise would make me look like a fool for having driven so far for nothing. At least to myself it would make me look like a fool. And since, as you all know, I'm a) the only one who has to live with me and b) not one to suffer fools gladly, I can't afford that sort of rancor between me.But still also I don't want to hurt your feelings.
So, prior to looking at the wine cabinet in person, I asked what were those 'designs' on the front in the two faraway photos, and what were they made of. The very nice lady said she thought one was a flower, and the other, well, she couldn't quite tell. She was happy enough to send me photos of them, but they were huge and I was as ignorant as her as to how to scale them down for viewing from within this solar system, at least on a then-dying computer with about three programs left on it. Fair enough, I thought, the rest of it looks quite sexy, and I've never been out to that village (but I bet they have livestock nearby!).
In short, the cabinet was unusable in its state at the time. The Seventies were a challenging period, I realize: so much change, tumult, and uncertainty, as though all the moorings were coming loose everywhere, equally, fully. Fashion, popular music, design, and graphic art reflected the confusion. By the middle of the decade, 'hippie look' design was mainstream in clothing as well as home decor. Housewives sewed granny dresses and quilted skirts, découpaged and scalloped-edged everything in sight, and stuck cork embellishments on anything not actively running away from them.
Such was my cabinet's fate.
This unlucky chump had been the victim of the Seventies hat trick of cork, scalloped edges, and the ubiquitous mushroom-as-decorative-motif. The mushroom, moreover, and the 'flower,' which turned out to be a leaf, appeared to be products of a Ladies' Intro to Metalwork class. Plucking the metallic flora merely solved the glare problem; there was still the issue of the incongruous texture, shape, depth and appearance of the cork appliqués, which were painted in shades ranging from black, brown, and 'natural' to metallic gold.
I first thought of taking the hacksaw to it, and getting the depth of the appliqués to a sliver, over which I would simply paste something more in line with the original lines and look of the piece. They would still protrude a bit, but not two inches and, more importantly, not hideously. Then, positioning the tool first one way and then another, I realized there was no way that attack would be possible as the plane of the front is interrupted by molding at the top and base. I could have someone else do it, of course, someone who knew about these things, someone with expertise, but that would be cheating.
Now, I don't receive much child support from my exhusband, so it is a good thing he came in handy on a Christmas visit when he stuck his penknife a bit under one of the cork bits and emboldened me terrifically by his revelation that the adhesive was loose and elastic, as well as by his prediction that removing the grisly duo would be simple and quick. Still, he is an exhusband, and it took me a few more weeks before I grew the confidence to begin to test what I still considered to be no more than a hypothesis about the state of my glue.
My glue, it turned out, was quite healthy.
Accordingly, I slathered both doors with copious amounts of oil in hopes of loosening it and the cork ovals without damaging the veneer unduly. The scheme largely succeeded, and no veneer ripped off, but once the cork was removed it turned out that the final embellishment to the ovals, the dark brown paint around the outermost edge, was applied after they had already been glued on. Additionally, although I hadn't damaged the veneer, there were in fact gouges in it which appeared to have been what precipitated the 1970s modifications. I sanded enough to even out most of the surface, but there would have been no way to get below the absorbed paint and the deeper gouges.
So, I decided on two-tone gold leaf under stain in a geometric pattern that echoed the existing geometric pattern. Yes, it is not original, but not much about this cabinet was by the point of making that decision. I know it is not more authentic, and I am not sure it is much better, but I am absolutely certain it is not as bad.
Saturday, December 8, 2007
I'm...Sensing...a...Grammarian...from...Beyond...
We all remember Captain Kirk. Some - the hot alien 'humanoid' chicks on distant planets, for example - remember, no doubt, far, far more of him than we mere human late-night dorm-room Star Trek rerun watchers ever knew. But even we can recall his slicked hair, his ripped shirts, his luck with the ladies, the high attrition rate of his red-uniformed personnel when out in the field.
Mostly, however, what endures is his diction. It was daring, unique, revolutionary, even, not merely to have an African-American woman on the bridge of the Enterprise as an officer, but to also have a main character speak...in...so...repellent a -- manner. It needn't only be repressed trauma, however, that we take from this shared heritage: knowledge of exactly what someone means when he refers to 'Captain-Kirk-Speak' can help us in our quests to make the world a better place -- or at least not make people sick when we communicate with them.
Leaving aside the overrated realm of face-to-face contact, I would like to turn to the written word and, in fact, to pay especial attention within the print world to the problem of email. Email can be a bit confusing, I realize, because we send it to people we know and people we don't know, and we use it with people with whom we share a mutual fondness, as well as with people we despise and who despise us. Still, in hopes that the last category can remain smaller than the penult, I would like to add my own rule to the standard email proscriptions of Don't Write in All Caps; Don't Eschew Standard Paragraph Standards; Don't Assume Something Will Sound Funny and Not Mean Once Written; Don't Use LOL, R U, U 2, C Ya, or suchlike, unless you have not yet graduated high school; Don't Write in Such a Way that Emoticons Seem Necessary to Convey Your Meaning; and Don't Use Emoticons.
My rule, friends, is simple: it is Do Not Abuse the Ellipsis. We all have our problems, our own crosses to bear, but years of living upon this earth have taught me that most of them derive from bad parenting, poor health, and imperfect decision-making skills. I can think of exactly none that could possibly be traced to run-ins with three...sequential...printed...dots. So take out your pain on something else.
Here is the lowdown on the skinny re the 411 about the ellipsis (plural ellipses, and coming from the Greek ἔλλειψις, meaning, unsurprisingly, 'omission').
- You can use it in quotations, to indicate you are leaving something out, as in this bit of Yeats, where I show I hacked it from the front and back and tore some guts out of the middle, as well:
- - ...Our breasts are heaving...our lips are apart...
- You can stick it at the end of something, to indicate you could go further, that there really is more to be said (again, an omission), but you are opting not to, for reasons patent or opaque. You might also see this type of usage in fiction writing to describe the trailing off of one party's side of a conversation.
- - Obviously I never planned to sleep with Jennifer...
- - Surely you're not wearing that shirt...
- - Ronald was doing perfectly fine until he met up with those Heideggerians...
- - Now that you mention it, I don't remember turning the stove off...
- And I admit that it can be used, at least in casual situations, at times, to represent a pause longer than a comma between two parts of a sentence. Alright, fine, even between two sentences, but again, only in very casual communication, and not all the time, and not to imbue the writing with a gravitas that it lacks qua writing (which is how and where writing should get its bloody gravitas, if it even wants any to begin with. Not from dots. No dots I know of are capable of impregnating any pause).
- - He told me he loved me...again.
- - I rewrote the article...with no ellipses this time, sir.
- - Well, yes, it seemed odd...but he is a Heideggerian.
- - Of course I turned the stove off, pet...or was that yesterday?
What it shouldn't be used for is a crutch, as with habitual attempts to render thought processes typographically. Nor again, as per the above, to make things seem thinkier or deeper than they really are. Think of it as simple mathematics: if you look at a page of writing, what does it mostly contain? Positively tons of letters, only here and there interspersed with dots and other punctuation. The punctuation is there in the service of the letters and the words and phrases and sentences and paragraphs those letters make up. The punctuation is like the boom-mike guys on a set: necessary, but hardly the crux of the matter.
So these sorts of things frighten me:
- - time to...think, and...reconnect, with self...
- - wanting to...understand
- - to think...and to feel...
- - for me...and...for you
I don't know what they mean. I don't know what the ellipses mean, either. That's a bit of an exaggeration: I do, to a certain extent; the ellipses are there, in cases like those, alternately to 'soften the blow', to serve as a proactive, prophylactic defense against allegations of callousness, and to prove, through graphical representation, that each word was labored over until just the right one, or, minimally, the least wrong one, out of such an imperfect selection, was at last found. I'd say more here, but I'm...thinking...right...now, in fact. Is it not obvious? Can you still suspect I am not, despite the preceding proof?
Dear...friends (see? it's creepy, no?), the Japanese are the only ones on this planet who can use ellipses routinely without thereby increasing my chances of dying of stress-related illness. The reason is that the Japanese are the only ones on this planet with a culture that demands much be left unsaid, in order to preserve dignity and promote harmony. Because of this, there is a whole infrastructure, thousands of years of precedent, giving context and meaning to each incompletely-uttered thought. That in practice means it is far from impossible in the vast majority of cases to deduce what lies on the far side of the dots.
- - Yes, Friday is perfect... (It's just that)...
- - I didn't sleep with Jennifer... (But that was only because I fell down the stairs untying my shoes)...
- - We'll certainly consider your proposal... (And by 'consider' I mean laugh about it and toss it in the trash)...
- - I would be ever so happy to join your Heidegger study group... (I'll just make sure to be elsewhere and unreachable every Wednesday from 3 o'clock on...)
Wednesday, December 6, 2006
Don't Ask
A friend called me the C-word last night. No, not 'conversational' in a reckless gambit to make me believe I'm witty, nor 'conscientious,' in some euphemistic slur on my precise salad-forking tendencies, but complex. A few weeks ago, when I was still young and naive and had an Internet dating profile up on Match, it did say 'complex' in the profile. But I didn't mean it. It even said I wasn't, right next to it, to clarify. It was only in there to scare off any witless chuckleheads who might have problems with a date who has held season tickets to minor league hockey and the symphony in the same season.
The dullards, in other words, one of which my friend assuredly is not. So what he was commenting on was not some assortment of trivial interests or activities that would seem irreconcilable to a lesser man, but rather something about my personality or emotional life. I would know more about the comment, and its basis and subtext and metatext and and implications, except that I didn't ask him to elaborate, and I don't even remember what I said that elicited this remark.
That is because I don't ask questions. This is a failing and a strength. It is a great strength when dating mobsters, for example, and it can keep a marriage going long after a spouse's infidelity would have crushed the union for a more inquisitive type. It protects one from needing to engage in all manner of unpleasant conversations with employees, clients, friends...with even taxi drivers and shipping-company representatives. It is seemly. And, I would argue, frequently pragmatic: if the package will be delayed, if you will be unable to make it to work or home, it is the consequences of that fact which are the most pressing, not whether it is strictly true that you have seven children and all have suddenly been stricken with broken femurs and the bubonic plague.
Still, sometimes it is indeed counterproductive. Even if I do believe that everything necessary will ultimately be evinced, I imagine an argument could be made for the convenience of knowing some things earlier. I might not spend hours on a big bouillabaisse if we get your shellfish allergy out in the open before it is strictly, absolutely relevant. Or, with regard to dating, I might learn something about you if I inquire as to how or why past relationships ended. And yet it rarely occurs to me to do so.
Likewise I don't wish to talk about myself unduly or accept injudicious praise, so a comment I might construe as flattering or untrue is likely to be met with a simple demurral, and it may thus only be an insult with the sting of veracity that would elicit requests for expansion. Simultaneously, in the other direction, I am seldom sure where the line is that separates conversation from prying, and I thus always err on the side of politesse. In other words, I believe you will tell me what you believe I should know about you at this point, and I am trusting that you are possessed of sufficient good sense and consideration such that we would likely be in accord as to what is relevant.
It is a leap of faith, I suppose: I'm assuming you'll want to let me know that you are still on parole for those youthful murders in '92, or that you lovelovelove Monet, or that, if you had your heart's deepest desire, you would furnish your house in Tuscan Cat style. It's not just about bad things, though: with this as my prejudice and custom, I often miss comments others would construe as leading, as openings, and I sometimes grasp this after I'm gone, in a sinking esprit d'escalier moment on the solitary homeward drive.
Let me clarify that these are not in the main momentous insights or wickedly witty bons mots I regret missing the chance to impress people with. Rather, these are things such as, 'Good heavens, how did that make you feel at the time?' 'That's horrific; how did you get out alive?' 'My, theology to genetics: that's a big jump. What prompted the switch?' 'Huh, next seat, eh? What was Rushdie like in person?' Or even, as a recent example that will haunt me ever, 'Oh, to where?'
It's not as though this is crippling; I do carry on conversations all the time. And in the last case, I saved myself when I noticed the blinking 'insert question' light. However, were I to guess, I would suspect most people would not have hesitated and would have found, instead, asking the question to appear more seemly than not asking it. Perhaps to most it would not even have been a question of appropriateness; it would have been fluid, 'natural' to perceive the statement as an opening. Perhaps in most cases no deliberation would have been called for. All of that is needless speculation, of course; if I'm meant to know whether that's true, I will in time.
The dullards, in other words, one of which my friend assuredly is not. So what he was commenting on was not some assortment of trivial interests or activities that would seem irreconcilable to a lesser man, but rather something about my personality or emotional life. I would know more about the comment, and its basis and subtext and metatext and and implications, except that I didn't ask him to elaborate, and I don't even remember what I said that elicited this remark.
That is because I don't ask questions. This is a failing and a strength. It is a great strength when dating mobsters, for example, and it can keep a marriage going long after a spouse's infidelity would have crushed the union for a more inquisitive type. It protects one from needing to engage in all manner of unpleasant conversations with employees, clients, friends...with even taxi drivers and shipping-company representatives. It is seemly. And, I would argue, frequently pragmatic: if the package will be delayed, if you will be unable to make it to work or home, it is the consequences of that fact which are the most pressing, not whether it is strictly true that you have seven children and all have suddenly been stricken with broken femurs and the bubonic plague.
Still, sometimes it is indeed counterproductive. Even if I do believe that everything necessary will ultimately be evinced, I imagine an argument could be made for the convenience of knowing some things earlier. I might not spend hours on a big bouillabaisse if we get your shellfish allergy out in the open before it is strictly, absolutely relevant. Or, with regard to dating, I might learn something about you if I inquire as to how or why past relationships ended. And yet it rarely occurs to me to do so.
Likewise I don't wish to talk about myself unduly or accept injudicious praise, so a comment I might construe as flattering or untrue is likely to be met with a simple demurral, and it may thus only be an insult with the sting of veracity that would elicit requests for expansion. Simultaneously, in the other direction, I am seldom sure where the line is that separates conversation from prying, and I thus always err on the side of politesse. In other words, I believe you will tell me what you believe I should know about you at this point, and I am trusting that you are possessed of sufficient good sense and consideration such that we would likely be in accord as to what is relevant.
It is a leap of faith, I suppose: I'm assuming you'll want to let me know that you are still on parole for those youthful murders in '92, or that you lovelovelove Monet, or that, if you had your heart's deepest desire, you would furnish your house in Tuscan Cat style. It's not just about bad things, though: with this as my prejudice and custom, I often miss comments others would construe as leading, as openings, and I sometimes grasp this after I'm gone, in a sinking esprit d'escalier moment on the solitary homeward drive.
Let me clarify that these are not in the main momentous insights or wickedly witty bons mots I regret missing the chance to impress people with. Rather, these are things such as, 'Good heavens, how did that make you feel at the time?' 'That's horrific; how did you get out alive?' 'My, theology to genetics: that's a big jump. What prompted the switch?' 'Huh, next seat, eh? What was Rushdie like in person?' Or even, as a recent example that will haunt me ever, 'Oh, to where?'
It's not as though this is crippling; I do carry on conversations all the time. And in the last case, I saved myself when I noticed the blinking 'insert question' light. However, were I to guess, I would suspect most people would not have hesitated and would have found, instead, asking the question to appear more seemly than not asking it. Perhaps to most it would not even have been a question of appropriateness; it would have been fluid, 'natural' to perceive the statement as an opening. Perhaps in most cases no deliberation would have been called for. All of that is needless speculation, of course; if I'm meant to know whether that's true, I will in time.
Friday, October 6, 2006
Silence, Exile, and Cunning
I have aborted many posts and left several others unfinished. This situation is not unlike having a (semiliterate) monkey sitting on my shoulder and intermittently offering up his idiosyncratic editorial suggestions by means of shrieks, cackles, head-batting, and hair-pulling. It is of course absurd, as it is all in my head. Or at least the concern about the monkey is in my head; he is really there. It is simply a matter, therefore, of figuring out how not to notice the shrieks and jabs, and of getting on with a proper rant if that is what I wish to do - whether I fear an articulation of my frustration with domestic distributors of tonka bean absolutes will be taken not as frustration with domestic distributors of tonka bean absolutes but rather Existential Angst, or not.Here, then, ladies and gentlemen (and those of you who fall wildly outside the bounds of either category), in an attempt to rid myself its spell, is an explanation of the basis for my recent silence:
You all no doubt remember the exboyfriend: he of the pitying emails; the (misinformedly, but no matter) disparaging or condescending remarks; the absurd nostalgic reminiscences; the inapt, sesquipedalian, purported compliments gleaned through a reckless and foolhardy combination of thesaurus, ignorance, and overconfidence. If you don't, I do, so fret not.
As stated in an earlier post, he brought it to my attention that not only was he in his reading imbuing my posts with a grave, tragic, and positively Dickensian tone or subtext or metatext that they in no way had while still in my cute little brain or on my even cuter little screen, but also scrutinizing the timestamps of the posts for Clues as to my (grave, tragic) state of mind! Now, I admit to getting a cheap kick out of every flight under the radar I can manage, and the cheaper the flight, the headier the kick, so I had already earned some Skybus miles by changing the timestamp to that of various locales when the fancy struck.
But, dear friends, allow me to say that I really hadn't thought anyone would ever look at that. Really. Sure, there was some amount of 'ambiguation' in there, but that was more than balanced by the sheer girlish fun of being able to click on 'Vanuatu.' Not to mention 'Moosejaw.' When is it not fun to click on Moosejaw? And when, in addition, was the last time you, or anyone in your circle, anyone you can think of, noticed the time a posting was posted on any blog? I have read thousands upon thousands of blog entries on topics from politics to perfume to push-up bras to peacock husbandry, and never once did I notice at what time of day the writer lambasted Bush or Clinton or the dumbed-down Shalimar.
So, we have that problem: the Internet isn't private, so I don't care if the exboyfriend or my mother or former husband reads it. What troubles me is that there is an ex-something giving it a close, and erroneous, reading. Now, I don't write this in any way like a diary. I may be short on editing, which is a similarity between the two, but if I had a diary, I would never write about either Brigitte Bardot or John Calvin in it. Really. You can trust me on that, as well. That being the case, I don't feel ill that someone out of the past is getting an uninvited and unwelcome view into the depths of my psyche -- because the depths of my psyche are never on here, if I even have any depths in that psyche at all.
It is, rather, that everyone else can read it and 'get' it somehow: laugh along with me, or snort knowingly and superciliously, disagree, and then write me a vitriol-laden missive declaring the merits of lobster-buggering, muscle shirts, and Chinese knockoffs of 'Tuscan' furniture -- all the while knowing quite well that I was drying my fingernail polish, not slitting my wrists, while writing my half of the preposterous argument. The only person who doesn't is, regrettably, someone whom I regret dating. I was speaking with a friend at length last night about this, because it is making me angry that I am able to be angered by it, and from that conversation I think that last sentence is the crux of it. Perhaps.
Why? Because I got over it. I was sad, cried a bit, felt a loss, missed the endearing text messages for a while -- and then didn't. That, gentle reader, should be the end of the story. It was the end of the story, for heaven's sake. Normally, with whatever sort of loss, you feel it, you embrace it, you experience it for as long as it takes, and then you do something else: the Reckoning. Logic steps in and you evaluate everything. You get dispassionate, objective, and forward-looking.
Let's say you just got fired from a great job. The pay was super, you loved the people you worked with, and it was a not-terrible commute. Obviously, that's quite a loss. But after the late-night crying jags, or the whiskey- or pound-cake binges, or whatever serves the purpose in your case, have done their job, you realize you always hated the lighting, that you were never truly challenged, that the color scheme kept you on edge all day, that you are well-rid of Paul and his incessant nose-clearing, and that the benefits package was dismal at best.
And I think once a sane person gets to that stage, not only can he no longer find the former object of affection as charming as before, but he can, moreover, muster only a modicum of interest in the comings and goings and overall emotional state of the ex. A consequence of this reality in my case was that I had no feelings whatsoever about the exboyfriend reading the blog, except the same vague hope as with anyone else that he might find bits of it amusing.
Then came the emails after the gloriously apathetic hiatus. And then came my terse responses. And then came proof of their lack of efficacy.
All of that was enough to make me regret yet more having been involved with this person. That regret was pushed to at least the third power by the tooth-grittingly noxious email iteration of purportedly flattering attributes gleaned from abusing a thesaurus. Then, my dears, after the late-night Scrabble dig (again, erroneous, but, as is the case with so much, the things we don't know about are often freakishly coextensive with the things we don't know about), came one more accursed Benediction. And that, although I did write a direct, clear, terse, and explicit email in response, shut me up and shut me down, as far as the blog was concerned.
But why? Because, look (alright, fine, I will get personal), we broke up because he is in some substantive ways disturbingly immature. Somewhere past the point at which I stopped thinking of him and being capable of wishing him either ill or well, he gave birth to a new self that felt the need to wish Peace upon me at every turn. I am well aware that peace is a good thing, and I have friends who close utterly everything with 'peace,' but they are typing it while wearing Birkenstocks and/or a black tab-collar shirt. In other words, they wish everybody peace, and they simply cannot help themselves. There are many more problems with his use of the word in this context than I can go into in an already-too-long blog entry, but another one involves an equally unnerving religious association, and that is that when I read it, I cannot help thinking, not of a normal guy offering normal well-wishes, but of a whole congregation of Methodists or Presbyterians shaking hands at the end of service while in unison reciting 'Peace be with you,' 'And also with you.' It is appropriate then, most particularly so if heartfelt, but the idea of shaking hands with a
boyfriend, lover, or husband, before going to sleep, or upon meeting for a date, or as we leave for work, and uttering that -- well, it makes me grimace every time. And I cannot wrest this image from my mind.Gratuituous Pretty Thing, because this is tooooo long:
(MMMMM, sparkly...)
(Yet filled with REAL HUMAN HAIR!)
Nor can I forget the condescending tone in which he first began to wish me Peace. The later versions may have been less wordy and less patently offensive, but they are still no less incongruous nor less unnecessary, unwarranted, or unwanted. For there are two problems: one is the very easy 'We Were Done and I Was Done with the Getting-Done Part so I Am Done with Difficult Feelings about You and thus Well-Stocked on Peace, Thanks All the Same' and the other is that, for all my overblown rhetoric and ability to conjure verbal storms over a chipped nail or newly-wobbly heel, I simply have had a sufficient number of sufficiently harrowing experiences to have vast, vast reserves of equanimity upon which to draw: I do not need anyone, even if he is not an exboyfriend, munificently to bestow it upon me in order to dwell in it, because I have seen things that are serious, and therefore I can tell when things are not.
However, it does get a bit more prickly once we consider the fact that he is an exboyfriend. And he is an exboyfriend whom I am no longer with for various reasons, none of which reflect well on him. And, as stated earlier, I was many months ago past the point where rekindling glowy feelings was possible: I remain in the 'objective' phase that, once having been attained, sticks with one forever. Things, therefore, that might have seemed nice at the time cannot help but be tinged with the overall regret about the whole thing. For lack of a better word, the whole thing seems decidedly icky (apologies to everyone), and knowing what I know of him now I cannot but see that him doing the things that the 'old' him I cared for was doing at the time.
And that him, and my difficult feelings about that him, was the reason I said No and left. And for that him unctuously to wish me 'peace' as though he were my priest, or as though such a damaged psyche had any to spare to be tossing around to others, is offensive in the extreme. Additionally, as you already know, I have a position or two as regards decorum, and such an act is indecorous as could be. If you willfully and deliberately hurt someone, apologies can sometimes be great, can make a difference under the right circumstances. Some things, such as murder, are patently too horrific for an apology to serve any purpose, but for many other things they can be welcome and utile. But to disrupt someone's peace by being a cad, and then, months after she has regained her usual tranquil state to wish her 'peace' once again repeatedly and condescendingly, is rude, base, puerile, and noxious.
So, I do hope I did this with enough lack of detail not to be horrible myself, but at the same time with enough vigour to have it serve as the necessary-and-sufficient catharsis that will allow me to begin once again prating on about inane and insubstantial things with a level of ardour, passion, and confidence equalling that of Margaret Thatcher's hairdressers for the last forty years.
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