Syntax of Things

Mob

In case you were wondering:

How Bad Is It?

For some moronic reason, last night I decided to check on how my 401(k) is doing.  Granted, there's not a whole hell of a lot in there in the first place, but what was there is now less, by a margin of some 25 percent.  And now, Margaret Atwood is writing about the economy? 

I'm doomed.

Debate

Didn't it start sounding as if one of the debaters tonight was relying on her notes and talking points, never straying from them and bringing every question back to those notes at all cost?  Eventually, I started thinking of William S. Burroughs.

Heartbeat Away

I know it's probably not the best idea to go political on a blog not about politics, but I'm done with silence on this matter.  Whatever one thinks of McCain and his rightful place as far as the future of this country is concerned, that's fine.  McCain isn't the worst possible presidential candidate the Republicans could have nominated and he's definitely better than what we've had the last eight years, but that's not much of a compliment.  However, I start getting really nervous when I think of the possibility of his running mate ascending to the highest office if something should happen to McCain.  It's not just a momentary lapse of concentration anymore.  Not an isolated incident. And this whole narrative of blaming the media and the "gotcha" journalism shows how desperate the campaign is to cover for her inadequacies. We're dealing with someone who, let's face it, is not qualified to be president of the United States.  The Republicans want to cast her as the average Jo(e), "Joe six-pack" and that she may be, but in these difficult times, we need much better than average leading this country, even from the #2 position. We need someone who won't be stumped by the Katie Courics of the world, and someone who when stumped won't blame the questioner.  We need someone who has been around the block and around the world and who knows how to answer a question, even if long-winded, but can answer it for crissake.

It's not hard to find a moment over the last few weeks that not only made me shake my head but actually petrified me when thinking of the possibility, actually kept me up more than one night with a clinched stomach thinking that this country could be put in the hands of this person.  I think it really hit me when I think about how our decision this November might affect not just the country but also how it might affect the life of my daughter and the twins.  That's why I can't keep silent anymore.

That and what I saw tonight.  Her mistakes and gaffes are many, but this one made me lose my appetite.   I don't know how much sleep I'll get tonight after this.

Random Pre-Debate Political Observation of the Day

I'm sucked in to politics right now like a hungry tick on a bloodhound which means I've heard Joe Lieberman say the word titular one too many times today. Trust me, once is enough to hear anything starting with tit coming out of that tit's mouth.

Also, for your reading pleasure: Sarah Palin, the Beat poet.

Veep

I'm hearing from sources that this guy was really close to being McCain's pick, but McCain felt that his being president of the local auto club for over 12 years may have overqualified him for the position.  And the fact that he's male meant he wouldn't be able to convince all of those PUMAs to cross party lines.  But man, he is good looking.

[photo via]

Living Proof

I knew it:

Based on some intriguing preliminary studies in animals, J. Timothy Lightfoot, a kinesiologist, and his team at the University of North Carolina, Charlotte, suggest that genetics may indeed predispose some of us to sloth. Using mice specially bred and selected according to their activity levels, Lightfoot identified 20 different genomic locations that work in tandem to influence their activity levels — specifically, how far the animals will run. Lightfoot's team is the first to identify these genetic areas and the first to figure out that they function in concert. The researchers say the areas they found on the mouse genome may have analogs in humans, and the UNC team is now gearing up to conduct a similar study in men and women. "We have put forward a fairly complete genomic map of the areas that are associated with regulation of physical activity," says Lightfoot, whose study is published in the current issue of the Journal of Heredity.

Go Gay!

You may have heard that a new ("wind"-aided) 100-meter record was set yesterday at the U.S. Olympic trials.  The guy who broke the record is named Tyson Gay.  Well, guess what happens when his last name meets the robots at a Christian fundie site. 

I wonder what happens when their robots get ahold of this guy's name.

{via}

Faux News

This was a graphic that ran during a report on Fox & Friends the other day.  They were discussing Hillary Clinton challenging Obama to a "Lincoln-Douglas" debate.  It has to be one of Fox News's finest moments.

Yep, the one on the left is Frederick Douglass. Not the man Lincoln debated in 1858.

{via}

The Basement Is Crowded

Remember all of the gnashing of teeth last year over litblogs?  I know, hard to forget.  Well, imagine if n+1 had a television show on HBO.  Check out this footage from last night's Bob Costas show in which he tackled, among other things, the scourge of sports blogging.  And watch as a guy name Buzz gets apoplectic over the decline of civilization caused by blogging in general and takes it out on Will Leitch's Deadspin.  {via}

Burn the DJ

This is one of those stories I can't help but love:

A volunteer at a community radio station set fire to the station because he was upset that his song selections for an overnight Internet broadcast were changed, police said.

Paul Webster Feinstein, 24, has been charged with second-degree felony arson for the January 5 fire that caused $300,000 damage to the studios of 91.7 FM KOOP. He faces from two to 20 years in prison and a $10,000 fine if convicted.

Feinstein told investigators that he was "very unhappy" about the changes to his playlist, said Austin Fire Department Battalion Chief Greg Nye. The songs were intended for an Internet broadcast that occurs when the station is off the air.

Wait, here's the best part:

Feinstein was a jazz fan and his Internet program was called "Mellow Down Easy," Dickens said.

Strange Days

I don't know about you, but I think if I were to witness this unawares, I'd start looking for the nearest bunker to crawl under:

At Bill Baggs Cape Florida State Park in Key Biscayne, iguanas fell out of trees Thursday. The cold-blooded reptiles go into a sort of hibernation when temperatures get too low, even if they are perched in branches. Most woke up when the weather warmed later in the day.

Bye RoR

You'd think I'd be able to take a break from blogging for a week or two without having to pop back in to say farewell to a blog that has been both a huge inspiration and a constant supporter of the work I (sometimes) do here.  But no, someone has to go and quit blogging, and while this is a sad day in the litblogosphere, we should all be happy for the work Ed has done and the work he will continue to do as a roving correspondent and podcasting madman.  And I'm sure there's probably a better than good chance that he'll reemerge at some point down the road, just when we least expect it.

This Little Light of Theirs

Sunday school for atheists?  Jesus H. on a stack of hymn books, don't folks understand that the whole point of being an atheist is being able to skip out of Sunday school? 

The Palo Alto Sunday family program uses music, art and discussion to encourage personal expression, intellectual curiosity and collaboration. One Sunday this fall found a dozen children up to age 6 and several parents playing percussion instruments and singing empowering anthems like I'm Unique and Unrepeatable, set to the tune of Ten Little Indians, instead of traditional Sunday-school songs like Jesus Loves Me. Rather than listen to a Bible story, the class read Stone Soup, a secular parable of a traveler who feeds a village by making a stew using one ingredient from each home.

Down the hall in the kitchen, older kids engaged in a Socratic conversation with class leader Bishop about the role persuasion plays in decision-making. He tried to get them to see that people who are coerced into renouncing their beliefs might not actually change their minds but could be acting out of self-preservation--an important lesson for young atheists who may feel pressure to say they believe in God.

Atheist parents appreciate this nurturing environment. That's why Kitty, a nonbeliever who didn't want her last name used to protect her kids' privacy, brings them to Bishop's class each week. After Jonathan, 13, and Hana, 11, were born, Kitty says she felt socially isolated and even tried taking them to church. But they're all much more comfortable having rational discussions at the Humanist center. "I'm a person that doesn't believe in myths," Hana says. "I'd rather stick to the evidence."

Shelved Under Lifetime

I guess one shouldn't be shocked to learn that Borders is more about the latte and the chitchat than the books.  After all, I once bought my wife a miniature spice garden from there.  But when the TV becomes part of the bookstore?  That's going a little too far.  If ever I'm in there and a Madonna video comes on, that's it for me and Borders.  The NY Times has more:

A new strategy at Borders will reinforce the message that its stores are not just about books: the company has been installing 37-inch flat-screen televisions to show original programming, advertisements, news and weather.

George L. Jones, the chief executive of the Borders Group, said each store would have two screens. The broadcast service, called Borders TV, has arrived in nearly 60 stores and is scheduled to reach an additional 250 stores by the end of February.

The screens are “not designed to be intrusive,” Mr. Jones said. Rather, he said, they are “part of a master plan to create content that will do several things for us,” like directing traffic to the Borders Web site and paving the way to more cross-promotional deals with large media companies.

Will literary-minded customers bristle at the intrusion, or will the screens be welcomed as fun? Mr. Jones has a firm opinion: at Borders, “you browse, buy a latte, read a magazine. It’s entertaining.” The televisions are “another way that we can bring knowledge and entertainment,” he said.

If you really want to know how Borders and Mr. "Don't Forget the L" Jones think about you, the customer.  Well, they think we're smart rubes:

Mr. Jones said Borders customers tend to be “highly educated, more affluent” and spend an average of an hour in the store, making them catnip to many advertisers. “It’s becoming more and more difficult to reach people,” Mr. Jones said. “Newspapers are not as effective as they used to be. Television is not as easily reachable as it used to be. This becomes an attractive option.”

Mood: Somber

Sorry for the lack of content this week.  Frankly, my heart and head are elsewhere.  I have a very sick 14-year-old dog who I'm hoping will respond to the latest treatment offered up by the vet.  I've had Hannah, a lab/Husky mix, since she was a tiny pup and I can't fathom the decision I'm probably going to have to make in the not-too-distant future.  Hopefully I'll have good news and posts in the coming days.

All Be Galdangit

We've noticed lately that the wee one is getting really good at learning mannerisms and she's quick to pick up on things that will make her mother and I laugh, or anything that will get a reaction for that matter.  Elaine taught her how to give Eskimo kisses in a matter or minutes.  She saw a pair of blinking eyes on the computer the other morning and spent the rest of the day imitating them.  This is all well and good but it makes me realize that my days of cursing in the house are numbered.  In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if some of the untranslatable words she screams when I'm trying to change her diaper might not have their origins in swearing.  Have you ever tried to quit the curse words?  Fucking hard, I tell ya.  At least Steven Pinker can tell us why we curse and why cursing is so goddamn hard to give up:

The historical root of swearing in English and many other languages is, oddly enough, religion. We see this in the Third Commandment, in the popularity of hell, damn, God, and Jesus Christ as expletives, and in many of the terms for taboo language itself: profanity (that which is not sacred), blasphemy (literally "evil speech" but, in practice, disrespect toward a deity), and swearing, cursing, and oaths, which originally were secured by the invocation of a deity or one of his symbols.

In English-speaking countries today, religious swearing barely raises an eyebrow. Gone with the wind are the days when people could be titillated by a character in a movie saying "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn." If a character today is offended by such language, it's only to depict him as an old-fashioned prude. The defanging of religious taboo words is an obvious consequence of the secularization of Western culture. As G. K. Chesterton remarked, "Blasphemy itself could not survive religion; if anyone doubts that, let him try to blaspheme Odin." To understand religious vulgarity, then, we have to put ourselves in the shoes of our linguistic ancestors, to whom God and Hell were a real presence.

Say you need to make a promise. You may want to borrow money, and so must promise to return it. Why should the promisee believe you, knowing that it may be to your advantage to renege? The answer is that you should submit to a contingency that would impose a penalty on you if you did renege, ideally one so certain and severe that you would always do better to keep the promise than to back out. That way, your partner no longer has to take you at your word; he can rely on your self-interest. Nowadays, we secure our promises with legal contracts that make us liable if we back out. We mortgage our house, giving the bank permission to repossess it if we fail to repay the loan. But, before we could count on a commercial and legal apparatus to enforce our contracts, we had to do our own self-handicapping. Children still bind their oaths by saying, "I hope to die if I tell a lie." Adults used to do the same by invoking the wrath of God, as in May God strike me dead if I'm lying and variations like As God is my witness, Blow me down!, and God blind me!--the source of the British blimey.

Where Did All the Hyphens Go?

I must admit that despite my inability to correctly use them most of the time, I'm going to miss the hyphen.  Now if we could just do something about the pesky little en dash:

THE Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, the scaled-down, two-volume version of the mammoth 20-volume O.E.D., just got a little shorter. With the dispatch of a waiter flicking away flyspecks, the editor, Angus Stevenson, eliminated some 16,000 hyphens from the sixth edition, published last month. “People are not confident about using hyphens anymore,” he said. “They’re not really sure what they’re for.”

The dictionary is not dropping all hyphens. The ones in certain compounds remain (“well-being,” for example), as do those indicating a word break at the right-hand margin — the use for which this versatile little punctuation mark, a variation on the slash, the all-purpose medieval punctuation, was invented in the first place.

What’s getting the heave are most hyphens linking the halves of a compound noun. Some, like “ice cream,” “fig leaf,” “hobby horse” and “water bed,” have been fractured into two words, while many others, like “ bumblebee,” “crybaby” and “pigeonhole,” have been squeezed into one.

That “ice cream” and “bumblebee” ever had hyphens to begin with suggests an excess of fussiness on the part of older lexicographers, and may explain some of Mr. Stevenson’s annoyance. The issue of proper hyphenation has always been vexing for the Brits, far more than it is for us, and occasioned perhaps the single crankiest article in Fowler’s “Dictionary of Modern English Usage,” first published in 1926.

Run to the Border

Do you think there may have been a bet at Salon that Mark Dery couldn't mix in a Derrida reference in an article about Taco Bell?  Well, he won:

With these thoughts as an amuse-bouche, I take my first bite. I chomp through the millimeter-thin shell, flavorful as corn-fed cardboard and eerily crunchless in the soggy-armpit humidity of a New York summer. Chewing, I ruminate on the L.A. Weekly food writer Jonathan Gold's comment to me, "I don't think there's any such thing as authentic Mexican food" -- this from a Pulitzer Prize-winning critic who also told me, with palpable excitement, about his lard connection, a guy who sells "manteca de carnitas ... the liquid lard rendered in the process of making carnitas [fried pork], liquid gold. I fried a few batches of chicken in it last night, accompanied by fiery red salsa and homemade tortillas, and I'm pretty sure I saw god herself."

So what is Gold, a guy who admits he "did plow through most of the Semiotext(e), Frankfurt school, poststructural stuff" in his 20s, saying? That Jacques Derrida had it right when he dropped the chalupa on Western philosophy? Derrida argued that meaning can never be pinned down, since we define every concept in a system of knowledge using terms from within that system. In other words, there is no cosmic meaning that stands outside a self-referential system -- no "transcendental signified," to use Derrida's term. Or, in this case, no authentic Mexicanismo. No transcendental taco to which all tacos refer.

Little Wings

It's a hellofa note when you can't trust your ability to save something for later.  If this were the ideal world in which my premature ejections from web pages wouldn't cause untimely deletion of posts, you would be reading about my decision to "relaunch" Syntax of Things next Tuesday.  Basically, that just means that I'm going to go from this minimal approach I've been using to save time and energy back to the old way, which means little or nothing in terms of content but it sounds good to say.  I'm working on an unapologetic mea culpa for my lameness which I hope to have up as part of Tuesday's relaunch.

For now, more of the same, including videos like the one below, which happens to be one of the funniest things I've watched in many a moon.  It comes to you from Pensacola, Florida, where the mullets are fried and the Bibles are beaten.  Enjoy.

Sad/Funny

I'm glad I still have enough time in my day to check the "Most E-Mailed" news items on Yahoo!  After all, I need to give my psyche a good old-fashioned emotional workout.  How else would I know that according to a recent poll, one in four Americans read ZERO books last year.  And it hurts even more if you read the article, assuming you can read:

The survey reveals a nation whose book readers, on the whole, can hardly be called ravenous. The typical person claimed to have read four books in the last year — half read more and half read fewer. Excluding those who hadn't read any, the usual number read was seven.

"I just get sleepy when I read," said Richard Bustos of Dallas, a habit with which millions of Americans can doubtless identify. Bustos, a 34-year-old project manager for a telecommunications company, said he had not read any books in the last year and would rather spend time in his backyard pool.

Emphasis, sadly, is mine. 

But have no fear, one quick glance down the list of "Most E-mailed" gets you this great headline:

British dwarf's penis gets stuck to hoover

Emphasis mine.

Nightmare

It may not be the sole reason, but seeing a Tom Waits song used on one of those "You Think You Dance Better Than You Pick Your Nose" reality show has me reconsidering my decision to be a part of this society.  I'm thinking of growing my sideburns long, tearing holes in all of my already holy t-shirts, and writing angry letters on the back of matchboxes to the media conglomerates responsible for this latest decline.  Actually, I just want to cry but I don't have any tears left:

{via}

A Final Post: An Explanation for the Past Two Weeks

Jeff will be returning to his rightful place tomorrow after this unfortunate hiatus.  I wish to thank regular readers of this blog for the thoughtful death threats I have received, and I want to give the explanation for the events of the past two weeks on Syntax of Things.

About a month ago, I began being irritated that Jeff did not seem to be appreciated enough by those of you who read his blog.  I thought you were taking him for granted, frankly.  I didn't want to go in the comments section and say what ungrateful people you all are, so I devised a scheme that would make you appreciate Jeff's talents and his blog posts.

It took a while for me to persuade Jeff to agree to my plan, but eventually I was persistent enough that I succeeded.

What I'd decided is that I would write a series of interminably long blog posts, filled with pretentious comments, annoying digressions, obnoxious self-promotion, and details so boring and poorly written that it would drive the readers of Syntax of Things bonkers.  Each post would be -- unbelievably -- even worse than the past one.  I'd include stupid irrelevant graphics badly situated within the text, endless scrolling, a local focus so sharp that it would alienate anyone who doesn't live on my block, annoying references to obscure or highly personal subjects, links to absurd and irrelevant websites, unconscionably extensive coverage of material that no blog reader could possibly care about, snotty asides, bad puns, faux jollity and sentences so poorly crafted that anyone with a sense of literary style would feel intense nausea upon reading them -- all to make the readers of Syntax of Things issue cries of utter relief when their punishment would come to an end.

(Rick Moody, don't you wish you were twenty years older?  You would have been spared much ridicule.)

Ladies and gentlemen, your long blog nightmare is over.  I will not post another entry on this blog. 

For those of you who wonder how I was able to generate such a large amount of horribly written text: Tonight, before I go to sleep, I am going to write in my diary.  I will be finishing my 38th complete year of writing diary entries in these red hardbound books, begun in August of 1969, when I was a mere 18 years old.  (Of course I must have mentioned that several times but I pity anyone who tried to read that far into any of my posts.)  Many incredible picayune details about my diary appear in the autobiographical essay that Contemporary Authors, due to an unbreakable contract (I'm a lawyer, after all) had to pay me for (a cool thousand, if you can believe it -- but Thomson/Gale needed a tax writeoff that year) and print.

So I will just end my tenure here by thanking Jeff profusely for letting me bore you all for the past fortnight.  Hopefully (note incorrect use of this adverb) it will make you all think about Jeff and how much you missed him.  Please write to him tomorrow after his return and tell him how much you are glad he is back. 

And no one is more glad than I am.  After all, I had to read my own writing before I posted it.

Thank you for allowing me to perform this little experiment.

Oh, and if anyone wants to get a PDF or Word document copy of one of my recent books (you can find out what they are on my ineptly designed website), I would be happy to send them to you.  Just don't expect me to pay you all that much to take them. 

Thanks and goodbye.

First Report from Night of a Million Muggles: Richard Grayson Braves the Deathly Hallows at the Union Square Barnes & Noble So You Don't Have To

7:30 p.m. and the L train has just safely evacuated me to Brooklyn from the combat zone that is Barnes & Noble's flagship New York store on 17th Street.  This is going to be a little rough, folks, because it's spot reporting and I'm pretty much farblonjet.  I'd thought I'd spend the whole evening at this, going uptown to the Time Warner Center Borders for their 9 p.m. Great Hallows Ball, then to the Park Slope Community Bookstore's feast of chocolate frogs and unicorn blood, and finally to Greenpoint's new Word Bookstore adults-only party with sangria from a cauldron and an adults-only dungeon, but I can't stand seeing any more wizards for, well, maybe the next couple of decades -- not even the ones I use to install software on the notebook PC I'm typing this on with shaky fingers.

I got out of the subway at 14th Street and found myself waiting to cross standing next to a student who was in my summer school course that ended two weeks ago.  She didn't hand in her final two assignments or show up for the final; the books I assigned were too "difficult," she said.  Though we're a few inches apart, she doesn't notice me until I stare at her.

"Oh, hi," she says.

"Well, I gave you a grade," I say.  I gave her a mercy D+.

"It was a difficult semester," she says, "so I don't mind getting the grade I deserve."

"If I'd given you the grade you'd deserved, you would have failed," I tell her as we cross the street.

She nods.  She's off to the Barnes & Noble too, with her camera, to take pictures.  I've got my little memo pad to take notes.  Walking through Union Square, we fall behind people wearing orange T-shirts.  They're chanting "Peace now!" and "Impeach Bush" and one of them hands me an orange leaflet saying "Declare Yourself: Wear Orange! Drive Out the Bush Regime!"

As we pass the Greenmarket vendors packing up for the day and preparing to go back to their rural retreats, I say to my former student, of the orange shirts, "Where are these people's priorities?  Don't they know what night this is?"

It's 6 p.m.  As we approach the Barnes & Noble, she decides to run up ahead and says, "See you!"  She obviously wants to get a shot of some sort of four-legged black monster hogging the sidewalk.  (Twenty-eight years ago, when my first book came out, the Taplinger Publishing Company, which probably was able to do my short story collection because of the profits from its blockbuster Linda Goodman's Sun Signs, had its headquarters in the building next door to B&N.)

The monster has long, spindly legs like a giraffe and a stylized conic head.  It alternates between nuzzling young women and menacing little kids. "That is not a Harry Potter creature," says one of a group of African-American teens standing next to me.

Another says, "Could it be that horse that's invisible to people unless..."

I'm swept away by the crowd into the store, along with a girl with pink hair, a quidditch broom and lots of beads.  Barnes & Noble employees in black T-shirts are handing out fake aged-parchment leaflets, but I get one from the security guard, still in her regular blue uniform.

I glance at the leaflet to avoid the cacophony of the store till I can adjust.  One side consists of "some tips to help you enjoy our Midnight Magic Costume Party to its fullest."  If we've already reserved a copy of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, we need to pick up a numbered GOLD wristband on the first floor; those people with the wristbands numbered 1-250 should begin lining up on the first floor at 11:15 p.m. and those with GOLD wristbands numbered 251 should sit tight: "We will announce when you should join the line."

If we have NOT reserved a copy of HP&tDH before we came in, we need to pick up a numbered RED wristband on the first floor and should not expect to "be announced" until after all the GOLD wristband numbers have been called.

Hanging on the ceiling in front of me is a collection of manila and white mailing envelopes guarded by stuffed owls.  I check to see one address:

To: Hermione Granger

      Tudor Highland Hill

      London, England

Two Chinese-American teens ask for T-shirts.  "Then you're volunteering?" says the B&N employee.  "I guess," says one of the boys.

Next to me is a young hipsterish guy wearing a long braided black cloak with gold trim, doing card tricks for a small crowd.  He makes some magician-like moves and does indeed finally display the King of Hearts that a girl had picked earlier.

The line for wristbands is very long, so I move along, past two kids with black wizard hats and two others wearing round fake glasses with white rims.  I look down and see a twenty-something guy in a floor-length costume looking very unhappy.  His black fur gloves look uncomfortable.

REAL LIVE OWLS says a sign, and they are: a middle-aged man with a blond beard and hair holds one of them in his gloved hand and another is perched nearby, yawning.  A father holding a boy with a black cape who's waving a little wand points the kid to the live birds.  "What is the name of Hermione's pet cat?" I hear someone ask.

I notice on the store employees' black T-shirts have only the store name on front, though no doubt in the font approved by Scholastic.  The back gives the new book's title and the date.  What?  J.K. Rowling's name is nowhere to be seen.  We authors always get screwed.

As I ride up to the second floor on the escalator, I pass a woman around age 45 who's on the down escalator.  She's got a yellow lightning bolt on her forehead.

A New Low

Thanks to CNN:

Not necessarily in that order.  Someone told me she was reading from her prison journal.  I have a sick feeling that this might become the best-selling prison memoir of all-time.  Shoot me now.