Author Archives → Jincy

Funny-Looking Words, part deux

When I was a kid, I sometimes used to stare at words just to see what they could do. I remember more than once staring at the word “soon” until it sprouted extra Os and the imagined sound of the word was strange and hilarious. Then there’s mere repetition, which can polish the most ordinary word to a high, dazzling gloss. You say the word over and over, and eventually, predictably, you pass through hive-inducing boredom and emerge into a magical world where the very sight of this word is just so damn funny. It helps to have a lot of time on your hands.

On one of Ed Kornhauser’s blogs I came across the most fantastic list. “Goat” has now joined “soon” in my list of nosebleedingly amusing words. I’ll let him introduce it.

goat_tree_argan_climbing_morocco

WHY AREN’T THERE SO MANY SONGS ABOUT GOATS?

The origin of this list stems from a conversation I had with Mack Leighton. I posed a query: if you were a musician, and you were marooned on a deserted island, and somehow, you wound up with a trumpet (say it came from the luggage rack of the plane that you were in prior to crashing), and you didn’t play trumpet, would you learn to play it? Both of us agreed that we would, to which I added, “…but all your songs would have to be about goats. The ones you domesticated to survive, like Robinson Crusoe.”
Here’s a list of jazz tunes as they would be titled if they were written about goats. Most of the songs in the list are mine; there are some great contributions from others. Feel free to add:*

A Day in the Life of a Goat
A Goat in Tunisia
A Goat Sang in Berkeley Square
Afro Goat
All the Things Goats Are
As Goats Go By
Autumn Goats Goat Glow
Basin St. Goats
Beautiful Goat
Bernie’s Goat
Besame Cabras
Beyond the Goat
Billy Goats Bounce
Blue and Goat
Body and Goat
Bye Bye Country Goat
Bye Bye Goat
Cheek to Goat
Clay Goat (or Goat Clay)
Darn That Goat
De-Lover-goat
Don’t Get Around Goats Anymore
Dream a Little Dream for Goats
Embraceable Goat
Everything Happens to Goats
Falling Goats
Five Hundred Goats High
Flamenco Goats
Fly Goats to the Moon
Forest Goat
From This Goat On
Gee Baby Ain’t I Good to Goats
Giant Goats
Goat By Starlight (or Stella by Goats)
Goat Cleaner From Des Moines
Goat Dance
Goat Dreamer
Goat Enclosure
Goat for Sale
Goat From Ipenema
Goat Hunt
Goat in New York
Goat in Time Square
Goat of Darkness (or Prince of Goats)
Goat Peanuts
Goat Remembered
Goat Up
Goat Voyage
Goat-ee Goat-ee Goat-ee
Goat-ee Grind
Goatland
Goats Bag’s
Goats Can Really Hang You Up the Most
Goats for Two
Goats from Heaven
Goats Get in Your Eyes
Goats in Vermont
Goats in Wonderland
Goat’s Notice
Goats on My Mind
Goats Rush In
Goats Weep for Me
Goat-trane
God Bless the Goat
Gone With the Goat
Green Goat St.
Haitian Goat Song
Have You Met My Goat?
Honeysuckle Goat
How Deep is the Goat?
I Can’t Give You Anything but Goats
I Didn’t Know What Goat it Was
I Got Goats
I Hear a Goat
I Left My Goat in San Francisco
I Let a Song Go Out of My Goat (or a I Let a Goat Go Out of my Heart)
I Love Goats Porgy (or I Love You Goat)
I Remember Goats
I Will Wait for Goats
If I Were a Goat
If You Could See Goats Now
I’ll Take My Goats
In A Mellow Goat
In a Sentimental Goat
In the Goat
In the Wee Small Goats of the Morning
In Walked Goats
It Could Happen to Goats
It Had to Be Goats
It’s Only a Paper Goat
I’ve Got the Goat on a String
I’ve Never Been in Goats Before
Joy Goat
Just Goats (or Goat Friends)
Just One of Those Goats
Killer Goat
La Vie En Chèvre
Lady-goat
Lennie’s Goat
Let’s Call the Goat Thing Off
Like Goats in Love
Lonnie’s Goats
Love Me or Leave Goats
Lullaby of Goatland
Mack the Goat
My Funny Goat
My Goat Stood Still
My Little Goat
My One and Only Goat
My Shining Goat
Nature Goat (or Goat Boy)
Nica’s Goat
Old Devil Goat
On the Sunny Side of the Goat
One Finger Goat
One Goat Samba
One More for My Baby, and One More for the Goat
Over the Goat
Passion Goat
Polka Dots and Goats (or Goats and Moonbeams)
Portrait of Goats
Put it Where Goats Want It
Quiet Nights and Quiet Goats
Re: Goat I Knew
Rhode Island is Famous for Goats
Rhythm-a-Goat
Satin Goat
Scrapple from the Goat
Serenade to a Goat
Seven Goats to Heaven
Softly As In a Morning Goat
Sophisticated Goat
Stolen Goats
String of Goats
Take the Goat (or Take the “A” Goat)
Taking a Chance on Goats (or Taking a Goat on Chance)
The Days of Wine and Goats
The Eternal Goat
The Goat Has a Thousand Eyes
The Shoes of the Fishermans Goat Are Some Jive-ass Slippers
The Very Thought of Goats
The Way Goats Look Tonight
There is No Greater Goat
There Will Never Be Another Goat
These Foolish Goats
They Can’t Take Goats Away From Me
This I Dig of Goats
This Time the Goat’s On Me
Time After Goat
Tones For Goats Bones (or Tones for Jones Goat)
Too Close For Goats
Turn Out the Goats
Un Poco Cabras
Unforgett-a-goat
Up Jumped Goats
Waltz for Goat-ee
West Coats Goats
What A Wonderful Goat
What Are Goats Doing for the Rest of Your Life?
When I Fall in Goats (When Goats Fall in Love)
Who Can Goats Turn To?
Yardgoat Suite
You Are the Goat of My Life
You’re Nobody ’till Goats Love You

and lastly…

Goats Would Be So Nice to Come Home To

*Additions include:

Slow Goat to China
Goat 66
Pick Up the Goat Pieces
Cut the Goat
Red Goats in the Sunset
When the Goats Go Marching In
Goat Bless the Child
What Are You Doing With the Rest of Your Goat?

Note: The last suggestion is technically wrong, because “with” was introduced for syntactic purposes. Still. What are you doing with the rest of your goat?

Arrivederci, Goat

All You Need is Goat (thanks, Garrett Nichols)

I’m In Love with a Wonderful Goat

It Don’t Mean a Thing (If It Ain’t Got that Goat)

My Goat Just Cares for Me

Lush Goat

Goaty Goaty (Goody Goody)

“Incredulous as it may sound…”

was a hilarious line in Young Frankenstein.   Anyway, it was hilarious to members of the audience who recognized that the correct adjective in context was “incredible.”   Soon after the movie came out, though, I swear I noticed an uptick in the general misuse of “incredulous,” as though Mel Brooks had unwittingly (or, who knows, wittingly) fired a starter gun and we were all free to stop worrying about the distinction and screw up, and now the second meaning of “incredulous” in current dictionaries is apparently “incredible.”    Prescriptive grammarians will gnash their teeth, but that skirmish is over.  

I don’t want to waste time wailing about this.   There’s nothing to be done, and anyway we’re still free to use each adjective correctly, and I hope we do.    

Instead, I’d like to waste (a little)  time cataloguing the devolution of words and phrases, specifically as hastened by movies and TV.     Linguists are certainly right that language is a living thing, always in flux, but surely that flux becomes a torrent [extended metaphor, but this is just a blog] when the same word or phrase is broadcast to the millions.

If anybody’s already done this, I’d like to know about it.   Meanwhile, feel free to add to this very short list.

1.   “Deja vu all over again.”   Yogi Berra said this, and it was  funny  (like “incredulous”).   Then writers and entertainers took up the phrase and used it, mostly without citing Berra, but still (I think) with conscious irony.   These days, I’m pretty sure that most of the time when somebody says “It’s deja vu all over again,” they’re dead serious.   They probably don’t even know who Yogi Berra is.   If we take the passage literally, it’s essentially tautological.  

2. “It is what it is.”   Speaking of tautologies, I’m guessing that when this was first uttered, it wasn’t one.   In paraphrase it meant something like “It is limited in scope” or “We must accept it as it is.”   Actually, come to think of it, I’m not sure what the hell it meant to begin with, but now it’s, well, what it is.   A waste of space.

That’s all I’ve got this morning.   Please offer additions.   Maybe we can all get a grant.

3.   “Wah-lah.”   The first time I heard this, I thought it was deliberate and intentionally funny character work: the character didn’t know that  “Voila!”  begins with a V.   Or even that it’s French. Ha ha.     Now I’m pretty sure it’s the writers who don’t.   Please prove me wrong.

Consider the Ambivert

When I was a child, people were divided into two groups: extroverts and introverts. Introverts were thought to have something wrong with them: we were assumed to be timid, insecure creatures afraid of the light, and it was a given that we all secretly wished to be extroverts.   To turn inward, to keep one’s own watchful counsel, was somehow to let down the social team. Of course, we weren’t team players in the first place, and the only light we avoided was the spotlight.   Sunlight and moonlight–especially moonlight–were just fine with us. Routinely rebuked for insufficient vivacity, sub-level enthusiasm, and being an all-around pill, I would lie awake nights plotting the overthrow of the extrovert majority, whose self-esteem, whose very existence depended entirely on us–the watchers, the listeners, the audience, however unwilling.

Happily, rebuked children now abed don’t have to admit to either category.   According to Wikipedia, a third has arisen: the Ambivert.   The ambivert is not a free-ranging pervert but rather something in between an introvert and an extrovert. Wikipedia asks us to imagine a questionnaire consisting of ten statements with which five people–John, Maria, Marcus, Sarah, and David–must either agree or disagree:

 

John

Maria

Marcus

Sarah

David

I am the life of the party.

Agree

Agree

Agree

Disagree

Disagree

I enjoy being the center of attention.

Agree

Disagree

Agree

Disagree

Disagree

I am skilled in handling social situations.

Agree

Agree

Agree

Disagree

Disagree

I like to be where the action is.

Agree

Agree

Disagree

Agree

Disagree

I make new friends easily.

Agree

Agree

Disagree

Agree

Disagree

I am quiet around strangers.

Disagree

Disagree

Agree

Disagree

Agree

I don’t like to draw attention to myself.

Disagree

Agree

Agree

Agree

Agree

I don’t like to party on the weekends.

Disagree

Disagree

Agree

Agree

Agree

I like to work independently.

Disagree

Agree

Disagree

Agree

Agree

I often enjoy spending time by myself.

Disagree

Disagree

Disagree

Agree

Agree

Score

100% Extravert

70% Extravert

50% Extravert
50% Introvert
(Ambivert)

70% Introvert

100% Introvert

John and Maria are extroverts. Sarah and David are introverts. (This is according to Wikipedia. I contend that no true introvert, such as David, would agree to agree or disagree with any of these statements, or any statements in general.   It’s none of your damn business.) Marcus is an ambivert.

He yearns for the spotlight, and why not? Marcus is a whiz at social situations–in truth, he’s the life of any party, just as long as it’s not held on a Friday or Saturday night. Weeknight affairs might attract more people than you’d expect.   Of course, there’d be the usual extroverts, so afraid to be alone that they’ll go anywhere, even some lame Tuesday potluck thing larded with introverts like Sarah and David.   John, a 100% career blowhard, may begin to wonder who the hell this Marcus guy is and why he keeps popping up at odd hours to vie for the center of attention, but he probably won’t notice that Marcus never shows up on weekends, since he’s too busy back-slapping, bloviating, and charging about with the twenty-first century equivalent of a lampshade on his head.   I don’t know what the equivalent is, because I’m an introvert.

Still there’s more to Marcus than meets the eye.   For instance, he hates to be “where the action is.”   Assuming that the action is apt to manifest on weekends, this might explain why he avoids them, but I’m not sure that’s all there is to it. Marcus may secretly covet the action–to dream of it, in fact–but wherever the action is, there’s John, a legion of Johns, amped up on action, action-happy, pontificating and clowning around and generally filling Marcus with a vicious loathing for humanity.   To compete with John for the action’s hub, no matter how gorgeous the action is, is to admit defeat on some deep level.   Or maybe, like me, Marcus isn’t sure what “action” actually means.

Another thing: while Marcus enjoys being in the spotlight (so long as “action” is absent), he refuses to draw it to himself, presumably relying upon introverts to do the dirty work for him.   One of the many things the chart doesn’t make clear is how he goes about doing this, since he’s (1) rotten at making friends, and (2) purposely enigmatic in the company of strangers.   Possibilities:

  • Bribery.   Marcus pays Sarah and David to hang around with him in an approving way.   This is unlikely, though: it’s more of a John move.   John wouldn’t see anything wrong with it. And a true introvert such as David couldn’t be bought off.
  • The recognition of kindred spirits. Introverts sense that for all his low-wattage charm, he’s really one of them. They gaze at him benignly and encourage his wit with restrained, honest laughter. The extroverts just can’t figure him out, and as they pass by on their way to the Next Big Thing, they pause to study him. Who the hell is this guy?

        The unhappiest of the bunch, it turns out, because, just like John, he can’t stand himself, and unlike John, he admits it. Without an audience he falls apart.   He can’t even work effectively unless he’s surrounded by other people. His weekends must be hell.

Interview with KUCI “Writers on Writing”

“Writers on Writing” on KUCI is an excellent regular program, on which many great writers–Tobias Wolff, for example–have been interviewed at length. There’s a regular podcast to which you can subscribe for free. If you’re interested, check out their schedule:

http://www.kuci.org/schedule.shtml

The interviewers are sharp: they’ve actually read the books and they ask great questions.

Here’s an interview with me (on Jenny and the Jaws of Life) from January 28, 2009.   It’s the second half of the interview–you must FF past the music, etc.

KUCI interview (2d half) Jan-28-2009

Machine translation arguably improving

Here’s a Google translation of this introductory passage from Winner:

Lightning sought our mother out, when she was a young girl in Brown County, Indiana. Licked her body up and down, so she said, with a long scratchy cat tongue. She smelled the ozone, which she described as indescribable. “Not a smell at all, really, but a new and horrible sensation of the nose.” We used to beg her to elaborate. She said it didn’t smell like animal, vegetable, or mineral, or anything else in the world. Then how did you know? we asked. “It had,” she tried again, “a tactile pungency. Every hair on my body stood out straight and vibrated. I wanted to drop flat on the ground but I couldn’t move. It licked me like a big cat! Girls, I was an idea in the mind of a charged cloud!”

Then the lightning dismissed her, and demolished a dying elm across the street. “You always look so disappointed,” she’d tell us, when she came to the end of the story. “You wouldn’t be here, you know, if it hadn’t let me go.” But both of us truly were a little sorry she wasn’t struck. It reflected badly on our mother, that she was tasted and found wanting. Fate had jilted her.

“Where would we be?” Abigail always asked, and Mother would answer, variously, In Heaven, In deep space, Nowhere, Who knows?, A twinkle in your father’s eye. When I was twelve, one of the last times we talked about it, I said, “Maybe we’d be an idea in the mind of a charged cloud.” Mother was terribly pleased.

When our mother was petite–in Brown County, Indiana–the lightning had hunted. She had washed the body from top to bottom, in his words, like a large cat râpeuse language. Our mother had felt the smell of ozone, which it described as indescribable. “No smell at all, in fact, but rather a new olfactory sensation, feeling terrible.” Imploring We always develop. She explained that it was neither animal nor vegetable nor mineral nor anything known on earth. So how could you know? ask us. “This smell it and took it, had a hand in both ac and tactile. All the hairs of my body were prepared and shuddered. I wanted to drop flat on the floor, but I was unable to make the slightest gesture. Lightning licked me like a big cat! Girls, I was an idea in the head in a cloud charged with electricity!”

And then the lightning had washed it and eventually destroy an elm half dead on the other side of the street. “You always look so disappointed,” it is sad when arriving at the end of history. “You know, you would not be here if it had not turned away from me.” But it was indeed true that we may regret a little every second it would not have been foudroyée. The fact of being excluded after being tasted seriously tarnishing the image of our mother. Fate was plated. “Where would we be?” Abigail always asked, to which mother responded, depending on the day: “In Heaven,” “In outer space,” “Nowhere,” “Who knows?”, “Light in the eye of your father.” One of the last time we discussed the topic–I was then twelve years–I said: “Perhaps we would gain insight into the mind of a cloud charged with electricity.” Suggestion that rather enormously mother.[from here]


Machine-Translated Jokes!

These, courtesy of Google Translation and http://hephaistos639.over-blog.com/article-26960987.html, are pretty fabulous, both when they work and when they don’t.   Please feel free to suggest additions, but be sure to include the original url.

 

– Un mec entre dans un bar : “bonjour, je voudrais un chwirzkitchuidrutec à la menthe” et le barman “Vous voulez un chwirzkitchuidrutec à quoi ?”

Automatic translation: – A man enters a bar: “Hello, I’d like a chwirzkitchuidrutec with mint” and the bartender “You want a chwirzkitchuidrutec what?”

 Qui a inventé la cédille ? Monsieur Groçon

 Who invented the cedilla?   Mr.  Groçon

 Pourquoi les éléphants sont gros, gris et frippés ? Parce que s’ils étaient petits, blancs et lisse, ça serrait de l’aspirine.

Why are elephants big, gray and frippés? Because they were small, white and smoth, it shook the aspirin.

 Pourquoi le schtroumpf à lunettes at-il été emprisonné pendant deux ans ? Parce qu’il a schtroumpfé.

 
Why smurf glasses he was imprisoned for two years  Because it has  schtroumpfé.

 “Papa, papa, c’est vrai que j’ai une grande bouche?” “Mais non !! Prend ta pelle et mange ta soupe.”

“Dad, Dad, it’s true that I have a big mouth?”– “But no! Takes ta ta scoop and eat soup.”

 Qu’est ce qui traverse la foret la nuit et qui est transparent ? Un troupeau de vitre

What runs through the forest at night and that is transparent?   A flock of glass.

C’est l’histoire d’un homme qui rentre dans un café. Plouf !

– It is the story of a man who enters a café.         Plouf !

Coming Soon: Online Fiction Workshop from the Author of The Writing Class

I’m seriously thinking of starting up an online fiction workshop in January 2009.     Plans so far:

1.   Submissions will be fiction only–prose, not poetry.

2.   Submissions will include short stories, novel chapters, fragments of longer works.

3.   Right now, I’m not planning to screen for level of sophistication, experience, talent, etc.   Come one, come all.   This strategy has always worked quite well for me in in-person workshops.

4.   In the future, I may offer more real-time workshops, probably involving a chat room setup rather than one involving speech.   Writers are generally comfortable typing and reading; we’d just do this in a virtual room, during scheduled hours.

5.   When  a virtual  workshop gets underway, students will read and critique one another’s work, which is what happens in actual workshops.   I’ll moderate, and will, of course, be critiquing extensively also.

6.   Before I get a workshop going, though, I’ll deal with submissions personally, through emails; and even after I set up virtual workshops, I’ll continue offering this personal service, for writers who aren’t interested in workshops.

7. I’ll probably use PayPal, since this is apparently the easiest way to set up payment of fees.   I’ll charge so much per document, with a page limit, of course (probably 20 or so double-spaced per doc).  

8.   For workshops, I’ll probably charge per Workshop (where the writer commits to, say, a six-week period, and can submit a maximum of, say, 10 documents during that period) instead of per document.

9.   I have no idea right now what the charge will be, but it will be reasonable, given that we’re all now officially broke.  

10. Perhaps later this month I’ll ask for a guinea pig or two or three: a couple of souls willing to submit work (original, of course).   Drawbacks: You’ll be helping me  iron out the kinks in the system;  I won’t know what I’m doing, re the workshop software, etc., and I need to practice.    Advantages:  When it comes to  critiquing fiction, I do  know what I’m doing, and for  these guinea pigs, I’ll be doing it for  free.   Offer ends when the Workshop business gets underway.

11.   Any suggestions welcome.   Has anyone actually taken an online workshop?    Do my ideas seem sound?   Let me know.

 

ATTENTION: GUINEA PIG WORKSHOP IS NOW FULL (12/27/2008).   We should get underway in a week or so. If everything works out, I plan to begin offering for-pay workshops (both group and individual) in late January or early February 2009.