Wednesday, February 4, 2009

Civil Liberties in Bloom?


(image of interned American citizens)









Here is a poem from Mitsuye Yamada's book Camp Notes and Other Poems:


Evacuation

As we boarded the bus
bags on both sides
(I had never packed
two bags before
on a vacation
lasting forever)
the Seattle Times
photographer said
Smile!
so obediently I smiled
and the caption the next day
read:

Note smiling faces
a lesson to Tokyo.
*
Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press, 1992, p. 13.
*
Yamada and family were removed from Seattle and interned in Idaho during WWII. The same thing happened to American families of Japanese background up and down the West Coast.

One of the best designed memorials I've seen regarding the internment happens to be on "my" campus. Alongside sidewalks are planted cherry trees that blossom twice a year. At the base of each cherry tree is a small plaque. On each plaque are the names of the college students on campus who were removed from said campus and sent to interment camps. Probably many of them were sent first to the Puyallup Fairgrounds and held in animal-stalls before being shipped elsewhere. Imagine having grown up in the U.S., being a an American college student, going to class, living your life, and then being removed and interned one day. Of course, property (farms, grocery stores) was stolen and never returned to the families as well. (A Japanese-American alum of the university was chiefly responsible for getting this modest but effective memorial established. A "well done" to him.


Yes, of course I've heard the alleged ways in which the issue was "complicated" and so forth, but the plain facts don't seem to want to budge. Persons of German background were not arrested and interned (nor should they have been). The persons interned were American citizens, not Japanese citizens, so this thing called the Constitution: where was it? Also, where was an inkling of evidence, not to mention due process? Legal representation? To stack irony upon irony, many interned Japanese American men were offered the chance to join the American military and fight--and they took that opportunity and comported themselves well.

Where were the newspapers: Apparently the Seattle Times behaved simply as a cheerleader, rather like Judith Miller, the New York Times, and Bush's crew recently. Newspapers and other journalistic media are supposed to have a contrarian attitude toward who's in power, no matter who's in power. It says so, right there in Contrarianism for Dummies. :-)

I have a colleague who teaches Civil Liberties. He is planning to save 15 minutes in class one day so that he can take the class to the trees and the plaques and suggest that this is one of many reasons why such concepts as civil liberties (and due process, and evidence, and so on) matter.

Counter-Memoir


{
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Counter-Memoir
*
*
Nobody wants to hear his stories:
what a relief. It's refreshing to him
not to be of interest, not to try to
entertain, not to inflate the value
of his experience. Obscurity is
a dear state to occupy. It is spacious
and undemanding, like a meadow
that wasn't on the map. Still, sometimes
people ask questions, maybe out of
politeness, hard to say. So then he talks
quickly about himself but changes
the subject as soon as possible. Silence
*
is his memoir. A blank page encompasses
that life nicely. He used to want people
to be interested in is stories. What,
he wonders, was he thinking? He
doesn't care about his life-story,
aside from the fact that it appears
to exist. His life-story is boring, partly
because he knows it too well. He wonders:
Is autobiography a kind of sin?
{
{
Hans Ostrom Copyright 2009 Hans Ostrom

Performance-Enhancing Drugs







(image: Roger Clemens, unamused)



The recent hubbub over performance-enhancing drugs has made many a sports-fan morose. If we take the long view, however, athletes have always probably been looking for an edge of some sort, and one wonders about the extent to which some of the drugs have a placebo effect. Also, think about all the bad and mediocre athletes who tried the drugs, only to find out they (the drug-takers) were still bad or mediocre athletes, except that they'd expended cash and ingested something awful.

I do remember with some amusement the Cold War Sports-Era, when some of the East Bloc athletes, especially some women, looked, well, unusual, but I reckon some athletes from the West were mischievous, too. Ya think?


As usual, I tend to focus on peripheral questions. For example, with regard to Barry Bonds, I always wondered why more players didn't imitate him by choking up on the bat, not by taking (allegedly!) performance-enhancing thingamabobs. Bat-speed seemed to be one key to Bonds's success. I don't know of another major league player who chokes up on the bat. In fact, most to the opposite. They get their hands on the knob of the bat itself.

At any rate, I decided to apply the contours of this sports-scandal to literature:


Performance-Enhancing Literary Scandal


Reports from Greece today allege Socrates
may have take the human growth-hormone,
HGH (not an inventive abbreviation). Owing
to an allergic reaction (the report continues),
Socrates may have had to employ Plato to
write the philosophy for which Socrates is
famous. Socrates, having also ingested hemlock
long ago, was not available for comment.


Meanwhile, communiques out of St. Petersburg
and Moscow suggest Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy
may have ingested steroids that helped them
double and triple the size of their novels. Elsewhere,
Faulkner and Joyce scholars are vehemently
denying that the impenetrable sentences of these
two Modern titans are the result of performance-
enhancing chemicals and not merely showing off.


Spokespersons for Thomas De Quincey and Charles
Bukowski said, "Read the books; then decide whether
the stuff we ingested enhanced or not. Also, shut up."
F. Scott Fitzgerald, speaking from West Egg in Heaven,
repeated his oft-quoted line: "First you take a drink, then
the drink takes a drink, then the drink takes you."*
{
{


*Quotable Men of the Twentieth Century, edited by Jessica Allen. New York: William Morrow, 1999, p. 13.

Tuesday, February 3, 2009

Foggy Couplets















Couplets in the Fog


Fog's a species of weather--
gray, like a pigeon's feather.
Auden once wrote, "Thank you, fog."
Sandburg thought of cat, not dog.
Fog's in Eliot's Unreal City--
yellow fog, what a pity.
Call it mist, call it fog:
Still you tripped over that log.
If you can, take off work.
No sense traveling in that murk.
Anything you try to say
will come out mumbled, foggy gray.
The fog is subtler than the snow.
And so it's the more dangerous foe.



Copyright 2009 Hans Ostrom

Last People on Earth








I saw this film, I Am Legend, a while back. It was okay. Thrills, chills--that sort of thing. It reminded me a lot of The Omega Man, with Charlton Heston. These "last person(s) on Earth" movies are mildly entertaining. The material might actually be better suited to the small screen, as in the old Twilight Zone series, because the story doesn't need to be drawn out and padded so much.
*
The rest of the world must figuratively roll their eyes when they see cinematically that, yet again, the last person on Earth is an American guy living in a high-rise with lots of guns and groceries.


The Last People on Earth


If you and I were the last persons left
on Earth, someting in excess of terrible
shall have occurred. (Please note my
powers of deduction.) I assume we'd
be living like rats and have the cognitive
coherence of rabid skunks. That said,


I'd still be willing to celebrate your birthday
and nominate you for offices and awards of
your choosing. I might propose a moratorium
on strong opinions. As we tried to keep warm
(or cool), hide from predators, manage
hydration, sustenance, and hygeine, we might
eventually decide whether to revive the arts
in such forms as dancing, singing, and storytelling.


If you and I were the last persons left on Earth,
I'd be both the last and the first person to come to
for advice. Nothing personal, but I'd assume you'd
try to kill me eventually over something trivial.
*
*
Copyright 2009 Hans Ostrom

Monday, February 2, 2009

Zen Golf


I had the very good fortune of having dinner with Sherman Alexie and a few other people tonight. Mr. Alexie is an enormously talented, funny, humane, intelligent man, who also likes basketball and big laughter.

I was talking with a friend after the dinner, and he said, "You write--a lot"--referring to my blog, etc. I told him, "Yes, but unlike you, I'm unimpeded by being smart."(This fellow won a MacArthur "Genius" Grant, so I wasn't indulging in flattery.) I thought that was a pretty good line: If I were smarter, I probably wouldn't write as much. Reflection might get in the way.

Back to Alexie: what impresses me about his intelligence is its flexibility. He's interested in . . . everything. That's actually more a characteristic of a poet than a novelist, in my opinion. Novelists tend to ge most interested in things that follow a certain deep channel. Poets will go up and down any creek.

Back to the friend: He has a great idea for a Zen-related novel set in Seattle. I shall try to induce him to write it.

In the meantime, a wee Zen poem:


Zen Golf
*
*
Bow to the ball. Apologize
in advance for striking it.
Hit it with your favorite
club in any direction.
It's all a Hole out there--
the course, the world,
reality. Therefore, you
can't not hit a hole in one.
Going dualistic for a moment,
the bad news is that no one
keeps score. Even if someone
did count the strokes, there's
nothing to win. Good news
on the dualistic scale: You're
outside, the club in your hand
gleams, a bird craps on a
rich man's head, and . . . .



Copyright 2009 Hans Ostrom

A Visit From a Sage


(image: W.C. Fields)
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
Say You're a Failure
*
*
Best just to blurt it out: "I'm a failure."
Other losing phrases will congregate
right away and get too close to you
as they announce themselves:
"I fell a bit short." "It just didn't
work out." "These things happen."
"It wasn't for want of trying." "If
that's what success is, I'd rather
fail." This last one engenders
many look-away glances and
urgent small-talk in the group.
*
*
Now the place is empty again.
You invite a sage over. He takes
his bourbon neat. You ask,
"Is continuing to try and to fail
any better than giving up,
surrendering to failure?" "No,"
says the sage. "True, one gives
the impression of dignity or
perseverence by continuing
to try, but whom is one attempting
to impress, and why?"
*
*
"I'm a failure. I failed," you say.
"Indeed," says the sage, now drunk.
He continues: "Saying so--the
proclamation, the confession--
that's what hurts. Otherwise,
failure is quite manageable.
You know, I really must bring
you a bottle sometime. I see
I've drunk up all your whiskey."
*
*
*
Copyright 2009 Hans Ostrom

Poet's Political Questions


(pie chart from warresisters.com)
*
Time now for another highly infrequent (thank goodness) installment of "A Poet's Political Questions."
*
*
1. When will a cut-to-the-chase discussion of the federal budget finally occur? Almost all the money goes to the military, health-care (Medicare), and interest on the debt. Of course, we can get in pie-chart wars (one imagines the pie-throwing denouement of a Three Stooges move), and we can put in or take out such things as interest on the debut and money for Social Security, but even so, the pies look roughly the same, even when you account for pie-chart bias. Arguably the biggest decision facing Americans (to the extent Americans make such decisions) is how much to keep spending on the military.
*
*
Yes, I'm aware of the arguments in favor of a "strong military." Even if some of those are granted, however, we still have confront the fact that military-spending is sucking the federal budget dry. We could also debate the health-services and Social Security part of the pie, but I don't think people are going to stop getting sick and old. Let's put the question this way: How much of the military-budget is discretionary? Let's also ignore debates about whether to cut the Dept. of Education (or whatever). The filling in the pie is composed almost entirely of health services, the military, and interest on the debt. Debates about other stuff are merely distractions.
**
2. Why don't the media cover in greater detail those companies and corporations which make weapons and therefore profit from war? Even if you support the wars in which the U.S. is engage, you would probably have some interest in who makes what and how much they make. Is G.E. the parent-company of NBC? Does G.E. make weapons? I don't know the answer to these questions.
**
3. Not to throw cold water on the election of Obama (for many reasons, that was a good day for the U.S.), but will he retract the almost unprecedented expansion of the Executive-Branch powers achieved by Bush and Cheney (signing statements; refusal to turn over any documents; governing by fiat)? Oddly enough, when Obama was, during the campaign, chatting with the pastor from Saddleback Church, and when Pastor Rick asked him about Supreme Court appointments, Obama (without being prompted) said he disagreed with some of Roberts' rulings about what he, Obama, thought were excessive Executive powers that didn't seem supported by the Constitution. Now that he's president, will he retract some of those powers? I don't think he will. Why is it in his interest to do so?
**
4. Now that Obama is president, will the U.S. stop "renditions," a euphemism that would have made even Orwell gag? It refers to the CIA's kidnapping suspects and transporting them to other nations. A rendition is a version of a song. This is kidnapping, false imprisonment, and--once the kidnapped area abroad--torture, no doubt. This morning newspaper had an answer to this question: No. No, the U.S. will not stop "renditions." Close Guantanamo? Yes. Return to previous rules and treaties regarding torture? Yes. Stop renditions? No. Should we stop renditions? Yes: that's my opinion. I'm willing to hear opposing views. I think I know one of them, which can be phrased as a rhetorical question, "What is the CIA supposed to do when it discovers a person who is clearly a potential terrorist--let him or her walk around free?" My rhetorical response is, "If the evidence is clear, why not prosecute him or her as a criminal, in a court?" Another retort I ofen hear is this: "You're naive." I agree. In many regards, I'm naive. Does my naivete justify "rendition"?
**
5. I think that's more than enough political questioning from a poet, and I'm sure you'll agree. I would, however, like to ask why pie-charts never represent a pie-crust. I understand the crust is not crucial to the visual representation of data, but in the spirit of verisimilitude, I think there should be a crust. I might also add that my financial advisor made some pie-charts for me. They represented our personal finances. What was missing (in addition to a crust) was the filling. Cut up the pie as you will, but if there's no filling, you're just playing with percentages of almost nothing. You have dough, but you have no dough (nyuk, nyuk). Don't kill the messenger (in this case, the financial advisor), and don't blame the pie chart.
**

Sunday, February 1, 2009

William Stafford and the Super Bowl





I wonder if poet William Stafford ever watched the Super Bowl. I doubt it. I also doubt that he believed himself to be superior to such mass entertainment. I suspect he might have simply not been interested in the game.

I've been reading his book, An Oregon Message, a book of poems published in 1987. Somehow I ended up with an autographed copy. I'm no handwriting expert, but my wild guess is that Stafford was left-handed. At any rate, he was roughly 73 years old when he published this book, and he prefaced it with this note, which I think I'll reproduce in full:

"My poems are organically grown, and it is my habit to allow language its own freedom and confidence. The results will sometimes bewilder conservative readers and hearers, especially those who try to control all emergent elements in discourse for the service of predetermined ends.

Each poem is a miracle that has been invited to happen. But these words, after they come, you look at what's there. Why these? Why not some calculated careful contenders? Because these chosen ones must survive as they were made, by the reckless impulse of a fallible but susceptible person. I must be willingly fallible in order to deserve a place in the realm where miracles happen.

Writing poems is living in that realm. Each poem is a gift, a surprise that emerges as itself and is only later subjected to order and evaluation." (page 10 of the paperback).

As always, Stafford is sly--even in this preface. "Organically grown" not only alludes to a Romantic (as in British Romantic, Wordsworth, et al. ) point of view, but also to the term "organically grown," which had become ubiquitous in American marketing of food in the 1980s. With regard to art and poetry, "organic" doesn't have the "granola" connotation many people immediately think of. It's not a "touchy-feely" term. It simply refers to the way in which a poem or another kind of art finds its form, as opposed to filling up a predetermined form like a mold. You might think of "organic" in this context as the opposite of "formulaic."

I observe with pleasure the Christian--in the broadest sense of the term--note in the preface: a poet or a person has to be willingly fallible, as opposed to willful or arrogant, to receive poems. Of course, one need not be a Christian or even necessarily a person of faith to approach art this way. One need only be receptive in a certain way. Patient.

In Stafford's view of writing, one receives the language. This point of view does not, of course, mean that whatever one receives is good. It simply means that whatever one receives, one receives--a gift to consider. Then you take a look at it. Maybe you put it in a bit more order. Maybe you evaluate it. Maybe you decide you don't quite know what to make of this gift, so you put it on a shelf for a while.

This is the kind of "theory" of creativity that most literary critics don't get because they need something either more outlandlandish and grandiose or more logical. Stafford's way is too "in between." Perhaps it's too simple.

But to think of a poem as a gift, perhaps a modest gift indeed (who knows?), is a nice way of looking at poetry. Wait for the words. They usually arrive. After they arrive, take a look at them and see what you have. It's a bit like panning for gold. And almost no one pans for gold to get rich. One pans for gold because one enjoys panning for gold.

But what really astonishes me is that, at 73, Stafford apparently still felt he had to explain himself, his way of writing. True, it's not as if he were insecure or revealed insecurity in the preface. And there's some wry humor in these paragraphs of his. (In another book, in reference to critics, he says simply, "Thanks anyway."). Nonetheless, by age 73 Stafford had produced so much interesting poetry that one would think he wouldn't need to "explain" himself. It makes me a wee bit sad that he felt that way.

I met him once, in 1974 or 1975, when he came to read at U.C. Davis. He wore a simple "dress" shirt without a tie. I liked his laconic, clear way of reading. As was the routine then, we all gathered in a small classroom in Olson Hall. Maybe there were 20 of us. Ridiculous. He deserved an audience of hundreds. But so it goes with poetry. After the reading, we gathered at Karl Shapiro's house for a reception, and I asked Stafford about imagery. Shapiro rather liked poems to be overloaded with imagery, whereas (it seemed to me, a mere youth), Stafford was a little more comfortable with conversation in his poems, even as they included fine imagery. I forget his answer to my question, which probably wasn't phrased very well. I had to leave soon after that because, of all things, I was horrifically allergic to Shapir's cat. So it goes.

But oh my goodness am I enjoying the poems in An Oregon Message, poems Stafford waited for and received.

Some Favorite Asian American Writers




A long, long time ago (jeez, I sound like Don McLean), I created an Asian American literature class for the English Department's curriculum, chiefly because I thought the course should exist. I'd taught American literature in a variety of venues, and I'd been concentrating a lot on African American literature, but I was straying pretty far afield, and I remember having to do a ton of reading just to come close to being adequately prepared. I was prepared enough to start preparing, in a way.

I think I taught the class two or three times before, thank goodness, the department hired someone with expertise in the field. I haven't taught the class since, and the parting was most cordial indeed. The course and I thanked each other for the good times and parted ways. In addition to exploring interesting texts from good writers with interested students, I also remember a few students who were from Asian American backgrounds, who were not English majors, but who ventured into a senior-level English class because they were curious about/hungry for the material, or perhaps because they were simply curious. I also remember students-in-general being surprised by certain basic facts of American history.

One of innumerable complexities about reading, studying, and teaching this literature is that, of course, it springs from so many different communities, which themselves include many complexities. At a basic level, you have literature produced by persons with filial or cultural ties with Japan, China, the Philippines, Korea, Viet Nam, Cambodia, and so on, and so forth. Then just imagine how complex each of these nations/cultures is, and how particular any one writer's connection to the culture--and to U.S. culture--is. Yikes. Moreover, you may also encounter writers whose backgrounds weave together heritages from two or more of these cultures. I was very glad to have gone a few kilometers down this side-road of reading and teaching, but (to shift metaphors), I knew from the beginning I was merely a place-holder for someone who actually knew something about the field.

I'm still very fond of two anthologies, The Big Aiiieeeee, a landmark anthology of Asian-American literature, controversial because all anthologies are, but also controversial because of Frank Chin's combative introduction, although "combative" may be a stretch. The other one is Charlie Chan Is Dead, a fine anthology of short fiction, really superb.

Among the areas I fell very short in was drama.

I'm not exactly sure why, but I think my favorite Asian American novel, and one of my favorite novels in general, is Bone, by Fae Myenne Ng. The narrative voice and characters seem just right, and the plot is well constructed. All the proportions of the novel seem balanced. It's set in San Francisco.

Of course I like The Joy Luck Club, too, just maybe not as much as other people do. I also like China Boy, by Gus Lee, in part because Gus's primary career is not writing (or wasn't then) and in part because it's a heck of a story. I feel okay about calling Gus Gus because I interviewed him once, we got on well, and it turned out we went to the same university. Homebase, by Shawn Wong, is a classic that's earned that status. A spare, well written novel.

Favorite poets include Hisaye Yamamoto and Marilyn Chin. A terrific anthology of poetry is Watermark, edited by Barbara Tranh, which features poems by Vietnamese-American poets.

Chin is a splendid poet. She really knows what she's doing.

Of course, Japanese-American internment, the use of Chinese immigrants (among others) as lowly paid, overworked labor (especially on railroads), only to be followed by deportation, the hostility toward different immigrant-groups, inter-generational conflict, and gender-conflict loom large in much of this literature, as does the question of the extent writers want or need to identify themselves as "Asian American." I think I first offered the course over 15 years ago, so I can only imagine how much more literature is out there and how much more complex the discussions are. I haven't tried to keep up in any kind of systematic way, partly because I started working hard in African American literature and ended up co-editing a 5-volume encyclopedia on the subject. Encyclopedias are kind of time-consuming, believe it or not.

I think I'll end with my sleeper-favorite book: Wild Meat and the Bully Burgers, by Lois-Ann Yamanaka. It's a hilarious book concerning a working-class family in Hawaii and narrated by a spunky, irreverent young woman, very much her own person but also in possession of just a faint trace of Huck Finn and other famous fictional mischief-makers. Yamanaka has published a couple books since then, including Name Me Nobody.

It was too much work to get such a course going, essentially from scratch, but I'm glad I didn't discover that until afterward. I can always lie like a football coach and say that "it built character."

One semester the scheduler put the class upstairs in the old gym on campus, several steep flights up in a weird little classroom. Just getting to class was an adventure. Good times.

Saturday, January 31, 2009

Assistance




I played an exceedingly small role in a wee fundraiser yesterday (and at some point I must look up "fundraiser" on the OED online). My role was to cook a lot of minestrone soup (Marcella Hazan's receipe), which was to be eaten by women tennis players after they played a kind of round-robin tournament, the occasion of which would be used to raise money for Nativity House, a drop-in center in Tacoma that hosts about 200 persons per day.

Although Nativity House is affiliated with a Catholic parish, there's no preaching in connection with the services, and no one cares what the spiritual beliefs of the visitors are. NH plays a key role because homeless persons who sleep in the shelters usually have to be out by 6:00 a.m., and they can't go back until about 6:00 p.m. Meanwhile, they need meals, shelter, and companionship, all of which they get at Nativity House, where they can also pick up some replacement-clothing, make phone calls, pick up mail, look for work, and just hang out, enjoying each other's company. There aren't shower facilities there, but such facilities exist close by, and the NH staff can direct the guests there.

At the fundraiser, I learned that about 30 % of the homeless and the guests at NH house are chronically homeless, due largely to disabilities, addictions, and/or severe mental illness. But 70 per cent are on the streets usually because of a bad break, so to speak (not that mental illness or addiction aren't bad breaks themselves). They lost their job or their apartment. They suffered domesitic abuse. A series of calamaties beyond their control afflicted them. And so on. As one might expect, the "census" at NH and other facilities is way up because of the rotten economy.

The director of NH told an amusing story concerning a plumber who came to fix a leak at NH. The director, in addition to paying the plumber, said, "Thank you." The plumber said, "No, thank you. I was a guest here once. You helped me get back on my feet." The plumber was making 40 bucks a week, had a place to live, and so on. A basic turn-around story, the way it ought to work.

The director also said that NH and agencies like it are in need of men's clothing but tend to get more women's clothing, partly because middle-class women have more clothes to give away, and because they give them away, but also because a woman can wear a man's flannel shirt (for example) but a man can't really wear a woman's silk blouse, chiefly because of the size. So if you're a man with clothes to spare, think about giving them to a place like NH. Places like that need volunteers, too, especially during the week--to help cook a meal or just to hang out, play cards, create some society.


Assistance

You know what? I might get a chance today
to stay out of someone's way, and stay out of the way
I shall. Sometimes it makes a difference. I might
get a chance to be kind. I can do that. I might be
invited to get angry. I hope to decline unless
anger's a short, quick step to appropriate action.

All over the world, people are saying, thinking,
or hoping, "Help." There's always an opportunity
to help, even on days following days when I didn't help.
Good grief! Another opportunity, and another, even
when you pass up the first or second one. Chances
to assist flow steadily like a creek. At a time and place

of your choosing, just step up and help. I think
I'll try that, too. Maybe we'll run into each other.
Maybe we'll need help, too. Why don't I end this
thing now and go help? I'll see you around.

Apostrophe's Extinction Signals Apocalypse's Arrival

(image: representation of an apostrophe, or of a tear, or of both)


One occasional reader of this blog relayed a link to a news story which reports that new or replaced street signs that once contained apostrophes will no longer contain them because "they're confusing and old fashioned"--the apostrophes, not the signs or decision-makers, apparently.

The link: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,486144,00.html

That this event should occur in Britain, where precise men with incendiary tempers such as A.E. Housman, Samuel Johnson, Lord Byron, and Alexander Pope once strode the earth (owing to some infirmities, Byron and Pope hobbled a bit, no worries), strikes an apostrophe-lover with a combination of punches.

Nonetheless, we who teach English and/or care about the language saw this one coming decades ago, for the apostrophe has been disappearing from college papers (for example--this is not to put the blame on college students) for a long time. We "correct" the papers, write something in the margin, perhaps even spend seconds in class discussing the apostrophe. The students, ignore our corrections, marginalia, and blather, as they should. They are college students. They have certain duties to uphold. Each has his or her role in the academy.

And having studied German, I knew that the possessive apostrophe had disappeared long ago.

Nonetheless, let me point out that the reasoning behind the decision to eliminate the apostrophe would not pass muster with Hume's (or Humes) or any philosopher's big toe, not considered the seat of logic.

The apostrophe's old-fashioned? Well, so is printing itself, which dates back to the 15th century. So is the monarchy. So are those goddamned wigs they wear in court over there. I say the wigs should go first; then maybe we'll pretend to discuss the demise of the apostrophe. The apostrophe has a clear semiotic use. The wig has a murky one, at best. The apostrophe is unobtrusive. The wig is not, and I'd (Id) be willing to bet that those wigs stink. I've never known an apostrophe to need a good cleaning or to harbor fleas.

Confusing? Imagine a sign that read St. John's Wood. Or St. John's Wood, One Kilometer. I'm just not feeling the confusion coming from either sign.

Now consider a sign that says William's Pub. Then one that says Williams Pub. The first sign is not confusing. The pub belongs to William, or at least William figures or figured in the history of the pub. Such niceties may be sorted out nicely in the pub over a pint, but they are niceties, not sources of confusion. Now consider the second sign. Is it William's Pub, singular? Williams' Pub, plural--the pub owned by the Williams family? One is so disgusted by the lack of clarity that one will go to another pub.

One might assert that the absence of an apostrophe will either have no effect (let's [or lets] be generous and say 10% of the time) or will, indeed, cause confusion, an absence of precision being more likely to create confusion than a persence of precision (that is my assumption)

Let us further assume that those in charge, or what Gogol called Persons of Consequence, are lying. They want to to save money and time, which are the same thing in their minds. It takes X amount of time to punch an apostrophe into a sign and then paint it. Multiply by Y, and you have an amount (illusory, of course) that you are saving. Read Dickens' [or I guess I should write Dickens and surrender) Hard Times for a flavor of this mentality.

Or maybe this is their revenge on English teachers!

I don't (I mean dont) like the slothful use of "old fashioned," unsupported by data, although my use of slothful begged the question, I grant. I don't like an assertion concerning "useless" when the assertion is not followed closely by reasoning, logic, or at least something dressed as good sense.

I like the apostrophe. It adds clarity. Nonetheless, I let it go long ago, even as I ritualisitically point out its absence (or should I write it's absence?) or its incorrect presence in papers.

With the impending official demise of the apostrophe in England, the apocaplyse's, I mean the apocolypses, intial phase has begun. Whats a person to do? Store a years worth of food? :-)

Listen, this is how loyal, to a fault, not just to people but apostrophes I am: In those rare instances when I use my telephone to "text" (sigh, text is a verb), I use the apostrophe. What percentage of texters use it? I would guess 1% at most. Nonetheless, all hail the corporate design-dude or design-dudette who allowed the phone to be programmed to include an apostrophe. Hes my hero or shes my hero, of sorts. I mean he's my hero or she's my hero.

National Lampoon might write the headline this way: ENGLAND BAN'S [SIC] APOSTROPHE, GOES IMMEDIATELY TO HELL'S ANTECHAMBER.

"Should all apostrophes be forgot and ne-ver come to mind . . . ." Cue tears, pull out handkerchief, head to William's Pub.

Friday, January 30, 2009

Patronizers







Samuel Johnson famously described a (financial) patron as one who ignores a drowning man but then, when the man has already fought his way to shore, encumbers him with assistance. I believe he was directing his lack of amusement at a person who had promised to help him pay for the great dictionary on which Johnson was working. That dictionary remains one of the quasi-miraculous achievements in scholarship. The man wrote a dictionary of the English language mostly by himself--he had a few of what we might call research-assistants--and he pulled many of the explanatory examples of definitions from his memory.

Patronizers are a different sort of creatyres, One doesn't expect money or anything else for them. One simply expects false, duplicitous "praise" or politeness that's been on the shelf way past the sell-date.


The Patronizers

I've grown to appreciate the patronizers,
who stand on an invisible wee step-ladder
and speak down. Theirs is a subtle art.
They upholster ill will with civility. They
dismiss by squeezing out an anemic compliment.

Relentlessly, they try to shrink the world
as they assume they expand. At least
the old patrons used to hand over cash
once in a while. The patronizers pilfer
superiority. They buy arrogance on credit,
spend it mincingly. They're as bold

as a spectator at a bullfight, as generous
as a dead snake, as well meaning as a rabid
skunk. They're clever and deft, though,
like old troupers. They please themselves.

Patronizers make themselves at home
in your forebearance. They're really
something. They've honed a hapless
social skill. Well done, Bravo.
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Copyright 2009 Hans Ostrom