Yesterday, I dropped into Twice Told Books in Guerneville, California—a very cool little store that just happens to be be for sale for just $25,000. This sounds like a deal to me, and if anyone wants to loan me $15,000, I think I can make a go of it. (Or if you want to buy it, you can contact Richard Lester and John Genovese at 707-303-6358.)The proprietor of this charming store just happened to have the 22nd edition of El Ingenioso Hidalgo Don Quijote De La Mancha :Coleccion Austral behind the counter and let me have it for just five bucks! Generally, Spanish language versions of Don Quixote are at least twenty dollars, which is kind of strange given that they don't even require editors. This book, for example, doesn't even have a perfunctory preface, foreword, or introduction. (Not that these are necessary—Cervantes provided more than enough of that.)
Chapter 4
When last I discussed Don Quixote, I was praising its wit and modernity. But things have changed. It all started in Chapter 3. Up to that point, Cervantes was very light and funny. But then things turned dark. This is not a mistake but rather a cultural difference. I've seen it with Francois Rabelais, people's ideas of humor in the 16th century were much more coarse than ours. I'd like to look into this a little.
In Chapter 4, Don Quixote comes upon a farmer whipping a lad of fifteen who it would appear is nothing more than a slave laborer. The Don is appalled by this and forces the farmer to stop torturing the boy and to pay him what he is owed. The farmer claims that his money is at home and that he will take the boy there and pay him. The boy protests that this will not happen—that once the knight is out of sight, the farmer will renege on his promise.
"I go home with him!" cried the lad. "Never in the world! No, sir, I would not even think of it. For once he has me alone he'll flay me like a St. Bartholomew."
Don Quixote brushes these concerns aside. He believes that the farmer is a knight and is bound by honor. Having seen justice prevail, Don Quixote rides off.
As he said this, he put spurs to Rocinante and was off. The farmer watched him go, and when he saw that Don Quixote was out of the wood and out of sight, he turned to his servant, Andres.
"Come here, my son," he said. "I want to pay you what I owe you as that righter of wrongs has commanded me."
"Take my word for it," replied Andres, "your Grace would do well to observe the command of that good knight—may he live a thousand years; for as he is valorous and a righteous judge, if you don't pay me then, by Roque, he will come back and do just what he said!"
"And I will give you my word as well," said the farmer; "but seeing that I am so fond of you, I wish to increase the debt, that I may owe you all the more." And with this he seized the lad's arm and bound him to the tree again and flogged him within an inch of his life. "There, Master Andres, you may call on that righter of wrongs if you like and you will see whether or not he rights this one. I do not think I have quite finished with you yet, for I have a good mind to flay you alive as you feared."
"Come here, my son," he said. "I want to pay you what I owe you as that righter of wrongs has commanded me."
"Take my word for it," replied Andres, "your Grace would do well to observe the command of that good knight—may he live a thousand years; for as he is valorous and a righteous judge, if you don't pay me then, by Roque, he will come back and do just what he said!"
"And I will give you my word as well," said the farmer; "but seeing that I am so fond of you, I wish to increase the debt, that I may owe you all the more." And with this he seized the lad's arm and bound him to the tree again and flogged him within an inch of his life. "There, Master Andres, you may call on that righter of wrongs if you like and you will see whether or not he rights this one. I do not think I have quite finished with you yet, for I have a good mind to flay you alive as you feared."
Don Quixote is crazy, of course. And I pitied him even through Chapter 3—where he behaved rather badly. But here, I found that I was really very angry with him. He was so caught up in the romance of knighthood, that he didn't find it necessary to make sure that justice was done—just that he announced what justice ought to be done. And in the end, Andres was harmed even more than he would otherwise have been.
This episode contrasts very well with a true story about Henry Bergh, the founder of the ASPCA. During the Civil War, he had a diplomatic post in St. Petersburg, Russia. According to Nathan J. Winograd in his excellent book, Redemption: The Myth of Pet Overpopulation and the No Kill Revolution in America:
Finding the duties tiring and mundane, Bergh spent less time on official duties and more time taking aimless carriage rides throughout the city. When he witnessed a peasant beating his donkey on one such ride, Bergh ordered the man to stop, which the man did in deference to Bergh, who looked like a well-dressed gentleman of official position. According to legend, the experience completely transformed Henry Bergh and left him with an abiding sense of accomplishment. Bergh spent his remaining time in Russia traveling daily by carriage in search of such transgressions, which he could prevent by reason of his social class, official position and immense physical stature.
...
Bergh would spend the better part of the next two decades in a daily struggle for the animals in and around New York City. Turning to the event in the streets of St. Petersburg that inspired him, his first order of business was to better the plight of New York City's much abused working draft horses ... The annals of the ASPCA describe the first such encounter:
The driver of a cart laden with coal is whipping his horse. Passersby on the New York City street stop to gawk not so much at the weak, emaciated equine, but at the tall man, elegant in top hat and spats, who is explaining to the driver that it is now against the law to beat one's animal. Thus, America first encounters "The Great Meddler."
...
Bergh would spend the better part of the next two decades in a daily struggle for the animals in and around New York City. Turning to the event in the streets of St. Petersburg that inspired him, his first order of business was to better the plight of New York City's much abused working draft horses ... The annals of the ASPCA describe the first such encounter:
The driver of a cart laden with coal is whipping his horse. Passersby on the New York City street stop to gawk not so much at the weak, emaciated equine, but at the tall man, elegant in top hat and spats, who is explaining to the driver that it is now against the law to beat one's animal. Thus, America first encounters "The Great Meddler."
Bergh spent the next twenty-two years of his life daily going about New York personally stopping animal cruelty—even arresting people and taking them to jail. If he saw a horse-pulled train that was over-crowed, he would stop it and force the riders to get off. Henry Bergh was a Victorian Don Quixote, in the sense of one man out to right wrongs, no matter what the odds.I am reading Don Quixote very slowly. I just pick it up when I want something light. It almost always wins out over P. G. Wodehouse. And it can be read in much the same way as The World of Jeeves. It is highly episodic. All this means, however, that I don't know where Don Quixote is going. I'd like to think that Don Quixote really becomes the knight of his foolish fantasies. I hope that his quixotic quest leads him to the nobility of Bergh's.
According to my favorite online dictionary, a koan is "a paradox to be meditated upon that is used to train Zen Buddhist monks to abandon ultimate dependence on reason and to force them into gaining sudden intuitive enlightenment." And the most famous koan is, "What is the sound of one hand clapping?" The idea is that there is not a rational answer—the monk must come to an intuitive answer to the question.As the best monks will tell you, this is pure bullshit. (There's a lot of that in India.) I thought about the sound of one hand clapping for a couple of decades and I came to an answer that is both rational and spiritual. The most common answer to the question is that it is (with apologies to Paul Simon) the sound of silence. The idea has something to do with hearing the sound of no sound. Again, as the best monks will tell you, this is pure bullshit.
According to the Zen Community of Oregon, "It asks us to undertake deep listening, to listen as we never have before, to listen not only with our ears but with our entire being, our eyes, our skin, our bones and our heart." Wisdom or bullshit? You decide. But first consider this: what does the word "sound" mean?
This brings up the old (and boring) philosophical "riddle," "If an Oldsmobile backfires and no one (human, squirrel, whatever) hears it, does it make a sound?" This is no riddle. The backfire creates compression waves—not sounds. Sounds are things that ears and brains turn compression waves into. So no: no hearer, no sound.
Similarly, there is no sound of one hand clapping. The question would be better posed: "What is the effect of one hand clapping?" Ah! This is a question I can sink my teeth into. To understand, however, we must first acknowledge that there is no reasonable question here. It is very much like asking, "What is the orange of one apple?" It is a nonsense question—but one that raises important sensical questions.
There is no sound of one hand clapping, because one hand cannot clap. What does this say about clapping? It requires two or more hands. The essence of the question is that clapping is a form of communication—an act or instance of transmitting. Because a hand is a complex thing, it can do many things alone. It can pick objects up, for example. The clapping question reduces the hand to a single function—this is helpful for the purposes of this discussion.
Just as a lone hand cannot clap, a lone person cannot live. It is only through our interconnectedness that we exist. We are both separate and inseparable. Without this interconnectedness, we are alone—we are our own universe. Thus, it is only through our interconnectedness that the universe exists. The sound of one hand clapping is loneliness. The sound of one hand clapping is nihilism. The sound of one hand clapping is nothing.
If this answer makes no sense, take two aspirin, and call me in two decades.
25/08: Faith and Politics
Senator John Danforth has written a book, Faith and Politics, which is subsitled: "How the 'moral values' debate divides America and how to move forward together." It sounds hopeful enough. Indeed, had it been a magazine article I would have liked it well enough. As an 80,000 word book, it is a disaster.
As a magazine article, it would have worked as a moderate's plea to extremists. You see, Danforth is a social moderate. Although he is an ordained Episcopal priest, he is definitely one of the "let's leave religion in church" variety. To him, Christianity is all about reconciliation. This is a priest, after all, who finds ostentatious displays of religiosity embarrassing. He doesn't like saying grace in public, for example. I'm with him on all that.
Just the same, I can see why radical Christians would simply disregard what he has to say. He doesn't speak for them. What's more, he doesn't seem to understand them any better than I do—and that's saying a lot.
So even as a well-focused magazine article, what the Senator has to say would only resonate with other social moderates. It is always interesting to be reminded that not all religious people are extremists. But other than that, what exactly does a polemic such of this accomplish?
The big problem with the book is that Danforth does not have a great deal of material. As a result, the book is heavily padded with anecdotes from his life—anecdotes that are, almost without exception, boring. How could a man with the career he has had, have lived such a mind-numbingly tedious life?
I think the answer is in Woody Allen's Annie Hall. In it, he asks a couple how they manage to make their relationship work. The woman says, "I'm very shallow and empty and I have no ideas and nothing interesting to say." The man then adds, "And I'm exactly the same way." I thus conclude that Senator Danforth is a happy man, but he's not a carrier.
As a magazine article, it would have worked as a moderate's plea to extremists. You see, Danforth is a social moderate. Although he is an ordained Episcopal priest, he is definitely one of the "let's leave religion in church" variety. To him, Christianity is all about reconciliation. This is a priest, after all, who finds ostentatious displays of religiosity embarrassing. He doesn't like saying grace in public, for example. I'm with him on all that.
Just the same, I can see why radical Christians would simply disregard what he has to say. He doesn't speak for them. What's more, he doesn't seem to understand them any better than I do—and that's saying a lot.
So even as a well-focused magazine article, what the Senator has to say would only resonate with other social moderates. It is always interesting to be reminded that not all religious people are extremists. But other than that, what exactly does a polemic such of this accomplish?
The big problem with the book is that Danforth does not have a great deal of material. As a result, the book is heavily padded with anecdotes from his life—anecdotes that are, almost without exception, boring. How could a man with the career he has had, have lived such a mind-numbingly tedious life?
I think the answer is in Woody Allen's Annie Hall. In it, he asks a couple how they manage to make their relationship work. The woman says, "I'm very shallow and empty and I have no ideas and nothing interesting to say." The man then adds, "And I'm exactly the same way." I thus conclude that Senator Danforth is a happy man, but he's not a carrier.
16/08: On Evil by Terry Eagleton
When I checked out On Evil from the library, the librarian asked me, "Do you believe in it?" I stared blankly for a moment before realizing that she was referring to "evil." I gave her my best intellectual answer, "I guess it's definitional." And then I added that I might have more to say on the subject after reading the book. I don't.
On Evil is the fourth Eagleton book I've read this year. It is also—by far—the worst. I found myself annoyed through most of the book because he pointedly avoids ever saying what he thinks evil is. It was only on finishing it that I realized that he had not, in fact, promised me any such insight. The book is called "on evil" after all, and didn't he spend 159 pages writing "on evil"? Indeed he did.
In the end, though, what is the whole point of this book? It seems that he most wanted to address the issue of terrorism and the stupidity of assuming people who fly airplanes into buildings cannot be understood. And he does an excellent job of this in the last four pages. So really he has a good solid (though short) magazine article.
All of this is not to say that the book isn't a quick and fun read. It is filled with humor and insight, as when discussing the differences between the angelic (not necessarily good) and the demonic (not necessarily evil), "The angelic consists of high-sounding cliches like 'God bless this wonderful country of ours,' to which the demonic replies 'Yeah, whatever.'" And again, when talking about the lack of true purpose to actions, "In fact any purposeful activity, if you push it far back enough, turns out to be in the service of some nonpurposeful state of affairs. Why did she run for the bus? Because she wanted to get to the pharmacist's shop before it closed. Why did she want to do that? To buy some toothpaste. Why did she want some toothpaste? To brush her teeth. Why brush your teeth? To stay healthy. Why stay healthy? So as to carry on enjoying life. But what is so precious about an enjoyable life?" Or finally, on Aristotle's notion that living is something that takes constant practice, but which we never succeed at, "It is just that most of us are better at it than Jack the Ripper."
As I read On Evil, I kept thinking that there is one kind of evil that I do believe it: institutional evil. It is a system that allows mostly banal actors to produce deleterious results. Consider, for example, the recent Gulf oil spill. It is not that any person involved needed to be evil—be they employee, collaborator, or customer. Individually benign character flaws like greed and laziness are enough to fuel the system that leads to catastrophe. The same could be said for genocide, although such instances seem always to be additionally fueled by evil participants. How Eagleton, a neo-Marxist, could wait until page 143 to bring this issue up—only to drop it within a page—amazes me.
In the end, Eagleton's evil requires both a soulless actor and a harmful act. This is a definition I can deal with, but not one that I find that compelling. This leaves me with nothing new to say about evil if that librarian ever asks me.
Schopenhauer
Eagleton is at his best when discussing Schopenhauer. For example, he writes, "Isn't the material world incurably banal and monotonous, and wouldn't it be far better off not existing? The philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer certainly thought so. Nothing struck him as more self-evidently foolish than the assumption that the human race was a good idea."
Later, he quotes Schopenhauer from The World as Will and Idea, stating that life consisted of, "momentary gratification, fleeting pleasure conditioned by wants, much and long suffering, constant struggle, bellum omnium [everyone against everyone], everything a hunter and everything hunted, want, need and anxiety, shrieking and howling; and this goes on in saecula saeculorum [forever and ever] or until once again the crust of the planet breaks."
I read The World as Will and Idea when I was in high school, but I really don't remember any of it. I do, however, think it had a profound effect on me because Schopenhauer's view of the universe is very similar to my own. This is why whenever Eagleton talks about him it makes me laugh in a knowing way—like I'm laughing at my own foibles. Yes, Schopenhauer is unrelentingly depressing. But that doesn't mean he's wrong.
Now I have to get The World as Will and Idea. It's going to be a bumpy week.
11/08: George Henry Borawski
Yesterday, I had a curious, but ultimately delightful meeting with a young artist named George Henry Borawski. He is working on a collection of photographs of the poor, dispossessed, and wounded. And he thought I might be of some help in this endeavor—how much remains to be seen. Until I met with him, I had not seen his work, but a cursory review of his online photo-album showed him to be at least a very interesting artist.The meeting did not start off terribly well. I was concerned about the project that George had in mind; I thought it might be exploitative. This concern quickly vanished after seeing some of his work and talking to him. Just as my concern was fading, his was rising. He became agitated. "Why are you helping me?" he wanted to know. This struck me as a strange question, so I answered bluntly, "I'm not helping you—at least not yet." And then he was concerned that maybe I wasn't who I claimed to be. This all ended in what was—for me—a humorous episode where I showed him my driver's license. This seemed to assuage his concerns and we went on to have a three-hour conversation with topics as far-flung as the cardinality of different infinities, using literature to determine if you are dreaming, and how platonic idealism makes me a bad artist.
Even without this young man's (he is only 21 years old) formidable talent (more on that in a moment), he was well worth meeting. It is so rare that I meet people—much less young people—who are interested in much of anything. George seems to be interested in just about everything.
The self-portrait above is a very good likeness of him—both in appearance and attitude. He has a certain frightened yet defiant air about him. Whatever the reason for this (and I could speculate, but it makes me sound so old), he comes off as a cool guy. You can imagine him at the back of the Royal Roost in '49 to experience Miles Davis at the birth of the cool before anyone new it was cool. One of his paintings is called, "All My Heroes Are Long Gone."
From left to right, they are: Leo Tolstoy, Bill Hicks, GG Allin, Andy Kaufman, Travis Bickle, Salvador Dali, and George Orwell. The inclusion of Travis Bickle is a bit perplexing or just creepy, given that he is one of the most evil characters I can think of. But he does fit in with this group. All of them are rebels. The problem with Bickle is his motivation: "Kill a senator? Kill a pimp? It's all good." Borawski does seem to have a certain fascination with death—take a look at his site.
What is most compelling about his photographs is what he chooses to shoot. It has a profound affect on his art. Looking at many of his photographs, I often think that I am looking at images from my childhood. There are a number of shots around a junkyard that are exceptional. I particularly like a shot of two little girls who apparently live there; the camera is tilted slightly—giving the feel that the girls are being flung off the earth. His feel for pain is tangible, and he snatches it in the most unlikely places. And, as you can see in the picture of the train stopped in the middle of a snow-covered forest, he is capable exquisite photographic composition.George Henry's painting is less consistent than his photography. This may have something to do with his media: he often works on plywood and even particle board. He seems much more at ease with charcoal and paper, as in the self-portrait above. But he always has interesting ideas. The following image, called "Made of Paint," is very compelling.
There is a great deal to like from this talented young man. I will be very interested to see what he does over the next couple of decades.
08/08: Palindrone
If I remember anything from the 2008 Presidential Campaign, it is Sarah Palin answering questions. She was easy to fear, but hard to hate. She always seemed to me like a small animal in the middle of the road not sure where to run to escape a fast-approaching car. Much later, when she spoke more coherently, I found that she was, in fact, easy to hate: she was filled with the same right-wing hate-mongering that we've come to expect from the once Grand Ol' Party. I miss those early days. And I've coined a term to celebrate them.
Katie Couric
Palin's most famous "answer," of course, was her answer to Katie Couric's question about what Supreme Court decisions she was against. Palin provided the following answer initially, "There's of course in the great history of America there have been rulings that there's never going to be absolute consensus by every American. And there are those issues again like Roe v. Wade where I believe are best held on a state level and addressed there so you know going through the history of America there would be others."
Based upon this one interview, I conclude that Couric is a nice woman. She wasn't trying to "get" Palin. After this answer, Couric follows up with, "Can you think of any?" She says this in the soft, encouraging voice of a good grammar school teacher. A smart, but ignorant person would say, "My mind's gone blank with all the lights and pressure of the campaign; let me get back to you on that." Palin says, "I would think of any again that could best be dealt with on a more local level maybe I would take issue with. But as a mayor and as a governor and even as a vice-president if I'm so privileged to serve. Wouldn't be in a position of changing those things but supporting the law of the land as it reads today."
There are some interesting things to note about this exchange. There's the fact that Palin almost never uses the word "um." I think this is because she doesn't need to. When most people talk, they need to pause occasionally to collect thoughts. Palin doesn't need this time because she is not collecting thoughts; she's just spitting out words and phrases in the hope that it will make sense. It is the equivalent of a bimbo's giggle or a redneck's "ah, shucks!" And that's just fine if all you want to do is hang out with the girls or throw back a few with the boys.
Also interesting is the fact that Palin correctly states that the VP doesn't really have anything to do with the Supreme Court. When she first met with the McCain people, she asked what the VP did. So this phrase is probably something they had been pounding into her brain. And it came out at Katie Couric!
If you look at just her first sentence you will see what she has going on, "There's of course in the great history of America there have been rulings that there's never going to be absolute consensus by every American." (Remind anyone of Mars Attacks!?) This would be somewhat coherent if the question had been, "What do you think of the conflict between majority rule and Constitutional protections?" However, even if that were the questions (and it wasn't—not even close), it would still just be a jumble of words.
The Palindrone
This is why I have coined a term: Palindrone. Or, if you prefer: Palin-drone. As all nerds know, a palindrome is a word or phrase that reads the same forwards and backwards. A Palindrone, however, is a collection of words and phrases combined randomly and signifying nothing, which, if combined in any other order, would still signify nothing. It is pronounced just as you would the two words: Sarah's last name and "drone." The accent is on the first syllable.
You might think this is a fairly limited word, but it isn't. It is very common in politics. Most politicians do not have Palin's ability to keep a Palindrone going for several minutes, but they can easily do it for a sentence or a whole "paragraph." If you doubt me about Palin's ability, see the 2008 VP Debate.
Palin Is Everywhere
Shortly before the 2008 election, Las Vegas held a "Sarah Palin look-alike stripper contest." Here is a picture of the event from the Daily Telegraph:
What is most interesting about this photo is that when I saw it, I thought it was Sarah Palin. The fact that I had no trouble believing that Palin would be dressed like that during her beauty-pageant days says more about me than it does her. But it does say a lot about her. It is sad, but those five women are probably more serious thinkers than Palin. They just don't get booked on Faux News.
Update
Although I coined this term, I knew that many other must have thought of it before I did. The Urban Dictionary currently has 19 definitions of the word. They roughly fall into two categories: meaningless speech and Palin follower. Most of the meaningless speech definitions focus on the backward-forward aspect of the pun. This is fine, but it doesn't make a lot of sense. There is no reason that one would parse a sentence backwards. This is a reason to start moving the words around because such sentences sound like they mean something. Almost all of the definitions are from right before the election two years ago. As usual, I'm right on top of things.
Katie Couric
Palin's most famous "answer," of course, was her answer to Katie Couric's question about what Supreme Court decisions she was against. Palin provided the following answer initially, "There's of course in the great history of America there have been rulings that there's never going to be absolute consensus by every American. And there are those issues again like Roe v. Wade where I believe are best held on a state level and addressed there so you know going through the history of America there would be others."
Based upon this one interview, I conclude that Couric is a nice woman. She wasn't trying to "get" Palin. After this answer, Couric follows up with, "Can you think of any?" She says this in the soft, encouraging voice of a good grammar school teacher. A smart, but ignorant person would say, "My mind's gone blank with all the lights and pressure of the campaign; let me get back to you on that." Palin says, "I would think of any again that could best be dealt with on a more local level maybe I would take issue with. But as a mayor and as a governor and even as a vice-president if I'm so privileged to serve. Wouldn't be in a position of changing those things but supporting the law of the land as it reads today."
There are some interesting things to note about this exchange. There's the fact that Palin almost never uses the word "um." I think this is because she doesn't need to. When most people talk, they need to pause occasionally to collect thoughts. Palin doesn't need this time because she is not collecting thoughts; she's just spitting out words and phrases in the hope that it will make sense. It is the equivalent of a bimbo's giggle or a redneck's "ah, shucks!" And that's just fine if all you want to do is hang out with the girls or throw back a few with the boys.
Also interesting is the fact that Palin correctly states that the VP doesn't really have anything to do with the Supreme Court. When she first met with the McCain people, she asked what the VP did. So this phrase is probably something they had been pounding into her brain. And it came out at Katie Couric!
If you look at just her first sentence you will see what she has going on, "There's of course in the great history of America there have been rulings that there's never going to be absolute consensus by every American." (Remind anyone of Mars Attacks!?) This would be somewhat coherent if the question had been, "What do you think of the conflict between majority rule and Constitutional protections?" However, even if that were the questions (and it wasn't—not even close), it would still just be a jumble of words.
The Palindrone
This is why I have coined a term: Palindrone. Or, if you prefer: Palin-drone. As all nerds know, a palindrome is a word or phrase that reads the same forwards and backwards. A Palindrone, however, is a collection of words and phrases combined randomly and signifying nothing, which, if combined in any other order, would still signify nothing. It is pronounced just as you would the two words: Sarah's last name and "drone." The accent is on the first syllable.
You might think this is a fairly limited word, but it isn't. It is very common in politics. Most politicians do not have Palin's ability to keep a Palindrone going for several minutes, but they can easily do it for a sentence or a whole "paragraph." If you doubt me about Palin's ability, see the 2008 VP Debate.
Palin Is Everywhere
Shortly before the 2008 election, Las Vegas held a "Sarah Palin look-alike stripper contest." Here is a picture of the event from the Daily Telegraph:
What is most interesting about this photo is that when I saw it, I thought it was Sarah Palin. The fact that I had no trouble believing that Palin would be dressed like that during her beauty-pageant days says more about me than it does her. But it does say a lot about her. It is sad, but those five women are probably more serious thinkers than Palin. They just don't get booked on Faux News.
Update
Although I coined this term, I knew that many other must have thought of it before I did. The Urban Dictionary currently has 19 definitions of the word. They roughly fall into two categories: meaningless speech and Palin follower. Most of the meaningless speech definitions focus on the backward-forward aspect of the pun. This is fine, but it doesn't make a lot of sense. There is no reason that one would parse a sentence backwards. This is a reason to start moving the words around because such sentences sound like they mean something. Almost all of the definitions are from right before the election two years ago. As usual, I'm right on top of things.
05/08: The Six Stages of Sewing
I have long been fascinated by sewing machines and how they work—especially because my theories on the subject have always struck me as absurd. I knew that a thread came from above, through the eye of the needle, and another from below, from a device called a "bobbin"—a word that sounds so British it seems like a crime, or at least indelicate, for an American to use. And that was about it.Sewing Machine
Those interested can find pretty much everything they would want to know about how sewing machines work at How Stuff Works and Threads Magazine. What I'm interested in here is how that two-thread mechanism works. I figure that most people understand the rest of the machine, anyway. After all, it doesn't amaze anyone that the pedals in the middle of a bike make the wheel at the back go around. So it shouldn't be amazing that the needle and bobbin work in synchronization. But what's up with that threading thing?
Two Thread System
When I was younger, I thought that through some amazing bit of technology, when the needle penetrated the fabric, the upper thread was removed from the eye and the bobbin thread was inserted into the eye. And then reversed on the next penetration. Wrong, of course. I knew that even as a child, but that was the best explanation I could come up with. In my defense, my 5-year-old's theories about household plumbing turned out to be spot on.
What is really happening is much more clever than my dubious thought experiments. In all sewing machines that I am aware of, the upper thread stays above the fabric and the the bobbin thread stays below. The trick is that they wrap around each other under the fabric—whether the machine uses a bobbin or not. This is illustrated in the image below that I made from screen captures of a Wikipedia animated gif. [caveat]
Six Stages of Sewing
1. This is the set-up, just as the needle breaks through the fabric.
2. When the needle reaches full penetration, the bobbin hook grabs the upper thread loop.
3. The bobbin hook rotates in the opposite direction of the taut bobbin thread.
4. The bobbin hook continues to rotate the upper thread so that it wraps around the bobbin core—catching on the bobbin thread.
5. After the bobbin hook has rotated once around, it releases the upper thread.
6. The fabric moves backward, effectively moving the needle forward, and thus tightening the stitch.
Earlier this evening, I sent out some email that contained the following sentence, "Paul Krugman wrote a column that I think is really insightful and enunciates a lot of the frustration that I feel about the Obama administration." But before I did, I spent a half-hour fretting over whether to use the word "annunciate" rather than "enunciate." Other people spend their evenings watching TV or visiting with friends. These options are not available to me, having neither TV nor friends close by. So I get enunciate and annunciate.
Normally, such a question would be easy to settle. A hare has hair and not the other way around. But the definitions of "enunciate" and "annunciate" are frustratingly similar. What's more, reference to Fowler and other usage guides were, in this case, useless—I dare say because "annunciate" is effectively obsolete and literally archaic.
I will get to the differences between these words, but I would like to point out that the Internet—as I find increasingly—provided at best flawed and at worst simply wrong information on the subject. One Step Forward provides a nice overview of the two words—including the etymology of the words, only half of which I could corroborate, but provides a highly misleading definition of "enunciate." Much worse, Mighty Red Pen rightly blasts a Huffington Post column about Perez Hilton for using "annunciating" where "enunciating" is required, only to provide a ridiculously limiting definition of the latter.
Everyone seems to understand that "annunciate" means "announce." Thus, it is wrong to say that Perez Hilton over-annunciates. (Although it might be alright to say that Thomas Paine over-annunciated Common Sense. Maybe.) The problem is "enunciate." Again, everyone seems to understand it as an intransitive verb: to utter articulate sounds. We run into trouble when we deal with it as a transitive verb: to make a definite or systematic statement of. This definition is, in most cases, identical to "annunciate."
In addition to these problems, the two words have pronunciation issues. "Annunciate" is pronounced with a soft-E, "enunciate" hard. In my experience, "enunciate" is pronounced with a soft-I. This places it right in between the sounds of these two easily confused words.
I think we should jettison "annunciate." It has many problems:
Regardless of what the rest of the foolish world does, I plan never to use "annunciate" again.
Normally, such a question would be easy to settle. A hare has hair and not the other way around. But the definitions of "enunciate" and "annunciate" are frustratingly similar. What's more, reference to Fowler and other usage guides were, in this case, useless—I dare say because "annunciate" is effectively obsolete and literally archaic.
I will get to the differences between these words, but I would like to point out that the Internet—as I find increasingly—provided at best flawed and at worst simply wrong information on the subject. One Step Forward provides a nice overview of the two words—including the etymology of the words, only half of which I could corroborate, but provides a highly misleading definition of "enunciate." Much worse, Mighty Red Pen rightly blasts a Huffington Post column about Perez Hilton for using "annunciating" where "enunciating" is required, only to provide a ridiculously limiting definition of the latter.
Everyone seems to understand that "annunciate" means "announce." Thus, it is wrong to say that Perez Hilton over-annunciates. (Although it might be alright to say that Thomas Paine over-annunciated Common Sense. Maybe.) The problem is "enunciate." Again, everyone seems to understand it as an intransitive verb: to utter articulate sounds. We run into trouble when we deal with it as a transitive verb: to make a definite or systematic statement of. This definition is, in most cases, identical to "annunciate."
In addition to these problems, the two words have pronunciation issues. "Annunciate" is pronounced with a soft-E, "enunciate" hard. In my experience, "enunciate" is pronounced with a soft-I. This places it right in between the sounds of these two easily confused words.
I think we should jettison "annunciate." It has many problems:
- It is almost never used.
- It means exactly the same thing as "announce."
- Its meaning is roughly the same as "enunciate" when used the same way.
- Enunciate and it are too easily mixed up in spoken English.
Regardless of what the rest of the foolish world does, I plan never to use "annunciate" again.
My friend Andrea and I were discussing self-consciously intellectual writers and so naturally E. E. Cummings came up. We agreed that he mostly sucked, but she promised to send me two poems that she thought were okay.
As a kind of header, but perhaps more of a challenge, she wrote, "Life's not a paragraph And death i think is no parenthesis." That was curious, so I went and looked it up and found that it was from Cummings' poem "since feeling is first":
I like the word play and images in this poem. And unusually for Cummings, the rhythm is really interesting—more what we expect from the much more talented William Carlos Williams. That's as far as it goes, however. The content of the poem is—as usual—really troubling.
It seems that Cummings never really made it out of adolescence. Here, although he does it with more style, he says nothing more than Joyce Kilmer did in his poem "Trees":
Or as Cummings might have written
It isn't just that this poem indicates a romantic outlook that Jane Austen was parodying over a hundred years earlier in Sense and Sensibility; the poem is preachy. This is what most defines Cummings' work. He is always telling us—as only a youth can—about the secret of the Good Life that only he possesses.
The two poems Andrea sent me are just like this. Here is the first:
It does have the compelling ending, "nobody beautiful ever hurries." But as I think is clear in that line itself, he pushing a romantic notion of existence a lot harder than it can bear. It has other problems, but I doubt it is necessary to go into them.
The second poem is "maggie and milly and molly and may." It deserves a full hearing:
The rhythmic structure of this is maddening. It is kind of iambic pentameter, but frustratingly not. I really don't know how to "read" it. This is not a criticism—at least not of Cummings. I don't doubt that he is doing just what he intends. This is also true with the difficult assonantal scheme. Am I supposed to read "were" in the third stanza as "war"? I don't suppose it matters.
What does matter is that Cummings is again here to delight us with another tired insight. This time: the world is what you make it. Wow! Where are the neo-fascist teenagers of today? No wonder our lives are so devoid of Truth and Beau
ty.
As a kind of header, but perhaps more of a challenge, she wrote, "Life's not a paragraph And death i think is no parenthesis." That was curious, so I went and looked it up and found that it was from Cummings' poem "since feeling is first":
since feeling is first
who pays any attention
to the syntax of things
will never wholly kiss you;
wholly to be a fool
while Spring is in the world
my blood approves,
and kisses are a far better fate
than wisdom
lady i swear by all flowers. Don't cry
--the best gesture of my brain is less than
your eyelids' flutter which says
we are for eachother: then
laugh, leaning back in my arms
for life's not a paragraph
And death i think is no parenthesis
who pays any attention
to the syntax of things
will never wholly kiss you;
wholly to be a fool
while Spring is in the world
my blood approves,
and kisses are a far better fate
than wisdom
lady i swear by all flowers. Don't cry
--the best gesture of my brain is less than
your eyelids' flutter which says
we are for eachother: then
laugh, leaning back in my arms
for life's not a paragraph
And death i think is no parenthesis
I like the word play and images in this poem. And unusually for Cummings, the rhythm is really interesting—more what we expect from the much more talented William Carlos Williams. That's as far as it goes, however. The content of the poem is—as usual—really troubling.
It seems that Cummings never really made it out of adolescence. Here, although he does it with more style, he says nothing more than Joyce Kilmer did in his poem "Trees":
I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree.
A poem lovely as a tree.
Or as Cummings might have written
when I see your eyelids flutter
i throw my pen down in the gutter.
i throw my pen down in the gutter.
It isn't just that this poem indicates a romantic outlook that Jane Austen was parodying over a hundred years earlier in Sense and Sensibility; the poem is preachy. This is what most defines Cummings' work. He is always telling us—as only a youth can—about the secret of the Good Life that only he possesses.
The two poems Andrea sent me are just like this. Here is the first:
why
do the fingers of the little
(once beautiful)
lady
(sitting sewing this fine morning)
fly
instead of dancing
(i wonder)
is she possibly a
ware that life
(who never grows old)
is always beau
tiful and that nobody beau
tiful
ever
hurries
do the fingers of the little
(once beautiful)
lady
(sitting sewing this fine morning)
fly
instead of dancing
(i wonder)
is she possibly a
ware that life
(who never grows old)
is always beau
tiful and that nobody beau
tiful
ever
hurries
It does have the compelling ending, "nobody beautiful ever hurries." But as I think is clear in that line itself, he pushing a romantic notion of existence a lot harder than it can bear. It has other problems, but I doubt it is necessary to go into them.
The second poem is "maggie and milly and molly and may." It deserves a full hearing:
maggie and milly and molly and may
went down to the beach (to play one day)
and maggie discovered a shell that sang
so sweetly she couldn’t remember her troubles,and
milly befriended a stranded star
whose rays five languid fingers were;
and molly was chased by a horrible thing
which raced sideways while blowing bubbles:and
may came home with a smooth round stone
as small as a world and as large as alone.
For whatever we lose(like a you or a me)
it’s always ourselves we find in the sea
went down to the beach (to play one day)
and maggie discovered a shell that sang
so sweetly she couldn’t remember her troubles,and
milly befriended a stranded star
whose rays five languid fingers were;
and molly was chased by a horrible thing
which raced sideways while blowing bubbles:and
may came home with a smooth round stone
as small as a world and as large as alone.
For whatever we lose(like a you or a me)
it’s always ourselves we find in the sea
The rhythmic structure of this is maddening. It is kind of iambic pentameter, but frustratingly not. I really don't know how to "read" it. This is not a criticism—at least not of Cummings. I don't doubt that he is doing just what he intends. This is also true with the difficult assonantal scheme. Am I supposed to read "were" in the third stanza as "war"? I don't suppose it matters.
What does matter is that Cummings is again here to delight us with another tired insight. This time: the world is what you make it. Wow! Where are the neo-fascist teenagers of today? No wonder our lives are so devoid of Truth and Beau
ty.
I am in the middle of reading E. T. Bell's Men of Mathematics. It was written in 1937, but frankly, it could have been written in 1887. The thinking and style are so Victorian. I'm sure I will have more to say about Bell's thinking at a later time—for now, take my word he has a simplistic, highly romantic view of people and history. (In its way, it is charming.) Today, I would like to talk just a little about the writing style.
Here is an example of Bell's style taken almost at random:
Yes, this in itself is not horrific, but I challenge you to put up with hundreds of pages of it. This is why I was pushed to check the book's copyright. When I bought it, I thought it was recent—in the last few decades. After reading some of it, I started to get that P. A. Motteux feeling. But both thoughts were wrong; it was written well into the Modern period when so much great—and above all, crisp—writing had been done. Ten years before Bell wrote the above quotation, Gertrude Stein wrote this for Virgil Thomson's Four Saints in Three Acts:
Or I could have quoted something from The Sun Also Rises—but that's not nearly as fun.
The point of all this is that Bell was not a writer; he was a mathematician. Had he written fifty years later, Stein would doubtless have had an effect on him—even (or perhaps especially) if he had never read her. It takes such a long time for the cutting edge to become "less work around the house!" I know Bell understood that about math. I can't say whether he understood that about writing. But it doesn't matter; such knowledge would not have changed how he wrote.
Here is an example of Bell's style taken almost at random:
In spite of his demonstrated genius the harassed boy was not even now left to himself at school. The authorities gave him no peace to harvest the rich field his discoveries, but pestered him to distraction with petty tasks and goaded him to open revolt by their everlasting preachings and punishments.
Yes, this in itself is not horrific, but I challenge you to put up with hundreds of pages of it. This is why I was pushed to check the book's copyright. When I bought it, I thought it was recent—in the last few decades. After reading some of it, I started to get that P. A. Motteux feeling. But both thoughts were wrong; it was written well into the Modern period when so much great—and above all, crisp—writing had been done. Ten years before Bell wrote the above quotation, Gertrude Stein wrote this for Virgil Thomson's Four Saints in Three Acts:
Pigeons on the grass alas.
Pigeons on the grass alas.
Short longer grass short longer longer shorter yellow grass. Pigeons large pigeons on the shorter longer yellow grass alas pigeons on the grass.
If they were not pigeons what were they.
If they were not pigeons on the grass alas what were they. He had heard of a third and he asked about it it was a magpie in the sky. If a magpie in the sky on the sky can not cry if the pigeon on the grass alas can alas and to pass the pigeon on the grass alas and the magpie in the sky on the sky and to try and to try alas on the grass alas the pigeon on the grass the pigeon on the grass and alas. They might be very well very well very well they might be they might be very well they might be very well very well they might be.
Let Lucy Lily Lily Lucy Lucy let Lucy Lucy Lily Lily Lily Lily Lily let Lily Lucy Lucy let Lily. Let Lucy Lily.
Pigeons on the grass alas.
Short longer grass short longer longer shorter yellow grass. Pigeons large pigeons on the shorter longer yellow grass alas pigeons on the grass.
If they were not pigeons what were they.
If they were not pigeons on the grass alas what were they. He had heard of a third and he asked about it it was a magpie in the sky. If a magpie in the sky on the sky can not cry if the pigeon on the grass alas can alas and to pass the pigeon on the grass alas and the magpie in the sky on the sky and to try and to try alas on the grass alas the pigeon on the grass the pigeon on the grass and alas. They might be very well very well very well they might be they might be very well they might be very well very well they might be.
Let Lucy Lily Lily Lucy Lucy let Lucy Lucy Lily Lily Lily Lily Lily let Lily Lucy Lucy let Lily. Let Lucy Lily.
Or I could have quoted something from The Sun Also Rises—but that's not nearly as fun.
The point of all this is that Bell was not a writer; he was a mathematician. Had he written fifty years later, Stein would doubtless have had an effect on him—even (or perhaps especially) if he had never read her. It takes such a long time for the cutting edge to become "less work around the house!" I know Bell understood that about math. I can't say whether he understood that about writing. But it doesn't matter; such knowledge would not have changed how he wrote.
