Holly-days

Hollywood likes to cash in on the holidays, like any other corporate monster.  However, frequently the movies bear only a passing resemblance to the celebrations during which they are set. Here are the holidays according to Hollywood:

Jan 1—Take two Tylenol and go back to bed.  Don't worry about making resolutions; just watch a few movies and be told what to think.

Feb 2—On this day we celebrate the mystery of the passage of time and of causality itself, although a small furry creature may be somehow involved.  We are reminded that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.  Resolution: be a better person.

Feb 14—Today we celebrate miscommunications and happy endings.  That guy that you think doesn't even know you exist? He totally loves you.  And you will die of old age in each other's arms. Resolution: read He's Just Not That Into You fall in love, be a better person.

March 17—This day is not largely celebrated in Hollywood since the only way in which it differs from any other day is in what color the beer is.  Resolution: find a better hangover cure.

March/April ?—Celebrates prejudice by restarting Mel Gibson's career and getting him back in the news so as to have the largest possible audience for his poor life choices.  Resolution: be a better person than Mel Gibson.

April 1—Today is the national holiday of the internet.  Rick Astley is the patron saint. Resolution: be less gullible watch more YouTube.

May 5—No one knows what this holiday is about, but it seems like a good time to be culturally aware.  And the best way is to watch Steve Martin.  Resolution: find The Three Amigos, buy a pinata.

July 4—This day celebrates victory over alien invasions, especially those covered up by the government and encourages us to demand full disclosure.  Or possibly celebrates fighting the nation we descended from. Yeah, that doesn't seem right.  Resolution: be more like Bill Pullman.

Oct 31—This day allows us to confront our fears of death thru watching supernatural beings gruesomely kill everyone. Not that far off from the real holiday, actually.  Resolution: survive till the sequel.  Alternative celebrations center around Tim Burton or Tim Curry.

Nov 5—This day centers on anarachy, revolt and explosions. (Wait, isn't this completely backward?) Also, a guy that vaguely looks like the phantom of the opera.  Resolution: research gun powder plot, be a better informed voter blow stuff up.

Nov 7—During the days leading up to this day, some people will be watching lots of documentaries.  The rest of us spend this time wishing Jack Bauer were on the ticket.  Resolution: vote for the guy who is willing to interrogate negotiate.

Nov ?—This holiday is entirely about football. Large amounts of food are cooked ahead of time so you can spend the entire day in front of the television.  Resolution: find a way for society to be even lazier and be thankful for it.

Dec 25—There is a lot of controversy around this holiday.  The mythos of talking animals, sentient ice beings, and anti-gravity has a cult following particularly strong among the vertically challenged.  The other tradition is based largely on two stories.  In one a man is woken up by four three ghosts, who show him what life will be like when he's dead.  The other... has fewer ghosts.  Resolution: give gifts to show what a good person you are, especially if you kept your resolutions.

Art vs. Craft vs. Crafts

"What is art?" is a question that every artist and critic seeks to answer.  Why are certain projects relegated to crafts, a category seemingly lower than art? 

art*—the quality, production, expression, or realm, according to aesthetic principles, of what is beautiful, appealing, or of more than ordinary significance.


Art is concerned with aesthetics. Is it beautiful? Not all art is beautiful. Not all art is meant to be.  Does it elevate its subject? Does it draw out thought or emotion from the viewer? Art has a material value (how much it cost to make) but also intrinsic, religious, nationalistic, and psychological value.  The intrinsic value places a piece of art against the hierarchy of all other art and judges its art-ness.  By that scale, we may say that crafts have low intrinsic value, even if they possess other artistic values.


Visual arts (because music, etc. doesn't enter into a discussion of arts and crafts) have formal elements that define and regulate style which is how intrinsic value is largely judged.  The elements are composition, plane, balance, line, depth, perspective, space, shape, light, color, texture, and content. All arts and crafts will employ all of these to varying degrees.  Execution of these elements constitutes technique.  For our purposes, visual arts refers to 2D, 3D, graphic/digital art, and architecture.


craft*—an art, trade, or occupation requiring special skill, esp.manual skill.


By defining where crafts fall, we are  also defining a specific aspect of art: Technique vs. Creation.  Art is linked to creation/creativity, an emotional and intellectual process.  Rules of technique are bent and changed to accommodate "the artistic process."  Crafts, on the other hand, remain static once their technique has been developed (barring new technology, but that rarely changes the final look of the product).  The layout of Hobby Lobby may help discern this distinction.  The store is divided into 2 (for our purposes) major sections.  The art supplies tend to be more expensive and less likely to come with step by step instructions, except for a few books that can be purchased separately. Crafts supplies tend to come in kits or with some pieces ready made.  


A word about crafts: Many crafts, like scrapbooking, are more likely to be considered hobbies than a calling.  Groups have knitting parties or swap meets.  But we should recognize that crafts historically have more of a function than art does (architecture is the notable exception).  Many hobbies of today were the livelihoods of craftsmen in the last century even.  With the rise of the homesteading movement and the local movement (from which we get the term 'locavore'), we are seeing a recovery of craft and craftsmanship that had all but disappeared in recent decades.  And I am for this. Far from being simply kitschy, crafts teach self-reliance in an industrialized world.


*FDD: 
art, n. This word has no definition. 
craft, n. A fool's substitute for brains.

Themes of R&J as depicted in Discworld

I recently read Terry Pratchett's Unseen Academicals.  One of the most striking things about the book was Pratchett's retelling of various scenes from Romeo and Juliet.  And I'm not talking the balcony scene.  The most moving of the scenes was his retelling of Mercutio's death— complete with thugs, wizards,  a werewolf, and an orc. What struck me most was that by pulling out the plot and basic structure while disguising the overly familiar characters you can see the themes and tensions of the play more clearly.  I should note, this seems to work better for literature, rather than performance, where if you get to far from the original you usually impose your own themes on what is there, rather than shed light on the issues at play.  Some of the themes that came thru in Unseen Academicals' treatment of the story (which are certainly present in the original, but frequently take a back seat) are: the power of labels, the senselessness of violence/revenge, the impressionableness of children and the need for parents to set a good example (aka 'bad parenting'), and the dangers of mob rule.  Honor, familial and personal, gets a special focus, because instead of families at war, Pratchett depicts sports teams supporters.

Here's where I put specific illustrations, but I gave the book back to my dad already. So, you'll have to read it for yourself.  And, if you're a stickler for reading books in order, you'll have to read the other 30ish Discworld books that precede it.

Write It Right: The Celebrated Cynic's Language Peeves Deciphered, Appraised, and Annotated for 21st-Century Readers

Language is both a natural phenomenon and a science.  It evolves from earlier forms, and it's rules are descriptive rather than proscriptive, like physics.  But unlike physics, the rules change. More like biology, then, especially ostriches and bats.  The point is language rules never apply 100% of the time.  And there may be a time when a rule ceases to exist altogether.  Will/shall usage used to be a big deal grammatically, but when was the last time you used shall except for a conscious effect?

Ambrose Bierce, of The Devil's Dictionary fame, was a usage critic on top of being a journalist and satirist.  In his 'blacklist', Write It Right, he lists his grammatical pet peeves.  Last year, Jan Freeman, a modern usage critic, "appraised and annotated" Bierce's famous list.  I stumbled on this book in Barnes and Noble and jumped for joy that my favorite cynic had another volume to add to my library that I hadn't previously heard of.  I didn't expect my entire view of how language evolves to be shaped by this book, but I am now an aspiring usage maven.

Most of Bierce's entries are, for various reasons, now obsolete. Bierce resists slang, particularly anything commercial (paying your dues) or American, which was seen as less refined than British English by American scholars of his day.  And many of his peeves appear to be unique to him and have no basis in traditional grammar rules.  Bierce spends most of his time trying to pin a single exact meaning for each term and to expurgate all other meanings under the banner of clarity. (See first example.)  Each entry lists the word Bierce is banning, usually as a substitute for another word—wet for wetted (Bierce believes in regular past tense forms ending in -ed.) Next he provides an example in quotes (which sometimes illustrates something entirely different).  And if he felt it necessary, a diatribe on what is wrong with the example.  I have listed Bierce's entry in bold following the style of the book.  Following each entry, Freeman describes the history of the usage Bierce condemns—what etymological dictionaries say, usage by creditable authors, and how the argument stands today. Frequently she analyzes Bierce's reasoning and makes fun of him. A very few entries—Authoress and Former—get wholesale agreement from Freeman. Here are my favorite examples, illustrating Bierce's whim and Freeman's wit and wisdom:

Space for Period. "A long space of time." Space is so different a thing from time that the two do not go well together.
If Bierce had been reading physics, instead of news of the war in Mexico, he might have heard of "the space-time manifold of relativity" before he disappeared around the end of 1913. If he had lived another few years, the OED would have published the S volume, showing that space had meant "duration, period" even before it meant "extent, area," and that both senses were current in the 14th century. Bierce being Bierce, he would probably have concluded that the 14th century needed a good editor; but "space of time" is so natural that even Bierce, not surprisingly, used expressions like "a moment's space" in his published work.

Over for About, In, or Concerning. "Don't cry over spilt milk." "He rejoiced over his acquittal."
Over had been used in this way since Old English, but what was good enough for King Alfred, William Caxton, Shakespeare, and Hardy was apparently too imprecise for Ambrose G. Bierce.

Finally, some vocab you'll run across in this book that made this non-maven's head spin:

solecism— a nonstandard or ungrammatical usage
neologism— a new word, meaning, usage or phrase
maven— a person who has special knowledge or experience, an expert
pleonasm— the use of more words than are necessary to express an idea; redundancy
shibboleth— a common saying or belief with little current meaning or truth
lexicography— the writing, editing, or compiling of dictionaries
etymon— an earlier form of a word in the same language or an ancestor language

Old government, Young Country

Every now and then I am surprised by remembering that the French Revolution occurred after (and in response to) the American one.  Which led me to my recent realization: America is a young nation with an old government.  Most, if not all, European countries trace their ethnic roots to before the Roman Empire. But few of the nations' current governments were formed prior to the 19th century.  1991 was a good year for nation forming, after the fall of the USSR.  1945, ditto after the end of WWII.  Even the UK didn't become "united" until 1800, then lost part of Ireland in 1922.  Actually, only very small, out-of-the-way countries have managed to keep a single government thru the upheaval of the 20th century. Without further ado, countries whose most recent change in governance is still older than the USA:

Andorra- 1278 (modernized 1993, whatever that means)
San Marino- 1600 (World's oldest constitution still in effect)

Yeah, really just one country.  Several come close, but treaties and occupations are sticky business and Wikipedia isn't all that clear in the side bar lists.

Despite the fact that we lack a unifying ethnic culture (or perhaps because) our country has managed to survive from inception under a single government.  And if you believe that its just our size that has kept us from the invasions that have afflicted Europe, look at Imperial Russia (or China).  In a time when patriotism is partisan, this is something all Americans can be proud of.

Summer Classics- Complete Short Stories of Mark Twain

Mark Twain needs no introduction.  And fair warning, The Complete Short Stories took me a year to read, not a summer.  On the plus side, this collection took "complete" to heart.  Even stories that appear in longer books, but can be read stand-alone, are included.

The stories range from rambling, plotless tales to morality stories usually about the the perils of assumptions and misplaced faith.  Frequently, the story you start reading seems abandoned and you end in a completely different story altogether.  Almost all of the stories are told first person, ala the oral tradition Twain's prose mimics.  He also regularly interrupts the narrator as the author, giving his work an audited feel.

There are a few stories worth specific note.  Everyone familiar with Twain will know "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County."  His first short story, it is classic Twain, but a poor representation of the breadth of Twain's style.  There are shockingly few stories that have the same countrified narration.  Twain satirizes every walk of life in America and Europe across history, and, although he brings a distinct Americanism to his writing, he comes off more cosmopolitan than you would expect.

"A Double Barreled Detective Story" is unusual because Twain interrupts to explain a joke, an interruption that lasts for several pages.  The reader is unsure if Twain's stated reasons are true (he says people wrote him about the paragraph, but there is no way to tell real author's notes from contrived ones) and why the story even needed the joke to begin with because the style shift is very dramatic for a single unconnected paragraph.  Here is the offending (yet brilliant) paragraph for your perusal (the less obvious contradiction is in bold).

"It was a crisp and spicy morning in early October. The lilacs and laburnums, lit with the glory-fires of autumn, hung burning and flashing in the upper air, a fairy bridge provided by kind Nature for the wingless wild things that have their homes in the tree-tops and would visit together; the larch and the pomegranate flung their purple and yellow flames in brilliant broad splashes along the slanting sweep of the woodland; the sensuous fragrance of innumerable deciduous flowers rose upon the swooning atmosphere; far in the empty sky a solitary esophagus slept on motionless wing; everywhere brooded stillness, serenity, and the peace of God."

Taken as a whole, Twain's short stories read like Aesop's fables, Grimm's fairy tales, and PG Wodehouse thrown in a blender, although even that doesn't hint at all the genres he spoofs.  While no single story compares to the finesse of plot and character found in his classic novels, there may not be a better Twain primer in existence.

Acronyms, abbrevs, and redundancy

In our fast paced society, we can't be bothered to spell it all out—literally.  We have invented a new shorthand with txt-ing and abbrevs (thank you SoCal) and acronyms. And we usually know what is meant. Mostly. Well, you may not know what RSVP stands for, but you understand the concept. And eventually, as in the case of RSVP, you see the letters as the concept, which introduces a few interesting problems.

RAS syndrome is the redundant use of one or more words that make up an acronym. For example, the syndrome literally reads Redundant Acronym Syndrome syndrome. Other examples include PIN number (personal identification number number) and ATM machine (automatic teller machine machine).  In the case of PIN, i can understand needing to add a clarifying word to the acronym to separate it from a pin or pen.  For other reasons behind this phenomenon check out the Wikipedia page.

The other problem as I see it has less to do with stylistic blunders and more with being bamboozled as consumers.  Everyone should be aware that msn is an acronym for Microsoft Network. But using their acronym seems to me to soften the impact of their expansion into other media (if you are the sort of person who dislikes big corporations).  And this isn't me pointing a finger at Microsoft, because most people know that one; many companies do this.  When SBC (now merged with AT&T) took over various smaller companies they changed their name to its acronym and then claimed it wasn't an acronym of Southwestern Bell Company and in fact didn't stand for anything.  The break-up and re-merging of the Bell companies is rather interesting but a bit off-topic for this post.

I don't really want to spend more time discussing name changes, mergers, and monopolies, although in an American acronym discussion these topics are frequent and extend back for decades.  Instead, here are several common acronyms I've collected and their meanings.  I'll leave you to spot the irony and age of  some of them.

AAA/ Triple-A— American Automobile Association
ABC— American Broadcasting Company
AT&T—American Telephone and Telegraph
BMW— Bavarian Motor Works
CBS—Columbia Broadcasting System
CNN—Cable News Network
DVD—digital video disc (some of these I hope are familiar) OR digital versatile disc
DVR— digital video recorder
FDA— Food and Drug Administration
LASER (yes, laser)— light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation
LP—long-playing [record album]
M&M's—NOT AN ACROMYN, the letters do stand for founders Mars and Murrie
MGM— Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc.
NBC—National Broadcasting Company
NRA— National Rifle Association
PRC— People's Republic of China (you might find this on a clothes tag)
RADAR—radio detection and ranging
RSVP—Respondez sil vous plait (please reply, making 'please rsvp' redundant)
SONAR— sound navigation and ranging
SMS—short message service (aka texting and other stuff sent to your phone)
TBS— Turner Broadcasting System
TLC— The Learning Chanel or tender loving care
TNT— Turner Network Television
USDA— United States Department of Agriculture
VCR—videocassette recorder
VH1— Video Hits One
VHS— video home system

PS- most of the above are actually initialism. Turns out there are terms for different types of acronyms. Search acronym on Wikipedia for more on the differences.