Leslie's Language Round-Up

An irregular feature about language in our time


From the "There's no defence like a good defence" File...

Library mural littered with misspellings

LIVERMORE, Calif. (AP) - It didn't take a nuclear physicist to realize changes were needed after a $40,000 ceramic mural was unveiled outside the city's new library and everyone could see the misspelled names of Einstein, Shakespeare, Vincent Van Gogh, Michelangelo and seven other historical figures.

"Our library director is very frustrated that she has this lovely new library and it has all these misspellings in front," said city councilwoman Lorraine Dietrich, one of three council members who voted Monday to authorize paying another $6,000, plus expenses, to fly the artist up from Florida to fix the errors.

Reached at her Miami studio Wednesday, Maria Alquilar said she is willing to fix the brightly coloured five-metre-wide circular work but offered no apologies for the 11 misspellings among the 175 names.

"The importance of this work is that it is supposed to unite people," Alquilar said.

"They are denigrating my work and the purpose of this work."

Alquilar said creating and installing the work took a lot of time and money and the mural sat at her Santa Cruz, Calif., studio for two years until the city cleared the way for its installation.

There were plenty of people around during the installation who could and should have seen the missing and misplaced letters, she said.

"Even though I was on my hands and knees laying the installation out, I didn't see it," she said.

The mistakes wouldn't even register with a true artisan, Alquilar said.

"The people that are into humanities and are into Blake's concept of enlightenment, they are not looking at the words," she said.

"In their mind, the words register correctly."


Editorial Comment: The ability to form words is not writing
Too few people have the ability or time to work out exactly what they want to say and then say it. They fall back on boilerplate text, shop-worn clichés, or inarticulate paraphrases of their real meaning. That isn't a matter of correct grammar, good punctuation or impressive vocabulary, and curing it will need more than style guides or diatribes. — Michael Quinion


Entertainment: Pink Words
Excerpted from Pink's fabulous single "God Is a DJ"

(Verse 1)
I've been the girl with her skirt pulled high
Been the outcast never running with mascara eyes
Now I see the world as a candy store
With a cigarette smile, saying things you can't ignore
Like mommy I love you
Daddy I hate you
Brother I need you
Lover hey fuck you
I can see everything here with my third eye
Like the blue in the sky

(Verse 2)
I've been the girl, middle finger in the air
Unaffected by rumors, the truth: I don't care
So open your mouth and stick out your tongue
You might as well let go, you can't take back what you've done
So find a new lifestyle
A reason to smile
Look for Nirvana
Under the strobe lights
Sequins and sex dreams
You whisper to me
There's no reason to cry


Births and Deaths
Noted poet and fascist T. S. (Thomas Stearns) Eliot was born on September 26, 1888 in St. Louis, Missouri. In his 1935 essay "Religion and Literature" he reflects, "It is not enough to understand what we ought to be, unless we know what we are; and we do not understand what we are, unless we know what we ought to be" — demonstrating in this observation both chiasmus and paradox. How rhetorical!
(with information from chiasmus.com)


and finally...

Fashion News from the Personification Department
Excerpted from Sarah Slean's much-anticipated single "Lucky Me"

(Verse 1)
Science wears a new suit
To his coffee toast and eggs
But he has to skip the stairs now
Because of two broken legs
Whine whine I cannot climb
Everytime's the same
I'd be more inclined to help him
If he could remember my name

(Verse 2)
Faith can't fill the dance hall
'Cause her powers have declined
But at the beauty pageant
She will always take the prize
Light light Easter white
Roll her in the dirt
When it comes time for kneeling
She'll say "You go first"


Pictures at 11! : P

Thought for voracious readers

My definition of good literature is that which can be read by an educated reader, and reread with increased pleasure.
— Gene Wolfe

More to follow ... Stay tuned!

Sometimes I enjoy technology

Sorry to be offline for such a long time. The beginning of the new term — for both me and Zak — has been amazingly animated. Lots to do, in other words. But here I am, happy like an iguana in the sun, because I have a new toy.

Today we got an iTrip, a wireless FM transmitter for the iPod. What this means is now I have personal radio in my car. Perfect for Morning (One Fine, Broken or otherwise), Afternoon Delight, Late in the Evening, After Midnight, on Rainy Days and Mondays; on Manic Monday, Ruby Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday Afternoon, Funky Friday, Saturday in the Park and Saturday Night, and Gloomy Sunday; in the Early Morning Rain, after A Hard Day's Night, and on A Million Vacations!

It works in Alberta, America, Africa, Asia at Odd Hours, All Along the Watchtower, At the Hundredth Meridian. And Europa. And it's controlled from the Driver's Seat. Now I've got a Ticket to Ride! Who said I Don't Like Mondays? Now I'm in Love with My Car!

OK, ok. I'll stop. It's the medication, probably.

I know I've promised to publish notes from my voyage to Newfoundland (which rhymes with understand) but I haven't got around to it yet. Soon, soon. In the meantime, I think I have to go Drive My Car...

love
me

Thought for the day

"Words — so innocent and powerless as they are, as standing in a dictionary, how potent for good and evil they become in the hands of one who knows how to combine them." — Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, ZAK!

Zachary is thirteen today. Have a fabulous birthday and a wonderful year to come.

love,
Mom and Dad

Back from The Rock

Had a great trip but am still living on Nfld time. Will post soon with details — and maybe pix.

love to all,
L

Raspberries help those who help themselves

Something to amuse you. Consider the sixties generation's preoccupation with figures of mythic violence. Are you a boxer, a sheriff, or an outlaw? For we all must be something.

The Boxer

I am just a poor boy, though my story's seldom told
I have squandered my resistance
For a pocketful of mumbles, such are promises
All lies and jest
Still a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest

When I left my home and my family I was no more than a boy
In the company of strangers
In the quiet of a railway station, running scared
Laying low, seeking out the poorer quarters
Where the ragged people go
Looking for the places only they would know

Lie-la-lie ...

Asking only workman's wages I come looking for a job
But I get no offers
Just a come-on from the whores on Seventh Avenue
I do declare there were times when I was so lonesome
I took some comfort there

Lie-la-lie ...

Then I'm laying out my winter clothes and wishing I was gone
Going home, where the New York City winters aren't bleeding me
Leading me, going home

In the clearing stands a boxer and a fighter by his trade
And he carries the reminders of every glove that laid him down
Or cut him till he cried out in his anger and his shame
'I am leaving, I am leaving'
But the fighter still remains

Lie-la-lie ...


The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance

When Liberty Valance rode to town the womenfolk would hide, they'd hide
When Liberty Valance walked around the men would step aside
'cause the point of a gun was the only law that Liberty understood
When it came to shooting straight and fast
He was mighty good

From out of the East a stranger came, a law book in his hand, a man
The kind of a man the West would need to tame a troubled land
'cause the point of a gun was the only law that Liberty understood
When it came to shooting straight and fast
He was mighty good

Many a man would face his gun and many a man would fall
The man who shot Liberty Valance, he shot Liberty Valance
He was the bravest of them all

The love of a girl can make a man stay on when he should go, stay on
Just trying to build a peaceful life where love is free to grow
But the point of a gun was the only law that Liberty understood
When the final showdown came at last, a law book was no good

Alone and afraid she prayed that he'd return that fateful night, oh that night
When nothing she said could keep her man from going out to fight
From the moment a girl gets to be full grown the very first thing she learns
When two men go out to face each other, only one returns

Everyone heard two shots ring out
A shot made Liberty fall
The man who shot Liberty Valance, he shot Liberty Valance
He was the bravest of them all

I sawed two boards!

With a cut-off saw! And those of you who know my fear of blades will recognize this accomplishment for the true wonder that it is.

Sorry for not writing much lately. Depression is depressing. I expect to get back to my regularly scheduled weirdness soon.

In the meantime, here's a thought about the circulation of power (ironic, I suppose, in the context of my discovery of sawing), taken from a series of articles about reinventing politics.

State communism and the market fundamentalism of today's globalization era share a belief that a single system, universally applied, can deliver all that is required. Seen in this light, industrial monocropping, genetic engineering and contract farming seem to have much in common with the 20th-century socialist disasters of enforced collectivization. Both are top-down solutions that ignore diversity, on-the-ground needs, knowledge and reality, and a democratic requirement that those who are most affected should have a say in implementation. — Katharine Ainger

In other words, because today's political discourse is dominated by paternalistic government and vicious corporatism, we rarely recognize how powerful we as individuals and communities actually are.

So go out and make the world a better place today. Kiss someone you love and keep smiling!

love,
Leslie

"Autonomy is the right to invent one's own future." — Thomas Sankara

Stifle is an anagram of itself

The multiverse is quiet, so quiet. Rain is falling softly down. Do you know where the willows grow?

So, what's new? How about some one-liners?

• Goth's not dead — it just looks that way.
• Talk minus action equals zero.
• No matter how full your life may seem, there's always room for a couple of beers.

Moments to consider: As I was growing up, my father used to say there were only two things he couldn't fix: a broken heart and the crack of dawn.

This has been the century of mass storytelling. We live under a Niagara of stories: print, television, movies, audio, and the Internet deliver to us far more stories than our ancestors could have imagined, and the number of stories available to us seems to grow larger every year. This phenomenon, the rise of industrialized narrative — storytelling that's engineered for mass reproduction and distribution — has emerged as the most striking cultural fact of the twentieth century and the most far-reaching development in the history of narrative.
...
A broader question springs from the high density of storytelling in our daily lives. Mass culture and mass leisure have given all of us the opportunity to spend far more time absorbing stories than any of our ancestors could. Has this been to our benefit? Has it made us larger people than we might have been otherwise, or has it so filled us with aimless fantasies that we are emotionally and intellectually constrained? In this context, storytelling becomes an issue in the history of human development and democracy. Does our habit of seeing the world as stories make us understand ourselves better? Does it make us better citizens or worse? — Robert Fulford, The Triumph of Narrative: Storytelling in the Age of Mass Culture

A lovely thing happened. While surfing the other day, I dropped by a student's live journal. Her current entry was the answers to one of those 100-question surveys that make their way around by e-mail from time to time. Anyway. Here are two of her answers:

27. FAVOURITE SCHOOL SUBJECT? Sadly, grammar. (Hush! I am going to be an editor!!!)
29. FAVOURITE TEACHER? L—— V——

Awwww!

Tired, tired. Almost finished with school. Looking forward to two months off. Well, not really off. I have plenty to do, after all.

Now reading: City of the Beasts, Isabel Allende. The Spooky Art, Norman Mailer. Words, words, words.

... but that I love thee best, O most best, believe it.
Leslie

Hippie chicks and the crisis of consciousness

This quotation may explain something about the contradictions of my character. Must meditate on this ...

"On the one hand you had the politics of revolution and equality and liberation and on the other hand you had silent women in long dresses, gathered in the kitchen, preparing great meals of meat, which were brought out and served to the men — who ate alone. The men and women didn't eat together. The men ate before a gig or after a gig. They'd come home and pound on the table like cavemen. And the women were very quiet. You weren't supposed to hear from them. Each one was supposed to service her man quietly." —Danny Fields in Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk

Happy Birthday, Dave!

Because I used to draw ghosts in my spare time

Howdy howdy,

It's been a while, huh? Sorry about that. Apologies to the Taureans whose birthdays I missed announcing this month — the time of year or the time of man? We'll just say that I don't know who I am and life is for learning.

Moved all my detritus from my parents' basement last week. One accumulates a great deal in 30-odd years (that works without the hyphen, too). Most of it I'm giving back for the purportedly giant garage sale. Perhaps there is something of value for someone else. If not, plan B is a big donation to a garbage fair. I don't know anything about it, but my brother does; he'll make sure my stuff finds a new home somewhere.

Did I mention that I'm teaching two spring courses? One of the startling discoveries of this reality is that I need the ritual of dinner. Grabbing a muffin and a carton of milk is just not satisfying (not to mention not nutritious). If I don't sit down to eat with others now and then, I get rather lonely and crazy. What else? The weather is still frightfully cold and the garden is shivering, stuttering. Zak tried to make an impression on Bellerose Drive earlier this afternoon. For his efforts he'll have a scar to match the one on the right side of his face, from when he tried to go head to head with a tree of indeterminate species. Guess who won?

Haven't gone climbing in weeks and weeks — didn't make it enough of a habit, I guess. Did I mention that we're going to Newfoundland this sumer? Daily more complex. Hmm. We're renovating the basement so Doug can move in. Next Sunday is the Super Cities Walk for MS — if you have a donation to send my way, please let me know soon! We fixed the washing machine! A tiny plastic spoon was making all that noise and finally jammed up the drain pump. But now the Bosch works perfectly again and restores my perfect place to meditate (in absence of the pergola). Did I mention that I got ill from having the furnace cleaned? Strange toxic chemicals, I think.

Sorry this is dull dull dull dull — rather like the dimes that I also found in the washing machine. My creativity reservoir is down a couple of litres. More later, I hope.

From a windy, craggy place,
Leslie

Grumpy grammar girl

Grammar is an x-ray and your head is made of lead!

Now reading: Eats, Shoots and Leaves by Lynne Truss (incidentally, when I first heard the panda joke, it involved a prostitute, not a waiter), The Professor and the Madman by Simon Winchester, and Book Business: Publishing Past, Present and Future by Jason Epstein

Happy Birthday, Bruce!

We hope you have a wonderful day and a happy, successful year ahead.

Love,
Leslie and Zak

Today's thought

(a quotation, of course, since I am so overwhelmed by marking that I can no longer form independent thought...)

"In our cynical world, where suspicion is a necessity, insisting that something is true is not nearly as powerful as suggesting that something might be true." —Thomas King in The Truth About Stories

Only 21 more piles to go...

Happy happy congratulations to us all!

The Alberta Book Awards were presented last night in Calgary, and two Edmonton-area publishing personalities were among the winners.

• Trade Non-Fiction Book of the Year was awarded to Hole’s (Edmonton) for Lois Hole’s Favorite Bulbs: Better Choices, Better Gardens, edited by Jim Hole and Valerie Hole, and published by Bruce K——, publishing manager for Hole's.

• Trade Fiction Book of the Year was awarded to The University of Alberta Press (Edmonton) for An Ark of Koans by E.D. Blodgett and with illustrations by Jacques Brault. (Apparently the jury didn't read the text, because it's a volume of POETRY!). Leslie V——, former managing editor, had acquired the volume for the Press. In a move that shows a startling absence of creativity, An Ark of Koans also won awards for cover design and book design, despite that the designer has now used (and been awarded for using) both designs twice before.

Ah the ironies of the publishing life. In other news, Bruce and I passed our belay checks on Saturday. The walls of the world had better look out!

Must continue marking — I may hit 100 pieces of student work marked in a single day tonight. Sigh. Exam week has begun.

L

It's raining!

It's been a long stretch, but I can see light at last. (Bruce would probably disagree, as it's been a few weeks since he could see the floor of my office.) I have marked pages and pages and pages and pages of student work in the last week. (That's an example of polysyndeton.) I want combat pay! But just two more weeks of school and then final exams start. Then I have a week off and then ... spring session! Or two months off.

The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done; and there is no new thing under the sun. Ecclesiastes 1:9

Or...

That that is, is; that that is not, is not; is that not it?

Went climbing on Saturday. Soon I will be qualified to belay climbers while using an ATC rather than a gri-gri, so we can climb many more interesting routes. And one day perhaps even challenge the wall at the Butterdome (!). Celebrated my parents' move to Skyview on Saturday night. Must go get my "stuff" from the old house one of these days. Walked through the yard on Sunday. So many plants are emerging already: crocuses and tulips, the arctic raspberry, the irises, the violas, the saskatoon. We have about a million new strawberry plants: yum. I planted some new lily of the valley, and the lettuce trough is already out. Soon, soon it will be summer.

Now reading: My Invented Country by Isabel Allende.

Also flipping through the many many free books that come to me in the mail (e.g., This is P.R.: The Realities of Public Relations — doesn't that sound fascinating?). The list of books I want to read is getting longer every day. I'm so grateful for the library! — if only I could get there. Have you noticed the preponderance of blogs by librarians? I think ref-grunt started the trend, but there are dozens of them, most very good. Urm, yeah. Whatever.

OK, that's my break. Back to marking very bad essays on editorial ethics — as if! : )

L

Because I'm too tired to think tonight

...and look, The West Wing just came on ...

The last, best colophon

This book is set in 12-point Monotone Bimbo,
with chapter headings in Basketball Overextended.
Both faces were designed by the great Adolf Pflupfl
and are characterized by noble, full-bodied proportions
with complex, slightly fruity serifs.
It was printed by upset lithophagy
on 70-lb. Tropicana Ivory mislaid Cowabunga Slipshod Overcoat.
The ink came out of a can.

This paper is 100% unrecycled.
Whole forests were leveled,
thousands of small furry animals left homeless,
and vast virgin landscapes devastated
to make this book.

—courtesy of an AAUP editor whose name is lost due to the forcible imposition by my employer-at-the-time of Outlook on my baby Mac

And from the Department of Redundant Academic Research Department ... "Latest survey shows that 3 out of 4 people make up 75% of the world's population." Pace, Dr Taylor.

To sleep: perchance to dream
Leslie

Things to do instead of working: A composition by Leslie
(with apologies to those of you who weren't there)

Living in the 80s

It all began when video killed the radio star. We were living on video in freeze frame — life was a thriller. We were kids in America; we were up where we belonged. We had the time of our lives. We told time by the clock of the heart and wondered how soon is now? Life was urgent — we were hungry like the wolf. Life in a northern town somewhere down the crazy river was the best of times. There was always a situation at our house and your daddy don’t know whatcha did to my body. It was an adult education. We were having sweet dreams and talking in our sleep. We were doing aerobics and eurythmics — but where was the air supply? We were running with the night, running with the shadows of the night. We were running up that hill with no problems; we ran faster than the speed of night. We had the look — it was the look of love — but we were too shy. Too bad. We looked pretty in pink and electric blue, and wore psychedelic furs with black velvet and blue jean. In the cruel summer we went on vacation to Xanadu, Valotte, Graceland, and Echo Beach, far away in time — we ate rock lobster. We sat in the purple rain watching St. Elmo’s fire during the total eclipse of the heart. It was a nice day for a white wedding, but she blinded us with science. Luckily, we had the eyes of a stranger. We wore our sunglasses at night: the future was so bright, we had to wear shades on our Bette Davis eyes. We were on the loose, and the kid was hot tonight. Our moonlight desires got physical — we got our emotions in motion and did the stroke — but we did it for love, in the name of love. We did it one more time: we had endless love. We wanted to know what love is. We learned that love is like oxygen, love is a stranger, love is a battlefield — that love bites. We made modern love in a bizarre love triangle; we were addicted to love. Then we made tainted love and needed sexual healing. We let it go to rise up, like a virgin, like a prayer. Magic power was in the air tonight. You might think we fell out of touch, but we were living in a box, livin’ on a prayer. We had faith on the edge of seventeen. We looked for fame in the big time — what a feeling! We found the perfect way. At first it was rapture, but when doves cried, we were in jeopardy. We got the beat and were victims of fashion, but it was a glamorous life. Don’t it make ya feel like dancing? We were shadow dancing, dancing in the dark, dancing on the ceiling, dancing with tears in our eyes, dancing barefoot. We did the safety dance at the love shack — we were footloose. We were walking on sunshine, walking like Egyptians; we did the walk of life and got our money for nothing. We gave it straight from the heart, but then we had a change of heart. We wanted to go to the edge of heaven. Heaven was a place on earth where we made circles in the sand — I get weak just thinking about it. We were stepping out on electric avenue in erotic city, where the streets have no name. We were left of centre; it was an obsession that cuts like a knife. We were hyperactive with Dolby. We would shout and rebel yell — but voices carry. We lost our self-control; we were going nowhere fast. We learned to spin right round, like a record, while looking for a brand-new lover. We learned that girls just want to have fun, but don’t go messing with a girl with guns — this much is true. There was always something there to remind us.

One thing leads to another. We discovered we had broken wings and our beds were burning. Prince Charming turned out to be a goody two-shoes; he wouldn’t strip for his centerfold. We had to beat it; we ran so far away. We learned to hold the line in Africa while living in the land down under. We learned to stand back, but don’t give up — everybody wants to rule the world. Then came the hazy shade of winter. All you zombies can relax — don’t do it. We saw eyes without a face and an eye in the sky — no wonder we always felt somebody’s watching me — and who can it be now? The missionary man. Sister Christian, a maniac in the driver’s seat of her little red Corvette, took us down the middle of road on the freeway of love. Say it isn’t so! Of course, I’m only foolin’ — or is it just a twist in my sobriety? Perhaps it’s just the reflex: I still don’t like Mondays.

The Nature and Nurture of Power
What Grows Here?... Evil grows in the dark.

To avoid slander charges the names have been changed. I'm not doing anything about protecting the innocent because.. well... ain't nobody really innocent!

S'we're doin' this book. Big Bart decides to sign a contract with Large Press. "No no!" I cry, "let[s go with Wide Captions! A much more reasonable choice." Alas and alack Large Press gets the go-ahead and we venture off to the dark side.

All in all things seem to go smoothly other than the deadline which looms and hastens us unbeknownced to our nervous breakdown. Then the communication (actually the lack thereof) begins. "Send them a proof" says Bart. "Why not" quips I. "Then we are agreed" responds Big Bart. "Aye aye," states I and off goes the proof for the edification of the Large Press conglomerate.

Suddenly... (crash of thunder)...

The proof... RETURNS!

The changes are marked, the proofing begun,
The Large Press conglomerate have suddenly begun,
to edit and write, to markup and slight.

Now now, pooh pooh,
we shall inform you what to do!
Don't worry your empty little heads!
Aww @*#% them.

And so it started. A series of non-communications with hangups and swearing and lots of sullen staring. I have never been so pissed in my life and it was nothing more than a battle of egos, a war of insecurities, a massive exercise in how stupid people can be if they really, really try. Sure the baby's gone, but I sure did get rid of that ol' bathwater!

Who's book is this... whose style will reign supreme...who cares if I added in a few inconsistencies...I sure fixed those other ones...score one for the Large Press...oops looks like Hole's got in a low blow...REF! REF! Did ya see that! It's mine, no it's mine. Ya but we're better! No we're better! Poop! Poop back!

Proof goes out, proof comes back.
Proof goes out, proof comes back.
Files go out, [intercepted!] proof comes back... but really, we are done now.
Files go out, [intercepted!] proof comes back.
Now, really... do ya think I'm stupid enough to send it out again?

Cover...what cover... ooh we can fix it, we can fix... no let me. Who the hell said it was broken? Screw this, let's just print it upside down, then no one will notice anything else...

But wait folks... it's not over. Sam Kibbles, the puppet master himself, rises from the depths of the sub stage to take his rightful place right behind his puppets. "Say this!" he now whispers, "say that" he rejoins. "Tell them they're wrong," he mumbles, "maybe they won't notice..."

sigh

Like I said, I'm learning...do you really think the files are going out again?

sigh

I'm tell' ya folks this is insufferable. I mean really insufferable. Suffering all around! It ain't gettin' done and we are back to pre-contract footings. All I want is for an honest effort to get to the end but it seems we are just gong to play pissing contests. "Ooh, look at me I can PISS!" Me too, me too!" SNARK SNARK SNARK! My son did that his first day on the planet... I hadn't realized he was so mature...maybe I can make some money offa all this piss. If we gotta play games, why not make it worthwhile, pistols at dawn, double or nothing, give'r till ya puke. We were more mature with a 26 of lemon gin in our gullets.

Anyway I'm finished whining although the end of the tale is not yet written. I seems likely that this will continue evermore because Karma can't be avoid, pride cometh before the fall and TANSTAAFL. But I sure would be willing to pay for it if I could just avoid the aggravation...

Power...worth every penny, worth every drop...
Gotta keep on fightin' till that last,
satisfying,
plop

Aw crap.

B

Just ask me

Want to know about waterborne pathogens? Or pain assessment for neonates? Or First Nations peoples in Alberta? Just ask me. I no longer have a human brain; I am a text-processing machine. My eyes are weird little squares disconnected from dreams. Aiiee!

Too much to do. Can't wait for the end of the week — or even Wednesday, my purported day of rest. Eh bien...

L