New Blog - Evolving Thought
I have started another blog, this one about the creation/evolution debate. Check it out at Evolving Thought.
Perspective
Gaining perspective is a lifelong endeavor. I probably only see life in two-dimensions right now, compared to the view enjoyed by my elders. But occasionally my perspective is expanded by an experience, a book, a piece of music, an article, or a keen insight. Recently, my 2D world has taken on a variety of new shades and hues, pushing towards the reality of three dimensions. I don’t know if I’m quite there yet, but I have progressed.
England obviously opened my eyes to the concept of living with less and to being more environmentally conscious. I always knew there were other, equally good, or perhaps better, ways of living than the American way I had known since childhood, but I never imagined I would adopt any of those foreign principles. But they made sense – what could I do but accept them? I imagine that these amendments to my way of life will slowly accumulate with time.
Experience aside, a few books have profoundly impacted the way I view the world. A long series of books, articles, and discussions over the years have completely transformed how I view the relationship between God and science, particularly regarding creation and evolution, both of which I believe occurred, which obviously requires that I interpret the book of Genesis figuratively. Why it is so difficult for many to even consider the possibility that Genesis is figurative, I know not.
But that could easily, and probably will, fill a later blog. Right now, I want to discuss a few other books that have revealed the foreign world to me in a powerful way. Most recently, I finished reading The Kite Runner, by Khaled Hosseini, just a few weeks ago. Further back, I read Balkan Ghosts, by Robert Kaplan, and portions of Black Lamb and Grey Falcon, by Rebecca West. All of these books helped me to see, for the first time, the alternate reality of places that I only knew as war zones. One book is fiction, the others are non-fiction, but they all revealed the humanity of war torn regions.
Balkan Ghosts and Black Lamb and Grey Falcon are both about the Balkans. Many people don’t even really know where the Balkans are. I could probably have only named one country from the region before I read Balkan Ghosts, and I probably would have labeled several other countries as “Balkan” which really are not. When Bosnia and Serbia and all those names came up, I immediately thought of Milosevic, and that was all I could think of. Murder, rape, genocide. And while war and strife has certainly been long-lasting in the Balkans, so have love, friendship, loyalty, hope, joy, and daily life. Some critics of Kaplan say his book is too defeatist, implying that peace is never possible in the region because of the deep-seated ethnic hatred, and while that may be a good critique, the book nonetheless opened my eyes to the beauty and mystery of the region.
Investigating further, I read portions of Black Lamb and Grey Falcon, the definitive travel book about the region, and perhaps the first true travelogue. Written in the late 1930s, this book more completely brought to light the Balkans known by those who lived there. There was certainly much grief and frustration, but there was also much pride and love. Most Americans do not travel to places like Bosnia or Serbia because they seem dangerous, and they are, to some extent. But they are probably more dangerous because we flaunt our wealth in the face of their relative poverty; we are easy targets. In Oxford I had the pleasure of meeting several students from the Balkans and many others who had traveled through the region. They all agreed: it was one of the most charming, beautiful, and fascinating places they had ever visited.
When I read The Kite Runner recently, this same idea was again intensely present. The Afghanistan portrayed prior to the Russian invasion and then later under Taliban rule was deeply moving and a complete surprise. I knew that the Taliban were ruthless and that the country was impoverished, but I had no idea that the country had ever been anything but that, even for a small group of people. The narrator, who grew up in a privileged neighborhood, was certainly not the normal Afghan, but the portrayal of the freedom there, most notably of religion, and the relative liberalism compared to the rule of the Soviets and Taliban, were utterly strange to me. I had to completely rethink the image I had of Afghanistan. No longer was it simply the impoverished, religiously intolerant, backward country of the Taliban; now it was a country once headed on a good path which met a disastrous fate at the hands of the Soviets and the conniving Taliban. How sad to think of where it was before the invasion and to where it has fallen now! It is a great tragedy; a tragedy which I previously blamed on the Afghans themselves. No people is completely innocent of its country’s descent into violence, but the Afghans have been abused and exploited. Most of them have only suffered while small groups of power-hungry villains lay waste to the country.
It is clear to me that many of my views of the world have egregiously lacked perspective. The more I learn, the more I discover my own error. Especially when it comes to understanding the foreign world, I no longer trust my preconceptions. I used to list both Afghanistan and the Balkans as places I had no desire to visit, ever. Now, they are both on the list.
England obviously opened my eyes to the concept of living with less and to being more environmentally conscious. I always knew there were other, equally good, or perhaps better, ways of living than the American way I had known since childhood, but I never imagined I would adopt any of those foreign principles. But they made sense – what could I do but accept them? I imagine that these amendments to my way of life will slowly accumulate with time.
Experience aside, a few books have profoundly impacted the way I view the world. A long series of books, articles, and discussions over the years have completely transformed how I view the relationship between God and science, particularly regarding creation and evolution, both of which I believe occurred, which obviously requires that I interpret the book of Genesis figuratively. Why it is so difficult for many to even consider the possibility that Genesis is figurative, I know not.
But that could easily, and probably will, fill a later blog. Right now, I want to discuss a few other books that have revealed the foreign world to me in a powerful way. Most recently, I finished reading The Kite Runner, by Khaled Hosseini, just a few weeks ago. Further back, I read Balkan Ghosts, by Robert Kaplan, and portions of Black Lamb and Grey Falcon, by Rebecca West. All of these books helped me to see, for the first time, the alternate reality of places that I only knew as war zones. One book is fiction, the others are non-fiction, but they all revealed the humanity of war torn regions.
Balkan Ghosts and Black Lamb and Grey Falcon are both about the Balkans. Many people don’t even really know where the Balkans are. I could probably have only named one country from the region before I read Balkan Ghosts, and I probably would have labeled several other countries as “Balkan” which really are not. When Bosnia and Serbia and all those names came up, I immediately thought of Milosevic, and that was all I could think of. Murder, rape, genocide. And while war and strife has certainly been long-lasting in the Balkans, so have love, friendship, loyalty, hope, joy, and daily life. Some critics of Kaplan say his book is too defeatist, implying that peace is never possible in the region because of the deep-seated ethnic hatred, and while that may be a good critique, the book nonetheless opened my eyes to the beauty and mystery of the region.
Investigating further, I read portions of Black Lamb and Grey Falcon, the definitive travel book about the region, and perhaps the first true travelogue. Written in the late 1930s, this book more completely brought to light the Balkans known by those who lived there. There was certainly much grief and frustration, but there was also much pride and love. Most Americans do not travel to places like Bosnia or Serbia because they seem dangerous, and they are, to some extent. But they are probably more dangerous because we flaunt our wealth in the face of their relative poverty; we are easy targets. In Oxford I had the pleasure of meeting several students from the Balkans and many others who had traveled through the region. They all agreed: it was one of the most charming, beautiful, and fascinating places they had ever visited.
When I read The Kite Runner recently, this same idea was again intensely present. The Afghanistan portrayed prior to the Russian invasion and then later under Taliban rule was deeply moving and a complete surprise. I knew that the Taliban were ruthless and that the country was impoverished, but I had no idea that the country had ever been anything but that, even for a small group of people. The narrator, who grew up in a privileged neighborhood, was certainly not the normal Afghan, but the portrayal of the freedom there, most notably of religion, and the relative liberalism compared to the rule of the Soviets and Taliban, were utterly strange to me. I had to completely rethink the image I had of Afghanistan. No longer was it simply the impoverished, religiously intolerant, backward country of the Taliban; now it was a country once headed on a good path which met a disastrous fate at the hands of the Soviets and the conniving Taliban. How sad to think of where it was before the invasion and to where it has fallen now! It is a great tragedy; a tragedy which I previously blamed on the Afghans themselves. No people is completely innocent of its country’s descent into violence, but the Afghans have been abused and exploited. Most of them have only suffered while small groups of power-hungry villains lay waste to the country.
It is clear to me that many of my views of the world have egregiously lacked perspective. The more I learn, the more I discover my own error. Especially when it comes to understanding the foreign world, I no longer trust my preconceptions. I used to list both Afghanistan and the Balkans as places I had no desire to visit, ever. Now, they are both on the list.
What was lost has been found!
Glad tidings!
I have found my lost Teach Yourself Serbo-Croatian and Teach Yourself Romanian books! I have been looking for them every day now for the past two months, and it was really very troubling. After all, I use the languages almost every day.
I have also begun to write a book. I will call it "Non-fiction book" or something similar, unless someone convinces me that another name would be better. I doubt that is possible, though.
Glad tidings!
I have found my lost Teach Yourself Serbo-Croatian and Teach Yourself Romanian books! I have been looking for them every day now for the past two months, and it was really very troubling. After all, I use the languages almost every day.
I have also begun to write a book. I will call it "Non-fiction book" or something similar, unless someone convinces me that another name would be better. I doubt that is possible, though.
Glad tidings!
Secretly Sinister
Rock-a-bye baby, in the treetop,
When the wind blows, the cradle will rock;
When the bough breaks, the cradle will fall,
And down will come baby, cradle and all.
This seems innocent enough until you actually think about what it is saying. Imagine with me:
A new mother takes her little baby, puts it into a cradle, climbs up a tree, and leaves baby in the branches. Perhaps it is a poplar. That would probably be enough to have Mom arrested. But if that wasn’t enough, then the wind starts to blow and it becomes obvious that the poplar will not be supporting baby for long. It’s ok, though, because that is always what Mom intended. It’s not “if the bough breaks,” it’s “when the bough breaks.” This was premeditated. Good ole Mom might have a bit of a mean streak after all. So the wind blows, the bough breaks, and baby and cradle plummet down from the tree to an untimely end.
We often overlook the content of rhymes that have been passed down for centuries simply because they are old. In France (and in high school French classes around the world), children learn a song “Alouette” or “Lark” which goes as follows:
Lark, nice lark,
Lark, I will pluck your feathers!
I will pluck your head,
Your head, your head
Ooooh!
After the first verse, the child continues plucking other parts of the bird, including the nose, the eyes, the neck, the wings, the back, the legs, and the tail. And I must point out that not all of those locations even have feathers on them. In order to pluck the nose, eyes, and legs of a bird, one must be plucking something other than feathers. Ghastly!
While not all nursery rhymes are violent in subject matter, it is so common that explanations now often gravitate toward the violent naturally. Most people have heard that “Ring Around a Rosy” depicts the symptoms and demise of victims of the bubonic plague, though most scholars think the theory is untenable. But even were it true, no one would have qualms about singing it with children.
I’ve always wondered why moms don’t seem to realize what they are saying to their kids in these rhymes. Many moms are perfectly willing to feed their children gruesome tales in the cradle but become absolutely furious when Johnny goes to school and hears a fairy tale that includes a big, bad monster. “He was so scared by that wolf! I can’t believe you would read those kids such a terrible story!”
Little does the mother know that “Little Red Riding Hood” originally ended with the death of the girl, munched up by the wolf just like the grandmother – no woodcutter to save the day, no happy ending, just grim, gruesome death, except for the wolf of course. I wonder how Mom would have reacted if Johnny had heard that version of the story instead of the tame modern one.
While nursery rhymes have maintained their sometimes violent content, we have felt the need over the years to make children’s stories nicer, happier. The original stories were intended to teach lessons, not just to entertain. So if they were good enough for children a few hundred years ago, why are they too scary for kids these days? I don’t think they are. In my opinion, our sanitization of stories, and life in general, makes children believe that everything ends well, that there is always a woodcutter to save the day or a Prince Charming for every Princess. But life is not always happy; in fact, for much of the world, life is more often sad. I have nothing against happy stories, but I do have something against only happy stories.
Learning to deal with the big, bad monster is a vital part of childhood, a precursor to dealing with the real monsters of the world: poverty, murder, disease, hatred. Obviously balance is needed. I would not want my children to be constantly afraid of the strange denizens of the nighttime closet, but I also would not want my children to arrive at adulthood without ever encountering the harsh realities of the world.
The problems of today’s world are the same as they have always been, though manifested differently and with the possibility of greater destruction due to nuclear weapons and other technology. So I have come up with new nursery rhyme fraught with doom for the next generation of kids. Perhaps in fifty years when the wolf in “Little Red Riding Hood” doesn’t even manage to eat the grandmother, the nursery rhymes will still survive with a needed dose of reality:
Daisy, daisy in field of green,
Hazy, hazy clouds over me,
Mushrooms grow and daisies fall;
That will be the end of all.
When the wind blows, the cradle will rock;
When the bough breaks, the cradle will fall,
And down will come baby, cradle and all.
This seems innocent enough until you actually think about what it is saying. Imagine with me:
A new mother takes her little baby, puts it into a cradle, climbs up a tree, and leaves baby in the branches. Perhaps it is a poplar. That would probably be enough to have Mom arrested. But if that wasn’t enough, then the wind starts to blow and it becomes obvious that the poplar will not be supporting baby for long. It’s ok, though, because that is always what Mom intended. It’s not “if the bough breaks,” it’s “when the bough breaks.” This was premeditated. Good ole Mom might have a bit of a mean streak after all. So the wind blows, the bough breaks, and baby and cradle plummet down from the tree to an untimely end.
We often overlook the content of rhymes that have been passed down for centuries simply because they are old. In France (and in high school French classes around the world), children learn a song “Alouette” or “Lark” which goes as follows:
Lark, nice lark,
Lark, I will pluck your feathers!
I will pluck your head,
Your head, your head
Ooooh!
After the first verse, the child continues plucking other parts of the bird, including the nose, the eyes, the neck, the wings, the back, the legs, and the tail. And I must point out that not all of those locations even have feathers on them. In order to pluck the nose, eyes, and legs of a bird, one must be plucking something other than feathers. Ghastly!
While not all nursery rhymes are violent in subject matter, it is so common that explanations now often gravitate toward the violent naturally. Most people have heard that “Ring Around a Rosy” depicts the symptoms and demise of victims of the bubonic plague, though most scholars think the theory is untenable. But even were it true, no one would have qualms about singing it with children.
I’ve always wondered why moms don’t seem to realize what they are saying to their kids in these rhymes. Many moms are perfectly willing to feed their children gruesome tales in the cradle but become absolutely furious when Johnny goes to school and hears a fairy tale that includes a big, bad monster. “He was so scared by that wolf! I can’t believe you would read those kids such a terrible story!”
Little does the mother know that “Little Red Riding Hood” originally ended with the death of the girl, munched up by the wolf just like the grandmother – no woodcutter to save the day, no happy ending, just grim, gruesome death, except for the wolf of course. I wonder how Mom would have reacted if Johnny had heard that version of the story instead of the tame modern one.
While nursery rhymes have maintained their sometimes violent content, we have felt the need over the years to make children’s stories nicer, happier. The original stories were intended to teach lessons, not just to entertain. So if they were good enough for children a few hundred years ago, why are they too scary for kids these days? I don’t think they are. In my opinion, our sanitization of stories, and life in general, makes children believe that everything ends well, that there is always a woodcutter to save the day or a Prince Charming for every Princess. But life is not always happy; in fact, for much of the world, life is more often sad. I have nothing against happy stories, but I do have something against only happy stories.
Learning to deal with the big, bad monster is a vital part of childhood, a precursor to dealing with the real monsters of the world: poverty, murder, disease, hatred. Obviously balance is needed. I would not want my children to be constantly afraid of the strange denizens of the nighttime closet, but I also would not want my children to arrive at adulthood without ever encountering the harsh realities of the world.
The problems of today’s world are the same as they have always been, though manifested differently and with the possibility of greater destruction due to nuclear weapons and other technology. So I have come up with new nursery rhyme fraught with doom for the next generation of kids. Perhaps in fifty years when the wolf in “Little Red Riding Hood” doesn’t even manage to eat the grandmother, the nursery rhymes will still survive with a needed dose of reality:
Daisy, daisy in field of green,
Hazy, hazy clouds over me,
Mushrooms grow and daisies fall;
That will be the end of all.
My Aching Back
About a month ago I realized a great dream of mine: to be old. I often say I am old because many of my interests correspond with those of the elderly. In particular, I love classical music, I heartily enjoy complicated card games like bridge and pinochle, I am not trendy, and I would often prefer to sit around and read than go out and be active. But I had always been missing one crucial factor – a body that doesn’t cooperate.
Granted, I was not particularly disappointed that my body worked well, other than my incessant sinus infections and allergies. But after saying I was old for so long, it was bound to catch up with me. And so it did.
There I was one day, minding my own business, sitting at the kitchen table, not even bragging about my affinity for hobbies of the elderly. Really, I was just sitting. Then I stood up.
“Gaaaaaaaarrr!!”
And I immediately sat back down. Then I tried to stand up again.
“Blaaaaaaaarrrrrgg!!!”
And I sat back down again. Then I tried to – just kidding.
I hunched like Igor over the table as I wondered what in the world had happened. I tried to sit straight in my chair but couldn’t get above a forty-five degree angle without feeling like a water buffalo was ripping my back off. So I stayed still.
My wife, who was looking on, couldn’t help but laugh at me. I couldn’t either. We laughed and laughed, “Well, you’ve gotten your wish. You really are an old person!” Indeed.
It was bizarre. I hadn’t twisted or jumped out of my seat; I just stood up. And what should happen but all the muscles in my lower back feel like springing up to the middle of my back and staying up there in a ball of painful spasms and tightness. The entire lower half of my back had transformed into a huge knot.
After five minutes I was beginning to worry. This was the sort of thing that happens and then is supposed to disappear quickly, so we could all keep on laughing.
“What if I can never walk again??” Sometimes I can be quite an alarmist.
“Oh you’ll be able to walk alright…with a cane!” My wife was really enjoying this. But not for long. After another ten minutes of waiting for the pain to subside with no results, I decided I should move to the couch to pamper my busted back. As I tried to stand up from the table, I knew I would never be the same. My back was a goner. Sharp pains kept me crumpled up; I had to lean on the wall and furniture to make sure no weight was on my lower back whatsoever. Any burden from my upper body sent me crashing to my knees in a traumatic stupor.
I managed to make it all the way to the couch and fell into it, sure I would never stand again. But unfortunately, I drink a lot of water and coffee, and, shocking though it may be, I have a bladder. Just when I was starting to get comfortable, my innards alerted me to the urgency of the situation.
“Crap,” though not literally. I was going to have to stand up again. This time, though, I was in my favorite slouching position on the couch – feet out, back reclined. I couldn’t even manage to push the footrest back into position because of the stress it put on my back. So my wife helped me do that and then had to drag me into my standing hunchback position. But it was a long way to the bathroom and there weren’t many pieces of furniture or wall corners to support me. Instead, I draped my bulky self all over my wife’s back to take the weight off my own. It was pretty pathetic.
Slowly but surely she dragged her burden all the way down the hall to the bathroom. Luckily, I was able to relieve myself without any assistance, but it was a close call. I heard muffled laughter through the door.
“Humbug!” I was no longer in the mood to laugh; I had just permanently lost my mobility.
That evening I had to cancel several work appointments I had lined up for the following day. But it was completely understandable; I have a tough job. Heavy lifting, dangerous machinery, volatile mafia-linked clients, long hours – you name it; I do none of those things. I tutor high school students. But still, sitting in a chair for a couple of hours can be hard work.
After a few days I started to feel a little better. I could resume my work, demanding though it was. My wife was no longer my personal walker, much to her chagrin. It took me about two weeks to get back to my usual self, but I finally came around. My back hasn’t been quite the same since, though. It gets tired quickly, and sore.
The experience changed me; I am a completely new person. Most importantly, I can now really claim that I am old. But I also stand up slower, and I try to avoid clients from the mafia. People who know things tell me that excess stress can cause back spasms, and the mob is definitely stressful. So as you can see, the pain was clearly worth it. How else would I have gleaned such vital lessons?
My advice to you is this: stand up slowly, avoid the mob, and eat your vegetables. But even in these ideal conditions, I would recommend everyone keep a good cane around, just in case.
Granted, I was not particularly disappointed that my body worked well, other than my incessant sinus infections and allergies. But after saying I was old for so long, it was bound to catch up with me. And so it did.
There I was one day, minding my own business, sitting at the kitchen table, not even bragging about my affinity for hobbies of the elderly. Really, I was just sitting. Then I stood up.
“Gaaaaaaaarrr!!”
And I immediately sat back down. Then I tried to stand up again.
“Blaaaaaaaarrrrrgg!!!”
And I sat back down again. Then I tried to – just kidding.
I hunched like Igor over the table as I wondered what in the world had happened. I tried to sit straight in my chair but couldn’t get above a forty-five degree angle without feeling like a water buffalo was ripping my back off. So I stayed still.
My wife, who was looking on, couldn’t help but laugh at me. I couldn’t either. We laughed and laughed, “Well, you’ve gotten your wish. You really are an old person!” Indeed.
It was bizarre. I hadn’t twisted or jumped out of my seat; I just stood up. And what should happen but all the muscles in my lower back feel like springing up to the middle of my back and staying up there in a ball of painful spasms and tightness. The entire lower half of my back had transformed into a huge knot.
After five minutes I was beginning to worry. This was the sort of thing that happens and then is supposed to disappear quickly, so we could all keep on laughing.
“What if I can never walk again??” Sometimes I can be quite an alarmist.
“Oh you’ll be able to walk alright…with a cane!” My wife was really enjoying this. But not for long. After another ten minutes of waiting for the pain to subside with no results, I decided I should move to the couch to pamper my busted back. As I tried to stand up from the table, I knew I would never be the same. My back was a goner. Sharp pains kept me crumpled up; I had to lean on the wall and furniture to make sure no weight was on my lower back whatsoever. Any burden from my upper body sent me crashing to my knees in a traumatic stupor.
I managed to make it all the way to the couch and fell into it, sure I would never stand again. But unfortunately, I drink a lot of water and coffee, and, shocking though it may be, I have a bladder. Just when I was starting to get comfortable, my innards alerted me to the urgency of the situation.
“Crap,” though not literally. I was going to have to stand up again. This time, though, I was in my favorite slouching position on the couch – feet out, back reclined. I couldn’t even manage to push the footrest back into position because of the stress it put on my back. So my wife helped me do that and then had to drag me into my standing hunchback position. But it was a long way to the bathroom and there weren’t many pieces of furniture or wall corners to support me. Instead, I draped my bulky self all over my wife’s back to take the weight off my own. It was pretty pathetic.
Slowly but surely she dragged her burden all the way down the hall to the bathroom. Luckily, I was able to relieve myself without any assistance, but it was a close call. I heard muffled laughter through the door.
“Humbug!” I was no longer in the mood to laugh; I had just permanently lost my mobility.
That evening I had to cancel several work appointments I had lined up for the following day. But it was completely understandable; I have a tough job. Heavy lifting, dangerous machinery, volatile mafia-linked clients, long hours – you name it; I do none of those things. I tutor high school students. But still, sitting in a chair for a couple of hours can be hard work.
After a few days I started to feel a little better. I could resume my work, demanding though it was. My wife was no longer my personal walker, much to her chagrin. It took me about two weeks to get back to my usual self, but I finally came around. My back hasn’t been quite the same since, though. It gets tired quickly, and sore.
The experience changed me; I am a completely new person. Most importantly, I can now really claim that I am old. But I also stand up slower, and I try to avoid clients from the mafia. People who know things tell me that excess stress can cause back spasms, and the mob is definitely stressful. So as you can see, the pain was clearly worth it. How else would I have gleaned such vital lessons?
My advice to you is this: stand up slowly, avoid the mob, and eat your vegetables. But even in these ideal conditions, I would recommend everyone keep a good cane around, just in case.
The Magical Elixir
I used to hate coffee. It smelled great, sure, but it tasted like sieved dirt. I loved to walk down the coffee aisle in the grocery store and immerse myself in the aroma, but when it came to drinking the stuff, not a chance. But as is evident by The Song of My Coffee, coffee won me over eventually. It conquers droves of high school and college students every year during finals, and I was no exception.
I am a member of the generation that has been named at least ten different times with no clear winner. In my opinion, it’s easier to think of our generation as the Starbucks Generation. By the time I was in high school they were growing as quickly as the mold on the forgotten sandwich in the back of my locker. But I was already over-energetic, so I didn’t really need coffee. Nonetheless, as all high school students do, I often found myself in the comfy couches of Starbucks. Though still believing coffee to be filtered mud, I quickly discovered that I could look trendy nonetheless. My savior was the Frappuccino: 98% sugar and milk, 2% coffee, 100% cool.
By my junior and senior years I was chugging my favorite caramel Frappuccinos all the time. I was hooked, not so much by the caffeine as by the image and the tasty goodness. When I got to college, I needed the caffeine more. Everyone stayed up until at least one or two every night, whether to study or play video games or just talk (or participate in illegal activities – but not me – don’t worry Mom and Dad). I still hadn’t conquered the taste of coffee, so it was Frappuccinos and soda that helped me stay awake as long as necessary. I used to take a Nalgene water bottle to the dining hall at breakfast and fill it up with Dr. Pepper to get me through the morning. There’s nothing like 64 ounces of corn syrup and carbonation.
Somewhere along the line – I’m really not sure where – I finally came into my true coffee potential. I realized that I didn’t really dislike regular coffee; I just didn’t know how to make it properly. Once I added cream and sugar and brewed something other than Folgers, I was set.
Now I drink at least two or three cups of coffee a day. I don’t need the caffeine; I just like coffee. That is, I get plenty of sleep, but I’m sure my body wouldn’t like it if I stopped drinking coffee for a few days. I experiment with bean types, brewing methods, strengths. I have a regular drip brew machine, an espresso maker, and a French press lined up on the counter. I can’t keep any of them in the cupboards because I use each one at least twice a week. It has become a hobby, and one that I heartily enjoy.
For many people, though, coffee is a needed stimulant to make it through the day. The first time I experienced “the coffee room” of a corporation, I was shocked to realize that people all around me were drinking dirt cheap, overheated, terrible coffee. I had looked forward to my first visit to the coffee pot, a symbol of camaraderie among the lower echelons of corporate America, but when I poured its burnt liquid into my Styrofoam cup and took a sip, I nearly threw up. That really was sieved dirt. I ended up bringing in my own coffee pot and beans to brew a more palatable beverage. I couldn’t understand why anyone would drink such a horrible thing. After all, there’s always Diet Coke.
Regardless, coffee continues to keep tired eyes open around the world. But in my mind coffee drinking is more akin to wine drinking. It has all the makings for lifelong pleasure and connoisseur-ship. Just as a wine connoisseur can catch the hints of melon or cherry in a fine wine, the coffee lover can catch the chocolate or nutty tones. And there are the coffee equivalents of the expensive wines, too, Luwak coffee, for example. This coffee, I am told, is perhaps the finest tasting brew out there, but it comes at a cost: up to $180 per pound. But the fun part about this coffee is its origin. It is harvested from the feces of our friendly feline, the luwak. Mr. Luwak loves to eat coffee beans, partially digest them, and then divest himself of them for later consumption by the neighborhood coffee connoisseur. Apparently there is just nothing like the digestive enzymes of a luwak for good-tasting coffee. One of these days I’ll try some and let you know.
I may not have the budget for such fineries, but I have come a long way since childhood. Some people tell me I’m killing myself – all that caffeine – but I’m not too worried. These are the same people who don’t want to vaccinate their children. Anyway, I have more important things to worry about, like the potentially serious case of eyelash cancer which has recently been causing all my eyelashes to fall out – terribly frightening!
Plus, I have support from doctors. Haven’t you heard? Coffee cures diabetes, prevents Parkinson’s, reduces the chance of gallstones, and so much more. Don’t believe me? Click here.
So now I can savor my coffee with a good conscience. Along with the rich, creamy taste, the pleasant atmosphere, and good feelings that coffee produces, it also prevents my early demise. God drinks coffee; I’m convinced.
I am a member of the generation that has been named at least ten different times with no clear winner. In my opinion, it’s easier to think of our generation as the Starbucks Generation. By the time I was in high school they were growing as quickly as the mold on the forgotten sandwich in the back of my locker. But I was already over-energetic, so I didn’t really need coffee. Nonetheless, as all high school students do, I often found myself in the comfy couches of Starbucks. Though still believing coffee to be filtered mud, I quickly discovered that I could look trendy nonetheless. My savior was the Frappuccino: 98% sugar and milk, 2% coffee, 100% cool.
By my junior and senior years I was chugging my favorite caramel Frappuccinos all the time. I was hooked, not so much by the caffeine as by the image and the tasty goodness. When I got to college, I needed the caffeine more. Everyone stayed up until at least one or two every night, whether to study or play video games or just talk (or participate in illegal activities – but not me – don’t worry Mom and Dad). I still hadn’t conquered the taste of coffee, so it was Frappuccinos and soda that helped me stay awake as long as necessary. I used to take a Nalgene water bottle to the dining hall at breakfast and fill it up with Dr. Pepper to get me through the morning. There’s nothing like 64 ounces of corn syrup and carbonation.
Somewhere along the line – I’m really not sure where – I finally came into my true coffee potential. I realized that I didn’t really dislike regular coffee; I just didn’t know how to make it properly. Once I added cream and sugar and brewed something other than Folgers, I was set.
Now I drink at least two or three cups of coffee a day. I don’t need the caffeine; I just like coffee. That is, I get plenty of sleep, but I’m sure my body wouldn’t like it if I stopped drinking coffee for a few days. I experiment with bean types, brewing methods, strengths. I have a regular drip brew machine, an espresso maker, and a French press lined up on the counter. I can’t keep any of them in the cupboards because I use each one at least twice a week. It has become a hobby, and one that I heartily enjoy.
For many people, though, coffee is a needed stimulant to make it through the day. The first time I experienced “the coffee room” of a corporation, I was shocked to realize that people all around me were drinking dirt cheap, overheated, terrible coffee. I had looked forward to my first visit to the coffee pot, a symbol of camaraderie among the lower echelons of corporate America, but when I poured its burnt liquid into my Styrofoam cup and took a sip, I nearly threw up. That really was sieved dirt. I ended up bringing in my own coffee pot and beans to brew a more palatable beverage. I couldn’t understand why anyone would drink such a horrible thing. After all, there’s always Diet Coke.
Regardless, coffee continues to keep tired eyes open around the world. But in my mind coffee drinking is more akin to wine drinking. It has all the makings for lifelong pleasure and connoisseur-ship. Just as a wine connoisseur can catch the hints of melon or cherry in a fine wine, the coffee lover can catch the chocolate or nutty tones. And there are the coffee equivalents of the expensive wines, too, Luwak coffee, for example. This coffee, I am told, is perhaps the finest tasting brew out there, but it comes at a cost: up to $180 per pound. But the fun part about this coffee is its origin. It is harvested from the feces of our friendly feline, the luwak. Mr. Luwak loves to eat coffee beans, partially digest them, and then divest himself of them for later consumption by the neighborhood coffee connoisseur. Apparently there is just nothing like the digestive enzymes of a luwak for good-tasting coffee. One of these days I’ll try some and let you know.
I may not have the budget for such fineries, but I have come a long way since childhood. Some people tell me I’m killing myself – all that caffeine – but I’m not too worried. These are the same people who don’t want to vaccinate their children. Anyway, I have more important things to worry about, like the potentially serious case of eyelash cancer which has recently been causing all my eyelashes to fall out – terribly frightening!
Plus, I have support from doctors. Haven’t you heard? Coffee cures diabetes, prevents Parkinson’s, reduces the chance of gallstones, and so much more. Don’t believe me? Click here.
So now I can savor my coffee with a good conscience. Along with the rich, creamy taste, the pleasant atmosphere, and good feelings that coffee produces, it also prevents my early demise. God drinks coffee; I’m convinced.
Evil Publishers and Scaphism
Every time I open a book, particularly if the author is dead, I am greeted with a introduction that discusses the author's accomplishments and contributions to literature, along with a hefty dose of trivia, a minute by minute chronology of the author's life, a historical atlas contrasting the author's political world with our own, a tree diagram explaining the author's relationship to every person he ever met, a minute by minute chronology of the editor's life, and a 27 page treatise on the use of tungsten in light-bulb filaments. If that isn't enough to wear me out, then I must wade through the mire of the preface to the 8th edition, the foreword, and the author's introduction to literary theory, followed by the original foreword to the book, and a page of acknowledgments, capped off with a list of heads of estate still promoting (to their own monetary benefit) our delightfully deceased writer.
And all that before page 1.
Indeed, by this point, I have managed to make it all the way to page lxxvii, but still no fiction (unless you count the section on literary theory as fiction...I know I do). Then the greatest befuddlement of all: when I finally get to the first page of the work I intended to read, it is numbered *gasp* page 17. What happened to the first 16 pages? Guy Montag was surely at work.
So I am torn. I love the feeling of really conquering an entire book, from cover to cover, but the introductory material is so confoundedly boring that I can seldom wade through it without developing a very strong dislike for the book. Knowing this about myself, I often skip the intro and dive right in to the novel. This provides a psychological boost because even if I only read for five minutes, when I put my bookmark into the book, it looks like I have read half the book already. Good job, Jonathan! I need a little self-encouragement sometimes. But at the same time my conscience betrays me: "You haven't really read this book - you didn't even tackle the author's foreword!" So I feel guilty, but relieved, but guilty - it's terrible!
I've decided that if I ever write a book, and I intend to, soon hopefully, that there shall be no foreword, no preface - just title pages, maybe a brief acknowledgment, and then page 1 - not page 39 and a half. I think that publishers are out to confuse readers with that little page numbering trick. They are all up in their conference rooms laughing every time they pick a bizarre page number for the initial page, reveling in the confusion caused for easily baffled people like myself.
Does this bother anyone other than me? I'm curious.
I'm thinking of creating one of those obnoxious chain emails including a petition to tell publishers that they must change their ways. It will be sure to include a section like this:
"Sign your name at the bottom and forward to everyone in your address book!!!!!!!!!! If you don't, your golden retriever will die a bloody death next Tuesday - don't bring the curse of the angry Jimmy upon your household!!!!!!!!!"
But seriously, if you don't pass this blog on to everyone you know, your best friend's uncle's daughter-in-law's third cousin twice removed will have an unnaturally early death by scaphism. You heard me: death by being covered in honey and left out in the hot sun.
Thank you, Balderdash (TM, ®, ©, Ω, ∫ )
And all that before page 1.
Indeed, by this point, I have managed to make it all the way to page lxxvii, but still no fiction (unless you count the section on literary theory as fiction...I know I do). Then the greatest befuddlement of all: when I finally get to the first page of the work I intended to read, it is numbered *gasp* page 17. What happened to the first 16 pages? Guy Montag was surely at work.
So I am torn. I love the feeling of really conquering an entire book, from cover to cover, but the introductory material is so confoundedly boring that I can seldom wade through it without developing a very strong dislike for the book. Knowing this about myself, I often skip the intro and dive right in to the novel. This provides a psychological boost because even if I only read for five minutes, when I put my bookmark into the book, it looks like I have read half the book already. Good job, Jonathan! I need a little self-encouragement sometimes. But at the same time my conscience betrays me: "You haven't really read this book - you didn't even tackle the author's foreword!" So I feel guilty, but relieved, but guilty - it's terrible!
I've decided that if I ever write a book, and I intend to, soon hopefully, that there shall be no foreword, no preface - just title pages, maybe a brief acknowledgment, and then page 1 - not page 39 and a half. I think that publishers are out to confuse readers with that little page numbering trick. They are all up in their conference rooms laughing every time they pick a bizarre page number for the initial page, reveling in the confusion caused for easily baffled people like myself.
Does this bother anyone other than me? I'm curious.
I'm thinking of creating one of those obnoxious chain emails including a petition to tell publishers that they must change their ways. It will be sure to include a section like this:
"Sign your name at the bottom and forward to everyone in your address book!!!!!!!!!! If you don't, your golden retriever will die a bloody death next Tuesday - don't bring the curse of the angry Jimmy upon your household!!!!!!!!!"
But seriously, if you don't pass this blog on to everyone you know, your best friend's uncle's daughter-in-law's third cousin twice removed will have an unnaturally early death by scaphism. You heard me: death by being covered in honey and left out in the hot sun.
Thank you, Balderdash (TM, ®, ©, Ω, ∫ )
Mozart's Misadventure
Two nights ago, after several years of probation, I reinstituted arts and crafts night. I have had no good reason for doing anything visually artistic since I was in about 9th grade, when I took Intro to Art. There I had attempted perspective, failed; attempted pottery, failed; and finally attempted splatter painting, and succeeded. But I was never big into splatter painting, so despite my teacher’s encouragement to pursue it as a career, I humbly bowed out.
I always regretted it.
But after 9 years of facing the truth (that I was not a world famous splatter painter), I have finally accepted it. Indeed, I have realized that my area of true talent lies in action figure accoutrement construction. How did I realize this, you ask? I shall explain.
My brother recently went to New York and brought me back a small gift that inspired me to rediscover my inner artist. It was…a Mozart action figure! I could hardly think of a better gift.
To go along with Mr. Mozart, you can go online to a particular website and print out a piano for Mozart to play. I was astonished by its beauty – its gilded soundboard, its mahogany body, its slender music stand. It was better than a Steinway.
After printing it, you must cut it out, complete with slots A, B, C, D, E, and F and corresponding tabs, fold it, and glue/tape/force the various pieces together into a piano. They say you need a hobby knife, thick paper, and about 20 minutes of time. I did not have the first two, but I figured an excess of time would easily make up for them.
After 2 hours of cutting, folding, groaning, gluing, shoving, smiting, retching, destroying, and howling at the moon, I succeeded in producing something that looked vaguely familiar to a piano. I’ve never been good at following directions, and apparently sometimes they matter. Part of the problem was that my printer’s margins weren’t quite right, so tabs B through E were conspicuously absent. But even had they been present, I would have accidentally chopped them all off, as I did tabs A and F (they were just so dang slender and fragile!). Normal scissors are not built for the niceties of piano construction.
By the time I had the body of the piano put together, I had used thirteen pieces of tape and a few staples, neither of which are called for in the directions. It looked more like a fire-bombed woodshed than a piano, so I figured that it was pointless to make the legs look nice. So instead of cutting them out as directed, I just rolled them into little tubes and taped them to the bottom of the flimsy instrument.
It only stood for 39 seconds. But in that time I managed to take a flattering picture of it, so no worries. It’s too bad Mozart didn’t have very long to tickle the ivories and do his magic.
Good.
Going.
Gone.
Today, Mozart is still sitting there, arms out (he must have incredible stamina), before a piano whose legs have collapsed. It reminds me of those movie scenes where, after years of labor and trials, the main character admits that his great dream, his magnum opus, will never be realized, and he sits in front of the ruins of his work, too grief-stricken to move, and weeps. It really is a perfect image – Mozart sitting there, arms extended, before a busted piano; it’s too bad action figures can’t cry plastic tears.
The fact is, I stink at building pianos. I feel bad that the first piano I tried to build was intended for the great Mozart. I probably should have started smaller and worked my way up, maybe beginning with Kalinnikov or some other obscure Russian composer. I’ve often wondered how it is that all kids are so good at arts and crafts but how so many adults are bad at them. When do kids start losing the ability to spread glitter appropriately and cut anything out perfectly with a mere pair of safety scissors? And why is it a pair of scissors anyway? I don’t think I would call a single blade a scissor. A single scissor is no scissor at all, just like there is no such thing as a single pant. Clearly we have a conspiracy on our hands.
After this unfortunate experience, I have decided to put myself on probation again, this time permanently. Mozart deserves better, so I will remove myself from the trade.
I bet Salieri is behind all this.
I always regretted it.
But after 9 years of facing the truth (that I was not a world famous splatter painter), I have finally accepted it. Indeed, I have realized that my area of true talent lies in action figure accoutrement construction. How did I realize this, you ask? I shall explain.
My brother recently went to New York and brought me back a small gift that inspired me to rediscover my inner artist. It was…a Mozart action figure! I could hardly think of a better gift.
To go along with Mr. Mozart, you can go online to a particular website and print out a piano for Mozart to play. I was astonished by its beauty – its gilded soundboard, its mahogany body, its slender music stand. It was better than a Steinway.
After printing it, you must cut it out, complete with slots A, B, C, D, E, and F and corresponding tabs, fold it, and glue/tape/force the various pieces together into a piano. They say you need a hobby knife, thick paper, and about 20 minutes of time. I did not have the first two, but I figured an excess of time would easily make up for them.
After 2 hours of cutting, folding, groaning, gluing, shoving, smiting, retching, destroying, and howling at the moon, I succeeded in producing something that looked vaguely familiar to a piano. I’ve never been good at following directions, and apparently sometimes they matter. Part of the problem was that my printer’s margins weren’t quite right, so tabs B through E were conspicuously absent. But even had they been present, I would have accidentally chopped them all off, as I did tabs A and F (they were just so dang slender and fragile!). Normal scissors are not built for the niceties of piano construction.
By the time I had the body of the piano put together, I had used thirteen pieces of tape and a few staples, neither of which are called for in the directions. It looked more like a fire-bombed woodshed than a piano, so I figured that it was pointless to make the legs look nice. So instead of cutting them out as directed, I just rolled them into little tubes and taped them to the bottom of the flimsy instrument.
It only stood for 39 seconds. But in that time I managed to take a flattering picture of it, so no worries. It’s too bad Mozart didn’t have very long to tickle the ivories and do his magic.
Good.
Going.
Gone.The fact is, I stink at building pianos. I feel bad that the first piano I tried to build was intended for the great Mozart. I probably should have started smaller and worked my way up, maybe beginning with Kalinnikov or some other obscure Russian composer. I’ve often wondered how it is that all kids are so good at arts and crafts but how so many adults are bad at them. When do kids start losing the ability to spread glitter appropriately and cut anything out perfectly with a mere pair of safety scissors? And why is it a pair of scissors anyway? I don’t think I would call a single blade a scissor. A single scissor is no scissor at all, just like there is no such thing as a single pant. Clearly we have a conspiracy on our hands.
After this unfortunate experience, I have decided to put myself on probation again, this time permanently. Mozart deserves better, so I will remove myself from the trade.
I bet Salieri is behind all this.
More than just chorus
As a boy with two older brothers, I had a path set out for me, tried and true. I knew which teachers were good, which ones were bad, and which ones were just strange. I knew baseball was the sport of champions; I knew which music was cool. But I have always been the abnormal child. I started taking guitar in the fifth grade, the first one in my family to begin music lessons after my oldest brother’s traumatic piano experiences in his early years. In high school I had some changes forced upon me. For one, I didn’t get the famed Granville for biology as a freshman, instead getting stuck with the new guy, Rashford. It was shocking, almost sacrilege – I knew Granville was the man to have, my brothers said so – how did this happen? Well, Rashford wasn’t so bad after all; actually he was quite good, and I ended up having Granville later for AP (also good).
And as it happens, being in Rashford’s class had a much larger impact on my life than I would have expected. In the spring of the year, when all things are fresh and beautiful, I had my eye on a certain girl from Rashford’s class. Perhaps it was fate, but this crush of mine happened to coincide with recruitment season for the ever man-lacking chorus, and this girl just happened to be in chorus. As all good chorus members do, she was actively participating in the recruitment process, and she was especially on the lookout for boys (as was everyone else). Though every high school chorus seems to have a paucity of men, that year had seen a particular drought at my school. So I was doomed to say yes when she came and asked me if I was interested in joining chorus.
I didn’t even know what I was doing. Really I had planned to say yes, go sign some sort of mailing list, and never actually join. Chorus was not on the older-brother-approved list of classes to take. It would throw everything off – I wouldn’t get into the right classes at the right time with the right teachers. High school would surely be an utter failure if I threw of the plan this early. It was only freshman year and there I was signing my life away to destitution.
But I couldn’t help myself. I went down the hall with the girl after school the next day and signed up for the following year’s Men’s Chorus, first period, with Mr. Spraggins. I thought it would be easy to get out of, but choristers are fearfully good at making sure that once you sign up, you show up. It must be that Educational Psychology class they all take.
School finished up and I went off to summer, trying not to think about how I had ruined my life so young. The summer months flew by, as usual, and come August I stepped foot into the chorus room for the first time. Men’s Chorus was quite an interesting experience. Apparently many girls had taken advantage of crushes for recruitment: the room was packed with guys. There were lanky guys with tremendous cracks in their voices, cool guys with the latest fashions, nerdy guys with awesome contradictions in style, all somewhere between boyhood and manhood. In no other room except perhaps the band and art rooms could you find such a spectrum.
As a sophomore then, I felt somewhat comfortable in the school, but chorus was a whole new deal. I didn’t know a soul, but they all seemed to know each other. Before long, though, I fit right in. There was room for anyone in chorus, especially if you were a guy. The diversity of backgrounds and ages made that class one of the most memorable of my entire high school career. I heard all sorts of crazy stories, many surely untrue, but all unique because of the lack of girls in the class. We were free to be uncouth, smelly, pompous, silly, unmanly boys in that class. There was no one to impress, just a bunch of other guys. We could be ourselves, especially when the different parts went to separate rooms to practice without any adult supervision. It was easily the most freedom I ever had during school until college.
Chorus quickly became the highlight of my day. I loved going to hang out with all the guys for the first hour of every day, and I admit, I began to enjoy the music too. It was particularly cool when we formed a sort of barber shop dodectet that sang the Temptations and other Motown favorites. Just a few years prior I had begun piano lessons, too, so chorus solidified the presence of music in my life for years to come. But more importantly, I learned to be myself in chorus, an important step for me after having spent the previous year transitioning from private school to public school.
Unfortunately, Men’s Chorus only lasted for one full year, as I recall. My junior year, recruitment did not go as well, and attrition forced the remaining guys to join the various mixed choirs. While the music was certainly of a higher quality from that point forward, I always missed Men’s Chorus. I was very comfortable in chorus by then, but I could never be as comfortable as I was with only guys around. An era had passed, never to return.
Well, six years later I have had my share of choral activities. I was active with a variety of choirs and vocal ensembles in college, and I even directed a church choir for three years (which was certainly a highlight of my college years). While I am currently not involved in any musical endeavors due to recent relocations, I know I will be involved somewhere again soon. And I will always enjoy singing, particularly in a choral setting.
It’s funny to think what my life would have been like without the influence of chorus. Perhaps piano lessons would have pricked my interest enough to keep me as involved in music as I ended up being throughout college, but perhaps not. Chorus gave me much more than musical experience. It was a life experience, a force of self-realization that brought me confidence, fun, and friendship. I believe that without this aspect, chorus would never have led me into music as it did.
As a taller boy, I have now clearly established my own life outside the footsteps of my brethren, and music has been one of the most defining differences. I never would have anticipated the ramifications of having the “wrong” biology teacher as a freshman. Sometimes the smallest of diversions from the set path can make a world of difference.
And as it happens, being in Rashford’s class had a much larger impact on my life than I would have expected. In the spring of the year, when all things are fresh and beautiful, I had my eye on a certain girl from Rashford’s class. Perhaps it was fate, but this crush of mine happened to coincide with recruitment season for the ever man-lacking chorus, and this girl just happened to be in chorus. As all good chorus members do, she was actively participating in the recruitment process, and she was especially on the lookout for boys (as was everyone else). Though every high school chorus seems to have a paucity of men, that year had seen a particular drought at my school. So I was doomed to say yes when she came and asked me if I was interested in joining chorus.
I didn’t even know what I was doing. Really I had planned to say yes, go sign some sort of mailing list, and never actually join. Chorus was not on the older-brother-approved list of classes to take. It would throw everything off – I wouldn’t get into the right classes at the right time with the right teachers. High school would surely be an utter failure if I threw of the plan this early. It was only freshman year and there I was signing my life away to destitution.
But I couldn’t help myself. I went down the hall with the girl after school the next day and signed up for the following year’s Men’s Chorus, first period, with Mr. Spraggins. I thought it would be easy to get out of, but choristers are fearfully good at making sure that once you sign up, you show up. It must be that Educational Psychology class they all take.
School finished up and I went off to summer, trying not to think about how I had ruined my life so young. The summer months flew by, as usual, and come August I stepped foot into the chorus room for the first time. Men’s Chorus was quite an interesting experience. Apparently many girls had taken advantage of crushes for recruitment: the room was packed with guys. There were lanky guys with tremendous cracks in their voices, cool guys with the latest fashions, nerdy guys with awesome contradictions in style, all somewhere between boyhood and manhood. In no other room except perhaps the band and art rooms could you find such a spectrum.
As a sophomore then, I felt somewhat comfortable in the school, but chorus was a whole new deal. I didn’t know a soul, but they all seemed to know each other. Before long, though, I fit right in. There was room for anyone in chorus, especially if you were a guy. The diversity of backgrounds and ages made that class one of the most memorable of my entire high school career. I heard all sorts of crazy stories, many surely untrue, but all unique because of the lack of girls in the class. We were free to be uncouth, smelly, pompous, silly, unmanly boys in that class. There was no one to impress, just a bunch of other guys. We could be ourselves, especially when the different parts went to separate rooms to practice without any adult supervision. It was easily the most freedom I ever had during school until college.
Chorus quickly became the highlight of my day. I loved going to hang out with all the guys for the first hour of every day, and I admit, I began to enjoy the music too. It was particularly cool when we formed a sort of barber shop dodectet that sang the Temptations and other Motown favorites. Just a few years prior I had begun piano lessons, too, so chorus solidified the presence of music in my life for years to come. But more importantly, I learned to be myself in chorus, an important step for me after having spent the previous year transitioning from private school to public school.
Unfortunately, Men’s Chorus only lasted for one full year, as I recall. My junior year, recruitment did not go as well, and attrition forced the remaining guys to join the various mixed choirs. While the music was certainly of a higher quality from that point forward, I always missed Men’s Chorus. I was very comfortable in chorus by then, but I could never be as comfortable as I was with only guys around. An era had passed, never to return.
Well, six years later I have had my share of choral activities. I was active with a variety of choirs and vocal ensembles in college, and I even directed a church choir for three years (which was certainly a highlight of my college years). While I am currently not involved in any musical endeavors due to recent relocations, I know I will be involved somewhere again soon. And I will always enjoy singing, particularly in a choral setting.
It’s funny to think what my life would have been like without the influence of chorus. Perhaps piano lessons would have pricked my interest enough to keep me as involved in music as I ended up being throughout college, but perhaps not. Chorus gave me much more than musical experience. It was a life experience, a force of self-realization that brought me confidence, fun, and friendship. I believe that without this aspect, chorus would never have led me into music as it did.
As a taller boy, I have now clearly established my own life outside the footsteps of my brethren, and music has been one of the most defining differences. I never would have anticipated the ramifications of having the “wrong” biology teacher as a freshman. Sometimes the smallest of diversions from the set path can make a world of difference.
Spelling and Such
When I was in the first grade, my family moved from Massachusetts to Georgia. It was quite a change, but for most children, change is easy to deal with. Children seem to have a greater ability to adapt than adults, probably because they have not yet learned to fear change like many adults. Children innately accept change as the only consistent aspect of life. So I acclimated to Georgia quickly. It didn't hurt, though, that we brought the snow with us that year. The Great Blizzard o' '93, as it is recorded in the annals, hit Georgia just weeks after we arrived.
Before long I was saying y'all and drinking sweet tea, but there was one thing that I never absorbed, and I still haven't. It is a particular word, which I discovered one day when I volunteered to read a paragraph out loud in school:
"'Jimmy went to school. He liked it there. It was fun. His mother asked him, 'Do you like school Jimmy?' 'Yes Maw-Am, I do.'"
Apparently Jimmy was funny, so I started laughing along with my classmates, even though I didn't get it. Then my teacher informed me that the word spelled "ma'am" was pronounced "mam." What kind of messed up phonetic world was this anyway? I never read aloud again - ever - and I am extremely shy to this day as a result of my tragic ma'am experience. Just ask around.
One of the problems with being a reader is that we often learn what a word means and associate it with whatever we believe to be its pronunciation, even if that pronunciation is wrong. My sister, for instance, likes to tell the story of how for years she believed the word "laughter" to be pronounced "lotter," rhyming with "hotter." There are many examples of this principle, and some that you may not have realized yourself.
For instance, Goethe, the Shakespeare of Germany, is not "go-eth" but rather "Ger-tuh." The word "draught," while common in England, is currently underlined by my spell-checker as a misspelled word, and following the principle of "laughter," is pronounced "draft," not "drawt." I did not realize this myself until recently, and based on a small survey I conducted, many others do not know either. Then there's "victuals," pronounced "vittles," as in "Get some vittles and roast them on the far - I'm cold and hungry!" Until yesterday, when I saw the word printed for the first time that I can remember, I would have spelled "roughage" as "ruffage" had I written it myself, and probably would have pronounced "roughage" as "roo-age," were its meaning not so evident in the book I was reading. I also recall thinking "epitome" was "epi-tome" not "ep-pit-oh-me," though I knew what the word "ep-pit-oh-me" meant when spoken.
There are many other words whose pronunciations should be obvious but which are constantly mispronounced. There is no "x" in "essssssspresso." (That is, by the way, how it was originally spelt, to emphasize the sound of steaming water.) There is an "r" after the "b" in February. And, again with the "x," it is "et cetera," not "ex cetera." I'm sure the first "r" in February will eventually go away, in a few hundred years perhaps, since it is never used. That which is not used is thrown away.
Sometimes in English we have actually kept the old and new versions of a word, though. For instance, the word "amicable" means friendly; so does the word "amiable." And in fact, they are the same word historically. Somewhere along the way, a group of folks stopped using the "c" in "amicable," either from laziness or forgetfulness or both. But I suppose another group liked the "c," so both words came to us in English, though they come from precisely the same word amicabilis, "friendly" in Latin. Curious, isn't it? We like our choices in English.
Whenever I come across examples like this one, I reflect that spelling really should not be as strict as it is. We permit both amiable and amicable, despite the fact that they are the same word, so why not permit both February and Febuary, espresso and expresso, and so on? In Middle English especially (Chaucer's era), they took this view. Words were speld however the auther felt lyke spellyng them, or however best reflekted the pronuntsiashun. Good times.
I like diversity in spelling; it keeps life interesting, whether the different spellings are "correct" or not. It's funny - not a single word in the previous paragraph is underlined in my spell-checker even though "draught" was (and still is) underlined. You may think it's a glitch; I think its a sign.
With ridiculously spelled text messages and quick emails overtaking other forms of communication, we are sure to see some funny spelling changes in the next few centuries. If we're lucky, pronunciations will change along with them. Then when we are unfrozen from our cryogenic freezers in 2513, we will all have a good laugh over the way people communicate, unless, of course, we are still afraid of change. I'm sure the kids will love it.
Before long I was saying y'all and drinking sweet tea, but there was one thing that I never absorbed, and I still haven't. It is a particular word, which I discovered one day when I volunteered to read a paragraph out loud in school:
"'Jimmy went to school. He liked it there. It was fun. His mother asked him, 'Do you like school Jimmy?' 'Yes Maw-Am, I do.'"
Apparently Jimmy was funny, so I started laughing along with my classmates, even though I didn't get it. Then my teacher informed me that the word spelled "ma'am" was pronounced "mam." What kind of messed up phonetic world was this anyway? I never read aloud again - ever - and I am extremely shy to this day as a result of my tragic ma'am experience. Just ask around.
One of the problems with being a reader is that we often learn what a word means and associate it with whatever we believe to be its pronunciation, even if that pronunciation is wrong. My sister, for instance, likes to tell the story of how for years she believed the word "laughter" to be pronounced "lotter," rhyming with "hotter." There are many examples of this principle, and some that you may not have realized yourself.
For instance, Goethe, the Shakespeare of Germany, is not "go-eth" but rather "Ger-tuh." The word "draught," while common in England, is currently underlined by my spell-checker as a misspelled word, and following the principle of "laughter," is pronounced "draft," not "drawt." I did not realize this myself until recently, and based on a small survey I conducted, many others do not know either. Then there's "victuals," pronounced "vittles," as in "Get some vittles and roast them on the far - I'm cold and hungry!" Until yesterday, when I saw the word printed for the first time that I can remember, I would have spelled "roughage" as "ruffage" had I written it myself, and probably would have pronounced "roughage" as "roo-age," were its meaning not so evident in the book I was reading. I also recall thinking "epitome" was "epi-tome" not "ep-pit-oh-me," though I knew what the word "ep-pit-oh-me" meant when spoken.
There are many other words whose pronunciations should be obvious but which are constantly mispronounced. There is no "x" in "essssssspresso." (That is, by the way, how it was originally spelt, to emphasize the sound of steaming water.) There is an "r" after the "b" in February. And, again with the "x," it is "et cetera," not "ex cetera." I'm sure the first "r" in February will eventually go away, in a few hundred years perhaps, since it is never used. That which is not used is thrown away.
Sometimes in English we have actually kept the old and new versions of a word, though. For instance, the word "amicable" means friendly; so does the word "amiable." And in fact, they are the same word historically. Somewhere along the way, a group of folks stopped using the "c" in "amicable," either from laziness or forgetfulness or both. But I suppose another group liked the "c," so both words came to us in English, though they come from precisely the same word amicabilis, "friendly" in Latin. Curious, isn't it? We like our choices in English.
Whenever I come across examples like this one, I reflect that spelling really should not be as strict as it is. We permit both amiable and amicable, despite the fact that they are the same word, so why not permit both February and Febuary, espresso and expresso, and so on? In Middle English especially (Chaucer's era), they took this view. Words were speld however the auther felt lyke spellyng them, or however best reflekted the pronuntsiashun. Good times.
I like diversity in spelling; it keeps life interesting, whether the different spellings are "correct" or not. It's funny - not a single word in the previous paragraph is underlined in my spell-checker even though "draught" was (and still is) underlined. You may think it's a glitch; I think its a sign.
With ridiculously spelled text messages and quick emails overtaking other forms of communication, we are sure to see some funny spelling changes in the next few centuries. If we're lucky, pronunciations will change along with them. Then when we are unfrozen from our cryogenic freezers in 2513, we will all have a good laugh over the way people communicate, unless, of course, we are still afraid of change. I'm sure the kids will love it.
More Palindromes, or perhaps just Symmetry
I just now began to write a post relating cell phones and concerts, but after completing only one paragraph, I went off on this completely unrelated tangent. Very quickly the digression grew longer than the actual article, so I decided to write a short post dedicated to that digression. I have discussed this topic before, but it only gets better with age.
Palindromes. How I love thee; let me count the ways. Or perhaps not; it would take far too long. Instead, let's dive right in.
The word "dub" is a special sort of palindrome - if you reverse the word completely (not just the order of the letters, but the letters themselves), it remains "dub" since d and b are reflections of each other. You could check to see if this works by writing a word on a piece of paper, holding it up to a mirror, and seeing if it is the same word in the mirror. Obviously it is difficult to find this kind of palindrome since many letters' reflections are not other letters. Some other examples are "bud," "A TOYOTA," and "mom," though the last two types only exhibit this property because all of the letters are individually bilaterally symmetrical. Personally I don't find them nearly as exciting as b's and d's switching places with each other.
Another strange type of of palindrome is exhibited by the word "pod." This time, if you stuck a needle through the center of the "o" (so the needle would be sticking straight into your computer screen...please don't try this at home - I fear lawsuits) and then rotated the word 180 degrees by twisting the needle, "pod" would remain "pod." In math we would call this symmetry about the origin. Unfortunately, I can't think of any other examples; there may not be any. So what I'm saying is that this point is completely useless, but it's still awesome.
It's sort of like learning Old English really well. There's a big list of words in Old English that are only ever used once in Old English, namely, in Beowulf. So you are reading Beowulf in Old English, come across a word you don't know, go to all the trouble of looking it up in a dictionary and making a flashcard, and then you realize that you will never, ever again need to know that word. I'd say it's still worth it. But I am rather strange.
Well, to close out, I was recently pointed to a long, palindromic poem by some comedian. It is surprisingly long. I think the poet should submit the poem to some modern poetry contest. It's sure to win - it makes no sense. But if he didn't say it was a palindrome and the judges didn't catch it (which I'm sure they wouldn't), it would be fantastic to see all those would-be poets pouring ridiculous, overwrought theories and interpretations all over a poem that has no meaning. (By the way, that poem read at Obama's inauguration was absolutely horrid. I just read it again online, and I retain my opinion. It ruined the moment, sapped it of life. In particular, the delivery was completely flat, devoid of spirit or passion. If a poet should know anything, it should be that poetry is meant to be both heard and seen, so if you speak it poorly, the poem is ruined. The poet, of all people, should be able to read her own poem well. Alas, it was not so. "Praise Song for the Day" ended up being a lifeless attempt at beauty.)
So here's the poem. Excuses its vulgarities - it's hard to make palindromes.
"Dammit I'm Mad" by Demetri Martin
Palindromes. How I love thee; let me count the ways. Or perhaps not; it would take far too long. Instead, let's dive right in.
The word "dub" is a special sort of palindrome - if you reverse the word completely (not just the order of the letters, but the letters themselves), it remains "dub" since d and b are reflections of each other. You could check to see if this works by writing a word on a piece of paper, holding it up to a mirror, and seeing if it is the same word in the mirror. Obviously it is difficult to find this kind of palindrome since many letters' reflections are not other letters. Some other examples are "bud," "A TOYOTA," and "mom," though the last two types only exhibit this property because all of the letters are individually bilaterally symmetrical. Personally I don't find them nearly as exciting as b's and d's switching places with each other.
Another strange type of of palindrome is exhibited by the word "pod." This time, if you stuck a needle through the center of the "o" (so the needle would be sticking straight into your computer screen...please don't try this at home - I fear lawsuits) and then rotated the word 180 degrees by twisting the needle, "pod" would remain "pod." In math we would call this symmetry about the origin. Unfortunately, I can't think of any other examples; there may not be any. So what I'm saying is that this point is completely useless, but it's still awesome.
It's sort of like learning Old English really well. There's a big list of words in Old English that are only ever used once in Old English, namely, in Beowulf. So you are reading Beowulf in Old English, come across a word you don't know, go to all the trouble of looking it up in a dictionary and making a flashcard, and then you realize that you will never, ever again need to know that word. I'd say it's still worth it. But I am rather strange.
Well, to close out, I was recently pointed to a long, palindromic poem by some comedian. It is surprisingly long. I think the poet should submit the poem to some modern poetry contest. It's sure to win - it makes no sense. But if he didn't say it was a palindrome and the judges didn't catch it (which I'm sure they wouldn't), it would be fantastic to see all those would-be poets pouring ridiculous, overwrought theories and interpretations all over a poem that has no meaning. (By the way, that poem read at Obama's inauguration was absolutely horrid. I just read it again online, and I retain my opinion. It ruined the moment, sapped it of life. In particular, the delivery was completely flat, devoid of spirit or passion. If a poet should know anything, it should be that poetry is meant to be both heard and seen, so if you speak it poorly, the poem is ruined. The poet, of all people, should be able to read her own poem well. Alas, it was not so. "Praise Song for the Day" ended up being a lifeless attempt at beauty.)
So here's the poem. Excuses its vulgarities - it's hard to make palindromes.
"Dammit I'm Mad" by Demetri Martin
Dammit I'm mad.
Evil is a deed as I live.
God, am I reviled? I rise, my bed on a sun, I melt.
To be not one man emanating is sad. I piss.
Alas, it is so late. Who stops to help?
Man, it is hot. I'm in it. I tell.
I am not a devil. I level "Mad Dog".
Ah, say burning is, as a deified gulp,
In my halo of a mired rum tin.
I erase many men. Oh, to be man, a sin.
Is evil in a clam? In a trap?
No. It is open. On it I was stuck.
Rats peed on hope. Elsewhere dips a web.
Be still if I fill its ebb.
Ew, a spider… eh?
We sleep. Oh no!
Deep, stark cuts saw it in one position.
Part animal, can I live? Sin is a name.
Both, one… my names are in it.
Murder? I'm a fool.
A hymn I plug, deified as a sign in ruby ash,
A Goddam level I lived at.
On mail let it in. I'm it.
Oh, sit in ample hot spots. Oh wet!
A loss it is alas (sip). I'd assign it a name.
Name not one bottle minus an ode by me:
"Sir, I deliver. I'm a dog"
Evil is a deed as I live.
Dammit I'm mad.
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