Archives for 2005

The day that some old friend

Said something sad about you,

I knew right then

I was no longer mad about you.

For I’d always gone to pieces

At the mention of your name,

But all that I could say this time was,

“Isn’t that a shame?”

David Cantor, “Mad About You”

Things I Learned Sophomore Year

1. A good imitation of measles rash can be effected by stabbing the forearm with a stiff whisk-broom.

2. Queen Elizabeth was not above suspicion.

3. In Spanish you pronounce z like th.

4. Nine-tenths of the girls in a girls’ college are not pretty.

5. You can sleep undetected in a lecture course by resting the head on the hand as if shadng the eyes.

6. Weakness in drawing technique can be hidden by using a wash instead of black and white line.

7. Quite a respectable bun can be acquired by smoking three or four pipefuls of strong tobacco when you have no food in your stomach.

8. The ancient Phoenicians were really Jews, and got as far north as England where they operated tin mines.

9. You can get dressed much quicker in the morning if the night before when you are going to bed you take off your trousers and underdrawers at once, leaving the latter inside the former.

Robert Benchley, “What College Did to Me”

From Louis Menand’s essay on Edmund Wilson in the current New Yorker:

Wilson did not engage well with literature at the level of the text. He was also not at ease or reliable at the meta-level. He had a journalist’s suspicion of abstractions, and he did not think theoretically. When he tried for the broad view–when he undertook to explain the demise of verse as a literary technique, or to describe the alternation of periods of realism with periods of romanticism in modern literature, or to interpret art as compensation for a psychic “wound”–his criticism got reductive very quickly. But he was unsurpassed at the level of the writer and the work. When he gives his tour through “Das Kapital” or “Finnegans Wake” (a book he was excited by) or “Doctor Zhivago” (which he also admired extravagantly), it is as though the book’s interior had suddenly been lit up by a thousand-watt bulb. Even readers who thought they already knew the book can see things that they missed, and they realize how partial and muddled their sense of it really was. And the hyper-clarity of the description is complemented by a complete grasp of the corpus, each of the writer’s strengths and flaws laid out with juridical precision, no matter how large or problematic the body of work. The result is something better than microscopic analysis; anyone can look through a microscope. The result is a satellite picture….

One of the reasons why I like this description so much (other than that it’s perfect) is that it also sums up some of the things I try to do in my own writing, which was deeply influenced by Wilson’s back in the days when I was setting up shop as a critic a quarter-century ago. I don’t read him much anymore, partly because I once read him so closely that I remember his work too well. But Menand’s essay has created in me a fresh appetite for revisiting Wilson, which strikes me as one of the essential attributes of a great piece of literary journalism.

Read the whole thing here, by all means.

From Louis Menand’s essay on Edmund Wilson in the current New Yorker:

Wilson did not engage well with literature at the level of the text. He was also not at ease or reliable at the meta-level. He had a journalist’s suspicion of abstractions, and he did not think theoretically. When he tried for the broad view–when he undertook to explain the demise of verse as a literary technique, or to describe the alternation of periods of realism with periods of romanticism in modern literature, or to interpret art as compensation for a psychic “wound”–his criticism got reductive very quickly. But he was unsurpassed at the level of the writer and the work. When he gives his tour through “Das Kapital” or “Finnegans Wake” (a book he was excited by) or “Doctor Zhivago” (which he also admired extravagantly), it is as though the book’s interior had suddenly been lit up by a thousand-watt bulb. Even readers who thought they already knew the book can see things that they missed, and they realize how partial and muddled their sense of it really was. And the hyper-clarity of the description is complemented by a complete grasp of the corpus, each of the writer’s strengths and flaws laid out with juridical precision, no matter how large or problematic the body of work. The result is something better than microscopic analysis; anyone can look through a microscope. The result is a satellite picture….

One of the reasons why I like this description so much (other than that it’s perfect) is that it also sums up some of the things I try to do in my own writing, which was deeply influenced by Wilson’s back in the days when I was setting up shop as a critic a quarter-century ago. I don’t read him much anymore, partly because I once read him so closely that I remember his work too well. But Menand’s essay has created in me a fresh appetite for revisiting Wilson, which strikes me as one of the essential attributes of a great piece of literary journalism.

Read the whole thing here, by all means.

Things I Learned Freshman Year

1. Charlemagne either died or was born or did something with the Holy Roman Empire in 800.

2. By placing one paper bag inside another paper bag you can carry home a milk shake in it.

3. There is a double l in the middle of “parallel.”

4. Powder rubbed on the chin will take the place of a shave if the room isn’t very light.

5. French nouns ending in “aison” are feminine.

6. Almost everything you need to know about a subject is in the encyclopedia.

7. A tasty sandwich can be made by spreading peanut butter on raisin bread.

8. A floating body displaces its own weight in the liquid in which it floats.

9. A sock with a hole in the toe can be worn inside out with comparative comfort.

10. The chances are against filling an inside straight.

11. There is a law in economics called The Law of Diminishing Returns, which means that after a certain margin is reached returns begin to diminish. This may not be correctly stated, but there is a law by that name.

12. You begin tuning a mandolin with A and tune the other strings from that.

Robert Benchley, “What College Did to Me”

Things I Learned Freshman Year

1. Charlemagne either died or was born or did something with the Holy Roman Empire in 800.

2. By placing one paper bag inside another paper bag you can carry home a milk shake in it.

3. There is a double l in the middle of “parallel.”

4. Powder rubbed on the chin will take the place of a shave if the room isn’t very light.

5. French nouns ending in “aison” are feminine.

6. Almost everything you need to know about a subject is in the encyclopedia.

7. A tasty sandwich can be made by spreading peanut butter on raisin bread.

8. A floating body displaces its own weight in the liquid in which it floats.

9. A sock with a hole in the toe can be worn inside out with comparative comfort.

10. The chances are against filling an inside straight.

11. There is a law in economics called The Law of Diminishing Returns, which means that after a certain margin is reached returns begin to diminish. This may not be correctly stated, but there is a law by that name.

12. You begin tuning a mandolin with A and tune the other strings from that.

Robert Benchley, “What College Did to Me”

So the big orange bible, otherwise known as the Chicago Manual of Style, has its own Web site, complete with questions answers from the editors. Which raises the question: how big a blue-pencil-wielding geek am I? Sizable enough, it turns out, to have read through the entire archive of questions and answers during the last week like a junkie. Yes, it’s exactly that bad. But the CMS editors made it easy on me; they address everything thrown at them with clarity, good grace, and considerable wit, making for some surprisingly diverting reading–if, you know, you’re a giant blue-pencil-wielding GEEK. Say it with me: One of us! Gobble Gobble!

Send them your burning style question, or just browse the archives for some excellent advice:

Although the sign was incorrect, I’m not sure you should annoy the person who provides the enchiladas.

Words to live by.

So the big orange bible, otherwise known as the Chicago Manual of Style, has its own Web site, complete with questions answers from the editors. Which raises the question: how big a blue-pencil-wielding geek am I? Sizable enough, it turns out, to have read through the entire archive of questions and answers during the last week like a junkie. Yes, it’s exactly that bad. But the CMS editors made it easy on me; they address everything thrown at them with clarity, good grace, and considerable wit, making for some surprisingly diverting reading–if, you know, you’re a giant blue-pencil-wielding GEEK. Say it with me: One of us! Gobble Gobble!

Send them your burning style question, or just browse the archives for some excellent advice:

Although the sign was incorrect, I’m not sure you should annoy the person who provides the enchiladas.

Words to live by.