Display by Label: Language

I like accents of all kinds. They make language interesting. And I'm always slightly jealous of people who have accents. For some reason, I never developed one. The standard response from people when I tell them I grew up in Texas is: "Funny, you don't have an accent." And I explain it by saying that while my dad's family are New York Italians who say "Yous" (as in "you all"), and my mom's family are Midwesterner's who drink "pop" (pronounced "pap") and who show wonderment or exasperation with an "Oh, Geez", we moved when I was quite young to a neighborhood in Houston where just about everybody was from someplace else. So there was really no strong accent influence on me. Sure, I had a heavy dosage of East Texas twang administered to me on a daily basis. Sure just about everybody I met said "ya'll" and pronounced Houston, "Youston," without the H. But these rituals of dialect were never something I joined in on. For some reason, it never wore off on me. I guess it's because my nearest friends and family were all from someplace else and spoke plain old boring English. Now, as an adult, I feel a little cheated.

Being in Maryland and DC has made accents much more of a novelty to me. You just don't hear them everyday. There is really no DC accent, probably because it truly is a town where most everybody is from somewhere else and is on their way to somewhere else. There is a Maryland accent, but it's subtle. They do a thing where they draw out their long O's. It's not something you recognize immediately, but the longer you're here, you begin to notice it. Anyway, because of the lack of a strong regional accent, I am always surprised when I go to other areas of the states now and find that—wow—everyday people really do talk like this here! It's not just something you hear on TV or the radio. It's an actual thing. I know, it sounds stupid to think this way. I mean, of course they do. But it really takes a few minutes to sink in. I've even experienced this when I go back to Texas, where I spent most of my life, and where I shouldn't really be surprised by such a thing. And I really felt it this past week while I was up in New Jersey. I had to stop myself from asking people to repeat things just because I loved the way they said it. I'm sorry, could you just tell me that story one more time, please. And this time really emphasize the "fugetaboutit" part.

I love the New Jersey accent. To my ears, it's pretty much the same as a New York accent. I guess if I were from the area, maybe I would notice subtle differences between the two—the same way I can tell when people are from East Texas or West Texas. Or the same way an English person might notice whether somebody is from London or Liverpool. A lot of people from the Northeast simply hear a Southern accent and think, that person's from The South. But when you grow up in The South, you really hear Texas Twang vs. Arkansas Drawl. Tennessee Mountain vs Georgia Old South. It's all very fascinating to me how dialect plays a part in identity.

C's family are French-Canadian on one side and English on the other. Depending on who she's with she can change accents like pairs of shoes. I can't do French Canadian very well, but I can sort of pull off "Ontario Hoser," only because I grew up worshiping Bob and Doug McKenzie. And of course, because I spent so many years in the lone-star state, I can do a passable Texan. I can almost pull off a Michigan-style Midwestern if you give me some time. But I can't do New York to save my life. And that really distresses me because it should be part of my genetic make-up. Maybe when we move to New Jersey that'll change.

link to this | comments (1) | File:  Language 

It took us about 40 minutes to get through the security line at Dulles last week. Not the longest line I'd been in, but not exactly short either. As we got closer to the metal detectors, a TSA agent made an important announcement. Her hands cupped over her mouth, at full voice, she shouted what seemed to be a set of instructions. And when she was finished we were all very impressed. And we knew - this was not somebody to be trifled with. These were clearly important instructions and we would follow them.

If we could only recall a single one.

"Did you understand what she just said?" asked C.

"Well, yeah. Sure I did," I offered. "Of course. She said . . . you know, for people to go over there, I think . . . and then . . ." I scratched my head. The instructions had seemed so absolute. So clear. And yet I was having difficulty bringing them to mind. "Strange," I said. "They seemed pretty obvious a second ago."

Then it happened again. More shouting. And sounds coming from her mouth, sounds which had all the qualities of speech - tone, distinct syllables, vowels, consonants - and yet these sounds brought to mind no particular words, no real language.

"Amazing," I said.

"Is that a language?"

"I don't think so."

"But I sort of understand it."

"I know."

We were witnessing a great and wonderful thing: the conveyance of meaning through lingual sounds completely disassociated from any recognizable language. It was incredible.

Roughly translated, this was the overall message:

You folks there - go over there in that line!

Okay now. Move, move, move. Let's go!

Now you folks - go to that line!

Have your boarding pass in your hand!

Only liquids in 5-ounce bottles are allowed!

Laptops out of cases!

See? We understood. We got it. The thoughts were planted in our brains. And yet when we tried to reconstruct the exact way they had arrived there, the means by which they had been rooted, we were at a loss. It was as if the barrier between language and meaning had been momentarily knocked down allowing us to look directly at the colorful lava lamp of transcendence. It gave me the shivers.

One of my favorite parts of a Cirque du Soleil performance is when the clowns walk among the audience members before the show starts, engaging themselves - and the crowd - in various acts of slapstick humor. My grandfather liked clowns, too. He collected them. And I think I know at least one of the reasons why: like my grandfather, clowns are people of few words. They're oddly fascinating, clowns. And part of the reason is that they don't speak. That is, they don't speak English. Or French. Or any discernible language, really. If they speak at all, they speak in a tongue called Gibberish, a dialect most people don't understand without the aid of expressive body movements, which clowns are great at. It's a subtle magic, what clowns do. And the spell is that when they speak Gibberish, you can understand it. You laugh. And that's all that matters.

I sometimes wish all communication were like this. Less what we say, and more how we say it. Get to the core, man.

There's a guy selling the Washington Post each morning at the corner of K and New York. He walks hunched over, and with a swaying limp, holding the papers in his left hand, one held up high over his head in his right, belting out two words: POOOOAH! . . . . AIYYYYY! Then a pause. Then again: POOOOAH! . . . . AIYYYYY! And repeat. Okay, they're not really words. More like sounds. And in any other circumstance, they might be taken for some kind of backwards hip-hop chant. (Which, if I'm honest, is actually how I like to think of them.) They echo through the morning air from a couple blocks away in either direction. Now, I know what he's saying. It's this: POOOOOst! todAYYYYY! But does it really matter? The main idea is he's holding a stack of papers and making a lot of noise. I get it: he's selling the Post. Effectively, I might add.

C and I sometimes stop using the English language with one another. We will utter strange, primal phrases like the kind you find frozen in ice in the highest regions of Mount Everest. Ancient syllables that, through the cupcake of time, find their way to our lips where they take form and quiver directly on our consciousness, tap-dancing lightly on our temporal lobe. I guess it's something married couples develop. The ability to create new languages. It's kind of like music.

Okay, I've jumped around a lot, I know. But here's the deal: Sometimes language is an obstacle. This weekend, try talking gibberish to some people. It's liberating. And you might just find people understand you. They may even understand you better.

That is all. Have a good weekend. And if you have a moment, take a look at some more San Francisco pics.

link to this | comments (7) | File:  Chewing  Language 

Last month, I listened to Sarah Hepola reading her Slate article on NPR and it struck a chord with me. The article was about her shutting down her blog so that she could dedicate more of her time to other writing. I think a lot of writers start a blog as a way to hone their writing, only to find that the blog becomes consuming to the degree that it actually becomes their writing and they stop working so much on other things. Part of me would argue that this shouldn't necessarily be construed as such a bad thing. Part of me would say, why shouldn't the blog be just as valid a form of writing as, say, a novel or magazine article. I do feel that there are some blogs out their that could, in fact, be termed 'literary,' and which transcend the stigma of 'online journal.' And if you make money doing it, all the better.

Then there is the other part of me that wakes up some mornings and realizes that the novel I started about six months ago has gone untouched for three weeks and there is still no end in site and, you know, what the fuck am I doing? Well, like Hepola, one thing I am doing more of is blogging . . . go figure.

The dangerous thing about blogging when you're a writer is the rush of satisfaction you get from finishing something, and then immediately publishing it. I think this stems from a fact about writing that many writers, including me, don't like to admit: We don't actually like to write.

I should probably explain what I mean by this. It sounds strange, doesn't it? Shameful, perhaps? If you don't like to write, why do you do it? How can you even call yourself a writer in the first place?

Good questions, and they feed on the most basic fear of any writer: What if I am not actually a writer? What if I am an imposter? From various articles and books I've read on the subject, I know that even the most successful writers continue to ask themselves these things, even after publishing several works. They continue to wonder if their next novel, story, or poem will be the one where everyone finds out the truth: they are not writers, after all.

I think these questions plague writers because of how our culture uses language to describe activities that we enjoy doing. Bare with me while I work through this . . . I'm kind of fascinated by how language implies meaning, which I know can be kind of tedious for others . . .

We will say, "I like doing X." Which can be taken to mean, "I derive pleasure from the act of doing X, which is the reason I do it." Certainly, for many activities, this makes a lot of sense. Some people enjoy surfing. Which is to say, they derive pleasure from the act of doing it and, therefore, they do it. Likewise, some people enjoy the act of playing music. They derive pleasure from those moments in which music is being made by themselves, or with others, such as when playing in a band. People might talk about both of these activities in retrospect by saying something to the effect of: "I really enjoyed playing music with my band yesterday." Or: "I really enjoyed surfing yesterday." Meaning: "This thing I did was enjoyed at the time I was doing it. I remember that enjoyment and therefore I will aim to do it again." What they like about the activity is not having done it, but rather the actual doing of it.

Writing is not like that, at least not for me, and yet I tend to use the same language to describe it. When I'm at some social event and somebody asks me what I do, I will often respond first by saying I'm a Web developer (since this is how I make money and, therefore, seems more "practical"). Then I might add: "But I also like to write." Since I don't actually make a living writing yet, this is a socially-accepted way for me to describe something I do, while also justifying the act through the assertion that I like to do it. But every time I say it, I cringe because it rings false to me. I mean, it's not completely a lie, but it's not completely honest, either.

What I really want to say is this: "I like having written. And I continue to write because I feel compelled to do it. Because if I did not do it, I would probably drink too much, go crazy, or commit suicide, or all three. Which is funny because sometimes the act of writing also makes me drink too much, feel crazy, and instills in me a terrible urge to jump out of my fifth-story apartment window."

But that probably wouldn't go over too well at cocktail parties, would it? I would surely receive a blank stare, to which I might have to laugh uncomfortably and say something like: "I mean, not funny in a ha-ha way. More of an ironic sort of funny, you know?"

I'm sure some people out there enjoy the craft of writing, the process of it. They like sitting at their desk, alone with their materials. They may like the physical qualities of those materials, whatever they are: the feel of the pen in hand, the weight of a fresh piece of paper, the hum of the typewriter or the sexiness of a new laptop computer. They might get a rush of excitement simply from the idea, the promise of it all. And if that's you, then I say great! I don't mean to discredit you. In fact, I admire and envy you. Granted, I think you are most certainly a masochist, but even in this I'm green. I want to know that kind of devotion, even if it is self-destructive.

But let it be known: this is not me. I do not care for the materials. They only remind me what writing is: a difficult, lonely process which makes you feel entirely inadequate because of how confined you are by language. Indeed, the act of writing involves trying to piece together words to describe thoughts, concepts, feelings, and emotions. At best, your efforts will only symbolize the things you want to describe. They will never be the thing itself. Which means the whole impossible endeavor is, in its very nature, flawed, full of uncertainty and doubt.

Sounds pretty fun doesn't it? Wondering where to sign up? If the whole thing is shit, you might wonder, why the hell do it?

Ah-ha. Here's what I'm getting at: The pleasure for me is not in the craft, it is in the end result. And when that end result, however flawed and inadequate, comes close to touching upon the initial intuition that sparked it, well, there's not much that compares to that feeling. Indeed, I'd go so far as to say there is nothing that compares to it. It's a high - a tremendous, though fleeting, sense of satisfaction.

Which probably means most writers spend ninety-five percent of their time dissatisfied, desperately trying to reproduce that high.

Which brings me back to blogs. I think posting to a blog is alluring for some writers because it allows them to achieve a finished product quicker and more frequently, which, in turn, leads to a more frequent sense of reward and pleasure. To be blunt, it satisfies a fix. It has all the same characteristics of a fix: momentary euphoria, a sense of contentedness and well-being, and a deferment of all ailments. It's also something of a 'social' activity, the way other drugs might be, and in a way that most fiction writing is not. Unfortunately, it also makes the glaring reality of what you didn't accomplish all the more painful when you wake up the next morning.

For any addict, the first step to recovery is recognizing and admitting you have a problem. While I think that the blog is slowly developing into it's own stylistic form, the fact remains that I would like to finish at least one novel in my lifetime and posting to a blog is not going to get me there. Ideally, I'd like to find a way to integrate the two mediums, but there seems to be a lot of distance between them at the moment, which is probably a topic for another post.

Sarah Hepola dealt with the problem of not writing by halting her blog. This is what worked for her. While I recognize a similar problem and sympathize with the way she chose to deal with it, I don't think I'll ever reach that same resolution. I am, after all, a geek in addition to a writer. I have a fascination with the Internet and all the online technologies that go along with it. So, for me, my blog is not only 'online writing forum,' but also an 'online technology training ground.' I don't think putting a halt to the blog altogether will increase my writing productivity, although I do think it's important to recognize its potential for being a pitfall and try to moderate my urge to post.

The last couple of weeks, I've found a new motivation and drive to work on my novel and I've made some good progress.* A finished product is still not imminent, but I feel once again that I'm on the right track. Part of what has worked for me is coming to grips with the fear of writing and recognizing that it isn't the act of writing I actually enjoy. It's the having written. And you don't get there until you produce a lot of work, most of which will probably not be that good. Most of which, in fact, will be shit. But coming to terms with this has been freeing for me and has allowed me to work unselfconsciously. It's taken away some of the pressure and unfair self-criticisms.

So when I'm not doing work on the Web, I'm going to keep aiming for the long-term payoff of a novel. I'm going to try to post here with less frequency, or length, or both, but I'm going to continue to keep it handy for a quick fix when I need it.

*Note: A lot of this was inspired by Art and Fear, which I would highly recommend to anybody with a creative block.

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Last night I went to a W&L alumni happy hour. I thought it might be a good warm-up for me, as my 10-year college reunion is coming up in May. It turns out that I was the oldest alumni at the happy hour. When confronted with that sort of reality, there's nothing more soothing than downing a pint of Big Hunt brew, which I did . . . twice . . . in rapid succession.

I don't often go to these alumni get-togethers. While I'm proud of my alma mater, there's only so much of it I can take. This is because I quickly become unsettled by how different I am from most people who went to my college and it leads to a sort of mini identity crisis. If you know me and you click on the link to the school above, you'll see what I mean. Catherine can't get over the fact that I went to school here. I'll just say in my defense that, despite the southern conservative backdrop, the professors at this school were actually quite liberal, which made it an overall great experience. But I can't say it wasn't difficult at times to be an unabashedly liberal, grunge-styled Gen X'r at a school whose student body was mostly conservative and nearly 90% greek (and for those of you who don't understand this term, I'm referring to the fact that sororities and fraternities dominated the social scene, not to nationality). This was something that led to a vast amount of angst and cigarette smoking in college among me and my small circle of friends. But now that I am older it just seems humorous. The majority of people who went to my college seem to be at home sporting suits and ties, or dresses that make them look twenty years older than they actually are. Their backgrounds tend to involve things like cotillions, country clubs, and private high-schools. But despite having very different backgrounds and tastes from my own, I have come to realize that most people I meet from my college are generally nice and open to conversation, even if it involves lively debate. And that's a good thing.

Anyway, I digress. Here's what I wanted to talk about: one thing I found myself paying attention to last night was the different way people introduced themselves. In general, most people I meet introduce themselves by their first name only. In fact, of all the people I met recently at SXSWi, this was the standard. But last night, I met a few people who used both their first and last names when introducing themselves. It occurred to me that this sort of introduction left an impression on me that was quite different than if they had only used their first names. Using both names seemed a little more assertive, somehow. Maybe even a little self-aggrandizing. I don't mean to paint this either positively or negatively, because I think the specific effect probably is different depending on the person giving and/or receiving the introduction. But whatever the effect, it definitely seems to call attention to itself. Has anybody else ever noticed this, or is it just me? Thoughts?

Going beyond introductions, it's interesting to note the effect of using a full name when referring to or addressing other people. When parents use first and last names to address a child, it usually means anger. It's meant to instill a certain degree of fear in the child and let them know they've done something stupid, wrong, or both. However, if one of your close friends does it, as in calling you on your cell and saying 'Hey Brad Smith. Where you at?' it would probably just be weird. There was a guy I knew in high school who used a person's first and last name whenever he addressed them in casual conversation. But he did it in such a way that it always seemed funny. It was his brand of humor, I guess. I've tried addressing people this way, but it doesn't really work for me. I prefer using nicknames.

Anyway, at my 10 year reunion, I'll know most of the people I'm likely to hang out with, so there won't be a need for much in the way of introductions. I'll mostly be 'catching up.' But when I do meet people, I'm going to try the first name, last name method on a few people and see how it fits.

link to this | comments (6) | File:  Language  College  Chewing 

It seems like I've been posting a lot lately about the idea of communication without words. Of course, it's always a strange subject to write about because you actually have to use words to do it. Which means there's no effective way to do it. (Which also means I should probably not even try.) It would be so much better if I could just say, it's like this, where this were some sort of magical image or sound that could somehow convey the whole thought. Musicians do this (or try to, at least) all the time. If you've ever listened to a conversation between a bunch of musicians, you know it can be pretty entertaining in its own way. Just pick up a DVD sometime like the making of Let it Be or I Am Trying to Break Your Heart, which is the documentary about the making of Wilco's Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. Or listen to an interview with just about any rock, blues, or jazz musician. They're speaking English, for the most part, but it's layered with some other dialect, some other mode of speaking. Okay, okay, maybe some of it is drug-induced. But I think mostly it's a result of what happens when people try to talk about music.

Basically, words only take you so far. While there is the practical, almost mathematical rationality of music - the actual notes, key signatures, tempo, style - the elements that can be described with a concrete, structured language, there is, at the same time, the irrational, emotional side of music, for which there is no real language, but which usually takes the form of bursts of laughter, anger, or incomplete sentences and thoughts that don't make much sense at face value. . . 'it's like this, only not, you know?'

So yeah, musicians talking about (and playing) music is a strange communion. Probably part of the reason people think musicians are half-baked all the time is because they don't really think in words. They think in sounds. And emotions. So when you get a bunch of musicians together talking and playing, it's often abstract like a drug trip, even when no drugs are involved. It can also be a bit volatile, concluding in either exhilaration or animosity. But there's nothing better than having those exchanges, especially when you're all on the same page musically. And you don't know if you're going to be until you try. I've heard many musicians compare it to sex, which is usually uncomfortable to acknowledge, but is probably pretty accurate.

Anyway, all this is sort of a lead in to this: I've been taking jazz piano lessons from a musician named Robert. They are going really well and part of the reason is that we speak the same language. Robert comes from a 'stride' background. Fats Waller, Count Basie, Art Tatum, Oscar Peterson: the kind of stuff I love. We spend a good part of each session talking about their different styles and what can be taken away from their playing. We talk about theory. I've had a lot of theory in the past, but the cool thing with Robert is he actually shows me ways to apply it. He likes pointing out the mathematical rationality of music, but he also acknowledges that at some point all that goes out the window and you just do it. He's taught me several new styles and techniques that I'm sure are going to improve my playing over time. My fingers are picking up a new vocabulary, new expressions, new ways to say things. The strange and 'disruptive' part about this whole process is that my fingers are simultaneously having to 'unlearn' their native tongue, the street slang and bad habits they've picked up over the years. Yeah, my left hand feels kind of like Eliza Doolittle.

So I've entered this strange new territory where my mind is telling my fingers to do new things, but my fingers haven't reached the point where they can do those things easily. At the same time, my fingers no longer seem to want to do the old things they were doing before. They've become self-conscious. Hesitant. Unsure. As a result, I find myself hardly being able to play anything at all, either the old way or the new way, which is kind of annoying. And unsettling. This is going to be a long process, but I'm making a progress each week and I'm just anxious to see where things wind up in a year or two.

So there it is, another long post about music. Or language. Or both. I'm sorry for subjecting you all to these. But I just need to get this stuff off my chest, however inadequately. I realize that writing about language of any kind (music, art, or literature - writing about writing) is pretty dry, decidedly un-sexy stuff. Maybe that's why linguists don't get much play. I mean Mr. Safire is smart and witty and all, but would you want to sleep with him? Maureen Dowd, on the other hand, not a 'linguist,' and, the answer there? Um, in a heartbeat.

link to this | comments (3) | File:  Music  Language  Chewing