The Start

This episode includes these departments:

• Word of the Day

• Art and Life, about…well, you’ll have to see for yourself

• Photography, which I’m never going to completely figure out.

• Tales from the Forest, where Magpie is frustrated with Hare (as usual)

• Recommendations, some links you might like.

  Word of the day

The thing about dictionaries in English is this: they’re descriptive, not prescriptive. Words don’t enter English because you find them in the dictionary; it works in exactly the opposite way. Words enter English, then eventually they (probably) show up in a dictionary.

So how, exactly, do words enter English? It’s simple: social media. The original social medium is language itself, and a word enters English because somebody uses it, their “followers” pick up on it and start using it too, and eventually it shows up in the search engines — or “dictionaries”.

The premier dictionary in English — not that it’s any more authoritative than any other dictionary, but it’s got the best articles about word histories and origins — is the Oxford English Dictionary (OED). It’s a great resource for poking around into words that are obscure, out of fashion, and for whatever reason have de-viralized to the extent that hardly anybody knows them. Take “absquatulate”, for example. It’s a perfectly good word. The rules of English are known to have a relatively flexible approach to what makes a good word — another way to say that is that anything can be a perfectly good English word and there aren’t any rules. Absquatulate had plenty of followers a couple of centuries ago. Everybody knew, at that point, that it meant to leave in a hurry; run away. By now the word is so obscure relatively few people recognize it.

That’s another function of dictionaries in English; they’re audit logs. You can look back in the log and find evidence about what was going on linguistically at some point in the past. They’re not organized chronologically (usually), but you can find similar resources that are.

But if dictionaries have served as the search engines of English for the past centuries, what about now, when we have software we really call search engines? We’ve still got dictionaries, of course, and people are still working hard at maintaining and updating them. But guess what they use to do that now? Right, search engines. And if a new word turns up in Google and looks like it’s in “general enough” usage, into the log — that is, the dictionary — it goes. That’s basically how it’s worked the whole time, whether or not Google was available. In 1965 the OED noticed that “biohazard” was being used and added it. Totally analog process (as far as I know). More recently they added “clickjacking”, and Google was undoubtedly involved. The subtext here is that Google is not as important as we think and there’s nothing innovative about it. It’s just a different way to do the same things everybody’s been doing forever.

And what they’ve been doing has always been about social media followers, whether they’ve been conversational speakers whose audience depended on the volume of their voice, or ink-stained wretches whose audience depended on printing presses and horse-drawn wagons, or computer users whose audience depends on retweets. So get busy; we have “absquatulate” to vote up and “de-viralize” to popularize.

Art and Life

In his latest article in The Atlantic, “Why the Past 10 Years of American Life Have Been Uniquely Stupid,” Jonathan Haidt mentions James Madison’s recognition that democratic societies can suffer from “the turbulence and weakness of unruly passions.” Haidt points out that to create a “sustainable republic” is to “build in mechanisms to slow things down” and “cool passions.”

Doesn’t nearly everyone want to slow down, lately? It seems so simple — even though to “slow down” means a lot of different things, any one of them feels, in the abstract, very possible. You might slow down your manic schedule by just taking some things out of it. Cancel some things. Tell your friends you need to postpone for a week. Take a day or two off work. Or you might slow down the manic pace your life has, somehow, acquired. Delete some bookmarks. Don’t open Facebook or Twitter for a day. Visit your favorite coffee shop but leave your laptop and your phone at home.

It’s easier said than done, though, isn’t it? And we haven’t even gotten to some more extreme possibilities. Start reading a book. A long book. Maybe a really long book. Books, I think, are a “slow art;” they’re usually linear, and your consciousness passes into and through them over a period of, usually, hours. There are two ways to engage the slow art of books though, and the slower choice is not reading; it’s writing. Authors can take years to finish a book. As an author myself, I think most projects like that involve intermittent time. You hit a fertile period of writing, then pause for a while to do more research, or let your thoughts evolve, or even tackle some other projects before coming back to the book.

But at least one author — or creator; he made the pictures for his books along with the words — must have persisted pretty steadily, and for most of his life. I’m talking about Henry Darger. He was a man whose life seems to have been dedicated to slow, steady progress on his creations. The biggest and slowest was his novel The Story of the Vivian Girls, in What Is Known as the Realms of the Unreal, of the Glandeco-Angelinian War Storm, Caused by the Child Slave Rebellion. It’s 15,145 pages long. He typed it himself, and added hundreds of pictures he created in his own unique style. His style was so unique, in fact, that it spawned a whole style, “Dargerism.”

I’m not sure anybody is ever going to read Darger’s longest book (he wrote others too, shorter, but also thousands of pages). But Darger didn’t seem to be writing for an audience. Hardly anybody even knew about his work during his lifetime; he lived a life so radically different from the sort that most of us want to “slow down from” that it’s hard to imagine. He was radically solitary; he had only one friend, and never had visitors to his tiny apartment. He was radically habitual; he lived in the same Chicago apartment for decades, and attended Catholic mass up to five times per day. And of course, he worked on his manuscripts and paintings. He bound his books himself; they all occupied multiple volumes. Some of his paintings were up to thirty feet wide — much bigger than would fit, fully unfolded, into his two small rooms.

If Darger was trying to contain “the turbulence and weakness of unruly passions” he may have felt, I think he succeeded. The Story of the Vivan Girls reportedly contains some violent episodes and horrific scenes, but Darger’s own adult life seems to have been entirely free of such things. His early life may have been different; maybe that opened up the strange path he followed.

While most of us are engaged in the manic quest for stimulus, though, Henry Darger went a completely different way. His physical life was a model of sameness and repetition, and his intellectual life was quite the opposite. I wonder if that’s behind some of the modern yearning for slowness. When our physical lives are so full of stimuli and events and just things happening, are we really wishing for a richer mental and spiritual existence? And is there some sort of universal constant at work here? Does clamor and activity in your physical life mean less of that in the other realm?

Henry Darger’s existence is more difficult to visualize in close detail than the life of most fictional characters. Picture any popular character from a completely unreal world — Harry Potter, Wonder Woman, or even Charlotte the spider. Their worlds are unlike ours, but their lives within those worlds are not so different, really. Darger’s life, though…it’s a strange and alien and radical case of slowness. Focusing on him for a time — not even on his works — might it be a way to find a solution to our personal versions of Madison’s “turbulence and weakness of unruly passions?”

Photography

This is a photo from an unusual vantage point. Notice the difference in resolution between the sky and the ground? It’s not retouched; it’s taken from a rooftop restaurant that had a glass wall to block the wind. You can see the line of glass right below the top of the hills. I liked the way the glass gave the city (San Miguel de Allende) a slightly unreal look under an amazing sunset. It seemed to be the way the rooftop restaurant was designed to make you feel; you’re part of the real sky, and the earth you came from, so far down below, isn’t quite real anymore. It’s like a story you’ve left behind and risen beyond. As long as dinner lasts, at least. Taken with an iPhone.

Tales from the Forest

Beauty in your eye

“I would know if I had something in my eye, Magpie,” said Hare.

“I didn’t mean that sort of something,” said Magpie, “I mean the kind of thing you have in your eye because you’re the only one who sees it.”

“The only time theres a thing that only I can see,” said Hare, “is when there’s nobody else around. Not everybody has eyes as good as yours, Magpie. Now, if you want to talk about things that only I can hear, we might get somewhere. Finally.”

Hare was getting tired of the conversation. Magpie had been trying to convince him of something — he still wasn’t quite sure what — since breakfast.

“That could be,” said Magpie, cocking her head to the side the way she did when she thought about something. “Yes, I think it’s true. It would be in your ear, too.”

“There is nothing in my ears,” said Hare. “My ears are quite clean, Magpie.”

“It’s got nothing to do with whether they’re clean. I’m talking about an idea, Hare.”

“Ideas are in your head, not in your ears,” sniffed Hare. “Or in your eyes, for that matter.”

Magpie sighed. “Do you know what a metaphor is, Hare?”

“I am a leporid who lives in a forest and talks to loony birds,” said Hare, “why would I know what a metaphor is? Why don’t you go talk to Beaver? I’m sure he knows.”

“What is it that I know?” asked Beaver, who had just ambled into the meadow.

“Metaphors,” said Hare. “And…well, there’s something else Magpie has been trying to explain, but I still don’t know what it is. Something about getting something in your eye and letting your ears get dirty.”

“That is not what I’ve been talking about at all,” huffed Magpie, fluffing her feathers in annoyance. “I’m glad you’re here, Beaver. Maybe you can help me explain to Hare.”

“Maybe I can,” said Beaver. “Maybe there something that would help in this new book I have.” He proudly waved the bright yellow book he was carrying. “I haven’t read it yet,” he said, “but from the cover, I think Otter might be interested. It’s about fish.”

“What kind of fish?” asked Hare, who was hoping something would distract Magpie.

“Let me see,” said Beaver, peering at the cover. “It seems to be about catch limits — human fishermen have those, you know — and different species of fish. Yes, I’ve read about this process. The humans catch too many fish sometimes, so they put limits on how many fish of different kinds each fisherman is allowed to catch.”

“What’s the title?” asked Magpie, who seemed to be getting interested. At least Hare hoped so.

“One fish, two fish, red fish, blue fish,” read Beaver.

“Hmmm,” said Magpie, “That title could be in anapestic tetrameter. I wonder if that was on purpose. If it was, Beaver, I think the book might not be about fishing at all.”

“Oh, that’s interesting,” lied Hare. “Can you tell us more about antiseptic tetra…whatever, Magpie?” To himself, Hare whispered “please, please, please…”

“Some other time,” said Magpie. “I haven’t finished my first explanation, Hare. Now, Beaver, let me tell you what I’ve been trying to explain.”

“Rats,” said Hare.

“Hmmm?” said Magpie.

“Betty and Ralph Rat. They’re just coming down the path. Hello Betty! Hello Ralph!”

The Rats came over to where Hare, Beaver, and Magpie were standing. “Hello, Hare,” they said. “Hi Beaver, how are you, Magpie. We were out for a walk and thought we would stop by to see if you were in.”

“Thanks for coming,” said Hare. “I was just about to bake some tea cakes, if anyone would like some. It won’t take long. I’ll just have to go inside for a bit…” Hare started edging hopefully toward his house.

“Oh just a moment!” said Magpie. “Ralph, Betty, I’m glad to see you. You can help me with an explanation.”

Ralph and Betty Rat worked at the college, and everyone in the forest knew they were very good at explaining things.

“Why, we would love to help,” said Betty. “What is it you’re trying to explain, Magpie?”

Magpie settled down happily. “I was just trying to explain to Hare about ‘beauty being in the eye of the beholder,” she said.

“And I was just saying,” said Hare, “that if I had something in my eye, I would be the first to know about it.”

Ralph and Betty laughed. “‘Beauty is in the eye of the beholder’ is a quotation,” said Ralph.

“That’s right,” said Betty, “and if I remember correctly…”

“Which you always do,” said Ralph.

“…it was Margaret Wolfe Hungerford who first wrote it, in her novel “Molly Bawn.”

“Yes,” said Ralph, “It was published in 1878. It was quite popular at the time, and it was even mentioned decades later by James Joyce in Ulysses.”

“In chapter 18,” said Betty.

“Precisely,” said Ralph.

“That’s the same chapter where there’s a mention of tea cakes,” said Betty.

“Some tea cakes would be lovely, wouldn’t they?”

“Did you say tea cakes?” said Hare. “If you’ll come in for just a bit, I’ll make some for everyone!” Hare dashed into his house.

Ralph and Betty Rat took Beaver’s arms and strolled into the house after Hare.

“But wait,” said Magpie, “I haven’t…Hare doesn’t…it’s a…” then Magpie remembered Hare’s tea cakes. She shrugged and went in.

Recommendations

Corey Doctorow’s Pluralistic is an always-interesting dive into digital freedoms, corporate and legal intersections with technology, and leading-edge writing. In addition to his blog, Doctorow is an award-winning science fiction writer.

UBUWeb is a treasure trove of digital content and films around art, commentary, and a wild variety of other topics. You have to know what you’re looking for though. I’d suggest starting with The Shock of the New and Ways of Seeing.

BBC Maestro is a new service offering digital courses led by masters in various fields. They’re not free, but if you’re interested in, for example, learning what Alan Moore has to say about becoming a writer, they’re well worth the cost.

Jon Katz was an urban journalist, a suburban author, and is now a rural blogger with heartfelt and unusual insights into the animals and neighbors of Bedlam Farm.

The Finish

Thanks for reading Feake Hills and Crooked Waters! Please share if you like it, and if you think it could be better, or different, let me know in a comment. And always remember what Thoreau said: “simplify, simplify.”