Next stop Mongolia

For a while I didn't have a suitable contingency to my Plan. I think I spit out something about drinking a bunch, predictably. Well here's some shit: if things don't work out, I'm going to Mongolia. There. There it is.

I like this new idea so much, in fact, that I may not even send out grad school applications - saying, naturally, that I did - and come August I'm going to tell everyone, perversely, that I got in and I'm off to Academe. (I'll probably choose one of the more unlikely schools: MIT, Stanford...)

I know that recently a good idea was floated about getting a big house with all our friends, raising chickens and playing music, a lovely idea to be sure. But if that house isn't in fucking Mongolia I'm not going to be living in it.

Don't you want Romance?

People had told me about Lady Gaga, but I didn't listen. You have to hear me. It would be perfectly acceptable if this was the only thing you listen to ever again.

Quote of the day

"Hemingway makes Rory look like a tame little mouse..." Billy

There's been some very penetrating literary discussion around the blogs recently. I haven't been keeping up on my reading, partly because I'm illiterate, partly because I'm often too drunk to read (or am asleep).

Annie and I are in a Book Club now and will be reading the Sound and the Fury, not necessarily in that order. I can't wait! I hope it doesn't have too much sex in it!

best-of-craigslist

Updated!!

One day I'll make it on here. But I haven't posted anything to Craigslist yet besides some really depressing ads for shit like mulching and landscaping. Oh! Which I do quite well! Oh. But it's too late in the season.

Anyway, I'm really pleased with the handful of new posts nominated to the best-of. Hard to say, but "Missed connection with the person who smashed my windshield," "me: intellectually/sexually frustrated; you: unsexy barista - w4m," and "need someone to sit on lap," I found particularly poignant.

I want to respond to these people with some simple and knowing kudos, but I'd feel weird. And the only one nearby is from Baltimore, the charmlessly all-caps "I GOT SOMEONES DEAD GRANDMOTHER IN URN." It's pretty fucked up. If you're someone I care about, please don't make contact with this person.

The Search

I've visited two schools so far: George Mason U, and University of Del.

At both places I initially met someone with an odd name: Tal at GMU, an older British fellow; and Gaby (pron. Gobby) at UD. Could also have been Tel, I have no idea. He showed me and another prospective student around campus, used his wry British wit to describe various buildings and facilities, talked about opera, and told us who George Mason was. I forget who he was.

Gaby (pron. Gobby) is interested in something something and "microparameters," which are interesting but let's not get into it. She showed me Dr. Heinz, a cool dude, and Dr. Bruening, who I did not like, though he was the only syntax guy there. Everyone, by the way, looked very different from their photos on the department's web site. Did I look at these photos to see if there were any hot grad students? Yes I did. That worked out nicely - it was the professors whose photos were deceitful.

In his photo, Bruening looks tall and handsome, up close he looks small and nervous. Heinz's photo portrays a short, plump, nerd, and in person he is tall and attractive, self-assured. Gobby looked a bit more shriveled and old than her photo, but she had on the same huge glasses.

The girl that showed me the child language labs was short and pretty, with bewilderingly giant brown eyes. I decided not to put the moves on her in the creepy "habituation" lab after she mentioned her "boyfriend." Oh! you coquettish developmental linguist.

Let's not forget my pizza party with the grad students! No, let's forget it.

-

Some lessons. It's awkward visiting these places. People seem to think it very unusual and I can see in their eyes they suspect something. Why? Why can't a guy visit a school?

Also, when you tell a person you're interested in syntax* (a perfectly reasonable thing to be interested in, as a linguist) - EVEN IF YOU'RE TELLING SOMEONE WHO DOES SYNTAX - they look at you like you're a fucking Martian. I'm pretty sure the study of syntax is the only reason linguistics is still relevant. If people could keep making up whatever they wanted about the structure of language, as they did before the 1950's, the field would be so wide open as to be quite desolate. Creativity flourishes under constraints - a lesson, in fact, from syntax.

It's a shame I didn't get to go over that sort of thing at University of Delaware, since I'm actually kind of excited about their program.

-

Bruening, being short and nervous - and rather young - tried to assail me with his intellect. Smart guy, but an asshole.

Heinz is a phonologist (pronounced funologist - he studies fun ... and speech sounds). As is the case with other phonologists I've met, he's a genius. He was much more agreeable.

(Chomsky, more or less, started out as a phonologist. Well, first as an anarchist.)

Gaby (pron. Gobby) discouraged me from applying - indirectly - as the department receives very little funding, and, as she told me, "there are very few syntax jobs." NO SHIT GOBBY, although I get plenty of time to think about grammar while I'm washing dishes.

Well at least she was honest. I still haven't heard back from my alma mater.

-

* Sorry for the jargon, syntax = grammar, basically.

My online presence has recently been characterized by an effusion of exclamation points. It's embarrassing. Please discard any recent messages from me containing one or more of these awful things. Thank you.

Of things manly

My dad and I did some pretty manly things today:

- Cut up a big tree with a chainsaw, fuck yeah!
- Chopped wood!
- Drove a pickup truck!

Tomorrow I go to the landfill, a place that is AWESOME.

Fuck yeah!

The World

Guess what, World. You left me for dead back there, but a latent will to live spurred me on, and it looks like I'm not going to have to commit hari kari just yet. I am referring, of course, to the Plan:

Phase One: Called and e-mailed every grad school within 200 miles (well, that has a linguistics program). Naturally, the ones that were most receptive to me are the furthest away: George Mason, UVA, and U of Delaware. "Delaware???" you gasp? Pretty good program from the looks of things. I suppose this part of the plan is just going to have to be a process, as there's still plenty of bullshit ahead. But I'm going to just very lightly in parentheses jot down "(success)" next to Phase One.

Phase Two: Looks like I'm washing dishes. $9/hr. Nice fellow hired me, no application. Now we'll just see about keeping the job, but I think we're on the right track here.

Contingency? Nope! I'm sober as a goose, my chemicals seem to be balanced, and I might even start being nice to people. It's fucked up!!

Candy

From the Arabic...

Etymology: Middle English sugre candy, part translation of Middle French sucre candi, from Old French sucre sugar plus Arabic qandi candied, from qand crystallized sugar!

The word was born in the 1400s, but the thing - the thing - is eternal.

Candy

I was thinking today. I rarely take candy, but when I do, it's almost always from strangers.

Sacco and Vanzetti

Good lookin guys!

Chronicle of My Failures: The Big Day

Tomorrow is the big day. I have promised to fail as a member of society, and even made a plan to do so, but I can't fail if I don't try. So tomorrow I'm getting up early and initiating the Plan. Usually when I'm determined to do this, I end up sleeping all day. Let's see what happens!

First, call the grad schools. Success here is the most desirable outcome, that's why it's first. I went to UMD, graduated, and feel like they at least owe me an apology for not telling me I should've applied to grad schools then, or at least warned me that "linguistics jobs" don't exist. So they get the first phone call and possibly several e-mails. I'm going to have to wave a wand to make a writing sample appear, I won't be getting any recommendations, and I'm definitely not taking the GREs. It's going to be hard to convey these things to these serious people, but I have a good feeling about it.

There are several other area schools I'll be contacting. At the bottom of the list is Gallaudet, the oldest liberal arts institution for deaf people. It's at the bottom of the list, not because I'm "audist," but because I don't know sign language so I'm not sure if this is a reasonable option. But I wrote some articles long ago that some of the students seemed to like, so maybe I'm in.

After this slog through phone calls and e-mails and disappointments of varying intensity, I'll try and find a job. I have four candidates from the want ads:

1. Server / dishwasher
2. Cashier
3. Bank teller (P/T)
4. Secretary

Cool, they don't require resumes and I can just charm them over the phone with my euphonious voice, hurtling the application process and landing myself square in front of a cash register / sink / etc. They won't know what hit them!

Marx and Lincoln

Puttering around at marxists.org I found a couple of official letters from the International Workingmen's Association, one to President Lincoln upon his reelection, the other to his successor upon his assassination.

The IWMA was the First International, largely steered by Karl Marx from its founding in 1864 until it moved to New York (mostly marking its decease) in 1872. The two letters are remarkable for their praise for the U.S. and the two presidents they're addressed to, considering Marx himself seems to have penned them.

To Lincoln, upon his reelection after the Civil War:

The workingmen of Europe feel sure that, as the American War of Independence initiated a new era of ascendancy for the middle class, so the American Antislavery War will do for the working classes. They consider it an earnest of the epoch to come that it fell to the lot of Abraham Lincoln, the single-minded son of the working class, to lead his country through the matchless struggle for the rescue of an enchained race and the reconstruction of a social world.

Did they really think that? It seems so optimistic to think that the end of slavery would "initiate a new era of ascendancy for the working classes!" And I like Lincoln well enough, but "single-minded son of the working class?" Hard to swallow.

Marx, we presume, was even so moved by Lincoln's murder, which he calls an "infamy," that he wrote a letter to the succeeding president, Andrew Johnson. Among other things, here is his elegy for Abe:

[H]e was a man, neither to be browbeaten by adversity, nor intoxicated by success, inflexibly pressing on to his great goal, never compromising it by blind haste, slowly maturing his steps, never retracing them, carried away by no surge of popular favour, disheartened by no slackening of the popular pulse, tempering stern acts by the gleams of a kind heart, illuminating scenes dark with passion by the smile of humour, doing his titanic work as humbly and homely as Heaven-born rulers do little things with the grandiloquence of pomp and state; in one word, one of the rare men who succeed in becoming great, without ceasing to be good. Such, indeed, was the modesty of this great and good man, that the world only discovered him a hero after he had fallen a martyr.

What! I thought we were just sort of supposed to revile our heads of state. Oh well. And again to President Johnson, who gets to share with Lincoln the dubious title "man of labour":

Yours, Sir, has become the task to uproot by the law what has been felled by the sword, to preside over the arduous work of political reconstruction and social regeneration. A profound sense of your great mission will save you from any compromise with stern duties. You will never forget that to initiate the new era of the emancipation of labour, the American people devolved the responsibilities of leadership upon two men of labour--the one Abraham Lincoln, the other Andrew Johnson.

Again, "the new era of the emancipation of labour." Great writer, old Karl. Some of that is so well-written it's nearly impossible to understand.

It's really worth cruising through random parts of the marxists.org archives for stuff like this. Among other gems, I've amused myself with "Marx and Engels' Early Literary Experiments," here - it's a boost to laugh at their early poetry and short stories, and a reassurance that they went on to be such awesome dudes.

The Plan

In my first post, if you care, it seems I promised a more biographical element to my Blog. I've been avoiding that, perhaps. But now it's down to it - I've run out of work, and reading mystery novels doesn't seem to produce a paycheck. So, on Monday, I'm gonna put on my good shoes and thrust myself into society. The plan is twofold.

One: call grad schools. Beg them to take me. I have a full-on degree, I should be able to get into a fucking graduate program. Arsenii tells me in Belarus they call your college degree your "life boat." Well, I've been saying I don't have one on job applications - it seems to be more like cement boots. But my understanding is that advanced programs actually want you to have a Bachelor's before applying. So, can't lose?

Two: job. Shit job. Anything. Except I don't have any references, I have a terrible work history, and I refuse to fill out an application or write a resume. I don't hold out a lot of hope for this phase of the plan.

Contingency: savings. I have these. I am going to spend them on booze until they run out then I'm going to jump off of something very tall.

I'm happy to take bets on the Plan or its separate components.

Lawn is crying?

A poem from craigslist:

"Lawn is Crying Help I am cover with leaves? (MD/DC/VA)"

Is the lawn cover with leasves?

The lawn needs a little cutting?

The brushes are running wild and needs to be trimmed?

Beds need to be cleared?

All you landscaping needs can be done with us.

My new friend

Oh, it's almost four in the morning? All hours, meet my new friend:

SODA!!

Garnish support

Here's a new one. I'm not sure if it's a malapropism or an eggcorn:

"...the Democratic candidate for mayor is making an appeal along racial lines to garnish support..." The Capital

If you don't agree with me that it should be garner support, you are in a serious minority, viz 4,610 hits for "garnish," 214,000 for the real one. But there it is, right in the Capital's big lede. Not that I care, naturally, but click that link and see what marginal company our fancy hometown paper is keeping with its word choice.

Anyway, the interesting question is really whether it's a malapropism or an eggcorn. You're right to be confused about these. I only know about "eggcorns" from reading something called Language Log, where the term was coined. It's sometimes pretty interesting, sometimes very boring. Their ongoing fascination with eggcorns goes on here, but also check out this, their fine taste in comics.

The difference between our two new vocabulary words seems to be that eggcorns form a new sort of meaning relating to the old word or phrase, while malapropisms are just fuck ups. Those links'll take you to the examples, and of course scroll down a skosh for my first post on my roommate Kristen's gibberish.

Got me thinking about spoonerisms, too. Hilarious. And this caught my eye: Rickyisms!

And remember, if your malapropism doesn't go away after four hours, call a doctor.

My roommate Kristen

I'm afraid to go downstairs a lot of the time because if Kristen is down there she'll corner me and start talking to me. She'll talk to me while I fix a whole meal and continue as I eat it. Grant me the serenity not to stab her to death next time she does this.

And what does she talk about? I don't know. I don't listen. Every ounce of energy I have goes into NOT hearing what she's saying. I am however somewhat aware that she is so desperate to make noise in front of another person that she'll choose most any subject to babble about so that she doesn't have to stop talking.

Okay, a little gets through. Especially when she switches words around, uses them wrong, or just makes them up.

"She was old, you know, kind of weird...a little dimensional."

"They know that it can't 'pass the mustard,' so to speak."

(Literally talking about finding someone to walk her dog) "I'd have to find someone to walk my dog, so to speak."

Some notes: "trunicating" Entirely made up word. Use of "inhibit" as its opposite. Free use of "proficient" to mean almost anything. I'll try and write some instances down. Okay goodnight.

Halloween!

Let's just say I didn't have to dress up as a monster.