chris at 11:34 PM |

 

More Odd Observations on the Edit-Chanting Project and other Life Matters Here:
[E]utopianist Reader Responses & Etc.

Best wishes at the reading tonight, Stephanie, and here I'll just report a little about the editorial chanting project and kind of randomly, about other matters of daily/weekly life, for now.

It is quite true that I am a little partial to exclamation points!! There's just something about the exclamation point's (usually I use them for cheery) containment of urgency that recalls adolescent forms of jubilant release, I suppose--some wanting of a way to just say, *hey! everything's wonderful or extreme!* Humanly universal and harmless enough, I hope. Overuse?--as in any repetitive motion: if mindless, well then, also meaningless, so easy enough to overlook if need be.

As for the edit-chanting: today's biggest problem was carried over from chapter 1 to 2: snarly possessives. Always a problem for writers in English. And what dumb, inconsistent rules we have for them [1 exclamation point] This was over proper names where the question comes up as to who should get the *s'* and who the *s's* to indicate possession. My name, for example, should (because a proper name) be written Chris's, if used in possessive case--as in *Chris's exclamation points are excessive*--or so says the rule from current MLA specialist Joseph Gibaldi, who I hear is a friend of the author I'm working with and is a great person to boot [1 exclamation point] That's just a little tweak of gossip sidetrack there, folks, for fun [1 exclamation point]). So we ran into a problem--and MLA is not the reigning authority, apparently, for this book--when Aristophanes showed up as Aristophanes' instead of Aristophanes's (phonetically: Air Iz Toff An EEz poss Ehzz: sounding ever so musical now, too) The same thing happened for Jesus: Jesus' instead of Jesus's (spelled out: J-E-S-U-S poss S).

Now, I happen to have the MLA stuff clear lately because just a few months ago a policeman from Arlington emailed me in a frantic state of mind because he had been to court that day, where he had submitted a written report of a traffic accident and was testifying against a defendant when the defense lawyer tore him up one side and down the other on cross examination. He was made to look a completely ignorant fool, and was still smarting from it. THe problem?--he had written his report using all the posssessives wrong. No lie: that was how this defendant got off the charges: policeman did not know his rules for writing, thus it follows the policeman could not be trusted to give an accurate report of the incident [2 exclamation points]. How would it be to suffer that cross examination?--isn't it bad enough when your 4th grade English teacher does it to ya in front of the whole class? That was nuthin compared to this episode of suffering over the language. So he asked me to direct him to accurate info on use of possessive case in writing, which I did. Actually, I typed it into an email for him, from out of the MLA Handbook. He was very nice about it all. It seemed particularly surreal to me at the time, but not so much now (since I've learned and traveled a lot around lately and have actually had even more bizarre writing experiences than this--if you can believe that... . We also had some pause to question the use of brackets inside parentheticals, which use at the printer's seemed to follow no discernible logic. And *we do like* our logic in this and all things. What a lovely, loveable thing is logic, no?

But anyway, for those who like to hear about Shopping with Fei. I also saw Fei today [1 exclamation point] She was a little disappointed that I did not go to China Town when I was in SFO (she had asked me specifically to go there so I could report back to her all about it) but she understood. So we will be having a shopping trip soon [2 exclamation points]

In other startling life-breakthroughs & news: am going to the Fort Worth Botanical Gardens here (field trip [1 exclamation point]) (I suppose this should be classified as a sort of a date tho I can't stand that idea--it feels way too 14ish) [2 exclamation points]) But yes, that will be this weekend and if there is time (is there ever enough time to really look at all the flowers on any given day in such a full life?) maybe the Museum, too. Oh boy [3 exclamation points].

More soon: Radio UTA (broadcast internationally), weekly poetry readings begining Aug 28. I think I'm slated to read for a half hour on Sept. 11. More on that soon.