movable type

“the language of constant apology”

Verlyn Klinkenborg’s recent NYT editorial on teaching young writers at a small college in Minnesota really struck a chord with me when I first read it, and I found myself wanting to revisit it today, especially this part:

I’ve often noticed a habit of polite self-negation among my female students, a self-deprecatory way of talking that is meant, I suppose, to help create a sense of shared space, a shared social connection. It sounds like the language of constant apology, and the form I often hear is the sentence that begins, “My problem is …”

Even though this way of talking is conventional, and perhaps socially placating, it has a way of defining a young writer — a young woman — in negative terms, as if she were basically incapable and always giving offense. You simply cannot pretend that the words you use about yourself have no meaning. Why not, I asked, be as smart and perceptive as you really are? Why not accept what you’re capable of? Why not believe that what you notice matters?

Another young woman at the table asked — this is a bald translation — won’t that make us seem too tough, too masculine? I could see the subtext in her face: who will love us if we’re like that? I’ve heard other young women, with more experience, ask this question in a way that means, Won’t the world punish us for being too sure of ourselves?

email currently down, ugh

My two primary addresses have been down for the count for over twelve hours—thanks for that, Dreamhost!—so if you’re trying to reach me, for now please IM if you know it or send me a message via my Facebook profile or my Flickr profile.
Update: Email working now, hurrah! While I was waiting for things to get fixed, I started thinking how funny it is that I started blogging eight years ago because it was easier than emailing my friends links all the time, and yet I’ve spent so much of this year emailing my friends links instead of posting on my blog because writing a personal blog feels, well, too personal sometimes—even when all I’m doing is sharing silly things like Helen Mirren eating a cheeseburger.
I feel like even as it expands, the web feels smaller and smaller, and not always in the kindest of ways. Shit, do you remember webrings? We used to link to random people we’d never emailed with or knew anything about, not to sell more Google ads or up our Pagerank or anything else other than the pleasure of nebulous shared belonging to one group or another. All of our pages linked to one another, forming chains of Scully fans, broccoli lovers, Nascar enthusiasts. It’s like we were all hugging the web, you know?

five ways jane austen never died

Five Ways Jane Austen Never Died, by Samantha Henderson: “Cassandra is away, visiting our brother and sister and their innumerable brood. My mother is nursing a migraine with her feet up on the best sofa in the parlor. And Jane is coming up the stairs. I draw my modified Glock and stand, waiting in the shadows.” Short, sweet, and so very, very good. [ via kfan del.icio.us ]
Henderson links to her web-available stories at her site, samanthahenderson.com, so you should go over there and read them all post-haste! Shoo!

“no such thing as bad language”

lewisblack.jpg
Why do I keep forgetting how much I enjoy Lewis Black’s stand-up? I caught his most recent HBO special tonight, 2006’s Red, White & Screwed, and was charmed all over again by his curmudgeonliness. One theme of the show is how Black, a legendary pottymouth, is annoyed by having to tiptoe around cussing. He says,

There is no such thing as bad language. I don’t believe that anymore. It’s ridiculous. They call it a debasing of the language. No! We are adults. These are the words we use to express frustration, rage, and anger… in order that we don’t pick up a tire and beat the shit out of someone.