I'm Now Writing Elsewhere, Come Read Me There

To put this all in one post for the top of this page: I've moved.

If you want to read my essays and link round-ups—the sort of thing I used to put here, but now delivered to your inbox, and at a steady once-a-week rate—you should go and subscribe to Attempts 2.0 over on Substack:

https://stephenfrug.substack.com/

And I am also publishing a series of short stories, which you should go read! Learn more about them here:

https://stephenfrug.com/retcon-a-mosaic-narrative-in-three-movements/

I will of course leave this up for its archives, but if you want to see anything new, go to those places. I hope to see you there!

On the Afterlife of Photographic Subjects: A Strange Sub-Sub Genre on the Border of History and Journalism

I just read the remarkable piece of journalism about the woman who was the subject of this famous photograph:

It was written by Patricia McKormick, whose work I was previously unfamiliar with, but who (judging by this piece) is superb; it was first published in the Washington Post (h/t LGM), but if that link hits a paywall for you, you can also find it in the Anchorage Daily News.

But it occurred to me that it is, in fact, an example of a small little niche genre: stories about the lives of not-particularly famous people who appeared in famous photographs. A few more examples occur to me.

First, there are stories about this other famous photograph from the Vietnam War, in which American napalm, dropped on children, has burned off the clothes of a little girl:

Well, the story (which I've had occasion to mention before) of the girl—how the photographer rushed her to the hospital, how she eventually ended up in Canada, how she and the photographer became friends—has been told, briefly, here: http://digitaljournalist.org/issue0008/ng5.htm and at greater length in a book (which I haven't yet read) called The Girl in the Picture by Denise Chong.

Another example, about a different iconic photograph* from a different iconic midcentury event, this one the 1957 integration of Little Rock, Arkansas's high school:

The story (which I have also had occasion to mention before) of the relationship between the two women (girls, at the time) in the photograph has been told by David Margolick, briefly, here: https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2007/09/littlerock200709 and in longer form in his book Elizabeth and Hazel.

But the more I think about it, the more examples come to mind.

There have been many stories told about this famous photograph from V-E day:

 About which there are, apparently, both questions concerning the identity of the people in the photograph and (conditional on who it actually is!) the fact that the kiss was non-consensual and more of a sexual assault than a celebration (see, e.g., here: https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-controversy-surrounding-alfred-eisenstaedts-iconic-photo-v-j-day-kiss, but this has gotten a lot of coverage.)  And yes, that too has been a book, The Kissing Sailor (another I haven't read), which appears to focus on the who-are-they mystery angle.

Then there's this photograph, less historic than the others here, perhaps, but very widely known in the art world, of the artist Marcel Duchamp playing chess (the activity he abandoned art to persue) while at the first retrospective of his work, with a young woman named Eve Babitz who would go on to be a novelist of some note:

This story (less shocking than any of the above, but still quite interesting) was told first by Eve Babitz herself, and then in greater detail by writer Lili Anolick in this engaging & worthwhile essay: https://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2015/10/eve-babitz-marcel-duchamp-chess-nude. Anolick has also written a biography of Babitz, Hollywood's Eve, which also tells the story, of course.

And those are just the ones that come readily to mind. I'm sure there are a lot more. Please leave any that occur to you in the footnotes.  It would be nice to curate a list!

_____________________________

* Actually, this one wasn't a single photographs; there were two or three images taken at almost the exact same moment, from different angles, two (at least) of which are widely reprinted; see Margolick for details.

TWO IMPORTANT LANGUAGE NOTES

1) The proper English term for the Jewish celebrations in early adolescence is hereby termed "b'mitzvah" (both singular and plural). This allows easy sentences like, "when are your kids' b'mitzvahs?" or "we've been going to a lot of b'mitvahs lately", to say nothing of gender-noncomforming kids.

2) The word ducking is now an intensifier, as in "I can't ducking believe Pelosi actually had the guts to start impeachment hearings", and "I hope that the GOP is willing to do its ducking job and convict". Easier on kids & Apple ducking lets you type it.

Signed,

The English Language Academy

Three Exciting Pieces of Humument News

I just found out three exciting pieces of Humument news!

— News about what now?

A Humument.  A Humument is a book by artist Tom Phillips  Kinda.  Maybe it's three books.  Or not a book.  It's a something.

...Let me start over.

Once upon a time, there was a novel by one W. H. Mallock (1849-1923) called A Human Document (1892).  It came out, was presumably read by someone at some point, and then was completely forgotten, until an artist named Tom Phillips (b. 1937) found it at an old store when he was looking for a book to alter, to treat, to change, as part of an artistic project.  He bought it and began to alter its pages.  He crossed out, painted over and drew on each page — leaving, however, some words to make up a new (hidden, revealed) story running through the art.  The first edition — which was unnumbered, but which given subsequent events should perhaps be considered edition zero —came out, from a small press, in 1970.  A edition came out from a larger publisher, Thames & Hudson, in 1980.  (It is considered, I believe, the "first" edition, although so far as I know it isn't formally numbered.)

But.  Phillips continued to work on it.

He'd altered the entire book into a single, amazing artwork. But he kept altering pages — replacing old ones with new versions.  And then he'd publish a new edition with the new pages substituting for the old versions.  (Thus each edition is slightly different.)  The second edition (so-called, actually third) came out in 1986; the third in 1998; the fourth in 2004.  I own the fourth, having read it (Browsed it?  Looked at it?  What does one do with A Humument, anyway?) from the library.  Apparently Mr. Phillips's ambition is to replace every page from his original 1970 edition.  With a new version.

I understand that.  The various pages from the original edition is simply not as rich, not as wonderful, as the pages from the later editions.  Here, see for yourself: here is the third page from the original (1970) edition, paired with the current (AFAIK) page three:

You see what I mean.

On the other hand, sometimes he replaces a page I really like.  For instance, I really like both versions of p. 15:

And of p. 20:

So the process of replacement is a loss, too.  At least sometimes.

Not all of the replaced pages are originaly from the 1970 edition; some pages he has replaced more than once.  So far as I can tell (I don't have access to all the editions) these are often great pages replacing equally great pages (or nearly so).  (I should say at this point that not all of Phillips' treatment of this book is even part of the Humument project.  He's done altered pages of Mallock's novel separately, as part of other projects, e.g. as part of an illustrated version of Dante he did.)  What's really wanted is A Complete Humument, with all the versions of all the pages included.  Perhaps someday someone will publish one.

In the meantime, it's a marvelous book, highly, highly recommended.

Which leads me to the first of the three pieces of exciting Humument news.

1. The Fifth Edition of A Humument Has Been Published

Two years ago (why does no one tell me these things?) Phillips published his Fifth Edition (not counting, as always, the original, small-press, Zeroith edition.  So you can go buy it & read it.  It's great.

But what if you don't want that book?  That leads us to...

2. A Humument has an Ap (= an Ebook version)

Yes, there is an iPad — and iPhone — version of A Humument.  It seems to be based largely on the Fifth Edition (op. cit.), but also has brand-new, never-before-seen pages.  — Actually, I haven't checked out the iPhone version, but given Phillips's record, I have no confidence that the art in the two Aps are at all identical.

I just downloaded the iPad version.

It has one feature — an "not-too-serious oracle", which displays two paired random pages (a feature which Phillips seems very taken with) — not in the book, although I suppose you could flip through the book and pick two pages.  Or roll a 367-sided die, twice.  Or something,

It also has one flaw: it doesn't seem to remember your place if you close & reopen the ap — there's no bookmark function.  (It does, fortunately, have a "go to" function, albeit not one with the easiest to use UI.)  Or maybe I've just missed it so far.

But mostly it's the latest version of A Humument, with all the astonishing brilliance that implies, as an ebook.  (And about 1/3 - 1/4 of the price of the paperback.)  So go ahead and get that, too.

Still, it would be nice to see various versions of a single page, wouldn't it?

Which leads us to...

3. A Humument had an art show, and it's now online.

Through most of 2013 — and I really rue that I only found this out in 2014 (why does no one tell me these things?) — there was a show of A Humument up at the Mass MoCA museum in North Andover, Massachusetts.  The show displayed two versions of each page (it doesn't seem they ever included more than two, which is a pity).  They also presented the unaltered version of Mallock's book along with them.

Yeah, it's over.  It sucks.  But: they now have an online gallery of it.

With three versions of each page: Mallock's unaltered, and two by Phillips.  (A few of the latter versions — maybe 1/10? — are missing, perhaps to encourage you to buy the book and/or ap, which you should do anyway.)  But it's A Humument.  Twice.  Online.

'Nuff said.

Go see it. It's one of the great books — great art projects — great nested collection of various related....

Aw hell.  Who knows what it is.  But whatever it is, it's one of the great ones of our time.

Update:

Here are some Humument-related links from my bookmarks folder.

• The introduction to the fifth edition, from the main Humument page.
• A set of essays on A Humument, from ibid.
• You got the part where two complete versions of A Humument are online, right?
• Review from the Boston Globe.
• Review from the London Review of Books.
• LRB's interview with Tom Phillips.
• Review from The Kenyon Review.
• Kenyon Review's interview with Tom Phillips.

Enjoy.

Far From the Only Reason, But A Key One, This Blog Has Been Slow of Late, Revealed In Humorous Fashion as a Parodic Request

Hey, y'all, quick favor: I need the entire world to stop for, oh, I dunno, not too long, maybe a week?, yeah, a week, that'll do it, so I can sorta catch up on some things. You're all willing to do that, right? I mean, no big. I'd appreciate it. You're the best! See y'all in a week. Which, for you, will be tomorrow. KTHXBY.

I Swear I Don't Know Why But Sometimes These Things Just Pop Into My Head

Rudolph, the red-eyed dragon,
Had a very flamey breath,
And if you ever saw him,
It would be a firey death.

All of Santa's reindeer
Used to scream and run away,
Because they knew that Rudolph
Ate about one per day.

Then one foggy Christmas eve
It was Santa's turn,
But when Rudolph ate him up
It gave him quite bad heartburn.

So now it's back to reindeer,
No more plump elvish men:
Rudolph, the red-eyed dragon
Won't be eating them again!

3/10/2013

I have blogged about palindromic dates once before, and at the time discussed two of my very favorite* palindromes: Georges Perec's Grand Pallindrome, and J. A. Lindon's brilliant palindromic poem "Doppelgänger".  (The latter is posted in its entirety at the link.)

Once you pass out of 2012, palindromic dates become in short supply -- although, of course, it all depends on what date system you use (search for "palindrome", or just scroll down.)  And if you just write the necessary numbers -- thus, "3" for the day and not "03" -- and put them in the European rather than the usual American order (which, to be fair, makes more sense (although not as much as the Chinese manner, which styles today 2013-10-3)), then today, yes, is a palindromic date.

So to celebrate, I thought I'd post** one of my very favorite artistic uses of palindromes -- up there with Perec and the Lindon -- Weird Al Yankovic's marvelous song/video parody, "Bob".

Incidentally, while the lyrics to this stand on their own (after all, they're perfectly balanced), the video itself is a parody of a famous video (avant la lettre) by Bob Dylan of his song Subterranean Homesick Blues.  If you don't know the latter, you might want to watch it first, not only 'cause it's great, but in order to properly enjoy the parody.

And now, ladies and gentlemen, I give you Weird Al:



Happy palindrome day!

____________
* Yes, I'm claiming the Perec as a favorite without ever having read it (see post for details); I like the idea of it, the fact of it, enough for it to qualify.

** Actually repost, but the earlier post was buried in a link dump and you probably missed it (close attention that I know you pay notwithstanding).

American Studies 100: Cover Image Version 2.0

Since today is the last day of my second run-through of my class American Studies 100: A History of American Culture in 21 Examples, I thought I'd post the (slightly) revised cover image.  The syllabus (pdf) is pretty much what it was when I taught it in the fall -- the order switched a little bit (often for practical rather than pedagogical considerations), tweaked a few of the readings, but mostly it was the same.  (I didn't change any of my examples.)  But here's the cover image (without accompanying text):

And, just to correlate with the picture, here are the 21 examples which I used to outline the history of American culture:

1. Minstrel Shows
2. Central Park
3. A Sears & Roebuck Catalog, 1898
4. Hull House
5. Coney Island
6. The Five Foot Shelf (a.k.a. The Harvard Classics)
7. D. W. Griffith, The Birth of a Nation (1915)
8. Billy Sunday Sermons
9. Louis vs. Schmeling (New York City, June 22, 1938)
10. The Lone Ranger (radio and TV show)
11. Billie Holiday, "Strange Fruit" (words & music by Abel Meeropol)
12. Jackson Pollock, Number 1, 1950 (Lavender Mist) 
13. Drive-in Movie Theaters
14. Bob Dylan at the Newport Folk Festival, 1965
15. Charles Schultz, Peanuts
16. The Moon Landing, 1969
17. Roman Polanski, Chinatown (1974)
18. The Vietnam Veterans Memorial (Maya Lin, 1982)
19. Fast Food 
20. Buffy the Vampire Slayer (Joss Whedon, 1997 - 2003)
21. Steroids in Baseball

For more details on the ideas & reasoning behind the class, see this post, or the whole syllabus (pdf).

It was a fun class to teach.  Next year I'm teaching in the history department, rather than American studies, again; but I'd like to teach it again sometime, if I ever get the chance.

The Nature of the Primordeal Story

All children are magical realists; realism is a later development.

The Four Questions: A Modern Day Version

Why is this night different from all other nights?

On all other nights, the house is a total mess, but tonight, the house is clean.

On all other nights, we don't eat vegetables, but tonight, we're eating vegetables.

On all other nights, we wolf down dinner in front of the TV, but tonight, we're actually sitting at a table together.

On all other nights, Daddy drinks four beers, but tonight, he's drinking four cups of wine.

January 20 is Inauguration Day

...so why is this year's inauguration on Monday the 21st (the Martin Luther King holiday), and not the day before?

It's for the same reason that Sally tells Harry they don't make Sunday underpants: because of God.

Which is to say, because it's Sunday.

I had thought that this was constitutional, but it's not: it's just a tradition.  You can read the brief version here.  This happens -- roughly -- once every 28 years (there are disruptions for various reasons).  It happened with Reagan in January of 1985, Ike in January of 1955, and Wilson in March of 1915 (remember what I said about disruptions?).  The current tradition (which was done with all three of those earlier gentlemen) is to have a private swearing-in on the actual, uh, inauguration day, and then a big public hoopla on the following day, including a do-over of the swearing-in ceremony.  (Which happens: they had to do it last time too, after all, albeit for different reasons.)

It would be awkward if there was actually a new President, and not a second term, but coincidentally that's only happened twice, and not for well over a century: the two times were Hayes in 1877 and Taylor in 1849.  (The first of these lead to the fanciful notion that David Rice Atchison was actually acting President for a day.)  The other four times -- the three Twentieth Century ones, plus the first occurrence, with Monroe in 1821 -- all happened to be, as this one is, a reinauguration.  It certainly hasn't come up since the Presidency became what it is now, i.e. the sort of office where you need to know at every moment who is in it.  (In 1848, a day here or there wasn't that big a deal.)

Perhaps that will happen next time, which will be (unless unforeseen disruptions occur) on Sunday, January 20, 2041.  (If not then, then next up is Sunday, January 20, 2069, and then Sunday, January 20, 2097.)

(To say it's ridiculous to speculate about parties and presidents 28 years into the future is to wildly understate the matter.  (Will there even be the same two parties?  Will our constitutional structure have changed?  Who knows.)  Nevertheless, I can't help but pointing out that since WW2, with one exception, the parties have alternated eight-year stints.  (The exception is that under this scheme Carter should have won the 1980 election, so that that particular sixteen year stint was divided 4/12 instead of 8/8; change that outcome, and no other, and the pattern holds precisely.)  I consider it extremely unlikely that this pattern will hold for twenty-eight more years.  (Indeed, I hope it doesn't: a Republican administration in 2016 would be a disaster for the Republic.)  But if it happened to, then January 20, 2041 would indeed see the inauguration of a new President, and not a reinauguration.)

Normally I would natter on about this -- intersecting, as it does, various of my obsessions -- but I don't have to, because this marvelous post I found in looking into it says everything I'd want to say about it and more, including remarkably complete histories of each of the previous incidents, explanations of both disruptions of the 28-year-cycle, etc.  If you've read this far, and you're still interested, click on over.

Two Weeks Ago I Had Jury Duty

...and I live-tweeted it.  Since (rather to my surprise) a number of people mentioned that they liked the tweets I decided to wildly overreact to what was doubtless mere politeness collect them all in one place for the pathetic gratification of my swollen ego anyone who might be interested. Think of it as a performance piece about boredom.

So here they are. I hope they are at least as a tenth as pleasant as jury duty itself w...  Nah, I can't wish that on my Noble Readers.  But click through if you're curious.

(PS: For more exciting experiences in sheer dullness, you can follow me on twitter here.)

What if the World Ends Tomorrow and No One Notices?

LINDSEY: It's been here all along. Underneath. You're just too damn stupid to see it.
ANGEL: See what?
LINDSEY: The apocalypse, man. You're soaking in it.
SPIKE: I've seen an apocalypse or two in my time. I'd know I one was under my nose.
LINDSEY: Not an apocalypse. The apocalypse. What'd you think, a gong was gonna sound? Time to jump on your horses and fight the big fight? Starting pistol went off a long time ago, boys.

-- Angel, Season 5.17 "Underneath", by Sarah Fain & Elizabeth Craft

What if those predicting that, because the remaining ancient Mayans need to order their next world-cycle wall calendar now,* the world is ending, are right?  And no one ever notices?

I mean, is there some reason to think that the world has to end all at once?  Must it be over in seconds?  Can the actual sounding of the trumpets take a few minutes?  A few weeks?

Centuries?

Does it matter, as long as the ending really begins -- say, becomes irreversible, so that there is no longer anything to be done about it -- on the starting date?  Can't we say world, in some sense, ended on that day?**

I refer, of course, not to the penny-ante mystical apocalypsi that various adherents of internet conspiracy theories, but to the apocalypse, the one that we're sitting in, that we're perpetuating, day in and day out.

Climate change.

Because, yeah, if we don't change course, the world -- by which I mean the human race, since our "world" is the one with our feelings and thoughts and interpretations in it: mere rock and tree don't, in my view, make a world -- will end.  It'll take a while -- two centuries?  Three? -- but it'll happen.  The warming process will eventually become self-sustaining, and will go on, even as the industrial processes which began it crumbles, and our lives along with it.  And it will get hotter and hotter, until no grain can grow in it, no one can stand outside in it.  Until it's all over.

Unless we change course in time.

But what's "in time"?  We don't really know.  It's too complex, too big.  There are too many factors.  There's good reason to think it's soon -- terrifyingly soon -- but we don't know precisely when.

In fact, we'll never know.

If we stop it in time -- if we control our emissions enough that world civilization survives well enough to mitigate and adapt -- we won't know how close we came.  All we'll know is that we came very close, but swerved at the almost-last instant.  Even if we could -- and we almost certainly won't be able to, technically, it's just too hard -- who goes out with a ruler to measure precisely the distance from the tire to the cliff?  At most you gaze, with a shiver, at the depth of the skid marks.

And if we don't stop in time, we'll even less be able to know. As things crumble -- as the waters rise, as crops fail, as refugees in search of a nonexistent safe haven -- who will have time to look back, measure, calculate, ruminate, and figure that, yes, up until this date, there was still a chance to change, up until just this moment it wasn't too late, but after such-and-such a date the inertia was too great, and no effort could have stopped it.

"Such-and-such a date."  Such as, perhaps, December 21, 2012.

Oh, there's no reason to believe it will be then -- the Ancient Mayans didn't even believe the world would end on that day, let alone have any actual grounds for that belief.  But it seems far more important to note that it might be that day.  That things are happening, right now, that will ensure that, sometime, sometime soon, it will be too late.

Surely the blithe reassurances that the world will not suddenly end today are almost beside the point when we know for a fact that the world is on its way to ending?  Perhaps instead of telling people not to worry, we should instead tell them that, yes, they should worry -- but that it's not yet set, and that perhaps action now can still turn the tide?

Because -- since we can't know for sure, since we'll never know, either way -- the only sensible thing to do -- the secular Pascalian wager, that looks not at the odds but the stakes, at what there is to be lost and won -- is to fight on as if it isn't too late.  Since acting as if it is would, after all, be a self-fulfilling prophecy.

But to believe there is still time -- warranted or not -- is not the same as to say there's no danger.  The calendar is turning, and we'll be long past the end of the world by the time we are certain that there will, in fact, be one.

So run, fight, work, as if we can still escape.  Because maybe we can.  But one thing we do know is that we won't be able to always, nor even for very long.

____________________________
* Although, in fairness, it was a really good calendar -- IMS, better than the Gregorian (which is to say it diverges from the sun's cycle by a tiny fraction of a second less than the Gregorian does, and thus drifts off season slightly more slowly).

** Actually, this was (very, very roughly) the response to the Great Disappointment of 1844 -- when hundreds of thousands thought the world was ending -- which eventually led to the Seventh Day Adventists.

Fact to Make You Feel Old, Stolen In Its Entirety from Randall Munroe

Quoth Munroe:

The first Star Trek episode aired closer in time to the ratification of the 19th Amendment—guaranteeing women in the US the right to vote—than to today.

My flabber is officially gasted.

Now, to be fair, it isn't yet much closer.  The first Star Trek episode aired Thursday, September 8, 1966 -- 16,898 days ago, or 46 years, 3 months and 5 days ago.  The 19th Amendment was ratified Wednesday, August 18, 1920 -- 16,822 days (or 46 years and 21 days) prior to Star Trek's airing.  (Number of days calculated using this handy tool.)  In fact, given that Munroe posted this on September 29 of this year, he waited until it was true only by a day (or so, depending on the times all these things happened).  Now, that was a while ago, so now it's more comfortably -- or, rather, more uncomfortably -- true.

And, as these things tend to, it will only get worse as time goes on.

...It occurs to me that Munroe probably had that thought earlier, and was waiting until it was true to post it.  (The coincidence otherwise seems too great.)  Which leads to the further thought that someone should set up some sort of automated system to generate such depressing thoughts automatically (just feed a list of cultural milestones into a date calculator, and voila).  Which leads to the final thought that the person best suited to do this is, clearly, Randall Munroe himself.

We eagerly await his next masterpiece. 

Stray Thought

Old is the new new.

On Speaking Ill of the Ill-Spoken Dead

In response to the extraordinarily young and horrifically sudden death of Andrew Breitbart, some liberals have been saying nasty things (e.g.), and then justifying them (e.g.) by pointing out that Breitbart himself said quite nasty things about the recently departed.* In response to this, writer Paul Glastris suggests the rule "Don’t Speak Ill Of The Recently Departed, Unless The Recently Departed Spoke Ill Of The Recently Departed".

At first glance, this struck me as wise and correct.

At second thought, however, it raises a great many problems.

Most obviously, can one speak of the dead of those who have only spoken of the dead in accordance with the above rule?

If the answer to that is yes, then the rule creates two sub-populations: those who mutually agree (as it were) that it's fine to speak ill of the dead including themselves (it seems that Matt Yglesias, linked above, is imaging that sort of scenario.) This seems like it might work, although it does have the problem that speaking ill of the dead is not a problem primarily for the dead (i.e. the importance of it isn't limited to respect of the recently departed): it's also about their friends and families (who might not share their view, or even be old enough to have come to a view (I understand that Breitbart -- heartbreakingly -- had small children). In which case, speaking ill of the dead might not be justified even if the recently deceased themselves did so and/or thought it was generally appropriate. (Not the same thing -- I imagine that many people speak ill of the dead thinking only that certain people deserve it, and that they're not among them; others might have no problem with the practice without actually engaging in it.) Even more importantly, it's about our society and ourselves: what sort of people do we wish to be? We might have reasons to discourage speaking ill of the dead even if all involved agree it's right.

But I get the impression that Glastris is not thinking that those who follow his rule themselves are subject to it. (So that, for instance, he himself by writing his post is now fair game when the inevitable fate of mortals should befall him.) For instance, he writes:

Moral rules cannot long hold if there are no consequences for transgressing them. So I think that in the interest of protecting the rule about not badmouthing the recently departed, there should be a proviso that those who willfully and publicly break the rule do not deserve the protection of it when they die. By this standard, Yglesias gets a pass.

...which sounds like saying that this is a special sanction for those who do it, without the sense that it then makes those people themselves subject to it (which creates a free-for-all section rather than something that seems like punishment).

But who is to judge what counts? Does ostentatiously saying nothing after quoting "speak no ill of the dead" and mentioning the death count? Are there degrees here, so that you can only speak as ill of the dead as they spoke of someone else? Wouldn't this just quickly degenerate to an utter removal of the "speak no ill of the dead" rule, since people would interpret what those they disliked said about others has having been ill, beginning a quick race to the bottom?

To be clear, I'm not necessarily endorsing the "speak no ill of the dead" rule. I think there are both real, deep and important reasons -- reasons of dignity and civility and respect and decency -- to hold it. And I think there are some real, deep and important counter-arguments too -- about the way that reputations are formed, about the problems of dealing with the deaths of those who did real ill in the world and not wanting them sanitized, about sanctimoniousness, and many other things. I just don't think that the fact that someone else did it is the right standard -- whatever one thinks.

Incidentally, for a very thoughtful meditation on the problems of not speaking ill of the dead who have done ill, in our contemporary culture, go read the article linked to in the first link in this post, namely, this obituary for Breitbart by (conservative journalist) David Frum, which, it seems to me, quite thoughtfully grapples with the problem of writing about someone like Breitbart immediately after their death. Recommended even if (like myself) you have essentially no interest in Breitbart himself. (via))

(Update: On the specificity of Breitbart, in addition to Frum, I recommend Ta-Nehisi Coates's take too.)

_____________________________
* Yglesias has a particularly funny retort to a piece counter-nastiness lobbed in response to the above examples here.

But What Was the Name of the Cat?

"We even adopted a cat—a sweet indoor kitty with an autoimmune virus we named Wimbledon."

-- Paul M. Davis

This Post Intentionally Left Blank

Man, I'm messing up everything today.

Working Title of the Memoir of the Last Human Being Alive

No One But Myself To Blame.

(It will never get out of draft, of course: oh, it's good enough -- everyone who's read it liked it -- but all the remaining publishers think there won't be any sort of audience for it.)

Slandering My Good Name

My name, of course, being "Frug". It's a name of Russian-Jewish extraction -- my paternal grandfather used to say that we were related to the Yiddish poet Simon Frug (1860 - 1916)*, although my father doubts this, and I have no hard evidence either way. As far as I know, every Frug in the western hemisphere (a small number) is related to me, some quite distantly of course.

Now, the other famous meaning of "frug" is in reference to the 60s dance craze of The Frug. For all practical purposes, the dance hasn't been done by anyone in half a century, but it comes up from time to time in popular culture -- the most prominent case, I suppose, being the Rilo Kiley song "The Frug". But other references -- often in the gerund form, "frugging" -- pop up from time to time. Wikipedia's entry on the dance has a lengthy list of them (at least as of now, until some pompous, killjoy editor decides the list lacks importance). I've previously mentioned that the late writer Thomas M. Disch told me he wrote a pseudonymous story called "If You Don't Frug Baby Then What Do You Do?" which he described as the worst thing he'd ever written.

So: a forgotten (and seemingly bad*) poet, and a forgotten (and seemingly silly) dance craze. And my family. I can live with that.

But then, earlier this week, I read the following (via):

According to complaints on consumer-focused Web sites, some American Solutions calls begin with slanted polling questions before proceeding to a request for money. The tactic, known as "fundraising under the guise of research," or frugging, is discouraged as unethical by trade groups such as the Marketing Research Association. (emphasis mine)

"Frugging" a slimy fundraising tactic! Aghast! I've been slandered!!

Ah, but it gets worse. Trying to dig a bit into this usage, I stumbled upon the entry for "Frug" in Urban Dictionary. There are references to the dance, of course, and references to the words as short for "frugal" (I've heard that one before too -- I believe the Frugal Gourmet is called "The Frug"), but then there's also this:

2. fat, retarded, ugly.
3a. A person who is extremely tight-fisted with money. Considered cheap, miserly, penny-pinching, selfish. Always has a negative connotation - thrifty would not be a synonym.
4. An exclamation used exclusively when you've accidentally just agreed to go on a date with someone that you consider to be repugnant.***

...and a few more which are even more obscure or odd and which frankly I doubt have ever been used in human speech.

Trying to come up with an appropriate response to these vile slanders, I am reminded of a quote from an old episode of the TV show Babylon 5 (of which I was, at one time, a great fan):

I don't know who's been saying these things but I want you to know when we get back I am gonna sue somebody! I don't know how -- and I don't know who -- but by God I am gonna sue somebody!

-- Lyta Alexander, in "Between the Darkness and the Light", by J. Michael Straczynski

Word.

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* I've read a handful of his poems in translation, and they're all pretty bad. It's hard to know in translation of course -- it's possible the originals were better -- but the one person I've ever run into to read Frug in the original** confirmed to me that no, he was, in fact, simply a bad poet.

** A rabbi at my school (he was, much later, to read the Ketubah at my wedding) who, upon being first introduced to me, exclaimed "Frug! Famous name! Famous Yiddish poet!" and then walked around introducing me to people as "Stephen FRUG" the way one might say "Stephen WHITMAN" or something, which puzzled everyone else in the room since, as with the great mass of humanity (even the great mass of Jews) none of them had ever heard of the poet.

*** I have to admit that this notion -- accidentally agreeing to go on a date -- is so bizarre and amusing that I'm almost willing to forgive someone for ascribing a bad version of it to my name. (Almost.) It's a hard scenario to imagine; here's the sample dialogue from the Urban Dictionary entry:

Other person: "Hey, so, uh, what are you doing this Saturday night?"
You: "Oh, nothing much. Going to Coffee Shop X to study, probably."
Other person: "See you there!"
You: "Frug!"