Dr. Metablog

Some Memorable Sentences That People Said to Me Long Years Ago

My mother: "Stop slouching."  "Stop moping."  "Don't be a melamed."  (A melamed is a pedant.)

My father: "If you lose your man, go directly to the front of the rim." "Keep your hand on the man you're guarding. Keep your eye on the ball."  "Never be embarrassed to accept a favor from a friend. Never omit an opportunity to do a favor for a friend." "Don't forget to wash behind your ears."  "Anyone can make money if they make it the sole business of their life to do so."  "When the stock market is going up, everyone's a genius."

L Y Kaplan: "Give her a chance."

Harry Wedeck, a teacher at Erasmus Hall: "Read biographies."

Clara Gerstner (librarian, dying of cancer): "Get the most out of life."

David Novarr (revered teacher at Cornell): "You have to outwork the competition."

B. J. Whiting (at my doctor's oral examination, after a discussion of the French sources of Chaucer's Wife of Bath's Tale): "What's a Flemish one? 

Tails

Most animals, mammals included, sport tails. As well they should. Tails are truly excellent appendages -- essential equipment for survival in many cases. Most primates have tails, but alas, the apes, our most immediate cousins, lack these useful "limbs." Some random mutation, way back when, and zap, no more tails. As a result, we humans live in a tragically diminished universe. And deep down, we feel the loss -- it's a fact that humans have been desperately trying to grow tails for countless millennia. Embryo after embryo puts his or her whole heart into the effort. Tails are there, prominently, between day 31 to 37 of the gestational process, but then they disappear -- leaving the poor embryo dispirited and regretful. In mourning! How much happier a species we would be if we could only wag. 

Tails have many uses. For locomotion, obviously. We'd be much better tree and monkey-bar climbers if we had good prehensile tails. We wouldn't be nearly so earthbound. There would be fewer dangerous falls if we had tails -- they're essential for balance. Just watch a cat or a squirrel. Plus a human with a tail could grab on to something to keep himself upright. A tail can also be used for defense. Grab the bad guy's arm with a good strong grasping tail. Think about how much more interesting the martial arts or wrestling would be if were were betailed. Imagine how useful a prehensile tail would be at a cocktail party; both your hands are occupied spreading the green stuff on the cracker, so you hold your wine glass with your tail. 

Tails are also good communicators; they're expressive. Observe canis domesticus: submission, aggression, defiance, excitement, puzzlement. Tails would be important for parent child interactions. "Don''t you dare swish your tail at me, young lady." If dogs can do it, why couldn't we do it better?  

And also sexual activity. Imagine the possibilities. 

Style: "how are you wearing your tail this year?" Billion dollar industries revolve around haircare. Tailcare offers even greater possibilities. I'm sure that the expense of tail grooming, tail coloring, tail enhancing, and tail bejeweling could lift us out of most recessions. Tailcare would be one of the major drivers of the economy.

Human life would have been infinitely richer.

The "Dreaded American Hug"

The coronavirus has been sorely inhibiting. It's no fun for me to keep a distance from members of my family with whom I'm not podded up. But there's a benefit, because for a year now I haven't had a single anxiety attack over what a European acquaintance calls "the dreaded American hug."  My needs for acknowledging friends and acquaintances have been well satisfied by an occasional and discreet elbow bump.  

I'm not a hugger either by nature or by training -- my family of origin was, well, whatever is the diametrical opposite of "touchy?"

When did the hug creep into our lives? I suspect it had its origins in late 60s early 70s counter-culture. At least in my social circles -- that is. For all I know, the Brewsters might have regularly hugged the Bradfords back there in Mayflower days. Although not without massive attacks of disabling guilt.

When males want to hug me, I tend to shrink backwards. I don't want to give offense, so I offer as much hug as my hug-averse nature can tolerate. With women it's much more difficult -- because of the bosom problem. Too quick an embrace and you're unsociable, but one that lasts a second too long and you're a pervert. The best solution, I've found, is the sideways hug -- just throw an arm around the lady's shoulder and briefly touch your right ribcase to her left. And then beat a retreat.

Let's bring back the straight-on traditional handshake. It's sensible and proven. And for goodness sake, no kissing each other's cheeks "like them foreigners do."

A Scots Quair

I've given over the last week or ten days to Lewis Grassic Gibbon's A Scots Quair and I'm very pleased to have done so. And I'm embarrassed that I've only now read this strange brooding wondrous series of novels. How could I not have known? For those equally as ignorant as I, the Quair is a trilogy -- Sunset Song (1932), Cloud Howe (1933) and Grey Granite (1934). Together they tell the story of Christine Guthrie from childhood -- about the turn of the century -- through the years of the Great Depression. I can't remember reading a piece of fiction that has so thoroughly engaged me, or encountering  a fictional character so fully realized as Chris Guthrie Tavendale Colquhoun Ogilvie.

Here's a picture of Gibbon (birth name: James Leslie Mitchell) who died at age 34 from a botched surgery.

The novels do for the northeast corner of Scotland what Thomas Hardy did for the southwest of England. Gibbon's corner of Scotland is traditional agrarian society beset by doctrinaire religion, industrialization, war, and the Great Depression. The novels range from extremely brutal to marvelously lyrical. They are not without defect: sometimes too long, often too preachy. Occasionally, I felt that I was being treated to a Scottish version of "orientalism": Scotism, perhaps. The books want condensation, editing; sometimes I felt that I was reading a first draft -- but Gibbon wrote fifteen books in seven years, so signs of haste are inevitable. Gibbon might be called a local colorist or a social realist, but he's much more. His feel for the landscape and for history is unparalleled.

In subject matter and tone, A Scots Quair reminds me most of Halldor Laxness's great Icelandic novel, Independent People. It's also like one of Hardy's Wessex novels, but funnier, more playful, and yes, more sensual. There are stream-of-consciousness speeches that recall Faulkner and passages that might have been written by James Joyce (not the Joyce of Ulysses but the Joyce of Portrait).  A much neglected masterpiece. 

HMT? (How Many Today?)

For two days, I kept track of the initials that I needed to know to make sense of the world. Here they are, all familiar, no doubt: HOA,, MRI, IED, CNN, EPA, FDA, DNA, OMB, ED, NBA, COVID, GPS, AWOL, PTSD, TCM, WTF, BPL, TIA, ETA, MST. Just two days. IK that there's a part of the brain that stores nouns; I wonder if humans will evolve to develop an area to store acronyms.