Preamble for a Literal Mental Breakdown.

When I came across the recent Buzzfeed article, "The Wrong Definition of 'Literally' is Literally Going Into the Dictionary," my head literally exploded.

Or, well, it didn't. & the way that you know it didn't is that I'm typing this to you now, as opposed being gurneyed out of the library in a body bag (or riding my fire-breathing stallion through Sleepy Hollow).

Of course, the popular misuse of this particular adverb is not news—not by a long shot. In fact, it's been prominently lampooned in recent years on How I Met Your Mother—& especially on Parks & Recreation, as the favorite intensifier of Rob Lowe's overexcitable Chris Traeger, for whom everything is "literally the [insert superlative here]."

Ultimately, I consider David Cross's 2002 routine the definitive rant on the subject: because when you misuse the word literally, you are using it in the exact opposite way that it was intended.

As a total word nerd & sometimes grammar snoot, the mistake bothers me, sure—but more often than not, I'm willing to let it slide. I understand that, in most cases, people are making a joke or an otherwise tongue-in-cheek statement—that they know they didn't literally die or piss themselves or stab their uncle in the face with a rake, but for whatever reason, that qualifier just feels right stuck into their phrasing.

What does bother me, though, to no end, is this:

(via Buzzfeed)

I'm sorry, but how does it make even the remotest bit of sense that "used to acknowledge that something that is not literally true" would be printed as an official functioning definition for the word "literally." It's as if we decided that the new definition for the word "quickly" were "1. done with speed; 2. used to acknowledge something that was not done with speed, but, like, if you're being sarcastic about it or something."

I mean, sure, people are technically, linguistically capable of using "literally" in this context, & yes, they do so frequently. But that doesn't change the fact that, in that usage, they're either joking or they're wrong—& to canonize & codify that wrongness is at least stupid, if not actually problematic.

Because the point of having the word "literally" in the first place is to designate things that are, y'know, literal—specifically, as opposed to things that are not. In fact, as someone prone to both sarcasm & over-exaggeration, I appreciate the steadfastness of its definition: that way, its use is deliberate & its intentional misuse thus even stronger. The murkiness of having it both ways does nothing but strip the word of any & all legitimate signification—to the point where we'll all have to pepper our speech with the qualifier "& I'm using the word 'literally' here in its correct & literal sense"—which is clunky & pointless & frustrating on several levels. Because, for example, what makes Chris's character so endearingly exuberant is that he means what he says, literally, every time.

            

In short: catering to a mass misuse is as ridiculous as it is detrimental, to the word itself & words themselves.

In shorter: everything about this phenomenon is the fucking worst. Literally.

Today's Headphone Fodder:

Yes, this song is 43 seconds long, & yes, it's all the more fantastic for it. I've always been an advocate of songs being no longer than absolutely necessary—"Welcome to the Working Week" always one of my favorite Elvis Costello tunes—but honestly, Molina's 12-track, just-over-12-minute Dissed and Dismissed makes the Ramones look like an overindulgent jam band. The friend who recommended the album to me described it as "Rivers Cuomo stripped of all the fat," & I couldn't agree more—the perfect soundtrack for adolescent attention deficits & directionless head-bopping, shuffle-y & shoe-gaze-y & surging with power chords. (Also, note the 25 second track, "Sick Ass Riff," that is—wait for it—literally a single sick ass riff.)

In Which I Prove Myself Both a Curmudgeon & a Cumberbitch.

When I took over Managing Editorship of my beloved Eye, one of my major initiatives was the creation of a new section: 20/20, a clever lil' vision pun that was to headline a page devoted to what I called "pop-culture op-eds"—punchy, funny, incisive nuggets of commentary, no more than 450 words, on a topic of the author's choosing. The idea was to increase the readability of the magazine by adding shorter, lighter pieces directly after our customary 3,000-word lead story. Sounds like a decent plan, right? I thought so, too.

Little did I realize that, as willing writers are few & far between, this would essentially entail turning myself into a raging snarkmonster on at least a bi-weekly basis. At this point, I've wigged out unnecessarily over Justin Bieber's burgeoning sexuality, Daniel Radcliffe's alcoholism, Scarlett Johansson's barfy tattoo, Madonna's whiskey-scented perfume that never was (just to name a few)—& now, it seems, I'm back again (o wretched column inches, will you never just fill yourselves?) with another wee tirade. 

This time, I bring you even more proof of my eternal curmudgeonitude & general fashion cretinhood: "F no, FNO," or, "Why Fashion's Night Out Is Pretty Effing Terrible." (Also, look out for another contribution from yours truly this upcoming Thursday—about what, I have no ungodly idea yet, but I'm sure I'll be inordinately upset about it.)

Meanwhile, I've been trucking away, nose pressed firmly to that infernal & omnipresent grindstone—by which, of course, I mean, "reading about 10 pages, getting up, making a snack, reading another 3 pages, painting my nails, listlessly thumbing through the remaining 100-some pages, sighing, & ultimately succumbing to Netflix." 

These days, that tends to mean Sherlock, Season 2 of which is now finally available thereupon. (Adios, sketchy Russian streaming sites!) If you haven't seen the show, do, not only because it's whip-smart & expertly put together (the way they handle text messaging is honestly, filmically fascinating), or because it's created/written by Doctor Who's Steven Moffat, or even because it stars Benedict Cumberbatch (AKA, Bandersnatch Cummerbund), whose austere, Victorian cheekbones have chiseled out a place in my heart of hearts—& whose devoted fans, I've just discovered, are called "Cumberbitches," so there's that—but mostly because this show can honestly claim to feature the single sexiest scene I've ever seen on television, like, ever. Behold:

Chills, I tell you. Chills. 

Until next time, team. Happy Monday.

Today's Headphone Fodder:

Weekend Wars—MGMT.

So, guys, there's this great band I just discovered—they're called MGMT? Like, the abbreviation for "Management"? Yeah, they're pretty sweet. You should probably check them out. (In all seriousness, though: for whatever reason, this particular song has been worming its way onto my playlists as of late, burrowing between my ears & refusing to leave. The heart wants what it wants, I suppose—& it is honestly a better song than I think it's gotten credit for, crowded out by the hyper-success of "Kids," "Time to Pretend," "Electric Feel," etc.)

That, & this:

Momentum—Aimee Mann.

The simple answer: I recently re-watched Magnolia in service of a class-sanctioned review of PTA's newest cinematic stab, The Master, text of which will be posted here post haste (once, you know, I actually write the damn thing). The honest answer: upbeat melancholy is my favoritest of tones, & no one plucks my particular mania's heartstrings quite like Ms. Mann. Jaunt & brass clash against bald-faced despair, raucously condemning the future to death—perfect for scrambling to find a second sock among dirty dishes in yesterday's make-up, already 10 minutes late to a meeting no one would mind if you missed.

& this:

Exit Music (For a Film)—Easy Star All Stars (Radiohead cover).

Radiohead gone reggae-fied, & successfully so. Need I say more?

On Politicians & Syllogisms.

Rhetoric is volatile. The words we choose & the order in which we choose them can't help but be powerful, influential, easily shaped & more easily misunderstood—even expertly deployed, by some, & these are (hopefully) those to whom we are asked to listen on matters of great import (e.g., "winning the future," as an audience Presidentially browbeaten with this phrase have surely grasped by now). & yet, of course, just as the most successful media have always been those that distribute porn, so is the most cunning & successful rhetoric almost unfailingly toxic, the most manipulative—dissemblance where there ought to be growth.

For those of you who didn't watch the President's speech last night, do, if only to applaud lines like "with the conviction that American Muslims are a part of our American family" & "Starting this year, no American will be kept from serving the country they love because of whom they love" [Here's hoping I quoted those correctly; I was typing while he talked...]—&, if you're like me, to cringe a little, every time he calls America "the greatest nation on Earth," bracing yourself for the the Yertle-tower of our hubris to collapse. In short, it was a sobering speech, both in content & construct—from folksy by-name exemplars to clever interpolation of Democratic policy proposals with Republican bone-tossing. President Obama didn't even have to say it outright: going by the careful tactics of his speechwriters alone, it's hard not to recall that the world is different, irrevocably, & made of soundbytes.

Still, if you'll permit me a digression from the Main Event, his is not the rhetoric I want to discuss—the kind I so hyperbolically slandered in my introduction. Oh, no: that prize goes to Representative Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, who had the distinct pleasure of delivering last night's Conservative Rebuttal.

As much as I'd like to object to Mr. Ryan's stipulations about Obama's proposed budget, I can't in good conscience: I would never be so vain as to assume that passing skims of various news outlets & a fanatical devotion to The West Wing bring me anywhere near the level of understanding required to legitimately debate finance with a Budget Committee chair. That said, I can & do object wholeheartedly to his sleight-of-hand entangling of that very budget expertise with conservative politics, as if the one implies the other.

In fact, in my estimation, it harkens back to one of the most basic rhetorical forms in the book: the Syllogism:

Socrates is a man. All men are mortal. Therefore, Socrates is mortal.

Or, from Ryan's earnest jawline:

Spending too much is bad. The government is spending too much. Therefore, Government is bad.

It's not that this statement is manifestly wrong, per se; when the government spends too much, that is, indeed, bad. Rather, poison starts to take hold with that slippery excising of the conclusion's rightful definite article—a reduction of "this period in the practices of the United States government" to the dangerously blunt "Government," which comes off as an Orwellian golem with arms made of taxes & big spiky boots bent on crushing Freedom.

There is no doubt that the size & purview of government is an issue—maybe the issue—that deserves constant reexamination & debate by its members, both citizen & legislator. Personally, as a self-professed Fruity Liberal Wuss, I tend to prefer that the government be held responsible for the wellbeing of its citizens (re: schools, roads, even—fingers crossed—health care) in ways that include more input (re: taxes) than many seem to be comfortable with. That's an opinion I'm more than willing to discuss—to rehash, ever, which policies deserve to be under federal vs. state control. What I refuse to tolerate, however—&, in fact, find unconscionably dangerous & stupid, yet manage to see regurgitated daily by men & women in tricorner hats—is this shrewd, alchemical peddling of the notion that the very idea of Government is somehow contrary to Liberty.

To be clear, the concern itself is not what's stupid. In fact, it's the seminal question behind all of the great social contract thinkers (Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau): How do we reconcile the manifest benefits of living in society with the loss of freedom that such a system seems to require? That is, why do we choose to live under a government, if its laws necessarily restrict our ability to do whatever we want? The Hobbesian picture is, as you may recall, rather bleak: he describes man's pre-societal State of Nature as a vulgar, untenable State of War, one that makes surrendering freedom in exchange for any small amount of order look all too attractive. In his description, forming a government seems to be the rock over the hard place, the better of two undesirables.

Whereas Hobbes's understanding of freedom might best be characterized as "being able to do what you want, when you want," both Locke & (mainly) Rousseau attempt to carve out a more positive definition. Each argues, in his own way, that true freedom is defined by the ability to protect both self & property in the interest of self-betterment—that coming together under a common set of regulations keeps the baseness Hobbes feared in check &, in that way, allows you more opportunities to pursue your goals. If everyone can do what they want, when they want, there can be no guarantee of safety; you'll constantly be looking over your shoulder, worrying that your neighbor might dominate you in some way—through harm or theft or Black Eyed Peas out of giant speakers—& there will be no greater power to rein him in. So, rather than "freedom to set your lawn on fire while wearing a silly hat," government provides us with "freedom not to be killed in your sleep"—or, as John Stewart put it in his recent interview with former Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty, "freedom not to have E. Coli in your spinach."

Of course, if you were to ask the men & women in tricorner hats, I think that the first thing they would tell you is that they believe the government is encroaching on exactly this kind of freedom—that the current administration is foisting laws on them that they believe will fundamentally & negatively alter their way of life. Locke had an answer for such complaints, of course: he explicitly states that any law that doesn't increase freedom should be done away with. But here's the rub: as exemplified by the videos of Chase Whiteside & New Left Media (among others), it seems that the people most steamed about this impending tyranny of our proto-Socialist government have no idea why they think that.

All Mr. Whiteside does is repeatedly ask for specifics—just as all Stewart did to Pawlenty was repeatedly ask why Obama is perceived as more tyrannical than the president who enacted a blanket education reform like No Child Left Behind—&, time after time, no answer comes. There are no reasoned arguments, no statesmanship. Rather, there are a series of talking points, ten-word answers & catch-phrases (almost all of them attributable to a certain cable news channel)—& this is, I think, the site of the real tyrannous disaster.

Because, in fact, perhaps the most crucial aspect of Locke's faith in government—Rousseau's insistence that by living in society, we are "forced to be free"—is that the public be actively involved in the practice of its government. For all the flag-waving & "LIBERTY"-shouting, people seem to have forgotten that the key component of this Democracy (or, well, Democratic Republic) they so champion is that it demands its citizens be politically involved—&, moreover, that political involvement is measured least by the ability to shout & hold a sign. It's no coincidence, perhaps, that the Tea Party has named itself after the flashiest & emptiest act of the American Revolution. Sure, the Red Coats saw we weren't to be messed with once we ruined their Earl Grey—but the Tea Party was, at its core, a single & symbolic act of thuggery. Rather, informed debate—a measured discussion of issues—is what this country was founded on, & is, in fact, the only thing that will keep it running as those founders intended.

As such, in any responsible & open society (as I believe we all wish the United States to be), there is plenty of room to point out precisely which laws you consider unnecessary. Indeed, in order to be sure our government is operating at its full Locke/Rousseau-ian freedom-supplying potential, we ought to consistently question its practice. There might even be room for me to suggest that government can be more than a glorified judge & jury—a bringer of betterment to the least well off under its purview, to make sure that they too feel their non-domination is at its peak. You can, in turn, say that my view is excessive—is naïve—is harmful, specifically, in numbers & bills passed. What you don't say, Paul Ryan, is this:

"It's no coincidence that trust in government is at an all time low, when the size of government is at an all-time high."

I mean, do you see what he did there?

Today's government is big. Today's government is mistrusted. Therefore, its bigness is the cause of its mistrust.

Not its practice, not its policies, but the very fact of its size. More Government < Less Government. It's that simplified. Seriously, now: that's the equivalent of me saying, "I slipped on a patch of ice yesterday. I was wearing my blue shirt yesterday. Therefore, blue shirts cause people to slip on ice." Correlation simply does not imply causation, no matter how much we may want it to—&, moreover, no matter how succinctly it may turn a pretty (& pretty damn manipulative) phrase. 

News outlets have been engaged in furious debate over political rhetoric since the tragedy of the Arizona shootings—questioning its power, its penchant for violent imagery—& the overall consensus seems to be a blanket chill-pill issued to politicians, a challenge posed to keep their venom in check—to recognize the impossible influence of the simple act of speaking. However, I'd like to tack on an amendment: I think that the only way to really raise the level of our public debate is to drain this bile from both its content & its construct. Though calls for "Second Amendment remedies" to solve Ms. Palin's problems are certainly not helping, neither are her bite-size generalizations about the role of government (or "Obamacare," or "lamestream media," on & on). Oversimplification, rhetorical manipulation: they're symbiotic, the one the afterbirth of the other, tumbling with acrobatic precision into a muddle of pomp & circumstance & network news. Imposed ignorance is more tyrannical than any legislation, & more pernicious than any tyrant; these are issues that deserve specific, in-depth treatment, not performative summary.

Though my knowledge of The West Wing may not be enough to bring me to Ryan's financial par, Mr. Sorkin has supplied me with an exchange (from Season 4, Episode 6) that sums up my criticism of his rhetorical tactics with elegance to spare:

Debate Moderator: Governor Ritchie, many economists have stated that the tax cut, which is the centrepiece of your economic agenda, could actually harm the economy. Is now really the time to cut taxes?

Governor Robert Ritchie: You bet it is. We need to cut taxes for one reason - the American people know how to spend their money better than the federal government does.

Debate Moderator: Mr. President, your rebuttal.

President Bartlet: There it is. That's the ten word answer my staff's been looking for for two weeks. There it is. Ten-word answers can kill you in political campaigns. They're the tip of the sword. Here's my question: What are the next ten words of your answer? Your taxes are too high? So are mine. Give me the next ten words. How are we going to do it? Give me ten after that, I'll drop out of the race right now. Every once in a while, every once in a while, there's a day with an absolute right and an absolute wrong, but those days almost always include body counts. Other than that, there aren't very many unnuanced moments in leading a country that's way too big for ten words.

Because the truth is, politicians on both sides of the aisle seem to have skimmed their Shakespeare—stopped reading after Lady Macbeth whispers in her husband's ear to look like the innocent flower, but be the serpent under't. Either that, or they've forgotten how, once their mouths are opened & the Rubicon is crossed, all the perfumes of Arabia could never sweeten such a crude, divisive argument.

Today's Headphone Fodder:

Dead Finks Don't Talk—Brian Eno.

Normally, I try not to correlate songs too rigidly with post themes (re: talking & finkishness), but I have been re-Eno-ing as of late—rediscovering (though I never really leave it) one of my all-time favorite albums ever, ever, ever: Here Come the Warm Jets, his first solo effort post-Roxy Music. All of the songs are fantastic & fascinating, from more traditional glam to deconstructed instrumentals—layers of synth bubbling & receding, pulling you in like undertow. "Dead Finks" is one of the album's quirkier tracks, to be sure, but it's also catchy & wonderful—if only in reminding us that to be a zombie all the time requires such dedication.

The Perils of Mishearing.

Let me start out by saying, I am very deaf. Not clinically, not diagnosably—but the truth is, probably as a result of the Devil's Rock Music, I often have a difficult time understanding what people are saying—that is, unless they speak at a reasonable volume & enunciate like an overzealous middle-school drama teacher (To siT in SoleMN SI-LENSSS, etc.). This is why I prefer text messages or Skype to telephone calls, face-to-face conversation above all—& why, even then, I've had to develop a system for educated aural guessing, so that I don't, as a friend once jibed, "have more stilted conversations than [his] 96-year-old grandmother."

The system goes thusly: pick out the vowel sounds, analyze their order, tack on any consonants you were able to glean (though those are often unreliable), &, most importantly, apply context. Context is paramount, is key, the name of the game, on & on—because, for example, if someone is telling you a story, & they say a word that sounds roughly like "ooo-ays," you might infer that, were this a travel story, they meant "suitcase"; a shoe-shopping story, "bootlace"; a proposal-gone-bad story, "bouquets"; a celebrity gossip session, "new face." As long as you stay alert, it's essentially foolproof.

Unfortunately, there are some cases in which even this elastic system fails, the most frustrating being in music. Song lyrics—complicated as they are by pitch (which is why I will never tackle Mandarin) & poem-like brevity—are often impossible to infer from context. For example, why, oh why, oh why again, would a song called "I'm Looking Through You" come to the end of its chorus with a line like "& you're nowhere"? Doesn't that negate the song's whole premise? Doesn't it make so much more sense for the line to be "I'm looking through you: your underwear"? Because then it's a song about awesome x-ray vision goggles, not mixed relationship metaphors. Right?

Consider the fictional case of Ramona (of Beezus & Ramona fame), who, after being subjected to our embarrassingly constructed national anthem (really, America: it's two not-quite-rhetorical questions), comes away with the understanding that it begins "Oh, say, can you see by the donzerly light," which she logically interprets as "light from a lamp." She then proceeds to show off her new vocabulary by loudly asking her sister to turn on the donzer—&, of course, humiliation ensues. Or, if you like, another true-life version: as a disciple to Britney Spears's nasal throat-hack in younger years, I would proudly sing along to the first line of the second verse of "Lucky": "Lost in a nevitch in a dream..." I was convinced that a nevitch must be a kind of crevice, a crawl-space in which Britney could dream-hide from her newfound fame—as opposed to, you know, "an image." Similar mishearings of mine include: "Now, it's nothing but a mile 'way" (vs. "[a-]my[-uh] way"), "6'15" in my stilettos" (vs. "since fifteen"), "the pianic [as in, piano-related] spike of my life" (vs. "the BMX bike"), on & on.

Another problem with my system (as exemplified by the above examples from my past) is its self-selecting age requirement: in order to pick up patterns in speech or contextual concepts, you need to have been around long enough to recognize norms. Because we learn speech by hearing speech, it's perilously easy to misunderstand, especially at a young age—&, once these warped interpretations imprint themselves on young lobes, they tend to cement, essentially guaranteeing you an embarrassing conversation somewhere down the road.

My (roundabout at best) point is: I have serious empathy for those who unknowingly use some misheard verbiage—& there are certainly a number of English sayings that people seem to flub, again & again, with the sincere unabashedness of misunderstanding. As someone who knows full well what it feels like to get called out—while simultaneously instilled by professor parents with a nails-on-chalkboard deathwish reflex to any & all grammatical mistakes—I think it's in both of our best interests that I clarify some for you now. Here goes:

For all intensive purposes. = For all intents & purposes.

When you classify the purposes as "intensive," you're actually narrowing what you want to say; rather than including all possible intents & all possible purposes, you're now only talking about the really, really intensive purposes, & leaving out intents altogether. When making a generalization, as you're probably doing when this phrase comes into play, my guess is that you want to be all-inclusive (e.g., "For all intents & purposes, cats like lasers"), as opposed to action-movie-climax specific (e.g., "For all intensive purposes, cats like lasers, but when they're not working to negotiate a hostage situation or deactivate a bomb, they don't really have a preference").

Beckoned call. = Beck & call.

Think about it this way: in the misusage, the call is what's being beckoned, which, I'm guessing, is not what you're going for. Meanwhile, in the correct one, this person is at both your beck & your call—two whole words!—so, you exert extra power over them.

Supposably. = Supposedly.

This one's subtle: "supposably" means you're able to suppose it, while "supposedly" designates something already supposed. It's possible to suppose anything, at least as a premise (e.g., "Suppose that trees, when seen from far away, are actually broccoli held up by giants")—but it would be incorrect to call such premises "supposed," as this implies the knowledge has been accepted by someone else first (e.g., "Scientists confirm broccoli-tree hypothesis" = "Supposedly, faraway trees are broccoli—but I don't buy it").

Nip it in the butt. = Nip it in the bud.

When you nip—or, cut—a bud from off its stem, the flower can no longer bloom, thus averting a potentially disastrous gardening situation. However, when you nip—or, bite—someone in the butt, you are either a dog, a mosquito, sexually aggressive, or rabid. This solves nothing.

Case & point. = Case in point.

I screw this one up all the time—case in point, the beginning of my entry on Glee-Rocky, which has since been corrected out of familial shaming. I guess the best way to understand it is this: all good arguments have both a case & a point, but the reason you're singling this one out is because its case is in its point—because it's self-evident. Classifying an argument as "case & point" is nothing special; "case in point" makes it exceptional.

Off the cusp. = Off the cuff.

The cusp is the edge; if you make a remark off it, you might as well not have made the remark at all, as the remark has now fallen off a cliff. However, if you make a remark "off the cuff," it's just tumbled out of your sleeve, like a bunch of flowers at a magic show. So, consider how you want your comment to be received; getting surprise flowers is far more pleasant than jumping off a cliff.

[ NOTE: For those of you who've been watching Logo's The A-List—because, really, why wouldn't you?—you may recognize this as the verbal gaff made by unconscionably frustrating Austin & subsequently mocked by Dorito-spraytanned Derek. However, I would point out that Derek was the inspiration for the above "nip it in the butt" entry, just as I recently made a "case & point"; no one is perfect, dear Reader... ]

Irregardless. = Not a word.

You mean "regardless." Just trust me. This is like when people say "I could care less," when, in fact, they're trying to convey that they couldn't. Oh, those tricky negatives...

&, finally, a write-in suggestion that I have never actually heard from the lips of another, but which I find profoundly, wonderfully bizarre:

It's a doggy dog world. = It's a dog-eat-dog world.

Okay (she says, with knuckle-crack & determined expression): from what I understand, a "doggy dog world" would be a world in which dogs are doggy—thus fulfilling their necessary, teleological, Aristotelian purpose. A "doggy dog world" is the ideal towards which we strive, a world in which there is a place for everything & everything is in its place—basically like Pleasantville, but for some reason, it's populated entirely by dogs. This, then, is opposite from the chaotic, cannibalistic violence of a "dog-eat-dog" world—a saying we use to remind ourselves of the cut-throat, back-stabbing moral cesspool we currently live & die in. We should pray, always, to live in a "doggy dog world," never curse it.

In conclusion, just for fun, I wrote you this short story:

"For all intensive purposes, David Bowie is at my beckoned call," she quipped, off the cusp.

"Irregardless!" I shot back. "Supposably, he's planning to nip it in the butt!"

"Well," she sighed, "it's a doggy dog world. Case & point."

Now, do not-that. & remember: when lost in your nevitch, just turn on the donzer.

Today's Headphone Fodder:

I'm Looking Through You—The Beatles.

Seriously. It should be "underwear," right? Am I the only one who thinks this??

French for "D'oh!"

Today, a quick meditation on an incredibly useful, if frustrating concept—a beautiful phrase that cloaks my absolute least favorite experience, ever, ever, ever: l'esprit d'escalier.

Translated literally from the French, it means "the spirit (or, well, wit) of the stair"—but really, it's that incredibly clever thing you can only think to say .3 seconds after it would have been useful. For example, in Rostand's Cyrano de Bergerac, the quick-tongued protagonist is famed for never having this problem, for always dishing out only the best & best-timed repartee—most likely because he is a fictional character. Other, more realistic portraits include George from Seinfeld, who, when insulted, is utterly stymied, & even after great contemplation can only muster, "Well, the jerk store called, & they're running out of you!"

It is, quite literally, my least favorite of life's daily unfortunate doses—worse than tripping awkwardly on the sidewalk, spilling coffee down your shirt, returning a wave only to discover it was meant for the person behind you—because unlike these physical or social accidents, this verbal goof was preventable, avoidable altogether, if only your brain zapped slightly faster—&, therefore, the failure stings like a punch to the funnybone: sharp at first, then growing, spreading, aching over time. Why, oh why, couldn't you have, just one moment sooner, eeked out the response that now buzzes, restless, like a bee trapped in your skull?

I think it comes down to this: it's popular (especially among Plato & Co.) to view mental capacity as the greatest of goods, better than physical attractiveness or wealth, as the latter two are transient & arbitrarily privilege-based, while the former is a product of study & cultivation, & therefore available to anyone who works hard enough. In fact, M. de Bergerac is personified proof that, if nothing else, at least you have your mind—that even a seemingly insurmountable defect (e.g., a criminally large nose) can be turned around with some well-crafted verbiage. In moments of esprit d'escalier, however, even those considered reasonably sharp are robbed of this greatest & most honorable of traits, left only with fizz & inaction—& soon, the desire to kick themselves, repeatedly.

That's all, really: I have no advice for avoiding these blunders, no thoughts on mitigating the ensuing vexation. Still, the next time you experience this delayed synapse response—perhaps, when your sharp-tongued professor lobs a softball over the strike zone, & all you can do is stutter mundanely—at least you can say a pretty French phrase to yourself as you slink dopily back up the lecture hall stairs.

Today's Headphone Fodder:

With school comes work, & with work comes Study Music. Study Music is, at least for me, different from music I'd listen to when at play; it has to provide a varied & entertaining ambiance, while still remaining just that: an ambiance, a background, nothing so intriguing it will foist itself over the many pages of Heidegger left to chug down before sunrise. That said, the ultimate Study Music, as far as I'm concerned, is the album Cocktail Draculina—from which, for today, I've extracted the song (not unintentionally):

Studying to Keep Myself—Messer Chups.

The whole album is almost concept-bent—Lynchian, I would say—in its rehash/rebranding of various 50s-60s standard sounds: the surf guitar, the percocet-pumped housewife warble, the optimistic xylophone of advertising jingles—that general sense of halcyon excess that so easily slips to creepy. It's so, so, so good. I highly recommend picking up a copy—& especially, at some less busy point, listening to it with full attention. You won't be disappointed.