A number of years ago, Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery & Psychiatry reported on "Skinny Jean Syndrome" characterized by a "fashion victim" experiencing rhabdomyolysis and bilateral peroneal and tibial neuropathies as a result of squatting in skinny jeans.
Big deal, right? What medicine doesn't get is that being on fashion trend, practicing pop speech, and having a nice behind are what make us who we are. We're so hot and twisty and snarkily clever that the medical profession can't even keep up. To wit, here are the latest pathologies that are so ahead of the curve that they've yet to make it into the DSM.
Cliché Necrosis: In a study of brain MRIs of subjects randomly chosen from Facebook users, it was found that those who commonly posted the phrases "awesome," "fave," and "that moment when you're [insert gerund]" are experiencing necrotizing of the Broca area, a region in the frontal lobe of the dominant brain hemisphere linked to speech. Symptoms of what is being referred to in popular media as "Cliché Rot" are a spacy look when pondering questions such as "How are you?", inability to give coherent directions, and a tendency to respond to all salutations with "Fine. Howzabout you?"
Parental Dysconfusia: According to a Fortune survey, about 85% of adults read news on their smartphones—an increase of 54% since 2013. Many of them do this when they are bored and tending their children, resulting in pediatricians' alarm at the escalating incidence of the first word "Mamma" being directed at any kind of handheld digital device along with messy attempts to nurse on flat screens of all sizes.
Pernicious Bewilderment: characterized by an inability to navigate from here to there, near to far, and back again because one is never clear on where one is. It is believed that the root cause is an addiction to knowing "What's next?"
Idiopathic Spastic Trending Syndrome (ISTS): As concerns about branding and the power of virality have overwhelmed our culture, doctors at various metropolitan hospitals have identified a new kind of seizure characterized by patients uttering ululations such as "What's hot? What's not? I must know!" while writhing in front of whatever gadget they have most recently purchased. Treatment is as yet unknown because the doctors are preoccupied arguing whether ISTS is pronounceable, might be confused with a terrorist group, and is a catchy enough acronym for the DSM.
Involuntary Opinionitis Emissions: In a survey of social media posts, researchers have found that the time between breaking news of any cultural event and mass expression of didactic personal opinions has decreased to .000002 seconds from pre-internet days. When a study sample of 3,500 posters were queried as to their sources, verification of sources, and consideration of impact of expression or anything at all that might result from the dissemination of such opinions, the overwhelming number of respondents (95% +-5% who could not make up their minds fast enough to type answers on the survey forms) replied, "Nope."
And what is my source for this list? Source, schmorse! A lot of people are saying it. Or nobody is saying it. But, really, isn't it obvious?
On walkers and canes they shuffled, in wheelchairs pushed by their children and grandchildren they rode, flanking a multitude of Boomers who'd made a lifestyle of youth and piloted the protesters on motorized scooters. "People get ready . . ." sang the young people who had used their smart phones to organize the buses and convoys. From all over the country they flooded the streets of DC, finally so tightly packed against the reinforced spear-topped White House fences that the old people crashed through.
But neither broken hips nor the Orange Man brigades could quell the swell of outraged pensioners at a missed payment of their hard-earned Social Security.
They hobbled, they limped, they slow-motion surged from the Ellipse onto the White House lawn and into the Kennedy Rose Garden which no longer had flowers since the woman the Orange Man doesn't sleep with replaced them with concrete. They filled the East Lawn, the West Lawn, and the South Lawn, where several elderly women were heard to exclaim, "I found a rotten Easter egg."
"I don't suppose we could eat them," replied another, miffed at the cost of her breakfast since the inauguration.
David Hogg, the new vice chair of the Democratic National Committee and former Parkland School gun control activist, rolled his meemaw to the quickly erected podium and lowered the microphone to her chin.
"I have one thing to say," she bellowed over the electronic squeal.
"All right, all right there, young lady," came a gruff but hopeful voice over an invisible sound system.
"Bernie Sanders!" laughed David Hogg's meemaw. "Take it away, Bernie!"
And as David carefully rolled his grandmother down the portable ramp that had been hastily but expertly invented for quick assembly by a gaggle of MIT students who understood the future and wanted to do their part, Bernie took the stage.
"Welcome! Welcome to everyone! We are the richest country in the world. You have all worked hard for your retirement income! And finally, finally, it seems we have an issue that brings us all together.
"Just for a moment here, let's hear from you. Tell us where you came from, and if you don't mind, your political affiliation.
"You there, yes you in the lovely blue muumuu with the nice pageboy hairdo—reminds me of my mom in Brooklyn, always did her hair nice. Yes, tell us, where are you from and anything else you care to share."
"My name's Estelle. I'm from Michigan, and I voted for Trump—"
As the boos erupted, Bernie raised his hands like Moses. "Everybody, everybody is welcome here. Excuse me, excuse me one moment, Estelle, I think we need to establish our commonality." And instantly a respectful calm was restored.
"It is a big country," continued Bernie, "and people come with all different issues. But here and now—this is a place to come together for our common good, so there will be no booing." And as a mumble of apology undulated through the crowd, "All right, Estelle, go on. Tell us what brought you."
"I was a librarian for 50 years—"
"Wonderful, wonderful," mumbled Bernie. "Never mess with librarians. Go on, Estelle."
"I'm ashamed of my vote. You'd think I'd have realized—"
All around her, old people cooed and comforted with several on either side of her caressing her arms.
"Thank you, thank you," whimpered Estelle, her limpid blue eyes filling with tears behind her thick lenses. "I never made a lot of money, but I never spent a lot either. I was smart, so I thought with my Social Security I'd be all right. But now— Now—" Unable to go on, she collapsed in tears.
"All right, all right, we understand, Estelle. We're so glad you're here. Who's next?"
A tall bald Black man way in the back raised his hand, and Bernie shouted for him to speak.
"I'm from Tennessee and I only voted for Trump because of RFK, Jr., but now I realize that a guy with an oil and gas family trust fund don't know nothing about living on Social Security. I heard he mixed it up with anti-social obscurity due to malnutrition and food deserts."
"Yes! Yes!" bellowed the crowd.
"Next," said Bernie, pointing. "You there in the wheelchair with the oxygen tank. Can we get some help here? Somebody hand her a microphone."
"Thank you, thank you," gasped the woman. "I appreciate— I've got COPD—"
"Take your time, take your time, dear," comforted Bernie. "We're here for the long haul. Give her some space, people."
The woman coughed, cleared her throat, and then spoke in a voice that belied her medical appliances: "My name is Maria. I'm a Mexican American, a citizen of this country for 60 years, and I'm living in a nursing home in Southern California—"
"Bless you," mumbled Bernie.
"Bless you, bless you," echoed the crowd.
"I thought the wildfires would do me in, but thank God they didn't touch us."
"Thank God," said Bernie.
"Thank God, thank God," echoed the crowd.
"I'm so glad you made it," said Bernie soberly. "What brings you here today, Maria?"
"Well, this may sound silly—"
"Nothing is silly," said Bernie. "Take your time. Tell us."
"Well, I was brought up to believe the Golden Rule. All my life I tried to do the right thing. I paid my taxes, helped my neighbors, and volunteered at my children's school. Two of them served in the military and died in Iraq."
"I'm so sorry," said Bernie. "Thank you for their service."
"Thank you, thank you," echoed the crowd.
"And the other one, well he died of AIDS in 1982."
"Aw, gee," said Bernie, wiping his brow and shaking his head with sorrow, and a wave of sympathy rolled through the assembly.
"I was about as mad as a mother can be at Reagan for never even mentioning the crisis. But at least he didn't try to make it worse.
"But this—" she gestured toward the White House, "This is much worse. I'm a Christian, and like I said, I believe in the Golden Rule, but also there's the 'eye for an eye,' which the Orange Man said is his favorite Bible passage. So I think it's time we did unto this regime as they have done unto us."
A murmur of confused delight began to reverberate across the White House lawn, spreading quickly back to Pennsylvania Avenue, then to 17th and 15th Streets on the west and east and as far as H Street and Constitution Avenue on the north and south as Maria's voice resounded through the sound system.
"What are you saying, Maria?" queried Bernie, a slight smile twitching at the corners of his mouth.
"Shut them down!" boomed Maria in a voice that came from a place beyond her oxygen-deprived lungs. "No tax payments, no food deliveries, I call on all White House service personnel to walk out now! No cleaning people, no butlers, no maids. Walk out! Walk out!"
And miraculously, an explosion of uniformed workers—cooks in aprons, chauffeurs in hats, doormen, even many office workers in business clothes—hearing Maria's cry, exploded out of the White House.
"No traffic, no commerce, no communication! Many of us are already sitting, so we don't even have to move."
"You mean …?" said Bernie, now with a full-face grin.
"Yes!" declared Maria. "A sit-in. Nobody move for as long as it takes. My grandson, Jesus, brought me here, and he and his friends from colleges around the country brought tents and supplies—"
And as if ascending out of an ocean, battalions of young men and women rose with backpacks and duffle bags bursting with food, medications, books and magazines, and even solar-powered appliances for cooking, entertainment, and medical sterilization.
And as the 70 million pensioners and their supporters heaved themselves to the ground, at a window somewhere in the White House private residence, a big bloated blob of a man with tiny hands and a decompensating brain, peeked out the window and muttered, "Wow, what a crowd size. They love me. They really really love me."
Yippeeee! On sale today: Cats on a Pole, a novel (with humor and an edge) about curmudgeon Harmony Rogers and healing teacher Joshua Gardner, and their duel of psychic wills. It's available wherever you like to buy books and e-books. But here is a link to buy it at a discount directly from Ingram, the distributor. (Cheaper for you, more royalty for me, no Amazonians chewing up the majority of the price, and only one shipment—smallest possible carbon footprint): $10+shipping for paperback for sale to addresses in U.S.A. only:
Yesterday I went to a 1:00 matinee of Merrily We Roll Along. It was wonderful as only Stephen Sondheim played by actors at the top of their game can be wonderful. The first scene shows a man whose life is a career success and a personal debacle, and then the music asks, "How did I/we get here as we seemed to be just merrily rolling along?" The answer plays out in reverse chronological order.
Everything about this production, from the Playbill cover to the music to the mess that ensued in the last row of the balcony behind me was perfect. But it took till this morning's contemplation to see that.
The successful mess of a character, Frank, was at a crossroads after producing a Hollywood hit: would he completely fuck up his life and his family by giving in to addictions for sex and money, or would he stop himself? It was during the church silence of the moment of this decision that the usher decided to seat an entire row of high school students behind my row. They tried to be quiet, but they were kids, so they disrupted the mood and tension that the entire play had built to.
Shortly after this, at intermission, one audience member took it upon himself to scold the students, whereupon their teacher refused to allow that they'd made the mistake which had disrupted the dramatic tension, and he reprimanded the man for his anger, deflecting with an impenetrable smile and finally accusing the angry man of intolerance, thereby enraging him more. In the teacher's mind—he later explained to me—the entire problem was upper-class theatergoers disparaging inner-city students who they believed didn't belong there. When the "Fuck yous" erupted, the usher took the two men outside.
During their exeunt, I tried to explain to the girl behind me, who'd asked a question right in the middle of the silence, that the problem was that they had interrupted a tense emotional moment; that it's necessary to understand the environment they'd entered.
"It's not my fault," she protested.
The teacher, still with his impenetrable smile, returned and explained to me about mass intolerance of his students. I pointed out that the entire balcony had been jarred out of the play, and finally, he mentioned almost as an aside that the whole thing was his fault because he had thought the show began at 2:00, not 1. (Meaning he had ignored three emails from the theater verifying the time.*)
I asked the girl who'd been trying to understand the plot if she'd like to know the plot. "Yes," she replied with gratitude and relief. So I gave her and the students around her an emotional recap. They seemed to appreciate it.
What dawned on me this morning was that we "principals" all took on mirror roles to the principal actors. I became Lindsay Mendez's peacemaker/explainer, Mary; the attacking audience member became Daniel Radcliffe's irate jilted writing partner, Charley; and the smiling teacher became Jonathan Groff's irresponsible writer, Frank.
All the world's a stage . . . It is mind-blowing how we be. But if we principals in our own plays can see this device as a principle of life, if we can admit what we're really doing, maybe we'll stop being so angry.
____________
*And my need to point this out in this blog is me, once again, taking on the Lindsay Mendez role of being the smart one who's seeing the whole thing, cannot affect it, so she gets sarcastic. Oy vey, it never ends.
Thirty-one years ago, with the help of editor/filmmaker Steve Clarendon, my dog, Daisy, and my actor friend Shelley Wyant, I made this little film short that I had written to the score of Vivaldi's The Four Seasons. Long before digital technology, adding music from an LP became too cumbersome to attempt, so the VHS of the rough cut languished in a dusty bag on my top book shelf.
Recently, I had the video digitized and finally finished it with the help of Vivaldi, royalty free courtesy of John Harrison with the Wichita State University Chamber Players.
(Please excuse the frame counter; there is no way to eliminate it easily and cheaply.)
I hope you enjoy this love letter to New York City, seasons in Central Park, human and canine oddities, and angels in dog suits everywhere.
I have known Betsy a very long time and as it happens, we have not seen much of each other over the past each other the last 25/30 years. When I saw this utterly charming short film, my heart remembered Betsy and all her insightful earnest and quirky sense of the world. And I missed her. As I read on her website of all her accomplishments I was so impressed. Congratulations Betsy for always having the courage to tell the truth as you know it.
From Remarkably Bright Creatures, a charming novel by Shelby Van Pelt
I'm an editor as well as a writer, and recently I couldn't resist correcting an error in a library book (see illus). When I posted about it on Facebook, I was overwhelmed by comments with people's grammar peccadilloes. People who read a lot get annoyed about errors in published material. Their ire made me retire my own. However it also brought up—not annoyance, because I get paid to fix mistakes—a screaming head full of chronic errors, which resulted in an article, just published by a site called Writing Bad.
They cut two of the most annoying errors, so I'm pasting them here—as a teaser … and for closure:
WELL/GOOD
Using "good" instead of "well" is commonly misspoken, but when this gaff makes it into print and is not part of a quotation, it's just annoying.
Wrong: He was offered a good-paying job.
"Well" is an adverb, meaning it describes the verb—how you do the verb.
Correct:
He was offered a well-paying job, and boy, did he feel good about that.
I made this video as part of the Authors Guild's initiative, #SupportAuthors, to promote new books in the age quarantine.
The websites mentioned are Graywolf Press's page for Percival Everett's new book Telephone
and the wonderful new bookshop.org that supports independent bookstores--here is their page for the book: bookshop.org.
Now that I have just finished this magnificent book, my review:
How on earth do you review a book that is as personal, as tender, and as unnamable as your own soul? Reading Percival Everett, and this new novel in particular, is like entering the territory where all life comes from. I had such a hit of this when I first began the book that I literally passed out. In yoga there are names for this. Suffice it to say that it's when your consciousness is overwhelmed, stretched beyond its normal capacity.
As a person who woke with dread for the four decades I was compelled to work with other people in offices, silently thinking "if only I could work alone," I may have some wisdom for people who normally leap out of bed in anticipation of social contact—people who are now forced into a routine that requires low levels of oxytocin to enjoy. So to you, I offer the following tips, the first one of which got me through my years of mandated social agony:
1. It's only temporary. If you can just do this for the required time in order to stay well, know that one day you will be able to revert to your happy natural self. Anything is do-able, even life, if you remember that the only consistent thing is change, and this too shall change.
2. No more makeup, no more appropriate dressing of any kind. No more need for clothes! Think of the money you'll save.
3. You can fart with abandon.
4. Relax your facial muscles. I'll bet you have no idea how much time you've spent stress smiling, faking care when you really didn't want to hear about Bob's grandmother's operation, pretending you were okay with that guy/girl in the neighboring cubicle latching onto you when their very presence made you want to shower. No more pretending! Feel the relief and let it move through your now-flaccid body.
5. To keep that flaccid body from melting into a puddle of adipose, exercise at home—YouTube videos, Kathy Smith videos are my go-to, free weights, a treadmill, dance like nobody's watching—because nobody is. Nobody to impress. Enjoy some private endorphins. Work up a sweat. And, again, fart with abandon.
What? Did you say "read"? Did you say "speak to people"? My, how did we ever survive when those were more than just quaint ideas! Quite well, I think. My father would have needed no prodding to adopt your "bodily functions" suggestions. I'm wondering if he somehow whispered them to you from the Great Beyond"
On the anniversary of publication of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, my friend Karen Troianello posted a Facebook homage to her multiple copies of the book, and it got me thinking about my own multiples (see photo) and the personal reasons I will hang onto them for the rest of my life. And that got me wondering about other people's multiples and reasons for holding them. So I asked.
Boy, are we loyal to books we love. We cherish them like family members. My friend Maureen Phillips who writes delightful stories and poems about fairies calls her multiples "a little family of weirdos who all sit on the shelves together." (Madame Bovary, The Lord of the Rings trilogy, The Shipping News, A Confederacy of Dunces, the stories and poems of Edgar Allen Poe.) Read More
After publishing The Last Will & Testament of Zelda McFigg, a funny novel about a 4'11", 237 pound woman with a habit of lying, burgling, and incinerating houses--a woman desperate to be seen and accepted for her talent and inner beauty--I became a little desperate to read funny novels about other difficult women. There are not a lot of them. But here's what I found. Read More
My bc might be very interested to have you visit. I will check out the book and spread the word with the other ladies. We actually had Jamie Brenner come when I won copies of The Gin Lovers on Book Movement!
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Maryann Gazzini
Dec 10, 2015 9:58 AM EST
I'd love to visit. By the way, the distributor of The Last Will & Testament of Zelda McFigg has a special 30% off deal for book clubs: http://www.spdbooks.org/pages/programs/Book%20Club%20Kit.aspx
About a year ago I attended a Jeffrey Euginedes lecture on the subject of writer's voice (Columbia University School of the Arts, Heyman Center for the Humanities Creative Writing Lecture series). If you have about an hour, by all means listen; it's rich. [He stops reading and turns loose, funny, and charming during the Q&A which starts around 40:00. (My questions are at 52:58—about the nature of the personal "starter yeast" that brought him to commit years of life to researching Middlesex. His wonderful answers involve Latin class, Ovid's Metamorphosis, whether men or women enjoy sex more, and having a hopeless existence.)]{POSTSCRIPT: THIS VIDEO HAS BEEN PRIVATIZED. I'M SO SORRY. BELIEVE ME, IT IS WONDERFUL}
I start reading a lot of books and nothing makes me abandon them faster than a generic voice; to my eyes and inner ear, it's like fingers with no fingerprints. Not only is something off, but there is no feeling of surprise for me when I hit that kind of writing; no pulse. And the majority of books fall into this category. Why? Probably for the same reason so few of us generally and regularly express who we really are from our deepest essence. Which makes me all the more grateful when I land on a writer with a voice like no other—as unique as their fingerprints, so resonant with pulse that the words vibrate off the page and throughout my physical/spiritual system. I recently discovered two such writers: Amanda Filipacchi and Bradley Somer. Here are my reviews of their magnificent new novels: Read More
It all started at BookExpo America (BEA) 2013, arguably the largest book publishing convention in the U.S., so it seemed fitting that I asked my mother, Edna Robinson, whose debut novel, The Trouble with the Truth, found a copacetic agent there, to accompany me to BEA 2015. The fact that she has been dead since 1990 is inconsequential.
"Mom," I said, "things have changed since 1958 when you wrote your coming-of-age book about a lost but funny girl named Lucresse in the 1930s, (called by Booklist, 'a gem of a book') [No, of course I didn’t really say all this, but I’m trying to make this conversation both comprehensible and appealing!] You thought getting a word processor in 1989, a year before you skedaddled, was wild. Just wait till you see what’s going on now!"
Edna Robinson: "I can hardly contain myself. Are you really going to wear those shoes?" Read More
