"one of the inadvertently useful aspects of the pre-internet, pre-accelerated hype era is that it allowed artists some enforced period of obscurity to develop their art.  my biggest worry about the way hype works now is that we're in danger of discovering people before they are worthy to be discovered."

---malcom gladwell

granted, this quote was in an article about vampire weekend, a band whose album i am rather enjoying at this moment.  however, i really could not have summed up my ambivalence and sometimes annoyance at the pop culture machine that i participate in and sometimes benefit by, while casting my scorn at the widespread glut of shiny mediocrity that gums up the media.

it's the part of me that reads blogs and likes hearing new things, but is stubbornly loyal and enamored with things that are old school, a complete pain in the butt and totally worthwhile.  this is why i own an ipod and a record player.  a digital camera and several polaroids.  my laptop, in fact, is sitting next to my well-used typewriter and stationary with pens which i used to write letters.

i am a mix of contradictions, and i wouldn't have it any other way.

ancillary recommendation: the song "oxford comma" by vampire weekend.  say whatever you like about the whole album and the new indie 'darlings', but a catchy, totally summer-mix-tape worthy song, and it's about grammar?  you know i'm all over that.  this song definitely heralds the imminent spring.

okay, here's the semester educational reading score*:

likes:

voltaire's candide
sir thomas more's utopia
excerpts from beowulf (translated)

dislikes:

moliere's play tartuffe
beowulf (untranslated)
excerpts from chaucer's canterbury tales

indifferent:

malory's morte d'arthur
marie de france's lanval & chevrefoil
gawain and the green knight

*this list SO does not represent all of the reading i have had to do, including introductions, footnotes, responses, etc. in the last semester alone, but in my word-choked mind we give you the reader's digest condensed version.

because you needed to know, yes?  glad that's settled, then.

okay, so now for your bi-weekly-monthly-whenever-i-unearth-myself-from-pages-of-british-literature update of my own personal voldemort, or, things that should not ever be said aloud again.  your update, in the style of one of my favorite radio hosts ira glass, is in two acts:

act one, words.  act two, deeds.

act one: words

chrismatic.

not charismatic, like one having charisma or the excitable christian movement.  no, because then we would have to actually pronounce the letter a in the middle of that, and that, that is just too much effort.  you know, that whole reading thing.  this, instead, sounds like a new r&b artist.  chris-matic, featuring lil’jon and that one guy.

supposebly.

part of speech: adjectib

synonyms: allegeb, pretenbed

also: supposeb

ongoingly.

sigh.  where do i even…just, stop making up words.  stop.  or, stop doing this on a stoppingly and nowingly basis.  please.

irregardless.

the answer to these misusages is not to add them to the dictionary simply because so many people use them.  mr. merriam and mr. webster just don’t have a spirit of excellence about words.

the phrase “in a frantic”

usage: “i was in a frantic because i couldn’t find my keys.”

a frantic…what?  a frantic mood, a frantic whirlwind, a frantic gorilla, a frantic disneyland ride…nouns, people.

act two: deeds

people, i’m hiring for about 5 positions at once.  quelle nightmare.  all i’m asking is a tiny modicum of people getting their heads out of their proverbial asses and paying attention.  just a bit.

things one should not do during a phone interview (ostensibly one that i am conducting, after they have read the ad, applied for the job, received an email confirming the phone interview time and the number at which i will be calling them):

-         put me on hold during the interview to get their other line

-         tell me they need to turn down their tv show

-         ask me if i could please remind them who we are and what the job is for, because they’ve, like, applied for hundreds of jobs and just can’t be bothered to remember

-         spend the majority of the interview asking if they can wear crocs or other types of non-office footwear to work

-         show up at the office for the phone interview

-         refer to me in a subsequent interview as “that girl”

-         tell me your dream job is a children’s book illustrator but you’d take this job alright

-         tell me you left your last job because you had a manic “episode” at work and that although you were “pretty out there”, you feel comfortable telling me this information because i’m a christian and i’d be okay with it – it being defined as hiring a nutty to sit next to me at work

-         when asked if you have a favored scripture, reply that you don’t really read the bible but your mom does

-         really, mentioning your mom at all

-         tell me that it slipped your mind that you had this interview even though we emailed about it less than 4 hours ago

-         tell me that your skills fit our organization perfectly and, in the same breath, ask what we do

dears, i wish, wish that i were kidding, or perhaps exaggerating for comedic effect.  it reaches epic proportions sometimes.  okay, so maybe not as high of a scale as an epic, but at very least dave letterman’s book club proportions.

working at my job, however, does provide me with such large amounts of fuel for my internal scorn furnace, and, well, that’s something.

holly and i were discussing some of the more interesting names we've heard recently, particularly from some of our friends who are from other countries/ethnicities, countries that won't end up having a whole generation of 86 year olds named "tiffany" or "madison". 

this is the best story from today.

so, i was shopping at the mall over the weekend.  we see this group of african-american kids, with some parent-looking folks with them (ostensibly theirs).  we're browsing around and we see this teenage girl pointing to the display counter saying

"that's my name.  that's my name.  that's my name..."

then we hear from a parent:

"clinique!  get your ass over here!"

*   *   *   *