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11/30/2004: "The Written Word is a Lie"

I'd like to take a minute to discuss how shit goes down in the Ghetto.
Unfortunately, despite watching every episode of HBO's The Wire, I
have absolutely no idea by what process shit goes down in the Ghetto (I
do, however, know that you should never, under any circumstance,
mess with Omar). So, instead, I'd like to discuss Illuminated Manuscripts.

[Backstory]

After ten years of searching for a language to speak at home, Vienna and I
recently settled on Latin. OK, I'm picturing the looks on your faces, and
those looks are screaming "Why the Hell don't you just speak English?"
Good Question.

First of all, everyone should have a language that they speak, almost
exclusively, at home. And that language should be as obscure as possible -
if, for no other reason, than sometimes you need to say things in front
of visitors that they hopefully won't be able to understand. Secondly,
English is a rather limited language. Some concepts from other languages,
the German word "schadenfreude", for example, just fail to carry over.

Speaking of German, it's a language that I love and am very comfortable
with. So why don't Vienna and I speak German at home?
Lebensmitteleinkaufen. That's the German word for grocery shopping. It's
also the last German word that I attempted to teach my wife. While there
are some words that don't carry over from German to English, there seem
to be many more that fail to make the jump from English to
Italian-American.

"It's a very long word. Why don't they just say 'shopping'?"

"German's don't shop. Well, that's not exactly true. They shop, but they're
very specific in their shopping. They don't just shop for the sake
of shopping…"

"That's just plain wrong! What the fuck is wrong with those people?"

"Hey, 'those people', whom I may remind you that I am one of,
aren't like Italians. They have work to do. Those Jews aren't just going
to round themselves up, you know."

And thus, did my family's flirtation with the language of my ancestors end.
"Then," you might ask "why not speak Italian at home?"

Another fine question. First, neither I nor my wife speaks Italian. In
order to have a successful "Home Language" one party should be fluent
enough in the language to teach it to the other party or parties. Second,
your Home Language should be as obscure as possible. Less than four
blocks away, in South Philly, live thousands of people who speak Italian.
Third, I just don't want to speak Italian.

I do want to speak Ancient Greek and try my best to do so. Technically,
Ancient Greek is the perfect Home Language. After all, what could be more
obscure? Aramaic? The problem is that it's easier to read and write
Ancient Greek than it is to speak it. So, we settled on Latin which I had
briefly studied in college. The "tipping factor" being either that Henry
VIII and Catherine of Aragon spoke Latin at home (it was the only language
they had in common), or the fact that Dean and Melissa gave me a Pope
Innocent III action figure (just the other day I had him excommunicate my
Major Matt Mason for claiming that the Earth revolves around the Sun).
Moving right along…

[Getting to the goddamn point]

This renewed interest in Latin has necessitated the viewing of many old,
illuminated, manuscripts which, in turn, has lead to the realization that
history is just a series of trade-offs - and not, necessarily,
trade-ups.

When we traded candles for the electric light bulb, we lost a potential
fire hazard but we also lost lighting that made us look good enough to get
laid almost anytime of day. Do you think Casanova could get his wick
dipped in today's harsh, florescent lighting? Oh, and our homes
still catch fire, by the way.

If you were to release Punch and Judy (AKA "I'm a fuck you up Philly Style,
bitch") as a video game, you'd be lucky if the worst thing that
happened to you would be if you were brunt in effigy by some organization
with the word "Womyn" in its name.

Stewardesses used to wear mini-skirts and go-go boots. Today they know CPR
. Call me a Luddite, if you must, but that's not progress.

The trade-off of handwritten books for moveable type, then typewriters,
then the word processor, then - finally - Brain-O-Write was another bad
bargain. Back in the days of rampant illiteracy (OK, the other days
of rampant illiteracy) words meant something. They had power, a power that
many considered magical. The very act of writing was seen as a sacred
undertaking. Monks used to bless their writing tools before putting them
to paper.

As our thoughts have become more abstract, our way of putting them down on
paper has become more concrete, but far less appealing. People, we need to
buck this trend. I've already fired the opening salvo by giving my printer
a rest and hand lettering everything I can. Trust me; the $5.98 you plop
down for a set of multi-colored calligraphic pens may be the best
investment of your life. I'm actually at the point where I get a rush from
finding an A-3 flat nib on sale.



Last Night's benefit concert at Bar Noir…

raised close to $300, which will be split between Mental Health Association
of Southeastern PA and Musicians for Mental Health. Special thanks go out
to Doc for workin' the door and to A.D. Amorosi for organizing the event.
If you were there, thanks for turning up. If you weren't, here's what you
missed:

Needles Jones (accompanied by a "reader") performed a touching Karaoke
version of I'm a Junkie, So What?

Janet Bressler just flat-out kicked ass. At the end of her set, she
collapsed onto the floor and had to be forcibly removed. I must go see her
again.

Butterfly Joe (AKA Joe Jack Talcum) was wonderfully subversive. He
preformed an assload of Milkmen tunes acoustically - ending his set with
a sing-a-long version Life is Shit

Jukebox Zeros fuckin' ruled. But you knew they would, so that's not news.
How 'bout this, the Pope has begun beatifying them.

You also probably knew that Live Not On Evil were gonna be gawddamn
incredible, but you might not know that they're new CD, Next Time,
Nail It Shut is one of the best chunks o' music that I've heard in
years and is required listening for all RATYHTL readers. You will be
tested on this material, folks.

What can I say about Trashlight Vision other than Holyfugginshit!.
Imagine if the Dead Boys had grown up in the shadow of Three Mile Island.
Get the picture? Simply amazing.

If anybody snapped pics last night, please send 'em to me.

Replies: 9 Comments

on Tuesday, November 30th, caffiene23 said

"schadenfreude".

I had a German exchange student stay with me for a year. "Schadenfreude" is to laugh at another's misfortune.

THE MORE YOU KNOW. ::doo doo da doo::

on Tuesday, November 30th, Nigel Tailwind said

You really want to fuck with people learn sign language. " " See no one knows what I said.

on Tuesday, November 30th, the drunk mailman said

if you check out the 'cause i like to post crap' thread over on the forum you'll see that some of us speak beefheart...

on Tuesday, November 30th, Briana said

I just got the Live Not on Evil cd (Next time nail it shut) last week at Noise Pollution. It's a great cd. Even better then their last in my opinion.

on Tuesday, November 30th, Jackalope said

Tits! Tits! It's the blimp!!!! Thats my favorite non-DM song. If you click on my name, it will take you to a Latin CD-ROM for sale. I've been thinking about learning Latin myself. Or at least I was until I picked up "The Basque History of the World," by Mark Kurlansky. Now my goal is to learn Euskera. It will be a challenge as there are no known CD-ROMs to help. They have CD-ROMs to learn Ojibway, but not Euskera. The language of the Basques is unique in that it is the only European language NOT related to all the others.

PS, My favorite German word is Shraubenschlussel. It means monkey wrench. My favorite German musician is Nina Hagen. During the days of the Iron Curtain, she was an East German opera singer. Then she defected, discovered acid and punk and the rest is history. I grew up around a lot of German immigrants and it would get funny after a few beers because they'd mix up the languages and pretty soon the fenster shades were being ripped down.

on Tuesday, November 30th, billzebub said

I tried teaching my wife German but she refuses to pronounce Schuh correctly, so I gave up. She can speak Latin, but never bothered to teach me.

on Wednesday, December 1st, SirAtededge said

Believe it or don't, I had the Major Matt Mason Moon Explorer game. You spun a dial shaped liked a volcano to hop between craters to hopefully find the bones of extinct moon creatures.

Which brings us to the subject of Illuminated script, and that most famous of Illuminated texts, the Book of Kells. Perhaps I've mentioned before in this space that in addition to being a published essayist (letter to Newsday in which I suggested that since NY elected Pataki for the death penalty we should fry the bastard that lays out the highway maintenance schedule) I am also an award-winning poet. It was the Murphy's Stout limerick contest and was quite a rigorous form of poetry. The limerick had to start with "There once was a man from Cork", had to mention Murphy's Stout, and could not be profane.

To add the "Kells" imprimatur to my entries, I drew an illuminated "T" for the "There once was.. " part and I'm sure that carried the day. I think some of the inspiration for what I presume was the prize winner came from Major Matt Mason, who seeded an appreciation for alliteration in my young mind, to wit ...

There once was a man from Cork,
Whose poor pet pig was made pork,
He felt down and out,
Til he drank Murphy's Stout,
Then yelled "Somebody bring me a fork!"

Take that Gorilla Girl!

I presume that was the prize winner because the other entry was a little politically hot, given the troubles and all...

There once was a man from Cork,
Off a tryst with the Duchess of York,
Said "G'wan pound the turf,
So's I can enjoy me Murph's,
And good luck you don't hear from the stork"

Those sickened by Philistinism and injustice in general may wish to stop reading this now, because they sent me a note saying I won a 1st prize, which should have been 6 pint glasses, but all they sent me was a freakin hat, the second prize. Furthermore, my nephew was a bartender in Buffalo at the time and he saw one of the coasters with the winning limerick and he said it sucked and was nowhere near as good as the "poor pet pig" bit.

This was, however, instant karma come to get me, for I can't stand Murphy's. It's too flat and sweet. The emotion was false and even though the art surpassed the suck-ass "winner", it deserved no better.

That Nina Hagen thing was a blast-from-the-past. There was this guy in my dorm who used to chortle along with that song where she starts chortling "CASTRATED CASTRATED CASTRATED", if I remember she was complaining about misogyny among Rasta-men.

on Wednesday, December 1st, Pistaugh said

My wife and I have our OWN sign language. It's about a 75 word vocabulary, and we build on it all the time. The sole purpose of this, is so we can talk about people without them knowing. We borrowed the idea from the Dune books.

Okay, so what! We don't have cable!

on Thursday, December 2nd, Seven said

Licet mihi venerari pro deo quemlibet, etiam SpongoRobertum QuadratoBracatum.