www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFzyYYZsxGc

And as we did the hand dance to the infectious chorus, I realized that I knew this song. The chorus comes from Sugarhill Gang’s Rapper’s Paradise:

i said a hip hop the hippie the hippie
to the hip hip hop, a you don’t stop
the rock it to the bang bang boogie say up jumped the boogie
to the rhythm of the boogie, the beat

And is, in fact a Spanglishization of the lyrics, creating nonsense:

Aserejé ja de je de jebe
tu de jebere seibiunouva majavi
an de bugui an de güididípi

This is a perfect example of the trans-cultural Mondegreen.

Sylvia Wright described the linguistic phenomenon in her 1954 Harper’s essay “The Death of Lady Mondegreen,” when she discussed mishearing part of the 17th-century ballad “The Bonny Earl O’Moray”:

Ye Highlands and ye Lowlands,
Oh, where hae ye been?
They hae slain the Earl O’ Moray,
And Lady Mondegreen.

The real last line is “and laid him on the green.”

I mishear song lyrics all the time: “Mama we broke the roux” instead of “…broke the rules” and “There’s a bathroom on the right” instead of “there’s a bad moon on the rise.” Another one I’ve heard is “we are we are the euthanization” instead of “we are we are the youth in the nation.” “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida” you probably know already (go on and say it out loud). And, of course, there was the children’s song “Mairzy Doats”:

“Mairzy doats and dozy doats and liddle lamzy divey
A kiddley divey too, wouldn’t you?”

But it’s also fascinating when these Mondegreens cross continents, nest paw? Here’s a video popular from a few years ago, when Bollywood was becoming an international sensation:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZA1NoOOoaNw

And I even found one that moves from Lebanese to Swedish, “Hatten är din” (a nod to you, Asa):

www.youtube.com/watch?v=MT9ZNJ2YS64

But what’s homophonic transformation got to do with literature? Well, it’s funny, could make some excellent double entendres, and characterize someone (think Tennessee Williams’ “blue roses” in Glass Menagerie). Besides, if James Joyce was writing “if you see Kay” or “F-U-C-K” in Ulysses, maybe it’s time to start making notes on your own.

Kind of creepy. Point taken.

“Should students still be taught cursive writing?” This is the title of a piece I came across recently in, of all places, The Costco Connection magazine. Proponents for both sides of the issue state their opinions, the yes-ers arguing that cursive helps students with hand-eye coordination, improves their ability to “chunk” letter sounds (-ing endings, for instance) which leads to better reading comprehension and spelling, and that cursive is an important part of our cultural heritage. The naysayers counter that time spent teaching cursive should be devoted to other, more important, subjects, that good handwriting is no indicator of intelligence or success (insert predictable joke about doctors’ illegible scrawls here), and that in this electronic age, the need for tidy penmanship is on its way out.

Frankly, I was surprised that anyone is even talking about this, but a quick Google search revealed that a lot of people are. I’ve never given cursive much thought, because I never learned it. I was in elementary school in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s, and we learned a script-print hybrid called Duvall, which I abandoned a long time ago for a makeshift printing style that deteriorates a little more each year. Of course, this is because I seem to type exponentially more each year; when I write, unless it’s a note or a list or a birthday card, I do it at my keyboard.

But the piece made me curious about how other writers work, and if the way we write actually matters. What kind of penmanship did you learn in school? What’s your weapon of choice when you’re writing? Pen and paper? Computer? Butcher paper and crayon (as visiting writer Sallie Tisdale suggested in a workshop last year)? Does what you write with change what you write?

finagle (v.): to obtain by indirect or dishonest means

tintinnabulation (n.): the ringing of bells

persnickety (adj.): fussy about small details

lackadaisical (adj.): lacking life, spirit, or zest

phantasmagoria (n.): a constantly shifting complex succession of things seen or imagined; also: a scene that constantly changes or fluctuates

lugubrious (adj.): mournful often to an exaggerated degree

boondoggle (n.): a useless or wasteful project or activity

flibbertigibbet (n.): a silly flighty person

A poet shirt: I'm supposed to wear this, right?

If I told someone I had consumption, I’d expect they’d be simultaneously puzzled and concerned. They’d be puzzled because they probably wouldn’t know what consumption is, yet the name alone would likely give them some idea that consumption, whatever it is, isn’t exactly desirable.

When on occasion I mention to people that I’m a poet, I get a similar reaction. First, there’s the look of puzzlement. Most people don’t really know what poets do, or even that there are adult poets at all. I have a sneaking suspicion that many folks equate poets and poetry with rather marginalized art forms such as miming, and God forbid, clowns. Tim Pawlenty, my state’s governor, summed this up notion when he vetoed a bill to create a Minnesota Poet Laureate.

He stated: Even though we have a state ‘folklorist,’ I also have concern this will lead to calls for other similar positions. We could also see requests for a state mime, interpretive dancer or potter.

(The bill has since passed—and was signed by Pawlenty. Robert Bly is Minnesota’s 1^st poet laureate.)

=    Robert Bly ?

In fact, I’ve encountered this myself when I’ve (rarely) brought up poetry to folks. One of the reactions I get is, “You don’t look/act like a poet.”  By this, I take it to mean that I’m (a) not wearing a frilly shirt, (b) I’m not constantly looking skyward while proclaiming my love for the clouds and the moon, (c) I’m not frolicking through an alpine meadow flanked by adorable, cuddly puppies, (d), I’m not always rhyming, and (e), I’m actually a pretty average Minnesotan who loves pretty average Minnesotan things, like baseball and fishing and hiking and whatnot. I also happen to write poetry.

That’s the thing, average people can be—and are— poets. And lots of them are. I run a tiny podunk literary magazine and we get oodles of submissions, almost all of them from folks who have normal day jobs. This is why I always dismiss articles lamenting the death of poetry, the death of fiction, the death of this or that, as it’s quite clear (from my personal experience, at least) that we have more than enough good writing to go around. If you ask me, we’re actually living in a wonderful time in American poetry, certainly not the end times. A lot of this has to do with the sheer number of serious poets writing now, and undoubtedly, there are more than ever before. Assuming that something like a bell curve applies, one has to think that an expanded rank of poets leads to a quantitative increase in the amount of high quality work that is out there (though it is not necessarily published).

By analogy, the same could be said of soccer in the states. There are all sorts of folks out there who’d probably be great strikers, defensemen, etc., but given the popularity of other sports, they don’t take up soccer. If the next generation were to take up soccer instead of football or baseball, our (already formidable) national team would be likely world-class in fairly short order.

In effect, this has already occurred in poetry; there are all sorts of great poets writing in the States today. If we were to field a contemporary all-star team, it wouldn’t be a matter of finding folks to staff the team, the hard part would be winnowing down the field. Furthermore, I’d argue that it could hold its own against a good number of the poets across the pond.

So there’s an odd sort of disconnect here—we’re living in a country with more (good) poets than ever, but poetry and poets are typecast as know-nothing frilly-nillies. So where did that notion come from? It certainly wasn’t there 50 years ago, when there were actual sections of newspapers devoted to books (remember those?), and poets even became celebrities of sorts. (Jack Gilbert was featured in photo spreads in Vogue and Glamour; he didn’t take to the popularity and went all hermit-style.)

I’d argue that this mythos originated in how poetry has been taught over the past 50 years. Most folks are exposed to poetry once—in school. Generally speaking, the poetry varieties that folks are introduced to in many primary/secondary schools are simple, sentimental, and formulaic—haikus are popular, as is sing-song, lovey-dovey rhyming verse. Worse yet, these poems are taught by teachers who don’t read poetry. The representative poetry is usually written for children (Dr. Seuss and Co.) or it’s too difficult to approach right away (Shakespeare, Wordsworth, Coleridge.)

This is a problem for a number of reasons. First, all of the varieties mentioned above aren’t particularly relevant, at least not at first glance. This makes it less likely that kids will actually become interested in the work and this gives poetry a negative connotation in the future. And even for folks who end up liking poetry, their definition of poetry itself is somewhat limited to types of poems that are “about” something (love poems, sad poems, etc.)—a good old-fashioned Google search of the word “poems” supports this theory. Among the “related searches” (which have to have been searched a gazillion times to show up here), one finds searches for: love poems; poems about life (?! What poem isn’t about life?), friendship poems, sad poems, etc.Of course, this at least is a possible beginning to a reading life, and folks can bridge this poetry gap fairly quickly.

The worst possible outcome of contemporary poetry education is that the students can’t understand the poetry they are given, and this leaves them bored and frustrated. This happens all too often with Shakespeare. Given the state of our educational system, you can’t throw Shakespeare at a 9^th grader and expect them to be able to follow it; that’s like starting a kid on algebra without teaching them the basics of variables, equations, all that. In other words, you’ve got to break them in easily.

I’d therefore posit that the current system is organized backwards. I’d suggest to break them in with work they can relate to, but work that is also good poetry. (Billy Collins and Russell Edson come to mind.) This way, you’ll avoid some of the “formulaic traps” that contemporary poetry education seems to be vulnerable to. After they are acclimated to the work, and enjoying it, work your way up in terms of accessibility. The less accessible (but equally important) work—formal verse, Shakespeare, Eliot, etc. —should come later in the process, not earlier. That way, the students will be more interested in poetry, as they’ll already have some conception of the value that poetry can offer. They will therefore (hopefully) put more effort into getting acclimated to the more difficult language/allusions, etc.

This year I’m the nonfiction editor for Willow Springs, an opportunity I am thrilled about, as I’ve always wanted to be in the editing world.  I’ve also just accepted an internship with NARAL Pro-Choice Washington with a commitment of five to seven hours a week.  My first quarter is full, what with Willow Springs credits, thesis credits, and the two classes I need to take.  Middle quarter, though (I don’t really get how these are quarters.  They’re only quarters if you attend summer classes.  In that case, a semester system would really be a trimester system.  But whatever, I’m not good at math, maybe I’m wrong.), I could take a women’s studies course.  Or I could take one of the electives offered in creative writing.  I could take both, plus thesis credits and WS.  But will that heavy a load two quarters in a row affect my thesis writing?

 I can’t decide if taking just one class middle quarter on top of internship with thesis credits is enough.  No, that’s not true.  Of COURSE it’s enough – I’ll work three days a week doing medical transcription, and I have three small children, two of whom need to be shuttled about for school, plus all the extra parental involvement schooling often requires.  I guess I worry most about regret.  Having many regrets about all I didn’t do in undergrad, I feel like I can’t waste an opportunity.  Writers in the Community?  Maybe I could squeeze in teaching a class a month.  The press?  I bet I could find time to read manuscripts.  Chaperone a class outing for my daughter?  I’m in. 

 But I also fear one day I’ll have so much on my plate that I’ll spill something, or that I’ll choke.  And if I do that, I’ll regret it.  And “No Regrets!” is my grad school motto.  As a mom (who can’t often afford a baby-sitter) I already have to miss out on a lot of fun things, like open-mic poetry and slam poetry, not to mention nearly all of the parties, get-togethers, and gatherings held by classmates.  I’m OK with most of that. 

 It’s the scholarly events I’m always sorry to miss out on.  Do you or did you feel torn about the commitment possibilities of grad school (or work or undergrad)?  Is it something everyone else has wrestled with, too?

A facebook site says, Keep it natural. Ok, what about fractals? (It’s a beefy math-tastic formula in which you plug a number and get an answer, then plug in that answer for another answer. The Mandlebrot set is the Mother of these dudes, and when you plot the points on a graph it looks like this:

The important thing is that when you zoom in, the image keeps repeating itself. Scientists are using the Mandlebrot set to make calculations in nature that weren’t previously calculable. Measuring shorelines and estimating oxygen production in forests. So is writing organically might be writing in a structure that repeats itself on a sliding scale. Then what?

Another site gets wispy and teary about an arboreal metaphor: “Be the soil that your writing grows from…” Ack. I’m just saying that nature is much more patterned, mathematical, and precise than we remember at times. Nature’s got its bits under control—tight control.

Here’s a highlight:

31. Our job, then, is two-fold: to focus on our own failings as writers. But also to speak more forcefully as advocates for literature. Books are a powerful antidote for loneliness, for the moral purposelessness of the leisure class. It’s our job to convince the 95 percent of people who don’t read books, who instead medicate themselves in front of screens, that literary art isn’t some esoteric tradition, but a direct path to meaning, to an understanding of the terror that lives beneath our consumptive ennui. It’s hard to make this case, though, if all we do is squabble with each other and lament our obscurity.

This is the best thing I’ve read all week.

Amazon’s sales keep going up, while BN and Borders sales are fluctuating a bit but generally trending downward. Most privately held companies (Auntie’s Books, Powell’s, etc.) don’t make their financial results so easily accessible, but it seems they are surviving a little better than the chains. (Note Auntie’s satellite store that just opened in downtown Spokane’s mall.) Interestingly, it’s BN’s and Borders’ smaller stores (the B. Dalton and Waldenbooks stores, respectively) that are really suffering. These are the ones in the mall that aren’t the cornerstone stores; they sit alongside Cinnabon and Lidz, and how they make any money at all is beyond me.

In light of this, I’m going to ask that annoying question again: Does the bookstore matter anymore?

People buy from Amazon for two reasons: it’s usually cheapest, and everybody knows about it. There’s a ubiquity about it; consumers think about buying a book online, and the first thing that pops into their head is Amazon. No way a small local chain can compete with that. There’s just not enough wiggle room in the pricing model for a company to undercut Amazon, which often sells new books at 25% or so off cover. That’s essentially half of a traditional bookstore’s cut, depending on what their discount from publishers/wholesalers is.

[Look at computers for a minute to see how important this wiggle room is. Apple manages to control pricing through distribution agreements; nobody is allowed to sell their products for more than a few dollars cheaper than they do, so their own stores generates a lot of sales. Publishers may be wise to try moving toward a similar model, where the $15.95 cover price is not allowed to drop below $15.75. The logic being that if prices are equal, you’d rather buy from the publisher itself. That’s not necessarily true, but it couldn’t hurt. With all the recent hubbub and changes in distribution agreements (especially in the ebook realm), it’s entirely feasible that more stringent relationships with resellers can happen.]

But Amazon isn’t making tons of money on those books; some, sure, and their expenses are somewhat less than a brick & mortar store, but they also have the advantage of being able to choose products to act as loss-leaders in order to get people to buy other products. (Like Wal-Mart offering cheese puffs for 99 cents a bag so you’ll come in and also buy your swiss cake rolls and taco shells there. It’s a complete meal!) This is made possible by the fact that the bigger bookstores (and hence the general public’s perception of all bookstores) are becoming less and less places to find a book, and more and more places to purchase a book. Amazon is not a bookstore in the sense that you spend a bunch of time browsing the shelves, flipping through pages, etc. No matter how many interactive features they put on the website, it’ll never be the same sort of shopping experience. Rather, Amazon is a place where you go to buy a book you’ve already heard about, or search for an author whose name you remembered and then look at his/her titles. Then you buy one, and you buy something else to bump the total to $25 and get free shipping. Amazon is not where you browse, it’s just the point of sale. I know many people who have gone into a real physical bookstore, browsed, found a book they wanted, then went home and purchased it on Amazon because they knew it’d be $2 cheaper. Heck, I bet people don’t even go home anymore, they just purchase it from their smartphone while still in the physical bookstore. You know it happens. I’ve thought about it, too.

So one wonders what purpose the bookstore can serve now. Yes, it’s a good place to find a good book, but so is a library, which is likely to have an even bigger (if not more current) selection. Sure, you say, but what about those friendly and knowledgeable staff members that make my local bookstore the place to go for a recommendation? Well, I tell you, hiring the lowest common denominator has turned places like Borders and B&N into a crapshoot—yes, there are a handful of helpful people there, but you’re going to have to deal with the 79 illiterate scrubs first. Some of the independent bookstores are still strong in this area, and that’s why they’re surviving. But the last time I was at Powell’s it felt like part of Barnes & Noble, considering the useless service I got. (No, for the last time, I do not want to read Stieg Larssssssssson, may he RIP.)

So where do they fit in? You’ve noticed, of course, how bookstores have moved heavily into other product lines over the last decade or so: coffee shops, board games, novelty items, holiday gifts, etc. But that’s not going to cut it. Maybe they can be social spaces; good bookstores have always tried to help out local authors & book groups, though so many are lacking the physical space to do so. Book releases are a huge pain in the ass to schedule with corporate bookstores, and while local/smaller shops are interested, they don’t always have the room.

Truth is, I don’t see how brick and mortar bookstores fit unless they’re able to offer something the online & big boys can’t, and that’s good customer service, the kind that lets you browse but stands ready with a helpful tip. People who are passionate. Probably writers. (Heck, they’ll work for cheap.)

But working for cheap doesn’t always quite make ends meet, which is why I’ve been making an effort lately to purchase books directly from an author. Of course I’m biased and have a conflict of interest here (seeing as I’m both a writer and work for a publisher), but if an author has her own website with the book for sale, I’ll buy it from her, because chances are she’ll get more cash out of the deal. If the author doesn’t have it for sale or simply links visitors to Amazon, I’ll try to buy it from the publisher. If the publisher doesn’t have it for sale or has some ridiculous shipping charge, I’ll buy it from Auntie’s or another independent store. And if all else fails, I go to Amazon. Once I finally got over the fact that it was okay to spend $15 on a book, I don’t mind spending $17 or $18 on it if it goes through fewer hands on its way to the source.

So, dear author/bookstore employee, I’m here to help you. Because after all, you’re the one who’s going to scribble that recommendation down, smile, and point me to the right shelf. We need each other.