The second answer is great too:
Because I was arrested for my underground newspaper Tough Shit in high school and the principal sent it to my college to dematriculate me from it, and I had as a result narrated the events of my arrest to four eminences at that college, the Dean of Men there put me in a dorm room with the odd Black boy out because he figured I was radical enough to be liberal enough to handle early integration.
There's so much gold. The genesis of another of his books.
I received an email from a colleague who wanted me to talk to the Dean that opened, "Is it time for us to have a chat with the dean? Are we remembering what was promised us, last spring, at lunch? Are we going to let history repeat itself?" I suffered pique at this and wrote back, "Are your emotions pure? Are your nerves adjustable? How do you stand in relation to the potato? Should it still be Constantinople?"
And this was clearly done over email, so the interviewer never gets to adjust the high academic tone of his questions, which Powell never tires of mocking.
the novel was there for the writing. The cerebral cogitation was done.
Superfluous adjective - what other sort of cogitation is there? Delete it.
Because I was arrested for my underground newspaper Tough Shit in high school and the principal sent it to my college to dematriculate me from it
Unclear referent - is the final "it" the college? The newspaper? The high school? Also, consider using an alternative to "dematriculate", which is a) academic jargon and b) incorrectly used in this case.
a collaborative book co-authored with myself, Darius James, and Lee Henderson about the tag end of existence
"Myself" is hypercorrection: "me" is better. Also consider deleting the unnecessary adjective - all co-authored books are by definition collaborative.
Let me lean us up on Flannery O'Connor, our late racist goddesshead
Misused - "goddesshead" would be the state or condition of being a goddess. The author seems to have coined this neologism under the mistaken belief that "godhead" is another word for "god", possibly by confusion with "figurehead". It is not - it's an archaic suffix meaning effectively "-ness", cf German "-heit", and survives only in a few fairly archaic words of modern English, the best known being "godhead" and "maidenhead". The "-head" in figurehead is literally a component of the ship, the stemhead, which has been carved into a figure.
another lost utterancer of the not yet lost cause. "Utterer" is the correct noun - "utterancer" appears to be a backformation from "utterance", cf the erroneous "coronation" - "coronate" confusion.
Let's go read some Flann O'Brien. Those brothers are whipped for real.
Is it possible at this point that he has confused Flannery O'Connor with Flann O'Brien? Seems unlikely but the reference doesn't really seem to make sense otherwise. Check with the subject before publication.
I feel like even though I don't get it, I'm closer to getting it than 4.
Off topic but whatever is going to happen with Port Joe is about to happen, as the ship has just arrived off Gaza:
SHUT UP, MR HICK! YOU WERE NOT PUT UPON THIS EARTH TO "GET IT".
I also enjoyed Huck Finn. I thought Tom Sawyer was an asshole though.
I can't tell how much 4 is trolling or being trolled or what, but I did just see a NYT headline -- "Moulin Rouge's Windmill Blades Fall Off in Paris" -- and had to wonder where else they could have fallen off. In parable?
10: I think that's fair enough. Most NY Times readers won't know where the Moulin Rouge is. (A significant percentage probably don't know where Paris is.)
Though surely the headline was "In Storied French Capital, A Popular Landmark Loses Its Green Energy Supplier" or something? Probably "Mulls" in there too. In bold AND italics in one of 57 different fonts.
Utterancer is a sweet word. There is a difference between uttering and making utterances. One is about mumbling and the other is about repeating platitudes.
12: are you mixing up muttering and uttering?
"Uttering" we the North Carolina criminal code way of saying "writing bad checks. "
Paris Weighs Windmill Crash Response: Restoration Mooted
Maybe other places too. I've just never came across it elsewhere.
"Uttering" we the North Carolina criminal code way of saying "writing bad checks. "
Not to be confused with "criminal conversation" which is completely different and also has nothing to do with speaking.
Yeah. That case was in North Carolina too. Or maybe that was just loss of consortium.
12: are you mixing up muttering and uttering?
Not really. I think muttering is a more mumbled form of uttering, but they both fall short of speaking clearly with a lot of enunciation.
4 is clearly Strunk and Whiting his responses.
Moulin Rouge is also a Broadway musical, so a hypothetical reader might be confused, even if they know that the actual Moulin Rouge is in Paris.
21: there is some.variant of Poe's Law for pedantry here, wow. It didn't even cross my mind that it could be a bit.
The canonical response to 4 is: Why must you be such a little bitch?
Science says we're supposed to assume anything ogged puts up is trolling us.
21, 23:At least it seems clear to me that it starts there--very much in the "Omit Needless Words!" vein. But sort of broadens into a more general response from a book editor.
21, 23: I assumed it was Ajay and it didn't occur to me that it could be sincere.
10/11. In sequence? In less than 30 seconds? In a high wind?
Now I've sat still for the OP, I see 4 is dead right. What a pair of pompous windbags.
27: Same except that it didn't occur to me that it was insincere.
Who would object if clubists wanted to shove you into a cubbyhole with Faulkner and O'Connor and their queer son Tennessee and too straight son Walker and what-litter-is-he-from son Don? Not I. And my God, Barry Hannah got more out of the whiskey oracle than anyone dead. I do not like the sentimental blood-and-grits crowd and I do not like the apotheosis of Story as Panacea, the from-farm-to-porch menu. Cornpone. No.
Can't talk like that and whine about others' prolixity.
The interviewer was worse; he said malapert, and I think, was caught out not knowing what it meant.
I definitely wouldn't want to read a whole book written by either of these guys. But I thought it was fun as a short piece.
Who would object if clubists wanted to shove you into a cubbyhole with Faulkner and O'Connor and their queer son Tennessee and too straight son Walker and what-litter-is-he-from son Don?
I'll probably be deeply ashamed when I find out the answer, but I'll admit my ignorance and ask, who is "Don"?
37: Maybe that's the point -- he's only quasi-southern?
Also:
muttering is a more mumbled form of uttering, but they both fall short of speaking clearly with a lot of enunciation.
I think this is just wrong. If anything, "uttering" a word or phrase implies full clarity and significance. Am I missing some weird regionalism or shift in usage?
Regarding the interview, I'm suddenly thinking of heebie's problem with the Southern men who talk painfully slowly, maintaining eye contact the whole time, as a conversational power trip.... there's no way I'll find this in the archives, but I remember it as a vivid image.
I think this is just wrong. If anything, "uttering" a word or phrase implies full clarity and significance. Am I missing some weird regionalism or shift in usage?
I agree with this.
The only time I ever use "utter" is in the phrase "utter nonsense". I'm not sure why practically all the nonsense I encounter is utter.
42: Because you are fortunate enough not to encounter that nonsense which is on stilts?
40: me too, "uttering" has a kind of ceremonial or even magical feel. You could imagine someone uttering a blessing or a spell.
The other use is to make it clear that they have said something when maybe the expectation is that they wouldn't, or vice versa. "We all looked at her but she didn't utter a word".
7 was me and I now realise that it is David, not Henry, Lo Pan. Apologies.
"The interviewer was worse; he said malapert, and I think, was caught out not knowing what it meant."
I don't think either of then knew but at least the subject sort of admitted it. They both seem to assume it means impertinent which it does more or less. (They are etymologically distinct, but have grown towards each other in use. Much like mutter and utter have for Spike.)
you are fortunate enough not to encounter that nonsense which is on stilts?
That's offensive, Doug. In some US cultures they show respect and honour for things by putting them on stilts. Ask heebie.
Regarding the interview, I'm suddenly thinking of heebie's problem with the Southern men who talk painfully slowly, maintaining eye contact the whole time, as a conversational power trip...
"I've got to see a man about a horse" is made for situations like that.
What a pair of pompous windbags.
The way to read the interview is to read it out loud and do one of the voices as Foghorn Leghorn and the other one as Pacifist Arnold Rimmer from the "Polymorph" episode.
And I really would like to know whether he meant Flann O'Brien or Flannery O'Connor, because Flann O'Brien just seems completely out of place. It's at the end of a four para speech about the merits of Southern Literature - what has an Irish comic surrealist got to do with that?
49: It's a cliche in the study of literature of the American South, that it is distinct from the literature of other regions of the US, because the South has the experience of being defeated, conquered, and occupied. Padgett sees a kinship between the Southern writer, and an Irish writer, because the Irish also have had these experiences.
Really? Or is that just your best guess?
51: I explained it to you. It's up to you whether you believe me.
No, I mean: do you actually know that's what Padgett is saying, or is that just based on your knowledge of the cliches of Southern literature?
Because I've read a lot of Flann O'Brien and he doesn't spend a lot of time talking about being defeated, conquered and occupied.
53: Everything in this interview assumes a basic knowledge of Southern literature. So I know that this is what he is saying, because I have a certain amount of knowledge about the subject.
Seems like the plain meaning of the paragraph to me.
Southern writing, not often actually defined, means a deep-down knowing that people are beat to shit. An earnest suspicion of earnestness, a recognition and denial of whippedness. I am now spinning cornpone myself. End of the foregoing. Let's go read some Flann O'Brien. Those brothers are whipped for real.
Southerners like to believe they're oppressed (see the foregoing about the lost cause), but you know who's actually oppressed? "Those brothers," i.e., the Irish.
I'm briefly suspending my "don't feed the the trolls" stance to answer a genuine question, Ajay; don't make me regret it!
55: Neither do all of those Southern writers. Mostly, it's just Faulkner as far as I know. But it's supposed to be in the air.
Let's go read some Flann O'Brien. Those brothers are whipped for real.
I suspect he chose Flann O'Brien in particular, because it makes a nice pair with Flannery O'Connor. But now the last sentence about whipped brothers makes sense. It's utter nonsense if you assume he's still thinking about Flannery O'Connor.
58: I accused ajay of being a semi-troll once, and he responded that he never made an argument here that he didn't believe. I decided to take him at his word ever since.
57: Thanks, ogged. I didn't go back and read the whole passage, so I forgot how obvious it was.
I believe what peep's saying the shared-oppression-fantasy thing between white Southerners and Irishmen - I'm just puzzled about why he picked Flann O'Brien as his example of "Irish author who vividly describes the effects of conquest, defeat and occupation on the Irish".
Ok, my grandmother's PhD advisor was this guy, and family lore has that he would decimate students by proclaiming "VAUGHT UTTER NONSENSE" to them. So in the course of reading the thread, I switched to his Wikipedia page, and um:
Lewin conceived the Peach v Coconut cultural distinction. Peach cultures include India, USA, and most of Latin America plus southern Europe. Peaches tend to be soft and friendly on the surface, even with strangers, but have a hard protective inner core. Coconut cultures include China, Russia and most of Europe except the south. Folk from coconut cultures have a soft inner core, but a tough exterior than can lead to a perception of unfriendliness with strangers. Yet once a person has gained their trust, they can be loyal friends for life. The Peach v Coconut analogy was later popularised by Fons Trompenaars, who said it "explains all sorts of animosities that bedevil cross-cultural friendships, business dealings and diplomacy."
I mean, I can sort of see where he's going with it, but boy howdy did it used to be okay to blithely peddle a lot of cultural stereotypes.
62: Why quotation marks when you just made that up?
63: That's interesting. Israelis call themselves sabras - a fruit that is prickly on the outside and sweet on the inside.
Why quotation marks when you just made that up?
Fun fact, my dude: quotation marks can be used in English for purposes other than enclosing a direct quotation of another person!
67: I know that! But in this instance, they are confusing and don't serve any purpose that I can see.
What if I'm ancestored from both north and south Europe?
66: That's a lot of politics for one fruit, but that's the prickly cactus fruit's nature in the region. Like with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict itself, very different stories are told about the cactus fruit depending on whom you ask. Called sabr in Arabic and sabra in Hebrew, the fruit has become a core but disputed symbol of Israeli and Palestinian national identities.
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/what-does-sabra-mean
Anyway, they are playing Kayne at the JCC.
There's probably a short essay someone could write about the reception of Flann O'Brien in the U.S. While I'm definitely not that person, I know that the Dalkey Archive Press not only published editions of his books here but took its name from one, and I vaguely recall that my only previous encounter with Padgett Powell had something to do with the Review of Contemporary Fiction or one of the pompous windbags associated with the enterprise. Again, I don't know, but there could have been sort of a vogue for O'Brien when those editions started appearing in the 80s and early 90s.
What if I'm ancestored from both north and south Europe?
Avocado. Tough, leathery skin, soft inside, hard seed at the centre.
This is interesting from the article:
Fifty to 60 years ago, Eliyahu says, the cactus fruit symbolized the new, Israeli-born Jew laying down roots. "[But] nowadays, it's obvious. We're Israeli. There's no doubt about it ... We don't use the term and symbol today."
Fifty or sixty years ago, using "sabra" as a special term for native-born Israeli made sense - because there weren't that many of them. At independence only a third of Israeli Jews were sabras. Now it's 80% - the US and UK populations are both about 86% native born and they don't have a special term for "native-born citizen" either.
73: last -- yes, it's funny I had kind of forgotten that 50 years ago it seemed like an important distinction in Israel, that my mom was born there - a sabra.
And with the waves of immigration in the 70s and the 90s, I wonder when the Israeli Jewish population actually became majority native-born?