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I now lack the juice to fuel the bluster to conceal that I am a simpleton

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Re: I now lack the juice to fuel the bluster to conceal that I am a simpleton

#141

Post by zug_zug »

riehwvfbk wrote: post #73
wizzwizz4 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand why he chose to say it this way, and I'll probably be stealing "liberal racism" ( what a phrase: that's going in my pocketbook alongside "white guilt" and "racialise"), but this is the wrong way to say it to a Bay Area audience. You'd want to say something like "erasing representation to avoid confronting racism".

Yup, those downvotes speak loud and clear. One doesn't speak plainly around these folks but rather has to whisper.

It's not how you said it -- it's that for no apparent reason you're making a political jab at a large group. Plus it seems to seems to have no bearing on the article.

Re: I now lack the juice to fuel the bluster to conceal that I am a simpleton

#142

Post by ryandvm »

AlotOfReading wrote: post #28
riehwvfbk wrote: post #13

This is amazing. I wonder, is one allowed to speak like this in the Bay Area, or would this mark you as a deplorable to the kind of people who erase racism by erasing race.

Yes, you can speak like this. People are just going to think you're pretentious. This is the sort of language you use with specific audiences. The interviewer and the interviewee are simply using language for mutually exclusive audiences.

People are going to know you're pretentious.

Re: I now lack the juice to fuel the bluster to conceal that I am a simpleton

#143

Post by on_the_train »

gred wrote: post #78

> Donald Barthelme in particular praised you for writing about things readers had never heard before between Black and white characters. It's bizarre to me that in certain circles some Colors are capitalized, while other colors are not.

It's blatantly racist. Just imagine the opposite and the resulting uproar

Re: I now lack the juice to fuel the bluster to conceal that I am a simpleton

#144

Post by Modified3019 »

robocat wrote: post #18
boogieknite wrote: post #6

Not a lit major, never seen the term Mupdeemut before, but now excited to use it. Plenty of opportunity in personal and work conversation. edit: back to recommend against using Mupdeemut. People thought i was saying something derogatory and i had to spend significant time explaining myself.

Padgett coins the word in the interview: [m]ade-[u]p [p]eople [d]oing [m]ade-[u]p [t]hings. Let’s call that MUPDMUT. With some liberty, Mupdeemut

Honestly sounds like something straight out of a Pogo comic strip

Re: I now lack the juice to fuel the bluster to conceal that I am a simpleton

#145

Post by basil-rash »

tyingq wrote: post #138
basil-rash wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It does. They were tied to a point in time. They are destined not to be. It’s really very simple. I’m sorry you can’t understand it. Mixing metaphors and claiming a now-unmoored vessel is more likely to be contrasted with one in a state of being “born” than “berthed” is what “doesn’t work”. Especially considering “unmoored” is a nearly exact antonym of “berthed”, whereas a ship is never described as being “born”. Chr…

It's an action though, "the time that XXX'ed them". Birthed fits there well, berthed does not. Had it said "the time they were berthed to" I would understand your point better. Perhaps you're right and it was remembered or quoted wrong, and the word really is "berthed", but it wouldn't have been just the one word remembered incorrectly.

There is no categorical semantic difference between "berthed" and "birthed". They are both past participle tense verbs and fit equally well with no changes needed to the rest of the sentence. Perhaps you simply have more experience hearing birthed in that context and perceive it to fit better? But in reality they really are grammatically identical.

Re: I now lack the juice to fuel the bluster to conceal that I am a simpleton

#146

Post by someuser2345 »

boplicity wrote: post #79
gred wrote: post #78

> Donald Barthelme in particular praised you for writing about things readers had never heard before between Black and white characters. It's bizarre to me that in certain circles some Colors are capitalized, while other colors are not.

It may be bizarre for you, but it is often a reasoned and thoughtful use of the word, meaningful in the context of a complex and consistent consideration of the general meaning and usage of words. I encourage you to consider and understand the perspectives of those who do capitalize the word. This serves as an introduction to some people's thinking: https://www.cjr.org/analysis/capital-b-black-styleguide.php Note, th…

It seems to me that this practice is just another example of putting white people on a pedestal. If all other racial groups have "a shared sense of identity and community", then it implies that being white is the default; that the world is split into white and not-white.

Re: I now lack the juice to fuel the bluster to conceal that I am a simpleton

#147

Post by matheusmoreira »

lanternfish wrote: post #94
hotdogscout wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Leftist activists circles have grievances with white people and this is a small token of revenge. Depersonifying white people. Asians don't get internally consistent treatment because of intersectionality. Are we really pretending it's a coincidence all the time? This naivety is rightfully never applied to right wing bigotry. I'm not white myself but I'm genuinely confused as to why this kind of blatant ethnic antago…

The actual critique - which is articulated in many places - is that "white" isn't an ethnic group with an actual cultural or racial lineage. Instead, "white" was created and exists as the dual to "colored" - a shifting category encompassing many ethnicities that describes their position in a set of power structures, historically colonialism. Consider that "whiteness" has changed considerably over the usage of the ter…

"White" is almost always a proxy for the british and their former empire, now represented by america's elites.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Anglo-Saxon_Protestants

Re: I now lack the juice to fuel the bluster to conceal that I am a simpleton

#148

Post by basil-rash »

Amezarak wrote: post #123
basil-rash wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be berthed is to be attached to your home, as a boat. It makes way more sense to keep the nautical analogy going than to switch it over to biology. This was likely a transcription error and/or pun.

It's just a mixed metaphor. They are very common in bad writing, which isn't to say they themselves are always bad. The surrounding words make it clear it's not a typo. "which _____ them" does not make sense and would be very rare usage for "berthed". We are born into a time and moored to it. Books are not. Books are distinct from people in this way. That's the point. Since part of the interview is making fun of the…

"which berthed them" makes perfect sense, and fits just as well as any other past participle would in that context. Just because a usage of a word is rare does not mean an experienced author cannot choose to invoke it. In fact, the opposite. Again though, I think the author knew damn well what they were doing and intended for it to be a pun (which would still be arguably berthed-forward).

Re: I now lack the juice to fuel the bluster to conceal that I am a simpleton

#150

Post by mc32 »

HillRat wrote: post #8
ailun wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not really "Newspeak" at all; if anything, it's the opposite. Newspeak had limited vocabulary. The interviewer is using a bunch of ten-dollar words. Still, interesting interview! I might read some Padgett Powell at some point because of this.

It's an interesting contrast, because Ah-Sen is an experimental formalist, and his questions progress from that point of view, whereas Powell is (hilariously) ... not. (As this feels like a Q&A-by-email with all the questions submitted en bloc, Ah-Sen probably didn't get a chance to adapt his questions, and their theoretical foundation, to Powell's responses, lending to the surrealistic air.)

Well, there is the bit where the interviewee responds to a question that utilizes SAT words by saying he does not recognize one of them. That tends to imply it's real-time, unless the interviewee is too lazy to look up the meaning before responding to an email or wants to underscore the pretentious use of language by the interviewer, who nevertheless keeps at it.
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