From the NYT's annual roundup of short essays about people who died in the past year — "The Lives They Led" — I've chosen a bit of Amy X. Wang's essay on the Nobel Prize-winning poet Louise Glück.
I loved the X-Acto/exactitude theme — the whittling away, the meatman and his trained knife, and the potential to end up with nothing.
ADDED: I wondered if — in 20 years of blogging — I had ever before used the word "exactitude." It's a great word, and I thought, perhaps I'd never used it. But I see I've used it twice, both times in 2018.
On May 24, 2018, I quoted NYT columnist Charles M. Blow, who'd said that Trump uses "language that muddles to the point of meaninglessness, language that rejects exactitude, language that elevates imprecision as a device to avoid being discovered in his deceit." I'd said:
Much of Blow's critique of Trump's language is apt, but it's critique that would apply to most politicians. The drive to critique is extrinsic to the critique (Blow hates Trump). Trump does have his own special way of being imprecise and deceitful, so it does stand out, but that's a positive, I'd say, because: 1. It's creative, and 2. The imprecision and deceit is pretty much on the face of the text (e.g., "you look at what's happening"). It's clearly unclear. That's a plus!
On May 16, 2018, I wrote a post about the phrase "just how" — with its "silly promise of exactitude" — "Just how vogue is 'just how'?":
It slammed me in the face today. I was glancing at "So, Just How Violent Is Lars von Trier’s The House That Jack Built?" (New York Magazine) and clicked to my next tab and the first headline I saw was "Just How Fragile is Trump’s North Korea Diplomacy?" (The New Yorker).
Now, that I've noticed, I predict I will see it everywhere. I'm making a tag for it.
Why does it matter to me? Because it's a silly promise of exactitude that I know will not be met. And because it speaks of our aimless yearning for specific knowledge. I feel a little wistful about it.
Let's search Google News for some recent "just how" headlines... "Just how hot is 'hot as balls'?" Oh, well, my question is: Just how hot is 'just how'?
"Royal wedding quiz: Just how well do you know the royal family?," "Just How Much Business Can Batteries Take From Gas Peakers?," "Just How Common Is Salmonella Poisoning?," "Instagram will soon show you just how addicted you are to the app," "Just How Clean Are Pillows and Blankets On Airplanes?," "Why doesn't anyone ever tell you just how much your kids' teeth will cost you," "Just how did Matt Lauer's famous desk button work?," "Just How Catholic Is the Met's New Fashion Exhibit?," "'As it is in heaven': And just how is that?," "Just how bad is America, really?," "Just How Unethical Is Trump's Legal Team?","This close-up of Kim shows just how much make-up you need for the Met Gala."
It is bizarre, this notion that we need to know the precise workings of the mechanism whereby Matt Lauer closed his door, that a clicked-to article could contain the tantalizing details of what it's like in Heaven, that the dirtiness of all those pillows on all those planes could be expressed with fine-grained accuracy, that the aspect of your use of Instagram that's categorizable as addiction could be rigorously quantified.
Notice how often "just how" is paired with "you" and "your." The absurdity of promise of specific knowledge is magnified by the pretense of making it information about you: your children's teeth, your addiction to Instagram, your make-up at the Met Gala, your knowledge of the royal family.
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altitude amplitude aptitude attitude beatitude certitude decrepitude dissimilitude exactitude fortitude gratitude habitude inaptitude incertitude ineptitude inexactitude infinitude ingratitude lassitude latitude longitude magnitude multitude nigritude platitude plenitude promptitude pulchritude rectitude sanctitude servitude similitude solicitude solitude turpitude verisimilitude vicissitude
says my thesaurus. The shortest path through the thesaurus from exactitude to inexactitude is
exactitude carefulness wariness mistrust uncertainty vagueness inexactitude
Just how stupid and clueless can I appear to be?
The possibilities are infinite. The future will reveal all.
I'm a big fan of the concept of tactile pragmatism. While reading, I felt a twinge of self awareness. You don't know what joy is until you field strip and restore/rebuild a contrabass clarinet.
"... was constantly trying to whittle away at her own perceived shortcomings"
I see what you did there to the X-ACTO heiress…
If you whittle away at shortcomings, do they become longcomings?
"... was constantly trying to whittle away at her own perceived shortcomings"
Did her whittling sessions, natch with a spoke X-ACTO tool, result in self-reflections,
https://i.ytimg.com/vi/hJh8hpMRKe0/maxresdefault.jpg
Do you have to be crazy to write modern poetry, or is it just an advantage?
The Lily In A Crystal
You have beheld a smiling rose
When virgins' hands have drawn
O'er it a cobweb-lawn:
And here, you see, this lily shows,
Tomb'd in a crystal stone,
More fair in this transparent case
Than when it grew alone,
And had but single grace.
You see how cream but naked is,
Nor dances in the eye
Without a strawberry;
Or some fine tincture, like to this,
Which draws the sight thereto,
More by that wantoning with it,
Than when the paler hue
No mixture did admit.
You see how amber through the streams
More gently strokes the sight,
With some conceal'd delight,
Than when he darts his radiant beams
Into the boundless air;
Where either too much light his worth
Doth all at once impair,
Or set it little forth.
Put purple grapes or cherries in-
To glass, and they will send
More beauty to commend
Them, from that clean and subtle skin,
Than if they naked stood,
And had no other pride at all,
But their own flesh and blood,
And tinctures natural.
Thus lily, rose, grape, cherry, cream,
And strawberry do stir
More love, when they transfer
A weak, a soft, a broken beam;
Than if they should discover
At full their proper excellence,
Without some scene cast over,
To juggle with the sense.
Thus let this crystall'd lily be
A rule, how far to teach
Your nakedness must reach;
And that no further than we see
Those glaring colours laid
By art's wise hand, but to this end
They should obey a shade,
Lest they too far extend.
—So though you're white as swan or snow,
And have the power to move
A world of men to love;
Yet, when your lawns and silks shall flow,
And that white cloud divide
Into a doubtful twilight;—then,
Then will your hidden pride
Raise greater fires in men.
Robert Herrick, d.1674
Louise Gluck, like many anorectics, nearly died of the paucity of her adolescent purity. She blazoned it, beautiful but deadly. She's an interesting contrast to the Metaphysicals, like Herrick who experienced more death but glorified resilience and experienced seasons of both life and death as faith.
She is equivalent to several female saints. Trouble moving affection from daddy to mere men.
President Gay of Harvard says "it depends on the context." She paid a top law firm to advise her to make that stupid and unhelpful answer. Suddenly the woke want context, they don't just want to parse three words. Did she mean: we need more exactitude? Why didn't she offer some-- examples, pro's and con's and so on?
A longish Churchill story. He had switched from Opposition to Government, still early in his career. His Liberal colleagues had criticized the treatment of Chinese laborers in South Africa when they were in opposition; now they weren't so sure. Churchill gave a long speech, he had gone to see for himself and so on. He finished with something like: the conditions are those of indentured servitude, often quite grim from our perspective. Anyone who refers to it as slavery is guilty of a terminological inexactitude. The House went crazy.
Shortcomings the size of longcomings.
What is so
special;;
about poets? That
Causes deep
Thinkers to go ga-ga
Over them?
Seriously, I probably own and read more poetry than 98% of Americans. I like some, find some pure crap.
It's just writing. Nothing more, nothing less.
John Henry
Now Gluck would be entitled to diagnoses of autism, no doubt, and maybe even ADHD and with any luck BPD.
No weirdness shall go unlabeled?
"If you whittle away at shortcomings, do they become longcomings?"
Only if you long to have them returned to you.
I only took up writing poetry back in 10th grade because a girl I liked mentioned she was really into poetry. She became my first real girlfriend.
MarcusB. THEOLDMAN
Most of what I wrote was crap.
John McLaughlin used phrase like "exactitude" and "certitude" on the McLaughlin Group, PBS during the 1980s
The evaluation of poetry is subjective. I doubt I could explain why I like some poets and not others- I just do.
“ Ann Althouse said...
If you whittle away at shortcomings, do they become longcomings?”
Shortercomings.
I think I see a hint of the origin of the neuroses that afflicted this woman. How many immigrants retain the non-English orthography in family names? Not many, I gather. Was the anorexic poet oppressed by the appellation Glook?
Longcomings are a good thing.
Now THAT is a click for more chock full of content. Also, the X-acto knife is a product that I call a genericide because it becomes both a symbol of a category, like Kleenex and Levi’s and Coke, and still retains significant market share “category killer” within many segments. Until they went digital newspapers could not be put together without copious supplies of X-acto knives.
Hence the term genericide. If you have another example of such products with trade names that both describe a category and dominate it reply here.
The Barrow Gang, which included Clyde’s brothers and their wives, was sometimes called the Clyde and Bonnie Gang until most were wounded and arrested and then the famous two killed in an ambush. Bonnie’s diary and poetry was in the bullet-riddled ‘34 Chevy and it was her eponymous poem that became their moniker from then on: The Ballad of Bonnie and Clyde.
Whittling shortcomings/longcomings. I played in a brass band for a while. A guy showed up with a tuba, bigger than usual. "Look what happened when I rubbed my trumpet."
Don't read much poetry. I do like The Inferno, I have a pretty good translation.
For some reason I always found this little ditty amusing;
Roses are red
Violets are blue
If skunks had a college
They'd call it PU
I build model airplanes from balsa wood. I stopped using XActo knives long ago--the blades are too thick and they lack "exactitude". I much prefer a number 11 scalpel blade in an appropriate handle.
But when you qoute Charles Blow I'm reminded of your other post today. Blow blows chunks as the saying goes. He rarely has anything worthwhile to say.
Skeptical,
I don't build airplanes but always used to keep a couple xacto knives on my desk for misc cutting
15-20 years ago a client who made disposable surgical scalpels gave me a couple dozen. Much sharper than xacto and better handle.
I now buy them in 10 packs on Amazon about every 5-6 years
John Henry
As a graphic designer, I've lost more than a bit of skin to X-Acto blades in the early days.
Glück meaning 'Luck' in German.
Something to that?
A family of tactile pragmatists?
How does one discover that? 23 and me? A pocket history of tactile pragmatism?
Hey Skipper:
Ann Althouse:
If you whittle away at shortcomings, do they become longcomings?”
Shortercomings.
Then nubbins.
Agree with Yancey Ward, the liking thereof is subjective. Same with the writing.
Back in the day, not long after building my farm, Red/Green inspired me to write some nonsense Ozark haykoos. I looked them up just now.
Of Opossums and Ozarks
Tiny feet patter, then stop.
Orange orbs hang in blackness.
Road-kill opossum heralds spring.
Water drips, moss grows on the wood.
A field mouse pokes its nose out of its nest.
Wish I could afford some new siding.
The fullness of the palest white circle.
The faintest pat of yellow.
No such thing as too many grits.
The frost has spread across the glass,
It sparkles in blinding, intricate patterns.
That's OK, I could drive these roads in my sleep.
The hands spin slowly, telling time.
You cannot share that which is another's.
Took me three to five to learn that one.
And my favorite.
The touch of her skin and a soft, low moan.
A sudden tension and it's done.
God, I hate artificial insemination.
As for XActo knives: When I sculpt in hard clay or resins, those are my primary shaping tool after things harden. I do it exactly the opposite of all the suggestions with the knife's back held to the crook of first finger and my thumb pressed against the sculpture. I pull the blade edge first towards my thumb and resist at the same time. Gives me intense pressure and very slow, controlled push.
Yeah, I have a little patch on the end of my thumb that has remnants of scars.
The NYT sure picked some odd choices for that piece. Do we really care about some trans woman and tarot?
I recall reading that Time reporters were told to obtain and include in their stories tiny details such as the menu of the luncheon at a summit meeting between world leaders, because such "exactitude" showed readers "just how" much more informed the Time reporters were than daily news reporters, and thus implied that the readers of Time were also just that much more informed than the general public. And if you use an XActo knife to whittle, instead of a Buck folder, you deserve thast razor blade cut you'll have on your hand.
X-Acto knives with their thin blades would be a poor choice for whittling. A standard pocketknife would be much better.
Done/insemination is one unforgettable slant rhyme, O.
Gluck is one of the few poets I still sometimes read. She doesn't try to get into your head. She's the poet of things growing, but surprisingly dark.
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