Writes Mitch Therleau, in
"A Simple, One-Word Trick to Turn Everyday Life Into Grand Fantasy" (NYT gift link).
“Share a piece of lore about yourself,” goes one perennial prompt post on X.... The responses these kinds of posts elicit are not unlike the fun facts you might be prompted to share in an icebreaker activity.... Calling these unfun facts “lore” perhaps blunts the pain of the original experiences, rhetorically placing them in misty antiquity and sarcastically puffing them up into arcane secrets.... “Does your brand have lore?” asks Advertising Week... “Lore” is a hinge word, a threshold word. Fiction passes through it and becomes tangible fact; facts pass through it and become part of a grand story. Its ultimate trick is to make knowledge not embarrassing or useless, but a form of dark magic.
ADDED: This makes me think of
the old Mothers of Invention song about becoming a hippie:
First I'll buy some beads
And then perhaps a leather band to go around my head
Some feathers and bells
And a book of Indian lore....
Posts
5 comments:
Be sure to get a real poncho, I mean a Mexican poncho. A Sears poncho doesn't have lore.
This might be too soon after the whole Jason Arday fiasco 🤔
Lore is just a popular word for Gen Z who think they have invented it from first principles. It's modern usage is much broader. It's a favorite of my daughter.
Please, don’t start reciting Zappa lyrics. That can only lead to trading lines from Firesign Theater and Monty Python. We will be here all night.
A few years ago I ventured back to Seattle and went to look at a house I lived in for a while during graduate school in the late 20th century. I was older by then and not immediately recognizable. As I pondered my time there, an elderly gentleman approached and attempted to engage me in conversation.
"You look a bit pensive, my friend," he said. "New here?"
"Just visiting, " I mused, more to myself than to my new companion. "I used to live in the area and thought I would involve myself in some nostalgic wanderings, in hopes of recapturing some strands of a somewhat misspent but, on the whole, enjoyable youth."
"I see," he said, nodding. "Since you spent time here you must know about this house. . . . .the old Anthony Place?"
"Not really," I replied, "Vague rumors is all. Is there something particularly special about it?"
My companion thought for a moment and appeared hesitant to explain further. Finally, he breathed a sigh and began thusly:
"He's been gone, oh, like onto 30 years now. They say he studied archaeology at the UW back in the '80s. Kept to himself, mostly, coming and going at odd hours; he used to claim he was "going to work in the lab", but who knows if that was true or what exactly he might be doing at this "laboratory" of his. Occasionally he would disappear for a couple of months at a time, no one knows where, but if asked he would mutter something about 'F***ing Egypt' and hurry to the side of the house where the entrance to his abode was."
Casting a sidelong glance, I offered "Well, that doesn't seem *too*, errr, odd, at least to me....."
"Ah, well," he continued, "I suppose maybe not. But he would often be seen accompanied by others of his group -- also supposedly graduate students -- discussing certain mysterious topics known only to them, such as 'paradigmatic classification' and 'post-processual theoretical frameworks'. Never made much sense to me, but some have said they also practiced some of the darker arts.......", his voice trailing off as if unsure whether to continue.
"Please, continue" I advised, "I admit to having some passing interest in such topics. Purely as intellectual exercises, you see."
Well....", he resumed, although I now detected a hint of fear tinged with suspicion in his voice. "It is said that he and some of his 'cohorts' had attempted to apply Darwinian evolutionary theory to explaining variation in artifact assemblages over both time and space using a form of natural selection as the methodological base!"
"Well, that's just nuts," I replied, albeit a bit more strongly than I had intended. "Pray, tell, whatever became of this "Anthony" character?"
Having related more than he had perhaps intended, my new friend continued. "He just up and disappeared one day and no one has seen nor heard from him since. No one ever learned as to whether he ever received this mythical 'Ph.D.' he often prattled on about. But it is said, though I have no personal experience with this aspect of the story, that on certain moonlit nights you can still hear footsteps pacing back and forth and a faint agonized voice saying "What the f***ing f*** is the difference between 'intensional' and 'extensional' definition and how does it apply outside of the class or group 'dogs'??? Did I forget to chill my whiskey again?! DAMN it.""
I nodded slowly as he finished. I thanked him for the telling of the story and as I walked away I fear he may have overheard my muttered "F***in' whackjob that 'Anthony' guy was......"
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