Dead Flight

I knew about what is called "white flight."  And "black flight."

But "dead flight" was a new one on me.

Today in The New York Times, on the op-ed page, there is a piece by former New York Times correspondent Charlie LeDuff.  The piece, Come See Detroit, America's Future, is about Detroit's dire financial straits, and how other American cities may face the same problems.

In the article, he notes that Detroit suffers not only from white flight and black flight, but dead flight as well. He defines dead flight as when "people routinely disinter their deceased and relocate them in the suburbs."

Amazing.  Of course, I'm not the kind of dutiful son who visits the graves of his ancestors.  I do enjoy visiting a graveyard occasionally, but - as long as it's pretty - I feel that one graveyard is as good as another for a visit.  So I never would have imagined that Americans would do this.  (At least, I didn't imagine that non-Chinese Americans would do this.  I know that people whose traditions include what we blithely call "ancestor worship" will move the graves of the departed.)

But it's an interesting phenomenon, and I'd like to write a nonfiction article about it.

And, though I'm generally not interested in writing vampire or zombie fiction...if someone's willing to PAY me for it, I'll happily write a story titled Dead Flight. 

My Say

There was an interesting article in the Sunday Review section of today's New York Times.  (At least, it should be interesting to writers and linguists.)

Henry Hitchings wrote the article, titled "Those Irritating Verbs-as-Nouns."  In it, he notes the trend towards using verbs and adjectives in place of nouns.  The term for this is nominalization.

Examples include "I have a solve" in place of "I have a solution," and "That was an epic fail" instead of "They failed to an epic degree."

Of course, this process has been going on as long as the English language has existed.  As Hitchings points out, "ask" has been used as a noun for a thousand years, although we often add a modifier, like "the big ask."  I seem to recall several characters in James Clavell's Noble House (published 1981) referring to "the ask" - in this case, was part of a debt that the founder of the Noble House had incurred over a hundred years previously.

And how many newspaper or magazine columns have you seen titled "My Say" or "Having My Say"?

Just another tool for writers.  If nothing else, you can use it to make one character's speech different from that of another character.

I Ain't Dead Yet

I've been absurdly busy the past few months, which has caused me to neglect my blog.  (As I'm sure both my followers have noticed.)  But that project is done, and I'm back now.

Yet, while I was otherwise engaged, it seems that blogging is no longer de rigueur for writers. I was catching up on Elif Batuman's blog, only to find that she's suspended her blogging!  She blames this on a note in the New York Times Book Review, which says that Twitter has rendered blogging obsolete.

Well, none of my work has ever been mentioned in the New York Times Book Review.*  Until it is, I don't feel obliged to obey its ukase.  I'll be blogging...as soon as I have something interesting to report.

* However, a business book I co-wrote has been referenced in the Business section of the New York Times.  So I'm working my way towards the Book Review.  I anticipate appearing in the Real Estate section any day now.

Author Breece D'J Pancake

I was emailing a writer in West Virginia, and got to thinking about that late, great West Virginia author Breece D'J Pancake. I wanted to ask her a question about his work, but she'd never read him.

Pancake - yes, that was his real name* - killed himself at the age of 26, despite an astonishingly successful debut as a writer of short-stories. His work was compared to that of Ernest Hemingway and James Joyce. Chuck Palahniuk and Andre Dubus III (among others) have cited him as an influence. But Pancake shot himself back in 1983, and he seems to be largely forgotten.

My email question to the West Virginia author? "When writing in West Virginian dialect, Pancake used to write the word "it" as "hit." I've never seen anyone else do that. Is it a good approximation of a local dialect?"

I'm still looking for the answer, in case anyone knows. I was in Weirton, West Virginia, some thirty years ago, and I don't recall how they spoke. (Besides, residents in what passes for an urban center in West Virginia probably don't sound like rural folks.)

If you're interested, there was a nice appreciation of Breece D'J Pancake by Dwight Garner in The New York Times, on the occasion of what would have been Pancake's 55th birthday.


* The only affectation in his name was accidental: when The Atlantic Monthly published his first short story, they printed his middle initials as D'J instead of D.J. The error amused Pancake and he let it stand, both then and on his subsequent publications.

My Book Is Mentioned in Today's NEW YORK TIMES

One of the business books that I co-wrote is mentioned (favorably) in today's NEW YORK TIMES.

Of course, I can't tell WHICH version of KISS, BOW OR SHAKE HANDS the article is referring to. By the end of this year, there will have been six with that title. Different sub-titles, of course.

Why so many? That title sells. The lifeless titles picked by publishers (e.g., THE INTERNATIONAL TRAVELER'S GUIDE TO DOING BUSINESS IN THE EUROPEAN UNION) didn't sell.

You go with what works.

A Freakin' Brilliant Idea

....No human being has more energy than a normal, well-fed, well-rested child. Especially boys. Which makes it difficult to get them to sit still in class.

The New York Times ran an article last week about schools that are experimenting with adjustable-height desks. Kids can sit or stand, as they please. Standing burns more energy, allowing them to focus better on their schoolwork. Adjustable-height stools are made available. The desk model pictured in The Times (above left and center) also has a swinging footrest, allowing kids to burn off even more energy.

The idea has been around for a long time. Many adults use standing desks. Personally, I always had difficulty typing in any position other than seated, but not everyone does. Yeshivas also use adjustable-height desks, where it is called a shtender in Yiddish. (far right) The shtender seems to lack the swinging footrest.

I wish my classroom had had these desks when I was teaching Middle School. I might still be teaching.

Great Sex with The New York Times

Another sign of the apocalypse: the back cover of The New York Times Book Review for January 4, 2009, is a full page ad for sex videos.

To be precise, the ad is for "Great Sex for A Lifetime," a series of explicit instructional sex videos. I know this recession has got us all hurting, but is this the best The Times can do? Sex videos? (And DVDs.) I don't have any objection to sex videos, either instructional or porn, but do they have to advertise in the most elite section of our country's most august newspaper?

[Grammatical query: can you be more august, or is august one of those either/or descriptors like unique? Are their levels of augustitude, like august-auguster-augustiest?]

The New York Times has been the beneficiary of many long-term advertising contracts. For example, the jewelry store Tiffany & Co. has had a modest ad on page 3 of The Times for over 100 years! My memory of ads is hazy (unless it's a sexy lingerie ad, I tend not to notice them), but I believe that, for many years, the back page of The Times Book Review was for a book club. One of their major premiums was The Concise Oxford English Dictionary.

It's a long fall from The OED to sex videos.

Of late, the usual advertiser on the back page of The NYT Book Review has been Bauman Rare Books. Even though I'm not a collector of rare books, I have some affection for Bauman's. In years of applying for various jobs, Bauman's sent me the nicest, best-written rejection letter I've ever gotten. (Yup, that's all it takes to get on my good side. Reject me nicely. Supermodels, take note.)

Not that I expect to be buying anything from Bauman's anytime soon. Their autographed letter from Abraham Lincoln (just $78,000!) doesn't seem to be on my shopping list.

Bauman's is back on the back page of The NYT Book Review, and I hope it stays there.

And if The New York Times wants to run ads for sex videos, put them in the Business Section where they belong.

Good News for the Great Unwashed

Finally, my plumber replaced the clogged water line that fed my shower. Today I took my first "normal" shower at home in weeks!

Of course, I can shower because there is still electricity flowing to my water heater and pump. The recent ice storms have left thousands without power in the Midwest and New England. (And without power, they can't read my blog! I must be missing two, maybe three readers right now because their power is out.)


On a different topic, there's a nice article on lying and evolution in the Science Times section of today's New York Times. Basically, it seems that the more sophisticated the species, the more use they have for lying.

I'm not surprised. It's not like a slime mold has that much to lie about. ("Hey, babe! I've got the biggest spores in this entire hectare!"*)

It's been known for years that apes that are trained to communicate in sign language will lie, usually to escape disapproval. ("No, Buddy no poop on floor! Dr. Ebbeson pooped on floor. Bad Dr. Ebbeson!") But field researchers have discovered that even apes in the wild will lie to each other. The article gives the example of a young baboon about to be pounded by an angry, larger baboon. The youngster stopped fleeing, stood up, scanned the horizon, and gave the impression that he had spotted an intruder. The angry baboon--and the entire tribe--started preparing for the nonexistent intruder. (Suckers!)

Somehow, knowing that animals lie makes me feel better about being human. Or at least better about lying.

* Coincidentally, while in college, I once used this exact line to pick up a female biology major. And it worked. No lie.