2007 March | BoWilliams.com

Lost in the desert with a litigious Jack Nicholson

Mar 272007

I kept a dream journal for a few weeks several years ago. I don’t remember why I stopped. Maybe I had several boring nights, or just lost interest. I had a dream last night that makes me want to start again.

I was on a hiking trip with several dozen guys in the desert. We didn’t do much but walk around, drink water, and stop to camp when it got dark. It seemed pretty regimented, like a Boy Scout outing or something. It was pretty boring.

We went to sleep one night, and when I woke up, everybody was gone except for a fat guy with a bunch of Brylcreem in what was left of his hair and Jack Nicholson. (I suspect Jack Nicholson wasn’t the world’s foremost actor in my dream’s universe, because this didn’t seem like his kind of pastime, and I don’t think anyone ever acknowledged “who he was.”) So, it’s Nicholson, but it’s just some guy. Got it? He’s wearing jeans, a white button-down, and a tan blazer.

We could see no signs of life for five miles in every direction. (It didn’t make me nervous in the dream, but I woke up chuckling thinking about how poorly Nicholson’s Jack Torrance did with isolation in The Shining, my second favorite film of all time.) So in that sort of halfway-under-his-breath way that he has, Nicholson says “well, the bastards left us. Boys, let’s walk.” We stowed our gear and walked.

Cut to us being back amongst civilization, though I either don’t remember or didn’t dream how we got there. Now Nicholson, the fat Brylcreem guy, and I are standing on the lawn of an expensive urban residence, across the street from a club called Pussy’s. We’re downtown in a large metropolis–steel, glass, and asphalt surround us–and yet I can see a large bluff to the southwest that I remember seeing when we woke up in the desert. It’s considerably closer than five miles, yet I couldn’t see this city when we woke up. You know how dreams are. And as I’m looking over there, I see a Bell 206 JetRanger flying low and suspect it’s looking for us. I jump up and down and wave, and nearly immediately the helicopter banks toward us.

It flew over us pretty low–maybe 300 feet–and dropped something on the far end of the lawn. When I went to retrieve it, it was a large cutting from a purple hyacinth. The pilot circled around, and appeared to be maneuvering to pull up to us to talk. While he was doing that, Nicholson and the fat Brylcreem guy got mad at me because I didn’t want to try to gig the outfit that organized the hike for a lot of money.

After a couple of foolish moves during which he nearly destroyed the aircraft, the pilot got in position to talk to us. He didn’t land; he hovered just off the ground. He opened the door. (Again, this is dreamland; this would have been loud as all hell in real life, yet we were able to converse normally.) The pilot said “so you guys want to talk about this?” Nicholson said “hell yes, we want to talk about this! Set this thing down and we’ll go across the street to Pussy’s and talk about it!” Then I woke up.

Any dream interpreters out there?

The beauty and agony of lost meaning

Bo's Favorites, Language, Popular Culture 13 Responses »

Mar 262007

When I count my blessings, one that always lands high on the list is that I’ve been able to make a good living working with the English language. It entertains me endlessly. I can while away an hour at Dictionary.com just as easily as I can at Wikipedia.

English has a broad duality about it. One side of it is delightfully open-ended. Some words have scores, even hundreds of synonyms. Some connote slightly different things; others are identical except that they are, of course, different words. Meanings shift, and words fall in and out of favor. It’s never the same language from one day to the next. This is something to celebrate, not decry. Poetry and theater are born here. Idioms gain traction here. George Carlin made his rent on this side of the linguistic tracks.

The other side of English is rigorous. Whatever it is, chances are excellent there’s a word that exactly describes it. Unfortunately, meanings shift on this side too, and it bothers me when a precise word becomes less precise.

Language evolves by brute force. Remember, the dictionary dictates, but it also reflects. If enough people say something in a consistent way, it gets in. Here are some precise words whose loss (or imminent loss) irritates me:

Datum. The singular of data is almost gone. People use data as a singular noun now. They also have to use it as an adjective, because the effective elimination of datum has given rise to the monstrosities data set and data point. To paraphrase George Orwell: “One word good, two words bad!”

Criterion. The singular of criteria isn’t extinct, but it’s definitely endangered. “I want to use another criteria to make the decision.” Yeccch.

Alumnus, alumna, and alumnae. I’ve always found these words beautiful. Dig: An alumnus is a single male. An alumna is a single female. Alumnae describes a group of all females. Alumni describes a group of all males, or a group of both sexes. You are not “an alumni” of anything. If these words are going down for reasons of political correctness or whatever, I’d much rather just see graduate take their place, rather than their beauty perverted by using alumni for everything.

Semiweekly. Semiweekly means twice a week. Biweekly means every two weeks. Many people say biweekly when they mean twice a week. They also say biweekly when they mean every two weeks. How is this progress? Why are we throwing precision under the bus and embracing ambiguity?

Literally. I’ve fought like a tiger trying to save this word, but I think it’s lost. Today, lots of folks say literally when they mean figuratively. “She was so angry, smoke literally came out of her ears.” Is that so? So the strength of her anger was such that it caused something inside her ears to ignite? Wow, that is angry.

The worst part about losing what we perceive to be the true senses of words is that we generally lose them because we’re in the minority. So by the time we notice they’re slipping away, it’s practically certain they’ll stay gone (in our lifetimes, anyway).

It literally makes my head explode.

First image: Grace Episcopal Church in Anniston, Alabama, where Mrs. Jeanie Thagard enabled English to seduce me in the fourth grade at the Episcopal Day School. Thanks to the Episcopal Diocese of Alabama home page.

Second image: Morton Hall at the University of Alabama in Huntsville in Huntsville, Alabama, where Dr. David Neff fascinated me every time he spoke. Thanks to the UAH home page.

The Amazing Randi on global warming

Current Events, Politics 1 Response »

Mar 252007

I am a longtime fan of the James Randi Educational Foundation (JREF). The JREF is perhaps best known for offering a million-dollar prize to anyone who can demonstrate paranormal or supernatural powers under controlled test conditions agreed to by both parties. Its founder, James Randi, is an expressive and enthusiastic debunker of pseudoscience (as well as a talented magician). I enjoy his weekly column/newsletter very much, and have a great deal of intellectual respect for him. He’s a neat guy.

So I was quite interested to read of his enthusiasm for An Inconvenient Truth, Al Gore’s documentary on global warming and climate change.

I first “met” Al Gore at the Senate hearings on popular music lyrics in 1985, and I disliked him immediately because he was so sycophantic. (A U.S. senator kissing Frank Zappa’s ass? Somebody please fetch me the Pepto-Bismol.) Having encountered little to change that impression, I’ve not paid him much attention since the 2000 election, including his film.

I’ve been mostly ambivalent on global warming. It seems clear to me that it’s happening, but the question of whether the post-industrial human race is causing it (and to what degree) has generated some pretty obnoxious rhetoric at each end of the argument. Whether it’s coming from the far right or far left, rhetoric at the extremes often seeks to obfuscate at least as much as inform, and I always got all kinds of vibes in that vein from each side.

But then James Randi, a fellow who is the proverbial “180 out” from obfuscation of any kind, wrote that he had “abandoned any doubts that I may have had about the reality of our species’ contribution to global warming” after seeing Gore’s film. He also followed it up with this nearly immediately:

As soon as this item appeared here in SWIFT, a huge number of comments poured in from readers who disagreed with my take on the Gore film. Some of these caveats came from persons whose opinions I must consider very carefully, so I take this opportunity of assuring you all that I’m re-examining my position, and will get back here when I’ve considered the matter more fully.

I’ll be seeing An Inconvenient Truth soon. If James Randi appreciated it, I’m convinced that minimally, it is a powerful and persuasive instrument of communication, and as a student of such I’d find it stimulating from that perspective no matter what.

I’ll also be watching closely to see what else Randi has to say on the causes of global warming. I’d be inclined to take his ten-second analysis over many others’ full and leisurely consideration, and if he’s going to sit down and think about it, it’s guaranteed to be of significant value.

Catching up with Heather

Leisure 8 Responses »

Mar 252007

Well, I’m back from my whirlwind day at the Mississippi gulf coast. Heather, a special high school friend of mine, is about to move to Dallas, and this was one of the last chances we had to get together. (We’ve not worked hard enough to find them; though we’ve kept in touch fairly consistently, this was the first time we’d seen each other in seven years.) I decided to drive the whole way rather than try to meet to make it easier for her, and also to say hello to her parents.

She took me on the Katrina tour (still sadly and brutally impressive 18 months later), we sat on the beach and visited a bit, and we had a marvelous lunch at Aunt Jenny’s in Ocean Springs. It was a lot of fun catching up.

In the “personal bests” department, I drove 817 miles today, shattering my old single-day record of 725. I averaged 71.6 mph (71.8 going, 71.4 coming), gas and restroom stops included. (That’s Mr. Cannonball Run to you.) It was a near-perfect day on the interstate. I shudder to think what the law of averages will do to my next trip out.

The "forever" stamp is imminent

Current Events 5 Responses »

Mar 232007

The forever stamp is almost here. The U.S. Postal Service has approved a stamp that would be “valid for the first-ounce First-Class Mail letter postage regardless of the actual rate on the date of use.” It’s sold at the current first-class rate, but you can use it whenever, and it will always be good for the first-class one-ounce rate. So if you buy it now for 41 cents and use it ten years from now when the rate is, say, 60 cents, it will still work.

Hmmm. Best I can tell, at my house we use about 140 stamps a year, including Christmas cards. So 40 years’ worth would be 40 x 140 x $0.41, or $2,296. So I’ll just place an order for 280 books of 20 forever stamps, and I’ll be done buying postage for the rest of my life, right? And if I’ve got a whole bunch left when it looks like I’m going to die soon, then I’ll sell them at a profit!

If I believed the “forever stamp” would be that, that’s exactly what I’d do. But I don’t. I’m skeptical and think the post office could easily renege; plus, I doubt its ability to remain in business in its current form long-term (and if it goes kaput, what happens to my “forever stamps”?). I also doubt its ability to meet demand, particularly right when it goes on sale and right before the next rate increase. Lots of good thoughts here.

I might consider buying five years’ worth, though.