Thursday chat #3
Chat intro here! Submit questions here!
And now we begin the famous interactive part of the chat.
Q: Will any entries to The Resurrected Invitational be edited for taste?
A: This is a good question. The answer is interesting.
Yes, of course it will be edited for taste. You won't see racism, for example, or homophobia. Pat has a particular distaste for anything that suggests cruelty to children or animals. I have never accepted an entry that, for example, makes jokes about dropping the soap in the prison showers. (You'd be surprised how many of these come in.)
So yes, there will be standards. But they will not be the standards of The Washington Post, particularly not those standards exercised during the Style Invitational's final months.
Something odd had happened; for some reason the new Post management had clearly decided the contest -- which had operated almost completely unfettered with much the same standards for 30 years, and virtually zero reader complaints -- had to be reined in. They began saying no to certain entries. The weirdest moment was right near the end, when for the first time ever they killed 12 entries that had been slated for publication. The contest was to come up with new slogans for states of the Union, based a a formula involving certain sequences of initial letters. The following were among the assassinated. All were deemed “tasteless.”
ALABAMA: Find God And Try Meth (Daniel Galef, Tallahassee, Fla.)
FLORIDA: A Map Appendage That Looks Awfully Like A Misshapen And Flaccid ... Gherkin (Leif Picoult)
IDAHO: Our Country Needs Unruly White Militias! (Mark Raffman)
IOWA: So Darn White It Makes North Dakota Seem Diverse (Jon Gearhart, Des Moines)
MISSISSIPPI: Literacy Ain’t Our Top Objective (Kevin Dopart)
WEST VIRGINIA: Welcome! Our Paté Of Possum Never Disappoints! (Pam Shermeyer)
TEXAS: Teachers, Lock And Load! (Emma Daley, Greenfield, Mass.)
And, um ...
LOUISIANA: The Anus of the Lower Mississippi (Scott Richards, Hollywood, Md.)
It's impossible to run a good humor contest with that level of stuffy, harrumphing stricture. Humor must be allowed to have edge. So, in short, here it is now.
Q: I miss Trump. Well, not so much in the "I love you and miss you" miss him, but more in the being prodded for ways to bash him (surely you remember the bashing in the last page of the magazine from the rag that shall not be named). When does the bash prodding resume?
A: I would counsel you to keep an eye on the Invitational.
By the way, as you all can see we haven’t quite nailed the questioner-ID feature yet, but we have retired that guy Dale from Chicago. Hope to have this fixed by Tuesday’s chat.
Q: Do we want to know why the water in The Gene Pool is warm?
A: We've already actually told you. You have to look at the GIF version of the cartoon drawn by the great Bob (Sub)Staake. The source of the warmth becomes clear.
Q: Religious freedom should work both ways- namely I shouldn't be prevented from practicing my religion as long as my religion doesn't prevent others from practicing theirs. As per your lobster example Orthodox Jewish people aren't made to eat lobster and they don't keep me from eating it. No one made the students look at the picture of a painting but they are saying no one should see it even the Muslims who don't believe it's a problem!
A: You are preaching to the choir, as it were.
Q: If you could do a feature on any famous person, who would it be, and why?
A: Bob Dylan, both because I think he is one of the greatest writers in the world, and because of the challenge. He's as opaque as obsidian. I'd try to peel him, and fail horribly. Alternatively — this might appeal to him — I might nail an interview, and then ONLY ask him questions about Phil Ochs.
Q: Do you remember the abuse several (one) Loser used to give you about your judging in the early days- and was it amusing to you or aggravating?
A: I am someone who never holds a grudge -- not because I am a good person but because I have a terrible memory and can never keep straight whom I am supposed to mad at, or why. I do not remember the person you are talking about, unless his initials were R.B., in which case I sort of remember and absolutely was not aggravated or insulted. I believe I goaded him about it in the Invite. Also, he was probably right about me.
Q: I had a humor disagreement with my wife, perhaps you can help: We were watching Inglourious Basterds. At the beginning of the movie, a Nazi comes to a French farmer’s house to hunt Jews. The farmer is hiding the Jews the Nazi is looking for, but the Nazi’s questions quickly lead the farmer to conclude that the Nazi doesn’t know this. Visibly relaxing during this tense scene, the farmer asks if he can smoke. The Nazi agrees and the farmer takes out a pipe. The Nazi ask if he could indulge as well, and proceeds to take out a comically large, French Horn sized pipe with an ivory bulb. Not only was it an obvious phallic symbol, but in a Tarantino film it demonstrated who was in charge of the scene, and the farmer’s reaction in the movie was to recognize this power dynamic. So upon seeing this, I laughed. It cut the tension, turned the scene on its ear and the prop was ridiculous. My wife got angry: why was I laughing when people were going to get killed? I didn’t think I was going to be able to explain it to her, so we had to turn the movie off. Did I marry someone humor impaired, or was I wrong to laugh? -- Marc from the military.
A: You probably did not marry someone humor impaired. You married someone with whom you have a fundamental but inconsequential human disconnect, one I have been thinking about for years. Some people react to plays and movies as though they are real; they have, perhaps, greater empathy. Others, like me and you, are always subliminally aware this is just a performance and don't get as emotionally involved. I am seldom or ever moved to fear by a horror movie, for example. Others cringe and must watch it through steepled fingers. We both appreciate the performance, but our side just don't get lost in it.
I envy the others. Sort of the way I envy people with religious faith.
Q: This is not a linguistic shift I have seen in journalism (yet...) but I would like to know when the phrase "based off of" replaced the phrase "based on." It makes my eyelid twitch because the existing phrase uses fewer words, and is less awkward to say! Have you come across this, and if so, did you defenestrate the publication in which it appeared? — Sarah Walsh, Rockville
A: I haven’t seen it, but you are reminding me of a major bugaboo of mine: Unnecessary letters. I despise “preventative” when “preventive” means the same thing. Same with “exploitative,” and others. I suspect this prejudice has subtly crept into my private life, in my private decisions. My girlfriend is “Rachel,” not, say, Rachael or the even more horrible “Raechael.” My editor, whom I despise but still rely on because of his name, which is Tom Shroder. There is no more efficient way of spelling Shroder.
Q: Gene --- "Reach out" may set your teeth on edge but, the real issue is --- exactly who are those "informed sources" who keep showing up everywhere ? What a bunch of know-it-alls.
A: You may not be a journalist. Secret disclosed: “Informed sources” often are the person himself, talking about himself, but not wanting to be identified as such. They ARE in fact, informed about themselves.
Q: re: "Reaching out" -- it hasn't really bothered me, and I wonder if it's got something to do with the internet and email. That is, "we asked X" implies that there was a specific conversation and question involved, whereas "we reached out to X" could mean "we emailed X to let them know we were writing about Y" without any indication that the writer even knows whether the email was read or whether there was any response.
A: Fair point, but only because I was a little imprecise. “Reached out to” generally is used to me “tried to contact.” Which is way better.
Q: You like irregular poetry? I accept that it's difficult to judge against all the regular meter and end rhyme. But I can't stop writing and losing with it. Curse you, Shel Silverstein, Ogden Nash, Garrison Keillor. And me , I'm not thinking I'm at their level of course, I just like the form, or lack of it. Also, you gave your formula once for a meaningful higgledy-piggledy, would you offer that again?
A: Obnoxiously, I only recognize poetry that rhymes; the other stuff might be great, but to me it is prose. (I particularly love interior rhyme.) Higgledy Piggledies start with a nonsense double dactyl, then a double dactylic name, then a double dactyl line, then four thudding syllables - dum dum dum DUM. Second stanza, same as the first, except it must have one line that is a single double-dactylic word. The two short lines must rhyme. Here’s one I wrote:
Higgledy. Piggledy
Joseph DiMaggio
Jolted the ball but was
Jilted in bed.
Marilyn walked, but he
Necro-romantically
Laid her in rose bouquets
When she was dead.
Q: I share your objection to using "reached out to" in place of "asked," for the exact reasons you lay out. Do you share my similar objection to using "sat down with" to mean "interviewed?"
A: Not really! Because it imparts information. Unless you are a liar, “sat down with” says this was a face-to-face interview, not phone or email. Also, it doesn’t carry the saccharine stigma of “reached out to.”
Q: You are old enough to recall the "reach out and touch someone" ads, which may well explain the usage problem. But JournoCop needs a "stick" of some sort, kinda like the dummy stick, when anyone claiming to be a journalist gets out of line, right?
A: The stick is public shame. I will be naming names.
Q: I mean, what IS broccoli "rabe" anyway?
A: It is a shortened version of the original vegetable, called “broccoli rabbi.”
Q: You mentioned Phil Ochs. As far as I can tell, he's pretty much unknown by people under 60. I'm 50 and know and like his music, but only because his album was one of the few records in the house when I was a kid.
A: Dylan revered Ochs. So did I. I’ve often though of writing a book about him.
Q: “Alternatively — this might appeal to him — I might nail an interview, and then ONLY ask him questions about Phil Ochs." OMG, that would be hilarious -- much funnier than the fact that I mistakenly posted this in the "comments" instead of the "chat" because this format is kind of confusing . Please do that.
A: I actually think he might love that and cooperate. The key would be not to tell him in advance. We’re working on simplifying the format here, but this seems to work in substack for something they were heretofore unfamiliar with: live chats. They kinda set up this system for me.
Q: The worst I see is when a team fires the coach they say “parting ways”. Fired is fired.
A: Yeah, it’s a silly euphemism, kinda like writing that a dog was “put to sleep.” The worst sports things media sites do is have headlines like “Manager not worried about losing streak.” It’s a lie. Of COURSE he’s worried. He SAYS he’s not worried.
Q: So as long as we're discussing journalism pet peeves . . . many years ago, when it was a recent development, we discussed in your chat the growing phenomenon of reporters and, more obnoxiously, HISTORIANS adopting what I called "sportscaster speak" -- describing events that happened in the past (in the case of the sportscasters, the very recent past, like five minutes ago, but still) in the present tense. As though we were watching it in real time. It's bad enough on sportscasts, but when journalists discuss events of the distant past in the present tense, it's annoying, and when describing the recent past, it can even be confusing or misinforming. Now it's ubiquitous. This morning on Morning Edition I listened to an obit piece on Jeff Beck that described events 60 and 50 years in the past in the present tense, which would have been confusing if I didn't already know when those events took place. I hated it. This piece was followed five minutes later by a piece on a contemporary musician that described his past in the past tense and his present in the present tense. I loved it. Even thought I like Beck's music much more than that of the hiphopper being profiled. I know why they do it -- the believe, mistakenly IMHO, that present tense makes their prose more exciting or compelling. Can you please tell them they are wrong?
A: Another sports tense confusion situation is this construction, discussing a play that just happened: “Another two feet and he catches that ball.”
Q: Hey, this is Gene. I’m calling this one finished. Thanks all for playing.
Actually, I took care not to be inaccurate with the sentiments in the slogans. Mississippi does have a very low level of spending on education. Iowa IS whiter than North Dakota. I looked all these things up. And I didn't use any marry-your-cousin jokes about West Virginia because, as it turns out, its laws are more restrictive than many other states', including Maryland's.
Humor based on false premises doesn't tend to be funny. But these, I felt, were all either valid political zingers or general enough (e.g., Anus of the Mississippi) that validity isn't an issue.
Re the state jokes: The contest, by the way, was complicated but fun to do: You chose a U.S. state, then wrote the slogan for the state by "driving" away from it through other states. The first letters of those states, beginning with the first one, had to be the first letters of the words of the slogan. Like: NORTH DAKOTA: Making Icicles With Snot [Mont., Idaho, Wyo., S.D.]