the evolving language of film

Film is a means of communication—I assemble a set of images and sounds; you view them and interpret them as significant.  As such, we can consider film as something like a language, a system of rules which allow us to communicate complex ideas.

The "language" of film bears much similarity to the grammatical rules which govern natural language, yet it also exhibits some striking dissimilarities.  In particular, the language of film is evolving at a tremendous rate, and this fact has interesting consequences for how we understand the history of cinema.

Some Similarities.

Natural language is governed by syntactic rules, rules about how its primitive elements combine in order to create meaning. In the language of film, there are many similar rules, although just as in poetry, syntactic rules can be broken in ways which enhance rather than detract from meaning.

For example, consider the 180° rule—this rule states that when editing a scene, all shots should stay on one side of an imaginary line drawn through the middle of the action. In the case of a conversation between two people, the line is typically drawn through the center of their two heads. The scene is then created out of three shots: 1. an establishing shot from the distance including both speakers; 2. a shot over the right shoulder of the lefthand speaker at the right one; 3. a shot over the left shoulder of the righthand speaker at the left one. Shots 2 and 3 show each speaker in close up, but from a vantage on the same side of the imaginary line as the establishing shot.

Just as in a line of poetry, the rules of word order can be violated in order to create rhythmic or rhyming effects, the 180° rule can be violated in order to create disorienting effects, or in order to preserve some especially interesting performance or angle. Likewise, a moving camera can "violate" the rule in a more organic manner, changing the orientation of the audience's perspective in real time.

Also as in the case of poetry, however, rule violation presupposes a savvy audience. A director who decides to violate the 180° rule succeeds in his aesthetic choice only if the audience can follow along, and interpret the spatial arrangement of the action despite it being presented in a more complex manner.

Some Dissimilarities.

And this brings us to some dissimilarities with natural language. It is a fundamental tenet of contemporary linguistics that all natural languages are equally expressive. Of course, a newly discovered aboriginal tribe in the jungles of Papua New Guinea will most likely not have a word for "microwave" (say)—but they can always stipulate a new one. Where their language will be equally expressively powerful is in its syntactic structures. There is no arrangement of stuff which can be described in one language but not in another. In this sense, all natural languages are equal.

Not so the languages of cinema! The language of film has evolved over its short history in ways which have increased its expressive power.

Consider, for example, a camera motion which fluidly crosses the imaginary line of the 180° rule. Such a camera motion was not technically possible in the early days of film, when cameras were enormous and fixed in place. The addition of a new technical possibility expands the language of film syntactically. This is not like adding the word "micorwave" to the aboriginal lexicon, it's like handing them a new grammatical structure, one which can express ideas which could never before be voiced!

But it is not just the technical possibilities which have evolved, so also the expectations and "savvy" of the audience. Long gone are the days of an audience so naïve they could not be expected to distinguish moving image from reality. Today's audience has been educated by the fast cutting of MTV and the shaky cameras and jumpcuts of "reality" television. Along with a more sophisticated palette for expression on the side of the filmmaker goes a more sophisticated means of interpretation on the side of the audience.

Why should the language of film be so different from natural language in this regard? A simple answer is just time. While natural languages (even those of the isolated aboriginal variety) have evolved for tens of thousands of years, the language of cinema has been around a mere 120. Furthermore, this past century has witnessed the most dramatic simultaneous technological and cultural change of any period in human history, and film is right there in the thick of it, evolving at an exponential rate with human culture itself.

A Moral / The Future.

A moral here for the history of cinema is one of apples and oranges. Comparing the films of the 1920s with those of the 1990s is arguably more difficult than comparing Tang court poetry with e. e. cummings. In the latter case there are merely vast cultural divides, but in the former the issue of technological possibility—expressive power—looms large as well.

Will the language of film stop evolving? Will it reach a fixed state? When will film see its first Shakespeare, its first Goethe, its Da Vinci or Michelangelo? Who knows, but the most likely answers are: not anytime soon.

i'm sure they didn't mean that

"No smoking regulations are enforced."

~ Sign in a Philadelphia subway station

message in the mountains

semantic "rhyming" slang

Cockney rhyming slang uses a phrase, or more cryptically the first word of a phrase, the last word of which rhymes with a target word, to stand in for that word. For example, "trouble and strife" for "wife" or, more tricky, "have a butcher's" for "have a look", since "butcher's hook" rhymes with "look."



Of course, understanding the intended referent depends crucially upon viewing the phrase as salient. If one doesn't think "hook" upon hearing "butcher's ___," it will be awfully difficult to conclude the intended meaning is "look." As such, cockney rhyming slang has inspired some awfully amusing parodies. For example, 1 min. in or so, Reginald Perrin's son begins using completely obscure and ridiculous rhyming slang:



including, for example "chitty chitty" for "rhyming slang" (since "chitty chitty bang bang" rhymes with "slang").

More recently, Stephen Fry has had his bourgeoise way with rhyming slang:



using, for example, "bulletproofs" for "guests" (from "bulletproof vest") and "Barney" for "double" (via "Barney Rubble").

Now, the difficult trick with rhyming slang is that the sound of the unspoken word is relevant for determining the meaning. But we can see a similar effect, when it is the meaning of an omitted word which gives a compound meaning. For example, consider the sequence "cyberpunk," "steampunk," and "icepunk." The foremost was coined by Bruce Bethke in 1983, and combines the terms "cybernetics" and "punk." The basic idea, of course, was a mixture of the information-flow, artificial intelligence, computer programming nerd priorities associated with the computer age (for some early sci-fi writers, cybernetics was synonymous with AI (e.g. Stanislaw Lem)) with the hip anarchic attitude of 80s punk rock.

But once the term caught the public imagination, "steampunk" was coined. Steampunk still assumes a technological acumen, but now focuses on counterfactual developments, including in particular the possibility that sophisticated technology might be developed with an alternate power source, such as steam. The funny thing here, of course, is that there's more of the "cyber" at issue than the "punk," even though the latter half of the term was preserved while the former dropped. "Cyberpunk" as a whole came to stand for hipster technology, and the "technology" part could be replaced with the word "steam," and yet the new compound could retain the technological connotation. As such, "steampunk" is a kind of semantic rhyming slang, depending upon the missing morpheme (cyber) to imbue it with the appropriate meaning.

But then we reach the back jacket of the recent (first English language) reprint of Jacques Tardi's The Arctic Marauder, which describes it as: "a vintage 'icepunk' graphic novel."

No, not "ice," nor even "steam," but electricity!

First, what might "icepunk" mean? And why the scare quotes? Certainly not because a preexisting word is being quoted; though it's almost as if Fantagraphics wishes to imply they're merely picking up the lingo of the "hip" kids. Except they aren't. And the meaning? Well, there's nothing "punk" in the sense of "hip" or "anarchic" about the story, at least not in an 80s kinda way. In fact, it's a deliberate homage to the sci-fi style of yesteryear, esp. Jules Verne. The story is set in 1899, and ostensibly features technology which barely supersedes that in theory possible during the late 19th century.

But, whereas "cyber" (the style of information flow idea) had previously been replaced with "steam" (power source for the technological device), now it is replaced with "ice" (merely stuff that's around for most of the story). The whole thing makes no literal sense; nor does it make strict analogical sense.

Instead, the sense depends upon semantic rhyming slang. Only someone familiar with the previous terms cyberpunk and steampunk could piece together then intended meaning (anarchic (in the 19th, not 20th cent., style) sci-fi (in the Verne, not Gibson, style)).


Of course, if you're into Verne, and beautiful art, and the 19th century style of anarchy, the story is awesome and highly recommended.

johnny 23 ~ full "translation"

Charles Burns' has "remixed" his excellent recent book, X'ed Out, into a new story, Johnny 23. Johnny 23 is written in a monoalphabetic cipher of English, i.e. a single "alien" character has been used to replace each letter / number in the traditional English alphabet. Since we are given a crib (in the form of the title), deciphering the text is not too difficult, although there are a large number of "typos" which can slow the process a little.

The text is surreal and filled with non sequiturs. In X'ed Out, the main character Doug performs in a Tintin mask under the name "Johnny 23." His performance involves reading abstract surrealist poetry generated using William S. Burroughs' "cut-up" technique. Visually, Johnny 23 implements this technique with images, and many segments of the text seem to be similarly generated. There are however several moments where distinct pieces of a story connected closely to the visuals emerge.

Some of the apparent "misspellings" and "errors" are surely due to whatever mash up technique was used to generate the text. Many, however, are clearly typos of the form generated by quick typing (e.g. "teh" or "adn"). In the following "translation," I have chosen to correct as many of these as possible, and to add appropriate punctuation where obvious. In some cases, however, where apparent ungrammaticalities due to cut ups allow multiple interesting interpretations of the text, I have omitted punctuation.

Reading the text of Johnny 23 is a strangely disorienting experience. Deciphering as you go along, typos take on interesting new meanings, and it is difficult to tell how much of this was intentional. Take "Dally forth . . . " on p. 32, surely a typo, yet allowing for an interesting double reading given the sexual content of previous pages . . . or p. 24, is "word" in "from a word away" a misspelling of "world," or a pun on the Burroughs theme of the word virus which pervades the book? Anyone interested in the text at that level of detail should simply decipher it themselves.

For those who are impatient, however, here is the full deciphering of Johnny 23. Text is given by page number. Each line denotes a text box or speech balloon. Ordering is the obvious left to right, top to bottom. There were only a couple characters which I was unable to decipher, which I presume to be numerals. These are indicated with a _ when they appear.

2.
Nothing good will come of this.

There will be tears.

Nothing can become of nothing.

All hearts will grow cold and weary.

3.
The residue of a sad dream.

zzzzz

23 OK

4.
zzzzz

5.
Tan wane her.

One more try at the bing a 23 swollen.

Even in the end, 23.

6.
Let me find the new shivering sac a hard version of this.

The center won't hold, and nothing comes down from on high. Nada.

Blurred muttering and a soft white hiss; early spring with the wind blowing hard.

Don't try white.

Fall into a hard an bent end.

zzzzz

7.
bzzzzzzzzzzz

bzzzzzzzzzzz

How could you even think about coming up here and shtupping Eliza?

You can't go thinking in hard manner!

Pink blankets keep turning up in this story, don't they now?

8.
Shooting these in normal daylight is the only way this is going to work out.

You can run, but I don't think you will heal.

Find it in the back of another sadness.

23 it's going _ _ 3 1

Always with the photos, it seems to be the vital 23.

10.
I saw my baby get in. Get lost.

Why is it the only 23?

23 or another number.

By now I know them all. They smother me too.

11.
zzzzzzzzz xj 333333333

. . . llers with fift . . . ab follow your . . . the corner of a . . . leaking blood.

3333mmmmmmmmyyyyyyyyy

looking at ant . . . zipper you have . . . that the only way . . . venerable in t...

uuuuuuuuiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii

. . . f in the only . . . the normal way . . . ual in vintage . . . ournt in a loc

Come on inside and see the usual shit unfold in the most saddening way imaginable. Come see 23!

12.
Jesus fucking Christ, does this really have to be the end of it?

If you read this and are sick of heart, there's nothing I can help you with.

Cause the night is long and I'm still waiting for you. Think 1.

13.
We found ourselves sitting in banks of squeeling monitors hissing head with swollen fingers.

Thanks for checking me out and all.

Try as i may i could not find my way out of the torrent of shit flowing out of me.

zzzzzzzzzzzzz

Blaring petal . . . hive in a deep . . . gaping wound . . . most hallow . . .

I come up with new petal effects split into three parts . . .

Your lame hippy shit is so don't get [it]. Fucker.

I wouldn't mind him spitting down my throat today.

14.
She looked down at me from . . . sad my raging brain as it really is.

They call this guy Nitnit and I have no idea who he thinks he is.

Doug.

Keeping it to myself, finding another mark on the back of my hand.

Do [what] you like; your time is up. It's over.

23 as in the word virus in everyone.

15.
[ ......... ]

On the back of angels hot on the heels.

[ ........ ]

16.
Call me 23.

It's not hard.

[ ....... ]

17.
[ ....... ]

Hey you big dumb, move it!

Don't listen to the slug, he don't [know] shit all!

[ ....... ]

18.
Twixt 12 and twenty, you'll see another way to fill your heart.

[ ....... ]

Seems like I'm there.

It all shakes out the same in the end. You just need the guts to know when to quit.

Not that I know too much about that kind of stuff, you savvy?

There he is again!

Oy!

19.
Found out at last, you little runt!

Full load.

Yeah, she's a looker and then some.

20.
Forced into the open broken arrows coming out of the flesh.

Trying to bring back a feeling of random sex.

And again.

Nearly extinct blunt sex vision.

21.
Coming up from below in a hurry.

Focus.

Weepy gash torn up with endless tears.

Broken, bent out of shape like a song from in the air. Massive.

22.
The odors rising slick and slippery in the dark space between her thighs.

Her heart swollen. _3_ _ 2

My guess is you're trying to inject meaning into it.

I'm not try[ing] to inject shit, you dumb fuck!

I try to touch the photo cause I just know there is skin stuck in there way down in the core.

23.
Maybe the cat is the main clue, I just can't solve it.

Dirty sweet and falling off of the page in heat.

24.
Again with the random shit from a world away!

Nothing will be safe for you ever again.

Mace yourself at home, because I'm heading out to the void.

So when I look at you my breath gets sucked away, my eyes roll up in my head, and I know my time is almost up.

You'll never realize the lengths I had to go, the endless spilling of my guts and rending of my garments, you dig?

bzzzzz

25.
You can try to capture my image.

When the long day is done thats not what I'm really interested in, alright? Get it?

Did you read that in some sort of a comic book? I guess it sounds like something.

26.
Looking for the end but nothing present itself.

The word virus replicates and shifts into another vessel 23.

23 slides into into another 23.

Last prayers, last look.

My heart opens wider to . . .

. . . find the missing puzzle.

27.
Come on baby, you can light my fire, okay?

Fuck that noise! In this world we have to grab for all the gusto we can, and you're a little slack!

Furthermore, you need to work out your whole look a little better, you know what I mean?

I'm afraid the sad big-eyed look can't cut it anymore.

28.
Run that by [me again]. I don't get it.

Who the hell am I to tell you what to do with your sad little life? The last time I saw you, you were in way over your head.

Keep you sour mouth shut for just one second!

A typical patter like objects left in a hotel drawer, bits of a puzzle to try to fit into an impossible form.

Here's where it all falls apart. Nothing holds.

29.
We're doomed. The fat is in the fire now.

Basta! Basta!

31.
He faded in cigar smoke. There was a knock inside.

The penis rose out of the jock and dissolved in pink light back wearing a clitoris in white hot.

Hanging gimmick death in orgasm gills no nerves left no impressions of secondhand daylight _ _ _.

Dead young flesh in stale underwear. I have the impression of vending iron repetition. Ass and genitals broken.

Orgasm addicts stacked in the attic like muttering burlap woke up other flesh hooded dead gibber thrown off.

32.
Sally forth into a bold new world as it all flips.

And I repeat: Fuck that and the wagon you rode in on alright? Lit form within holding out.

You see it in the prize.

Distant muttering; a world in white heat.

Entry gimmick of the spawning death dwarfs seething in lust.

Distant star in another galaxy spins in another pattern.

All alone. I say unto thee, hide it deep inside. Dig the hole and slide it in up to the hilt.

33.
The sign reads: Last stop, last chance for falling hanging gimmick inside.

Part of the problem and the solution is linked to the safety of orgone.

34.
Another abortive attempt.

Eyes rolled up into the dark of my head.

Looking for the worthy vessel.

Radium pain an iron box covered in human skin.

36.
"Smile and shake it off," that's what he told me.

You think it's going to last for ever, but you're so wrong. I mean it.

Don't bring your sad shit around here.

I mean the end comes sooner or later, but you're never ready. unn.

If you think you're going to get out alive, good luck.

We got enough of our own to to hold us for a while.

37.
why doe he have to show up? All I want is some time to myself.

Every word out of his mouth is empty.

Chill the fuck out dude! Just let it go.

Does it really mean all . . .

I'll never find my way.

Remember the kingdom of heaven is within you! Right 23?

38.
What's to become of you now that you see what's on the end of your spoon, your dull dirty naked lunch?

A green river filled with refuse. The dark. A river running to the sea; a clogged vein; a tributary of silt. . .

I guess you don't give two fucks!

Why would you? This has no end.

Truth is stranger than all the lies I've told.

Save that bullshit for the marks who no longer know their ass from their elbow!

Why do you have to make this so hard? Give it up!

39.
It's coming again . . . I can feel it!

Why does it always have to be this way?

40.
Piggy pants.

It's open again, but I can't let you go.

Always crashing in the same car.

41.
Come back, Piggy!

42.
Down the hole.

Slipping in and out of sodden sloppy skin.

44.
Check it out, dude!

She's built like a brick shitter and does it all!

Does what all?

Oy vey!

45.
Slipping into the last set of shoes . . .

Hey, don't try messing with my head, okay? Don't try.

Fevers and high hard red.

It's time to turn a blind eye to the realities of the day. Dig it?

46.
Evaporate and leave a ring on the counter. Find your true heart in the void.

Another lifeless head attached to a feeble body waiting for the end, it seems.

But can the heart grow out of it?

Not too much chance of that.

Never?

Not never, but pretty fucking close! Eat your egg and turn an eye inward, 23.

47.
Finally we get to the abortion story, 23.

You can keep your crappy plate of eggs.

Tough guy, huh? So don't look too closely, and you'll find yourself in Gods gray earth.

The abortion . . . I was told this was supposed to be funny.

48.
There are times when you need to relax. Slip into the muddy water. You get it?

Eat it all up, come on!

All too soon the world will grow dark; the day will be done. Do eat up now!

Eat up indeed . . . read 'em and weep.

52.
unn.

Aw shit! Aw shit!

No more.

53.
In the shadow luster of shiny stumps. Why should I stay? What's keeping me? Daybreak. The face of a lousy kid and a cold white flesh home.

55.
Three ampoules of morphine. Blue eyes in the dark.

56.
Wait for me at the river filigree of trade winds.

Photos weather worn boys by the polluted water.

57.
City night fences dead fingers erect boys.

Girdling the pepper trees, the film is finished at last.

58.
Ice skates on a wall.

No more.

Luster of stumps washes his lavender sleep.

59.
The dogs are quiet.

Someone vague faded in a mirror.

60.
humm.

61.
If i could hold off for just a little longer and stay with my dose, I'll be . . .

62.
Christ! What's inside of screams?

The doctor's shabby sky rose tornado lost boy.

Smudge and whine of lost polluted water under the bridge, shadow of doubt.

63.
I was the smudge and face shabby table black hair.

Silver paper moving in the street lavender boy.

64.
FIN

translating oe

I've read every Kenzaburo Oe book translated into English. Many of these were read several years ago (in some cases as many as 15), so my memory of the translations isn't always vivid. I'm pretty certain, however, that the recent (2010) translation of The Changeling by Deborah Boliver Boehm is the worst.

At least one review has complained about the stiltedness of Boehm's prose. Comparatively, however, Boehm's translation is easily one of the most readable of the Oe works in English. The problem is in convincing oneself that Boehm has been faithful to the Japanese original.

Early in the book, it becomes obvious that she's taken the liberty of inserting expositional material for the non-Japanese reader into the body of the text (instead of into footnotes, where it belongs). For example:

... her voice had a distinct Kansai accent (that is, typical of the Kyoto-Osaka-Kobe area). (63)

On one of the major Japanese television networks there is a popular, long-running late-night program called the Wide Show that offers a combination of celebrity chat and cultural news. One night Goro, who was still working as an actor at the time, was one of the guests. (119)

The term "kansai" and the "Wide Show" would both be so familiar to Japanese readers that there would be no need of exposition. These, somewhat awkward, explanations have clearly been inserted by the translator into the text. Now, for the purist, this would probably already be enough of an offense. The real problem, however, is that there are indeed many asides and oblique references and parentheticals in Oe's writing anyway. So, sometimes, it's unclear whether an aside is his or the translator's.

For example, there is a passage where the main character, "Kogito," a clear stand in for Oe himself, discusses the New Testament's Book of Mark at the dinner table. In particular, the incident where an angel appears to women who have gone to the tomb and tells them to spread the word that Jesus is risen. The women, however, are too scared to tell anyone, and the sequence ends abruptly. Boehm gives us this sentence:

Kogito was particularly intrigued by the writers—the authors of the Bible—whose work seemed to parallel his own, and although he didn't think his own novelist's opinions had any bearing on the interpretation of the Gospel, he felt, personally, that the original author's ambiguous way of ending this particular tale was an effective literary technique. (412)

There is no definite article in Japanese, and it is tempting to think the first part of the sentence originally made the general claim "Kogito was particularly intrigued by writers whose work seemed to parallel his own". In its current form, the parenthetical either identifies the authors of the bible specifically as writers whose work parallels Kogito's own, or quantifies over them. Does Oe intend to tell us that Kogito finds, amongst authors of the bible, those whose work parallels his own interesting? Or that Kogito feels this way about all authors and identifies some of those who wrote the bible as falling into this category? Since the reader is unsure whether the aside is inserted by Boehm or in the original, the author's intent is unclear.

The intent of Oe in terms of what information he chooses to reveal and what not is especially important in understanding The Changeling. This is because Kogito is clearly a stand-in for Oe, and Goro is clearly a stand-in for Oe's brother-in-law, Juzo Itami, who committed suicide in 1997. This book is a very personal memoir about the relationship between the two, and Oe's reaction to his friend's unexpected death. Many many incidents described in the novel occurred almost identically in real life. For example, the attempt on Itami's life by yakuza thugs after his film Minbo no Onna, which ridicules the yakuza attempts at extortion, was released is described exactly as an attack upon Goro. Far more interesting (and helpful) than explaining what the Wide Show is in the above example, might have been a mention of the date of the particular event of Juzo Itami appearing on it which Oe fictionalizes!

The Guardian review, for example, explicitly bemoans the lack of this contextual information, and singles out Boehm for hurting rather than helping the situation:

Unfortunately, the reader's sense of not possessing important chunks of the background to this allusive, personal yet political novel is amplified by Boehm's translation. Her decision to use strongly American English may or may not be defensible, but she often appears to be clumsily incorporating footnote-type information into the text: "'What I'm making here isn't Tora-san, you know,' Goro went on, making wry reference to an immensely popular series of formulaic, feel-good films about a hapless, sweet-natured vagabond," for example. She also seems to have translated book and film titles on the fly, leading to a mention of "Hitchcock's Balkan Express", which I'd guess is the Japanese title of The Lady Vanishes. This raises a question: in Oe's text, are Kogito's novels and Goro's films given subtly different titles from their real-life counterparts, as they often are here? Given the novel's games with identity, it might be useful to know that, but reading Boehm's version it's anybody's guess.

The issue raised at the end by the Guardian is an interesting one, and Boehm's handling of it indeed raises the question of how much she herself understands about the context of the novel. Certainly, at least one of the names of Oe's works has been subtly altered. The novel Man'en gannen no futtoboru (1967), in my opinion Oe's best, was translated into English as The Silent Cry. Literally, however, "man'en gannen" means the first year of the man'en era, which was 1860. "Futtoboru" is just the Japanese pronunciation of football, meant here in the sense of soccer. This, and other textual clues make it clear that Oe has altered has altered the title of this book, changing the word football to some equivalent Japanicization of "rugby" (which Boehm translates as Rugby Match 1860).

But what about other titles? The work rendered as "The Day He Himself Shall Wipe My Tears Away" by John Nathan is titled in The Changeling, "His Majesty Himself Will Wipe Away My Tears." Now, are the discrepancies here due to a subtle change in the Japanese wording? Or to a difference in opinion about how to translate the same words by Boehm? Given the football to rugby change, the natural assumption is that there is an underlying change in the Japanese wording—until we get to A Quiet Life.

Oe has a 1990 novel called Shizuka na seikatsu, translated as A Quiet Life by Kunioki Yanagishita and William Wetherall, which was made into a movie by Juzo Itami in 1995; Kogito has a novel called A Quiet Life which was made into a movie by Goro. Question: did Oe subtly change the name of this novel or not?

Now, "shizuka" means "quiet" in the sense of "peaceful" or "calm"; "shizuka" could easily have been replaced with a word meaning "quiet" in a more literal sense, leaving a subtly different name in Oe's novel, but the same plausible translation. If this were the case, though, then Boehm should have been aware of the earlier translation choice and picked something subtly different for consistency. Of course, it's also possible that Oe deliberately left the title of this particular novel unchanged, but then that fact itself would be significant for interpreting The Changeling. One would have wished for enough clarity in the translation that there would be no ambiguity on this point.

Of course, I've been beating up on Boehm, and certainly the issue of title translation can be pinned on her. Some of the other choices, however, e.g. intratext parentheticals instead of footnotes or Americanized language, may have been the choice of Grove, the publishers. The Guardian astutely points out that Grove has designed the packaging of this book to look much more like the those of the very successful Haruki Murakami, than like past Oe books, in particular the not very popular Somersault (1999 / 2003), last of Oe's books to be translated before this one.

So, if those choices were made by Grove, or forced upon Boehm by her editor, then the blame should fall on their head. But, surely someone needs to pay attention to the content here—the fact of the matter is that Oe is not like Murakami and will never be as accessible as him. Oe is obsessed with the obscure, and his novels are only going to appeal to those who share this interest and a certain kind of patience with over-intellectualized and convoluted prose. I mean, Somersault is a complex metaphorical novel which (a) references past Oe works (many of which have not been translated into English!), and (b) spends a great deal of time analyzing Keirkegaard's concept of the "leap of faith" in excruciating detail. This is just not going to be as broadly appealing as a hip romantic love story.

On the topic of Oe's other books, at one point in The Changeling, a character remarks to Kogito that none of his novels makes sense unless the reader has read all the other ones. And this is certainly true of Oe: his oeuvre as a whole is itself a coherent work much greater than the sum of its parts. The discussion in Somersault reimagines and dissects the events in Oe's Flaming Green Tree trilogy, which itself builds upon the mythos laid down in The Silent Cry and earlier works. Yet the Flaming Green Tree trilogy has never been translated! No wonder readers and critics couldn't make heads or tails of Somersault! If Grove wants to improve critical reception of Oe's works in English, they would do a much greater service getting his most important works of the 1980s translated into English, than by attempting to market recent works (without any relevant context!) to young hipsters.

A final note on The Changeling: the novel itself is deeply paradoxical. Knowing that so many of the events described are real, one wonders about those which are not. Particularly telling, and puzzling, is a remark made to Kogito by his wife:

I've never asked you this before, but what really happened that weekend? If you don't write down whatever you know—without telling any lies or concealing the truth with embellishments—then I'll never be able to understand what happened. At this point, of course, neither you nor I have very many years left, and it seems to me that just as we want to live the rest of our lives honestly, without resorting to lies, you would want to write that way, too . . . for the rest of your days.

It's a little bit like what Akari said to his grandmother in Shikoku, during her final illness: "Please cheer up and die!" Only in your case, I'm asking you to be brave and write only the truth, until the very end. (163)

Given how many incidents in the novel are indeed real, one has to wonder if this conversation reflects any actual interaction between Oe and his wife following the death of his friend and her brother. If so, is The Changeling's Oe telling the truth? But in what sense? Here I agree with the Guardian: we simply don't have enough information to understand.

metasexism

In the first Dirty Harry movie, one suggestion for Harry's nickname is his hatred for minorities. Ironically, of course, Harry's partner in that film is hispanic, and in the sequel (Magnum Force), his partner is african american.

In the third film in the series, some attempt at emphasizing the essential decency of Harry's character (and its consistency with his hardline conservativism about law enforcement) is made by giving him a female partner. As might be expected, Harry at first spurns her, but gradually grows to accept and respect her. For her part, his partner proves her worth at police work, ultimately saving Harry's life.
Tyne Daly as Harry's partner shooting the bad guys in the climatic scene of The Enforcer.

The message is clearly that women can be just as badass and hard on crime as men and that sexism is not a necessary correlate of conservativism about law enforcement.

How ironic is it, then, that on a documentary about the politics of the Dirty Harry movies (on the Magnum Force DVD), when Tyne Daly is interviewed, she is referred to as "actor"?
I suppose this may be one of those cases where the PC thing to do is not immediately clear. Using "actor" for an actress seems to me to follow the pattern of using a male-marked word for all members of a group (e.g. "mankind" for men and women), so I would have thought it showed disrespect to use it.

Conversely, of course, the "-or" or "-er" marking strictly speaking just denotes agency. The seeming markedness of "actor" or "mister" comes from the existence of a corresponding "-ress" form. "-or" words like prosecutor or perpetrator which do not also seem non-marked.

According to wikipedia, using "actor" for actresses is considered by some the PC thing to do: "As actress is a specifically feminine word, some groups assert that the word is sexist. Gender-neutral usage of actor has re-emerged in modern English, especially when referring to male and female performers collectively, but actress remains the common term used in major acting awards given to female recipients and is common in general usage."

But if we buy this reasoning, should we also call women "mister"? Etymologically speaking, mister derives from Indo-European megh, or "great", via Latin magister ("teacher"), from which also "master". So, historically, the "-er" of mister is also an "-er" of agency, implying we can use it in a gender neutral fashion to refer to women respectfully as well.

purple censorship

How does one decide what to censor?

Perhaps the most threatening content is the unknown.

Consider the video for the song "Purple Stuff" by Houston singer Big Moe (2002). The song evokes a fun carnival atmosphere celebrating lean and the htown drug culture. The characteristically purple codeine laced cough syrup is euphemistically referred to throughout as "purple stuff".

In the video version, a single line is censored (2:18):

What is this offensive line? What handful of words in the midst of a song about illegally imbibing prescription cough syrup could rise above the rest as demanding censorship?

[Play along at home! (line audible at 2:18)]

Context alone is unhelpful:

[D-Gotti]
...Drank stains on my FUBU and I still feel like a star
Now Ima blow up behind the wheel cause I done woke up
Wrapped around a pol(e) (-ice ?) took a sip from my cup now
Can't slip up,

[censored line]

Catch a playa leanin (impala ?), (wind? one?) up in the trunk now
now hut, two, three to da four
I done slammed up the (floor? four?) wit a crushed pineapple
got it gonna let it on but I ain't sippin wit dat Moe
drinkin wit' the Barre Baby I be way too throwed
And I guess a playa had about enough...

[refrain]
Purple Stuff (etc.)

If the playa "wind up in the trunk", then the previous line may have some violence oriented content. One possible rendering is

My "R"s a clip up

Two possibly offensive sounds in this line are the one rendered above as "R"s, which might also be "whores", in which case something sexual may have been meant; or "clip up" if "clip" is meant in the sense of a bullet dispenser.

Unfortunately, internet sources are unhelpful here. The most common rendering of the offensive line seems to be:

(?) clipper

Some presumably lesser sources omit the "?" leaving the unintelligible (and rhythmically inadequate): Now i can't slip up clipper.

Now, presumably, these transcriptions of the lyrics all originate from the same source, as they are nearly identical in other respects, including, for example, the mistranscription of "drinkin wit' the Barre Baby" (Barre Baby being an old nickname for Big Moe) as "drinkin at the bar baby". This error, simply the result of a lack of familiarity with the singer's previous works, seems to indicate they had no feedback from the actual rappers.

Maybe whoever censored the "Purple Stuff" video did have access to complete and accurate lyrics, discovered there some unsufferable profanity at 2:18, and removed it for our collective public safety. This seems extremely unlikely.

I find it doubtful that the artists provided the TV station with a complete lyrical transcription, OR that the TV station could easily decode said line more definitively than me and the collective internets.

Most likely, it seems to me, is that the line was censored precisely because it could not be understood. And since the censor could not understand the line, he could not discard the possibility that it was profoundly offensive and damaging to the public good.

Of course, I may be mistaken about the theme of the song. Dave Chappelle identifies a (slightly?) less insidious meaning behind "purple stuff":



And, strangely, his analysis is corroborated:

mega radical!
k, mega groceries . . .

However, if Big Moe's Purple Stuff was indeed intended as a song about "grape drink" (and it most certainly was not), then the possibility of a line in it actually worthy of censorship is even less than on the obvious reading.

So, we are left with this: a single, unintelligible line is censored from a song, the entire theme of which is more socially disruptive in its gleeful endorsement of illicit drug consumption than any single line could be. In order to remove this feature of the song by merely silencing isolated phrases, the song as a whole would have to be completely eviscerated and left totally unintelligible.

Much better to just let the unintelligible slide, and trust the wit of the listener clever enough to decipher it to resist whatever profane suggestion it offers.

"just another statistic"

This expression is used ironically to indicate an event, often an instance of human tragedy, or the subject of that event, was treated as merely a number in discussions of that event (i.e. tragedy) type in the public forum.

Strictly speaking the usage is incorrect: a "statistic" is a function on data. The complaint is not that the person or event has been treated as a statistic, but as a data point.

According to the Bayesian foundations of statistics, we can legitimately apply the standard methods of statistics (e.g. fitting the distribution of data to a normal curve) if we can treat data points as exchangeable. This follows from de Finetti's Theorem.

If we can't treat data points as exchangeable, however, if we know more relevant features of one data point than another, then in principle standard techniques and Bayesian techniques (which take into account prior knowledge) can produce radically different analyses.

So, when someone tells a tragic anecdote and bemoans that it is "just another statistic", they tell us more about that data point, one which had perhaps been the object of "statistics" which delivered an incorrect analysis without the benefit of the prior knowledge provided by the particulars of its case.

granularity in animation

Animation simulates "real" action with action produced artificially from generated images or manipulated models. These images or models are "animated" by our mind (and eye!)'s tendency toward persistence of vision.

But what level of "real" action is being simulated by an animated film? Our perceptual experience of a scene takes place at many levels. At a very fine-grained level, we perceive colors, shapes, subtle movements and details. At a more coarse-grained level, we chunk our experience into concepts: a sly smile, a knowing look, a murder, a pimp mobile, etc.

Some people prize the successful animation of the fine-grained structure of the world very highly. In fact, we generally demand a successful reproduction of fine-grained experience if the animation is to be integrated with "actual" footage which already (by definition) exemplifies it (e.g. the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park (1993), Gollum in The Two Towers (2002), or the flora in Avatar (2009).

Some of us, however, prefer a more coarse-grained style of animation, found in, for example, South Park. The details of motion and texture are completely obscured in most South Park scenes (the animation is designed to imitate the properties of construction paper cut-outs, after all). This style of animation gains its communicative power from the representation and sequence of more coarse-grained tropes like the suggestive eyebrow, the power zoom, or the anchorman's hair. These tropes have emerged as part of the language of visual communication, honed and differentiated by decades of film and TV. From this palette, South Park is able to construct a subtle and complex sequence of animated signals.

Consider, for example, the moment in season 5, episode 13, when Cartman convinces Congress to legalize stem cell research through a heart felt speech and a spontaneous rendition of Asia's "Heat of the Moment." Cartman goes through the motions of a heart felt speech, with all the trimmings (heart-string-pulling background music, personal references, tears, etc.), then he breaks out into the "Heat of the Moment," his lone faltering voice echoing above the Congressmen. When the Congressmen join in, we are treated to a striking juxtaposition of a stereotypical display of feel-good mass expression (cheaply implemented in countless public forums: the spontaneous public dancing in Michael Jackson videos, the singing at the end of Scrooged, every musical ever made) and the irony and omen of manipulation brought to the act by Cartman's character. (Add to this the fact that Cartman's rendition is more sensitive and nuanced than the original . . . )

Another example can be found in Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story, Todd Haynes' notorious bulimia bio pic. Most of the film recreates episodes from Karen's life with made up Barbie dolls on specially created sets. Although the details of characters' faces and movements lack expressive detail, the vocabulary of camera movement and cutting which viewers are familiar with from film and TV allows for the telling of a complex and subtle story.

Interestingly, in both South Park and Superstar, the visual language of cinema is employed with great ironic effect. The "message" movie or TV special is lampooned at the same time as an actual message is conveyed.

dignity vs. upward mobility

At a recent conference on language and power, David Laitin pointed out that there is often a conflict between dignity and upward mobility.

In this case, the conflict was one concerning language use. It often contributes to the upward mobility of a group to abandon the language of their heritage in favor of a more dominant tongue (this behavior is often witnessed in immigrants and oppressed peoples). Yet preservation of the mother tongue contributes to cultural identity and personal dignity.

In the case of language use, the conflict is at least threefold. In the case of the language user himself, the concrete decision of what language to speak around his children (for example) can turn upon this conflict. In the case of the field linguist, or outsider, it is impossible for him to separate his nostalgia and academic concerns from the value judgments made by a speaker of an endangered language.

We must be wary of arguments based on political considerations. Of course I am no more in favor of genocide or repression of minorities than I am of people dying of tuberculosis or starving through ignorance. We should always be sensitive to the concerns of the people whose language we are studying. But we should not assume that we know what is best for them.

~ Peter Ladefoged

The third facet of conflict is the educator. On the one hand, his altruistic desire to encourage dignity motivates him to encourage the speaker's mother tongue and the tendency to take it seriously. On the other hand, his altruistic desire to better the status of his students drives him to encourage use of the majority language. Unlike the linguist, there is no possibility of choosing not to intervene here; the educator is inherently an interventionist.

An example here is the case of AAVE. On the one hand, the sensitive educator is driven to encourage the (correct) perspective that african-american english is not "wrong" it is simply different from, but equally expressive and subtle as, "standard" english. Nevertheless, cultural prejudices continue to ensure that an inability to construct written and spoken sentences that conform to standard textbook grammar will dramatically diminish one's upward mobility. Here is a case where political correctness carries the potential danger to paralyze a researcher into effective inactivity.

However, there is another interesting case in which dignity and upward mobility might come apart. Consider, for example, the tension between classical and modern liberals on a topic like the welfare state. Here, interestingly, arguments seem to fall on both side for each value.

"Handouts diminish dignity because they make the poor reliant on the state."

"Subsidies increase dignity because they ensure health and home, obviating any need for begging."

"Handouts diminish chances for upward mobility because they reduce the motivation of recipients."

"Subsidies increase the chances for upward mobility because they offer capital to those who otherwise could not acquire it."

[Surely the correct answer to the former debate is known only to the recipient—as for the latter, surely empirical data is easily available!]

An especially interesting case it the post-Hayekian socialism of Theodore Burczak. Burczak sees both foundational and policy failings in Hayek's thought. The foundational failing is the lack of a uniform (more importantly, objective) moral framework. Setting aside the policy failings for future discussion, the theoretical failing depends partly upon what Burczak calls the "ethical knowledge problem." Basically, value judgments are inherently subjective, preventing organizers from any access to an objective value system, defeating the attempt to achieve a "common good" a la socialist concerns. Burczak proposes amending the theoretical gap in Hayek by appending the "capability theory" of Sen and Nussbaum to Hayek's economic views. Capability theory, according to Burczak, offers a form of objective value system that is responsive to Hayek's worries and can thus provide the theoretical foundation for the centralized assurance that baseline values are achieved in a (even free market) society.

Now given the possibility of a trade-off between dignity and upward-mobility, some tensions in capability theory emerge. In particular, suppose our main goal is to ensure that citizens are capable to achieve certain practical goals (e.g. longevity, health, upward mobility) by providing them with certain resources (e.g. health care, baseline economic resources, political privileges). But suppose there is an inherent inconsistency between the goals and the provision of resources. A paradigmatic example of such inconsistency would be the dignity vs. upward mobility tension (if it in fact existed).

The interesting point here is the role of a kind of meta-value judgment. As an individual, if I recognize there is a trade-off between dignity and upward mobility, I can choose to prioritize one goal or the other. If the value judgment upon which the society I live in is predicated does not recognize such a trade-off, however, it runs this risk of aggressively enforcing the one value to the detriment of the other.

So, the attempt to conflate concern with dignity and with upward mobility into a single project is inherently confused (even if the two are thrown under the banner of a single concept, like capability). This follows from the conceptual (and empirical!) possibility that the two goals are inherently in conflict. Furthermore, if we acknowledge the tension between these two values as a legitimate possibility, we have undone the efforts of Burczak and returned to a Hayekian skepticism. Capability theory, at least, is not powerful enough to overcome the challenges of the "ethical knowledge problem."

"pitch perfect performance"

Who first coined this phrase? This metaphor is now officially dead.

"talking" apes

Language does not consist in the mere matching of words to events ~ such signaling is no different from the "language" of warning signals used in the wild by many animals to alert their comrades of predators. These signals cannot distinguish cause (= presence of predator) from effect (= run!) ~ declarative and imperative are rolled into one. Furthermore, they cannot distinguish between the presence of a single predator, many predators, or the mere evidence of a predator ~ nor can they distinguish between the fact of a predator's presence or the mere opinion that there is such. These "talking apes" demonstrate this same lack of syntax, lack of a first person perspective, as such they are no better than rabbits, parrots, dolphins, or virtually any other signaling animal at "language," no more like us. Perhaps they even fall short of our poor cousin the bee whose intricate waggle dance at least displays a syntax!

verboten culture

The practice of forbidding particular words, of enforcing the use of one word over another via sanctions, systematically divests our language of meaning. Language is a holistic system and words carry meaning only in contrast to other words. Thus, to have many different words in use for the same object or property provides many shades of connotation, or subtlety of meaning. When we forbid the use of alternate terms in the public forum (because they are "derogatory" or "offensive" ( = Saxon)) the remaining, permitted word ceases to have any positive connotation, it subsumes negative connotations. Of course, the intended purpose of such regulations is to control thought. By forbidding the use of a derogatory term (the argument goes), we inhibit the spread of the attitude expressed by that term. (comparison: systematically erasing usage of the term "bad" in order to stem dissatisfaction with the government (Orwell, 1984)) Even if such derogatory attitudes are to be despised, surely a less-totalitarian strategy for combatting them could be imagined! In fact, historically, the effect of such sanctions has not been to eliminate prejudice but to introduce further layers of prejudice. Consider the suppression of Saxon terms by the Normans; we still feel the effects today of Norman intolerance in the persistent suppression of the "seven words" ~ it is no accident that they are of Saxon origin, while their Latinate cousins are regularly used in scientific journals and high school health classes! How ironic that our "freedom fries" eating government remains resolutely Francophile in its vocabulary choices! Consider also the case of "dwarf" and "midget" ~ these used to have distinct meanings referring to two distinct physiological types. The medical term midget became pejorative as it was subsumed into popular culture ~ here the causal direction is reversed! Surely the preexisting prejudice manipulated the term's connotation, and its legitimate meaning had little effect on this use. How long, then, will "little people," a term which erases the heterogeneity of medical conditions resulting in less than average stature, survive as a positive term? How long before cultural prejudices tar it with pejorative connotations? ~ when said with a sneer, or an ironic twinkle in the eye . . . when said bitterly, as if a nastier term merely has left the lips with the wrong sound . . .

No, the manipulation of language is a dead end in the quest for acceptance, the attempt to remove one prejudice by introducing another a profound hypocrisy.

truth

What can be true or false? Only answers. But the truth or falsity of an answer depends upon the question asked, and questions asked depend upon language. So, that which within one framework of questions is true, may very well be false when considered within an alternate framework. The common man has said, "O vilest of heresies, this heresy of relativism! Surely the scientists speak incontrovertible truth! How can you deny the existence of the fact of the matter!" But this, this is not true relativism, for there are indeed definitive states of affairs, there are events which have occurred and no amount of talk can change their details. In this sense of "fact of the matter," such does exist. But this state of affairs can be stunted and distorted by the sieve of language in a variety of ways, depending upon the perspective from which it is examined, the angle of the shadow. The wise man reminds us: the language of science is still but a language.

language as sieve

The "blooming, buzzing confusion" of which James wrote is a rich, multi-dimensional continuum. However, language manifests itself only in one-dimensional strings of discrete phonemes. When one understands an event as summarized in language, when one reports an event to another through speech, one performs a projection. The utterance is a mere shadow of the event, and as with all shadows, a different perspective, a different angle, might yield a confusingly different shape, even if the event casting them remains "the same." For how can we talk of two contradictory sentences describing the same event, when within language they cannot be reconciled? How to discuss the world beyond language? For language is a sieve, it captures only coarse chunks and unsubtleties of experience and necessarily lets the full richness of detail slip through.

you hypocrites!

You hypocrites and amateur linguists ~ you who forbid the use to others of words you use yourselves! You who exult in freedom by depriving others of freedom! You who hide behind the law and wield its bitter hammer in fists that pervert liberty! Freed from all external chains you are now bound by chains of your own making ~ so much more onerous and inescapable are these. Cast off your shackles! The burden of history must be surmounted by us each within our own minds. There is no external palliative; there is no social reform; there is no reparation great enough! Hypocrisy is only a symptom of the oppression within. The wise man hates not the symptom, but the disease. The wise invalid knows that the suppression of symptoms can lead to swifter healing.

the rules of art

To create, one must first set boundaries, impose rules within which one may let imagination reign unconfined. Art without boundaries is chaos; imagination without borders is self-indulgence. Effective art communicates, but successful communication requires a language, and languages follow rules. Whether the rules are set by oneself or by convention, without them, communication fails, and art becomes merely for the creator. We do not call this art, but therapy. Sometimes, the rules which confine a work of art are understood by only a few, and such art is only art for those few. To the rest, the art is opaque, therapy from which they cannot benefit. St. Quentin and St. Robert have committed this sin: they have presumed the competence of the many in a language of the few. But the many are mere amateur linguists; they comprehend only languages without subtlety. The punishment for these sins is eternal torture. And we multi-linguists have gained a poem, but lost the poets, and even the opportunity for poetry.

the waggle dance

Communication begins with genetic evolution. The most primitive strategies for channeling information are forced upon society by its individuals' DNA. Only later does social evolution take over; here convention reigns supreme. But we who do not dance, we whose signifiers do not measure the signified, but rather indicate it arbitrarily, how can we know the world? Are our signs not too burdened by our prejudice? Are not our signs limited, rather than liberated, by society's caprice? Oh, to dance again, to tell the "truth," unencumbered by the distortions of collective hallucination!

the amateur linguist

When I was a child, we used the word "gay" as a mild playground remonstrative. Now, this innocent use is verboten as it "impugns the homosexual." Yet "gay" once stood for the light of heart, the merry, and the licentious. Must we permit the amateur linguist to calcify its meaning in severity and forever forbid the ever-shifting currents of convention from carrying "gay" back to its roots in levity? Can we permit it? ~ convention admits no master.