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October 10, 2007
If you've changed your mind I'm afraid it's too late
This blog is not derivative, it is integral.
OK, I'm kidding. This blog is totally derivative. But what isn't?
Also, one of the few words I remember from three years of college Japanese is 微分積分学, which means "calculus". Except I didn't learn it in college Japanese, I learned it from a Japanese-American friend in high school. I can't write that, though. I can't really write anything in Japanese, except for カルピス, which means Calpis, of course.
Also, I don't remember anything from calculus class. Not one thing.
Also, my mother took this photo on a recent trip to Greece:
I feel like it would be difficult to have non-dramatic exits from rooms or buildings in Greece.
Also, Iceland is cool:
That photo is of the Hallgrímskirkja, and I copied it straight from Wikipedia.
I copied it. I did not derive it.
I went to Iceland once.
I had a farm in Africa, at the foot of the Ngong Hills.
(I copied that.)
Did you know I lived in Denmark for five months in 1990? It was like a Bergman film, but without the comforting sound of the Swedish language. Or like Babettes gæstebud, but without the gourmet French food.
Posted by eric at October 10, 2007 09:15 AM
Comments
Methinks you would be an awesome travel writer, sort of Bruce Chatwinesque.
Posted by: Moncrief! at October 10, 2007 11:23 AM
I totally want to go to Iceland.
Posted by: David at October 10, 2007 11:35 AM
There are two things I liked about the Hallgrímskirkja. One was that High-Stalinist-meets-High-Gothic rocket-about-to-go-into-space exterior architecture you can appreciate in that photo with Leifr Eiriksson's statue looking like it's about to push the button. The other was taking the lift to the observation deck and seeing the multicolored rooftops of Reykjavík in Mondrian-like arrangements. The interior, otherwise, was not that overwhelming.
I'd like to dedicate this comment to the hyphen, which is dead .
Posted by: -r at October 10, 2007 12:43 PM
I lived in the Grand Tetons for two months. They had drained Jackson Lake to fix the dam and we did archaeology on the lake floor. When I went back two years later all of the places I had worked on were under 20 ft of water. I felt uneasy.
Posted by: homer at October 10, 2007 01:29 PM
I find my use of hyphens to be increasing. It's my way of protesting the 21st century.
You're not derivate; you're actively appreciative.
Posted by: Huntington at October 10, 2007 01:44 PM
The Japan-Iceland connection strikes again. Maybe it could be described in mathematical notation.
I dropped Calculus two weeks into my senior year, and like a good homosexual, took Speech & Drama instead. I've often wondered what it would be like to study Chemistry & Physics again with an adult (dare I even say "middle-aged") brain, since I remember absolutely nothing about them. Avogadro? "Moles"? Vectors? Huh?
My Danish former coworker doesn't agree when I tell her Danish is a very weird language and pretends not to understand when I speak to her in Swedish. It's my dream to have an apartment in the Turning Torso, with a view in which I can look across the Öresund at Copenhagen. However, I don't think that's going to happen.
Perhaps your time in Denmark was also like Festen without the incestuous drama?
Posted by: Joe at October 10, 2007 01:47 PM
Your blog may be derivative or integral, but I guarantee you it sucks.
Posted by: Anja Clarke at October 10, 2007 02:00 PM
Yay! Anja is back!
Anja! Anja! Anja! Anja! Anja! Anja!
I love that name!!!
Posted by: Eric at October 10, 2007 02:08 PM
Mr. Charles McGrath is a complete fuddyduddy. I suppose he still wishes we wrote "to-day" and "to-night". Feh to him.
Posted by: Joe at October 10, 2007 02:17 PM
You, Joe, are a radical whose back will be first against the wall come the counter-revolution.
Posted by: Huntington at October 10, 2007 03:03 PM
I'm a big fan of the hyphen, when it's properly used. In any case, if hypens are disappearing, apostrophes are breeding like maggots. You can't swing a dead cat on the Internet without hitting an extraneous apostrophe.
And, Joe, you should read the article before you judge. I don't read Mr. McGrath regularly, but he's not especially stick-up-the-ass about hyphens, as it happens.
Posted by: TED at October 10, 2007 03:17 PM
Actually, Ted, I had read the article. So, Ted, thanks very much.
As it happens, I think people who don't know how to correctly use hyphens in prenominal compound adjectival phrases should be rounded up and their fingers amputated. So there.
Posted by: Joe at October 10, 2007 04:46 PM
I'm sorry if I leapt to a conclusion, but I could not see how it was possible both to have read that article and to think that Mr. McGrath still wished that we hyphenated "to-day."
Posted by: TED at October 10, 2007 04:57 PM
Hooray, you love your enemy now!
Somehow, 微積分学 literally is "study of derivation and integration." I always wonder why it's not quite "calculus".
Posted by: jason at October 10, 2007 05:03 PM
Anja:
It's very easy to criticize and jeer, quite a bit more difficult to compete or, for that matter, say something constructive. So I guess you have demonstrated for us all that while it takes a great mind to create, it only takes a small one to tear down.
In other words: suck it, bitch!
Eric is too polite to say that to you. Also, as he mentioned, he does not engage in that particular pastime or activity.
I am not, and I do.
Also: How does someone with a first name like "Anja" end up with a last name like "Clarke?"
Posted by: Jack at October 10, 2007 07:51 PM
Antiquated hyphenation is epitomized not by “to-day” but by “cocoa-nuts” (four syllables). Hyphen archaisms are one of the innumerable reasons to despise Andrew Sullivan.
Posted by: Joe Clark at October 11, 2007 01:19 AM
That Hallgrímskirkja makes me nervous. Anybody ever heard of Achilles Rizzoli, the San Francisco "outsider" artist?
http://www.amesgallery.com/ArtistPages/Rizzoli.html
Anybody can see that your blog is trigonometric. Not everybody has to be taught the secret handshake and the "soh cah toa" war cry.
Posted by: R J Keefe at October 11, 2007 06:11 AM
I live in Japan, have never been to Scandinavia, but forget all the kanji I learn every day, just like Guy Pearce in Memento. My Swedish has been coming along lately since I started trying to read the blogs of Osaka-residing friends from Malmö and listening to the "fluffy" tunes of The Sunshine (yes, they sing in English, but their voices are pure Stockholm). Amazing how much, if I stretch reeeeal far, we have in common, Eric.
Posted by: Colin at October 11, 2007 08:53 AM
i'd take a Pocari Sweat over a Calpis any day.
Posted by: A.J. at October 11, 2007 12:10 PM
Sadly, we are all, by definition, imperfect DERIVATION of our perfect Platonic self.
Posted by: max at October 11, 2007 12:47 PM
Eeek, math!
Posted by: Mike at October 11, 2007 11:37 PM
The one I can never seem to forget from Japanese class is Jidohanbaiki. (Vending Machine)
Posted by: Brechi at October 12, 2007 10:06 AM
A little backstory on Anja Clarke: she was born and delivered to an West Berlin orphanage in 1975. She skipped out on her high school years to attempt a career as pop singer in the US, as well as seek out her biological parents, whom she knew were American. After much research, she discovered her mother was Mary Hart of "Entertainment Tonight" fame and her father was Chuck Woolery ("The Dating Game".) Anja chose "Clarke" as her stage name because she thought the character "Sandra Clarke" Jackee' created on the NBC show "227" was so glamorous. With the help of her biological parents, she recorded an album called "Crayon Girls" and the first single "Beautiful Candy" was a flop. She loves attention and hates gays, so your blog is the perfect forum for her to express herself.
Posted by: Abby Reynolds at October 12, 2007 01:01 PM
I just realized you called this a blog and not "this here website thingy." What brought this on? Is that classified as a "breakthrough?" Still, it's much less charming somehow.
Posted by: Joe at October 13, 2007 10:34 AM
Joe, because its charm got old(er than Eric).
Posted by: jason at October 14, 2007 10:49 PM
The Hallgrímskirkja is dramatic, but not as dramatic as the views from the top of it. This photo does it crazy justice. Hope you got to hit the Blue Lagoon when you were there.
Posted by: Trevor at October 18, 2007 03:23 PM