Grammar Lesson: Mom, I’ve decided to get a MFA!
Chris Higgs’ post schooled me on the proper use of the apostrophe after singular nouns that end in ‘s’ to show possession, so I figured I’d post my own grammar lesson.
From The OWL@Purdue:
Note: The choice of article is actually based upon the phonetic (sound) quality of the first letter in a word, not on the orthographic (written) representation of the letter. If the first letter makes a vowel-type sound, you use “an”; if the first letter would make a consonant-type sound, you use “a.” So, if you consider the rule from a phonetic perspective, there aren’t any exceptions. Since the ‘h’ hasn’t any phonetic representation, no audible sound, in the first exception, the sound that follows the article is a vowel; consequently, ‘an’ is used. In the second exception, the word-initial ‘y’ sound (unicorn) is actually a glide [j] phonetically, which has consonantal properties; consequently, it is treated as a consonant, requiring ‘a’.
Folks, please do not write the article ‘a’ before the acronym ‘MFA.’ If you do that, then I will think you went to a low-ranked MFA program. Not your fault, though; you didn’t know any better. If you’d rather not worry about the a/an thing, you’re perfectly welcome to write out in full that you received a Master of Fine Arts, as I will do when I apply for a job at Half Price Books this Spring once my contract is up at the university.
Or you can just skip over the whole confusing mess and either a) study writing on your own and save yourself lots of money/stress or b) get a PhD in Literature and Creative Writing, thus making all MFAers on the job market collectively shit themselves. Phhhhddddd.
Hipster Autophobia
Hipster Tilley by Johnny Zito
I’m tired of hipsters saying they hate hipsters. Every time I read some rant on how hipsters suck I realize I’m reading it in a journal or website written by and for hipsters. Self-hating narcissistic hipsters somehow think they are immune to the vague and broad fallacies of hipsterdom. What deepens this ingrown pathology and paranoia is that self-denying hipsters often subconsciously enjoy being called hipsters, because in some weird way it’s a compliment. This is not a defense of hipsterdom, but an afriendly suggestion that maybe we’re all in the same goddamn pond.
Hipsterdom’s got something do to with an impenetrable irony which results in shallowness, affectedness, smugness, etc. — but aren’t those just judgment calls, like things people have been calling other people forever? Jane Austen and Evelyn Waugh’s been calling out people like that for ages. Hipsterdom may be a new word, but pettiness is timeless.
Adam Robinson—
Submissions I receive most often and I’m most tired of reading are:
Stories about heterosexual sex (often violent) (usually written by women)
Stories about drugs/drinking (often cruel) (always by men)
Stories about having bad jobs and being proud of it (mostly narcissistic) (always by men)
Stories about detached husbands (mostly domestic issues that don’t seem that difficult to overcome) (usually by women)
Stories about breaking up (usually based on sex) (usually by men)
Stories about not really getting God (usually involve parents) (usually by men)
It’s very hard to handle these topics in an interesting way.
It’s too bad there’s nothing else in the world to write about.
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GUEST MEAN: Daniel Nester
In preparation for MEAN WEEK, I sent out a small call for meanness from some people whom I trusted to have some bile to spill. Pretty much everyone ignored me, or else g-chatted gleefully and cruelly but refused to go on-record (I made non-anonymity a requirement). Only Dan Nester–author of How to be Inappropriate–actually sent me something usable, and so he is the first contributor to a new feature that I hope will outlive MEAN WEEK, and appear as often as needed from now on. It is called “Breaking the Cycle of Consent,” where a person announces her or his unwillingness to continue pretending to respect things that s/he has absolutely no respect for. It’s not (necessarily) a call for the things in question to change in any way or to “be stopped;” it is simply an announcement to the world that one does not respect these things, and is no longer going to pretend that one does simply for the sake of social codes. Dan is tired of pretending to respect The Lyric Essay.
Blake Butler—
Things to not say in blurbs or reviews so as to not sound like a tool: tour de force, startling, bad adverb + adjectives like furiously alive or wildly inventive or utterly involving, triumphant, [last name] swings for the fences, like [blank] on crack, like [blank] on LSD, romp, rollicking, breathless, a unique voice, poignant, sexy (horny is OK), well-wrought, death rattle, tongue fart doublespeak like dizzyingly-high-concept debut of genuine originality, any reference to Dada or surrealism, any employment of the phrase experimental, neo-anything, any vague or direct use of the phrase meditation such as resonant meditations, “[last name] really sings,” cautionary tale, anything about Kafka or Carver or Bukowski, any reconjuring of the phrase reminds us what it is to be human…
Even During MEAN WEEK, There Are Still Some Things I Don’t Hate; Here are Three (And a Bonus)
Rachel Sherman – I mentioned last week how bummed I was to miss the launch party for Living Room, Rachel’s new novel. She’s reading tomorrow at the KGB Bar here in NYC, and I’m really hoping to make it there.
The Rumpus Interview with Lydia Millet.
The Interrogative Mood: A Novel? by Padgett Powell – In a month that has been more or less one long relentless shitstorm, punctuated by occasional binge drinking, I had no time to read anything that wasn’t assigned–either to me or by me. But I damn well made time for this, my old teacher’s first new book since Mrs. Hollingsworth’s Men (2000). Every time I opened the book it was Christmas afresh. Honest to goodness pleasurable reading. If anything kept me from putting my own head through a wall this October, it was probably this book. But don’t take my word for it. Ask the NYT.
****SPECIAL MUSICAL NON-HATEFUL BONUS*******
Magnolia Electric Co. Daytrotter Session – Another sweet find directed my way by the increasingly essential Alec Niedenthal. Seriously, what did I do before I knew this kid? Because Jason Molina is awesome, and because he seems to believe that the base unit of musical thought is “album,” his band’s theoretically EP-length session is a whopping six songs (the average is 4) and clocks in at just over 22 minutes. It includes new versions of two tracks off Josephine, a new version of “The Dark Don’t Hide It,” which is an all-time Molina great, a couple unreleased songs, and a cover of Warren Zevon’s “Lawyers, Guns and Money.”
Blake Butler—
Things to not include in your bio so as to not look like a tool: Pushcart or other award nominations, that you were a finalist in a contest or a judge, every magazine credit you’ve ever gotten, where you went to school, where you got a grant or were handed money, what kind of book you’re currently shopping, why you write…
The Redneck Trilogy
The Redneck Trilogy
(Danny Dever – Phoenix)
Ryan Call—
Imagine if their logo had been a picture of a bumblebee. A rabid bat. A great white shark: chomp chomp.
(via MobyLives)
Ryan Call—
Paul Zukofsky doesn’t like people quoting his parents, especially ‘innocent grad students.’ Anyone want to help me type out Louis Zukofsky’s collected fiction?
(via Poetry Foundation)