The Death and Life of Great American Cities
Until the late 1950's, most city/urban planners in the USA were architects. Most schools blueprinted plans that indeed had cultural and sociological implications, but either couldn't or refused to see that their biases had stark implications for the kinds of buildings and cities they envisioned. It wasn't until the late fifties, when sociologists became involved in questions of urban ethnicity and neighborhood richness and viability that cities were seen as more than collections of buildings, parks,streets, stores, traffic patterns and transportation grids.
Jane Jacobs, who never received a degree in architecture or urban planning, but whose freelance writing on urban neighborhoods took her to most of them, and many not visited by the owners and managers of the journals for which she wrote, saw something at work that she first labeled "weird wisdom" - people staying safe and content in areas which were labeled "slums" by urban planners. She went on to figure out what really made cities work: not high rises, random green spaces or rich people, and especially not areas which emphasized only one kind of spatial and time-marked use. Rather, the areas which seemed to work best for cities and city people were those that included short blocks, a variety of architecture, a variety of uses, a lack of one-usage zoning, and green spaces integrated into their neighborhoods.
Cities, she felt, especially city streets and areas, had to create diversity by helping it along in zoning. If there were too many buildings of one kind or one use, cities had to factor in different uses and help by welcoming other uses, and without labeling uses as immoral. Bars, for instance, could actually could serve as welcome spots for relaxation and natural anchors and eyes for night time travelers on their streets. On the other hand, if businesses such as banks proliferated in an area, they left little space for other uses, cross use, and night time use.
She compared cities to puzzles and city street orders to dances. She made urban planners and city dwellers aware that those who could only see building in terms of one or two variables (calling Robert Moses!) were destroying the natural, useful and healthy density of cities, neighborhoods and streets.
Jacobs, who loved Greenwich Village and, along with her husband, owned a building on Houston Street, left the USA in 1968 in order to make sure that her sons would not be drafted into the Vietnam War. From Toronto, she continued to work for diversity and natural density in cities, neighborhoods and streets.
The Death and Life of Great American Cities is now required reading in urban planning and urban sociology classes.
Saturday, June 28, 2014
Monday, June 16, 2014
Favorite book that should be pulled from the shelves
Prodigal Women, by Nancy Hale, is one of my favorite books. It tells the story of three women who live in a suburb of Boston in the 1920's and experience love in dangerous and difficult ways. They eventually find their ways back to wholeness and self-understanding.
It was pulled from the shelves of a library a few years back. Should it have been? My answer is yes.
The book contains the line "operated by a reeking colored boy."
Once upon a time this line would not have drawn much notice. Stereotypes were not challenged, and calling an African-American man "reeking" and "boy" was not met with much notice. "Colored" was considered a polite way (sort of) to refer to black people then, although somehow it sours my stomach. Hindsight? Maybe.
But the implication that a black person would smell simply cannot be excused, even when the author wrote it in the 1920's. Generally "accepted"? In some circles. Angrily and rightfully criticized? Yes, in some circles.
"Boy" was of course also used often to refer to black men. The implication that they are and were not mature enough to be called "men" or perhaps deserved to be addressed in the tone that would imply some kind of hierarchy, as opposed to not being addressed at all, was more prevalent in the South, but was certainly not exclusively its property. And "property" was the thought directly in back of this entire phrase, that this black man was "owned" by someone, or had been in the recent past.
And this, in short, is why even though this book is one of my favorites, and remains one of my favorites, I am glad that it was pulled. I hate the idea of having readers assume that a) this kind of stereotype fit the description of any or many black people in the 1920's, and that b) there were not enough people who despised such descriptions at the time the book was written.
As with many books that seem to express or perpetuate negative stereotypes of ethnic and racial groups, many of us make our very shaky peace fraught with ambivalence and caveats.
I am glad I read Prodigal Women. I am also glad that it will not see this particular library's shelves again.
It was pulled from the shelves of a library a few years back. Should it have been? My answer is yes.
The book contains the line "operated by a reeking colored boy."
Once upon a time this line would not have drawn much notice. Stereotypes were not challenged, and calling an African-American man "reeking" and "boy" was not met with much notice. "Colored" was considered a polite way (sort of) to refer to black people then, although somehow it sours my stomach. Hindsight? Maybe.
But the implication that a black person would smell simply cannot be excused, even when the author wrote it in the 1920's. Generally "accepted"? In some circles. Angrily and rightfully criticized? Yes, in some circles.
"Boy" was of course also used often to refer to black men. The implication that they are and were not mature enough to be called "men" or perhaps deserved to be addressed in the tone that would imply some kind of hierarchy, as opposed to not being addressed at all, was more prevalent in the South, but was certainly not exclusively its property. And "property" was the thought directly in back of this entire phrase, that this black man was "owned" by someone, or had been in the recent past.
And this, in short, is why even though this book is one of my favorites, and remains one of my favorites, I am glad that it was pulled. I hate the idea of having readers assume that a) this kind of stereotype fit the description of any or many black people in the 1920's, and that b) there were not enough people who despised such descriptions at the time the book was written.
As with many books that seem to express or perpetuate negative stereotypes of ethnic and racial groups, many of us make our very shaky peace fraught with ambivalence and caveats.
I am glad I read Prodigal Women. I am also glad that it will not see this particular library's shelves again.
Monday, June 9, 2014
Grammar errors and ambiguity
Grammar and ambiguity
I am about to get what some might consider nitpicky/nitpickety.
"Corcoran and her fellow researchers found plastiglomerates on more than 20 sites across Kamilo Beach, and they believe they could probably found on beaches around the world.'
Typo? Maybe. Grammar error? Maybe. Whatever it is, I resent it. Sure, the author might
have meant to say, "probably find more." But by the same token, she might have meant to write, "probably have found more." One means that they are still finding or in the process of finding plastiglomerates, our new human calling card. The other means that they have finished. The project is a done deal. No more rushing off to beaches to encounter, record and analyze plastiglomerates.
And did she mean to write "more?" "Many more?" "A whole caseload and basket more?" "A bushel and a peck more?" "Most assuredly more?" "Unquestionably a great deal more?"
Many grammar errors don't make it impossible to understand the writer's words. But they introduce a degree of ambiguity. Why take the chance that half of your readers will interpretyour sentence one way, and the other half will read an entirely different meaning? Worst of all, why leave readers straddling two or more possible meanings, or making your sentence a cousin of Schrodinger's cat?
And worst of all: why do I have to do the work of interpreting a sentence. the meaning of
which should have been crystal clear? The last time I looked, I was not being paid to
interpret another writer's sentence. I don't want to get stuck doing another writer's work.
Unless, of course, I were to get paid.
"Corcoran and her fellow researchers found plastiglomerates on more than 20 sites across Kamilo Beach, and they believe they could probably found on beaches around the world.'
Typo? Maybe. Grammar error? Maybe. Whatever it is, I resent it. Sure, the author might
have meant to say, "probably find more." But by the same token, she might have meant to write, "probably have found more." One means that they are still finding or in the process of finding plastiglomerates, our new human calling card. The other means that they have finished. The project is a done deal. No more rushing off to beaches to encounter, record and analyze plastiglomerates.
And did she mean to write "more?" "Many more?" "A whole caseload and basket more?" "A bushel and a peck more?" "Most assuredly more?" "Unquestionably a great deal more?"
Many grammar errors don't make it impossible to understand the writer's words. But they introduce a degree of ambiguity. Why take the chance that half of your readers will interpretyour sentence one way, and the other half will read an entirely different meaning? Worst of all, why leave readers straddling two or more possible meanings, or making your sentence a cousin of Schrodinger's cat?
And worst of all: why do I have to do the work of interpreting a sentence. the meaning of
which should have been crystal clear? The last time I looked, I was not being paid to
interpret another writer's sentence. I don't want to get stuck doing another writer's work.
Unless, of course, I were to get paid.
Wednesday, May 28, 2014
Like a good wine
Sometimes I like to contemplate the process by which someone's interesting life turns into a very interesting novel. It is definitely not a straight line from Point A to Point B. In order to turn into a novel, the material has to sit for a while, like a good wine that will be aged in casks of mellow oak. Two strange things have to occur. As more flavors enter into good wines when they are stored, more lives have to enter the mix. Then something semi-mythic has to frame them. It is as if they have to ascend to a higher register, the essence of what they are, but now fictitious. Again, like wine when it acquires its defining note. The truths they tell have to become larger, stranger, sometimes menacing and threatening, with a dangerous beauty. And I am not talking about the characters, who may or may not be menacing or strange. The character has to transform somehow before it reaches fictional maturity, which is not at all the same as being mature as a human being. Fictional maturity occurs when a character achieves an inward consistency, which means that her stamp is present in the way she acts and does and is in all of the novel. "Fully realized" is another, older way of saying this.
Conversely, as hard as you try to write someone's life and think you are being "faithful" to its events and occurrences, it becomes fiction the minute the words hit the page. Somehow, in just trying to write what someone is about, you enter the realm of fiction because you are writing at a remove of years, and there are many many reasons why someone may or may not have done something, worn something, said something, thought something. You are in essence making choices at each step of the way in portraying someone. And if you write someone and make certain choices, you might make completely different choices in writing him the next day.
This is also why most "real" accounts of something or someone are a kind of fiction, as well.
Conversely, as hard as you try to write someone's life and think you are being "faithful" to its events and occurrences, it becomes fiction the minute the words hit the page. Somehow, in just trying to write what someone is about, you enter the realm of fiction because you are writing at a remove of years, and there are many many reasons why someone may or may not have done something, worn something, said something, thought something. You are in essence making choices at each step of the way in portraying someone. And if you write someone and make certain choices, you might make completely different choices in writing him the next day.
This is also why most "real" accounts of something or someone are a kind of fiction, as well.
Friday, May 23, 2014
A Prayer for Ishmael
A Prayer for Ishmael
An American woman named Melisande of 46 meets a young man of 22 online, in a chat room. At first he tells her he is from Australia. They argue about whether God exists (she says no, he says yes). He tells her she is arrogant; she tells him he is naive. Yet they are amused and interested enough in each other to talk again. She tells him a little about her life as an archivist who works for a Cultural Institute in New York. He tells her that he works for a furniture salesperson in Perth. However, the next time they meet -the third- he tells her that he is not from Australia, but from Karachi, Pakistan, and sends her a picture. Somehow she knows that this is indeed his picture, not the one he sent previously. She tells him that he looks very serious. He agrees and laughs.
Soon they are talking every chance they get. She learns about his family; his father abuses his mom, who is a nurse. His father is addicted to drugs and alcohol, but is extremely intelligent, and lost a very high paying job in Saudi Arabia. He has a sister who has been diagnosed as schizophrenic and another sister who is very kind and responsible, but who has been discouraged from getting a job because she is supposed to take care of the house and work that needs to be done in it. The family is half Muslim, half Christian, which means that they are welcome nowhere in Pakistan. Ishmael escapes when he can to play games online and sometimes in internet cafes. Their house is very large, but is falling apart because they cannot afford to keep it up. Ishmael also takes karate classes and has worked his way up to brown belt status, soon to become black belt status, he tells Melisande.
Ishmael meets a young woman from Ireland online and falls in love with her. He tells Melisande that he will be emigrating to Ireland when he can get a visa. Over the next year, he keeps Melisande updated with his plans and the stages of his visa request.
Just before he is to emigrate to Ireland, he and his friends go by motorbike to an isolated area of Karachi to get a computer that is being sold very cheaply. When they arrive, they are told that if they don't pay 300 dollars US (about 21,000 Pakistan rupees), they will be killed. Ishmael tells his friends to leave and tells them that he will deal with the situation. One of the thugs shoots Ishmael. He dies.
Upon hearing this from a friend of Ishmael's with whom she is sometimes in contact, Melisande feels as if she wants to run to Karachi and not leave Ishmael's grave. But the friend convinces Melisande that the best thing for her to do is to try to help Fatimah, Ishmael's kind and responsible sister, With the friend translating, Melisande decides that the best thing to do is to help Fatimah get a visa for the USA.
She vows, however, that one day she will visit Ishmael's grave in Karachi and lay a wreath on his grave.
An American woman named Melisande of 46 meets a young man of 22 online, in a chat room. At first he tells her he is from Australia. They argue about whether God exists (she says no, he says yes). He tells her she is arrogant; she tells him he is naive. Yet they are amused and interested enough in each other to talk again. She tells him a little about her life as an archivist who works for a Cultural Institute in New York. He tells her that he works for a furniture salesperson in Perth. However, the next time they meet -the third- he tells her that he is not from Australia, but from Karachi, Pakistan, and sends her a picture. Somehow she knows that this is indeed his picture, not the one he sent previously. She tells him that he looks very serious. He agrees and laughs.
Soon they are talking every chance they get. She learns about his family; his father abuses his mom, who is a nurse. His father is addicted to drugs and alcohol, but is extremely intelligent, and lost a very high paying job in Saudi Arabia. He has a sister who has been diagnosed as schizophrenic and another sister who is very kind and responsible, but who has been discouraged from getting a job because she is supposed to take care of the house and work that needs to be done in it. The family is half Muslim, half Christian, which means that they are welcome nowhere in Pakistan. Ishmael escapes when he can to play games online and sometimes in internet cafes. Their house is very large, but is falling apart because they cannot afford to keep it up. Ishmael also takes karate classes and has worked his way up to brown belt status, soon to become black belt status, he tells Melisande.
Ishmael meets a young woman from Ireland online and falls in love with her. He tells Melisande that he will be emigrating to Ireland when he can get a visa. Over the next year, he keeps Melisande updated with his plans and the stages of his visa request.
Just before he is to emigrate to Ireland, he and his friends go by motorbike to an isolated area of Karachi to get a computer that is being sold very cheaply. When they arrive, they are told that if they don't pay 300 dollars US (about 21,000 Pakistan rupees), they will be killed. Ishmael tells his friends to leave and tells them that he will deal with the situation. One of the thugs shoots Ishmael. He dies.
Upon hearing this from a friend of Ishmael's with whom she is sometimes in contact, Melisande feels as if she wants to run to Karachi and not leave Ishmael's grave. But the friend convinces Melisande that the best thing for her to do is to try to help Fatimah, Ishmael's kind and responsible sister, With the friend translating, Melisande decides that the best thing to do is to help Fatimah get a visa for the USA.
She vows, however, that one day she will visit Ishmael's grave in Karachi and lay a wreath on his grave.
Sunday, May 18, 2014
Gentlemen's Agreement
Laura Z. (Zametkin) Hobson wrote Gentlemen's Agreement in 1946. It hit the movie screens in 1947.
The plot centers on a magazine assignment to a Christian reporter to write about anti-Semitism. After much consideration, he decides to live as a Jew for six months. The novel reminds us now of the fact that not only was there embarrassingly, shockingly overt anti-Semitism around then, even after World War 2, but that people often wouldn't admit it. There existed many hotels and country clubs in the USA at the time that would not allow Jewish clients.
The sad thing, however, is that Jewish jokes still exist. And there are different kinds of anti-Semitism around today in the USA. There is the kind that hails from the right wing, often from small towns in which they have never seen Jews. There is the variety that emanates from certain left wing organizations who purport to be angry at Israel for allowing settlements on Palestinian land and for not allowing Palestinians equal rights in the camps and in the cities of Israel. Somehow when we hear a non-Jew declaiming with vehemence about Jews in Israel and in the settlements, it makes us feel uncomfortable, even though we may easily hold similar views.
Are the newer varieties of anti-Semitism easier to deal with? I myself don't think so.
The plot centers on a magazine assignment to a Christian reporter to write about anti-Semitism. After much consideration, he decides to live as a Jew for six months. The novel reminds us now of the fact that not only was there embarrassingly, shockingly overt anti-Semitism around then, even after World War 2, but that people often wouldn't admit it. There existed many hotels and country clubs in the USA at the time that would not allow Jewish clients.
The sad thing, however, is that Jewish jokes still exist. And there are different kinds of anti-Semitism around today in the USA. There is the kind that hails from the right wing, often from small towns in which they have never seen Jews. There is the variety that emanates from certain left wing organizations who purport to be angry at Israel for allowing settlements on Palestinian land and for not allowing Palestinians equal rights in the camps and in the cities of Israel. Somehow when we hear a non-Jew declaiming with vehemence about Jews in Israel and in the settlements, it makes us feel uncomfortable, even though we may easily hold similar views.
Are the newer varieties of anti-Semitism easier to deal with? I myself don't think so.
Friday, May 9, 2014
On Grammar: Snobbism/Elitism as a discrepancy in expectations
On Grammar: Snobbism/Elitism as a discrepancy in expectations
From elementary school through high school, many of us were taught the rudiments of the way the English Language worked. We also learned to write it. We did not learn a lot about speaking it because it was assumed by our teachers -whether correctly or not- that as American-born students, we knew how to speak what was then considered grammatical American English.
What we also didn't learn at the time was that there were and are many variants of English, some used in the USA, some used outside. There are spoken variants and written variants and signed variants. Often, "correct" English is the result of having been exposed to a certain educational system. There is nothing natural or egalitarian about it.
And there is no "correct" form of spoken English. Those who have spoken English as their first language and/or attend certain schools and/or have parents whose income is greater than a certain amount have learned what some people still consider standard "spoken" English, in addition to whatever dialectal variants they speak at home or in different places they visit or at places in which they work. Others mostly speak the dialectal variant(s) they have learned.
The situation changes, however, when we discuss written English.
There are formal situations in which it is necessary to describe people, things, processes or activities with great precision. These are the situations in which people one doesn't know want one to understand what they are talking about. This is best accomplished by using the diction/register and spelling most familiar to those to whom they are directing their work consider standard. Why? Because using the spelling and grammar agreed on by grammarians and teachers as standard communicates one's objectives and points as quickly as possible. It has little to do with elegance. It does have to do with making sure that the people who read one's work understand and agree about what has been written.
Let me provide an example. Say, for instance, that I am making a point about pencil erasers. I might write: "Pencil erasers originated in China in 1100 AD when a calligrapher discovered that the resin which later became rubber removed two erroneous pen strokes." However, if I were to write, "Pensil erazers," readers of standard English -or those who were prepared to read what they considered standard English- might wonder a) if the spelling of these two words had been changed; b) if the writer was making some kind of joke c) if these were variant spellings used by someone who spoke a different dialect of English. Of course they would understand the words themselves. However, the variant or incorrect spellings would become a distraction. It might slow them down. It might annoy. The objective of using correct spelling in writing is not to make it difficult for the writer. It is to make reading and written communication as quick and easy for most readers as possible.
If you read the Constitution of the United States in its original, you may see that the lack of standard spelling and grammar causes words to be spelled different ways from one paragraph to the next, and for voices, verb tenses and moods to be used differently from one paragraph to the next. It is to be hoped that most of those who read the Constitution understood it as the writers meant it to be understood (and please be aware that literacy in those days was limited to about a third of the population), even with the bewildering number of variants. However, as you may discover, it takes much, much longer to understand it, and it is more difficult to be sure that you have grasped the exact intent of the writer. Standardization of written language makes it easier to be more certain that the most people possible have grasped the meaning writers of written language who use these standards have attempted to communicate.
Thus when people are reading material that has been presented in a format, such as a position paper or a scientific study,which necessitates precision and clarity-especially when others need to understand quickly but thoroughly what has been written- it is important that the spelling and grammar used correspond to what those reading it consider standard. Otherwise, room for error and misinterpretation creeps in. However, this "standard" varies from event to event and from country to country. Charges of "elitism" are often made when the standard assumed by the writer is more rigorous or unfamiliarly formal than that of the reader, or vice versa.
The best rule of thumb is for the writer to know her audience as well as possible and develop a clear grasp of the diction they find appropriate. There is no one right "standard." There is only that which is negotiated, tacitly or directly, between the writer and her audience.
From elementary school through high school, many of us were taught the rudiments of the way the English Language worked. We also learned to write it. We did not learn a lot about speaking it because it was assumed by our teachers -whether correctly or not- that as American-born students, we knew how to speak what was then considered grammatical American English.
What we also didn't learn at the time was that there were and are many variants of English, some used in the USA, some used outside. There are spoken variants and written variants and signed variants. Often, "correct" English is the result of having been exposed to a certain educational system. There is nothing natural or egalitarian about it.
And there is no "correct" form of spoken English. Those who have spoken English as their first language and/or attend certain schools and/or have parents whose income is greater than a certain amount have learned what some people still consider standard "spoken" English, in addition to whatever dialectal variants they speak at home or in different places they visit or at places in which they work. Others mostly speak the dialectal variant(s) they have learned.
The situation changes, however, when we discuss written English.
There are formal situations in which it is necessary to describe people, things, processes or activities with great precision. These are the situations in which people one doesn't know want one to understand what they are talking about. This is best accomplished by using the diction/register and spelling most familiar to those to whom they are directing their work consider standard. Why? Because using the spelling and grammar agreed on by grammarians and teachers as standard communicates one's objectives and points as quickly as possible. It has little to do with elegance. It does have to do with making sure that the people who read one's work understand and agree about what has been written.
Let me provide an example. Say, for instance, that I am making a point about pencil erasers. I might write: "Pencil erasers originated in China in 1100 AD when a calligrapher discovered that the resin which later became rubber removed two erroneous pen strokes." However, if I were to write, "Pensil erazers," readers of standard English -or those who were prepared to read what they considered standard English- might wonder a) if the spelling of these two words had been changed; b) if the writer was making some kind of joke c) if these were variant spellings used by someone who spoke a different dialect of English. Of course they would understand the words themselves. However, the variant or incorrect spellings would become a distraction. It might slow them down. It might annoy. The objective of using correct spelling in writing is not to make it difficult for the writer. It is to make reading and written communication as quick and easy for most readers as possible.
If you read the Constitution of the United States in its original, you may see that the lack of standard spelling and grammar causes words to be spelled different ways from one paragraph to the next, and for voices, verb tenses and moods to be used differently from one paragraph to the next. It is to be hoped that most of those who read the Constitution understood it as the writers meant it to be understood (and please be aware that literacy in those days was limited to about a third of the population), even with the bewildering number of variants. However, as you may discover, it takes much, much longer to understand it, and it is more difficult to be sure that you have grasped the exact intent of the writer. Standardization of written language makes it easier to be more certain that the most people possible have grasped the meaning writers of written language who use these standards have attempted to communicate.
Thus when people are reading material that has been presented in a format, such as a position paper or a scientific study,which necessitates precision and clarity-especially when others need to understand quickly but thoroughly what has been written- it is important that the spelling and grammar used correspond to what those reading it consider standard. Otherwise, room for error and misinterpretation creeps in. However, this "standard" varies from event to event and from country to country. Charges of "elitism" are often made when the standard assumed by the writer is more rigorous or unfamiliarly formal than that of the reader, or vice versa.
The best rule of thumb is for the writer to know her audience as well as possible and develop a clear grasp of the diction they find appropriate. There is no one right "standard." There is only that which is negotiated, tacitly or directly, between the writer and her audience.
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