Floating Woman
by Beatriz Seelaender
1. The Meaning of Life
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The condition that separates animals, plants, fungi, bacteria and protozoa from other things. Can be used as a general abstraction (e.g. “Is there life on Mars?”; “That’s Life! {That’s life!} and as funny as it may seem, some people get their kicks stomping on a dream”) or refer to a particular person’s life (e.g. “I don’t care what you say anymore, this is my life!” “What are you doing with your life, Christopher?!”). At times, life can be used to signify particular types of life, e.g.: “The gambling life is not for you, Christopher!” Furthermore, some annoying people will use this word as a subjective quality when talking of things that are neither human nor plants (or fungi, bacteria, protozoa), but rather a certain degree of movement or personality. |
"The Celestial Art" by Odilon Redon. Lithograph, 16 15/16 x 13 7/8 in. 1894. Open source from The Met
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What do you make of a trunk-less elephant? A turtle with no shell? A bird beakless and without wings? Or even a desert without sand, a forest without green, a song with no sound?
Those are the kinds of questions I have had to put up with in my job. They may seem silly to you — and doubtless they are — but what exactly is silly? Less than idiotic in degree of rejection — that who uses it is somewhat kinder, even more sympathetic to the idea he or she is referring to, even if it is considered useless or naïve. Although the tone that silly implies carries a levity that could insinuate that an idea is not even strong enough to be considered, even if the consideration is that it is idiotic. When something is silly, it is so stupid and or absurd it ends up being funny.
But then of course if we are going to use the word idiotic in order to explain silly, then we’ll have to understand what idiotic is — the adjective formed from the word idiocy, of which also derives the word idiot. Idiot has its origins in Ancient Greece, and it was used to describe those who, in a democracy, did not feel the need to vote. A Democracy, of course, is…
Those are the kinds of questions I have had to put up with in my job. They may seem silly to you — and doubtless they are — but what exactly is silly? Less than idiotic in degree of rejection — that who uses it is somewhat kinder, even more sympathetic to the idea he or she is referring to, even if it is considered useless or naïve. Although the tone that silly implies carries a levity that could insinuate that an idea is not even strong enough to be considered, even if the consideration is that it is idiotic. When something is silly, it is so stupid and or absurd it ends up being funny.
But then of course if we are going to use the word idiotic in order to explain silly, then we’ll have to understand what idiotic is — the adjective formed from the word idiocy, of which also derives the word idiot. Idiot has its origins in Ancient Greece, and it was used to describe those who, in a democracy, did not feel the need to vote. A Democracy, of course, is…
No, we aren’t doing this — otherwise we’ll go on forever and have in the end over-explained language in such a way that it will have us forget how to use it. In the business of definitions, dissociation comes rather easily.
And yet, every year we go through the same shit: we sit at conference room table and get our letters. Last year, I got D, and now I hate it more than anything — two weeks, working on “do” alone. And Sheila always gets the X, of course, which is actually a great thing around here. She gets it because of her patented joke: “Oh, I hope I don’t get the axe this year!”; at which our boss always laughs, and ends up giving her the X for it.
There are almost no words that begin with the X in the English language in comparison to every other letter, and the ones that do are normally Anglicizations of Greek terms, and thus hold very specific definitions. Any idiot can define X-ray or Xa or xenophobia or Xerox.
Now, tell me how to define “be” — yes, I have gotten the letter B before. It’s not great, given that everyone calls you the office B for a year.
Why does one need to put out a new dictionary every year? Or, if one must, why not just copy and paste the previous one and add some new quirky words to justify the new edition? Well, I am actually in favour of doing things the way we do them, since this way I get to keep my job. Of course we don’t make a new dictionary from scratch every year, but we edit it a whole lot — in the words of my boss, language is always on the move, and we must move with it. Ergo, the dictionary is never ready, and we are perpetually stuck with it.
Every year, the same lively arguments welcome us as old friends, reminding us of why we hate each other. Citadel caused problems, as usual, because Hannah, who got the C, could not determine whether its main function was to protect a city or overlook it. We settled for and/or. When Hannah started to ask us what happened when the city grew bigger than the citadel, we just rolled our eyes. Then Spencer decided he wanted to make floozy a gender-neutral term, on the grounds that it is misogynistic, and we spent a great deal of time trying to explain to him the fact that in order to determine that people needed to know what it meant. We again debated whether the pretentious Kafkaesque and Orwellian needed more than “referring to the works of Franz Kafka/George Orwell,” so that people would stop using them incorrectly. I, once again, was of the opinion that those who use such affected words would have better read the authors. When we stop spelling them in capital letters, then I might change my mind.
We spent a great deal of time, also, debating correct pronunciations. Even though Ian keeps insisting us there is no right way to speak English, all of our jobs would be sort of pointless if there weren’t. I’m so tired of being told there is no “right” English — I agree, but can we move on? Despite all of this discourse, I’m pretty sure I’d get fired if I accidentally screwed up my grammar in my definition of arthropod no matter how well I communicate it, even if it were just a typo — so, I ain’t buying what you’re saying, Ian.
Otherwise, everyone could just go out in the street and speak codswallop and as long as we understood one another, we’d be fine. You know, that’s what happened with Latin, until they couldn’t communicate anymore. The urge and tendency to simplify language is too great. A society is only as fluent in thought as it is in language, and we are the keepers of that language.
It may seem arrogant to you, but it’s not about keeping new words from entering our vocabulary; it’s about keeping a register, and understanding its meaning — to make words once too complex commonplace; to guarantee maximum understanding in every discussion.
I’m pretty sure this ridiculous discourse that everyone is fine using an average thousand words a day when there are so many ingenious, complicated connections just waiting to be formed between them is a conspiracy to keep people ignorant. Language is power. Yes, it can be used as a tool for oppression, but one can also prevent that by frequenting a library.
Bash “cultural elitist ideology” all you want, but it isn’t the extremely cultured university professors voting for the oppressors.
Instead of devaluing the miracle that is Academia by glorifying the results of systemic oppression, perhaps one would do better advocating for free higher education. Maybe then we can start debating the issues that actually matter.
And yet, every year we go through the same shit: we sit at conference room table and get our letters. Last year, I got D, and now I hate it more than anything — two weeks, working on “do” alone. And Sheila always gets the X, of course, which is actually a great thing around here. She gets it because of her patented joke: “Oh, I hope I don’t get the axe this year!”; at which our boss always laughs, and ends up giving her the X for it.
There are almost no words that begin with the X in the English language in comparison to every other letter, and the ones that do are normally Anglicizations of Greek terms, and thus hold very specific definitions. Any idiot can define X-ray or Xa or xenophobia or Xerox.
Now, tell me how to define “be” — yes, I have gotten the letter B before. It’s not great, given that everyone calls you the office B for a year.
Why does one need to put out a new dictionary every year? Or, if one must, why not just copy and paste the previous one and add some new quirky words to justify the new edition? Well, I am actually in favour of doing things the way we do them, since this way I get to keep my job. Of course we don’t make a new dictionary from scratch every year, but we edit it a whole lot — in the words of my boss, language is always on the move, and we must move with it. Ergo, the dictionary is never ready, and we are perpetually stuck with it.
Every year, the same lively arguments welcome us as old friends, reminding us of why we hate each other. Citadel caused problems, as usual, because Hannah, who got the C, could not determine whether its main function was to protect a city or overlook it. We settled for and/or. When Hannah started to ask us what happened when the city grew bigger than the citadel, we just rolled our eyes. Then Spencer decided he wanted to make floozy a gender-neutral term, on the grounds that it is misogynistic, and we spent a great deal of time trying to explain to him the fact that in order to determine that people needed to know what it meant. We again debated whether the pretentious Kafkaesque and Orwellian needed more than “referring to the works of Franz Kafka/George Orwell,” so that people would stop using them incorrectly. I, once again, was of the opinion that those who use such affected words would have better read the authors. When we stop spelling them in capital letters, then I might change my mind.
We spent a great deal of time, also, debating correct pronunciations. Even though Ian keeps insisting us there is no right way to speak English, all of our jobs would be sort of pointless if there weren’t. I’m so tired of being told there is no “right” English — I agree, but can we move on? Despite all of this discourse, I’m pretty sure I’d get fired if I accidentally screwed up my grammar in my definition of arthropod no matter how well I communicate it, even if it were just a typo — so, I ain’t buying what you’re saying, Ian.
Otherwise, everyone could just go out in the street and speak codswallop and as long as we understood one another, we’d be fine. You know, that’s what happened with Latin, until they couldn’t communicate anymore. The urge and tendency to simplify language is too great. A society is only as fluent in thought as it is in language, and we are the keepers of that language.
It may seem arrogant to you, but it’s not about keeping new words from entering our vocabulary; it’s about keeping a register, and understanding its meaning — to make words once too complex commonplace; to guarantee maximum understanding in every discussion.
I’m pretty sure this ridiculous discourse that everyone is fine using an average thousand words a day when there are so many ingenious, complicated connections just waiting to be formed between them is a conspiracy to keep people ignorant. Language is power. Yes, it can be used as a tool for oppression, but one can also prevent that by frequenting a library.
Bash “cultural elitist ideology” all you want, but it isn’t the extremely cultured university professors voting for the oppressors.
Instead of devaluing the miracle that is Academia by glorifying the results of systemic oppression, perhaps one would do better advocating for free higher education. Maybe then we can start debating the issues that actually matter.
*
2. Dictionary
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Noun. A compendium of words, explaining their meanings and usages, either in language or a specific field. This, for example, is a dictionary — one could actually question the use of this entry, whether it is pure or a ludicrous irony. A mirror staring into another mirror! This is either a very profound philosophical point or complete waste of time. It is simultaneously shallow and profound — after all, through it we are able to stare into an actual infinite gap. On the other hand, there is no way we could actually dive into it. One gets the feeling of reaching the end of the road, huh? Or the edge of a flat Earth. A defect in the making of things, definitely. Maybe, for “dictionary,” I should’ve just written: “this thing you’re reading.”
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A
--The first letter of the alphabet, which I got this year despite having protested loudly. Of course, Sheila got the X. I would have been content with the Z, though — I wasn’t asking for much.
Of course, I can’t really blame Ian. He knows that some people just can’t handle important letters. Last year, Daryl got the A, and we all had to help him due to his inborn stupidity. So here I am listening to the dystopian news channel, some booze and a burrito — the French bulldog on my lap, working on the A.
— Indefinite article, suggesting any representative of a noun as opposed to a specific one. Variant(s): an, before a vowel.
Examples:
I saw a raccoon stealing food from the trash — indicates it could have been any raccoon. This sentence will most likely be used if the enunciator has had no enduring relationship with any specific raccoon during his or her lifetime, or if the probability of the raccoon in question having caused such a mess is small. In any case, the raccoon here is familiar neither to the enunciator nor to his interlocutor. Having established that, in the following dialogue they will be able to talk about that specific animal in definite articles.
I saw the raccoon stealing food from the trash — indicates one particular, known raccoon, with whom the enunciator is familiar, and who may have stolen food before. He could also be a beloved family raccoon, and such a sentence could be read as reassuring as opposed to frustrated — perhaps the raccoon had not been seen for a while, and the family had been worried about him.
— Indefinite article, indicative of a unit of measure, such as in “a hundred,” or “a pound.”
This has many people confused; they cannot understand that an indefinite word is able to define value for other things. That is also why people are bad at Maths.
Just think back to the episode of Laurel and Hardy in which they haven’t any money. They are in a double date, and Hardy convinces Laurel to split a milkshake or something. Hardy tells Laurel to drink his half, and Laurel ends up drinking the whole thing. Furious, Hardy asks why he hadn’t just drunk his half, and Laurel answers that his half was the bottom half.
Now, if half a something could be either half of something, a hundred could have its own value placed wherever one likes, just as long as it holds the same value. A hundred, therefore, is not always the 100 fixed on the board; it is simply its value.
Most of us, however, do not think of numbers this way, and tend to think of fixed numbers as one thinks of letters — as more than their value, abstract and all-set in their existences. 100 could be any 100, really. The one between 214 and 114 or the one between 50 and -50.
That is why Daryl was wrong last year when he got the A to give this word a different meaning when it came to units of measure. Yes, it means one unit, but not any specific unit, and, therefore, a unit. Why is Daryl so stupid? Honestly, didn’t he study Linguistics? I shouldn’t be stuck with his stupid definitions.
I dream of Z.
Zany, adj.: Slang, dated. Peculiar in a novel, fun way. Zany no longer.
Zig-Zag, n, v.. Going like this: ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Zombie, n. : Reanimated human corpses with an insatiable craving for human brains.
Zone, n.: 1. A part of the geographical whole. 2. “the Zone” A fake abstract plane to which pretentious people will refer when forced to think above their brains’ limited capacities, as not to be interrupted. E.g., “Don’t talk to me, I’m in the zone.”
Zoo, n.: Museum of living animals. Sometimes missing lots of important animals like monkeys and polar bears. Essential animal in every zoo: elephant. Very important; otherwise not a zoo. Don’t ask me why, I don’t make the rules.
Oh, well, from Z to A again…
AB: The best blood type. Some will tell you the best blood type is actually O, because then you can help everyone, but they’re full of shit. Type AB means one is able to accept blood donations from any type, while O may donate to all, but receive blood only from other Os. I am, of course, an O, and that’s why people drain the life out of me.
When we were learning this, in high school, a kid actually found out that, because both her parents were AB and she was O, she could not be their biological child. Of course, she was Asian and her parents were white, so that may have been on her.
Abb (s): Something everyone is obsessed with, for some reason.
Abbey: A place which was home to religious people at some point in history.
Abhor: The act of hating something while making a disgusted face to show how just much.
Abhorrent: Of the something the face was referencing.
Abide: When you agree to do what you’ve been told. For cowards.
Ability: Capacity. Special ability: superpower.
Able: Participle of “can.” You’ll get to “can” soon enough. Then you’ll be ABLE to get it.
Abscond: When you do something bad and leave before people catch on to it. The French exit, only aggravated. I did it once when I went to a funeral and accidentally dropped half a sandwich into the casket. After many unsuccessful attempts to retrieve it, I had to leave before people noticed. All of it was very upsetting. I never told this to anybody.
Absence:
Absinthe: Martha’s no-no drink. I am drinking it right now and it tastes like hand sanitizer. Smells. Like hand sanitizer smells. I’ve never tasted hand sanitizer. Some kids in junior high would drink it to be cool; as I was never one of the cool kids I just shook my head at them.
Absolute: Unlimited superlative, overrules all the other lutes like resolute or salute or abrupt. Absolutism: Henry the VIIth. Louis XIV. You get it.
Absolutely: Really emphatic confirmation, negation, acceptance or denial.
Abstain: To keep from doing something. Think Poncio Pilatos when Jesus.
Abstinence: The educational guideline behind the USA’s failure to prevent teen pregnancy (Yes, I have just nailed social critique).
Abyss: The gap between a cliff and the ground, only you can’t see the ground. More fit for staring at than actually falling into. The phrase “Staring from the edge of a cliff into the abyss” is now overused in songs — so; even if that describes exactly how you feel, do not say it in your song. Not to mention that, if this is exactly how you feel, you’ve been feeling quite unoriginally.
Accelerate: Go faster.
Acceleration: Variable “a” in Physics.
Accent: Something about the way people talk that tells us where they are from. Sometimes funny, at other times very unpleasant. When too much, thick.
Accept: Yes.
Acceptance: Yes, only a noun. The Yes-saying.
Access: Grant if a noun, enter if a verb.
Accessible: A thing that is idiot-friendly.
Acetate: Vinegar
Acetic: A pure monk who practices abstinence, usually in old time Constantinople and whereabouts.
Acid: H+
Acidic: Properties. Contains H+. An acidic personality: a personality that contains H+
Acne: Something I had till I was 29, apart from that one year I thought it was gone.
Acre: Name of a state in Brazil, capital Rio Branco. No idea if it is an acre wide or not. Lots of trees.
Act: Pretend.
Actor: Someone who lies so well we give them awards for it and then pretend to ourselves we have a personal relationship with them.
Actress: A female actor who is not respected by their peers.
AD: Something that happened in a negative year.
Ad: Infinitum
Add: +
Addendum: I was drunk when I wrote this, please do not consider.
--The first letter of the alphabet, which I got this year despite having protested loudly. Of course, Sheila got the X. I would have been content with the Z, though — I wasn’t asking for much.
Of course, I can’t really blame Ian. He knows that some people just can’t handle important letters. Last year, Daryl got the A, and we all had to help him due to his inborn stupidity. So here I am listening to the dystopian news channel, some booze and a burrito — the French bulldog on my lap, working on the A.
— Indefinite article, suggesting any representative of a noun as opposed to a specific one. Variant(s): an, before a vowel.
Examples:
I saw a raccoon stealing food from the trash — indicates it could have been any raccoon. This sentence will most likely be used if the enunciator has had no enduring relationship with any specific raccoon during his or her lifetime, or if the probability of the raccoon in question having caused such a mess is small. In any case, the raccoon here is familiar neither to the enunciator nor to his interlocutor. Having established that, in the following dialogue they will be able to talk about that specific animal in definite articles.
I saw the raccoon stealing food from the trash — indicates one particular, known raccoon, with whom the enunciator is familiar, and who may have stolen food before. He could also be a beloved family raccoon, and such a sentence could be read as reassuring as opposed to frustrated — perhaps the raccoon had not been seen for a while, and the family had been worried about him.
— Indefinite article, indicative of a unit of measure, such as in “a hundred,” or “a pound.”
This has many people confused; they cannot understand that an indefinite word is able to define value for other things. That is also why people are bad at Maths.
Just think back to the episode of Laurel and Hardy in which they haven’t any money. They are in a double date, and Hardy convinces Laurel to split a milkshake or something. Hardy tells Laurel to drink his half, and Laurel ends up drinking the whole thing. Furious, Hardy asks why he hadn’t just drunk his half, and Laurel answers that his half was the bottom half.
Now, if half a something could be either half of something, a hundred could have its own value placed wherever one likes, just as long as it holds the same value. A hundred, therefore, is not always the 100 fixed on the board; it is simply its value.
Most of us, however, do not think of numbers this way, and tend to think of fixed numbers as one thinks of letters — as more than their value, abstract and all-set in their existences. 100 could be any 100, really. The one between 214 and 114 or the one between 50 and -50.
That is why Daryl was wrong last year when he got the A to give this word a different meaning when it came to units of measure. Yes, it means one unit, but not any specific unit, and, therefore, a unit. Why is Daryl so stupid? Honestly, didn’t he study Linguistics? I shouldn’t be stuck with his stupid definitions.
I dream of Z.
Zany, adj.: Slang, dated. Peculiar in a novel, fun way. Zany no longer.
Zig-Zag, n, v.. Going like this: ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Zombie, n. : Reanimated human corpses with an insatiable craving for human brains.
Zone, n.: 1. A part of the geographical whole. 2. “the Zone” A fake abstract plane to which pretentious people will refer when forced to think above their brains’ limited capacities, as not to be interrupted. E.g., “Don’t talk to me, I’m in the zone.”
Zoo, n.: Museum of living animals. Sometimes missing lots of important animals like monkeys and polar bears. Essential animal in every zoo: elephant. Very important; otherwise not a zoo. Don’t ask me why, I don’t make the rules.
Oh, well, from Z to A again…
AB: The best blood type. Some will tell you the best blood type is actually O, because then you can help everyone, but they’re full of shit. Type AB means one is able to accept blood donations from any type, while O may donate to all, but receive blood only from other Os. I am, of course, an O, and that’s why people drain the life out of me.
When we were learning this, in high school, a kid actually found out that, because both her parents were AB and she was O, she could not be their biological child. Of course, she was Asian and her parents were white, so that may have been on her.
Abb (s): Something everyone is obsessed with, for some reason.
Abbey: A place which was home to religious people at some point in history.
Abhor: The act of hating something while making a disgusted face to show how just much.
Abhorrent: Of the something the face was referencing.
Abide: When you agree to do what you’ve been told. For cowards.
Ability: Capacity. Special ability: superpower.
Able: Participle of “can.” You’ll get to “can” soon enough. Then you’ll be ABLE to get it.
Abscond: When you do something bad and leave before people catch on to it. The French exit, only aggravated. I did it once when I went to a funeral and accidentally dropped half a sandwich into the casket. After many unsuccessful attempts to retrieve it, I had to leave before people noticed. All of it was very upsetting. I never told this to anybody.
Absence:
Absinthe: Martha’s no-no drink. I am drinking it right now and it tastes like hand sanitizer. Smells. Like hand sanitizer smells. I’ve never tasted hand sanitizer. Some kids in junior high would drink it to be cool; as I was never one of the cool kids I just shook my head at them.
Absolute: Unlimited superlative, overrules all the other lutes like resolute or salute or abrupt. Absolutism: Henry the VIIth. Louis XIV. You get it.
Absolutely: Really emphatic confirmation, negation, acceptance or denial.
Abstain: To keep from doing something. Think Poncio Pilatos when Jesus.
Abstinence: The educational guideline behind the USA’s failure to prevent teen pregnancy (Yes, I have just nailed social critique).
Abyss: The gap between a cliff and the ground, only you can’t see the ground. More fit for staring at than actually falling into. The phrase “Staring from the edge of a cliff into the abyss” is now overused in songs — so; even if that describes exactly how you feel, do not say it in your song. Not to mention that, if this is exactly how you feel, you’ve been feeling quite unoriginally.
Accelerate: Go faster.
Acceleration: Variable “a” in Physics.
Accent: Something about the way people talk that tells us where they are from. Sometimes funny, at other times very unpleasant. When too much, thick.
Accept: Yes.
Acceptance: Yes, only a noun. The Yes-saying.
Access: Grant if a noun, enter if a verb.
Accessible: A thing that is idiot-friendly.
Acetate: Vinegar
Acetic: A pure monk who practices abstinence, usually in old time Constantinople and whereabouts.
Acid: H+
Acidic: Properties. Contains H+. An acidic personality: a personality that contains H+
Acne: Something I had till I was 29, apart from that one year I thought it was gone.
Acre: Name of a state in Brazil, capital Rio Branco. No idea if it is an acre wide or not. Lots of trees.
Act: Pretend.
Actor: Someone who lies so well we give them awards for it and then pretend to ourselves we have a personal relationship with them.
Actress: A female actor who is not respected by their peers.
AD: Something that happened in a negative year.
Ad: Infinitum
Add: +
Addendum: I was drunk when I wrote this, please do not consider.
*
3. Dietz, Eileen
|
pn. Me. Or, rather, my name, meaning “bright one.” After “Come on, Eileen,” a song from 1982, which has subjected me to a lifetime of people singing the entirety of aforementioned song when introduced to me. It may be that my obsession with meaning was rooted in my extreme hatred of the nonsensical word(s?) Too-la-roo-rye-aye.
Never name your child after a popular song — that means excluding Iris, Valerie, Caroline and Jude from your list. You don’t want your kids to hate a song you love. |
Having revised last night’s work, I decided it needs some polishing. So has my boss, to whom I sent this charming document at 4 am. He loved it and wants me to write a whole thing.
“The whole thing?”
“An entire dictionary. A fun, accessible dictionary! You did miss a lot of words, though.”
“Well, I wasn’t looking at it.”
“And yet-” he put his hand on my shoulder, proudly, “You were.”
He gave me a team — no Daryl or Martha, if that’s what you’re thinking. They might have been offended about the stuff I said about them. Ian kept telling me how excited he was about this project and how “young and fresh” it was, even though as a dictionary man he should know those are synonyms. And he might also want to know that I’m thirty-five, so this is my last year being young. When I turn thirty-six people will start asking me about my husband and children — the progress we’ve made! The deadline used to be thirty. Anyhow, I’m thinking of answering to such inquiries with “Oh, they didn’t survive the purge.”
While I’m still young and clever, nonetheless, I shall take advantage of my natural savviness — even if that means accepting this unwelcome promotion. Sure, a whole book of ridiculous remarks like that seems like a terrible idea, but on the other hand it is not my terrible idea, so…
Poor old Johny Raaaay
My boss had started blasting “Come On, Eileen” on his computer, which made me want to deliver my resignation on the spot.
Ian sang along, and who’d blame him, really?
He stopped when the lyrics started getting inappropriate. People always forget about that verging on dirty part. Some stop singing, others think they can pull it off, some actually manage to, because they actually talk like that in real life.
Anyway, here I am now, sober and smarter, and I can’t think of anything funny to write. That’s what happened to Oliver, by the way. Oliver is my ex-husband — he used to be a stand-up comedian, but then one day he just stopped being funny. I guess that’s a thing that happens. He couldn’t even deliver jokes he’d written before the right way. It was just really sad. It’s one thing when you go see something that’s supposed to make you feel sad — a lot of people need to watch tragic movies, for instance, in order to feel better about the kind of people they are. They go watch the tear-jerker and jerk off some tears and fill in that month’s quota for thinking about others. In stand-up, nevertheless, people expect to be in the very least amused.
These days, he has actually found quite a cult following made up of hipsters who not only liked him ironically, but also appreciated his own irony — and had therefore started liking him un-ironically. His appeal as a comedian is in his remarks about how unfunny he is.
Last time I went to see him; he talked of laugh tracks for an eternity:
“I love being told when to laugh, right? You know when someone is kidding right away. People complain about laugh tracks, but really how much easier would life be with them? I know mine would — that’s why I have two members of my team infiltrated in the audience, paid to laugh at my every joke. Damn it, guys, this was a joke!
“I’m serious, though, laugh tracks are awesome. They’re the same in every TV show, so it’s basically the same audience laughing at that one taping of I love Lucy. Real people laughing, yeah. So, next time you hear a laugh track on your favourite sitcom, remember most of these people are probably dead! But did they get the royalties? Nope! They’re just playing it for laughs! They weren’t informed about the terrible jokes their laughs at times would be endorsing! And now they can’t do anything about it!”
I don’t even remember how Oliver used to be before he lost it.
But that’s the thing, I guess. What I was saying in the beginning, about the elephant without a trunk and the zoo without an elephant. What happens when you lose the thing that makes you who you are? Do you just keep on being? Are you just the person who no longer has that thing?
That’s what Linguistics dictate, anyway. Words are defined not by what they mean, but by what they don’t mean. Things have different names because they need to be set apart from other things — the fact of my existence; like a negative print, an image sculpted on counter-relief.
Maybe the zebra, who is absolutely not a horse, is black with white stripes after all.
If it loses its stripes, nonetheless, does it become a horse; a black wild horse? Or is it black, then wild?
No; it is probably just a self-negating zebra.
Now you’ll tell me, that’s not the point of the white stripes black stripes dispute — the point of it is that it is a moot point.
Well, I boldly disagree. And so would Plato, had he ever come across a zebra. Although, last time I thought about this, I didn’t side with Plato. So maybe I’m mixing things up. One of us must be wrong. It’s probably Plato; he’s a little outdated. He comes from the Negative Years.
“The whole thing?”
“An entire dictionary. A fun, accessible dictionary! You did miss a lot of words, though.”
“Well, I wasn’t looking at it.”
“And yet-” he put his hand on my shoulder, proudly, “You were.”
He gave me a team — no Daryl or Martha, if that’s what you’re thinking. They might have been offended about the stuff I said about them. Ian kept telling me how excited he was about this project and how “young and fresh” it was, even though as a dictionary man he should know those are synonyms. And he might also want to know that I’m thirty-five, so this is my last year being young. When I turn thirty-six people will start asking me about my husband and children — the progress we’ve made! The deadline used to be thirty. Anyhow, I’m thinking of answering to such inquiries with “Oh, they didn’t survive the purge.”
While I’m still young and clever, nonetheless, I shall take advantage of my natural savviness — even if that means accepting this unwelcome promotion. Sure, a whole book of ridiculous remarks like that seems like a terrible idea, but on the other hand it is not my terrible idea, so…
Poor old Johny Raaaay
My boss had started blasting “Come On, Eileen” on his computer, which made me want to deliver my resignation on the spot.
Ian sang along, and who’d blame him, really?
He stopped when the lyrics started getting inappropriate. People always forget about that verging on dirty part. Some stop singing, others think they can pull it off, some actually manage to, because they actually talk like that in real life.
Anyway, here I am now, sober and smarter, and I can’t think of anything funny to write. That’s what happened to Oliver, by the way. Oliver is my ex-husband — he used to be a stand-up comedian, but then one day he just stopped being funny. I guess that’s a thing that happens. He couldn’t even deliver jokes he’d written before the right way. It was just really sad. It’s one thing when you go see something that’s supposed to make you feel sad — a lot of people need to watch tragic movies, for instance, in order to feel better about the kind of people they are. They go watch the tear-jerker and jerk off some tears and fill in that month’s quota for thinking about others. In stand-up, nevertheless, people expect to be in the very least amused.
These days, he has actually found quite a cult following made up of hipsters who not only liked him ironically, but also appreciated his own irony — and had therefore started liking him un-ironically. His appeal as a comedian is in his remarks about how unfunny he is.
Last time I went to see him; he talked of laugh tracks for an eternity:
“I love being told when to laugh, right? You know when someone is kidding right away. People complain about laugh tracks, but really how much easier would life be with them? I know mine would — that’s why I have two members of my team infiltrated in the audience, paid to laugh at my every joke. Damn it, guys, this was a joke!
“I’m serious, though, laugh tracks are awesome. They’re the same in every TV show, so it’s basically the same audience laughing at that one taping of I love Lucy. Real people laughing, yeah. So, next time you hear a laugh track on your favourite sitcom, remember most of these people are probably dead! But did they get the royalties? Nope! They’re just playing it for laughs! They weren’t informed about the terrible jokes their laughs at times would be endorsing! And now they can’t do anything about it!”
I don’t even remember how Oliver used to be before he lost it.
But that’s the thing, I guess. What I was saying in the beginning, about the elephant without a trunk and the zoo without an elephant. What happens when you lose the thing that makes you who you are? Do you just keep on being? Are you just the person who no longer has that thing?
That’s what Linguistics dictate, anyway. Words are defined not by what they mean, but by what they don’t mean. Things have different names because they need to be set apart from other things — the fact of my existence; like a negative print, an image sculpted on counter-relief.
Maybe the zebra, who is absolutely not a horse, is black with white stripes after all.
If it loses its stripes, nonetheless, does it become a horse; a black wild horse? Or is it black, then wild?
No; it is probably just a self-negating zebra.
Now you’ll tell me, that’s not the point of the white stripes black stripes dispute — the point of it is that it is a moot point.
Well, I boldly disagree. And so would Plato, had he ever come across a zebra. Although, last time I thought about this, I didn’t side with Plato. So maybe I’m mixing things up. One of us must be wrong. It’s probably Plato; he’s a little outdated. He comes from the Negative Years.
*
4. Essence, n.:
|
That which is essential (LAUGH). Let’s try it the right way, though:
1. What makes something what it is; the most important part of that something and that without which something can’t possibly exist.
3. A scent. (no one cares). |
However, if the essence of something can just leave it, for no reason, then the world is a lot scarier than premeditated. Why bother with words, if they’ll just change in meaning? If it is absence that defines us, then I can finally get high definition imaging.
That might be why I don’t really feel like myself. Not that I feel like someone else, either. I just think that, when you are taught to see everything from scratch, as if things were all created from within, it might come as a surprise that the outside might grow just as steadily — come and build a fence around that unbound, ever-expanding essence at the centre.
Outside of a Platonic world, meaning doesn’t always fit into things; and vice versa; inside out; from the outside in.
It may be that, if one spends too long in front of a mirror, one will start dissociating — heavily, one’s body and oneself. Some will use this fact as evidence that body and soul are separate entities.
Even if they are right, however; before you can even find your soul in the middle of yourself there’s a huge chunk of other, stuff that is neither your body nor your soul. That’s the stuff between heaven and earth (coma Horatio): the stranger, undefinable realms of blurry borders between words; of madness and childhood and beautiful lies and forgotten secrets and forgotten moments.
It would be irresponsible to cut this tissue off, because you could accidentally take too much — like in plastic surgery when people end up with really short pig noses — and end up with a soul that keeps falling short of itself.
And what’s the difference between the essence and the soul anyway? We’ve been using them as synonyms, but it seems like the soul (the actual soul, as opposed to the metaphorical soul a song or person might “bring”) should itself have an essence. It seems like, if we ever find ourselves holding a soul in our hands; its essence will come out if we wring it. But isn’t it the point, that the essence of the soul is the fucking soul? Does the soul even have a core? Or is it more like anything can have an essence, but only living things have souls? It’s all just very confusing. We could consider them meaning different things all we want, but words are sneaky in any scale — a poem, for example, may have a soul, or be said to have a soul.
At one point this becomes about splitting hairs.
My theory is; essence just sounds more scientific and therefore more palpable — but that’s solely due to its Greek roots. The etymology of soul is Germanic; we don’t really trust it as much. Essence may be easier to assert; but soul is just an obscure notion overall.
Thus being, figuring out the pathology of it is too much for me. Some people will believe in soul transplants and call it reincarnation. But then you’re not really the same person, even if you have the same soul — so, the question is, basically: who the fuck signed my organs off without my permission? It’s my soul. It’s what makes me, me. I don’t want to share it with some future whatever.
How could one, after all, find one’s essence without one’s memories? But if the essence is what it is in spite of place and time, how is it supposed to exist attached to one’s very particular self? And, stripped out of memories, how do we know that not all souls look the same? How can we be sure our souls aren’t all just mass produced identical, opaque brain bowls for sale in an aisle of a national chain supermarket?
If we are more than what we do, but can’t be without doing anything, where does the soul fit inside the body? According to a research I read a long time ago, most people would say it’s in the gut. Actually, that’s where our oesophagus is.
It’s all a big mess anyway. If the soul is in fact spread all over as most believe, and one can’t really set it apart from stupid, pointless organs, like the spleen — there would be soul tissue everywhere.
At times I feel like I’m besides myself; and others I’m not enough to fit into her; I’m lighter than air.
Then again, zebras are set apart by their stripes; no matter what colour they were in the first place. Maybe my soul isn’t producing enough essence. Maybe my soul is just that empty part of me that isn’t anything else — or inside anything else.
*
Ian has kicked me out of my own project — it turns out; no one cares about my philosophical anxieties. He asked me if I’d lost it; whatever it was that took over me when I wrote the A section — it was alcohol (which I, by the way, forgot to include in the list). I considered writing the whole thing while wasted, but I can’t really afford a drinking habit; I’m an English major. Plus, I didn’t think it was funny anyway.
So I had to start over.
You’re probably asking yourself what this whole thing even means — well, get in line. I’ve been looking for the meaning of things all my life to the point that to me the meaning of life is searching for meaning in meaningless things.
May be I should just take a hint from mid-century philosophers and consider that the essential part of things disappears as soon as we touch it, and get another hobby.
One time, I dreamed about poor old Johnny Ray, and he was in black and white. Everything else was looking normal, but poor old Johnny Ray was so old he was still in black and white; yet he was young, go figure. I don’t know if it was a dream. Obviously it wasn’t real, but it could have been during one of those brief imaginative periods of illumination that happen when one is neither awake nor asleep, and all things in the world seem connected. I don’t know what Johnny Ray was doing there; he didn’t sing. Not that he couldn’t — there are no physical implications to the metaphysical paradox of referring to oneself in the third person.
In fact, I don’t think he said anything — but I remember thinking that it all made sense:
“You and I are the same,” I told him telepathically, “How can we mean more? Why are we so much more than what we mean?”
The thing with living things is that we are the exact opposite of the rest. Strange living things, completely besides themselves; beyond whatever they were meant to be and still falling short all the time. That’s me, yeah.
Would people even still know you if it weren’t for my song? I wondered, not telepathically, this time; I didn’t want to be rude to Johnny Ray.
So I had to start over.
You’re probably asking yourself what this whole thing even means — well, get in line. I’ve been looking for the meaning of things all my life to the point that to me the meaning of life is searching for meaning in meaningless things.
May be I should just take a hint from mid-century philosophers and consider that the essential part of things disappears as soon as we touch it, and get another hobby.
One time, I dreamed about poor old Johnny Ray, and he was in black and white. Everything else was looking normal, but poor old Johnny Ray was so old he was still in black and white; yet he was young, go figure. I don’t know if it was a dream. Obviously it wasn’t real, but it could have been during one of those brief imaginative periods of illumination that happen when one is neither awake nor asleep, and all things in the world seem connected. I don’t know what Johnny Ray was doing there; he didn’t sing. Not that he couldn’t — there are no physical implications to the metaphysical paradox of referring to oneself in the third person.
In fact, I don’t think he said anything — but I remember thinking that it all made sense:
“You and I are the same,” I told him telepathically, “How can we mean more? Why are we so much more than what we mean?”
The thing with living things is that we are the exact opposite of the rest. Strange living things, completely besides themselves; beyond whatever they were meant to be and still falling short all the time. That’s me, yeah.
Would people even still know you if it weren’t for my song? I wondered, not telepathically, this time; I didn’t want to be rude to Johnny Ray.
5. Conclusion, n.
|
1. At the end of a discussion or scientific experiment, a summing-up of the arguments which have been presented, followed by acceptance or rejection, in full or in parts, of those arguments.
2. The end. |
About the Author
Beatriz Seelaender was born in 1998 in São Paulo, Brazil. In 2016 she published her first novel, in Brazilian Portuguese, and has since been trying her hand at English. Seelaender has had essays published by websites such as The Collapsar and The Manifest-Station, and her short stories can be found in Psychopomp Lit Mag, The Gateway Review, and others. Her story "A Kidney Caught in Quicksand," published by Grub Street in 2017, earned recognition from the Columbia Scholastic Press Association in the categories of experimental fiction and humor writing. Seelaender is currently studying Literature and Languages at the University of São Paulo.
About the Work
"Floating Woman" shows the reader how volatile definitions can get, hopefully meditating on meaning (or meaninglessness) and whether something really is defined by the sum of its parts. A suspended guide to ideal meaning, as one would find in a dictionary, is after all quite different from what words are when in action. The title of this story is a reference to the Floating Man "thought experiment" by Persian medieval philosopher Avicenna.
Beatriz Seelaender was born in 1998 in São Paulo, Brazil. In 2016 she published her first novel, in Brazilian Portuguese, and has since been trying her hand at English. Seelaender has had essays published by websites such as The Collapsar and The Manifest-Station, and her short stories can be found in Psychopomp Lit Mag, The Gateway Review, and others. Her story "A Kidney Caught in Quicksand," published by Grub Street in 2017, earned recognition from the Columbia Scholastic Press Association in the categories of experimental fiction and humor writing. Seelaender is currently studying Literature and Languages at the University of São Paulo.
About the Work
"Floating Woman" shows the reader how volatile definitions can get, hopefully meditating on meaning (or meaninglessness) and whether something really is defined by the sum of its parts. A suspended guide to ideal meaning, as one would find in a dictionary, is after all quite different from what words are when in action. The title of this story is a reference to the Floating Man "thought experiment" by Persian medieval philosopher Avicenna.
