by Jacki Lewin

Some would argue that swearing is a victimless crime, yet others find it offensive enough to justify censorship in television, music and film. When a celebrity manages to swear on a live television broadcast, it makes national headlines; when the Vice President is caught doing so, it becomes legend. Men excuse themselves when they do so in front of women. One would assume based on observation that swearing is a serious social transgression.

Yet, the content of our speech marks our personalities more than anything else. Leaving aside the aggressive use of swear words — the barbs directed at and intended to insult another person — we are left with what is often called “colorful language.” And in this case I ask, what is the big deal? What is the difference between one word and another? Does swearing only matter if someone is around to hear it? Is avoiding profanity mere politeness to others or is it a matter of self-respect and moral standards, akin to having proper hygiene?

I decided to find out what a week without swearing would do to my language, conversation and sanity. A bit of background: I like swearing and I do it often; it doesn’t bother me when other people do so and I’m not of the opinion that it lowers my character, despite being raised in a society that tells me the opposite. Also, I can successfully self-censor when I’m around small children, your grandmother or a prospective employer. Yet with my friends, in my normal relaxed state, it is altogether different. And let me tell you, much harder. Read the rest of this entry »

by the Principal Traveler

When I found out I would be teaching English in a small Polish border town, I imagined something romantic like Krakow, with a medieval wall and Gothic architecture. But Kostrzyn nad Odra had been decimated in an allied bombing during WWII, and except for the train station and the high school, the rest of the buildings on the main drag were an uninspiring mix of Stalinist concrete apartment blocks. They looked like sets of cubbyhole mailboxes three high that had been plastered shut. The town was proud of the facelift these boxes were receiving, which included bright oranges and purples paintjobs accented with brown and yellow racing stripes.

On my first tour of town, Maciej (MAH-chay), my colleague at school, walked me down the main street pointing out the local sights. “Here is the flower shop, that’s the video store, that’s one of the bordellos, and there’s the bakery,” he stated flatly. Bordello? “Yes, we have eight of them, but they’re mostly for the Germans — very expensive.” We continued onwards toward the edge of town down by the Oder River, one of only three border crossings from Poland into Germany.

Once there, we reached the Bazaar, an open-air emporium of cheap cigarettes, booze, and food that was open 365 days a year. Maciej seemed unimpressed with the overall scene except for the fact that some locals had grown rich quickly by hawking these wares to the Germans at prices a third of what they were in nearby Berlin. “Our town has done quite well in a short amount of time. We learned very quickly after the Communism fell,” he said proudly. I wasn’t sure what to make of all this, but concluded that it was just this Polish town’s way of getting its fair slice of the capitalist pie. Read the rest of this entry »

by Parisa Aryán

It is a cold, hard fact that we adults nowadays have not been brought up to wish and hope freely. As children, all we ever did was wish — wish for a puppy, wish for our parents to stop fighting, wish for a bike just like our neighbor’s, wish upon a star. Children probably spend about 90% of their time hoping for their wishes to come true.

As we grow up, we learn that wishing is dangerous, because a) if they don’t come true it can be painfully disappointing, and b) if they do come true you may find the result to be not what you had expected. So, we finally give in to the monster of fear that feeds on the constant warnings from others and on our own rapidly growing experience in the area. Next thing you know, we are trying to “be realistic” and we accept that a lot of our wishes will simply never come true.

Who knows how fear became such a big part of the average adult’s life? At what point in our lives did we start being so afraid of disappointment that we stopped wishing upon stars? And is it possible to go back? Is it possible to forget the heartache, the pain and the losses and leap blindly into the world of wishing upon stars again? Read the rest of this entry »

by Alejo Manrique

Here’s my new favorite urban legend:

Worried about the current and future state of their business, the honchos of a music corporation round up the dozen smartest teenagers L.A. could provide for a focus group. The reunion happens on one of the rare days when the C.E.O. is actually C.E.O.-ing in his office, so afterwards he comes down for a meet ‘n’ greet with the bright young things. Eager to impress them, he takes the bunch on a tour that ends in the storage facilities of the endless catalog, encouraging them to take home as many CDs as they like. Impolite as only teenagers can be, they all go: “Yeah right” and walk out, turning their backs on unlimited free access to the world’s greatest warehouse of recorded material. What was a teenage wet dream just a decade ago is now as interesting a visit as the accountants’ cubicles on the eighth floor.

Corollaries:
1. This seems like it was bitterly made up by someone sued as music downloader.
2. And is possibly only believed by said corporate music honchos.

But more intriguing: Why does it bother me?

To find that out, you’re going to have to bear with me through yet another “growing up Catholic took away the best of me” grieve fest, only this time I’ll throw in girls, deer and even prison movies. Read the rest of this entry »

by Schuyler Hedstrom

People in conversation are afraid of silence. It’s as if we are unable nowadays to pause and think about what we want to say or ponder the ramifications of what another person has just said. Instead, we instantly jump in with our opinions, thinking as we speak. And instead of filling pauses with silence, we use what modern linguists call hesitation forms. In English these are “um,” “uh,” “well,” and “er.” In Spanish, speakers tend to use “ehhh.” We also have words and expressions which serve the same purpose: giving us time to get our thoughts together. In English we use “well,” “I mean,” and “you know.” In Spanish they are: “pues,” “sabes,” and “a ver.”

One of the most troublesome and potentially obnoxious words to recently gain popularity in the English language is “like.” And I don’t refer to its usages as a verb to show that something is pleasing to you or in similes (e.g. she is like a flower). No, the problem arises when like is used as a filler phrase, a hesitation noise. In Spanish, a similar ubiquitous and frustrating expression is “o sea”.

The problem with like or o sea is that in many cases they become a verbal crutch. Rather than express an idea clearly and confidently, people use these words to stall for time, as hesitation forms. However, like can also be used to distance yourself from what you’re saying. For example: “He is, like, stupid.” Well, is he stupid or is he just like stupid? Like softens the impact of the statement (calling someone stupid) while showing the speaker’s lack of conviction. The speaker sounds non-committal and even a bit wimpy. Read the rest of this entry »

by Chris Gladis

When I told my students I was writing an article about Nanzenji, their reply was: “Why? It’s much better in the autumn!” This illustrates one of the fundamental problems with being a temple-and-shrine fan in Kyoto: you have to go to each one at least four times.

It’s true, Nanzenji is much more beautiful in autumn than in late spring, but Nanzenji in late spring is no slacker, either. And when I thought about which temple I wanted to start my Temple Spotlight with, this was the first to come to mind. It was one of the first temples I went to when I came here, and I was struck by its tranquility and peacefulness — at least, until the tourists came through. And they do.

Nanzenji originated as an Imperial villa back in 1264, and its location hints at its provenance. Nestled into mountains and woods, it provided seclusion back in the 13th century. When Emperor Kameyama decided to convert to Buddhism, he donated the villa to his sect as a Zen temple. Nanzenji quickly grew to become one of Kyoto’s Five Great Zen Temples, and was the home of some of the most prestigious Zen priests of the day. Like so many temples, however, the original buildings of Nanzenji were destroyed by fire and rebuilt at least three times by the 15th century. The buildings that stand there now were built in the late 16th century. Practically new, they are. Read the rest of this entry »

by the Principal Traveler

I did not ride in an airplane until the age of twelve or thirteen, so during my earliest years my only mode of traveling was by car. Although our destinations were generally close to home and our missions rather pedestrian, my mother always managed to spice up a car trip. Some neighborhood moms were renowned for their cooking; mine was famous for her driving.

A friend of mine once described my mother as a “cheerleader from the 1950s stuck in an older woman’s body,” and that assessment is right on the money. Easily excitable and boisterous, my mother was always trying to rouse her audiences to great emotional heights. For my brother and I, this happened when she employed the aid of her best prop: a 1968 Camaro. The car was metallic blue and had shiny vinyl seats that heated up way too quickly in the summer. My mother was proud of her car and relished how its subtle curves and pinched back end exuded that sense of sporty youthfulness she herself felt whenever she changed gears. We went somewhere in it every single day.

I cannot remember a time when we didn’t park at the top of the downtown public parking ramp. No matter how many spaces were available on any other level, we always went straight to the open-air top level, rain, shine, or snow. My brother and I tagged along sluggishly on these department store shopping trips, waiting only to hear that it was finally time to “get going” and see my mother’s eyes sparkle in anticipation of our Starsky and Hutch adventure ahead. Read the rest of this entry »

by the Principal Traveler

One of the most difficult parts about adjusting to life in Poland was acclimating myself to the culture of drinking there. I am no lightweight when it comes to booze, but neither am I able to drink in the way that frat boys or conventioneers do. I don’t lose myself entirely in the experience and have never blacked out. But drinking double-digit shots and passing out in a stranger’s lap were de rigeur in my new Slavic home and so I had to quickly come up with some kind of excuse or coping strategy. I simply blamed it on my underdeveloped, little American liver (moja watrobka amerykanska).

The idea for a biological cause of my “condition” came to me, oddly enough, while drunk at my first big Polish event, the Teacher’s Day celebration in early October. Teacher’s Day is a national holiday in Poland and on Teacher’s Day eve educators across the country attend banquets with their school staffs and spend the evening eating, dancing and consuming vast quantities of wodka. I was not sure what to expect and had to ask Maciej (MAH-chay), the Polish guy who also taught English at school, about drinking etiquette. “Well you have not had much training,” he lamented. “You will not be a champion this night,” he said shaking his head. Drinking for Maciej was a serious sport and he had been disappointed in my failure to keep up with him on our Friday night outings to the local disco. In general, I had failed to live up to his expectations of what “The American in town” should be. It didn’t help that my two predecessors had shared Maciej’s love of basketball and 60s rock, while I preferred reading alone and George Michael. They had been Irish-Americans. Poles love the Irish and recognize them as kindred spirits for also having suffered for centuries at the hands of ruthless neighbors and for being able to channel that frustration into liquor, bawdy music, and drunken brawls. His hopes for me had been high and I had dashed them all.

“There is only one way for you to survive this night,” he counseled with raised index finger. “You must drink only one shot every hour until midnight. Eat everything you can and sweat it out by dancing a lot. If you make it to midnight, you can drink as much as you want after that.” Read the rest of this entry »

by Dr. Good Bud

Well, it’s been a few weeks and you should all be enjoying the sight of weedlings of about 5-8 cm tall by now, if you’ve been following the Doctor’s advice. Unfortunately, the doctor is not an all-mighty goddess like you may have thought. And believe it or not there are some things that are just plain out of her control.

Let me give you an example. Imagine you’re a happy little pot planter, experienced in the green arts, and rip-rearing to go, but you’ve got an assistant who is obviously not up to par (but he’s cute so you let him help out). Imagine you live with this assistant and he’s got a secret. The secret is that while you were carefully storing your seeds in plastic containers in the freezer between seasons there was a fridge meltdown that you were unaware of. Wouldn’t it be the assistant’s job to inform you of such a devastating crisis?

Well, my assistant, who’s currently sleeping on the couch for his blunder, made just that mistake. So here I was planting away, waking up anxiously everyday to check their progress and what did I find? Diddly-squat. This same assistant, who has since been relieved of all his duties on the terrace, failed to notify her majesty until it was almost too late. Is there a lesson in all this? Yes: Man-servants should be kept in their own domain — basically the area from the bedroom to the kitchen — and leave the planting to the experts. Read the rest of this entry »

by Parisa Aryán

In the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, there is a breathtaking sculpture representing Cupid and Psyche. The myth of these two eternal lovers has been represented and referred to by many artists and writers throughout time; the tale of their passionate, never-ending love used as an allegory of love and the human soul.

Psyche was a princess so incredibly beautiful that men traveled to her father’s kingdom from everywhere in the world, just to admire her and sing her praises. However, none of them dared to request her hand in marriage — yes, the old “she’s too beautiful, she will surely reject me” was true in those times as well. As a result, Psyche’s two sisters got married and settled down while she remained alone, waiting for a man to be brave enough to love her. The goddess Venus, on the other hand, became so jealous of this mere mortal’s beauty that she decided to take revenge, sending her son Cupid to use his arrows to make her fall in love with the most horrendous being in the world. However, Cupid was so mesmerized by Psyche’s beauty that he ended up hurting himself with one of his arrows and falling in love with her instead. When Psyche’s parents consulted the Oracle and were advised to marry Psyche off to a “hideous monster” living up on a mountain, they didn’t know that this monster was really Cupid in disguise. He married Psyche and only spent time with her at night, in the dark, always forbidding her to see him: “If you saw me, perhaps you would fear me, perhaps adore me, but all I ask of you is to love me. I would rather you would love me as an equal than adore me as a god.” Read the rest of this entry »