Friday, August 30, 2013

South of Here

The last period of the day is always a bit...strange. I'm not sure what it is.

"Where are you from? You sound 'country'."

I have no idea what sounding "country" means. I think I conveyed that more by the expression on my face than by my response. So, they tried to explain.

"Did you grow up in the South?"

That made me laugh. I grew up about 15 miles from the city where the school is located. Most of those miles are east, but since the city is southeast of where we were, I had a good comeback.

"I did grow up south of here."

6 comments:

  1. Well then, South it is. LOL. I grew up in an area that was pretty accent neutral, and I've always been grateful for that.

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  2. I'm sure people who live in big cities like Atlanta would have something to say about being called "country".

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  3. I suspect people would guess that I'm a New Englander. But California accents are hard to pin imo.

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  4. I'm going to comment on this and on your other post below.

    1. Awesome comeback.

    2. Weird interpretations of books/movies/songs? I once did (only-half-jokingly) a post where I explained how you could interpret the song "Hound Dog" as an allegorical retelling of JP Morgan's turn-of-the-century attempt to corner the zinc market. I did that as part of my ongoing attempt to prove that (as I like to say) "Everything is symbolic of everything."

    Which is not to say that I haven't used symbolism and weird interpretations myself. I wrote a short horror story in which the color or scent of oranges indicates that a ghost is near-- because the ghost is a sort of horticultural witch ("Astrid Forever," in my collection), and one commenter said the orange stuff was "kind of random."

    In my book "Eclipse," every third chapter is a flashback and the words that are capitalized in those flashbacks are based upon Claudius' perception of things at the time. A reader said that the book was poorly edited in those chapters.

    But my favorite interpretation of anything I ever wrote was Michael Offutt's take on my book 'the After,' where he decided that the main antagonist, William Howard Taft, was actually created by the subconscious of the heroine, Saoirse.

    ("Saoirse," by the way, is an Irish word meaning 'freedom,' which may be important in a book about a character who finds herself disliking the absolute freedom of the afterlife.)

    This comment now sounds like it's a promotional comment for all my stuff, which was not the intention, so let me close on the interpretation I gave to one of my favorite books, "Catch 22." After reading it for the third time in my life, I decided that Yossarian actually dies in Italy, when Nately's whore stabs him, because everything that happens after that is REALLY weird, and nobody seems to notice him or care about him anymore, and he is offered a deal to go home but he chooses to flee, instead -- abandoning his life and going on to the afterlife.

    It all makes sense, if you've read the book. If you haven't read it lately, go back and notice the complete change of tone of the book after the stabbing.

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    Replies
    1. Since I was asking about weird interpretations, using your own writing is fair.

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  5. OOPS. It was the fourth time I read it, and he died over Avignon, when Snowden died, too.

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I respond to comments* via email, unless your profile email is not enabled. Then, I'll reply in the comment thread. Eventually. Probably.

*Exception: I do not respond to "what if?" comments, but I do read them all. Those questions are open to your interpretation, and I don't wish to limit your imagination by what I thought the question was supposed to be.