Oink, Buubuu, Groin
Plahf
by Charlie Geer
In high-school language classes we learn that barnyard animals, like people, speak different languages throughout the world. Take the common pig, for example. While an American pig will oink oink, a Japanese pig will buubuu. French swine converse with a brusque groin groin, whereas Chinese swine favor a more melodious hu-lu hu-lu. For fun with the whole menagerie, check out these international animal sounds.
Curiously enough — and mercifully for undergraduate American piglets looking to satisfy core language requirements — here in Spain pigs speak with a familiar oink oink. Whether the oink originated in Spain, the United Kingdom, or the United States is a matter of dispute: no sooner does one group take credit for coining the oink than the other two denounce oinking as yet another alarming example of globalization gone wild. In any case, British and American pigs vacationing in Spain find it easy enough to communicate with their Spanish hosts, even if the same cannot always be said for their human counterparts.
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Tagged as:
Animal Noises,
Charlie Geer,
Spain
We knew we had to investigate when we heard about a “live wire” poet named Kary Wayson making the rounds in Seattle. What’s so “live wire” about her, you ask? Well, for starters, she’s won a Pushcart Prize and last year published a full collection of poetry. But that’s sooo last year. This year, her name is generating a whole new buzz. On a Thursday night in January, we put on our Frye boots and headed to Open Books, where Kary was scheduled to read. The tiny bookshop swelled with eager Seattlites. Soon, Olena Kalytiak Davis, another poet of the moment and also slated to read that night, entered the store wearing a pair of room-commanding thigh-high boots. Then Kary, decked out in her own brown-booted poetic swagger, crossed the threshold. The event was a poetic and stylistic burst — a paroxysm by two women who — as Davis put it– “are really, truly trying to make it as writers” and succeeding with an electric, “live wire” panache. – Lori Huskey
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Tagged as:
Kary Wayson,
Seattle Poets
Hamlet On Xbox: To Play Or Not To Play
To play or not to play. To smoke or not to smoke. To love or not to love — three quandaries taken up by the writers of the articles in today’s literature news. And while we appreciate the quandary of whether or not to give over your heart to another human being, we do not appreciate the quandary of whether or not to have a smoke while visiting a friend on his death bed. In case you didn’t hear, Martin Amis and Christopher Hitchens are currently engaged in a public dispute with the widow of a well-known British editor who claims that Amis puffed a fag and overstayed his welcome while standing in the bedroom of her soon-to-die-husband, Mark Boxer. If that’s not distasteful enough, video games are looking to classic novels for inspiration (someone find me some Tylenol!!!). Elsewhere, Martin Page explains the romance of getting dumped in Bookslut, Salman Rushdie makes a splash in Hotlanta, and Robert Pinksy lends his discerning eye to a new contest. Last but not least, The Stranger trains its commie-leaning ways on a new book about “Russia” and “Dreams” and “Overcoming Struggle”. Hail hail literary agitprop! — Kevin Murphy
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Tagged as:
Literature in the Media,
Thursday's Flurry of Words
