Not much action early in the month, but things picked up in the last 10 days or so. Arizona and Arkansas showed up the same day. A-A-A-A . . . Could Alabama and Alaska be far behind?
Well, yeah, they could, because I haven’t spotted them yet. On a Friday cruise to SBS, Our Market, and Reliable, though, I spotted Wisconsin and Oklahoma, both in Oak Bluffs. Not bad. The year-to-date count stands at 40.
When I first went to work at the Martha’s Vineyard Times, around 1988, I quickly learned to capitalize the I in “island” when it referred to Martha’s Vineyard. Martha’s Vineyard was “the Island.” Nantucket, Naushon, or Manhattan were just “the island.”
Is it “the island” or “the Island”?
This was also true at the Vineyard Gazette. In those days, the Gazette regularly referred to the Times as “the other paper,” and the Times regularly referred to the Gazette as “an Edgartown weekly.” Capping the I in “island” was about the only thing they agreed on.
Capping the I in “island” when it refers to Martha’s Vineyard has caught on. Lots of people outside the newspaper biz do it. Some people, other writers especially, notice that I don’t do it. Why not? Because Martha’s Vineyard is no more “the Island” than Travvy is “the Dog.” Because an initial cap doesn’t make a thing more important. And because if readers can’t figure out from context what island I’m talking about, my writing is getting sloppy.
When I worked for the Martha’s Vineyard Times, however, I capped the I in “the Island has six towns” because that was part of the “house style,” one of the conventions we used to make stories written by a variety of writers look like they belonged in the same paper. Capping the I isn’t a matter of right or wrong. It’s a matter of style — convention, in other words.
Some tools of the trade for a U.S. copyeditor
English, like any language, is riddled with conventions. In English the days of the week and the months of the year are conventionally capped. In the Romance languages they aren’t. Arabic manages to make do with no capital letters at all.
Much of what distinguishes American English from British English from Australian English from Indian English is convention. Style. American English writes realize, traveler, and color. British English writes realise, traveller, and colour. What you and I write depends on where we learned the language, but we probably understand either version without difficulty.
As a copyeditor I pay close attention to these conventions. When editing for a U.S. publisher, I use U.S. spellings. I do not, however, cap the I in island when it refers to Martha’s Vineyard. Conventions vary considerably depending on time, place, and the intended audience. Matters of right and wrong vary a lot less. No matter which side of which ocean they’re on, conscientious English-speakers write “I am going to the store,” not “I are going to the store.”
When conventions become entrenched enough, they’re often taken for matters of right and wrong. (In some quarters, they’re even taken for matters of life and death, or at least pass and flunk.) Most of us had rules drummed into our heads — often, it seems, by a junior high or middle school English teacher — that we’ve taken as gospel ever since: Never end a sentence with a preposition. Never split an infinitive. Etc., etc., etc.
By the time we finish school, the language seems so laden with dos and don’ts, always and nevers, that it’s no wonder so many of us loathe the very idea of writing. Here’s the good news: Most of those dos and don’ts, always and nevers, are conventions, and many of them aren’t even that. They’re zombie rules. As explained by linguist and writer Geoffrey Pullum:
Though dead, they shamble mindlessly on. The worst thing about zombie rules, I believe, is not the pomposity of those advocating them, or the time-wasting character of the associated gotcha games, but the way they actually make people’s writing worse. They promote insecurity, and nervous people worrying about their language write worse than relaxed people enjoying their language.
Hear, hear, hear!
Unfortunately some of the most diligent enforcers of zombie rules and arbitrary conventions are copyeditors and publishers. Geoffrey Pullum blogged about this earlier this month: “You’re Wrong and I’m Changing the Subject.” A copyeditor went through Pullum’s manuscript and changed every instance of though to although. When he asked why, she couldn’t explain — but did say he could stet (restore) the originals if he wanted.
I wasn’t surprised, either by the mindless changing of though to although or by the copyeditor’s inability or unwillingness to explain why she did it. The publisher’s house style probably insists on although. The copyeditor’s probably afraid that if she doesn’t follow the house style, she won’t get work from that publisher. But when someone who writes as well and knows as much about language as Geoffrey Pullum asks why, those “reasons” look pretty puny.
When I posted a link to Pullum’s article in an online editors’ forum, I noted that one of my publisher clients insisted on toward, not towards, but I’d just caught myself changing towards to toward in a job for a different publisher. The commenters zeroed in on towards vs. toward, ignoring Pullum’s article and thereby proving his point. The USians insisted that toward was American and towards was British. One even said that U.S. writers were “notorious” for ignoring the distinction.
Eh wot? My theory is that the distinction is as artificial as the capping of the I in island when you mean Martha’s Vineyard. Wonder of wonders, a savvy copyeditor, one Jonathon Owen, tested this for his master’s thesis, came to a similar conclusion, and summarized:
In a nutshell, towards is seemingly rare in American English because copy editors make it rare. Lexicographers note its rarity in print and list toward as the primary form. Usage writers conclude that towards is British and should be avoided in American writing. Their prescriptions, which appear to be based on actual usage, then give editors added support for deleting the -s, and the signal is strengthened in a feedback loop. We’re just using past editorial practice as justification for current editorial practice.
I’d push this a little further: We’re enforcing this and other spurious distinctions and “zombie rules” in order to (1) justify our own existence, and (2) look down our noses at anyone who doesn’t know the rules.
And no, this is not just about editing. You already figured that out? You’re way ahead of me.
Gay Head Light
You knew it, I knew it: if I’d made it to five of the six island towns in the same week, I had to go for #6 before the week was out. So this afternoon Travvy and I took a leisurely drive up-island, all the way up-island. People in Vineyard Haven and Oak Bluffs think West Tisbury is up-island. I’m here to tell you, it’s a long way from here to up-up-up-island, which is to say —
Aquinnah!
Gay Head, the smallest and furthermost of the island’s towns, changed its name to Aquinnah in 1998, but we still talk about the Gay Head Light, the Gay Head Cliffs, and the Gay Head Baptist Church. (Wikipedia, I just noticed, says Aquinnah Light and Aquinnah Cliffs. Shows how much they know.)
Travvy charmed the lighthouse keeper and several visitors by wooing, shaking paws, and generally being cute. They were impressed when I told them that he was Mr. January in the Vineyard Seadogs calendar. (Photographer Lisa Vanderhoop, who produces the calendar, lives in Aquinnah.)
There were plenty of (free) parking places, so summer hasn’t arrived in earnest yet, at least not at the Cliffs. And parked not far from Malvina Forester was a car with Arkansas plates. All in all, a very successful trip.
Gay Head Cliffs
It just dawned on me that here it is only Wednesday and I’ve already been in five of the six island towns.
This is unusual. West Tisbury is a no-brainer: I live in it. I do most of my grocery shopping and all of my beer buying in Oak Bluffs, and the Spirituals Choir, in which I sing, rehearses there every Wednesday. Life takes me to Vineyard Haven several times a week: buying dog food at SBS, shipping a parcel from the UPS Store, having breakfast at the Black Dog Café. . .
Besides, I’m still half convinced that I live in Vineyard Haven, or maybe that I should live there, since I’ve lived in Vineyard Haven almost half my years on Martha’s Vineyard.
The other three island towns are barely on my psychic map.
However.
Sunday morning I headed up-island because the Spirituals Choir was singing at the Chilmark Community Church, then yesterday afternoon I headed thither again because Roberta Kirn’s community sings this summer are being held at The Yard, a venue that specializes in dance — in which, I confess, I have not much interest unless I am dancing.
Today I went to Edgartown for a brown-bag lunch at the County of Dukes County Court House (yes, I really live in the County of Dukes County — hold your wisecracks about the Department of Redundancy Department because I’ve not only heard them all, I’ve inflicted them on others) with clerk-magistrate Liza Williamson, after which I observed a mediation at Small Claims Court.
I’m thinking that before Sunday I have to make the trek to the sixth island town, Aquinnah (formerly known as Gay Head and still called that on occasion), just to say that I’ve been to all six island towns in one week. Because I’m not sure that’s ever happened before.
The County of Dukes County Court House
Plotting fiction is like making rock candy. Left to itself, boiled sugar water just sits there. Nothing happens. Well, yes, things happen, but they take so long that it’s a rare soul who’ll just sit there and watch.
I mostly avoid how-to-write books, but this one still comes in handy.
Not the stuff of plot.
Day-to-day life on Martha’s Vineyard is like boiled sugar water. Things happen, but most of them unfold s-l-o-w-l-y. Even when the results are noteworthy, the steps taken to get there are mundane, quotidian, dull. Follow the newspapers for a few months if you don’t believe me.
No surprise, then, that most novels written about Martha’s Vineyard are murder mysteries. Killing someone off is like dropping a string in the sugar water. Formless liquid crystallizes around the string. Murder shakes people out of their day-to-day routines. They say and do things they wouldn’t do otherwise.
Homicides are rare here. Fiction writers are all in the alternate-reality business, especially if we write about real places, but though I’m happy to read about alternate Martha’s Vineyards where murder happens several times a year, I don’t want to create one. As a plot device, murder makes me just a little bit queasy. My fictional alternate reality is a sort of psychic map of Martha’s Vineyard. I want it to mesh with the Vineyard I (think I) live on.
Dramatic events do happen, of course. Once in a while a quiet undercurrent will explode into a headline. This spring, a loose dog jumped a fence and chased down and killed a miniature horse. An on-leave police officer obstructed the firefighters who showed up to extinguish a fire at her home. Such incidents are like strings in the sugar water, good grist for plot, but they have their own challenges. Have you ever really listened to how we recount such incidents for someone who wasn’t there?
“So Jane parked in front of her sister’s house — you know her sister, right? You met her at Cynthia’s Groundhog Day party — no, that’s her older sister; this was the younger one, Margaret — no, you don’t want to call her Peggy, that’s their mother’s name and the two of them barely speak — Is that what happened? I hadn’t heard that — this sister lives in Edgartown, back behind the gas station — yeah, there’s been some trouble there, I’m getting to that — Jane just sat in the car because there was a young guy standing there with a wool cap on even though it’s August — isn’t this heat outrageous? Yeah, I know it’s how they dress, but Jane never saw him before and he had a skateboard under one arm — really, I almost hit one last year when he came shooting into Five Corners from the post office . . .”
Every little thing that happens has at least half a dozen stories feeding into it. Trying to prune and shape these into a plot that readers can follow is, to put it mildly, a challenge.
When I started Mud of the Place, I couldn’t plot my way out of a paper bag. I learned by trial and error, and with the help of a couple of books: Plot, pictured above, and Beginnings, Middles & Ends, by sf writer Nancy Kress.
I didn’t kill anyone off in Mud, but the string I dropped into the sugar water involved a shooting that could have got someone killed. All sorts of interesting stuff crystallized around that shooting.
In Squatters’ Speakeasy the string is two archers who shoot an arrow into a real estate sign. Arrows are potentially lethal weapons, but my archers don’t have homicide in mind. No one has died.
Yet.
Strivin’ ivy
The undersung green in the landscape. Everyone rhapsodizes about the coming of spring, but no one rhapsodizes about poison ivy.
There’s a lot of it out there. It climbs up trees, it lurks under scrub oak and huckleberry, it even grows into bushes.
I’ve got considerable affection for this particular tree because it gets me humming the last lines from one of the greatest break-up songs ever written.
The last lines go like this:
You go out to the kitchen
To get somethin’ to eat
I watch you pick your bay leaves from a poison ivy tree
I got a feelin’ you’re gonna starve to death when I’m gone
Here’s a brand new dime
Now you call me if I’m wrong.
“I Got a Feelin'” was written and sung by the great Willie Tyson. If you weren’t around the women’s music scene in the 1970s and early ’80s, you’ve probably never heard of Willie Tyson. After putting out three LPs — Full Count (1974), Debutante (1977), and Willie Tyson (1979) — she left the music biz. This was before CDs, never mind iTunes and YouTube, so there are few traces of her on the World Wide Web. If you’ve had your ears open over the years, though, you might have heard one of her two best-known songs: “Witching Hour” and “Debutante.”
Partial cover of “Debutante,” featuring Red Satin (left) and Willie Tyson. Photo and album design by JEB, long before Photoshop btw.
“Debutante” features a southern belle and an over-the-hill cow who inadvertently get switched: the cow goes to the cotillion and the belle goes to the cattle auction. It’s a hoot. It spawned several “debutante balls” in women’s communities of the late 1970s. We knew how to have fun, and some of us really knew how to dress.
So this particular poison ivy tree is a window into the past, and a reminder of how much wonderful stuff has happened in the world that hardly anyone ever heard of — but those of us who did are probably still carrying the memories with us.
I’m determined to work some Willie Tyson lyrics into The Squatters’ Speakeasy. I’ve got at least one character who’s familiar with her work, so it is going to happen. When I took that photo of the poison ivy tree, I was humming “I Got a Feelin'” but I sure didn’t think I was going to be blogging about it.
Now I’m thinking how cool it would be if a technologically adept soul got some of Willie’s songs out on YouTube. This stuff is too good to be hiding in some of our closets and some of our heads.
. . . because it is, for another couple of hours.
Some years I take my birthday off. This year I didn’t. I’m drowning in work. I can’t afford to take a day off — but I didn’t really want to take a day off. My late winter and spring brought several big expenses, most recently Malvina Forester’s brake work, and not enough work. So having enough work is a pretty good birthday present.
Chives
I’ve been broke enough that buying seedlings for my dinghy garden seemed like a crazy extravagance. My chives wintered over well — maybe that would be enough garden for this year?
But being swamped with work means that in another month or so there’ll be money coming in, enough that having spent 40 bucks or so for seedlings, seeds, and potting soil won’t seem extravagant at all. It might even seem chintzy.
Plus I’ve learned over the years that it’s easier to be frugal if I don’t get into cut-your-throat self-denial. Cut-your-throat self-denial is like giving up ice cream because you think it’s bad for you and then obsessing about ice cream 24/7 until you break down and eat a quart of it all at once.
So this afternoon, it being my birthday ‘n’ all, I took myself down to Vineyard Gardens and bought a bunch of seedlings, two cubic feet of potting soil, and a packet of basil seeds.
First step was the planter on my deck railing. Into it went two coleus — I love the way its colorful leaves catch the light at different times of day — and some Greek oregano. I hope I didn’t kill the Greek oregano teasing its tangled roots into two clumps.
The rest of the Greek oregano, plus parsley, basil, two cherry tomato plants, and some marigolds, went into the dinghy.
There’s plenty of room left, at least until the basil seeds I’m going to plant tomorrow are big enough to transplant. What should I put there? More tomatoes, more basil, more flowers? Watch this space.
Thinking about “getting around,” as in “I use my car mostly to get around” and “If I didn’t have a car, how would I get around?” . . .
Malvina Forester, with Fellow Traveller living up to his name in the driver’s seat
By the middle of last week, the noise coming from the right side of Malvina Forester’s back end was too ominous to ignore. On Thursday I called my mechanic, and on Friday I took Malvina in. Sure enough, we had metal scraping metal on the right side and the left wasn’t much better: the rear brakes had to be relined and new rotors put in.
The parts, as usual, had to be ordered from off-island. The Patriot, one of our lifelines, carries freight, newspapers, passengers, and other stuff on a regular schedule between Falmouth and Oak Bluffs. Larry, my mechanic, got on the phone. Yes, the parts were in stock. No, the guy who usually delivers stuff to the Patriot was on vacation. Yes, a co-worker could do it, probably this afternoon but no later than Monday morning.
I’d bring Malvina back Monday morning. Larry said I shouldn’t be driving. I knew that but figured I’d be OK getting home and back to the shop on Monday morning, and to my writers’ group meeting Sunday night, which is about two miles from home.
Saturday night, however, the M.V. Spirituals Choir, in which I sing, was performing at a benefit concert at Katharine Cornell Theatre. Did I want to drive Malvina, rear brake shrieking and scraping, into Vineyard Haven and back after dark? I did not. I put the word out to fellow choristers and soon had two offers of a ride to/from.
Choirs and audience during the finale of Saturday night’s concert. Think about how all those people got there and back!
The woman I got a ride with was someone I barely knew. I got to know her a little better on the ride into town and back. The concert was great. You can read about it in the U.S. Slave Song Project blog, for which I am admin and chief blogger.
Monday morning I left Malvina with Larry and walked down to the Black Dog Café. There I ordered breakfast, set up Hekate O’Dell on a back table, and got to work on my current copyedit, a multi-author volume about Brazil’s relationship with the Middle East.
Email included the offer of another job from a different publisher. Contemplating the impending brake repair bill, not to mention the not-paid-off balances from the winter’s big expenses — easy chair, car battery, and four new tires — I took the job. June was going to be a busy month.
Larry doesn’t use email and I don’t have a cell phone, so I walked back up to the shop at the appointed hour to see how things were going. “Terrible,” said Larry. Well, they weren’t really terrible, but it turned out another part was needed — and had to be ordered from Falmouth. Larry delegated Jesse, one of his workers, to give me a ride home. Jesse, a very pleasant young man, gave me a ride to my front door, even though it’s half a mile down a dirt road. We talked about brakes, cars, and the challenges of living on Martha’s Vineyard.
Around 2 the next afternoon, Larry called to say that the car was ready. Should I bike into town? Should I hitch? I decided to do something different: catch the Vineyard Transit Authority‘s #3 bus, which leaves the West Tisbury post office at a quarter till the hour all day long. While I was cutting through the Island Farms subdivision, a guy in a venerable pickup passed me, waved, then stopped and backed up. Did I want a ride? He was going as far as NAPA. “That’s almost exactly where I’m going,” I said, and got in.
Trav checks out the deer at the mostly deserted house.
He dropped me off at the end of the Old Holmes Hole Road. Before we got there, we’d exchanged names and speculated about the mostly deserted house whose yard Travvy and I trespass across whenever we walk to the post office.
Malvina was ready and waiting. No metal screeched and shrieked as I drove home by myself, without Travvy in the passenger seat. Cars come in handy for getting around, but you don’t meet as many people in transit or have as many interesting conversations. I didn’t even own a motor vehicle till three years after I moved to Martha’s Vineyard. I wonder if I knew more back then.
Sing hey for May! Only three new sightings, but two of them were of plates I never saw in all of 2012: South Dakota! New Mexico!
And Georgia, which isn’t quite so special but whose absence was leaving a rather big gap in the East Coast. There’s still a little gap where Delaware should be, but it’ll show up eventually.
The total stands at 36. That means 15 to go — I count D.C., of course, having lived there for 11 years. The eagle-eyed among you will notice that on this map Georgia is #35. That’s because I numbered both Nevada and Maryland #26. The nod goes to Nevada; Maryland is now #27 and Georgia #36.
So around 4:15 this afternoon Travvy and I were waiting to cross State Road to go to the West Tisbury post office — waiting at the crosswalk, mind you — and a nice person in an older white Subaru Outback stopped to let us go.
As we stepped into the crosswalk, I turned to wave at the driver. The black sedan behind the Outback was pulling up on the grass between the road and the bike path/sidewalk. I swear, this person was trying to pass the stopped car.
Summer’s here, folks.
From the Seasonally Occupied Territories . . . 