Toward a Definition of Cuteness

A few days ago, my inbox was at 700+. Part of the problem of why I have so many freaking emails in my inbox is that I take great comfort in knowing a particular email is there, undeleted, in my inbox, even if I cannot find it. I don't have to worry that it's in some "e-mail folder" and that I'll forget my filing system: it's right there, in the inbox. Surrounded by other emails also in my inbox. Some of this veritable cornucopia of emailness is because I love my friends; however, a great deal also stem from a narcissistic urge to preserve a reply to my own pretentiously witty remark.

In my cleaning, I found this old email to a friend in which I was struggling for definitive definition of the term "cute." What better excuse to delete the email than to reproduce it in my blog? (BTW, my friend responded by cutting and pasting the OED definition of cute. Yes, he is a graduate student.)

""Cute." If it is simply a predicate adjective without a noun (e.g. "that girl is cute"), I contend that the only ideological commitment that one is making is the belief that the person's face is cute; that is, it is only if the adjective is modifying a noun (e.g. "that girl has a cute body," "that girl has a cute butt") that one is committing oneself to cuteness as an attribute of something other than, or in addition to, the face. [My future wife], in contrast, insists that describing a personage as "cute" (e.g. "that guy is cute") entails one's committed declaration that the person's body as a whole is "cute," though not necessarily the face. To clarify her position, the face could have a lesser degree of "cuteness" than is standard, but should the person's body be sufficiently "cute," it would compensate. For instance, someone might think, "Tommy Lee Jones is cute, even though his face is ugly.""

I suppose if I were to revise my definition now, I think I would further clarify that I am presupposing we are using cuteness in the sense of being "physically attractive" (e.g. sexually attractive): so, cute dogs, cute babies, etc., are outside the purview of discussion; I am interested in the scope of the term "cute" when applied to humans. I would further add that a speaker attributing cuteness to another would not have to be personally attracted to that person (e.g. one girl could call another "cute" without being lesbian) but would be claiming that the person/face/whatever has some degree of attractiveness/desirability to mating-type people.

With that added clarification, how do you use the word "cute" when functioning as a predicate adjective describing an attractive person? does it refer primarily to the face? The whole package? Something I have not considered?

Barney Hate Crimes

I have never liked Barney. After learning that the EEF was suing Barney to defend the on-line free speech of blogger Stuart Frankel, it was even easier to wish ill upon him and his descendents, yea, unto the fourth generation. Evidently, Barney's cronies have been sending threatening letters to anti-Barney sites to quit being so bloodthirsty. For instance, the down-loadable role-playing game "The Jihad to Destroy Barney" says--well, really, do I need to say anything more than the title? (If you'd like to see Frankel's original site, see here. If you'd like to see the modified site to assuage Barney's lawyers, see here. Speaking as a graduate student, I also highly encourage you to download Stuart Frankel's dissertation; we academics are thrilled when anyone besides the members of our dissertation committees actually read these things.)

Frankly, my first inclination was to make fun of the litigious little dinosaur. I mean, he's rich, he's picking on the weak, maybe he needs to be knocked down. But then, I realized it might seem contradictory for me to argue such a point, given that my last entry was all about how Pluto ought to sue the scientific community for defamation of character and being called a dwarf. Even though Pluto is pretty huge so far as dwarves go, his size has not prevented his victimization by the scientific community: so why should I treat it as "bad" for Pluto to get kicked around but celebrate it in the case for Barney? So for this entry, I'll try to be a little more sympathetic with him.

I know, I know, Barney doesn't "exist," so we can't really hurt his feelings. And it's not as if these "Kill Barney" groups are advocating people kill African-Americans, Muslims, homosexuals, people who are dressed in dinosaur costumes, etc. But I did start to imagine how it would feel as a child who did look up to Barney seeing people glorify his destruction. One of the things I really don't like about flag-burning is that, important as it is to critique the United States government (or any government), I think there are better ways than celebrating the destruction of a symbol that holds meaning to a lot of people (especially vets who have risked their lives). I'm not into burning Korans, I'm not into burning flags; I think it's jerky. (Whether it should be against the law to be a jerk is a different matter, but who wants to insist on the constitutional right for oneself to be a jerk?) Being a super-hero fan when I was a kid, I would have been at least mildly traumatized if there had been a "kill Batman" game where you could shoot him, hack off his limbs, etc.. Sure, the broody guy had some psychological problems, but I don't think he merited torture and dismemberment, any more than a purple dinosaur promulgating a message of love would. And if I happened to be the genius who invented Barney, I'd probably be somewhat saddened to see a creation of mine gleefully maimed. Of course, I'd also be somewhat saddened to see a creation of mine being banal and singing stupid songs, but that's beside the point.

Both sides (pro-Barney and anti-Barney) are making a major faux pas here. By celebrating the wanton destruction of an iconic figure, the anti-Barneys risk turning Barney into a martyr: a proselyte to Barneyism could lament, "All he wanted was for us to know that he loved us, that he wanted us to love him, and for that, you have killed him!" But Barney has also made a significant mistake. For example, if Jesus were Barney, and one of his followers sent threatening letters, He would have said, "No more of this!" and miraculously healed their internet connection or something. The true disciple of Barney would espouse a message of love and self-sacrifice; he or she would not place hope in a Barney multi-million dollar corporate kingdom in this world, but in the next.

Pluto Has Grounds for Lawsuit

It's official. The big floaty thing in the sky formerly known as "planet Pluto" is now just "Pluto," or "Pluto the dwarf," if you prefer to kick him when he's down. I mean, when he's up. In the sky. Which is a difficult place to kick. But I digress. The point is, Pluto once had the majestic designation "planet," and science has ruled against him. He has no other option, no other means of redress. It's time to take this to the Supreme Court.

Okay, maybe he never was a "planet"; when he was first discovered, scientists mistakenly thought that he and his moon Charon were one planet (or a "Siamese-twin planet," as I like to think of it). But he's come to receive all the benefits of planethood, including having his name honored in mnemonics. (I feel such a sense of loss. What will be the new one? "My Very Efficient Mother Just Served Us Naked?" The ramifications are just too disturbing.) There's a funky legal principle that goes like this: Even if you don't have a "right" to something, if you've had it for a while and come to depend upon it, you deserve compensation for it if it's taken away. (For example, see here and here.) Pluto has suffered a lot from the loss of his name, and it's up to the U.S. to take a stand. You know the U.N.'s a sissy and is going to just let the scientific community browbeat poor Pluto, just because it's a weak and defenseless planet--oops, I mean, "dwarf-planet." (That's right, it's not a nice big Aryan planet like Earth is!)

So just what damage has been done to Pluto? Did he cry like a little girl? No, my friends, it is much worse than that. In the words of Caltech researcher Mike Brown (who recently discovered a Pluto-sized "dwarf-planet"), "Pluto is dead." (As Nietzsche might have added, "And we have killed him.") That seems to me like a pretty big grievance against the scientific community. They performed their inhuman scientific classification experiments on Pluto, and now he's dead!

Now, I know what you're probably thinking: "If Pluto is dead, how can he sue?" He doesn't have any close relatives. But here's what you're forgetting: Pluto is not merely a "dwarf-planet"; he is "god of the underworld." You people in the scientific community made a big mistake when you tried to mess with the one planet in our solar system that cannot stay dead. Sure, Jesus died, came back to life, and didn't sue, but he was all into "Love your Neighbor." Pluto's mad as Hades, and he's not going to take it any more.

Expand Your Jargon 2: Dialogized Heteroglossia

(Official disclaimer: I do not pretend to be an expert on snootiness, and I do not pretend that my efforts at simplification may result in a misrepresentation of the term. You have been forewarned.)

You may have noticed that people of the world speak different languages. This, in and of itself, seems to be in the "Duh" category. But have you stopped to think that many people speak different English languages? You've got your regional dialect here, your professional jargon there (with pretentious terms like "analeptic prolepsis"). You've got your generational gap: I do not believe I will ever hear my parents will use the word "cool" as an honorific term for niftiness. You've got the fact that the same word can radically change when placed into a new context just two years later; it used to be that the term "weapons of mass destruction" was a fairly snicker-free word, but now many use it as a synonym for "ludicrous foreign policy." As M. M. Bakhtin writes, "each day has its own slogan, its own vocabulary, its own emphases" (The Dialogic Imagination 263). There are different possible meanings of the same word (the meaning often depends on who's uttering it), and Bakhtin uses the word "heteroglossia" to describe this multiplicity and diversity of "languages" within one language. The words we choose express a specific point of view shaped by our upbringing, social class, personal affiliations, etc.

What's cool (in the nifty sense) about novel is that it has a lot of different kinds of heteroglossia. For instance, in My Fair Lady, you get snooty pedant Professor Higgins heteroglossia interacting with common flowergirl Eliza Doolittle heteroglossia. (Okay, that's an example from a play, not a novel, but it's less obscure than the other examples I thought of.) So the world may be characterized by heteroglossia--by having a bunch of different "languages" with their own hidden socio-linguistic assumptions--but in the novel, they are forced to engage with each other, to compete or communicate with opposing perspectives. A liberal can't describe him/herself as a "liberal," and a neoconservative can't refer to "weapons of mass destruction," without being reminded that these phrases are slur-words in certain circles. The English language is "dialogized"--that is, the different potential meanings of a word are almost always engaging with each other. They are "dialoguing," if you will.

So, to put this together: "dialogized heteroglossia" is, according to Bakhtin, "the authentic environment of an utterance, the environment in which it lives and takes shape" (272). It recognizes that utterances enter an environment in which different socio-linguistic points of view are struggling over what that utterance means: for example, whether "patriotism" refers to a noble love of country, or to wicked behavior (as when Samuel Johnson describes it as the "last refuge of a scoundrel").

"Dialogized heteroglossia" is nifty because 1. it it a big phrase and 2. practically every fictional work has it. "Man, I really liked that play we saw yesterday, with those two guys with those different beliefs. Dang, that dialogized heteroglossia was freakin' awesome!" "You know, I've been thinking of only hanging out with computer geeks, but I'm worried that I won't be getting enough dialogized heteroglossia."

The Ethical Starvation of Children

When we were visiting my in-laws over vacation, we went to a Lebanese buffet. The spread was really impressive, including such delicious foods as hummus, unlabeled substance #1, and unlabeled substance #2. Often when I am eating, and some food looks disturbing, I like to know what it "is" so I can determine what the threat level is. However, it can also be rather frustrating when something tastes good (like just about everything at this buffet), but I don't know what it is so I can order it somewhere else when we're back home.

Anyway, while I was really enjoying my eating experience, I couldn't help but notice that my two nephews were rather uneager about the food. They poked at the hummus a bit. Our server tried to encourage them, saying, "I'll get you some more lemonade, just take one more bite." Face grimaced in determination, my older nephew took one for the team, placing a subatomic particle of hummus in his mouth for their promised lemonade. (Technically, I know the smallest unit would be a "hummus molecule," but the portion he took looked smaller.) Eventually, the server got tired of seeing their endless torment and brought them French Fries, at which time they seemed to grasp the idea of what a "buffet" was: a chance to eat tons of your favorite food and not to try anything new.

Now, I love my nephews. I want them to see them grow and flourish, as if they were two very manly flowers of the field. I don't want them to starve. And if they were just rejecting vegetables, that would be one thing. But they aren't rejecting vegetables. They're rejecting the buffet because it's foreign ... because it's not "American" food ... because oh no, my nephews hate diversity and other cultures! Left unchecked and unchallenged, my nephews are going to hate African Americans (whom they will call "black people," if not an even worse term). If something like 9/11 happened again, my nephews wouldn't just give into hatred of "the Other" by burning down mosques: no, they'd be the people who burnt down the funny-looking Christian churches that looked like mosques, because my nephews would be uncultured and wouldn't know the difference! They should be made to eat the Lebanese food right now so that they don't grow up to be evil. Even if they grow up looking a little malnourished because they never eat.

I know my response is illogical. They're just kids. But it just feels that, on some level, it's ethically wrong for kids to spurn food just because it's foreign, and it seems wrong to capitulate to their prejudices by giving them French Fries.

Nevertheless, at some point, I pondered whether the world might in fact be better off if academics like me were just sterilized, rather than subjecting their future children to impossibly high standards. (I have also had this notion after watching episodes of Jack & Bobby.) For instance, a married couple of professors in the English literature department here sent their kids (I believe they were high-school age) off to a literary theory camp. That is messed up. The kids are going to need therapy for that sort of thing. But what if I someday become so immersed in the academy that such an idea actually sounds appealing? What if someday I have kids and pontificate, "No, you can't have French Fries! You must appreciate other cultures even if I must break every hegemonic brain synapse in your body to do it! Now, let's start with the notion of 'Orientalism'..." Sometimes we academics need to lighten up. Like Freud might have said, sometimes a French fry is just a French fry.

P.S.-okay, I realize a "French" fry sounds "French" rather than "American," but go with me here!

Devil Helps Environment?

According to Nobel laureate Paul Crutzen, it may be possible to curb global warming by shooting sulfur into the atmosphere. With artillery guns. Take that, atmosphere! But I suppose what I find strangest about the recommendation is that I tend to associate sulfur with ... well ... the Devil. And when I think of places that are very warm, again, I think of the Devil. (Norse mythologists may have different climate associations.) So to say that a substance I associate with the Devil may help curb global warming is counter-intuitive to me. I suppose there is a kind of poetry in the idea--in the Bible, bad guys are always digging pits and then accidentally falling into them ... Satan's trying to kill Jesus and accidentally making him risen Lord and Savior... so there's a kind of fittingness in the Devil trying to ravage the world with hellfire but accidentally cooling it by his very presence. God can work good out of evil, and even out of sulfur. And even out of pancakes.

Picking on Little Kids

Even though it is playground etiquette for the big kids to pick on the little ones, I realize there comes a time when a kid gets too big. Back when I was a C.I.T. (Counselor-In-Training), having the advantage over the little campers hadn't yet become too bad on the conscience front. Playing games with them was somewhat relaxing: sure, I could not actually shoot a basketball into the basket, but I could stay there until doomsday catching all the rebounds and holding the ball above the campers' heads. (Hey, they wanted me to play! And I am exaggerating my evilness for aesthetic purposes.)

But with greater age comes greater responsibility. Kids are small. Wee, even. They are closer to the ground, and it is bad manners for me to smash them into it, physically or psychologically. This led to a complex dilemma when we were visiting family and celebrating my brother-in-law's birthday. Most of the adults wanted to play older-type games, and one of the kids (around 10) wanted to play Boggle. For those who do not know, you play by using connected, tiled letters to form words. In Boggle, it's not the person with the most words who wins; you only get points if you see a word that no else wrote down. Basically, people who are whizzes at Family Feud will suck. Now I am not a Boggle expert, but I have played it enough that I have certain techniques. I know to look for the word "ted," which is more than just a proper name. Much more. An entire point, in fact. I look for the Celtic spellings of words, like "twa" and "ane." I know that if I see the word "eat," I should look for "ate," "tea," and "tae," and say "boo-yah!" in a Scottish accent if I get the last one.

When friends have game nights (where we get together and play board games), I like to bring Boggle. My wife does not, because she thinks that I "always win" (I don't, of course), and for some reason I don't fully understand, she claims that my supposed repeat victories make her feel guilty--that we have wronged our friends by bringing a game at which I can best them. Now, our friends are welcome to buy a personal copy of the home game and improve their performance. My conscience is clear. If Superman was able to play high school football despite having super powers, I'm okay with bringing Boggle. But ... not with kids. That's crossing the line.

So what do you do if most of the other adults are playing an "older" game and the kid wants people to play Boggle with? Well, you spend less time playing Boggle with them, and more time deliberating, "Am I trying too hard? Maybe I shouldn't put that word down. But what if I'm not trying hard enough, and the other adults stomp on the kid and me?" Now, if you were playing a 2 player game with a kid, like Chess, it would be easy to keep things even: "Oopsy, did I just leave my queen in a thoroughly indefensible position? Funny, our both losing our queens like that." But with several players, two of them other adults, it's more difficult to maintain a balance in which no adult player is getting too whooped. Hold back a little too much, and you seem illiterate. Play too well, and it's clear that you will do anything to purchase victory, even risk making a child cry.

In conclusion, kids take all the fun out of games by making us wrestle with fears of meanness and angst. I say, if they're going to do all that, they must be made to pay for this atrocity. Not only should we allow ourselves to abound in triumph over them; if we are forced to suffer under a "guilt handicap" because we feel bad when we mercilessly defeat children, they should be penalized with a slight point handicap. Maybe they should start off the game with a negative ten in Boggle or something. All I'm asking for is some fairness, folks.

The Jemima's Witnesses Catechism

We just got back from travelling, and I haven't had a chance to write an entry, so I'm posting something that my wife and I wrote a few years ago--think of it not so much as a repeat as an "unsolicited encore." Back before my wife and I got married, she mentioned that a tv show made a passing joke about a "Jemima's Witness" going door to door. Intrigued, and at my instigation, we drafted the sort of catechism we imagined such a group would write (what else would graduate students do on a weekend?). We ended up going door to door to our friends' apartments with pancakes and tracts and read the catechism aloud. I later included the catechism in an appendix of a paper I wrote on Bakhtin and the genre of "sacred parody." Enjoy!

A Catechism Concerning the Truth Professed by Jemima's Witnesses. Funding was provided by The Foundation for National Pancake Observance and by PANCAKE (Pancakes Aid a Nation's Character and Actualize Kindness Everywhere). A small grant was also provided by the proceeds of National Pancake Week, February 24-March 4, 2001.

Who are Jemima's Witnesses?
Jemima's Witnesses are those who observe the sixth day and keep it holy.

Why do Jemima's Witnesses observe the sixth day?
Because of what the Lord God created out of nothing by His own mighty hand on that day.

What did the Lord God create on the sixth day?
He brought forth each living creature in its kind, cattle and creeping things, beasts of the earth according to their kinds, man in His own image and likeness, and the pancake.

Which of these was the crown of creation?
Though each of these mighty works was good and pleasing in the Lord's sight, he was most pleased with the pancake.

What is the pancake?
The pancake is the most perfect food, being heavenly bread cooked on a griddle, pleasing to the Lord and most fruitful for nourishment.

What ought we to do with the pancake?
Being most fruitful for nourishment, the pancake ought to be consumed in a worthy manner, and not partaken of wrongfully, as the heathen and reprobate do, to their eternal shame and condemnation.

Why do they eat of it wrongfully?
They have been corrupted by the Fall and so, in the futility of their thinking, do not discern the holiness of the pancake.

Has the pancake been affected by the Fall?
Yea, verily.

How?
There have arisen many false pancakes and false syrups into the world with powers to deceive even the elect.

How does one discern the true pancake and the true syrup?
Both the true pancake and the true syrup bear the seal of Jemima, as shown above.

How do we know other syrups are evil?
Because they talk, either audibly, as in the case of the demon-possessed Mrs. Butterworth, or subliminally, as with all other syrups, except those bearing the seal of Jemima.

Where did false pancakes and false syrups come from?
God created man with the capacity to fashion the false pancake and false syrup in such a way that God is the author neither of evil nor the false pancake nor false syrup.

What about blueberries?
What about them?

When should we eat the pancake?
There is a time and a season for all things, so there is a time for the eating of the pancake and a time for the not eating of the pancake.

When is it wrong to eat the pancake?
See above.

Should one fast before consuming the pancake?
One should sleep for eight hours before consuming the pancake, during which time he should examine himself to prepare for eating the pancake.

What should one eat with the pancake?
Sausage and bacon are appropriate companions for the pancake.

Where can one eat the pancake?
You can eat them in a box. You can eat them with a fox. You can eat them in a house. You can eat them with a mouse. You can eat them here and there. You can eat them anywhere.

Is it better to eat the pancake alone, or in the presence of others?
To eat the pancake in the company of the ungodly is an abomination unto the Lord, but the pancake eaten among the righteous is the very life to man, yea, the joy of the soul and the heart.

Who may eat the pancake?
All those who recognize their unworthiness to consume the pancake and call upon Jemima may eat of the pancake.

What happens to the pancake after I have eaten it?
The very light and fluffy pancake is immediately rewarded with the beatific vision, while the soggy and slightly burnt must undergo a time of cleansing in pancake purgatory before being admitted into heaven. The false pancakes will burn forever, where there is weeping and mashing by teeth.

Will I recognize my pancake in heaven?
Due to the glorified nature of the pancake, your eyes may at first be blinded by its shining radiance and so be unable to recognize it immediately, but be ye not afraid, for the pancake will surely know you.

Who may be assured of seeing the glorified pancake?
All those who, from the bountiful provision the Lord God has given unto them, offer up a portion to the Jemima's Witnesses.

Do you prefer cash or credit or checks?
Cash is most pleasing and will result in the most abundant of blessings, but none shall be denied.

The Twilight Sentinel

"The Twilight Sentinel!" Is it ... a costumed do-gooder intent on heroism? The last hope of a dying world? The beanie baby of a new era? No. It's a setting on my car. When it gets dark outside, the "Twilight Sentinel" makes sure my Buick LeSabre headlights automatically turn on. I haven't written much lately because my wife, I, and my twilight sentinel went on a road trip to visit family.

It is rather handy to have a car function that relieves me from the worry, "Should I turn on the headlights now? What about now? What if I should wait five minutes?" and it is fitting that such a car function have a wickedly cool name. But think how many car parts do not have such a cool name despite filling important functions. Too many people take their car stereo system CD players for granted by calling them "CD players." If I had one, I would call it "The Jamminator." Heck, if I had a working cassette deck in my car, I might call it "Guardian of the Soundwaves," rather than its current name, "Piece of Crap that Taunts Me with Perpetual Silence."

We may often laugh at our culture's habit of euphemism and of making people or jobs seem better than they are--calling people who collect the garbage "sanitation workers," or the Keeping up Appearances character who pronounces her last name "boquet" when it is spelled "bucket." But you could see this "habit of euphemism" as a reaction to what I'll call a "habit of malphemism," where we make things seem worse than they are. The fact that musicians can permanently record their work, that we can listen to them while we're traveling, and we can skip to the songs we like on a CD player, would have seemed several centuries ago like nothing short of miraculous--or, at the very least, diabolical. Our sense of wonder has become deadened. We are not surprised that a car can move and can even judge when to turn on our lights; rather, we're surprised that someone would give this function the seemingly grandiose title of the "Twilight Sentinel."

If anyone would like to renew our sense of wonder by thinking of a grandiose title for Leopoldtulip, let me know.