should i write about how finally it feels that summer is here because i'm finally moving projects around on my desk? or about all the things i thought were sexy when i was 21 that actually are not (like bad posture)? or about how one might effectively imitate david boreanaz (tv's Angel)? or about how it is total bullshit when committees are given tasks but then repeatedly reminded that those tasks are perhaps totally unnecessary because ultimately decisions rest with the head or dean? or about how college fellowship awards indicate college values? or about how i am SO EXCITED to see the detroit cobras later this month? or about how i have high school friends descending on me this weekend and therefore am undergoing reflection on Times Past? so many things, so little, uh, time? (no) space? (no) inclination. ah, that's it. so little inclination to dish politics or arbitrate culture.
i know, how about this: ROC zoology. academics frequently work in cities or areas that are foreign to them, and many take recreation in making fun of those cities or areas: for being rednecky or full of rubes or provincial or any number of synonyms for small-minded (unless that place is manhattan). i grow somewhat weary of this discourse, not because it makes the speaker sound icky, which it does, and not because it's wrong, because it usually isn't, but because it's so boring and clichéd and predictable and played out. but i guess people bond over shared enemies, so i suppose it does a certain amount of work. and but here i go engaging in it.
the ROC has a pretty specific accent that i cannot imitate, though i suspect, being from the great lakes region myself, that i already speak in some version of it. the best i could textually represent it would be to write how the name of the city sounds when pronounced like a native: "raahhchstr." occasionally when i am out at a bourgeois-ish bar or restaurant, i feel a little sad for ROC-ers, because they seem to be self-consciously trying very hard to be Classy. (one restaurant's website even suggests a brand of jeans women might want to wear there.) however, when i am out at non-bourgeois-ish places, the utter lack of self consciousness makes evident why those others might feel the need to try so very hard. consider, for example, that at the particular (non-bourgeois-ish) bar i was at last night, the crowd of deeply tanned 40-something women that descended, bedecked in gold and leopard-print, with voices hoarse from lots of smoking, ordering "shaahht" after "shaahht." and consider that when my friend got hit on, she was informed that she was a "very attractive female" (if we're going to get clinical, i suppose then one should add "homo sapien," followed by "i would like to put my penis in your vagina.") i suppose that, all told, i would rather hang out with the shaahht drinkers, but sometimes i do worry about the high cost of detached bemusement.
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4 comments:
In the interests of accuracy, I believe that we were BOTH told that we were "two very attractive females." I also recall that the dude in question said he was there with his uncle, who looked to be about his own age. So we can add to your observations that people in the ROC, they have very large families.
B
Huh. In my salad days at Our Lady of Mercy School for Attractive and Goodlooking Females, I recall thinking that the accent was weird because it had an almost invisible "y" sound in words like "shot." As in Shyaaaht. But very subtle. Only a few drops of blood would come out of my ear at a time. That subtle. That said, it's not all that different from a serious Chicago accent, which I have learned to love.
The difference between the way my New England family and my ROC friends talked can best be expressed in this example:
N.E. family: Did you faht?
Roc friends: Oh my! Who pyeeeassed gyeeas? What do you mean, what do I mean? I mean who fyarted?
Hey, you got listed in the blog section of Inside Higher Ed. How cool is that?
super cool! and yah, there is that wee y in thyeah.
If you haven't seen it yet, kinda funny.
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