while waiting for what was once a band practice, then transformed into a band meeting at a bar, and now reduced to some of the band members hanging out and drinking, it has occurred to me that (1) “parenthetical human” is a good band name that must be used, and i have decided to use it for the march 27th show at ireland’s 32, along with largesse –who is stanley lam– and megaweapon –who is george zum, and (2) i have several drafts of rambles posts that i have not posted because they were never finished.

which leads me to wonder how i manage to persuade myself that THIS is finished enough to render it postable. not only is this rambles not finished enough; its substance is so veiled as to be almost nonexistent. what is this thing about anyway?

in other un-news, i am currently in love with a book by peter farb called Word Play: What Happens When People Talk, that was published in 1973. he talks about different speech communities and how different speech communities use language and how language shapes reality, and such, and does so with a markedly progressive approach.

and because it is women’s history month, or so i’ve heard, and i’m engaged in an ongoing and maddening battle with myself which involves (1) railing against generalizations and stereotypes based on gender while also (2) acknowledging that prevailing generalizations and stereotypes arise from a set of commonly-observed observations, while also (3) attempting to convincingly illustrate that (a) such observations, while common, are certainly not the rule, and (b) when such observations are justifiably made (and not imagined by a biased observer), the behavior observed is simply one manifestation of socialization and sexism, not the manifetation of some innate set of qualities–

for these reasons, i found the following passage from word play to be particularly resonating:

[so he's speaking about the Vakinankaratra of Madagascar]

“…both males and females will tell a visiting linguist that the ideal speech behavior avoids confrontations–but only males live up to that ideal. They subtly use speech to encourage easy relations, to hide sentiments rather than to express them. Females, though, are expected to express their emotions directly in face-to-face interactions. Both the men and the women in this speech community agree that a woman has lavalela, “a long tongue,” but neither acknowledges the extent to which men manipulate the straight-forward speech of women. When verbal confrontations between men sometimes become necessary, the men incite their female relations to speak the harsh words in their behalf, and then the men delicately patch up any hurt feelings that may have resulted. So it is no surprise that women do all of the haggling in the market place, both as buyers and as sellers, since bargaining represents a verbal confrontation; the men buy and sell only those items that have a fixed price. Men also leave to women other kinds of encounters, such as reprimanding children or expressing disapproval of the behavior of kinsmen. The division of responsibilities in speech situations, therefore, is quite clear. Women dominate in situations where directness and unpleasantness are called for, men in situations where indirectness and discretion are valued.”

okay, so there’s still a division of labor based on gender, BUT the above description is the first time i’ve heard or read (in the context of generalizing) women’s way of talking being characterized as direct, and for the sake of fulfilling a particular goal, even if it requires some unpleasantness. if we’re going to generalize, at least it’s a much COOLER generalization of women talking (versus the standard “women always have to TALK about their FEELings” bullshit i hear all the time). THIS kind of explanation and characterization makes all the talking kind of cool, and gives it an actual purpose for being–their speech accomplishes something–rather than simply talking for the sake of being chatty females, a characterization which of course drives me nuts, as much so when women own that stereotype as when men do.

now that i’ve talked on and on, i believe it’s time for my meeting-some-of-the-band date. i will run “parenthetical human” by them and see what they think.