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More Thoughts on the Curse of the Curse-Word

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Is there an up-side? A few days ago, I wrote about how and why writers may choose to use curse words in their fiction, depending on plot and character. A recent Washington Post article by Sam Jones talked about the “value” of cursing under extreme circumstances. The author wrote, “If you stub your toe or slam your finger in a door, there’s a good chance the first thing out of your mouth is a four-letter word.”

The article points to academic studies showing that that class of taboo words and phrases “has long held a unique and colorful status in language behavior.” (“Language behavior” typifying the unique and uncolorful style of academic writing.) 

But although swearing is a near-universal feature of language, it is still considered taboo by many. This universality suggests that there are benefits derived from using the words, and one of those benefits is this: an increase in pain tolerance and decreased perception of pain. Swearing is “a drug-free, calorie-neutral, cost-free  means of self-help,” said Richard Stephens, a British psychology researcher. I’d add that it also attracts attention, so if you’re there bleeding or clutching your broken arm, someone is more likely to come help than if you mutter, “Ouch. That hurt.”

Swearing also “has been linked to bolstered social bonds, improved memory, and even an alleviation of the social pain of exclusion or rejection,” as well as increased strength. (All I can say is that the characters in the Academy Award-winning movie Anora must have the memories of elephants.) The increase in strength makes sense, because when someone swears because they’re in pain, their heart rate increases, adrenaline surges, and blood diverts to your muscles in the “fight or flight” response.

If you’re an author debating whether your character should be swearing so much, or if you’re a reader wondering the same, think about whether the circumstances are such that swearing is more than a habit; it’s a coping mechanism. Next maybe they’ll research whether constant swearing reduces the physiological impact and, for those who swear constantly, weakens that potential source of help just when they need it most.

Oscars Live Action Shorts

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We squeezed in a trip to the local movie house to see the live action shorts the day before the awards ceremony. They were all fresh in our minds, and we both felt the Oscar went to the least interesting of them! Nevertheless, there’s something watchable for people of widely varying tastes. A characteristic common to four of the five nominees was that the ending was notably ambiguous. What happens next? We don’t know. Also, this year, none of them was particularly long. They’re in theaters so briefly, in case you missed them, here they are and how you can see them.

A Lien (USA)

A terrifying look at how America’s immigration crackdowns wield law and policy in unfair and dehumanizing ways. It involves a young couple—she’s American; he’s from Central America and has lived here for decades—visiting an immigration center with all their paperwork so he can get the green card he’s absolutely eligible for. What’s scariest is that you feel that such things happen not because the system is broken, but because it’s operating exactly as intended. (Watch it here.)

Anuja (India, USA)

Nine-year-old Anuja must choose between going to work in a sewing factory with her older sister and taking a test that may get her into a tuition-free school for gifted students. It’s a choice between the demands of the here-and-now versus the possibility of greater benefit in the future. The sisters—played by real-life street children—are charming. (Available for viewing on Netflix)

The Last Ranger (South Africa)

At a South African wildlife preserve, rangers engage in the dangerous job of protecting rhinoceroses from poachers. Stealing the horn is a lucrative business, and the film never lets you forget how noble are the rangers and how evil are the poachers. A young girl goes with the ranger one day. She’s charming, and the scenery is spectacular. (Apparently not available for streaming)

The Man Who Could Not Remain Silent (Croatia)

In 1993, a passenger train crossing Bosnia-Herzegovina is stopped by armed paramilitaries. They board, demanding to examine people’s papers. This conjures memories of every “escape from Nazi Germany” movie you ever saw. The people sharing a compartment with a man who admits he has no papers have to make choices, silence or courage. Based on the real-life Štrpci massacre and the death of Tomo Buzov, a former Yugoslav army officer. The film won the Short Film Palme d’Or at Cannes in 2024. (Watch it here.)

And now the winner: I’m Not a Robot (Belgium, Netherlands)

We see the action from the point of view of a woman working in the music business who fails her CAPTCHA test so many times her computer concludes she’s a robot. The absurdity of the situation spirals downward, as her grip on reality loosens. I wasn’t convinced. (See it here.)

“Big Chief Wears a Golden Crown”–Take 2

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Masking Indian

In 2018, Princeton University’s Lewis Center for the Arts hosted a panel discussion with two leaders in the tradition of New Orleans Black Masking Indians. Darryl Montana, great-grandson of one of the tradition’s founders, and Demond Melancon, whom Montana calls the “world’s best beader” described masking’s origins and modern significance. This is a post I wrote a few days after the event, reprinting it now, as so timely—and colorful!—for Mardi Gras.

Masking—familiar to viewers of the television series Treme, (to my regret, only four seasons long!) in which Clarke Peters played Big Chief Albert Lambreaux—is a nearly two-hundred-year-old tradition that has various origin stories. In part it may have begun as resistance to early rules prohibiting negroes from wearing feathers, in part as a shout-out to the Native Americans who helped runaway slaves, and in part as a strong expression of individuality and pride in an era of repression.

The Chiefs of New Orleans’s nearly 40 black masking tribes make one suit a year. Each suit has multiple parts, can weigh up to 150 pounds, and takes about 5000 hours to construct. Because masking is a “competitive sport,” Montana said, the costumes are generally made in secret, their design and significance revealed only when the Indians come out on Carnival Day (Mardi Gras).

In recognition of Melancon’s artistic skills, in 2012, the elders of the Mardi Gras Indian community dubbed him Chief Demond Melancon of the Young Seminole Hunters, with his very own tribe in the Lower Ninth Ward. Increasingly, the creation of suits is considered a significant contemporary art form, and its best practitioners keep pushing the envelope of creative possibility. Melancon’s suit on display at the Lewis Center tells the story of an enslaved Ghanian prince brought to New Orleans in the 1830’s. He lost an arm after a dispute with police, and was thereafter called Bras Coupé. Every beaded element of this stunning suit carries symbolic significance.

Montana is the Big Chief of the Yellow Pocahontas Hunters Black Masking Indian Tribe and made the lavish lavender suit pictured. Completion often involves family members and select friends.

Montana explained that he does not want “to take what I learned from the Chief to the grave with me,” and now makes a concerted effort to engage the next generation in the masking tradition. “You have to keep (young people) busy,” he said, and he believes that through the intensity of the suit-making process, the time commitment, and the camaraderie of working on a culturally meaningful project, he’s found a way to do that.

Cocktail Party Conversation Stopper

In case this slipped by you, the Big Chief mentioned the massive amount of Mardi Gras beads deviling New Orleans’s storm drains. Last fall 93,000 pounds-worth were excavated from merely a five-block stretch of St. Charles Avenue! Of course, they were wet, which must have contributed to the weight!.

Intrigued? Here’s More + Pictures!

The House of Dance and Feathers: A Museum by Ronald LewisMardi Gras Indians by Michael Smith
From the Kingdom of Kongo to Congo Square: Kongo Dances and the Origins of the Mardi Gras Indians – Joroen Dewulf’s new theory about the origins of the black masking Indian tradition
For a short story about the Indians and their costumes, see this post from yesterday: https://vweisfeld.com/?p=11344

The March of Television

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This spring promises several new television seasons and series that should be worth watching. But first, let me praise the extremely quirky Interior Chinatown, which we’ve watched over the last few months. It’s based on a 2020 novel by Charles Yu, which won the 2020 National Book Award for Fiction. A couple of episodes in, I realized I’d actually read this book. I did not get it at all. My reaction: “Huh?”

But someone must have, and the transition to the small screen is terrific. Jimmy O. Yang plays Willis Wu, a background character in a police drama set in a fictional city. His parents, especially his mom, have some hilarious moments, as does his fellow waiter, Fatty Choi, who thrives on insulting the restaurant’s customers. The plot is essentially indescribable, but Wu is on a quest to find out what happened to his older brother, whom the TV show calls “Kung Fu Guy.” Many hilarious and heartfelt moments. Watch it on Hulu.

On TV this spring, I’m looking forward to the televised version of Liz Moore’s Long Bright River, a book I enjoyed immensely. In it, a cop who works in Philadelphia’s rough Kensington neighborhood, scene of a series of prostitute murders, never escapes the fear that one day what she’ll find is the body of her renegade sister. Amanda Seyfried plays the police officer, Mickey Fitzpatrick. Excellent family interactions in the novel; I hope they’re preserved. Coming on Peacock March 13.

Damian Lewis will reprise his role as Henry VIII in Wolf Hall: The Mirror and the Light, the third book in the late Hilary Mantel’s riveting series about Tudor political shenanigans involving the King, Thomas Cromwell (Mark Rylance), and Cardinal Wolsey (Jonathan Pryce). The books were great, and the acting in this series, first aired in 2015 as Wolf Hall, is exceptional. Wolf Hall was the ancestral home of Henry’s third wife, Jane Seymour, the one (out of eight) he presumably most loved. It’s premiering March 23 on PBS.

Another season of Dark Winds arrives March 9 on AMC. This crime series, set on Arizona’s Navajo reservation, is based on Tony Hillerman’s popular books featuring Sheriff Joe Leaphorn and his deputy Jim Chee. Leaphorn is played by Zahn McClarnon, an actor I came to admire in the Longmire series, and Chee by Kiowa Gordon. The rest of the mostly Native American cast is also strong. And you can’t beat the beautifully stark Southwestern landscape.

I’ll also give a try to the British detective drama Ludwig, which aired on the BBC in 2024, but will be available on BritBox starting March 20. The title character (played by actor-comedian David Mitchell) is a puzzle-maker, and Ludwig is his pen name. His identical twin brother (I know, I know, beware of twins) is a Cambridge police DCI who’s gone missing. Ludwig poses as his brother to get access to police information about the disappearance. He is, of course, taken for the detective, and becomes caught up in the department’s investigations. Puzzle-solving should come in handy.

Washington’s Birthday Week

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As thoughts of the Presidency and Presidents fill the news in 2025, it’s interesting to think back on our country’s first president, born 22 February 1732—almost three centuries ago. Although there are many legends associated with him (I need to bake that cherry pie!), some more dubious than others, he without doubt was a prime reason the Continental Army was victorious in the American Revolution.

The battles of Trenton in late December 1776 and in Princeton January 3, 1777, were a turning point in the Revolutionary War. Only a few miles away, Washington and his troops had crossed the Delaware—memorialized in famous artworks—on the night of December 25-26.

Artist Charles Willson Peale, painted several similar versions of Washington and the Princeton battle that are owned by the Princeton University Art Museum. In the one above, Washington holds a rapier aloft, the battle is still under way. Three people can be seen on his left side (viewer’s right), one of whom was Washington’s friend, Virginia neighbor, and Revolutionary War hero, Hugh Mercer, who died of his battle wounds. This painting is called “Washington at the Battle of Princeton,” (1783/84) and the building in the far distance is Princeton’s Nassau Hall.  

This painting remains on display in Nassau Hall today. Its fancy gilded frame originally held a portrait of King George II “decapitated” during the battle by an American cannon ball, reportedly fired by the artillery company commanded by Alexander Hamilton. When Washington’s portrait replaced that of the monarch, the crown that had adorned the original frame was removed. Nassau Hall (pictured below) was built in 1756 and, in 1783, it served for four months as the US Capitol, being the largest academic building then in the colonies. Damaged to its exterior from another January 1777 cannonball remains, unrepaired.

The second painting, versions of which are in various museums and institutions around the country, including Princeton University, replaces the three men with a horse, a groom, and a cannon, the British flag crumpled at his feet. That version is titled “Washington After the Battle of Princeton” (painted between 1779 and 1782). Having grown up in the Midwest, where history didn’t seem so immediate, these connections to Washington are very precious.

Sympathy for Academy Awards Voters

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Academy Award, Oscar

I’m sure glad I don’t have to pick the Best Picture winner in this year’s Academy Awards pool of ten. The four nominees we’ve seen are excellent films with brilliant acting, interesting stories, and cinematic flourishes. Assuming votes are cast based on people’s true assessment of excellence, not corporate loyalties, they have their job cut out for them.

We skipped Anora when it was in the local theater because the preview was so off-putting. Now that was a mistake. Several of the others haven’t come to Princeton yet. But here’s what we’ve seen.

The Brutalist—a moving story about mid-twentieth century Jew (Adrian Brody), whose excellence as an architect doesn’t protect him from the Nazis. He survives to create a new life and new work with his wife (Felicity Jones) about twenty miles from where I live in a fictional version of Doylestown, Pa. What happens to him thereafter makes you wonder whether the movie title refers to his architectural style or certain characters in the film.

A Complete Unknown—Bob Dylan’s career up until the legendary set he did at the Newport Folk Festival about which much has been said and written. The producers made the excellent decision to include lots of music, and Timothée Chalamet sings the songs himself. A wonderful trip into forests of nostalgia—for the music, for the times, for the hope embedded therein.

Conclave—based on a novel by the excellent Robert Harris (my review of his Precipice is here), with a can’t-go-wrong cast of Ralph Fiennes, Stanley Tucci, John Lithgow, and Isabella Rossellini. It’s about the election of a new pope (awkward timing) and the ostensibly stodgy proceedings that result in earthquakes.

Dune: Part Two—Loved the books; so willing to cut the movie some slack with respect to Austin Butler’s alien makeup. The acting and scenery were fantastic. Ditto the special effects which were so good they were distracting. (How’d they DO that?!) Timothée Chalamet again, Zendaya, Rebecca Ferguson, and Javier Bardem.

Coming soon: The Nickel Boys. Looking forward to it!

So, Who Was St. Valentine, Anyway?

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Alumni of Catholic schools probably know this, but I’d forgotten any details, if I’d every known them, about the Old World St. Valentine, who lived in the third century—that is 1700 years ago. (You may be tempted to ponder who, today, will be remembered, at least in a positive way, in the year 3725?)

For a thousand years, the saint has been associated with “courtly love,” but don’t overlook his role as patron saint of epilepsy (not so romantic), beekeepers (honey is sweet, after all), and the Umbrian city of Terni (?). February 14 commemorates the day in CE 269 that the saint was martyred in Italy.

The link with courtly love is tenuous and might have grown from the saint’s practice of marrying Christian couples, whose marriages would otherwise have been prohibited. Poet Geoffrey Chaucer and his friends are often credited with bringing to light the legend of the saint’s love connection, which begins with Chaucer’s Parliament of Birds: “For this was on Seynt Valentynes day, Whan every foul (fowl) cometh there to chese his make (make his choice of mate).”

In the 1840s, St. Valentine’s Day was practically reinvented to become the glorious celebration of hearts, flowers, and chocolate we know today. Love the Jane Austen-y vintage-lookiing valentine!

Flickr photo credit: Adair733, Creative Commons license.

Why the Long Hiatus?

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Possibly one or two followers noticed my vacation from 4 x per week blog posting in the last few months. There were good reasons—several of them. The flow was interrupted by out-of-town trips in October, November, and December (Austin, Louisville, and The Holiday Rust Belt Tour). Then there was the election, about which, what can one say that’s actually useful and, preferably, healing (see below)? Then the Holidays, and we celebrate most of them, plus our wedding anniversary. The first six weeks of the year are busy with birthdays, and, next thing I knew, here it is, the week of February 10.

Or maybe I was in shock that in mid-October I finally got my stove fixed, which had been out of commission for one year, five months, and ten days, an enervating experience of itself. During that time, I learned a lot about my grocery store’s prepared foods counter. Interesting. But now I have to cook again! I did managed to send out my quarterly newsletter, full of good reading and watching tips and my writing news. Are you a subscriber? Sign up here and receive three award-winning short stories.

At least during those months, an awful lot of reading got done. In its excellent November 18 issue, The New Yorker compiled essays “reckoning with Donald Trump’s return to power” written by a slew of authors tackling various issues. Most helpful to me, personally, was the piece by Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Lincoln in the Bardo, George Saunders, titled “Concerning the Underlying Disease.” So apt, because the schisms in our national psyche did not suddenly manifest on November 5.

The essay proposes various thought experiments on  circumstances in which we do (or could) mostly get along with people of differing views (Chiefs versus Eagles, for example). People today receive a Niagara of information that helps shape those views, but it’s “information of a peculiar sort, information that is powerful, and has been constructed far away, by people with agendas.” This information is delivered invisibly, in a way to stoke feelings of belonging; it’s addictive (doomscrolling); it’s overwhelming. It’s too much.

He asks whether it’s possible that these “heavily agenda-laced ideas from afar,” as he calls them, have such power within us that we mistake them for our own ideas, that they’ve accumulated exaggerated importance in our lives? This importance may be disproportionate to the issue’s actual effect on us and irrespective of whether we can do anything about them. We’ve come to feel, he believes, responsible for too much. It’s paralyzing.

For the sake of my own mental health, I’ve decided to calibrate how much I do feel responsible for. And what that is, exactly. I can’t turn Gaza into the Riviera (even if I wanted to). I can’t reunite immigrant families separated from their children (even though I would want to). I can’t do any of the hundred things I can think of that actually make more sense to me than what the politicians are either doing or not doing. What I can do is take a step back from other people’s agendas and concentrate on simply being kind. To myself, to you, to strangers. In the long run, living by example may have some effect. That isn’t to abandon all responsibility. It’s just to assess it better. To care about the people affected, not the affecters (a word?). And to do what I actually can, however large or small.

The Dynasty That Keeps on Giving

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Last week, American Ancestors hosted a Zoom presentation about potential?? English ancestors—those lusty, murderous Tudors. I’ve been a fan of stage, screen, and tv interpretations of Tudorabilia starting with the BBCs The Six Wives of Henry VIII, now more than 50 years ago! and still memorable, on to Elizabeth (Cate Blanchett), up to the salacious (and highly inaccurate) The Tudors in 2007-2010, and the three volumes of the late Hilary Mantel’s prize-winning novels, which started with Wolf Hall, through their stage and television versions (Mark Rylance at his very best). So, of course I couldn’t miss this latest program, led by Curt Di Camillo, curator of Special Collections for the New England Historic Genealogical Society. Here are some tidbits.

Di Camillo started with a little background on what paved the way for the Tudors, and that was the War of the Roses, the Plantagenets—the longest running royal house in Britain—symbolized by the White Rose and the Lancasters (red rose). When Henry VII seized the throne from the reviled Richard III, he created the “Tudor Rose,” red and white a bit of transparent pandering.

(As an aside, if you missed last year’s film, The Lost King, the true story of a persistent English woman who went on a hunt for Richard III’s body, which scholars searched for fruitlessly for centuries, rent it!.)

But what I learned about the first Tudor, Henry VII, was less well known (to me at least). He was reviled as well, considered a usurper, and, possibly worst of all, he was Welch. He was under such threat he created a special bodyguard and designed their uniforms. You recognize them as the Beefeaters, who still wear Henry’s design today. For Britain, at least, Di Camillo says, Henry Tudor’s accession to the crown in 1485 represented the end of the Middle Ages.

He undertook a number of acts to establish his legitimacy. He introduced a gold coin, called a sovereign, that bore his image with the trappings of the monarchy, he married Elizabeth of York (who passed on her red-hair genes to her son and grandchildren). And he added the Henry VII Lady Chapel to Westminster Abbey, which now holds the remains of many English kings and queens. But it was up to his granddaughter, Queen Elizabeth I, daughter of Anne Boleyn, to employ England’s first spymaster, Sir Francis Walsingham, setting the stage for many great spy novels to come.

More information:
American Ancestors/New England Historic Genealogical Society
Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel
The Lost King
Elizabeth’s Spy Master: Francis Walsingham and the Secret War that Saved England (have not read this one)

“So you think THAT’s funny?!”

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You ever wonder what is the world’s funniest joke? You aren’t alone. In its 19 August issue devoted to stories about humor, The New Yorker resurrected Tad Friend’s 2002 coverage of the efforts of UK psychologist Richard Wiseman (not wiseguy, note) to identify the world’s funniest joke. (You can read about his team’s work here.) Not so easy, it turns out.

Tackling this conundrum led him to think about why we find certain things funny, or not. Friends have probably asked you to recommend a good movie, and you may have learned the hard way that your suggestions about dramas and crime stories work out pretty well, but it’s practically useless to recommend a comedy—people’s senses of humor are too different.

In fact, Friend notes the many unanswered questions about what makes us laugh. There are esoteric issues and basic ones, like “whether any woman, anywhere, ever, has appreciated the Three Stooges.” Friend’s line made me laugh, though, because I’m a charter member of the Three Stooges Unappreciators. Nor do I like Neil Simon-type comedy where I can see the next one-liner barreling my way. Duck! And, mean-spirited sitcoms, arrrgh!  

One thing the UK researchers did notice is that, if you tell the same joke about a talking animal, and switch out the animal, the funniest one will turn out to be a duck. Maybe it’s the letter “k” there, a reputedly sure-fire staple in comedy lore. Now, feel free to proceed with your day, having learned something, or two somethings, completely useless.

Apparently, our humor processing system is complicated. Electric stimulation of various parts of the brain can make a person smile or cry, but Wiseman says it’s very hard to make them laugh. A different set of researchers has learned that some types of humor (the kinds of stuff you need to think about) are processed on the left side of the brain, some on the right. It’s as if the left side sets up the joke, and the right side—the emotional side—“gets it.” Or, “While the left hemisphere might appreciate some of Groucho’s puns, and the right hemisphere might be entertained by the antics of Harpo, only the two hemispheres united can appreciate a whole Marx Brothers routine.” Says Friend, neither one, apparently, “thinks much of Chico.” (I laughed again.)

Among many other attractions, this issue of the magazine also has nostalgic short bits about Robin Williams and Richard Pryor early in their stand-up careers, and a lovely reminiscence by Zadie Smith. Pieces that make you smile and sigh at the same time.

Last week, our local movie theater showed 1942’s The Palm Beach Story, a classic screwball comedy starring Claudette Colbert, Joel McCrea, Mary Astor, and Rudy Vallee. Princeton English professor Maria DiBattista gave a short pre-film talk. Her book Fast Talking Dames is about a type of cinematic character she calls an American original. The Palm Beach Story has two of them and, DiBattista says, every kind of comedy imaginable—slapstick, one liners, mistaken identities, double entendre. We loved it!

If you can tolerate a little ethnic humor, here’s a quick joke, courtesy of the entertaining Netflix program, Somebody Feed Phil:

A nine-year old boy rushes home from school, calling, “Mom! Mom! I got a part in the school play!”
“Oh, that’s wonderful, darling! What part did you get?”
“I play the Jewish husband!”
Waving him away, she says, “Go back and ask for a speaking part.”

To end on contemporary note, Emma Allen a New Yorker cartoon editor, reports that “One of the few things A.I. can’t do well is write a joke—a fact that we can all cling to when we’re sent into the mines by our robot overlords.”