Over the Top!

Over the Top!

Tyranny is the deliberate removal of nuance—Albert Maysles

I’m often intrigued by the derivation of unusual expressions that have become common in our contemporary speech. I remember being amazed at learning where ‘a wet blanket’ came from, which I’ll leave up to you to search out for yourself. You have AI and Google now, neither one of which existed when I first got curious about this kind of linguistic creativity. But this return to probing the English language was rekindled for me recently while watching a show about warfare at the turn of the 20th century. One of the poor soldiers announced that he would ‘go over the top’, meaning he’d leave his trench to join the fighting. It struck me uniquely because I’d just been expressing my dislike for a performance I’d seen which was so ‘over-the-top’. I realized that all the excesses of that war-time reference were completely appropriate to the presentation I’d seen and rejected. I’ve often commented on being uncomfortable with writing that describes some kind of outrageous behavior that felt unrealistic to me. But why should that matter? I finally figured it out the other night when I was in a 92Y lecture about the work of America’s quintessential composer, Irving Berlin. Continue Reading

In Plain Sight ~ the ubiquitous ‘need to know’

In Plain Sight ~ the ubiquitous ‘need to know’

“Family patterns—like family secrets—repeat themselves.” ~ Iyanla Vanzant There has been a rash of books lately on the topic of family secrets. Why? Your guess is as good as mine, but I’m sure part of it has to do with the fact that children weren’t included in a lot of family news when I was… Continue Reading

Summer Reading

Summer Reading

“One benefit of summer was that each day we had more light to read by.” ~ Jeanette Walls “Summer reading,” the woman said, with an apologetic shrug translating as a plea for forgiveness. That outgrowth of embarrassment was meant to explain both the book and its title, neither one of which I remember to this… Continue Reading