An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
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How did I realize that this is the right translation of
علاج واقعه پیش از وقوع باید کرد
درمان هر واقعه باید مقدم بر وقوع آن باشد.
The remedy of any event should precede it happening.
My Own Thoughts on “Systemic” Racism
The definitive evidence of “systemic” racism is that we all systematically refer to “race” in these discussions. A concept which has no objective, scientific basis.
In other words, race is emic, not etic.
Boas’s presumption is wrong. Science and reason do not sway the public assumption that races exist.
“If our life experience has taught us anything, it is that continuing a pattern of ‘race-consciousness’ does not cure racism. It merely perpetuates it.” Larry Purdy, Getting Under the Skin of “Diversity”: Searching for the Color-Blind Ideal
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Does anyone actually believe that white male racists are non-embodied?
Delco and Mare of Easttown
Most of what follows comes from https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mare_of_Easttown and also the trivia section of the IMDB entry on Mare of Easttown
Critics and viewers have praised the series and Winslet for convincingly replicating one of the varieties of the Philadelphia regional accent, an oddity in mainstream media. The specific accent is known as the “Delco accent”, after Delaware County to the west of Philadelphia.[41]
After three episodes, Saturday Night Live created a segment called ‘Murder Durder’, spoofing the show’s Philadelphian accents and plot points. The cast and crew found it hilarious and were very flattered
One of the only productions to attempt the Philadelphia accent, much less master it. The cast received universal acclaim for their portrayal of the harsh Philadelphia sound; notoriously known as one of the hardest accents ever to imitate. The production was so committed to having authentic accents that dialect coach Susan Hegarty was the second person hired after Kate Winslet. The vowel sounds are so wildly inconsistent from word to word that linguistic professor Betsy Sneller suggested that it is easier to go over each word individually. “It’s really, really difficult to learn even in a natural language setting, so the fact that Kate Winslet [and the cast are] doing it is very, very impressive.” Craig Zobel recalled that Winslet would show up to set with her script completely covered in markings of the specific vowel sounds.
All 7 episodes were shot at the same time. Craig Zobel had to continually check with the script supervisor to figure out what part of the story the episode was, and what certain characters knew. When production was halted due to COVID, a significant amount of rewriting had to be done, to limit the amount of people on set. Zobel credited Kate Winslet with guiding the production on how to maintain a safe work environment, after consulting with Scott Z. Burns, following their collaboration on the pandemic film Contagion (2011).
Production began in October 2019 and continued until March 13, 2020, when COVID restrictions forced filming to cease, mere weeks away from completion. In what was originally envisioned as a six-week break, production was delayed for several months until September. For the cast, they had to continually rehearse their accent, for fear of losing the specific Delco accent. When filming resumed, the scenes took almost double the time to film, due to the extra precautions required. Craig Zobel estimated that 50% of the script had to be rewritten in accordance with social distancing guidelines.
added note: https://www.booksmartstudios.org/p/mare-of-hoagietown?token=eyJ1c2VyX2lkIjo0Mjc4MSwicG9zdF9pZCI6Mzk3MDIwODQsIl8iOiIyR3M1YSIsImlhdCI6MTYyODU1NjgzNSwiZXhwIjoxNjI4NTYwNDM1LCJpc3MiOiJwdWItMzY2MTY4Iiwic3ViIjoicG9zdC1yZWFjdGlvbiJ9.vQnasIpLHZQHXC5yMrjA7p12sSX71wqTeJfelvK7FUs
Mwen konnen sèlman kreyòl liv
With our friend and colleague Stephen Arnold in Guadeloupe at the 1993 African Lit Association. The occasion was the presentation of the Fonlon-Nichols Award to the Cameroonian – Ivoirien novelist and playwright Werewere Liking.
I had composed a short statement in the best Guadeloupean Kreyol I could muster. I mustered well enough to have been sorely embarrassed when, afterwards, Guadeloupeans began speaking at me in it.
Regrèt, mwen konnen sèlman kreyòl liv, I had to say in my pitiful Haitian-inflected Kreyol:
Sorry, All I know is book creole.
Like the Pages of Old Book in which Flowers Had Been Pressed-Dried
Notes Ex-cellar 1
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Now that I’ve finally gotten around to it, I realize that the my own anticipation of writing up the Loyau anecdote, or rather the one on the 1921 Vouvray, may have spoiled its effect. Held for too long.
The 1921 Vouvray became available in the early 80s because René Loyau literally stumbled on it.
I’m not sure how much of a Gauliste he was. I never learned to parse out the nuances of rightwing post-WW2 political affiliations in France, which themselves go back. But I know know that when the Nazis arrived in the Loire valley the first thing they sought out was stocks of fine wine (a point which made me think twice about them). Loyau’s grandfather, at least, was anti-Nazi and built a hidden annex in their warren of cellars which he then walled off and made look like it was just … a wall.
The old man passed during the war and everyone forgot until the late 70s what he had done. When the annex was finally discovered, they couldn’t be sure which wines were which until they also finally discovered the coded instructions Grandpa had left.
One day René was working there and stubbed his toe on a pile of wooden cases which he was able to identify and re-label as 21 Vouvray. He let Kermit market several cases of it. It was something cheap, like $100 a bottle.
It was early on in my stage with Kermit, who used the occasion to teach me to make cold calls to a known list of aficionados, one of whom was an Iranian brain surgeon in LA.
When I called his number, I got his secretary, who told me he was not available. But after I told her he could get his hands on a allotment of three bottles (the normal limit), she said she would call into the operating room and let him know. And that I should hold the line.
A minute or two later the surgeon himself y came on the line himself, having left surgery to talk to me. He tried to beg two or three allotments but to no avail. I had my instructions. Poor guy had to make do with three bottles.
It was a bargain. In 1982, sixty years later, this semi-sweet Vouvray had digested most of its sweetness, had plenty of balance and fruit and a bouquet reminescent of an old manuscript into which flowers had been press-dried. It was a delight.