"Are You Jewish, or Are You Just Here?"

Well, right now I just feel like posting something. We have a dear friend staying with us who's enduring their own struggles but getting through them with a whole lot more equanimity than I've ever exhibited. 

Not the point.

These days, the Census box I check is Taoist-leaning Jewish agnostic heavily influenced by Catholic social teaching, which doesn't mean much to anyone -- but it wouldn't surprise me if a few others out there are like me. JuBus, with a heavy dose of reading from the right kind of clients. A former, and late, client of mine was an inspirational speaker named Charlie "Tremendous" Jones. I had the good fortune of meeting him once when my wife and I were making one of our many descents south. His publishing house was a few rooms stocked floor to ceiling and wall to wall with about every motivational book ever printed. He was known for his saying, "You will be the same person in five years as you are today except for the people you meet and the books you read." I really can't argue with that.

Also not the point.

Some years back, I decided to attend the only real Jewish synagogue around here, in Blountville, TN. (The area has a few messianic Jewish congregations. Don't get me started. The "rabbi" may be Jewish, but the congregations are Pentecostals looking for another day in church. IMHO.) The temple in Blountville has been around since the late 1800s, but there ain't many Jews around here, so they don't have a full-time rabbi, or haven't for most of the 23 years I've been living in Bristol. Every few weeks, as I remember, a rabbinical student would come down from the seminary in Cincinnati to do whatever needed to be done. 

On one of my visits there, I ended up next to a gentleman who was the husband of the president of the Sisterhood -- in other words, the woman who runs the show. He was or is a retired professor from the East Tennessee State University School of Medicine, which probably isn't too bad a joint, despite the name if you're an ignorant displaced Yankee like me. But he was clearly heavily into his medications that night. We were separated by a seat, and he leaned over to me and asked, "So, are you Jewish, or are you just here?" 

I answered, "Both."

Once he found out what this nice young Jewish man did (shanda fur de goyim, I am not a doctor or lawyer), he lit up. 

"Would you edit my CV for me?" Sure thing, I said. No charge.

He emailed me a forty-page, single-spaced resume, most of which seemed impressive enough. At some point in his life, he probably had his shit together. Every damn thing he'd ever done was in these forty pages, but the show-stopper came on about page 38.

"Read most books: 3rd grade." 

Well, now, all I remember from my third-grade year at Staten Island Academy was playing hangman in what passed for the English/verbal part of the curriculum. Supposed to be a spelling exercise, I guess. I stumped everyone, including Mrs. Bartlett, with the word "rhubarb." After getting the puzzled looks I would grow accustomed to later in life, I explained to the best of my seven-year-old ability, "It's a fight in baseball." I'm certain I didn't associate the word with anything to do with nature. Like "the tools of ignorance," I figured the term was common knowledge. And if you don't know what that term means, as Professor Yogi Berra once said, "You can look it up." Click the link.

But Professor Prescription's capper came when I asked him why there were so many people listed with birthdays in the temple's weekly program (maybe five or six for each day of the week), but every time I went to shul there, the congregation had about 15 people in it. His answer was a classic.

"You ever hear of the 82nd Airborne?"

"Yes."

"How about the 101st Airborne?"

"Yes, of course."

"Did you ever wonder what happened to the rest of them? We're the same way. We just keep counting them until they tell us not to."

Sh'ma Yisrael adonai elohaynu adonai echod.
Baruch shem kivod malchuso lay'olam vaed.

Some things never leave you.

Haven't Been Here in a While

In the words of Warren Zevon in his own version of "Poor, Poor Pitiful Me," "I don't wanna talk about it." I will say that things are a whole lot different now than they were just prior to my 59th birthday, the dateline of the prior post. Yow.

The hands-down best part of the changes is that I recently became a first-time grandfather, so wonderful things do happen. Our son and daughter-in-law have decided that once our granddaughter has a recognizable face, she will also have no social media presence. They won't be posting pictures for public viewing, and I'm sure it'll be a long time before their child does. And my kids are not Luddites by any means, DIL included. Nor do they particularly put themselves out there, at least via the only medium that I very, very occasionally access: the much-dreaded Rat's Nest; both sons have abandoned it, and our daughter-in-law might post twice or thrice a year. I think they do Instagram stuff, but I don't really know (or know what that is) nor do I care. All three can stare into their phones for hours with the best of them, although the new parents now have a better way to spend their time.

And no photo of my most brilliant and beautiful granddaughter will appear here, because it wouldn't last long anyway. Scroll down a little and you'll see that Blogger has scrubbed the picture of the mascot and me, for godsake. I'm not sure which of us triggered the facial recognition bots. Google years ago wiped out from this blog the photo of the czarina and me with John Cale . . . and also wiped out, at least on my side, the same photo as an attachment to an email to an author in Israel, for whom I was writing an index. Thankfully the author did receive the email and the photo deletion didn't until occur until sometime down the line. But it still makes you go hmmm, as some long-forgotten sort-of comic would say.

Just got through the leanest month in the modern history of LandonDemand. September's already looking better, which isn't saying much, unless folks bail on me. It's happened before. Or something is moved to next season. Or a well-known university press gets a job back three weeks early—a true sign of my lack of stuff to do—but the Holy Grail known as the Purchase Order Number has not yet been assigned. And I start what becomes a string of worldwide emails to get one. I mean, talk about no good deed goes unpunished.

On the other hand, with this same press, I once filed an invoice on Thursday morning and was paid late that afternoon, direct depozick [sic]. So I can't really complain.

I just realized that the insomnia I've been battling for much of this year could have been spent right here. Anyone out there reading this is very, very lucky that I've not happened upon that notion before now. I've been unleashing the word horde (thanks, Wm. S. Burroughs) upon any poor soul who'll stand still long enough. (See paragraph 1.)

And no more comments. Sorry. The spammers are getting past the meager defense that Blogger provides. I'm always available via landondemand@gmail.com, often too much so. Write me, especially if I don't know you.

American Education and Publishing: Some Things Never Change

“It is lamentable that many of our children,” he wrote, “leave school knowing but a little more about the grammar of their language than a horse does about handling a musket.”

And later from the same volume:

"One editor warned would-be poets that there was 'postage to pay, paper to waste, and patience to weary' with the piles of submissions he received" (emphasis added).

How to Explain Capitalization Choices to Your Family

The notion expressed in the title might seem silly, except for the fact that my son and daughter-in-law are high school English teachers. Well, and consider the fact that my sons, certainly the one who has become a teacher, never came to me for a writing or editing question. My god, the only thing in life I can actually help them with . . .

The only pieces of writing I've seen of my younger son's were a paper or two my wife liberated from his apartment one time while staying there when he and our future D-I-L were out of town. The reports that always came from his teachers were that they wished he wrote more. He presented his ideas with such economy of language that, while answering the questions, his assignments rarely approached the word limit. Could be worse problems.

So, while walking down the streets of Denver, my daughter-in-law mentioned that she and a student were having trouble deciding on capitalization of a certain term or category of terms. I tried to explain not only the proper approach (AP and Chicago agree) but that they really didn't have to puzzle this crap out for themselves. While Grammar Girl is pretty neat, so's your old man, so to speak.

As are these resources. The list is cribbed from the AP Stylebook. Thanks in advance to AP, which has not granted permission to reprint, but which has also of late realized the value of the serial comma. Mirabile dictu.

+++

AP Stylebook editors refer to the following resources to help guide style decisions. If you do not find your answer in the Stylebook, try checking one of these other sources. You can buy them for yourself using the links below.

First reference for spelling, style, usage and foreign geographic names:

Webster's New World College Dictionary, Fifth Edition

Other references for spelling, style, usage and foreign geographic names:

American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition

Concise Oxford English Dictionary: Main edition 12th edition by Oxford Dictionaries (2011) Hardcover

Webster's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language

National Geographic Atlas of the World, Tenth Edition

The Elements of Style, Fourth Edition

The Chicago Manual of Style, 17th Edition

For aircraft names:

IHS Jane's All the World's Aircraft 2014-2015: Development & Production

For military ships:

Jane's Fighting Ships 2016/2017: Yearbook

For nonmilitary ships:

LLOYDS REGISTER OF SHIPS 1989-90 (3 VOLS A-G/H-O/P-Z)

For railroads:

The Official Railway Guide: Freight Service Edition,The Bulk Connection March/April 1990

For federal government questions:

Congress At Your Fingertips 115th Congress 1st Session 2017

For non-U.S. government questions:

Political Handbook of the World

The CIA World Factbook 2017

For religion questions:

Handbook of Denominations in the United States 13th Edition

Other references and writing guides consulted in the preparation of the AP Stylebook:

The Careful Writer

More Language That Needs Watching

Watch Your Language: a Lively, Informal Guide to Better Writing Emanating from the News Room of the New York Times

THE WORD: An Associated Press Guide To Good News Writing

Modern American Usage: A Guide

A Dictionary of Modern English Usage, Second Edition

Fowler's Dictionary of Modern English Usage

Harper Dictionary of Contemporary Usage

Newton's Telecom Dictionary

Dictionary of Problem Words and Expressions

Words into Type

Sample Response to Author for Indexing Query

Just sent this letter to an author looking for an indexer. I'd asked for a few sample manuscript chapters since the pages weren't ready yet. I'm also printing it here so that I can use it as boilerplate, not that I'll remember it. I'm so geeked up about going to Denver tomorrow, I'm still working on what should have been finished seven hours ago. Gonna be the usual long night before travel. "Live and don't learn, that's us" (Watterson). I wonder if AAR has ever done a Calvin and Hobbes session. The question should be, "How many?"

+++

Thanks very much, J——. Even though I'm a known quantity to —— Press, I understand their and your stance perfectly.

As far as the prospectus, my first reaction as an indexer is, If I had this before starting any book, my life would be immeasurably easier. I'm just sitting here shaking my head at the thought. I might ask authors or presses for it in the future, and if that's the case, I've gotten my money's worth out of this correspondence already. 

All that notwithstanding, your material has made it with room to spare under my psychic limbo bar. If the job were to come my way and came with the usual 6x9" or 6x9.25" trim size, the rate would be $5 per indexable page, which is generally from the first page of the introduction through the end of the last chapter, inclusive. Add on to that pages for any indexable front matter (maybe a preface, not foreword or acknowledgments) and back matter (notes, not bibliography or appendices [except in the most general of fashion]). For a book around 90K words, maybe 230 pages or so? Of that, usually about 210-15 would be indexable.

So if it's the usual academic trim size, entirely depending on the final page count of indexable material, probably in the $1075 range, give or take. If you're associated with an institution that might be paying for the work, I'd ask to start any necessary payment paperwork (registering as a vendor, submitting a W9) at the beginning of the job. I've found that being a first-time payee can take an inordinately long time, and I like to grease the skids. If paying on your own, I accept checks or—for the more adventuresome or 21st-century, which isn't me—PayPal.

Let me know whatever you decide. I'd like to work with you and will add you to my schedule if that's your call.

Thanks.

+++

And if you're wondering about that rather formal head, I'm putting some knowledge to work. 

Fate

Going to Denver, AAR-SBL 2018, this weekend. 

I was in contact with the folks at one of my publishers today about the confab, one of whom has started his own press that I’m also working for, and he offered to give me a badge for the conference. Just call him when I got there. 

So, no housing costs (staying with son and daughter-in-law, one mile from convention), no registration, and my wife remembered we had points on some card that got me enough airfare to fly out there. She says I was meant to go. I wonder if she’ll keep that thought in mind if I get run over by a bus.

If you had told me thirty years ago, or especially thirty-five years ago, that one day I would be traveling halfway across the country for a forty-eight-hour period to attend the annual conference of the American Academy of Religion and Society of Biblical Literature, and that I was really looking forward to it, I would have laughed in your face.

Then again, although there were extenuating circumstances, my first presidential vote was cast for the ticket of Ron Paul and one of the Koch brothers. 

And the irony of both are not unconnected. 

Seven days, no news. I really just can’t recommend this enough. I’m going to have a hard time in the Atlanta airport, trying to avoid televisions. Might be time for the earplugs and finding the nearest airport chapel.

I think it was in Atlanta one time when I was traveling through that I stopped off in the chapel for some peace and quiet. Muslim guy comes in, puts his rug down, does his thing, and gets up to go. I said, “Please don’t take offense, but how do you know which way is east?” He said, “I saw some other guy do it this way.” Speaking of thirty-five years ago, that’s a question I never would have asked in my youth, before meeting the perpetually curious and sociable woman who became my wife.

Next airport chapel I went into, I noticed that they had the direction marked on the wall.

I've Been in a Mood

I'd say it started about two weeks ago. The czarina had gone off to Atlanta to stay with friends in their recently rebuilt home in what used to be a fear zone close to downtown. When our friend moved there 25 years ago, Domino's wouldn't deliver. Now, it's great. The czarina left essentially to lay eyes on our older son, who was there to be in a wedding of some people he'd met while acting. We hadn't seen him since, uh, July, and before that it was way back in, uh, June. Yeah, well, whatever. 

A hurricane was moving through Atlanta, so the wedding was moved across the street. It was supposed to be where the czarina and I were hitched, oddly enough. Our son was going to be a groosman at the same place. They still dressed there, and the restaurant, now under a different name, had at least one Thornton Dial on the wall, as well as some other cool stuff. Mitchell had everyone talking about the art.

I was here in Bristol, baby, with the shedding menagerie. My father's eighty-fifth birthday would have been the seventh of the month; my work game has been off; the electronic gig had backed up two weeks of work into about four days, on top of the usual Lucy and the chocolates; mid-October was coming; eating, sleeping, basic maintenance, all shot to hell . . . I'm down to 177, and the last time I saw that, I was on my way to 145. Couple years after my mother died. "Lotta ins and outs. Lotta what-have-yous."

So—how much you getting paid for this?—I just sent off an index for a book to a company that has certainly in some way affected your life in a significant way (this readership's life) with ramifications, published by a university you know, by some coeditors who are or were the equivalent of C-suite gentlemen in this particular field. "Not exactly lightweights," judging from their bios. 

I'm feeling a little better having accomplished something, and I guess I was feeling my oats. This was after asking the receiver of the invoice if I could send and he could process speedy delivery. I've never worked with the guy or any of these people before, except the press, which won't be involved until I send the index to them author-approved.

Nine hours after the fact, I'm rereading the email I sent them. I guess it's professional enough. The letter is verbatim from Gmail. I love it because I can use it again and again. Absolutely generic, except I did take out the name of the university. It's somewhere east of the Mississippi, I'm pretty certain.

A peek behind the curtain. The underlying tone is, "I really hope you leave this thing alone." I'm almost scared to send off an index anymore. It's also coming up on the one-year anniversary of that experience. I'm not sure I ever addressed that incident in this space. Lordy. Pathetic. Talk about some horseshit scholarship. 

+++

Hi, all. First, thanks again for your patience, and apologies for the earlier bait-and-switch.

I've attached the index manuscript as well as a marked-up PDF noting some things I saw along the way. You've probably already caught most of these issues while reviewing the page proofs.

From looking at your distinguished bios, I'm guessing y'all have been to this rodeo before, but a few notes:

* Multiauthor books present a challenge in that different chapters, especially if they've been printed elsewhere before, might refer to the same concepts using slightly different language. I've tried to consolidate different terminology here, so please keep an eye out for where I may have misinterpreted. I've also presented a lot of cross-references but may have missed opportunities for additional ones. Feel free to add.

* Another challenge with this type of book is avoiding the rabbit hole of trying to present data in the index in addition to the conceptual items. Of course, with an index, a guide to the book's data is not desired. The index would become unwieldy very quickly, and it's also against standard indexing practices, as XXUP's guidelines aver.

* If you want to make or handle any changes on your side, please do so, although track the changes so that I can see what you've done, to ensure that the index still adheres to standard protocols.

The deadline for the press is Monday, 10/23. Hopefully you'll find the index to your liking and any back-and-forth will be brief (although, of course, the index needs to satisfy the authors, within reasonable constraints). I do have a few very minor queries in the index. If you could address to those, I'd appreciate it. They may result in no changes at all.

If you have any questions, let me know. Thanks for an interesting read.

My Master's Thesis: 1 of 2

I went to graduate school for exactly one day.

Back in my full-time employment days, I was writing and editing textbooks and examinations for a university-level business and insurance education program. Next up on my work list was a three-year project editing (and occasionally writing) a textbook on accounting in life and health insurance companies. Of course, I'd never taken an accounting course and knew nothing about life and health insurance. I was 25 years old. The company wisely hired wordsmiths and would teach them about business subjects; easier than hiring business gurus and teaching them how to write.

So, the SVP of the division decided I should go get an MBA in accounting. Uh-huh. I'd considered graduate school once before -- for about 10 minutes, when I saw that the University of Oregon offered an MS in journalism. More than the idea of getting a journalism degree, I liked the idea of having a master's in science after almost failing 10th-grade biology and never taking another science course after that. I wasn't bad in math. Other than earth science, the rest of it may as well have been in Sanskrit.

Get an MBA? Well, that means taking the GRE. Thankfully, I'd spent the last 18 months helping develop standardized tests, so I knew the form much better than when taking the SATs.

[Fun fact about your blogger and the usefulness of the SAT as a predictor of future success. My top SAT scores after three tries were Math 670, Verbal 520. 520. After three tries. One time I posted a 420 Verbal. These are generally not the scores of someone who ends up years later working for such outfits as Oxford, Yale, and Johns Hopkins UPs -- and a few theological presses of equal heft.]

I did pretty well on the GREs and was admitted to the MBA/Accountancy program at Georgia State University. Attended class one day. At almost exactly the same time I started dating my future wife and realized where I'd rather be spending my free time. I went to the SVP, who was all about professional development and education, and explained I simply couldn't return to school and was prepared to deal with the consequences. There were none, other than my subsequent marriage.

So now I occasionally very lightly fantasize about graduate school, and I've mapped out one of my two possible theses:

1. "The Hunting Cap and Alienation in Mid-Twentieth-Century American Literature: A Study of Chapeaux in Catcher in the Rye and A Confederacy of Dunces."

2. A data study on women scholars who cite virtually nothing but other women scholars. Sistahs are doing it for themselves, I s'pose.