Cynthia Polansky's Blog
July 9, 2009
WHATEVER HAPPENED TO PIG LATIN?
While visiting recently in my mother's kitchen, my brother mentioned that he hadn't received my monthly newsletter in a while. "Could it be the spam filter?" I asked him "Maybe you need to whitelist the email addy." I caught a glimpse of my mother's bewildered face. "You have no idea what I just said, do you?" She definitely had the I don't know what you're talking about but I'll be supportive and pretend it's fascinating look. Trooper that she is, she shook her head and cheerfully said, "No, but that's okay." Albeit a little late in the game, I understood at that moment what a completely new language technology has spawned, a language that grows with each new fad. It started with "IM-ing" and has evolved into "texting" (now a verb in its own right) abbreviations: BFF, OMG, TTFN, ROTFL, and the ever-important one I thankfully have no reason to remember that warns of parents looking over the kid's shoulder. But abbreviations were just the beginning. Then came Facebook, largely responsible for the metamorphosis of the noun friend into a verb, as in "If you friend my ex-boyfriend after what he did, you are no longer my BFF." Along came Twitter and its appropriate lingo: tweeting, re-tweeting, tweets, twits, etc. Now there are terms that combine English words with the Twitter diphthong (go look it up in the dictionary, like a big boy or girl). Think of the possibilities, some of which already exist: tweeple, mistweet (mistwake?), tweblog ... we may all start sounding like Elmer Fudd ("When I catch that wascally wabbit, I'll give him such a Tweet..."). Perhaps the not-too-distant future will offer foreign language classes for various tech dialects. Don't laugh; remember COBOL and BASIC? In the early days of computer science, proficiency in these acronymic computer "languages" was important. Today's tech talk isn't nearly that esoteric, but I predict it will flourish like toenail fungus, so prepare yourselves. Your grandchild may graduate college with a double-major in Tweetish and Textese. p.s. (how many kids know what that abbreviation stands for?) If you need translations of any of the tech terms used, visit Dictionary.com. They're probably already integrated into the vernacular. www.cynthiapolansky.com
June 18, 2009
Backyard Tragedy
I was a student at George Washington University when I first heard Washington, DC described as "where local news is national news." Catchy, and true. I've lived most of my life in and around Washington and, not surprisingly, I've been privy to many historical events, good and bad. Even out here in Annapolis -- 22 miles and a lifestyle away from the District -- we aren't immune. Years ago, when the DC Sniper targeted Benjamin Tasker Middle School in nearby Bowie, that was too close for comfort. Annapolis gas stations hung opaque plastic panels around pumps to cloak customers from clear view. And that wasn't the only frightening proximity; some of the 9/11 terrorists took their fateful flying lessons at a small aviation school about 15 miles west of Annapolis. I couldn't decide if that was creepier than other 9/11 terrorists spending the preceding night at the same motel where my in-laws all stayed for our wedding in Boston.
Still creepier was the realization that the gunman who attacked the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington actually lives in Annapolis. I found it hard to believe that such venomous hate could reside, undetected, a mere five miles from my house. Had I ever passed him on the street? Would he have noticed the gold Star of David necklace I wear? Might I have been tutoring at the Writing Center on the same day he showed up at USNA to complain about ethnic enrollment?
Readily identifiable evil like a skinhead protest march or a KKK rally is one thing; it's quite another when a mild-mannered old gentleman living in a modest Annapolis apartment complex burns with a hatred that's been germinating for 60 years. We could be generous and allow that dementia may have quashed self-control and fostered violence. That's a palatable explanation many of us want to believe, instead of the more likely and exponentially more horrifying truth. It's no easier to wrap one's mind around the idea of an elderly, self-styled vigilante than that of deliberately crashing huge airliners into skyscrapers.
The bitter conclusion is that there is no escape from evil. Hatred and violence aren't confined to poor urban areas, international waters, or war-torn battlefronts. Evil can reside in our own backyards, the same place where we're told to seek our happiness. But guess what, Toto: we're not in Kansas anymore. Apparently it will take more than a weed-whacker to keep the crabgrass at bay.
This blog is dedicated to the memory of security officer Stephen T. Johns.
www.cynthiapolansky.com
Still creepier was the realization that the gunman who attacked the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington actually lives in Annapolis. I found it hard to believe that such venomous hate could reside, undetected, a mere five miles from my house. Had I ever passed him on the street? Would he have noticed the gold Star of David necklace I wear? Might I have been tutoring at the Writing Center on the same day he showed up at USNA to complain about ethnic enrollment?
Readily identifiable evil like a skinhead protest march or a KKK rally is one thing; it's quite another when a mild-mannered old gentleman living in a modest Annapolis apartment complex burns with a hatred that's been germinating for 60 years. We could be generous and allow that dementia may have quashed self-control and fostered violence. That's a palatable explanation many of us want to believe, instead of the more likely and exponentially more horrifying truth. It's no easier to wrap one's mind around the idea of an elderly, self-styled vigilante than that of deliberately crashing huge airliners into skyscrapers.
The bitter conclusion is that there is no escape from evil. Hatred and violence aren't confined to poor urban areas, international waters, or war-torn battlefronts. Evil can reside in our own backyards, the same place where we're told to seek our happiness. But guess what, Toto: we're not in Kansas anymore. Apparently it will take more than a weed-whacker to keep the crabgrass at bay.
This blog is dedicated to the memory of security officer Stephen T. Johns.
www.cynthiapolansky.com
June 9, 2009
"Bite Me"
Ah, remember the good old days, when the title phrase was an efficacious insult instead of the come-hither teen-speak Stephenie Meyer fans have come to associate with all things vampire. I'm probably not the only one who remembers that the whole teen infatuation with hunky vampires began more than 20 years ago with the film, "The Lost Boys." Back then there was less blood and more imagination, kind of like the movies of 60 years ago when the camera panned up to the stars after the final kiss close-up. You knew what came next; you didn't have to see it. Now there's so much Hollywood vampire blood that California is going to have ration corn syrup.
But my real issue is the whole vampire-equals-sex-god thing. I suppose it started in 1931 when Bela Lugosi forever made Dracula a romantic figure (if you like Hungarians with patent-leather hair). Personally, Lugosi's Dracula resembled my pediatrician. It's a wonder I didn't screech during inoculations. Or fall in love.
Aren't vampires supposed to be scary? Certainly that's what Bram Stoker intended. The literary Dracula had hair growing out of his palms and ears, foul breath, and red eyes. Hardly my idea of romantic figure. Most women don't tolerate back hair, let alone palm hair (though I suppose it would have its merits in winter). Yet out of the myriad Dracula films made over the decades, only two ever portrayed the Vampire in Chief as a frightening character. "Nosferatu," a silent film of the 1920s and probably the original "horror movie," and "Bram Stoker's Dracula," the '90s film with Winona Ryder, Keanu Reeves, and Gary Oldman. Not surprisingly, the latter version sported all the special makeup and effects modern cinematic techniques offered. Gary Oldman's portrayal of Dracula was indeed scary, but compensated by a bevy of sexy, semi-nude female vampires who had their way with Keanu Reeve's Jonathan Harker.
I'm too old to know the names of today's hot actors portraying vampires in movies and cable tv shows, but I'm sure everyone under 25 has committed their chiseled jawlines and bleached-white fangs to memory. I just hope life doesn't imitate art and spawn a vampire craze among teenagers. Maybe vampirism will replace oral sex as the new good-night kiss. The legal drinking age may need some serious re-evaluation.
www.cynthiapolansky.com
But my real issue is the whole vampire-equals-sex-god thing. I suppose it started in 1931 when Bela Lugosi forever made Dracula a romantic figure (if you like Hungarians with patent-leather hair). Personally, Lugosi's Dracula resembled my pediatrician. It's a wonder I didn't screech during inoculations. Or fall in love.
Aren't vampires supposed to be scary? Certainly that's what Bram Stoker intended. The literary Dracula had hair growing out of his palms and ears, foul breath, and red eyes. Hardly my idea of romantic figure. Most women don't tolerate back hair, let alone palm hair (though I suppose it would have its merits in winter). Yet out of the myriad Dracula films made over the decades, only two ever portrayed the Vampire in Chief as a frightening character. "Nosferatu," a silent film of the 1920s and probably the original "horror movie," and "Bram Stoker's Dracula," the '90s film with Winona Ryder, Keanu Reeves, and Gary Oldman. Not surprisingly, the latter version sported all the special makeup and effects modern cinematic techniques offered. Gary Oldman's portrayal of Dracula was indeed scary, but compensated by a bevy of sexy, semi-nude female vampires who had their way with Keanu Reeve's Jonathan Harker.
I'm too old to know the names of today's hot actors portraying vampires in movies and cable tv shows, but I'm sure everyone under 25 has committed their chiseled jawlines and bleached-white fangs to memory. I just hope life doesn't imitate art and spawn a vampire craze among teenagers. Maybe vampirism will replace oral sex as the new good-night kiss. The legal drinking age may need some serious re-evaluation.
www.cynthiapolansky.com
April 20, 2009
Yom HaShoah
April 21, 2009 is Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day, a memorial holiday brought to the forefront of contemporary American life with Steven Spielberg's 1994 film, Schindler's List. It certainly made me more cognizant of the profound implications of this day of observance. I didn't realize, though, that Yom HaShoah was not an outgrowth of a menschy film director's cause; it was established by Israel in 1951, seven years before my birth and less than a decade after the end of World War II.
I don't know why Yom HaShoah seemed relatively new to me; I had attended Hebrew school for seven years, during which time we obviously studied the Holocaust in depth. Our temple's cantor and sexton (a name they gave to the man whose only duty was to teach all the bar and bat-mitzvah kids their haftorah portions and rituals) had both lost their spouses and children to it. The sexton survived himself was shot with his family, and survived by playing dead when stabbed with a German bayonet to evoke any movement indicating that he still lived.
Maybe it was just a matter of growing up. I'm sure my childish mind didn't lend itself to deep thoughts about the Holocaust any more than it would have been inclined to attend the community memorial service for assassinated Israeli prime minister Yitzchak Rabin that I proudly attended with a thousand or so others in my community. And I would never have guessed I'd grow up to write a novel based on a Holocaust survivor's story. Three cheers for maturity!
But I still have much to learn. For example, Yom HaShoah's official full name is Yom HaShoah Ve-Hagevurah, the Day of (remembrance of) the Holocaust and Heroism. That's important. There were so many heroes during World War II, Holocaust related or otherwise. It's only fitting that we remember them all, not just those who perished in concentration camps and ghettos. Brevity is our society's watchword, as nicknames, acronyms, and abbreviations become our vernacular to the extent that we no longer remember what the original name or term was.
Yom HaShoah, as the name was inevitably shortened, has been negatively associated with exploitation, making money on the tragedy of others. There's no business like Shoah business.
Books, movies, museums, memorials...all seen as merely commercial enterprises by bigots looking for any excuse to perpetuate the stereotype of Jews as insatiably greedy. I'm sure poor Spielberg never envisioned that kind of reaction when he established the Shoah Foundation to record an oral history of Holocaust survivors.
What surprised me is that there are Jews who perceive Holocaust remembrance efforts as blood money. Shortly after '>Far Above Rubies was first released, I received an email from a New York man asking if he could find the book in his local library. He wouldn't buy it, he explained, because he was a Holocaust survivor and did not want others to profit from the victims' misery.
Needless to say, I was devastated that someone thought I had written that book for purely mercenary reasons (as anyone familiar with the publishing industry can tell you, authors don't become authors to make money!) I hastened to explain that I wrote it to honor and preserve the memories of those who survived and those who didn't. The man assured me that he didn't think ill of me or my book; he just felt atrongly that all associated earnings from that book, no matter how unintentional, reduce its publication to "Shoah business." That included the publisher, printer, distributor, and so on.
Brevity isn't always to our advantage. It can lead to stress, misunderstanding, and sub-par work, among other things. It can obliterate soon-to-be-extinct arts like letter writing, family conversation, from-scratch cooking, and outdoor play. So tomorrow I will remember that I am observing Yom HaShoah Ve-Hagevurah, the Day of Remembrance of the Holocaust and Heroism. Acknowledge the real-life heroes who cross our paths each day, and remember that heroes can touch our lives even when we aren't looking. And before I say TTFN to go text my BFF about the LOL Tweet I received this morning, I'd like to ask you to take a moment -- a full 60 seconds -- tomorrow to remember someone important in your life: a survivor, a hero, a victim, a friend. We're in this life together.
www.cynthiapolansky.com
I don't know why Yom HaShoah seemed relatively new to me; I had attended Hebrew school for seven years, during which time we obviously studied the Holocaust in depth. Our temple's cantor and sexton (a name they gave to the man whose only duty was to teach all the bar and bat-mitzvah kids their haftorah portions and rituals) had both lost their spouses and children to it. The sexton survived himself was shot with his family, and survived by playing dead when stabbed with a German bayonet to evoke any movement indicating that he still lived.
Maybe it was just a matter of growing up. I'm sure my childish mind didn't lend itself to deep thoughts about the Holocaust any more than it would have been inclined to attend the community memorial service for assassinated Israeli prime minister Yitzchak Rabin that I proudly attended with a thousand or so others in my community. And I would never have guessed I'd grow up to write a novel based on a Holocaust survivor's story. Three cheers for maturity!
But I still have much to learn. For example, Yom HaShoah's official full name is Yom HaShoah Ve-Hagevurah, the Day of (remembrance of) the Holocaust and Heroism. That's important. There were so many heroes during World War II, Holocaust related or otherwise. It's only fitting that we remember them all, not just those who perished in concentration camps and ghettos. Brevity is our society's watchword, as nicknames, acronyms, and abbreviations become our vernacular to the extent that we no longer remember what the original name or term was.
Yom HaShoah, as the name was inevitably shortened, has been negatively associated with exploitation, making money on the tragedy of others. There's no business like Shoah business.
Books, movies, museums, memorials...all seen as merely commercial enterprises by bigots looking for any excuse to perpetuate the stereotype of Jews as insatiably greedy. I'm sure poor Spielberg never envisioned that kind of reaction when he established the Shoah Foundation to record an oral history of Holocaust survivors.
What surprised me is that there are Jews who perceive Holocaust remembrance efforts as blood money. Shortly after '>Far Above Rubies was first released, I received an email from a New York man asking if he could find the book in his local library. He wouldn't buy it, he explained, because he was a Holocaust survivor and did not want others to profit from the victims' misery.
Needless to say, I was devastated that someone thought I had written that book for purely mercenary reasons (as anyone familiar with the publishing industry can tell you, authors don't become authors to make money!) I hastened to explain that I wrote it to honor and preserve the memories of those who survived and those who didn't. The man assured me that he didn't think ill of me or my book; he just felt atrongly that all associated earnings from that book, no matter how unintentional, reduce its publication to "Shoah business." That included the publisher, printer, distributor, and so on.
Brevity isn't always to our advantage. It can lead to stress, misunderstanding, and sub-par work, among other things. It can obliterate soon-to-be-extinct arts like letter writing, family conversation, from-scratch cooking, and outdoor play. So tomorrow I will remember that I am observing Yom HaShoah Ve-Hagevurah, the Day of Remembrance of the Holocaust and Heroism. Acknowledge the real-life heroes who cross our paths each day, and remember that heroes can touch our lives even when we aren't looking. And before I say TTFN to go text my BFF about the LOL Tweet I received this morning, I'd like to ask you to take a moment -- a full 60 seconds -- tomorrow to remember someone important in your life: a survivor, a hero, a victim, a friend. We're in this life together.
www.cynthiapolansky.com
April 6, 2009
Burning Questions
A few years ago I took a hiking trip through the Swiss and Austrian Alps. Breathtaking, as you can imagine. Dotted all over the slopes were lazy cows, relaxing in the sun and no doubt thinking to themselves, "Oy, tourist season..."
Which got me to thinking. Did those cows ever get bored? Where's the mental stimulation? When I posed the question to our guide, he just laughed and asked if I had been one of those kids who always comes up with impossible questions.
Turns out I was one of those kids. Now I'm one of those adults. So here are a few burning questions I've pondered over the years. If anyone has any genuine answers (with evidentiary support), please weigh in!
• Who invented ballet?
• How do we know what dinosaurs looked like?
• Why does your nose run outdoors in the cold?
• Why do we clap to praise performance?
• Why do we cry from emotion?
• Why are spiders and snakes so fearsome to people?
• Why do women have two breasts when most births are single?
Got any burning questions of your own? Let me know, and I'll include them in the next round.
www.cynthiapolansky.com
Which got me to thinking. Did those cows ever get bored? Where's the mental stimulation? When I posed the question to our guide, he just laughed and asked if I had been one of those kids who always comes up with impossible questions.
Turns out I was one of those kids. Now I'm one of those adults. So here are a few burning questions I've pondered over the years. If anyone has any genuine answers (with evidentiary support), please weigh in!
• Who invented ballet?
• How do we know what dinosaurs looked like?
• Why does your nose run outdoors in the cold?
• Why do we clap to praise performance?
• Why do we cry from emotion?
• Why are spiders and snakes so fearsome to people?
• Why do women have two breasts when most births are single?
Got any burning questions of your own? Let me know, and I'll include them in the next round.
www.cynthiapolansky.com
March 17, 2009
VISITING BARDS
This week I am pleased to present the work of New York poet Irene Brodsky, who has graciously agreed to be a guest of Crossing Polansky. Enjoy!
"IN MY DREAMS"
I love him
He doesn't know it
My heart sings
He can't hear it
My hand reaches out
He will never feel it.
I have no right
to love him
as I do,
For I'm not free
I belong to another
What more can I say?
Maybe someday?
If things change,
he will come to me.
'Till then...
I'll cry myself to sleep
and see him in my dreams!
Irene Brodsky
Chayarochel@aol.com
Author of Poetry Unplugged (Outskirts Press)
www.cynthiapolansky.com
"IN MY DREAMS"
I love him
He doesn't know it
My heart sings
He can't hear it
My hand reaches out
He will never feel it.
I have no right
to love him
as I do,
For I'm not free
I belong to another
What more can I say?
Maybe someday?
If things change,
he will come to me.
'Till then...
I'll cry myself to sleep
and see him in my dreams!
Irene Brodsky
Chayarochel@aol.com
Author of Poetry Unplugged (Outskirts Press)
www.cynthiapolansky.com
March 11, 2009
Gimme an E...book
It's been ten years (really five, in technology years) since the eBook first appeared on the scene to change reading life as we know it. I'm talking way back, before Facebook and Twitter, when DOS was still a viable part of our techno-reality. I was still hunting for a publisher for Far Above Rubies when my then-agent hooked introduced me to a man with a vision: treat eBooks with the same respect as we do print books, and the industry will sit up and take notice. He started an e-publishing house that considered only agented submissions. Their eBooks were inexpensive downloads available in eReader-friendly formats. eBooks were, as they say, the wave of the future.
Many predicted it wouldn't last, this newfangled eBook nonsense. eReaders were strange, pricey, cumbersome gadgets that didn't work well in bright sunlight's glare. PDF downloads were cheap and easy, but reading an entire book on your PC monitor? Besides, nothing would supplant a real book, the way a hefty hardcover felt in your hands, the convenience of reading a paperback at the beach or in the tub, the beautifully designed dust jacket or parchment pages converting your particle-board bookshelves into a dignified library.
eBooks kept a small cult following but faded into relative obscurity. All but the strongest e-publishers folded, and the print publishing industry -- whether they'll admit it today or not -- breathed a collective sigh of relief.
But the times, they are a-changin' and Americans were bitten by the "green" bug. Suddenly eReaders became the perfect alternative to pulp, and along came a little device called Kindle. So what's different now? Certainly an endorsement by Amazon doesn't hurt. Perhaps it's just that the eReader's time has come. eBook Week is a good indication. But don't be surprised when the next generation of cell phones boast an e-Book application. You won't even need to use the built-in GPS to find a physical book store.
Celebrate eBook Week with paranormal women's novel Remote Control, available electronically from Echelon Press, Fictionwise, and of course from Amazon Kindle. Visit www.cynthiapolansky.com
Many predicted it wouldn't last, this newfangled eBook nonsense. eReaders were strange, pricey, cumbersome gadgets that didn't work well in bright sunlight's glare. PDF downloads were cheap and easy, but reading an entire book on your PC monitor? Besides, nothing would supplant a real book, the way a hefty hardcover felt in your hands, the convenience of reading a paperback at the beach or in the tub, the beautifully designed dust jacket or parchment pages converting your particle-board bookshelves into a dignified library.
eBooks kept a small cult following but faded into relative obscurity. All but the strongest e-publishers folded, and the print publishing industry -- whether they'll admit it today or not -- breathed a collective sigh of relief.
But the times, they are a-changin' and Americans were bitten by the "green" bug. Suddenly eReaders became the perfect alternative to pulp, and along came a little device called Kindle. So what's different now? Certainly an endorsement by Amazon doesn't hurt. Perhaps it's just that the eReader's time has come. eBook Week is a good indication. But don't be surprised when the next generation of cell phones boast an e-Book application. You won't even need to use the built-in GPS to find a physical book store.
Celebrate eBook Week with paranormal women's novel Remote Control, available electronically from Echelon Press, Fictionwise, and of course from Amazon Kindle. Visit www.cynthiapolansky.com
