Pronunciation: Liszt

When I was 11, my teachers taught me to say ‘Dvorak’, ‘etude’, and ‘allargando’ to keep me from sounding like a yokel. I can tell you who my favorite pianist is, and it’s suitably obscure. I know where to find the unicorn musical direction ‘beklemmt. I know the story of the Shreveport Tosca. I can chat about modulation styles as they changed over the 19th century.  In other words, if I feel like it, I can use language to flash my in-crowd street-cred at any classical music event, anywhere. I can drop names, make inside jokes (I’m very proud of some of them) add meaningful trivia, and fight over chaconnes with the very best of them. I have a nemesis, though, something that can make me feel like I don’t and never will belong with the in crowd.

*stares into middle distance, displays hands conspicuously*

This is Franz Liszt. His name comes up from time to time.

How in Euterpe’s name should ‘Liszt’ be pronounced?

I do whatever has to be done to avoid saying Liszt. If I can’t get around it, I make a joke and get all crazy with the z. Liszzzzzzzzsst…zzzzz…st.

Time to stop all that. I met a Hungarian physicist a few weeks ago, and while we walked along a lake, he kindly, if amusedly, explained the rule.

In Hungarian, and Liszt, folks, is Hungarian,

S = shhhh, nice and harsh. As in “shit”. I’m just quoting my friend.
Z = zzzzz… they’re not total heathens.

SZ =….. sss. just s.

So go out there, and casually call him Franz ‘List’, and if anyone (hopefully your attractive date, but I can’t help you with that…) points it out, just tell them.

“Oh, in Hungarian, ‘sz’ just says ‘s’.”

Yogh and Ash and Thorn

Last week Back in May, I shared Peter Bellamy’s setting of Rudyard Kipling, noting that I’d stumbled over it thanks to the glory and munificence of the internet.

More specifically, I was contemplating Anglo-Saxon words that start with an ash or a thorn, and came across this parody by Catherine Faber:

Yogh and Ash and Thorn

Some time between the year fourteen-ought-five and -fifty-one
There was a strange and radical change in spoken English done.
These letters all but past recall should not be held in scorn;
The rose in May must go the way of yogh and ash and thorn.

Yogh and ash and thorn good sirs, mouldering vellum adorn;
Here do we see mortality in yogh and ash and thorn.

Yogh to me resembles a three a little bit flattened above
And sound denotes so low in the throat as only the Dutch could love
Yet now is found both letter and sound discarded and forlorn;
Remember you are mortal too, like yogh and ash and thorn.

A “b” with a tail, thorn didn’t prevail, but though it lost the race
It takes a pair of letters to wear the shoes to take its place,
And a and e an ash will be when back to back they are bourne;
Into dark the passing mark of yogh and ash and thorn.

“Vowel shift” said somebody miffed, “It’s more like a hey or a bransle”
“Letter and sound keep swapping around and ‘hands about go all!'”
Some were stored and some ignored and some were mangled and torn,
Caught up in the rout as vowels fell out with yogh and ash and thorn.

Time must be an enemy that ever ending brings–
Even word-fame cannot be heard when words are mortal things.
Some clever cuss in studying us some distant future morn
Will find us surely strange to her as yogh and ash and thorn.

Rich and strangely words will change in warpage under use
But why in past it happened so fast Gude Godde only knoos.**
We work the sum of what we become from where and how we are born.
And hold these three in memory: yogh and ash and thorn!

Cool Jep Stories

I think I answered most questions the average viewer might have about Jeopardy and how it operates last week.  But there are still a few odds and ends that seemed worth noting, so this is just to cover anything I missed before.

First off: John and his pink-shirt-Friday friend Adam, as well as Adam’s brother Aaron, did a podcast concerning John’s run on the show.  After watching the January 15 show, we listened to part of it and tracked down the 4 youTube video segments (from 1984) of the first Jeopardy! show hosted by Alex Trebek.  It’s much the same in essentials, but Alex gives so much more detail about how the show works; there’s much more applause from the audience; and unless I’m much mistaken, it was possible for contestants to ring in before the question was over – a “hack” buzz that isn’t possible today.

I’ll take “mustaches” for $1000, Alex.

Reading through Ken Jenning‘s second AMA reminds me that oh yeah, Jeopardy doesn’t normally cover travel costs – so if you register and make it to auditions/the show, be reading to pony up for the flight, car rental, and/or hotel stay.  The second- and third-place contestants get $2000 and $1000, respectively, but that doesn’t necessarily cover everything.

Ken also noted that he’d been blackballed from game shows, “like the card-counters who get kicked out of casinos.”  This isn’t the case for everyone, as Jeopardy is probably the biggest stickler where its contestants are concerned.  The registration page reads “You are not eligible to be a contestant on JEOPARDY! if you have appeared on a nationally broadcast game show/dating show/relationship show/reality show in the last year or three game shows/dating shows/relationship shows/reality shows in the last 10 years.”

Another perennial point of interest is the stories that the contestants share right after the show’s first commercial break.  Sometimes they manage to be fascinating, often they come across a little dull or strange, and sometimes they’re just random.

Well, not without reason.  It’s a bit difficult, we (family and friends) decided, to tell a story of any significance to a nation of strangers when you’ve less than a minute to do so, context and all – and any time taken on storytelling is time taken away from answering questions on the board.  So it’s best to be brief, especially because Alex spends some 5 to 15 seconds introducing the story.  Moreover, you can’t be not-boring without attempting to be unique, or at the very least uncommon; you can’t do that without some people finding you very strange, or a jerk, or a very strange jerk.

We learned from John that contestants give the show 5 topics or fun facts or tidbits (free of any sort of promotion or advertisement), highlighting the one they find most interesting to discuss.  But Alex gets the list, and he’s the one who picks which story goes on the show.  During John’s week of play, a lot of different people ended up discussing how they met their spouses; someone joked during a post-game discussion that Alex should write a book concerning all the meet-cutes he’d heard about.

Since I have no meet-cute of my own, this leaves me wondering: what stories would I tell?  What 30-40 second-story could I share with the country without feeling weird about it?

Anything posted here, I guess, edited accordingly.  Perhaps I’d relate details about my ongoing project of fashioning a liturgical calendar of cocktails, or volunteering as Boswell for every trip I go on, or confess touching the manuscript containing the LeFay Fragment.  Maybe I’d discuss my affinity for parodies.

But maybe I’d just say “Well, my brother got on the show, and it was so much fun I wanted to do it too.”

What story would you share on Jeopardy?

On Being the Sister of a Jeopardy! Champion

This is a bit of a weird niche to blog about, and doubtless some of my Facebook friends are tired of hearing about it.  That said, it is pretty cool to have a Jeopardy! champion in the family, and anyway, David asked for a blog post about it.

Alex Trebek and my brother John

When you accost people with “Do you watch Jeopardy!?  Well…you should, because my brother’s playing on there,” they inevitably ask questions about how the show works.  How did he get on the show? Is it taped in advance? Oh, okay, do you know how long he’ll be on, then?  What does Alex talk about with them as the credits roll? How much did he win? Is there a five-day limit, or can he go on indefinitely? Is it true that they give the contestants a list of the categories the night before? Can I watch it online?

Well. I can answer some of that for you.

A few days a year, Jeopardy has an online test for prospective contestants to take.  John registered and took it (every year since he graduated college, actually), and did well enough (35+/50 questions, I believe) to qualify for the regional auditions.*  The regional interviews involve further questions, this time with a buzzer involved, to narrow down the field of contestants further.  Finally, he was invited to come out for taping, and went through a final selection process (I forget how this part works) to determine which game he’d be in.  And then he just plays until he can’t play anymore!

*John has qualified for regionals twice now.  One round took him down to Kentucky; the second time he went from Columbus, OH up to Detroit.  Unsurprisingly, he says it’s easier the second time around.

John has NO idea what a beryl is.

They tape 5 shows in a day, each corresponding to the days of a work week.  John’s games were taped back in November, I believe, but he is sworn to secrecy.  He and his wife know how he did – she was in the audience, after all – but have preserved the mystery so the viewers can be surprised (especially when he gets Daily Double clues he doesn’t know, or Final Jeopardy clues he really doesn’t know)!

After the credits roll, Alex talks about whatever subject captured his imagination during the game.  After John’s first game, where he beat the reigning champion J. Elliott, Alex discussed Elliott’s plots for a Truman Capote opera (?!).

Thus far, John has won 5 games and a total of $104,500.  He continues playing until someone else beats him, though I believe that winning 5 times with that high a sum qualifies him to return for the Tournament of Champions (which will happen later this year, I believe; not sure when).

Studying up the night before taping

They don’t give the contestants question lists, but John did use his computer programming skills to great effect: he created an app which utilizes data from j-archive.com to see how well he’d do with questions from former seasons.  This has helped him in at least two questions, including a “Real Mystery” Daily Double that netted him $4,200!

Annnd while I don’t believe it’s possible to stream the show, it’s possible to watch recent games on youTube the day after – with all the ads removed for quick and easy viewing.

So with all that answered…what has it been like, having a Jeopardy! winning-brother?

Toasting after the first win!

Answer: it’s been a pretty good time!  Our whole family has gotten into it: my mum, our cousins, our aunts and uncles, and I have been exhorting the mailmen, the FedEx guys, bank workers, random folks at the shop to tune in.

John and his wife Elizabeth, Tuesday night watch party at our parents’ house.

Day 1: J. Elliott dethroned

John has spent the week going to viewing party after viewing party.  Some of his friends have driven across Michigan and Ohio to watch and celebrate with him.  There’s a flurry of texts and tweets and phone calls every night, as we photograph the shot of his total winnings, and discussions of sartorial considerations.  A whole bunch of J. Elliot fans lamented as their fearless leader was beaten out last Thursday, and some of them still aren’t over it.

John gets a certain amount of ribbing if he misses things – Billings, Montana and The Music Man come to mind – but there’s also a lot of impressed faces when he runs through a category like “Out –Let” or “Anagrams,” and I relish the facts which I know on account of sharing with him and which, I fancy, he knows because of sharing with me: Brideshead Revisited, Beedle the Bard, Baba O’Riley, and others that start with something other than B.

We’ve gotten a little bit of background detail about the other contestants, John’s thought processes during the questions, and the stories he’s shared during the Getting-to-Know-You segments: how he proposed to his wife, the commencement of the Pink Shirt Friday, the puppy cam he and Elizabeth use to keep an eye on their dog Hektor, etc.

All these stories and details have prompted a lot of rumination on facts, trivial and otherwise; game strategy in a fast-paced environment; and stories which are worth the telling even when condensed to <30 seconds.  Some of which I might share in a later post.  But for now…we’re going to watch John on Jeopardy! tonight.  Join us!

Speed Poems, or What You Will

Last month, I went to Comic Con.

It was fantastic, in the old, heady, fantasy-based, rather terrifying sense of the word.

It was also exhausting.

No, I did not dress up as an anime character. I went as an exhibitor.

My friend, to be known as The Grackle, (that is even how I have saved his phone number,) runs, organizes, prints, and hand binds a literary magazine. This entertaining and enlightening romp through a vale of modern literature and literary critiques is called the Grub Street Grackle.

This Grackle, being tenacious and persuasive, decided to sell magazines and promote the brand name at Comic Con. And he offered me a free ticket to help him man the booth.

Being of a slightly nerdy persuasion, I agreed.

But there was a catch. The gimmick was to offer FREE bad poetry.

“Free baaaaad poetry! Step right up and get your freeeee bad poetry! Give us three words and five minutes, and we will give you the WORST poetry you have heard all day. Guaranteed or your many back!”

It was exciting, intense, and exhausting. I give you here some glimpses of our efforts. (Some are done my yours truly, and some by The Grackle Himself.)

 

Words: hat, peanut, hero

Bad Poem:

How deep are the depths
of my soul?
They about as deep
as the inside of an overturned
hat, like a really big one,
like, think Abe Lincoln
times a million.
How rich are the contents of my
fertile mind?
As rich as the contents of a very
good peanut.
I am my own hero.

 

 

Words: ancient, dead, Tardis

Bad Poem:

Let us go then, you and I,
When the Tardis is spread out against the sky,
Like a walrus, dead on a table.
Ancient in its magnitude,
Rogue in time and space and fable.

 

Words: guinea pig, insomnia, creepy

Bad Poetry:

Oh, my, oh, me, oh, oh,
oh.
Ah me.
I lost my guinea pig.
Now I live
alone.
Except for my room mate.
And he’s real loud and creepy.
Now I have insomnia.
Oh, ah, me, ah, oh.

Words: daisy, girth, testicular

Bad poem:

I travel the cosmic daisy chain,
Hopping form leaf to leaf,
Flying between elaborate worlds
In my ship, the “Absolute Girth,”
Flying my sails occasionally furled,
And avoiding vestigial, testicular claims.

 

 

 

 

 

Words: children, lighthouse, castle

Bad Poem:

We in this world
are all but children,
adrift in a sea of confusion
with no guide,
no lighthouse,
helpless,
sad.
Like kings without a castle,
or something.

Words: chloroplast, amoeba, eggplant (but a the time I could not remember how to spell chloroplast)

Bad Poem:

You are my chloroplast,
My darling chloroplast,
You shake my amoebas,
When I’m on an eggplant fast.
You’ll never know dear,
How wormy my cells are,
Unless you blast light at
a magnified degree
through a microscope
at your eye and see.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There are many, many more, discovering in varying degrees the cross-section of idiocy and brilliance. The rest, should you wish to pursue them, may be found at the Grackle facebook page. We wrestled with words like Ramadan, cat, Jayne Cobb, regurgitation (that one was given by Captain America himself!) spaghetti, and carcinogenic.

And I know that there is one I wrote about watermelon and love that is actually almost a decent poem, but I cannot find it. If you spot it, let me know!

The rest of Comic Con was fun too. Crazy, obsessive, and bone-wearying, but fun.