A Thing Worth Doing

I must have heard the saying young. “A thing worth doing is worth doing well.” Being an average first born, full of rigid idealistic perfectionism, I thought this was an excellent saying, and strove mightily.

The trouble is, I got older, and met people who were better than me at everything. Well, no one person was better than me at everything I do. But there are better cooks. Better self-hair-do-ers. Better writers. Better violinists. Oh god. The violinists that are out there.

I was a violinist in training. I had huge aspirations. Confronted with so many violinists who were so much better than me, I quailed. I was doing a worthy thing, and I wasn’t doing it very well at all. I was solid, very solid, at a regional level. But I was at camps with internationally awesome rock star violin gods, and I lost my nerve.

A few years later, I quit. I  couldn’t play well enough to meet my own (semi-arbitrary) expectations. No matter that I had personal evidence that practice improves the situation. I didn’t have the guts to face the personal failure, so I quit.

But then I got older, had some kids, faced down the shocking levels of daily failure that motherhood brings. A lot of things worth doing weren’t getting done at all. So I started doing the worthy things halfway, half-assed, halfhearted. Sometimes, weeping.

But the worthy things are getting done. And that is better. So I say to you, a thing worth doing is worth doing badly. It’s worth doing with a tear and a sigh.

It’s worth failing.

A thing worth doing is a thing worth doing.

So yesterday, I opened my case, and apologized to my violin, and tried again. Godspeed in your journey, dear reader. Do the worthy thing.

 

The Lost Formality of Letter Writing

Dear Friends and Lovers,

When I was in grade school, (not sure which grade: homeschool years all blend together,) my writing book had a section on the formal writing of letters. Each letter must have a heading, a greeting, a body full of either chatty anecdotes, witty quips, or occasional fulsome gratitude, and then a formal close and farewell. I had to write fake letter after fake letter until my teacher-mom was satisfied, and I could move onto the next unit. The main interest of the exercise was to relieve the dreariness of 5-sentence paragraph writing.

As I progressed in my studies and pretentiousness, various examples of epistles came before me: Daddy-Long-Legs, Mr. Darcy’s letter,  Woman in White, and the correspondence of the Mr. and Mrs. Adams. Each gave me an idea of how to write an organized, proper and, most importantly, interesting letter.

My favorite example of a formal letter comes from C.S. Lewis’ Prince Caspian. High King Peter dictates a challenge to King Miraz, a document wreathed in formal titles, archaic phrasing, and righteous with cool confidence. I modeled quite a few missives after Peter’s, finding obscure titles for myself and the intended recipient and couching every term in as medieval an accent as I could conjure.

But the age of email dawned, and there are now few calls for the formality of letters. And that lack of pen and paper seems to encourage casual correspondence.

Recently I have had the dubious honor of being on the receiving end of a few formal communications. Or rather, they were short queries from students that should have been formal.

I know for a fact that the grade school students at my school learn and practice letter writing. Yet through either the strange and laid back aura of the interwebs, or the lazy and rebellious disease that attacks middle and high schoolers, my students cannot formulate a proper email. Granted, their questions and requests are usually brief and quickly dispatched.

But I would have died before I sent an email to my professors with the greeting “hey”. Not me name or a proper address, just “hey”.

As a teacher, I also highly recommend using correct capitalization and punctuation in all communiques with a teacher. Yet many students neglect this simple strategy of currying favoring. (Or at least non-ill-will.)

But my biggest pet peeve, pulled from almost all student emails, is lack of a close to the email. Yes, I know that your name and address appears in my inbox. No, I don’t need your signature to know who you are. But typing out “sincerely, yours” brings the whole note to an easy, pleasant completion. An empty space at the end of an email feels unbalanced, disordered, impolite, cheeky insolent . . . etc.

So, dear readers, kindred spirits, erudite partakers of tea and enlightenment, think twice before snapping at a student for insolence sending an email. The Person the other end might be judging you in need of the old world formalities to alleviate her cynicism.

With the utmost gratitude, sincerity, and snarky sermonizing,

Melpomene
Muse of Tragedy, Lady of Melancholy,  Loamer of Egotists, Companion of Nienna, Teacher of Sarcasm, Magistra, Queen of the Classroom, Non-Answerer of Informal Emails, Poetess extraordinaire, and Instigator of Havoc

Swag

I try not to blog about the stupidity that passes for entertainment in our culture.

Not out of any desire to be virtuous or good, mind you. Just out of a darkly perverse refusal to grant the stupidity any more attention.

I do same thing with anything that is really, really, REALLY popular. Things that are so popular that they could not possibly need or want my attention anyway.

So I virtually ignore them.

(Or, more exactly, I ignore them virtually.)

However, this does not prevent me from verbally ranting to my friends about such things.

And one of my pet peeves is . . . . .  song lyrics!

Bad song lyrics.

Annoying lyrics.

Illogical lyrics.

Lyrics that are founded upon corrupt philosophical paradigms.

Lyrics that are so dumb no musical brilliance can save them.

Earlier this year I was certain that the lyrics to a Certain Overplayed Song were the Worst Lyric in the Universe.

They went something like this:

I’d catch a grenade for YAH.
Throw my hand on a blade for YAH.
I’d jump in front of a train for YAH.
You know I’d do anything for YAH
I would go through all this pain
Take a bullet straight through my brain
Yes, I would die for you, baby
But you won’t do the same.

Oooookay.

Leaving aside the fact that the music had a rang of about three notes, the lyrics are just fundamentally UNSOUND!

Butthen, someone introduced me to Justine Bieber’s latest hit, “Boyfriend”.

. . . I . . . I . . .  um . . .  no words.

No words can ever describe the idiocy of this . . . thing.

It is not a song.

It a collection of words and noted all jumbled together.

I would accuse the kid of da-da-isms in both lyrical and musical attempts.

But that that would be crediting him too much intelligence.

You should not ever torture yourself with the song.

 

So imagine my horror when I learned that my students, at the tender age of 10, adore Bieber.

On second though, don’t inflict that on yourself.

 

But then, Liam Neeson did  dramatic reading of the . . . thing.

I giggle.

Thankfully, the “music” is not included. And even Neeson’s Voice o’ Velvet cannot salvage the nonsense.

But it is funny.

Have a gander, and let me know what you think of the “lyrics” being fed our youth.