The Awl

Yes, There Should Be Fire

Alex Balk — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 13:50:08 +0000

You know the existential dilemma that occurs when you can't decide which would be worse, if something were fake or if it were actually real? There oughta be a German word for that. Also, some kind of cleansing Internet conflagration. [Via]

---

See more posts by Alex Balk

13 comments

Life Is The Hardest Commute Of All

Alex Balk — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 11:10:06 +0000

You know that moment when, having been jammed up against the door in a crowded car, you sense your station approaching and pivot to face front and suddenly see yourself in the harsh, unflattering reflection of the train window and are forced to confront all that you are, the sad lump of skin and meat that you carry with you each day and are mostly successful at not thinking too much about? That near-simultaneous feeling of disgust ("Oh, God, you") and resignation ("I guess this is what I've got left to work with from now on") and the wearying comprehension that the difference between who you think you are and who you're really hauling around in the eyes of everyone else can be plotted on a graph to express the number of days you have left in this world? You don't? Liar. Anyway, there oughta be a German word for that! I mean, there probably already is, but I mean something a little more specific than "leben."

Photo by nivekhmng, via Flickr

---

See more posts by Alex Balk

24 comments

Gegenstandswortgemachenheitlich: Two Words Need Enwordening!

Choire Sicha — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 16:05:45 +0000

It is a busy time in the life of the creation of necessary German words. Writes one fine reader: "So my friend and I were talking today about how we were both a little sad when Jenna Fischer and her ex-husband who made that awesome horror movie and whose brother was Kirk on Gilmore Girls broke up. There should totally be a German word for feeling stupid about feeling sad when celebrities you like break up." Yes there should be! And?

Another wise reader write in: "The feeling when you're in the middle of a great novel and you don't bring it with you to the laundromat/on the train, etc.? Buchenmetrofreude?"

Do help.

Previously: The Homeless Conundrum

---

See more posts by Choire Sicha

12 comments

The Homelessness Conundrum

Alex Balk — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 12:00:44 +0000

Hey, quick question: Do you slap your forehead and mutter, "Oh, God," every time you see an entry I've written that begins with "So I was walking down the street this morning and etc."? I ask because, in response to yesterday's deliverance of absolution, a correspondent volunteered to begin an Alex Balk Cabfare Fundraising Drive "so you don't have to see anymore sad shit on the street and we don't have to hear about it." Fair enough, I suppose; I understand how painful and wrenching it must be to read these accounts because I live them, and the burdens I bear are more painful and wrenching than any of you could ever understand.

Ha, kidding! I'm well aware that even given current conditions I'm one of the most privileged people on the planet. The great tragedies of my life are all still aborning, which is why I feel the need to project my as-yet unjustified sorrows on the rest of you. I apologize if you find that difficult or uncomfortable, and I will try to exercise a little more discretion in advancing my angst in the future.

That said, I was walking down the street this morning, and... You know those oddly conflicting simultaneous feelings of irritation, guilt, "There but for the grace of God" fear and empathy, and self-loathing at your own irritation that you experience when you are unable to dispose of your garbage because there's a homeless person rummaging around in the trash can looking for the smallest bits of sustenance that will get him or her through the next hour? There oughta be a German word for that!

Have you noticed a condition, literary or real-life, that lacks and requires a handy German word? Let us know!

PREVIOUSLY: Unnoticed Bar Mockery

---

See more posts by Alex Balk

25 comments

Phantom Vermin Syndrome

Alex Balk — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 15:05:50 +0000

Back in February my next door neighbor died. She lived alone, and the police discovered her body when a worried co-worker called because she hadn't turned up for a few days. It was a valuable lesson in the transitory nature of life and how vulnerable single New Yorkers, particularly those getting on in years, are to being forgotten. It was also a valuable lesson in how slowly the New York State probate system works when someone dies without an immediate survivor; it's now June and the police still haven't unsealed the apartment. As you can imagine, the warm weather has brought with it some incredible smells!

But that's not all the coming of summer has gifted me with. The smell, while indeed terrible, is something you notice only briefly as you pass by in the hallway. There is another issue: Unfortunately, when they removed my neighbor's body, they did not remove any of the food that was in her refrigerator. I'm assuming Con Ed has turned off the power in the place and the smell of rotting comestibles has attracted the local rodent population, because I've spent the last two weeks enduring an infestation of vermin. I have trapped, no exaggeration, twenty-two mice thus far, and that total does not include the number who have died behind the radiator and will no doubt only make their presence known once the mercury rises above ninety degrees.

I spent a couple of hours today waiting for the exterminator to come. He patched a couple things up, put some poison down, sprayed where he needed to spray, etc. Hopefully that'll put and end to things, but I know for the next few months I will have the persistent sensation that I've just seen something skitter across the floor out of the corner of my eye. This is a condition for which there oughta be a German word!

Have you noticed a condition, literary or real-life, that lacks and requires a handy German word? Let us know!

Previously: Unlikely metaphors

---

See more posts by Alex Balk

36 comments

There Oughta Be A German Word For This!

Choire Sicha — Thu, 28 May 2009 09:45:52 +0000

While reading the nearly 9000-word account of the death of the Rocky Mountain News in the Denver magazine 5280, I came across the following literary device used to describe the newspapers situation. This, like many things, surely requires a handy (and possibly faux) German name!

During takeoff from LaGuardia Airport, US Airways Flight 1549 hit some birds, which triggered engine failure, and the pilot, captain Chesley Sullenberger, a graduate of the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, executed a miraculous water landing, saving all 155 people onboard. Before climbing onto a rescue boat himself, Sullenberger walked through the sinking aircraft, twice, to ensure that everyone had been evacuated. One of the pictures, a shot of 1549's tail dipping beneath the Hudson as passengers squeezed onto the wings, would be the front page of the next day's Rocky. The headline: "Wing. Prayer. Rescue."

If any of the editors in the room noted the parallels between Flight 1549 and their own predicament, they kept it to themselves. The Rocky, too, had crashed.

Apart from being, you know, sort of tacky, this is a troublesome and also popular device: the intrusion of a metaphor onto the description of a scene. It is most often a metaphor that likely wasn't at all apparent to the participants in the scene! It is a paralogical metaphor (in what way is a newspaper being run into the ground by bad decisions like a plane being assaulted by geese? And in what way is a miracle landing absolutely unlike a newspaper being shut down? In pretty much no way!) that becomes an epic metaphor as it is taken, most likely unintentionally, way too far.

There oughta be a German word for this!

Have you noticed a condition, literary or real-life, that lacks and requires a handy German word? Let us know!

---

See more posts by Choire Sicha

18 comments