Memoirs of a Linguist: Year 7

Book Review: The Greyhound God by Keith Lee Morris

noreply@blogger.com (Jeruen Dery) — Thu, 31 May 2012 13:02:00 +0000

An edited version of this article was first published as Book Review: The Greyhound God by Keith Lee Morris on Blogcritics.org.

Are humans rational? If there are things that one can observed around oneself, does one attempt to explain it? These questions are given an answer in Keith Lee Morris' novel The Greyhound God, which is about a dog-race gambler who believes in a supernatural entity at the dog races.

The novel starts by the narration of Luke Rivers, who we learn to be the main character of the book. He just woke up somewhere in South Dakota, and found out that his wife and child left him. Immediately, the reader learns their background: he bets on dog races for a living, and his wife is a waitress. They travel the United States in their car, and bet on dog races in any town that has them. Obviously, their source of income is not stable, and this creates friction between his wife Jenny and himself. After all, Jenny wants a stable household, but Luke cannot seem to get enough of the road. So one fine day, Jenny packs up and leaves, taking their only child, Jake, with her.

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Gallivanting in Guatemala: Nebaj

noreply@blogger.com (Jeruen Dery) — Tue, 29 May 2012 12:30:00 +0000

After spending two nights in Chichicastenango, I headed for another town yet again. I wanted to get off the beaten path, and so I decided to go to Nebaj. This little town is hidden in the Cuchumatanes mountains, and is hard to get to. It is not surprising that when I got there, I immediately got the feeling that I was the only foreigner in town.

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UB Percussion Ensemble: Music Should Be Falsifiable

noreply@blogger.com (Jeruen Dery) — Mon, 28 May 2012 13:01:00 +0000

One of the habits I acquired by being here in Buffalo was enjoying the vast selection of good music that is available. So, when the semester was ending a few weeks ago, I watched another recital by the UB Percussion Ensemble. They always have concerts every semester, and I enjoyed the one from last fall, so I had no doubt I will enjoy the one for this semester as well.

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Blithe Spirit

noreply@blogger.com (Jeruen Dery) — Sat, 26 May 2012 13:01:00 +0000

A novelist and his second wife invite a spirit medium to hold a seance together with two other friends for the purpose of getting some ideas for his next novel. In doing so, the spirit of his dead first wife appears. Wow, this cannot be more comic, after all, what else can one expect from Noel Coward? This was the premise of his play, entitled Blithe Spirit, which we watched at the Kavinoky Theatre recently.

Shall I even provide a synopsis for this one? If you have a situation where your dead first wife appears, and she is only visible and audible to you, but not to your second live wife, then that should definitely be a hilarious situation. Are you mad? Are you talking to yourself? These are just some of the comedic devices that this play features.

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Gallivanting in Guatemala: Q'umarkaj

noreply@blogger.com (Jeruen Dery) — Fri, 25 May 2012 13:20:00 +0000

While I was in Chichicastenango, I visited another Mayan site that was relatively close by. I figured being in Guatemala is a good excuse to increase one's count of Mayan sites, so I went to another one. I went to a site called by many names, but let me pick and choose one of them: Q'umarkaj. The reason why there are so many names is because there isn't a standard way of spelling the name. Add to that the fact that there's a Nahuatl name for the site as well, Utatlan.

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Basic Assumptions and Radical Skepticism

noreply@blogger.com (Jeruen Dery) — Wed, 23 May 2012 13:01:00 +0000

Recently, I have come under fire for believing in the things I believe in. Or should I say, for not believing in the things that I do not believe in. Yes folks, this is a rant about religion. If you are not interested, click on this link NOW.

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Book Review: The Fall by Albert Camus

noreply@blogger.com (Jeruen Dery) — Tue, 22 May 2012 13:00:00 +0000

An edited version of this article was first published as Book Review: The Fall by Albert Camus on Blogcritics.org.

Can a person really be faultless? According to Albert Camus, the answer is no, but that is okay.

The Fall is perhaps Camus' most enigmatic novel. It tells the story of Jean-Baptiste Clamence, a judge residing in Amsterdam. He tells his story through a series of monologues directed at a stranger - that is, the reader - starting from a seedy sailor's bar in Amsterdam, called "Mexico City". At first, he is the perfect and blameless character: he was a respected Parisian lawyer, he is a champion of noble causes, and overall, he can be said to be a good man. However, as the novel progresses, his blemishes slowly appear, one by one.

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Gallivanting in Guatemala: Chichicastenango

noreply@blogger.com (Jeruen Dery) — Sun, 20 May 2012 13:25:00 +0000

After spending three days in Antigua, I decided that it was time to move on. I did my laundry in Antigua, I recuperated from a sore body in Antigua, and I exercised my camera in Antigua. So after a fun-filled three days, I decided to change the scenery yet again. This time, I decided to head to Chichicastenango.

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Book Review: Yalo by Elias Khoury

noreply@blogger.com (Jeruen Dery) — Sat, 19 May 2012 13:00:00 +0000

An edited version of this article was first published as Book Review: Yalo by Elias Khoury on Blogcritics.org.

A serial rapist meets a torturing interrogator in wartime Lebanon. Yet he soon realizes that the ultimate source of pain is his own head, which can cause a much greater suffering than the devices that his prisoners used to inflict pain on him. This is a novel that is heavy on passion, blood, and violence. Definitely not for the squeamish reader.

At the outset, we are introduced to Daniel, but more fondly known as Yalo. We soon learn that he is a prisoner, he was arrested not so long ago, and he is being held in a cell somewhere in Lebanon. The interrogators are trying to fish out a confession from him, and since he wouldn't cough up, they resort to torture. Torture in this case involves feral cats, chairs, bottles shoved in one's rectum, and even psychological torture, as reflected in the episodes when Yalo is made to write his life story, as his "survival" depends on it. Without revealing how this book ends, I should say that this is a tragedy.

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The Big Picture

noreply@blogger.com (Jeruen Dery) — Thu, 17 May 2012 12:59:00 +0000

About one month ago, I had a huge change of pace with my dissertation. Up until then, I was actually pulling myself to move forward, but dreading it, writing my chapters but really, not looking forward to sitting down in front of my laptop and typing my manuscript. However, somehow, sometime during the last month, things have changed, that I actually sat down one day, and within the space of one week, added 50-something pages to my manuscript, and felt like my brain is faster than my fingers.

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Gallivanting in Guatemala: Antigua

noreply@blogger.com (Jeruen Dery) — Wed, 16 May 2012 13:25:00 +0000

After visiting several sites in Antigua, it was time to move along. I spent a total of three nights here, in a hostel where dorm beds cost 7 USD per night, with an awesome breakfast. So, it was time to move on, but not without taking photographs of the town. After all, this was an awesome and quite historical town, with every street lined with cobblestones. The buildings are just oozing with history left and right.

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Book Review: The Stone Diaries by Carol Shields

noreply@blogger.com (Jeruen Dery) — Mon, 14 May 2012 13:29:00 +0000

An edited version of this article was first published as Book Review: The Stone Diaries by Carol Shields on Blogcritics.org.

This book is the story of Daisy Goodwill Flett, a rather ordinary woman, whose life was surrounded by loss and grief in every aspects. As she goes through her life's various stages, she struggles to find her purpose.

It starts with the narration about the circumstances surrounding her parents: how they grew up, how they met, and how she was conceived. She is born in 1905, and her mother dies in childbirth. As every chapter progresses, we see further developments in Daisy's life. She becomes a toddler, she then is raised by her father after a brief absence, she goes to school, gets married, becomes a widow and gets married again, runs a successful newspaper column, falls into depression, and finally, she ages and dies. The book covers about 90 years of personal history, all revolving around Daisy Goodwill Flett, but provides a glimpse of the lives of all her relatives.

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Fang, Saint-Saëns and Borodin

noreply@blogger.com (Jeruen Dery) — Sun, 13 May 2012 12:42:00 +0000

The other day, I received tickets to attend a performance of the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra. It was perfect, as I was having a productive streak, and I needed a little break. It turned out that they were playing some pieces that I wasn't well acquainted to.

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Gallivanting in Guatemala: Santa Clara Church and Convent

noreply@blogger.com (Jeruen Dery) — Fri, 11 May 2012 13:14:00 +0000

I visited so many religious and historical ruins while in Antigua. It was just crazy. Eventually, one gets church fatigue, and the itch to move on slowly climbs up and reaches a threshold. The Church and Convent of Santa Clara was the last religious site I visited in Antigua, before I moved on to another town.

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Crossfire Percussion Duo: Take II

noreply@blogger.com (Jeruen Dery) — Thu, 10 May 2012 12:42:00 +0000

The other day, I had the opportunity to attend a percussion recital. I attended the performance of the Crossfire Percussion Duo, made up of two graduate students in music performance, Jason Bauers (who I almost always see every morning whenever I get my coffee fix) and Robert Fullex. I actually have seen them perform a year ago, and indeed, I also blogged about it.

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Book Review: The Lazarus Project by Aleksandar Hemon

noreply@blogger.com (Jeruen Dery) — Tue, 08 May 2012 12:37:00 +0000

An edited version of this article was first published as Book Review: The Lazarus Project by Aleksandar Hemon on Blogcritics.org.

Two immigrants in two parallel situations, yet separated by a hundred years. This is the story of Lazarus Averbuch, a Moldovan immigrant to the United States, who was killed by the Chicago police in 1908; as well as the story of Vladimir Brik, a Bosnian immigrant to the United States, who decides to write a book about Lazarus in 2004. This novel has two parallel storylines, one embedded within another, and bizarrely enough, the narrative feels like it moves backward more than forward. But before the critique, let me give a little synopsis.

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Gallivanting in Guatemala and Honduras: Food on the Road

noreply@blogger.com (Jeruen Dery) — Mon, 07 May 2012 13:11:00 +0000

I have reached roughly the mid-point of my travel blogs relating to Guatemala and Honduras. As a little intermezzo, I am blogging about food I had while I was on the road. And as you will notice, ((re)fried) beans are featured heavily in Guatelaman and Honduran cuisine. It is heavily featured that at some point, I actually got sick of it, and gave in when I saw a McDonald's. But, let's not talk about that for the moment.

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L'Eau Par Kenzo

noreply@blogger.com (Jeruen Dery) — Sat, 05 May 2012 12:41:00 +0000

I recently finished a bottle of cologne. And with that, I am moving on to a new one.

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Gallivanting in Germany: Mercedes-Benz Museum

noreply@blogger.com (Jeruen Dery) — Fri, 04 May 2012 12:54:00 +0000

For my last entry regarding my travels in Germany, I am blogging about the Mercedes-Benz Museum. Yes folks, I visited two car museums while I was in Stuttgart: earlier I blogged about the Porsche Museum, and this is the entry for the second one.

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Book Review: American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis

noreply@blogger.com (Jeruen Dery) — Wed, 02 May 2012 12:40:00 +0000

An edited version of this article was first published as Book Review: American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis on Blogcritics.org.

Patrick Bateman: a twenty-six year-old Wall Street yuppie, a psychopath, and perhaps the world's worst nightmare. That being said, he is also the anti-hero that I couldn't help but love. Bret Easton Ellis churned out a great novel in this one. Here is why.

American Psycho is narrated by Patrick Bateman, the anti-hero, who works in Wall Street, pulling in 6-figure salaries a year, and is the stereotypical corporate yuppie living in New York City. Set in the mid-1980s, the novel starts solidly by sketching Bateman's personality: he is vain, materialistic, and is the living stereotype of a glamorous corporate spender. He wants to be the one who owns the best stereo system, he wants to be the one who has the best business card, and he gets irritated and annoyed whenever someone else seems to have better things than him.

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Gallivanting in Guatemala: La Merced Church

noreply@blogger.com (Jeruen Dery) — Tue, 01 May 2012 12:35:00 +0000

There is no end to the churches and monasteries in Antigua. The Church and Convent of La Merced was located just about a 5 minutes walk from my hostel, and I decided to visit it while I was there.

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Idiots and Rudeness

noreply@blogger.com (Jeruen Dery) — Sun, 29 Apr 2012 12:40:00 +0000

So yes, we did make a wrong turn. We accidentally entered a parking lot that was private. Soon enough, we realized our mistake, and started turning the car to go back out. But surprisingly enough, seconds later, a man came out, and started yelling at us.

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Gallivanting in Germany: Weil der Stadt

noreply@blogger.com (Jeruen Dery) — Sat, 28 Apr 2012 12:42:00 +0000

Weil der Stadt is a small town near Stuttgart. It is about 30 kilometers west of Stuttgart, and has about 19,000 inhabitants. One can reach it by taking the S6 all the way to the end, which is what I did one day. One can see a small town, seemingly taken as is from a fairy tale.

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Drawing Limits

noreply@blogger.com (Jeruen Dery) — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 12:51:00 +0000

In doing research, there are several steps to follow, which depends on what role one has. If one is a PhD candidate, one has to engage in original research, culminating in a big opus known as the dissertation. This dissertation should be an original work, and it takes a committee of at least three professors to read and approve it.

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Gallivanting in Guatemala: Catedral de San José

noreply@blogger.com (Jeruen Dery) — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 13:28:00 +0000

One of the best ruins that I stumbled upon in Antigua was this cathedral. Looks can be deceptive here. It stands at the eastern side of the central plaza, and its whitewashed facade serves as a meeting point for lovers, day and night. During the night, the facade is illuminated, creating this eerie view.

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