In a similar vein to his iconic Mean Tweets segments, Jimmy Kimmel recently invited Metallica to face some of their harshest critics head-on and look back at a bunch of brutal one-star reviews of The Black Album in honour of its 30th anniversary.
Many disgruntled listeners took to Amazon to voice their displeasure at Metallica’s massive fifth studio LP – released in 1991 – calling the band sellouts, stating that the songs on the record were “lousy”, and even recommending others to purchase “a Dire Straits or Foreigner CD instead”. Uhhh… okay?!
Read this: Metallica: 20 things you probably didn’t know about The Black Album
James, Lars, Kirk and Rob took the whole thing in very good spirits, though, with Papa Het in particular having a good giggle at the line: “this horrible, atrocious, self-titled $uck-o-roma”. LOL.
Recently, Kirk Hammett told Kerrang! of the sellout labels that were aimed at Metallica at the time of release: “A lot of our core underground fans, they thought they were losing us. And I can understand that.
“When a band goes from selling a million albums to all of a sudden selling 12 million albums, the feeling of intimacy with that band starts to erode.”
The Metallica Blacklist and The Black Album (Remastered) are out now via Blackened Recordings.
Read this: Metallica: The untold story of the album that changed everything
Dictionaries reward you for paying attention, both to the things you consume and to your own curiosity.
I can’t remember how old I was when I first learned the words denotation (the definition of a word) and connotation (the suggestion of a word). But I do remember feeling a little betrayed by the idea that there was a whole layer of language that couldn’t quite be conveyed through a dictionary. Like most young people, I enjoyed learning but thought of it as something I would eventually be done with. At some age, I assumed, I would need to know everything. Understanding the nuances of language seemed like an obstacle to that goal.
It wasn’t until after I graduated from college, and subsequently realized that there’s no such thing as all-encompassing knowledge, that I was able to read for pleasure. A sense of curiosity, rather than desperate completism, steered me. I started to see dictionaries, inexact as they are, as field guides to the life of language. Looking up words encountered in the wild felt less like a failing than like an admission that there are lots of things I don’t know and an opportunity to discover just how many.
I prize my 1954 copy of Webster’s New International Dictionary, Second Edition, which I picked up on the street near my apartment in Brooklyn a few years ago. Its 3,000 pages (India paper, with a marbled fore edge) are punctuated by a thumb index. I keep it open, solitary on a tabletop, the way dictionaries are usually found in libraries. I often consult it during evening games of Scrabble or midday magazine-reading. I mostly read novels at night, in bed, so when I come across unfamiliar words, I dog-ear the bottom of the page, then look words up in spurts. When I start encountering these words, newly resplendent to my pattern-seeking mind, in articles, podcasts, other books and even the occasional conversation, the linguistic universe seems to shrink to the size of a small town. Dictionaries heighten my senses, almost like certain mind-altering substances: They direct my attention outward, into a conversation with language. They make me wonder what other things I’m blind to because I haven’t taught myself to notice them yet. Recently spotted specimens include orrery, “a mechanical model, usually clockwork, devised to represent the motions of the earth and moon (and sometimes also the planets) around the sun.” The Oxford English Dictionary also tells me that the word comes from the fourth Earl of Orrery, for whom a copy of the first machine was made, around 1700. Useful? Obviously not. Satisfying? Deeply.
With dictionaries, unknown words become solvable mysteries. Why leave them up to guesswork?
Wikipedia and Google answer questions with more questions, opening up pages of information you never asked for. But a dictionary builds on common knowledge, using simple words to explain more complex ones. Using one feels like prying open an oyster rather than falling down a rabbit hole. Unknown words become solvable mysteries. Why leave them up to guesswork? Why not consult a dictionary and feel the instant gratification of pairing context with a definition? Dictionaries reward you for paying attention, both to the things you consume and to your own curiosity. They are a portal into the kind of irrational, childish urge to just know things that I had before learning became a duty instead of a game. I’m most amused by words that absolutely do not mean what I thought they meant. Like cygnet. Which has nothing to do with rings or stationery. (It’s a young swan.)
There are, of course, many different kinds of dictionaries. The way they’ve proliferated over time is a reminder of just how futile it is to approach language as something that can be fully understood and contained. Samuel Johnson’s Dictionary of the English Language, published in 1755, defined a paltry 40,000 words. The original O.E.D., proposed by the Philological Society of London in 1857 and completed more than 70 years later, contained over 400,000 entries. The Merriam-Webster universe is a direct descendant of Noah Webster’s American Dictionary of the English Language, published in 1828. Compiled by Webster alone over the course of more than 20 years, it contained 70,000 words, nearly a fifth of which had never been defined before. Webster, who corresponded with founding fathers like Benjamin Franklin and John Adams, saw lexicography as an act of patriotism. He believed that establishing American standards of spelling and definition was necessary to solidify the young nation’s cultural identity as separate from that of England.
Perhaps because of Webster’s enthusiasm for rules, dictionaries have long had an unfair reputation as arbiters of language, as tools used to limit rather expand your range of expression. But dictionaries don’t create language — people do. Take dilettante: The superficial connotation of the word is a modern invention. Noah Webster’s aforementioned American Dictionary defines it as “one who delights in promoting science or the fine arts.” The O.E.D. cites its connection to the Latin verb delectare, meaning “to delight or please.” To be a dilettante once meant that love and curiosity drove your interest in a given discipline. For me, dictionaries are a portal into that kind of uncalculated knowledge-seeking. They remind me that, when it comes to learning, indulging your curiosity is just as important as paying attention. After all, isn’t curiosity really just another form of attention? Following your curiosity instead of swatting it away is one of the best ways I know to feel connected to more than what’s right in front of you.
Rachel del Valle is a freelance writer whose work has appeared in GQ and Real Life Magazine.
The film catches the rhythms and vulnerabilities of real life when two worlds collide.
Language Lessons, directed by Natalie Morales. Screening at the Kendall Square Cinema.
Mark Duplass and Natalie Morales in Language Lessons.
Language Lessons, a film collaboration between Natalie Morales and Mark Duplass, takes place entirely through Zoom conversations. Adam (Duplass), a well-to-do gay man living in Encino, is startled awake one morning by a woman who pop ups on his computer screen. She is a tutor, hired to give him 100 Spanish lessons, a gift from his husband, Will. “Why did you buy me 100 lessons?” he asks. Will’s breezy response off-screen is, “Because you wanted to learn Spanish, dummy.” The tutor, Cariño (Morales), immediately digs into the first lesson. Adam’s Spanish is better than he thinks, and soon he is immersing himself in friendly conversations from the comfort of his spacious designer home. We never see Will, or anyone else for the rest of the film as the pair’s exchanges become more than simple language lessons after Will dies suddenly in an accident.
Morales directed the film and co-wrote the script with Duplass. Throughout the shooting, the two choose to stay isolated from one another. The pandemic quarantine is never mentioned, and that choice broadens the story beyond the travails of isolation and loneliness. In our modern world, love letters and courtship have given way to data and functionality. The film asks, what can engender love and friendship in a virtually connected world?
Adam is gay, once married to a woman. This story detail eliminates the cliché motivation of seduction in an arrangement that grows into a friendship. Because the majority of Language Lessons is spoken in Spanish (with subtitles), the relationship evolves in comic as well as touching ways. Adam must struggle to express his feelings of loss in a second language as the conversations weave and bob between business arrangement and emotional support. Zoom is the perfect vehicle to break the fourth wall. Adam and Cariño speak directly to the camera and that puts viewers in the same “imaginary” space as the characters who alternate between full-screen close-ups or are placed on the edge of the frame in boxes, as in a Zoom call. Of course, there is a difference between a computer and a 30-foot movie screen (or a good-sized plasma screen) — each emotion, gesture, and expression is heightened.
Adam lives in a cushy lair, and gently poses his white privilege against Cariño’s status as a Latina worker for hire. He is grieving; we get to know little about her. He begins to make assumptions about her circumstances, as viewers do as well, and boundaries are crossed. At one point, after a tense exchange and a break, Adam tries to lighten up the situation by returning, dressed in a tux and a bow tie holding a glass of champagne. He then amusingly parses the difference between “ser” or “estar” — two forms of “to be” in Spanish. “Ser,” as he understands the verb, suggests a permanent state. In contrast, “Estar” refers to a passing, temporary state. In a sense, he is mockingly asking Cariño ‘which do you want to be, authentic or inauthentic?” She is not amused. But the scene epitomizes the film’s central concern: is modern technology widening the gap between people or bringing them closer together? Given our highly polarized times, the need for meaningful contact between people has become more important than ever — yet we still seem to know so little about one another.
The film was shot in 14 days in separate locations. Morales was in Costa Rica, Duplass was in his home in California. The two actors knew each other before filming, but only in a passing professional capacity. Morales acted in two Duplass scripts; he admired her confidence as a director. Coming up with just a germ of an idea, they went about writing a script. The brisk production, aided by a small crew and some artful editing, meant the two had to work by instinct rather than through rewrites and revisions. That immediacy pays off — the scenes have a cunning authenticity.
Another recent film, Together, makes use of a similar direct-to-camera address, in this case to look at a couple stuck inside their home during the pandemic. (Arts Fuse review) This is a highly theatrical script: the couple directly addresses the audience but, to me, the conversational rhythms came off as stilted and unrealistic. Here, Morales and Duplass underplay their roles, and the dialogue, which is halting and uncertain, is an asset. Morales’ reticence is Language Lesson‘s secret weapon. In contrast to Duplass’s mobile face, her stillness and retrained passion draw us in, aided by her beauty and wide beneficent smile. Viewers are left aching to know more.
Duplass claims: “I’ve never gone into a movie with less of a script.” The statement is significant coming from the writer and lead actor of The Puffy Chair, which he and his brother Jay co-wrote and directed in 2005. That earlier movie is a brilliant example of ‘mumblecorps,’ the label given to some highly improvised observational comedies by young filmmakers. The brothers’ influence has continued to grow in both film and television. Language Lessons, which won the Best Narrative Feature Audience Award at this year’s Provincetown Film Festival, shows how rewarding their agile focus on the quotidian can be. The film catches the rhythms and vulnerabilities of real life when two worlds collide. What’s more, viewers might learn some useful bits of Spanish.
Tim Jackson was an assistant professor of Digital Film and Video for 20 years. His music career in Boston began in the 1970s and includes some 20 groups, recordings, national and international tours, and contributions to film soundtracks. He studied theater and English as an undergraduate, and has also has worked helter skelter as an actor and member of SAG and AFTRA since the 1980s. He has directed three feature documentaries: Chaos and Order: Making American Theater about the American Repertory Theater; Radical Jesters, which profiles the practices of 11 interventionist artists and agit-prop performance groups; When Things Go Wrong: The Robin Lane Story, and the short film The American Gurner. He is a member of the Boston Society of Film Critics. You can read more of his work on his blog.
The six-time MotoGP world champion has registered the most crashes of any rider on the grid from the first 13 rounds of 2021 despite missing the opening two races through injury.
After adding two more tumbles to his tally so far this weekend at the Aragon Grand Prix, Marquez now stands on 18 crashes – the latest coming at the end of FP3 when he fell at the Turn 14 right-hander.
Marquez admits this was a fall he would have saved “perfectly” before suffering his career-threatening right arm break last year, and reckons he would have saved “half” of the crashes he’s had in 2021 had he been fully fit.
But since his return to action in Portugal having sat out all of 2020, Marquez has still not recovered full strength in his right shoulder and is having to adjust how he rides the Honda.
As a result, he is no longer able to save many of the front-end moments he became famous for in recent years.
“This is an extreme situation that I have never experienced before and I don't wish it on anyone,” Marquez said.
“It is true that there have been many falls, although half of them I would have saved two years ago.
“But saves don't exist in my dictionary right now.
“This morning [in FP3] I had a crash that I would have saved perfectly.
“The easy thing would be to cut [the speed], to go slower, but that's not my style.
“If I can't crash, I don't go out on track. Let's just say I've got it down to a science.”
Read Also:
Many expected Marquez to struggle less this weekend at Aragon as it is an anti-clockwise circuit, and therefore puts less emphasis on the right side of his body.
It was at a layout like this in Germany where Marquez stormed to a sensational comeback victory.
Qualifying fourth for Sunday’s 23-lap race, Marquez admits he isn’t able to push at Aragon in the same way he could at the Sachsenring – but is confident he can run in the lead group.
“I don't have the capacity to do all the laps to the maximum, this circuit is not like Sachsenring,” he added.
“But I do have the level to ride with the front group.”
Honda’s Marc Marquez has responded to his high crash rate in the 2021 MotoGP season, admitting “saves doesn’t exist in my dictionary right now”.
The six-time MotoGP world champion has registered the most crashes of any rider on the grid from the first 13 rounds of 2021 despite missing the opening two races through injury.
After adding two more tumbles to his tally so far this weekend at the Aragon Grand Prix, Marquez now stands on 18 crashes – the latest coming at the end of FP3 when he fell at the Turn 14 right-hander.
Marquez admits this was a fall he would have saved “perfectly” before suffering his career-threatening right arm break last year, and reckons he would have saved “half” of the crashes he’s had in 2021 had he been fully fit.
But since his return to action in Portugal having sat out all of 2020, Marquez has still not recovered full strength in his right shoulder and is having to adjust how he rides the Honda.
As a result, he is no longer able to save many of the front-end moments he became famous for in recent years.
“This is an extreme situation that I have never experienced before and I don't wish it on anyone,” Marquez said.
“It is true that there have been many falls, although half of them I would have saved two years ago.
“But saves don't exist in my dictionary right now.
“This morning [in FP3] I had a crash that I would have saved perfectly.
“The easy thing would be to cut [the speed], to go slower, but that's not my style.
“If I can't crash, I don't go out on track. Let's just say I've got it down to a science.”
Read Also:
Many expected Marquez to struggle less this weekend at Aragon as it is an anti-clockwise circuit, and therefore puts less emphasis on the right side of his body.
It was at a layout like this in Germany where Marquez stormed to a sensational comeback victory.
Qualifying fourth for Sunday’s 23-lap race, Marquez admits he isn’t able to push at Aragon in the same way he could at the Sachsenring – but is confident he can run in the lead group.
“I don't have the capacity to do all the laps to the maximum, this circuit is not like Sachsenring,” he added.
“But I do have the level to ride with the front group.”
Surrendering oneself to a physical dictionary can be an extreme sport.
By Rehana Munir
UPDATED ON SEP 12, 2021 12:03 AM IST
To be reunited with an old love is one of life’s sweet pleasures. I’m currently enjoying the rekindling of one such romance, with a well-jacketed Oxford charmer whose linguistic brilliance is reducing me to a blithering fool. I now know how one Mr. Tharoor feels. The seductions of a pocket dictionary, the kind you carry to bed, are not to be scoffed at. They are to be delicately savoured like an elaborate cerebral striptease conducted solely for your gratification.
High on knowledge
I wouldn’t brand myself a ‘sapiosexual’ – a person who is aroused by intelligence – though, of course, it helps. But losing myself in this voluminous edition is revealing just how reliant I am on language for more than just basic communication. Language is an endlessly expanding playground, and a dictionary is full of unforbidden pleasures. Its abecedarian format – a beautiful word that means alphabetically arranged – merely gives it an air of order and propriety. In reality, it’s a fiendish, mythical being, the Keeper of All Words and hence the Holder of All Possibilities.
Forgive me my flight of fancy, but like the caterpillar in Alice in Wonderland seated on a mushroom, smoking a hookah, I too feel quite elevated. And to think I had spurned the good book for the convenience of a digital dictionary all these years. I’m eternally grateful for all things internet, but of late I’ve been uneasy typing in unfamiliar words on my phone while reading a physical book. While walking, talking, or more generally, living, I find digressions to be delightful. And a physical dictionary is a space where all manner of intellectual wanderings become possible. You may not know where you’re going in there, but you’re always safe within its pages.
The wordy Mr Johnson
My mind goes back to Samuel Johnson, the most celebrated lexicographer in western history. A Renaissance man in the Age of Enlightenment, his sharp intellect and vast knowledge led him to create A Dictionary of the English Language in 1755, the prototype for the dictionaries we use to this day. And as anyone who’s attended more than three pub quizzes will tell you – he is usually the answer to any question to do with the 18th century. My all-time favourite quote from the man of wit and wisdom remains: “Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.”
But like everyone else, he too was a product of his time and social class. A devout Anglican and member of the ruling elite, his opinions and prejudices found their way into his lexicography and from there, subliminally, into the minds of countless readers. But then politics and language have forever been intertwined. Today, when we see a popular website like Dictionary.com use a woke social media voice, it carries forward an old tradition. Dictionaries can also be read as histories, and so it’s important whose voice we let into our consciousness and why.
A linguistic orgy
For all the joys of losing oneself in a printed labyrinth of words, there are real challenges. I’m currently reading H is for Hawk, a personal memoir that is uncommonly wise and moving. But the author, Helen Macdonald, is not one for easing her reader into unfamiliar terrain – and what’s more unfamiliar than a woman training a recalcitrant hawk while grieving over her recently deceased father? A historian of science, Macdonald uses language both expansively and with precision, and she sends me running to my devious pocket dictionary every few paragraphs. The volume lures me in with one sufficiently obscure and tantalising word and the next thing I know I’m caught in a linguistic orgy, fighting my way out like a bird fluffing her feathers after a scuffle.
I’ll certainly save more time if I stick to a woke online dictionary, with the progressive politics as a bonus. Plus, I’ll save myself the sudden panic of encountering words like ‘isohyet’ (a line on a map connecting points having the same amount of rainfall in a given period) or ‘nudiustertian’ (of or related to the day before yesterday), strangers that accost you when you’re drifting up and down familiar pages. As ever, I choose recklessness. This sly dictionary has me in its pocket.
rehanamunir@gmail.com
Follow @rehana_munir on Twitter and Instagram
From HT Brunch, September 12, 2021
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