Neo Nazi Marries What in the Very Same Sentence?

One more headline that makes me wish dedicated headline-writer jobs still existed:

The Dildo Nazi: Sex Toy-Selling White Supremacist Unmasked

This appeared in The Advocate, though I think HuffPost broke the story and it's been picked up elsewhere, too. 

Reading the Advocate's headline, though, made me stop and think: you can't make this stuff up (even though it can seem like someone did). I also don't believe Chat GPT would come up with it. Ha!

 In any case, the headline made me want to read this story - and write more headlines, too. These days, if you're looking for work as a headline writer, career reporters say it's far more likely a copy editor will do this work, along with all the other editing needed to get an article in shape for publication.

I do love editing too, so I don't have a problem with that.

At the same time, it's fun to think about working only on headlines, which is what headline writers did once upon a time, "in the heyday of newspapers," according to the unnamed writer on Chegg tasked with explaining this job.

The article talks about two headlines in papers after Pearl Harbor was attacked: 

• "War!" in the Honolulu Star Bulletin and
• "INFAMY" in the Washington Times

Deceptively simple headlines like these only prove that good ones are hard to write.  Making me want to do it all the more, of course. Chegg says most headline writers online are versed in SEO, which makes sense, because (the article says,) most headlines aren't read--they're searched.

At this point, I have to say, wait a second. Articles are searched, yes. They are also read, and the better the headline is, the more it makes you want to read the article.

Leading me back to my point: writing headlines is really fascinating work--and one day, I hope I get to do it.

Last but not least - I know I've written on this topic before, but this is not a series. It's more about letting my thoughts spin in different directions, while following a thread where it leads. That's what I like to do--and I'm always interested in your thoughts, too!

Photo 1 by Ludovica Dri on Unsplash

Photo 2 by Etienne Girardet on Unsplash

Word of the Year

Did you know the dictionary people at Merriam-Webster choose an annual word of the year and have been doing that for 2003? (See, you really can learn something by reading people's blogs). 

For all you data geeks, the words are chosen by data. That means that it must have been looked up more than other words in the past year, and it must have seen a really large increase in lookups since the previous year.

The word for 2021: vaccine. 

Of course. You knew that, right? I guessed it while driving home the other day and was extremely proud of myself. But it was easy to guess because like it or note, the COVID vaccine affected all of us this year--and in a way, it could almost be the word of the year for many years to come.

I got my first dose of the COVID vaccine on January 21 at Cassia, which serves older adults through housing, health care and community services. I got it there because I work there--and because Cassia has its own inhouse pharmacy (called A&E Pharmacy). A&E already had a relationship with the organization's clinical teams and communities--and could offer vaccines quickly to residents and staff.

After finding the pharmacy had additional doses, Cassia and the pharmacy team included essential caregivers, hospice and respiratory vendors, family and others. They were also asked by the state to go into underserved communities and vaccinate people there. 

When Cassia offered to vaccinate family members, it allowed my husband Pete to get vaccinated as well. That was a huge deal to us because Pete drives trucks for a living and is out in the world more than most. He was also recovering from a year when shingles nearly took his eye and he has one and a half lungs due to a prior skiing accident.

The morning we both arrived at Cassia to get our vaccines was cold and sunny. I will never forget sitting in the parking lot and turning off the ignition of my car. 

I waited until the appointed time and knew Pete was coming soon in his car (having to go to work later that day). My coworkers/friends checked me in with big, welcoming smiles. And when I rolled up my sleeve and the pharmacist started the vaccination, I realized how much the pandemic had taken away from me--and how the vaccine was going to help me get it back.

The second shot was February 11 and my husband and I took a picture afterward, calling ourselves "vaccine valentines." The vaccines allowed us to feel safe about traveling to New York in August to meet our grandchild and see family and friends we hadn't seen since Thanksgiving 2019.

We've since had booster shots that allowed us to go to our son and daughter in law's Jewish wedding (after a civil one in 2020). We tested negative after coming home and I know it was the booster shot that helped us stay away from COVID. 

So yes, vaccine deserves its honor this year. I know there are a lot of people who want nothing to do with it and still others who are protesting mandates. But I myself am very grateful to the vaccine and the people who invented it--and to Cassia and A&E, for bringing it to more than 18,000 people in 2021.

Not only bringing it--but making it feel like a lovely morning with friends.

Because it was.

Funny Word Favorites

When my son was small and fussing, I found the best way to get him out of a mood was to make him laugh. Somehow or other I came up with the word "fluff-a-duffulated" when he climbed into bed and I pulled the covers up and "fluffed them" -- so that became a well-worn word in our home. I aslso discovered that saying it in a Bugs Bunny voice could earn me extra points.

As a writer, I love words -- made up or otherwise -- that describe feelings, whether they're funny, scary, angry or anything else. Today I've decided to share some of those words and tell you the stories behind them.

Because our family is one of mixed faiths, my husband gets a kick out of some of the Yiddish words I use and has also come to use them himself. When he's mixed up or confused or generally feeling exhausted, he says he's "verklempt" or "vermisht" -- which he heard me say in the early hears of our marriage before adopting.

My guy, on the other hand, taught me to say "Oof da," the equivalent of "Oy, vey" in Norwegian (or some Scandinavian language). His mother got me to fall in love with "kittywampus" when she talked about how she'd had a dangerous fall. I was really impressed with her humor in describing what had happened, and whenever i hear "kittywampus" now, I think of her bravery.

My friend John loves when I talk about my garden, which usually starts out "in a tangle" until I get things sorted out (or pay my friend Marlene, aka know as the Garden Goddess, to fix things up for me. John also likes it when I referred to my garage as a "sugar shack" before we spruced it up.

Another one of my favorite words is dunsicle, which I made up (or at least think I did) when writing a play based on The Little Princess for Steppingstone Theatre. It just seemed like the mean character Lavinia would call other students a dunsicle when she was annoyed. I still use it quite a bit, mostly when referring to myself when I'm having trouble wrapping my mind around something.

My favorite phrase for Ruby in The Beat on Ruby's Street is "kinds-sorta" but I really have to be careful not to overuse that one. In fact, I think you have to be careful about that with all the words you love, especially when writing stories. Because words are like food or wine, I think -- you don't want to repeat them so much that readers get sick of them.

I guess that's why I'm always on the lookout for new ones. If you want to share your favorites, I'd be so happy! Just send them over to jennazark.com.

Speak photo: alexisnyal

The Heart of Beat Street

Just getting back from a trip to San Francisco and thinking about the Beats in The Beat on Ruby’s Street. I of course had to make a pilgrimage to City Lights (and my husband agreed as long as we could stop by Jerry Garcia’s former home later.)

I expected something like the indie bookstores in New York, with books (and sometimes cats) crowded on tables and shelves in tiny, dark rooms filled with chatter and street noise. But City Lights was quiet. The rooms were light, like most rooms in California, there was ample space to read and the staff was kind and inviting. Most of all, I noticed the hushed, reverent atmosphere of a shrine. Pilgrimage, indeed.

I bought Howl and Kaddish and an anthology of a number of Beat poets. Reading Howl to my husband later, I realized how much it was meant to be read aloud. I’ve talked about the story of Howl elsewhere in this blog—but reading Kaddish made a deeper impression. It made me realize that while Kerouac has become the face of the Beat Generation, Allen Ginsberg is its soul.

It was Ginsberg’s language that birthed the dark heart and the beatific rhythms of the Beats; and his courage at a time when being gay meant considerable danger and heartache, that encouraged future generations to come into the light. Kaddish shows us what Ginsberg went through growing up with a mother who was severely mentally ill. The sorrow is almost unbearable; the language precise and sublime.

I related to Ginsberg’s story because my grandmother was also mentally ill and spent years at Greystone, an institution in New Jersey where Ginsberg’s mother also resided at times. I never knew my grandmother and much of her story is lost to me; but Kaddish gave me an idea of what she must have gone through.

If much of Ginsberg’s work may not be accessible to middle school readers, why did I set Ruby’s story in 1958 in the heart of a Beat Generation family? I had been fascinated by the Beats myself at 12, long before I started reading them, because the world they lived in seemed freer and more alive than the one I was living in. The young character I created is reaching for something new and finds it in language and poetry.

Ruby’s story isn’t an easy one; but she finds solace, or at least glimpses of it, in art, writing and language. That’s what the Beat poets like Allen Ginsberg did so brilliantly, and that’s what I want my readers to find. However you find it doesn’t matter—just know it’s out there, waiting for you.

Poems you can share with your tween:

Constantly Risking Absurdity — Lawrence Ferlinghetti

My Alba — Allen Ginsberg

Weather — Hettie Jones

Trees — Jack Kerouac

People at Night — Denise Levertov

City Lights Bookstore: Graham C99

Bookstore Reader:  Christopher Michel

Have a Seat Sign: pp_l_qq