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You Miss Me Yet?
Apparently, you do!
Last week, I received a charming e-mail from Troy Senik—the secret to charm, my friends, is lavish flattery—telling me that I was much missed on Ricochet and asking if I might consider visiting now and again. Just by coincidence, the next e-mail in my spam folder (sorry, Troy, I’ve adjusted the filter now), was titled “WIN HIM BACK—EVEN IF HE’S ALREADY WITH SOMEONE ELSE.” Applying the wisdom from e-mail B to e-mail A, I prudently waited 48 hours to answer.
It worked! Troy was even keener on me than before. (My ex received a brisk memo explaining how much I now charge per word.)
The funny thing is that I’ve been thinking of you, too. I don’t know about you, but the latest round of violence in the Holy Land has rendered my social media universe almost uninhabitable. I’d rather seal myself in a meat locker with nothing but a Fechshrift on Discipline and Punish—published by the University of Minnesota Department of Communication Studies—than spend time on Facebook and Twitter these days. For those of you who are snuggled in some kind of social media cordon sanitaire and have missed this latest worldwide illiterate-hateful-ungrammatical-unreasoned-three-minute-hate (extended remix, on a repeat loop), consider this article, if only out of academic curiosity. (It’s not the article, but the comments below, that make it so special.)
So anyway, I was looking at that the other day and thinking, “You know, someone should really invent a social media site on which thoughtful people of good faith commit to discussing the events of the day politely, respectfully and grammatically; a site that’s strictly policed to ensure these high standards of etiquette are upheld.” Then I slapped my forehead, feeling much as I do when I take the clean clothes from the washer and then absentmindedly put them right back in the machine, pressing “Wash.”
Wait! I did that already!
Anyway, much has happened since last you and I spent time together. My cats and I have decamped from Istanbul. We’re now living in Paris, about half a mile from my father’s apartment, and it’s wonderful to have what’s left of the family in the same city. I have much to report from France (as usual everyone else has it all wrong), but that’s a subject for future posts. Longtime Claire Berlinski fans may, however, enjoy this account of one of my latest adventures, reproduced here, after going viral around the globe, in German, Italian, and Feminist:
So my cats knocked the handle off my bedroom door and I’m locked in my bedroom now. Nothing left to try but to Tweet this drama.
— Claire Berlinski (@ClaireBerlinski) June 25, 2014
To judge from the media firestorm to which it gave rise, getting locked in my bedroom by my cats was the most popular thing I’ve ever done. (Do note that the way the story was reported affirms my assertion that journalists always get everything wrong. Entertain yourself for a few minutes by spotting and counting the factual errors. Then think about these standards of accuracy applied to a real news story. It won’t seem so funny then.)
So for now, this thread is open to all who wish 1) to tell me just how much they missed me and how overjoyed they are to see my smiling face; b) talk about how journalists always get it wrong; and c) complain that the rest of the Internet is just a sewer.
Happy days are here again! Big kisses to you all! It’s good to be home!
Published in General
There’s a linguistics professor giving a lecture. He says,”In English, a double negative turns into a positive but in some languages a double negative is still a negative. However, there’s no language where a double positive is a negative.”
At this point a kid in the back mutters,”yeah, right.”
That would be doubleplusungood.
With your return, one might hope you can inveigle Troy to front-page link your “How to Write a Great Post.” It disappeared with R>2.0.
(Of course, way too many [to be unnamed] ignored the tips back in 1.0)
And still do now.
I can only imagine Claire’s email to her ex:
BTW, “Discipline” is a terrible translation of the French. “Monitor” better gets to Foucault’s point, as I recall.
Claire,
I’m glad you are back but maybe you and your Dad can pick less anti-Semitic cities to live in.
Have your cats adopted the culture? Do they purr sarcastically? Do they refuse to eat packaged cheeses?
Is “cat lady” an American archetype or a universal one? What do Parisians think of your little entourage?
And do you find yourself attempting to pronounce words like “entourage” in true French form, or do you stick with good ol’ Anglo versions? 10 points for working “good ol” into a conversation with your Parisian pals.
25 points and a Ricochet Merit Badge for “Yinz”.
From now on Claire will be known as the “Chat Lady”.
Claire wrote
“(My ex received a brisk memo explaining how much I now charge per word.)”
Where did you meet this person? Was the original deal a per minute rate?
Claire,
I’m so delighted to have you back! Hooray! I believe I will have a glass of prosecco to celebrate. Right now! You should have one too, or I suppose champagne would be the more “local” choice! Usually I wait until the kids go to bed…but you’re worth it!
Now that you’ve been welcomed back, I, for one, am expecting a Post about the Saga of your Exodus From Byzantium.
When “unlike” is the choice you see after the comment, you have successfully “liked” it and tapping the “unlike” to toggle your selection *will* make someone cry bitter tears of cruel abandonment.
Finally a piece of good news when the world seems to be falling in around us. Welcome back! You were missed, as if you couldn’t tell.
As a form of penance we insist that you do another UnCommon Knowledge with Peter and give us a retrospective on the whole Turkey experience.
Welcome back, Berlinski!
Welcome back. I’ve missed you. I hope you can give us your perspective on happenings in Turkey during the last few years.
Please ask your brother to write another book.
This says it all.
Welcome back, Claire.
Yes I miss you. Do you have any influence with the people who can move this back to Ricochet 1.0? The new format has been an unmitigated disaster.
Three main points:
1. Welcome back. Good to have some class around this site again.
2. You were hot on Fox.
3. Congratulations on tapping into the 90% of web traffic which consists of pictures, movies and stories about our cat overlords.
Very good news indeed for the Ricochet community. I missed your observations of life on the other side of the world. Looking forward to your thoughts from Paris.
I go out of town for a few days, and Senik gets the band back together? This is the kind of news a guy likes to see. Welcome home, Claire!
HMS (Her Majesty’s Site) Ricochet.
(Pic courtesy of EJHill: as if I had to tell Y’all)
Welcome back, Queen Claire.
Hooray – glad you’re back