some notes

[ritaxis]

1. Martin Cruz-Smith told Diane Rehm on her NPR show that his Russian detective character in Gorky Park and other books is an anti-hero of course, because Russian. Right. Only Americans can be heroes.

2. The New York Times regional dialect quiz, based on various research projects, placed me in succession as most likely from "Fresno, Stockton, or

Comments

[ritaxis]

That is interesting. I have yet to meet any American subculture so capable of precise formality as the African American one.

[beamjockey]

Murray Gell-Mann named his particle-constituents "quarks" after a passage in Finnegan's Wake. But "quark" is also a German word for a product resembling what Americans call cottage cheese. Whether творог is exactly the same as quark, or the same as cottage cheese, or different from both of them, I do not know.

[ritaxis]

similar but not identical. Interchangeable in recipes, though the result is different. There is quark available around here but it is naturally more expensive than cottage cheese. There is a sweetened tvaroh sold in Prague that is like a less-tangy yogurt, packaged in similar containers in ridiculous flavors (including chocolate sprinkles, swirly types, etc)

[pantryslut]

The one that always ties me to my geography is "Devil's Night." Otherwise, apparently I could be from Oklahoma?

[ritaxis]

Did people do that where you grew up, or did people talk about having done that in the past? (the devil's night stuff)

[pantryslut]

It was talked about as part of current events, although I don't know anyone who actually participated. (If I wasn't a teetotaler, I might have met some in college.)