Rappin' and Stylin' Out

[Wilson Gray]

Well, Jon, you certainly have a point, there! Clearly, neither could
I! If *I* had been able to recall the contents, I fair wouldn't have
waited till now to note that I can provide a cite for _that weapon_!
:-)

IAC, I wouldn't mind, at my leisure, gleaning (apparently-)postable
material from the book.

It'll have to be at my leisure, since, though I haven't mentioned
this, here, my wife and I are *both* now retired and we are in the
midst of moving back ("back" for her, only, of course) to her hometown
of Kingston, PA, a place better-suited to our now-very-much-lowered
standard of living than is the Back Bay of Boston. When our absentee,
already-wealthy landlady, wife of Matthew Storin, casually raised the
rent of $1400/mo. for a bed-sitter in a building two days older than
water to $1470/mo. without a second of hesitation, to pay her share of
the of the cost of the renovation of an old, condemned elevator, it
became clear that it was time for us to "get [our] heels to clicking,"
as L.A. pimps (used to?) say and leave Boston. When it comes to
housing, because of the superfluity of students and others willing to
live a dozen or more to an apartment at $100 a head and count
themselves fortunate, ain't no landlord giving no breaks to nobody.

Well, to give the devil her due, our rent was once *very* low, given
our location, location, location: the corner of Mass. Ave. & Comm.
Ave. There was even a maibox at the front door. (In Greater Boston,
mailboxes are rare enough to be worth their weight in gold.) It's
that, in time - 25-plus years, in this case - landlords and inflation
will always raise rent to a level that surpasses the tenants' ability
to pay. (Since Harvard's and many other salaries are public knowledge,
landlords typically raise rent in such a manner as to deprive tenants
of any raises.

People wonder why I *hate* Boston as a place to live! and this has
nothing to do with race. We were living on the edge, even when we were
drawing our full salaries. Only the sheer, absolute convenience of the
location kept us here.

It was while sorting through my stored personal library, collected
over fifty years, for disposable material - a heart-rending task for
any bibliophile, since I can't even *give* the overwhelming majority
of my books away, they being primarily antiquated - some to the point
of rare-book value - tomes on languages and linguistics; one of these
days, you make drink from a paper cup made from part of my library -
that I came across this old book.

It contains a short story, "The game," by someone named "Woodie King,
Jr." Hadn't heard of him before; haven't heard of him since. FWIW,
this story is the best representation of ordinary, everyday,
colloquial, "standard" BE that - or should that "that" be "which"? - I
have ever had the pleasure to read, superior, even, to the work of
Chester Himes, whose line, "Ol' Satch is a pistol!", I've found
unforgettable, simply because it's so *exactly* what a black man would
say, under the circumstances that Hines imagines!

-Wilson

On Sun, Jul 26, 2009 at 9:53 AM, Jonathan Lighter<wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: Rappin' and Stylin' Out
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Still news to me.
>
> Looked at that book decades ago.  Can't remember contents though.
>
> JL
>
> On Sun, Jul 26, 2009 at 1:11 AM, Wilson Gray <hwgray at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>> -----------------------
>> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> Poster:       Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
>> Subject:      Rappin' and Stylin' Out
>>
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------=
> ------
>>
>> Are people here familiar with this by-now-quite-old (1972) collection
>> of articles and stories? Some of the stuff in it is quite interesting,
>> such as the appearance of print of the expression, _that weapon_
>> "female sexuality," probably in use for at least a century, by the
>> '70's. When I discussed it here, I got the impression that it was news
>> to the list, since nobody had any corrections or other comments.
>> --
>> -Wilson
>> =96=96=96
>> All say, "How hard it is that we have to die"---a strange complaint to
>> come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
>> -----
>> -Mark Twain
>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>



--
-Wilson
–––
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die"---a strange complaint to
come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
-----
-Mark Twain

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org