O the Clear Moment
In a collection of nine stories, author Ed McClanahan covers "coming-of-age to coming-of-old age," he writes, an "implied autobiography" that begins with of one of his feats of sport as a young man. It involves the accurate throw of a few eggs into the triangular vent window of a Rambler in the 1950s. The car was being driven by a bully (Bobby Two) who had just cracked eggs on McClanahan's skull in front of a young lady he fancied.
"O the Clear moment," he reminisces. "And this little egg of mine finds the tiny opening with all its eyes, and it flies as true as Cupid's arrow straight through the vent and explodes in a bright golden sunburst all over the interior of Bobby Two's mommy's brand new short, all over those accursed Bobbys and their goddamn letter sweaters!" And a reader can't help but smile in satisfaction at his accuracy and smug revenge. His accuracy in eliciting smiles continues as his stories proceed through the years and we find him dazzled by the likes of Fondelle. She is a woman of ill repute who picks him up as he's hitch hiking, and for whom he eventually dons his best suit to be a Best Man then acquires a hangover the likes of which he will never forget.
His stories move on with a cast of characters that bound off the pages with McClanahan's humorous, colorful and witty telling-an assemblage he admits is not unlike "escapees from the cover of the Saturday Evening Post." Each story is a comical and, in his retrospect, self-deprecating tale that implies the wisdom of hindsight, making "O the Clear Moment" well worth the read.
Ed McClanahan's writing has appeared in Esquire, Rolling Stone and Playboy and he has taught writing at Oregon State University, Stanford University, the University of Montana and the University of Kentucky. He and his wife are your neighbors in Lexington, Kentucky.
Talking Hands
A remote village in the Middle East has an unusually high incidence of deafness at birth and the discovery that the citizens there have developed their own sign language has offered a small team of four linguists the unique opportunity to study this remarkable language and all that its development implies. Because this language has developed completely on its own, without the influence of other languages, it offers the opportunity to observe the "language instinct"- the inborn capacity to create language. It is an illumination of one of the aspects of being human that distinguishes man from other creatures.
Author, acclaimed journalist and linguist Margalit Fox was invited to accompany the adventurous team on their expedition. Her written record of the team's work, their studies and the interactions with the town's folks offer an insight into a fascinating aspect of humanity that few have had the opportunity to encounter. With just three generations of use, the sign language used by the deaf and hearing citizens of the village-of whom there are approximately 3,500 total-was an almost ideal example to study, unencumbered by the baggage that a language accumulates over the years of its use. An amazing story of a corner of the world that few have witnessed, and of special interest to anyone intrigued by the formation of language and the workings of the brain, "Talking Hands" offers a history of sign language, an explanation of the science of signing and a rarely offered look into our fascinating world.
Margalit Fox is a former editor at The New York Times Book Review and has written several articles on language and culture. She holds master's degrees in linguistics and journalism and is a reporter in the celebrated Obituary News department of The New York Times, writing send-offs of some of the leading cultural figures of our era.