entitlement

What's your favorite title?

Monologues in Stereo 

Failure to Thrive

Doors Shut Wide

Burying the Dead, and Others

 

life skills coordinator

I see where the Washington Nationals baseball organization has hired Rick Ankiel as "life skills coordinator," to mentor their minor leaguers.

Where was such a coach when I needed one? 

Would I have listened (i.e., practiced what he or she preached) if such a mentor were assigned to me?

Does anyone ever listen to such advice when young?

It is an intriguing title.

Life Skills Coordinator.

What skills get coordinated?

How?

And is it too late for me to receive (and act upon) such guiding, coaxing, coaching, nudging, encouraging, admonishing, ameliorating, correcting, rectifying, advising, pushing, and coordinating?

beyond

the bedroom wall [Beyond the Bedroom Wall, by Larry Woiwode; great title; great book]

the pale

hunger

tired

the beyond

the blue horizon

the grave

words

Rank and File Knockouts

Have you heard about chessboxing? [check out the link, with video]

It's a hybrid sport that combines mental and physical prowess (or is that prowesses?).

"The Thinking Man's Contact Sport" is how it's billed.

They just had a championship in, where else?, Berlin, in Kreuzberg.

Players play alternating rounds of chess and boxing.

I think this is way cool. I even love the blended word chessboxing.

Why not extend this to a host of other sports or contests?

Tictactoe-archery.

Checkerspolevaulting.

Jeopardy!fencing.

Scrabblesoccer.

Calculuswrestling.

It's been said before by others, but why not settle conflicts by chess instead of war?

p.s. Did you know the word checkmate is ancient Persian, or Farsi, for "the shah [king] is dead"?

p.p.s. My title salutes the worlds of chess and boxing. The rows in chess are ranks and files, respectively. And knockouts are, well, knockouts, unless, of course, they are knockers, in which case they may also be knockouts, too, I suppose (at least in a titular sense, parenthetically speaking). Carry on. Laugh. Or else.

Tilting at Titles

I tend toward minimalism. (Make that: I tnd twrd mnmlsm.) I really love titles, such as the book cited in yesterday's post, Stumbling on Happiness. As a writer, I often start with that. At work, for example, in crafting a proposal, I like to forge a consensus around a slogan or catchphrase, something simple enough to remember, something distinctive; iconic.

Trouble is, the flame burns out quickly. I could never be a novelist. I can barely complete a short story. I love haiku. I have neither the patience nor fervor for the long trek. (Attention all armchair psychoanalytical "specialists": yes, these are classic symptoms of some sort of sexual dysfunction, I'm sure, as well as attention deficit disorder, or attention surplus reorder. Fine. All well and good. And feck off.)

Jorge Luis Borges (and Stanislaw Lem, I recall) was known to create book reviews of nonexistent books. I recall Borges once declaring something like, "I could've written the whole book, but why bother?" (I'm sure he said it in Spanish, and I've lost lots through mistranslation -- and misremembering.)

Let's go a step further. Why bother writing the review or the book? Why not just the title?

Alas, I am an imaginary slacker of the highest order, and shortest duration. I love titles (not Mr. or Mrs. or Ms., though I did like that recent faintly erotic "sir" appellation left by Wanderlust Scarlett).

I just typed the words

So, here follows "A Titular Trickling"

and began a nascent parade of would-be clever titles.

None were (was?) clever. None even remotely amusing or evocative.

It figures.

(For those lapping their tongues for blog titles, you are urged to review my richly mined archive, arcing with buzzing intensity at the hive of creativity. Wot?)