Ran my first half marathon today. Training for and completing a medium-long distance race was something I wanted to do, to see what it is that Ruth is into. She picked the Disneyland Half, which seemed like a weird choice to me. It seemed unnecessarily expensive and … Disney-related … to me.

I also hated some of the training runs. I thought I just wasn’t into running, and I couldn’t see why I’d ever again run more than seven or eight miles. That sort of distance is a lot of fun; everything longer just seemed like torture to me. Last week I all but swore off of long workout runs and races longer than 10k.

Today, though, I had a blast. I appreciated the Disney Corporation’s terrific, ruthless organization. They mobilized a staggering number of people and resources to support and cheer for and entertain the runners in a really wonderful way. And I realized that all of those torturous Sunday runs were really great, because they put me in a position to enjoy myself today. Unlike the way that I usually exercise, like a basketball game or a short run, those runs weren’t ends unto themselves. They were … training. Which is a normal thing that people do, and I’m feeling pretty slow for not realizing earlier that you shouldn’t judge whether you “liked” training before you get to the payoff.

Beyond the worry that someone might harm themselves, this condition can also potentially can create hostility against others accused or blamed for causing it. For example, this case recently reported in Nigeria demonstrates how penis disappearance will manifest in a culture that believes in witchcraft that can be used by one person against another. A report from Harper’s followed up by traveling to Nigeria to try to understand the belief that your penis is disappearing. He doesn’t do a bad job of it, but one wonders if he couldn’t have saved himself a trip to Nigeria and just watched this German remake of Jekyll and Hyde where Jekyll is a novelist who awakes to find that the character he created (Hyde) has stolen his penis. (No, I haven’t seen it. But yes, I want to).

Incidentally, if you’re curious how I ever came across Koro, I’ll just say it had something to do with this xkcd strip.

From the self-description on the Alphascript Publishing site:

Alphascript publishing publishes academic research worldwide – at no cost to our authors.

Annually, we publish more than 10,000 new titles and are thus one of the leading publishing houses of academic research. We specialize in publishing copyleft projects.

As they say under the “Philosophy” section of their site (and as indicated in the title of this post), “publishing copyleft projects” means they specialize in print-on-demand wikipedia articles.

There is hardly another platform for quick and better processing of information than by Wikipedia – and this is too for the benefit of the Alphascript publishing-readers who want to be informed on a specific subject. Of course you can have online everything free of charge, but for good reason you have decided for a book. Alphascript publishing is internet in form of a book. There can hardly be a faster process.

Unsurprisingly, this is a venture by less-than-reputable VDM Publishing, which has been criticized for publishing overpriced, mediocre dissertations. VDM discussed its Alphascript imprint with the Guardian in an interview published on the Alphascript site, and defended their use of Wikipedia content on the grounds that there are no use restrictions.

This raises a number of questions, such as who would ever buy print-on-demand books containing wikipedia articles? And why would anyone ever start a business to do so? The books are undoubtedly cheap to produce: of its manuscript-printing business, VDM said “we tend not to edit works. Proofreading is not performed as it would not be financeable.” I’m guessing they probably feel the same way about wiki-content. So if you can churn out a bunch of cheap books (37,000 are currently listed on Amazon, according to the wikipedia article) you might be hoping to make some cash from unsuspecting buyers who simply think they’ve found a brand new book on a topic of interest. However, the comments another blog that recently discovered the Alphascript phenomenon suggest that the aim may be to confuse larger Amazon buyers who can be easily tricked into dropping money on a large number of titles (think: university libraries). And the more worrisome thing is that Amazon is complicit in this nonsense by offering these as legitimate titles.

Hey, you guys know what’s awesome? Green stuff, outside. Miss the east coast this time of year.

Conveniently, I learned of this film but three days after it debuted in NYC at the Film Society of Lincoln Center, so it looks like I won’t be able to watch it for the foreseeable future without coughing up $30 for a DVD. So I figured I’d help other people avoid making the same mistake and encourage anyone interested to find a screening this summer – the filmmaker is showing it on various campuses in hopes of building up to a nationwide theatrical release. It also looks to be coming to Netflix, although it’s not there yet.

When I learned that the first thing I ever bought from Amazon was Speakerboxxx/The Love Below, I thought that was pretty fitting.

When I realized that this meant I would have two posts in six months, and that they would both be about a band with no significant releases since my first Amazon purchase seven years ago, I felt a little silly.

I’m providing the music for a wedding reception this weekend, and the groom said something the other day like, “Todd, you have so much enjoyable music by people I’ve never heard of, it’s amazing.” My response was, “… Yeah, it’s not that impressive. Read Pitchfork for like 10 minutes a week and you’ll know more than I do about everything.” But, as someone who actually kinda-sorta tries to know a thing or two about rap, I feel comfortable saying that Dave’s knowledge is considerable.

Anyway, while I’m blogging, here’s one relatively obscure track* I can play for you. OutKast & Slimm Calhoun’s “High Schoolin’”:

The words to this song have nothing to do with my high school experience, but from the opening bar I’m immediately back in 1999. Because I lived at least half an hour from anything worth doing and didn’t drive, my high school experience was to some extent defined by time spent in passenger seats, and by the music we played in the car. I had this song on a mixtape that I played constantly in Allison’s beat up Chevy Nova. Fortunately, I did not develop the same lasting attachment to the Rage Against the Machine on the same tape.

*It’s possible that this is a throw-away track from a weak soundtrack, and I’m just biased because my love for pre-Stankonia, “two kids from Georgia” OutKast knows no bounds. Let me know in the comments if so.

But, with this understanding, I was able to make good progress for a while this afternoon by isolating myself at a table outside of Phoenix Grill, a little coffee-and-sandwiches deal on campus. Then I got distracted by an out-of-place smell. Confused, I turned to the student a the next table over, and he answered a number of my questions at once.

Me: Does it smell like weed to you?
Student: Heh. Yeah.
     (short pause)
Student: I’m smoking it.
Student: <showed me his bowl>
Student: <grinned dopily>
Me: Oh. Oooooh.

So I planned to write a post in response to this analysis of the mistake, which seemed to be to illustrate what was wrong with this distinction. It explains the commonly held view (“that” is for restrictive clauses; “which” for nonrestrictive clauses) and provides examples to demonstrate. So:

The painting, which was hanging in the foyer, was stolen.

vs.

The painting that was hanging in the foyer was stolen.

But while my first reaction was to simply point out that competent language users don’t really hear a mistake when “that” and “which” are used interchangeably, I a better explanation of what is going on here:

Which and who (occasionally whom, but that’s another thread) can be used in restrictive relatives. And so can that. And, if the relative word isn’t the subject of the clause, you can also just use [ZERO] if you like.

On the other hand

In non-restrictive relative clauses, that MAY NOT be used. If you did use that, you’d have to do without the commas or intonation dip, and you’d convert the clauses to restrictive use:

The turkey that was overcooked was nonetheless flavorful.
(implies there was another one that wasn’t overcooked)

I deducted the cost of the duck that I gave to an orphanage.
(implies there was another, undonated, duck)

I can see the distinction invoked here. My one reservation is the intonation dip seems to be what signals that the nonrestrictive meaning is intended, so it’s not clear that over time we won’t just increasingly find “that” following a dip. But there might be stronger resistance to this than to using “which” in restrictive clauses, having to do with broader semantic role of “that” (e.g., that it serves to pick out one thing from several; it “points to” the turkey that was overcooked versus the turkey that wasn’t).

Such are my admittedly naïve thoughts on the topic. What are yours?