Dispatch Twenty One
corrections, silliness, Seth Archer
Tuesday
What I don’t understand about grammar is how correcting it became a bit like correcting posture. You point out the mistake—a misspelling; a rogue comma—because you can see, through its shaking shadow, the beauty of its upright form. Sometimes, there’s resolve for improvement. A conscious effort to scrape out a sentence or roll back your shoulders.
When I was 25, I stopped writing to edit, thinking I could help preserve our mechanical system of punctuation and syntax even as other institutions fell. I thought often of my friend, the most formidable grammarist, who took down men twice her pay grade with the slam of her AP Style Guide. A straight spine is formed by law and order.
Lately, the most egregious mistake seems to be mine. The first line of The Ezra Klein Show’s description frequently features a spacing error. My husband read aloud from an NFL Sunday preview with one past-participle flub after another. Why bother correcting our posture if we’ve resigned ourselves to a future of hunching over screens?
During our recent trip to the Outer Banks, my dad unfolded a plastic drink holder and wedged it into the sand. He was excited to show it to me, pointing out the four-cup tray and the slot for sunglasses. I couldn’t help myself.
“Sun Glasses is incorrect,” I said. “It’s one word.”
He twisted every vertebrae toward me.
“But does the drink holder still work?”
Thursday
For the second week in a row, I woke up with a question in my mouth. I’ve been washing it out with despair over our descent into fascism, but today, trying to bring my mind back to the surface, I cleared my desk to sort out the answer.
The window in our closet-turned-office overlooks the neighbor’s sweetgum tree, and I stared until one of its crimson seed pods fell. In between work meetings, I wrote out the question: What is the value of silliness in modern society?
I associate silly with sincerity. For the past fifteen years, my family has brought a Barbie we found on the beach to every major life event—weddings, birthdays, graduations. When my college friends and I go out, we pass around a landline to engage bartenders and passerbys in impromptu calls, sparking inside jokes with strangers.
But the definition of “silly” doesn’t sing the same song.
sil·ly
adjective: having or showing a lack of common sense or judgment; absurd and foolish.
noun: a foolish person (often used as a form of address).
To address the first question, a second takes precedence: What historical forces led “silly” to carry a negative connotation?
I was vaguely aware of the midday shadows shivering the leaves behind my laptop. Then a line from The Guardian’s article “Why It’s Sensible to Be Silly” made me pause: “Plato and Aristotle, for example, discouraged laughter as an expression of scorn...”
My face flushed. As soon as work ended, I drove to Half-Price Books with a list of titles in my Notes app. I chose music over a news podcast to draw out the spell. Hope reflected off the highway, the parking garage, the store entrance.
The answers were waiting in the Philosophy section: Plato’s “The Republic” and Aristotle’s “Poetics.” I pulled them to my chest and smiled widely at the cashier over my $11 purchase.
On the walk back to my car, I saw a silly memory of my mom in the clouds. I laughed to myself, something like an exhilarated exhale. Here is another stone to turn.
I settled into the driver’s seat and glanced at my notifications for the first time in hours.
“In Charlie Kirk Killing, Finger Pointing Began Before the Evidence Was In”
“Federal Judge Declines to Intervene for Migrants Deported to Ghana”
“Bondi Prompts Broad Backlash After Saying She’ll Target ‘Hate Speech’”
“Were Jimmy Kimmel's free speech rights violated when ABC canceled his show?”
Perhaps we need silliness to loosen the grip of everything we cannot forget.
❈ Reader Dispatch ❈
I’m beyond excited to share a dispatch from Seth Archer.
To the world: Seth Archer is the Vice President of Product and Business Strategy at Dow Jones, an avid New York Liberty fan, and the guy at a party most likely to ask a question that makes you reconsider your entire life.
To me: Seth Archer is one of my closest friends and my best friend’s husband. We met during our freshman Women & Gender Studies class and reunited three years later, when I found him smoking American Spirits with my future husband. Since then, I’ve been continually inspired by Seth’s boundless curiosity and compassion for all that surrounds him.
Hundreds of times a day, a B train emerges from a tunnel to cross the Brooklyn Bridge. Ten times a week, I'm on that train bookending my workdays. On each of those crossings, I make a point to look out the window to absorb the view of the East River below.
The morning crossings start with a view of a few nondescript, orange-brick office buildings, followed by new condos with big balconies staring directly at the passing trains. A friend's old apartment appears, in a much older building with a much better view. The buildings give way to the electrical substation I imagine powers much of northern Brooklyn, before my view passes over the rocky beach and into the meandering expanse of the river.
I often attempt to deposit anxieties of the day into this wide stretch of calm water, letting them sink to wherever the bottom lies. The boats, giant tankers and cargo ships with their massive bulk, seem similarly supported by the water below. I'm not sure the river ever agreed to be a therapist to boats and men, but three months into a new job with this fresh commute, and worries always seem smaller when it's in view.
I know it's going to be a good day when a tug boat is making its way down the river. I think it's their shape? They're the smallest boats out there, mimicking rushing, worried interns holding their hats against the breeze. They don't seem to realize that the river around them is moving nearly as fast as they manage to move themselves. And yet. Put the biggest, most powerful boats on the river and they can't make heads or tails of the place without their steady tugboat guides. Something special is hiding under those held hats.
The river is eventually obscured by new construction, chinatown graffiti, then darkness as the train descends into the tunnel on the other side. I exit 10 or so stops later, losing sight of the river until I emerge again on my way home.
Thank you to Seth Archer for sharing his beautiful dispatch!
❈ Since you’re kind enough to read my dispatches, I’d love to read yours in return. Feel free to share a dispatch from your day in the comments or email me at dispatchprojectwrite@gmail.com. If you're open to having it published in a future post, please let me know—I’d be honored to celebrate it with you. ❈
Always amazed at how Plato and Aristotle are still so relevant now. Love Aristotle's thoughts on comedy!
I look forward to the ritual of receiving and reading your dispatches -- thank you! "“But does the drink holder still work?” Yes, yes it does. Love it.