[Dragaera] Giddy T-shirt par-ergon

[Davdi Silverrock]

On Jan 10, 2008 3:43 PM, Jerry Friedman wrote:

> Also I think he says "chanced" mostly when chance is involved,
> and I don't think we need "transpired" at all.  (In addition, I
> suspect Paarfi prefers the older sense of "came to light, was
> revealed".  I admit that "transpired" in the even older sense
> goes nicely with shirts, though.)  And I like starting with "my"
> and ending with "shirt".

I think I very nearly won around to this point of view.  I did also
like the idea of having some sort of preamble, such as "If I may offer
two words: &c" or "Here it is then: &c", but I am persuaded otherwise.

> On first-person pronouns, I admit that Paarfi says "we", but
> starting with "Our" (even "Our parents--that is, those of the
> wearer of this shirt--") strikes me as odd.

I find that I must agree with this as well.  While Paarfi himself
usually uses the plural first person, I can see no way for him to use
this form when referring to his own parents without sounding odd, or
even, indeed, strange.  Not to mention confusing and awkward.

That might be why it's better to use the more anonymous "A certain
Gentleman of the House of the Hawk" rather than explicitly sign it as
being by Paarfi.  There is more leeway that way, you observe.  The
only concession that I made in that direction was to use "our
history", which has the advantage of greater ambiguity of reference.

I also had the idea of checking various words using Amazon "Search
Inside" to see if Paarfi ever in fact used those words in his works,
in the hopes of finding more Paarfict phrasings.  I was startled to
find that Paarfi almost never uses the word "parents", greatly
preferring the phrase "mother and father" (or "father and mother"),
when any individual refers to both personages.  Hence, the change in
the very first few words.  Is there any objection?  I am not entirely
wedded to the notion, you see.

My efforts in searching the books led me to change "cusp" to "crucial
point", and "memento" to "token", and a few other changes as well.

In addition, I was strongly opposed to using "I was disappointed", and
after contemplating the matter, I think now that I can articulate why:
Paarfi, and those he writes of, tend to be both stoic and ironic.
Being stoic means that they prefer to hide disappointment rather than
express it, and being ironic means that they would prefer to use
inverted meaning to express their disappointment when they do so.
Hence, "had the honor to" -- followed by the excruciating detail of
the poor quality of the shirt.

I started out this time with trying to word the skeletal phrases that
would be expanded upon in the Paarfict mode:

"My parents went to Dragaera City and all I got was this lousy T-shirt."

"My parents went to Dragaera City and survived Adron's Disaster, and
all I got was this lousy T-shirt."

"My parents went to Dragaera City, and while they survived Adron's
Disaster, all I got was this lousy T-shirt."

(While I had the brief urge to translate "lousy" in its original sense
of "vermin-ridden", I decided against that as well.)

Thus, my revision Mk. 10, which includes some of the suggestions from
the various, er, variations:

My esteemed mother and father, in search of diversion from their
diminishing duties and mounting cares, traveled to Dragaera City and
sojourned there at no small expense (enjoying tolerably fine meals and
wines), just at that crucial point in our history when riots and
uprisings inflamed the city and the conflict between the Dragon Heir
Lord Adron e'Kieron and the Phoenix Emperor Tortaalik erupted into
open rebellion, culminating in the destruction and transformation of
the city and its environs into the Lesser Sea of Chaos, and while I am
indeed glad that my parents had the good fortune to escape the
Disaster with their lives, all that I had the honor to receive as a
token of their adventure was this very garment that you see before
you, and which, you perceive, is made of cheap, lightweight fabric --
a mere buttonless, collarless, short-sleeved shirt.
 --  A certain Gentleman of the House of the Hawk.

While I like the above text, I Googled, and found that Cafepress has a
10"x10" template for their T-shirts.  The largest I can fit the above
text into such a template, with 0 margins, is a 32pt font.  That's
without an illuminated first cap.  I think we can trim quite a bit, if
a larger font and/or more spacing is desired.

So after trimming and rewording quite a bit, I get this, which can be
made larger:

Revision Mk 11 (trimmed - this fits in 10x10 space with a 40 pt font):

My esteemed parents traveled to Dragaera City just at that crucial
point in history when the conflict between Lord Adron e'Kieron and
Emperor Tortaalik erupted into open rebellion, culminating in the
destruction and transformation of the city and its environs into the
Lesser Sea of Chaos, and while I am indeed glad that my parents had
the good fortune to escape the Disaster with their lives, all that I
had the honor to receive as a token of their adventure was this very
garment that you see before you, and which, you perceive, is made of
cheap, thin fabric -- a buttonless, collarless, short-sleeved shirt.

And one more note:  While it is currently all one sentence, I am
wondering if we should be splitting it in two at the ", and while"
point.


Comments?