Joan — An Old Name For a Young Pelvis

November 30, 2017
Posted by Jay Livingston

What to name a mechanical vagina? It’s not a question most of us have to deal with on a daily basis. Or ever. But then, most of us are not trying to learn how to insert an IUD.

For her Vox podast “The Impact” Sarah Kliff recently visited a Delaware clinic for doctors and nurses who would be mastering the art of LARCs (long-acting reversible contraceptives). Inserting an IUD properly is an acquired skill – even gynecologists may be clumsy at first –  so the learners practice on artificial vaginas.  Ms Kliff, in the spirit of participatory journalism, was taking a stab at it. Here’s a brief excerpt from her attempt.  The “robotic pelvis” she was trying her hand on was named Joan.



LARCs are effective. After Colorado offered them free of charge in 2009, the rate of births and abortions among teens decreased by more than 40%. Among women 20-24, the decrease was 20%. (Source: https://www.colorado.gov/pacific/cdphe/cfpi-report)

The dramatic changes occurred mostly among Colorado’s youth. Very few of them were named Joan. Joan is not the name of a teenage girl. Teenage girls are named Emily, Hannah, Elizabeth, Taylor, Hannah. Among the young named Joan, boys outnumber girls by at least five to one. Joan used to be popular for girls. In the 1930s, it was consistently among the top ten. In her heyday, Joan accounted for 1-2% of all births, more than the most popular girls names today. Take that, Emma.

(Click on an image for a larger view.)

That was the. For the past quarter-century, Joan hasn’t been in the top 1,000. The most common age for women named Joan is 78. Joans who might need an IUD or other LARC (green in the graph below) are far outnumbered by the Joans whose childbearing days are behind them. (I drew the fertility line at the generous age of 55.)

So why did the clinic in Delaware name their robotic pelvis Joan rather than Ashley or Madison (both in the top six among today’s 15-year olds)? I have no idea.

Special People

November 28, 2017
Posted by Jay Livingston

I never thought that Trump’s “Pocohantas” joke was offensive. In fact, the first time I heard it, I thought it was pretty good. It made fun of Elizabeth Warren’s claim to some slim strand of Cherokee lineage.

It’s as though, after one of Trump’s many statements about being highly intelligent (“I’m, like, a really smart person”), Sen. Warren had referred to him as “Einstein.” The slur is not against physicists. It’s against Trump for claiming to be something he is so obviously not.

At the ceremony to honor the Navaho code talkers yesterday, Trump hauled out the Pocohantas dig again though it is long past its use-by date. The truly appalling part was that he used the ceremony as an occasion to make a personal derogatory remark about a political enemy. Is that what the Navahos came for? Appalling, as I say, but not unexpected. And no doubt, Trump supporters will see it as more evidence that Trump is their kind of guy.

The more offensive line from Trump is what followed.

You were here long before any of us were here, although we have a representative in Congress who, they say, was here a long time ago. They call her “Pocahontas.” But you know what, I like you because you are special. You are special people. You are really incredible people. And from the heart, from the absolute heart, we appreciate what you’ve done, how you’ve done it, the bravery that you displayed, and the love that you have for your country.

Trump is being complimentary. But underlying the praise is the assumption that the Navaho are not like regular Americans. Imagine a politician addressing a gathering of Jewish leaders and saying, “You know, you Jews are special people. You’re incredible people.” My guess is that the Jews being honored might suddenly get kind of interested in their shoelaces.

“Special-needs” kids, “special ed” – we recognize these as euphemisms. But even when “special” is supposed to designate something positive, it still draws the line between “you” and “us.” And it’s “you,” you special people, who are different.

When In Urfa . . . (Culture and Meaning)

November 25, 2017
Posted by Jay Livingston

A culture is a “meaning system.” A language gives meaning to sounds. A culture gives meaning to actions. What something means is a matter of interpretation. The same sound means different things in diferent languages. Ditto behavior.

When Elif Batuman walked around in Urfa, Turkey without a headscarf, she thought she was expressing her preferences in dress and perhaps her opinion about individualism, feminism, and the Turkish president. (See my post from earlier this week, “How Culture Works.” For Batuman to have worn the scarf would have meant that she was abandoning her ideas. That’s what it would have meant to her. To the people of Urfa, it would have meant only that she was exercising normal politeness.

Batuman herself eventually came to share this view, but only after she had been clued in by someone else – a woman of Turkish origin who was similarly secular, Westernized, and professional. Her mother.

Here is Batuman on “Fresh Air” describing the conversation.


Here’s the transcript.

The thought that I had in Urfa was what am I trying to show by going without a headscarf given that the people who see me without the headscarf have a completely different interpretation? Like, they don't know my ideas. They just know, oh, this is a person who is here and doesn't respect the way that we do things enough to, like, put this thing on her head. Like it - and then it was funny because actually after I wrote that piece in The New Yorker, my mother read it. And I think of my mother as such a, like, a proud secularist person. And she's a scientist. And her mother studied literature. And I'm just so proud of her and of her mother. And she was like, I can't believe I didn't tell you to just wear a headscarf in Urfa. And I was like, really? And she was like, of course. It's just - it's a common politeness. It's - they're people from the countryside. When you go there, of course you wear a head[scarf]. It's just a nice thing to do. And for her it was this thing about, like, niceness. And it wasn't this, like, anguished political thing that I'd been making it into

What does wearing a headscarf mean? Does it mean that the woman has abandoned her feminist beliefs, supporting the patriarchy, and endorsing a repressive, dictatorial president? Or does it mean that she’s just being nice?

Jon Hedricks 1921-2017

November 23, 2017
Posted by Jay Livingston

Others before him had done “vocalese” – instrumental jazz solos transcribed, set with lyrics, and sung. The best known was Eddie Jefferson’s “Moody’s Mood for Love” – James Moody’s solo on the Dorothy Fields - Jimmy McHugh song. But these were rare, almost novelty items. Hendricks took it to a new level.  His vocal trio – Lambert, Hendricks, and Ross – recreated entire arrangements with lyrics to the entire recording

Here is Hendricks’s adaptation of Duke Ellington’s  “Cottontail,” the 1940 recording featuring Ben Webster on tenor. The title – I have no idea why Ellington chose it – pretty much forced Hendricks into Beatrix Potter territory. But Hendricks put a hip musician frame to the tale, transforming Peter Rabbit into sort of a druggie.

Way back in my childhood
I heard a story so true
’bout a funny bunny
Stealing some boo from a garden he knew.

“Boo” is 1940s slang for marijuana.

Out in the garden where carrots are dense
I found a hole in the fence.
Every mornin’ when things are still,
I crawl through the hole and eat my fill.
The other rabbits say I’m taking dares,
and maybe I’m wrong but who cares?
I’m a hooked rabbit! Yeah I got a carrot habit.

My favorite part in the Ellington recording is the chorus by the sax section (at 2:04 in the original recording). In the LHR version above, it starts at 1:54, and the voices are in unison rather than the close harmony of the Ellington’s sax section. 

Thirty years later, Hendricks was still on his game, putting lyrics to one of the most famous jazz recordings, “Freddie Freeloader” from Miles Davis’s “Kind of Blue.” Writing lyrics to a John Coltrane “sheets of sound” solo is no easy task. Neither is singing it. But Hendricks does it, leaving the easier solos to singers who are technically better – Bobby McFerrin, Al Jarreau, and George Benson. It runs to nine minutes but it’s well worth listening to (here), especially if you’ve heard the original so many times over the years that you know every note