A Freudian Grip and the Question of Originality

There is nothing more purely entertaining than sitting around, laughing, chatting, saying something clever and witty, and thinking you have come up with something new.

. . . and then there is nothing more disappointing than realizing your cleverness is not all that original because someone else has come up with it first.

Case in point? A little discussion I had the other night. In a silly exchange I posited, “What does one call it when someone makes a gestural Freudian slip?” You know what I mean: an accidental graze of another person’s anatomical part. (Perhaps not so accidental if you are a creepy old man.) We could only presume that there must be some description of such a phenomenon! The obvious term, of course, was Freudian grip. Having never heard the term before, we rejoiced in our inventive wittiness.

Then, of course, a craving for further knowledge reared its ugly head and a Google search ensued.

I took what I considered to be a logical approach and did a Google search for “gestural Freudian slip.” The search results were not very helpful. There was a random smattering of topics including George Bush, some Second Life thing, and a few blogs. I did a bit of actual research and, apparently, a gesture falls within the traditional definition of Freudian slip.

But what about the oh-so-much cleverer term Freudian grip? Surely the genius of the phrase should not be lost to the world! So, on a lark, I did a Google search of Freudian grip. Much to my surprise, results abounded for the term I thought we had just created! The results included some highly suggestive photos, a comic art piece, and several results related to Freud. But not Mr. Sigmund Freud! In a dramatic twist, I came to find many of the results relating to Freudian grip led to figurative painter Lucian Freud, one of Sigmund’s grandsons. I drew some relief in noting that none of the results exhibited the connotation or definition of our invention. But still, Freudian grip was clearly nothing new.

This information chasing led me to realize how hard it is to be original in an age where so much knowledge is so easily accessed. How does the ease of accessing information affect our modern conceptions of originality? Am I any less original or creative for having thought of something on my own if it has already been conceived?

At any rate, next time you quite unknowingly find your hand nudging an unseemly bodily nook or cranny call it what it is: a Freudian grip.

Zadie Smith's The Autograph Man: A Novel

So, a major impetus behind the creation of this blog was to have a means to make public what I consider to be valid and thoughtful opinions on books. I see my book posts occurring in two ways: 1) converting written records of books previously read to this online format and 2) conveying my thoughts of books I have recently finished.

This first book post is dedicated to the novel I last finished: Zadie Smith's The Autograph Man. Ms. Smith is a highly talented author. I delighted in her prose and found her descriptions both unique and imaginative. I also appreciated the topic of her novel. The quirky protagonist, Alex-Li Tandem, deals in the autograph trade and is a well-developed character. Some of his bumbling cluelessness reminded me of Ignatius J. Reilly from Confederacy of Dunces, though I cannot put my finger on why, and the books are nothing alike. While I loathed some of Alex-Li's more unsavory decisions, I came to appreciate his good intentions and became invested in his struggle to deal with his reality--a reality he clearly tries to escape through his preoccupation with Hollywood and the movies he watches over and over again that star his favorite actress.

Ms. Smith is most noted for her first novel White Teeth, for which she won several awards and accolades. You may wonder why I did not read that work, and the explanation is quite simple. I stumbled across The Autograph Man at Changing Hands, the wonderful bookstore I frequent. It was a hardcover book for $7.50 and I couldn't resist! Such a fantastic author cannot just have her book abandoned on the sale shelf! The book needed to have a home! (I have a book buying problem so serious I refer to it as book rescuing . . . but more on that later.)

RECOMMENDED: Yes

NEXT READ: Gail Carriger's Soulless

REREAD: Roald Dahl's Matilda


Smith, Zadie. The Autograph Man: A Novel. New York: 
     Random House, 2002.

An Unbearable Facebook Status

A shameless pun? Indeed!

This Facebook status was forwarded to me yesterday and my editing instincts immediately kicked in, so bear with me (oh, yes, another pun).



Though I am not Facebook friends with this particular bear lover, I hoped against hope that his or her mauling of the English language was a result of extreme emotional duress. Surely, the terrible spelling and lack of punctuation is due to some tragedy beyond the realm of any imagination! But what terrible event could inspire such egregious errors and senseless abuse of words?

I put my Google search skills to use! The result? I can only assume that the tragic Facebook status is based on two news articles. The first, from May 29, 2010, is entitled "Bear helping himself to chicken coop gets shot." The second, from May 31, 2010, is entitled "Backpacker shoots, kills grizzly in Denali National Park." But the plot thickens! There appears to have been a third bear death on June 1, 2010. Who knows what poorly authored response the moving news piece "Dog intervenes in grizzly attack, but bear is eventually shot" will elicit from our bear-adoring Facebook friend.

Disclaimer: Though this post is jocular in nature, I am poking fun at the ineptly articulated response to the bear deaths. I would never use the actual deaths of the bears as fodder for my wit. If you'd like to see the articles for yourself, they can all be found on the Anchorage Daily News website: adn.com.

Special thanks goes to Ms. Rehfeldt for this contribution.