Back Here, Out There

I realize there's a lot to like about the West Coast, but one of the small things I love about it is the way just about everyone there refers to the eastern part of the country. Back east. "I took a trip back east last month." "I have to go back east on business." Not, "I took a trip to the East Coast," or to the "eastern part of the country," or even just "east." Back east.

Okay, maybe "love" is a strong word for how I feel about an expression. But back east is just so evocative. Why do people consider traveling to the East Coast going back? To where are they going back? Back to where they once lived? Back to where they grew up? Back to where their family is from originally?

Maybe, but how does all that explain the fact that even West Coast natives refer to the east as back east, natives who have never ventured east of the Mississippi and have no family in the region?

It's fascinating. In our collective unconscious, is the East Coast somehow considered the cradle of American civilization, the U.S. version of Athens, Rome, Egypt, Africa? Does a trip to the East Coast mean going back to one's roots? To the country's roots?

If these seem like odd musings, consider this: Would you ever use the expression back west? It just sounds completely wrong, doesn't it? You go out west. And how about this: you'd never say out east, would you?

What explains it -- back east, but out west?

Fascinating.

While we're on the subject, here's an expression I outright despise -- "my bad." In my book, if you've done something wrong, if you've acted in a way that harms or inconveniences someone, you say "I'm sorry." Just "sorry" by itself is acceptable, I suppose, but to me that sounds more theoretical than personal -- as if you were just throwing out the concept of remorse, and leaving it up to the aggrieved to attach it to you personally.

"My bad" is in another league entirely. It implies no remorse or bad feeling whatsoever, just an acknowledgment of fact. "You caught me, I screwed up. Now go away so I can get back to 'Halo.'"

(Maybe I'm a little too close to this one.)

And finally, one last term . . . genius. I know I'm not alone in feeling the term is applied too freely these days. But in my humble opinion, David Foster Wallace was unquestionably a genius.¹ I've always had mixed feelings about his fiction (even though I recognize his enormous influence on writers I enjoy, like Dave Eggers). But his essays are pure, unadulterated, footnote-frenzied brilliance. ²

I'm still having difficulty getting past the shock of opening up Monday's newspaper and seeing his picture on the obituary page -- dead at 46, an apparent suicide. I suppose I have to accept the fact that someone so keenly observant -- someone whose writing regularly made me laugh out loud -- could also lead an unbearably tortured inner life. But I don't want to.

"He was . . . as sweet a person as I've ever known and as tormented a person as I've ever known." ³

RIP, DFW.

¹ Heck, he even won the so-called "genius" award from the MacArthur Foundation -- so I guess my statement goes beyond MHO.
²If you don't believe me, read "Authority and American Usage," in Consider the Lobster.
³Jonathan Franzen, as quoted in The New York Times, September 14, 2008.