You can either laugh or cry at the idea that in America, it has been suggested that I can no longer write that I love the big skies without some peckerhead thinking of a lawsuit.
Orwell lives and lives.
Two Montana men were offended by my use of the term and told me so (digitally), insisting that their sky was much bigger than mine.
I have never won that argument, especially not from a Montana man. Their sky is more significant than mine. It’s bigger. But unless I move there, which they would like even less, my hands are tied.
All wars, I think, are sparked by greed or testosterone, two dominant qualities of many men. Yours is almost certainly bigger than mine, Jim, I happily concede.
I’m proud of what I have, both down there and up in the sky.
Route 61 is also where my favorite farmhouse is, the most beautiful farm I have seen up here, and it sits just below one of my big skies.
The sky in this valley is my favorite big sky to photograph, along with Beadle Mountain Road. The clouds just seem to dance.
There are many beautiful hills and mountains where I live, but not too much big sky, so I treasure it where I can find it.
Whenever I see a troubled or angry, or beautiful sky, I head for Route 61, a mountain and two hills away.
I wanted to post the photo I took there yesterday, but I also want to write about my revelations in bed last night about the “Yenta-Kvetches,” who roam the Internet spreading gossip, bad news, and alarm. It seems my genius for drawing controversy has struck again.
My grandmother was always warning me about them, but I didn’t make the connection between her “yentas” and our Internet until recently. It makes perfect sense.
Several idiots desecrated my blog yesterday by suggesting Montana could sue me for claiming there was big sky anywhere else, the state has trademarked the term to keep other tourist destinations from stealing it.
I use the term extensively when describing the skies in my photos.
And I will certainly keep using the term; I hope to photograph the Montana Sheriff who will appear one day on a white stallion with some deputies and who traveled all over the country to arrest me and insist I come up with a new term for my clouds. His horses will be bigger than my sweet donkeys.
(You guys will have to post bail for me.)
One of the posters claimed to an intellectual property lawyer, and he suggested I might be violating Montana’s “Big Sky” trademark, which is painted on every license plate in the state. God have mercy on his clients. Kvetches can be both male and female, young and old.
And, of course, these yenta-kvetches don’t know what they are talking about, which is another of their trademarks. Truth is for rabbis and priests and does not matter.
(Trademarks protect commercial property and profit; they are not used to tell writers what words to use in their journals and memoirs unless the writer wants to take tourists away from Montana and has cost the state money.)
So this brings me to the meaning of the yenta-kvetch, which, I am only realizing, is the perfect name for the pandemic of obnoxious, ill-informed, and nasty people who flock to the Internet like mosquitoes at an August barbecue.
Gossips and yentas used to have to get their ammunition in face-to-face conversations with other yentas. Now, they have the whole world at their fingertips thanks to computers. Social media is yenta heaven. They can make things up and just send them off for free, not even the cost of a postage stamp.
So what is a yenta-kvetch?
My grandmother would have called the kind of people who send me dumb and mindless messages like the Montana men and two women did Yenta K’vetchs. I get them almost every day. I ignore many, but I confess torturing them in some way seems a civic duty to me.
This is a Yiddish term, one of very few I learned as a child in a Jewish household. My grandparents spoke only Yiddish, and my grandmother loved to tell me stories I could barely understand.
She often mentioned the yenta-kvetches, though, and never with admiration. When she referred to somebody as a yenta-kvetch, she would spit two or three times over her shoulder to bring the evil eye down upon them. She claimed it works. God, she said, hated yenta-kvetches, but she never revealed her source.
When I was young, all the women at the dinner table would switch to Yiddish to talk freely without the children understanding what they were saying. I often heard the term “yenta-kvetch” pop up and remembered it.
Both terms are actually in the dictionary.
A yenta can be many things, but it is often used to describe gossips, blabbermouths, or people who love to mind other people’s business; their information is invariably false, and they traffic in numerous alarms and live off of outrage and lament.
They love to tell their victims how to live.
Sound familiar?
The kvetches are all online now, they don’t even have to walk down to the butchers. If you go on Facebook or a blog or Instagram for ten minutes, you will run into one. They are everywhere, and they love terrible news more than anything. They represent all ages, faiths, and origins.
In a sense, the YK’s were Trumpists long before a Trump existed. They are full of grievances and complaint.
It is striking how the words describe countless people on social media.
Yenta-kvetches give unwanted and often awful advice, traffic in hysteria, believe everyone’s business is their own, and live to correct others.
A “yenta” is an inveterate gossip; a” kvetch” complains obsessively and habitually, another trait of the social media yentas. Together, these are powerful words. The yenta, like the cockroach, thrives and survives.
Before the Internet, the yenta-kvetch’s were an occasional annoyance. Now that they have their free medium. The yenta-kvetch has evolved into a way of life and a universal plague.
I don’t know why I didn’t think of it sooner, but my beloved grandmother – she gave me much love and wisdom – had the right idea.
When the next yenta-kvetch pops up on my blog, I will spit over my shoulder three times and turn him or her into a cricket.
Good thing you didn’t mention “Famous Potatoes” or you’d have Idaho coming after you, as well. 😉
PS – I’ve always loved that farm and view on Rt. 61, as well!
You are Bedlam Farm, but what if someone started a blog under that heading? Actually I noticed you used the Big Skies and associated it with Montana, but didn’t think it would bring down such judgement.
Does Texas have total rights to The Lone Star State?
Interesting question.
Anyone is welcome to use the name Bedlam Farm, it’s not copyrighted or trademarked and neither are my pictures. I have no idea what Texas claims.)
Texas as the Lone Star State is in reference to the state flag (previously the national flag from1836 to 1845) which has a single star.
I know you don’t lie, but I couldn’t believe that you got serious comments about this. It just made me cringe. Seriously?!!!
I don’t think I could make these comments up if I wanted do, and no, I wouldn’t lie. In fact, I delete a lot more than I publish. The magnet seems to be that they hate sincerity, they assume it’s got to be fake. But that says more about them and their lives than me and mine.
I’m always amazed when you describe some of the messages you receive. One editor of mine said to be successful I needed to start my own blog. I’m afraid my skin is too thin.
I’m sorry you feel that way Jean, I love my blog and the angry messages are just a reflection of messed up America…There are many wonderful people like yourself on the blog and I have no complaints. It’s made me stronger and more confident, truthfully.
Listen to your editor, having a blog is a wonderful experience for any writer or creative person. You can eliminate comments if you like altogether, or moderate them. Don’t let that stop you. A part of like to challenge them and fight back, it makes them crazy but it makes me stronger. I wish I could have done it earlier in my life..
The photos from yesterday and today are beautiful. What makes them so appealing to me are there are no utility poles or utility lines. A rare occurrence nowadays. You’ve got a good eye.
Thanks Liz, I sometimes have to include wires, we do have them here, but I like to find empty spaces so the sky and do its thing.
I could’ve sworn that the sky belongs to no one, but everyone and is pretty darn big all by itself. I love photos and paintings of all versions of that everchanging, beautiful entity no matter where it was viewed. Keep on going, Jon, as if you wouldn’t, anyway! I truly enjoy your photos.
My good friend calls them “puking buzzards”.
I like the buzzards part, they do feed off of other people’s work and ideas for sure… the parasite analogy works. But truthfully, many of them are sad, empty and angry. Sometimes, I just feel bad for them, and sometimes they make me want to puke.
Seriously???? Wow…I am jealous, jealous of the time these people have on their hands.
It is a mystery
An “intellectual property lawyer,” “from Montana,” complained about you talking about a sky that looks big? Bwaaaaahahahahahaha! Sorry, if all ya got to brag about is that the sky where you live is “big,” it’s time to close your laptop and go for a long walk. The internet was so much friendlier when only us geeks knew how to use it. Sigh.
Pete, I don’t recall it ever being too friendly, not when I wrote for Wired in the ’80s. I think tension is built into it. But the sheer volume of people who have nothing to say but can say it so easily and without consequence is turning it into a shitpool. I experience the geeks as being grumpy, but not gratituously nasty.
Nah, I’m talking about earlier than the 80s. The internet wasn’t so “inter” then, and most of the nodes were in university CompSci departments. There was joyous optimism in the air about the things being built, probably because nobody else really knew about them yet. Computers weren’t really “personal” yet, but somehow there was something more personal about them.
Very true, Pete, thanks for pointing it out…I came into it in the 80s, I missed that spot.
I really do love that VERY BIG SKY shown in your photograph! Big skies are relative. I know a woman who moved to New York from North Dakota and couldn’t get used to all the tress. “There are too many trees here”, she told me. “I can’t see anything!”
in 1942 my very patriotic grandfather moved his family the Odessa, Tx oil fields to work at the Kaiser Shipyards in Vancouver, Washington…My mother never got used to all the trees…too many she told me…they were creepy!
Sadly a death in the family took them back to Texas and grandpa back to the oil fields.
The sky is big everywhere. The frame is different.
What a saga, but your last line is priceless!
Jon, this is a wonderful essay! Just think who lucky you are to have had these two Montana YKs comment on your blog. Because of them, you wrote this essay. BTW, you could tell them that big skies are ubiquitous. I hope you continue to photograph your Big Skies.
I will Richard, nobody, not even in corporate America, owns the skies..
Jon, what a wonderful article..Have to say I am sick of all of these YK on FB..drives me nuts..Most of the time, I delete them…I will remember to give them the evil eye .
My grandmother was certain she could turn them into frogs and bugs..I’m not sure..
For me, Jon, this was one of the most humorous pieces that I have read, that you have written! I so enjoyed your “edge” and playing up of the yentas/kvetches. There are far too many in this world. I have recently traveled from Glens Falls through the Route 61 area to get to Route 22 , just meandering and looking to see what you see. I will never have your eye, but I get so much pleasure from seeing things through your camera. Thanks for the journeys!
Thanks, Barby, for a lovely message. I’m just warming up…:)