Monday, June 25, 2007
The problem with words
My gym visits are usually uneventful, but yesterday was a whole other story. Yesterday I met A, a journalism major, who seemed to share my thoughts on most important issues concerning writing.
Like me, A has written a book about the human condition -- it is sixty-five-thousand words long, and like mine, it too doesn't have a title that its author likes. Like me, she is terrified by the prospect of publisher rejection -- she can't bring herself to be judged by a bunch of "faceless people more interested in marketing an idea instead of publishing literature" . And her book, like mine, has been read by about four people.
That I felt an intense, life-affirming gratification at meeting an insecure writer like myself is fairly obvious. I've spent the last year, on & off, agonizing about things like mediocrity and rejection; I've thought about whether I should let more people read my book, or whether it was a mistake to give it even to one person; and I've read it so many times that I can reel off entire passages from memory. In short, I've lost all perspective on my sole work of art (there, I said it), and so you can imagine how cheered I was when I met another person like me.
The high point of the conversation, though, was our discussion on the nature of sentences -- we were both of the opinion that sentences can be about either themselves or about their subject. An example of a sentence that is about itself can be read in the "About" page of this blog (actually, this blog is littered with sentences like this) --"An exercise in style, this blog abandons most conventional approaches to populism, preferring instead to dissemble its intentions beneath a veil of heavy-handed pseudo-intellectual verbosity and imperfectly thought out semi-ideas; in so doing, it kicks much ass."
That sentence is three things -- long, verbose, and self-indulgent. The untrained reader might impatiently exclaim that it uses "big words" and is "empty"; a more appropriate adjective would be "cloying".
On the opposite end of the spectrum, we have sentences that are about something (other than themselves). For eg (from my post on Austin live music):"I’d been with my friend to this little pub/restaurant on sixth street, one of those places that has the TV muted to ESPN baseball and the muzak playing Sinatra."This sentence puts a picture in your head without using too many adjectives. In itself, it may be of little use, but many such sentences line up to make up the bulk of modern literature. Typically, such sentences contain similes and metaphors, and use adjectives as tools instead of crutches; they are, in some sense, better than their self-indulgent counterparts.
But they aren't all bad. For me, it is always a pleasure to be able to use 'risible' in place of 'laughable', and 'gravid' in place of 'full of', not because they're 'big words' but because they're more appropriate. Writing is always about using the right words, and adjectives usually need to be more right than most other kinds of words. Writers need to know their adjectives well so as to use them appropriately.
We decided, though, that no serious writer can afford to keep his love for the abstruse sentence and still flourish. A worst case scenario might be a page-long paragraph populated with three sentences full of adjectives describing other adjectives that describe still other adjectives; a paragraph that loses sight of its subject, preferring to deal with its own pseudo-pulchritude instead; a paragraph that causes the reader to throw down the book in a fit of annoyance. Such writing, we agreed, is mostly self-defeating.
Inside, however, I still feel a deep affection for convoluted adjectival prose. It might be self-defeating and narcissistic, a garish display of verbal might; it might stand for nothing more than itself; and less, it might serve to deter all those who approach it with an open mind; but for me, it will always remain fun, both to read and write.
Like me, A has written a book about the human condition -- it is sixty-five-thousand words long, and like mine, it too doesn't have a title that its author likes. Like me, she is terrified by the prospect of publisher rejection -- she can't bring herself to be judged by a bunch of "faceless people more interested in marketing an idea instead of publishing literature" . And her book, like mine, has been read by about four people.
That I felt an intense, life-affirming gratification at meeting an insecure writer like myself is fairly obvious. I've spent the last year, on & off, agonizing about things like mediocrity and rejection; I've thought about whether I should let more people read my book, or whether it was a mistake to give it even to one person; and I've read it so many times that I can reel off entire passages from memory. In short, I've lost all perspective on my sole work of art (there, I said it), and so you can imagine how cheered I was when I met another person like me.
The high point of the conversation, though, was our discussion on the nature of sentences -- we were both of the opinion that sentences can be about either themselves or about their subject. An example of a sentence that is about itself can be read in the "About" page of this blog (actually, this blog is littered with sentences like this) --"An exercise in style, this blog abandons most conventional approaches to populism, preferring instead to dissemble its intentions beneath a veil of heavy-handed pseudo-intellectual verbosity and imperfectly thought out semi-ideas; in so doing, it kicks much ass."
That sentence is three things -- long, verbose, and self-indulgent. The untrained reader might impatiently exclaim that it uses "big words" and is "empty"; a more appropriate adjective would be "cloying".
On the opposite end of the spectrum, we have sentences that are about something (other than themselves). For eg (from my post on Austin live music):"I’d been with my friend to this little pub/restaurant on sixth street, one of those places that has the TV muted to ESPN baseball and the muzak playing Sinatra."This sentence puts a picture in your head without using too many adjectives. In itself, it may be of little use, but many such sentences line up to make up the bulk of modern literature. Typically, such sentences contain similes and metaphors, and use adjectives as tools instead of crutches; they are, in some sense, better than their self-indulgent counterparts.
But they aren't all bad. For me, it is always a pleasure to be able to use 'risible' in place of 'laughable', and 'gravid' in place of 'full of', not because they're 'big words' but because they're more appropriate. Writing is always about using the right words, and adjectives usually need to be more right than most other kinds of words. Writers need to know their adjectives well so as to use them appropriately.
We decided, though, that no serious writer can afford to keep his love for the abstruse sentence and still flourish. A worst case scenario might be a page-long paragraph populated with three sentences full of adjectives describing other adjectives that describe still other adjectives; a paragraph that loses sight of its subject, preferring to deal with its own pseudo-pulchritude instead; a paragraph that causes the reader to throw down the book in a fit of annoyance. Such writing, we agreed, is mostly self-defeating.
Inside, however, I still feel a deep affection for convoluted adjectival prose. It might be self-defeating and narcissistic, a garish display of verbal might; it might stand for nothing more than itself; and less, it might serve to deter all those who approach it with an open mind; but for me, it will always remain fun, both to read and write.
Apple's decadence
What's wrong with Apple nowadays?
First it was all those smug ads, depicting the PC as an effete, self-deprecatory, middle-aged man who aspired to compete with someone far younger and "cooler" than himself. These ads, launched late last year, got away with metaphorical murder, highlighting superficial weaknesses in Windows machines while poking gentle and unsophisticated fun at the infinitely risible conglomerate that is Microsoft.
Then the iPhone, introduced in Macworld in January. Complicated in design, bulky in appearance, and crammed to the brim with redundant features, it represented everything that was wrong about today's mobile phones. Apple seemed to have abandoned its time tested keep-it-simple model to join the "more is merrier" school of thought.
And now Safari 3 for Windows, whose decrepitude can only be described by a medium that some say is worth a thousand words.
If Apple cannot rescue their reputation quickly, I might have to give away my Macbook in shame.
First it was all those smug ads, depicting the PC as an effete, self-deprecatory, middle-aged man who aspired to compete with someone far younger and "cooler" than himself. These ads, launched late last year, got away with metaphorical murder, highlighting superficial weaknesses in Windows machines while poking gentle and unsophisticated fun at the infinitely risible conglomerate that is Microsoft.
Then the iPhone, introduced in Macworld in January. Complicated in design, bulky in appearance, and crammed to the brim with redundant features, it represented everything that was wrong about today's mobile phones. Apple seemed to have abandoned its time tested keep-it-simple model to join the "more is merrier" school of thought.
And now Safari 3 for Windows, whose decrepitude can only be described by a medium that some say is worth a thousand words.
If Apple cannot rescue their reputation quickly, I might have to give away my Macbook in shame.
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
Monday, June 18, 2007
Austin live music
Here's the deal with live music in Austin -
1) There's a whole lot of it.
2) It's uniformly awesome.
For eg. - I'd been with my friend to this little pub/restaurant on sixth street, one of those places that has the TV muted to ESPN baseball and the muzak playing Sinatra. It was a fairly quiet place, by bar standards -- ideal for two graduate student teetotalers to sip Dr.Pepper while observing the many pretty waitresses. You will then understand our (mild) surprise at five hefty Irishmen in suits who emerged from a side door and took up, respectively, a violin, a pair of TAMAs, a capoed acoustic guitar, and a bass, and began playing a curious (but infinitely jaw-dropping) mixture of (insert genre here) and (insert another totally different unheard of sub-sub-genre here).
Or -- two months ago. The place -- University Avenue and Dean Keeton. The time -- very late. The instruments -- A guitar through a Boss GT-8, a bass, drums, and a theremin. The band -- four people of undetermined sex wearing ponytails and bovine masks. The lighting -- functional. The girl next to me -- tattooed and drunk. The music -- bloody brilliant.
Even the buskers are hopelessly talented. One of them, Ed, says hi to me every-time I pass by him (which is very often; Chipotle and Ed are practically neighbors). He says he learnt guitar from his dad, who lives in Tennessee. When I asked him why he was on the street selling his music to unwilling pedestrians, he murmured something about his artistic vision being "compromised by dilettantes", and resumed playing Segovia on his Taylor.
Who are these people, and why are they all in Austin, Texas?
1) There's a whole lot of it.
2) It's uniformly awesome.
For eg. - I'd been with my friend to this little pub/restaurant on sixth street, one of those places that has the TV muted to ESPN baseball and the muzak playing Sinatra. It was a fairly quiet place, by bar standards -- ideal for two graduate student teetotalers to sip Dr.Pepper while observing the many pretty waitresses. You will then understand our (mild) surprise at five hefty Irishmen in suits who emerged from a side door and took up, respectively, a violin, a pair of TAMAs, a capoed acoustic guitar, and a bass, and began playing a curious (but infinitely jaw-dropping) mixture of (insert genre here) and (insert another totally different unheard of sub-sub-genre here).
Or -- two months ago. The place -- University Avenue and Dean Keeton. The time -- very late. The instruments -- A guitar through a Boss GT-8, a bass, drums, and a theremin. The band -- four people of undetermined sex wearing ponytails and bovine masks. The lighting -- functional. The girl next to me -- tattooed and drunk. The music -- bloody brilliant.
Even the buskers are hopelessly talented. One of them, Ed, says hi to me every-time I pass by him (which is very often; Chipotle and Ed are practically neighbors). He says he learnt guitar from his dad, who lives in Tennessee. When I asked him why he was on the street selling his music to unwilling pedestrians, he murmured something about his artistic vision being "compromised by dilettantes", and resumed playing Segovia on his Taylor.
Who are these people, and why are they all in Austin, Texas?
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