If contractions were blog posts mine would be spaced eight months apart; not so much pregnant pauses as false labor.
I'm afraid it may take a shot of whiskey, clean towels, a midwife and forceps to pull out the next entry.
This is not due to a lack of material. Just the opposite.
What
with Twitter and Facebook and Reddit and Friendster and MySpace --
scratch those last two -- I am overwhelmed by the opportunities to get
my point across on multiple platforms. In the old days there was one
soap box, now there are twelve.
Certainly you can see right through this ruse about writing about
writing. I am merely marking time, dog-paddling, creating a digital placeholder
to give the illusion that I am actually contributing something,
anything, to my literary canon.
It is all smoke.
Monday, June 3, 2013
Friday, October 12, 2012
homestretch marks
I survived this election and all I got was defriended .
Okay, so perhaps social media is not the best place to have spirited political discourse given the paltry 140 characters allotted to espouse views accrued over a lifetime. One might argue that Facebook and Twitter have become our generation's collective town square, the 60-watt bulb in that beacon on the hill, but many find it off-putting, intolerable, maddening when someone in their close-knit circle posts something out-of-step with their own reckoning.
Keep typing the good type, I say.
Isn't that precisely what distinguishes the United States from, say Saudi Arabia? Freedom of expression, even when it doesn't agree with your own circumscribed beliefs, is one of the most prized and valuable assets we possess. This is a country founded on both dissent and tolerance.
It is the reason young men and women have bravely given their lives to fight far-flung wars to preserve our right to even criticize the very battles in which they are engaged. Remember Vietnam?
Now as we enter the final 30 days of this presidential election – which can't end soon enough, in my humble opinion – emotions have reached a fever pitch, as they always do. Trust me, the fever will break come November 7. Until then, bear with all the hand-wringing and commentary and second-guessing and prognostication and yes, defriending.
Once this all over we can go back to complaining about that Facebook timeline thingy again.
Okay, so perhaps social media is not the best place to have spirited political discourse given the paltry 140 characters allotted to espouse views accrued over a lifetime. One might argue that Facebook and Twitter have become our generation's collective town square, the 60-watt bulb in that beacon on the hill, but many find it off-putting, intolerable, maddening when someone in their close-knit circle posts something out-of-step with their own reckoning.
Keep typing the good type, I say.
Isn't that precisely what distinguishes the United States from, say Saudi Arabia? Freedom of expression, even when it doesn't agree with your own circumscribed beliefs, is one of the most prized and valuable assets we possess. This is a country founded on both dissent and tolerance.
It is the reason young men and women have bravely given their lives to fight far-flung wars to preserve our right to even criticize the very battles in which they are engaged. Remember Vietnam?
Now as we enter the final 30 days of this presidential election – which can't end soon enough, in my humble opinion – emotions have reached a fever pitch, as they always do. Trust me, the fever will break come November 7. Until then, bear with all the hand-wringing and commentary and second-guessing and prognostication and yes, defriending.
Once this all over we can go back to complaining about that Facebook timeline thingy again.
Thursday, May 10, 2012
literary laryngitis
Writers do not lose their voice, they merely misplace it.
Like an errant punctuation mark, or missing set of car keys, some things simply get laid in the wrong place. This happens to people all the time, but that is an entirely different subject matter and one not discussed in polite company.
As one who crafts advertising copy the way others bake bread or mop floors or grind sausage, I have lost the discipline to be long-winded, to string multiple thoughts together just so. After years of writing to fit prescribed spaces, my capacity to elongate has been truncated; chopped at the bit, as it were.
There is no literary Viagra to combat this malady.
One cannot conjure Faulkner or Hemingway while selling light bulbs. Why, even dear Sherwood Anderson would have a difficult time hawking eggs.
Not much good can ever come from a paragraph meant to elicit compulsion in a reader; that he must throw on slippers and a housecoat and run to the nearest corner store to purchase some totem of marketing that would be otherwise intolerable to live without.
F. Scott Fitzgerald once claimed that advertising “is a racket, like the movies and the brokerage business. You cannot be honest without admitting that its constructive contribution to humanity is exactly minus zero.”
There are no words.
Like an errant punctuation mark, or missing set of car keys, some things simply get laid in the wrong place. This happens to people all the time, but that is an entirely different subject matter and one not discussed in polite company.
As one who crafts advertising copy the way others bake bread or mop floors or grind sausage, I have lost the discipline to be long-winded, to string multiple thoughts together just so. After years of writing to fit prescribed spaces, my capacity to elongate has been truncated; chopped at the bit, as it were.
There is no literary Viagra to combat this malady.
One cannot conjure Faulkner or Hemingway while selling light bulbs. Why, even dear Sherwood Anderson would have a difficult time hawking eggs.
Not much good can ever come from a paragraph meant to elicit compulsion in a reader; that he must throw on slippers and a housecoat and run to the nearest corner store to purchase some totem of marketing that would be otherwise intolerable to live without.
F. Scott Fitzgerald once claimed that advertising “is a racket, like the movies and the brokerage business. You cannot be honest without admitting that its constructive contribution to humanity is exactly minus zero.”
There are no words.
Monday, January 23, 2012
who bares it best?
Another typical January in Texas; the lukewarm pablum of mid-70's and partly-cloudy skies ahead of the Manitoban winds which will invariably whip down from Canada reminding us why it is still, technically, winter. The sweater box is not far from hand. But today is a perfect day for tattersall and Didionesque complex sentences requiring no less than four or five commas, appositives, semicolons and other meaningful punctuation marks which make English teachers salivate.
We are in the season of unseasonableness. Weather and politics can turn on a dime, and if last night's South Carolina primary shows us anything, it's that the inevitable can quickly become the evitable in just one short 24-hour news cycle.
Like with Rick Santorum's much vaunted sweater vests, one day you're in and the next you're out. (Heidi Klum's marriage notwithstanding.)
Politics and fashion are strange bedfellows that rely on the fickleness of a shopping electorate who find themselves continually shopping for candidates. Take, for example, the liberal left. The conservative right. The Tea Party. The Libertarians, the Greens, the Occupiers. There also seems to be, if the news is to be trusted, a wide swath down the middle of Undecideds with whom I have never had any truck. They remind me of the people who can't make up their minds where to eat and end up choosing some establishment out of gustatory convenience, all the while complaining about the choice with a fork to their lips as if it were a gun to their heads.
Who constitutes these small percentages that aren't able to decisively lock down one candidate when Gallup calls, or who can go into voting booth not knowing who they will pull the lever for or darken the oval? Have the contrasts blurred so much that one choice seems as good as another?
Bare arms, my friends. The choices should be as clear as the weather. Or at least as easy as shopping for clothes hanging side-by-side on a rack. As with the Texas climate, change is something you can always believe in, and acrylic will never substitute for cashmere.
Never.
Monday, September 26, 2011
bride & true.
To whom it may concern.
In the event of my absence please notify the appropriate authorities and have them check the floor of the international mail room at the Dublin General Post Office. I fear I may have fallen out of the envelope. If I do not turn up there, I can most likely be found on Bridge Street at The Brazen Head. I fear I may have fallen off the wagon.
If neither happens to be the case, my trusty literary executrix (point to self) has been given a copy of this ransom note to be read via proxy to the bride, groom, all assembled, and dissembled.
My friends, and no small amount of bill collectors, refer to me as Brian ...
Brian Carr. But if you happen to bump into me after the reception, I will gladly answer to Brian "can I get you another drink?"
Today, however, is not about hydration, rather it is a day we join together in celebration to honor the bond between Renee and Sunil; a bond that has spanned 3,900 miles, two continents, and a fairly minor puddle in between.
(For those of you having trouble with the conversion rate, it is 6,276 km).
It was precisely two decades ago when I first met Renee, give or take another decade. We met over a folding board at the Gap and became instant friends, attending the University of Texas together and eventually becoming roommates. If Renee ever needs a credit reference I can vouch that she always paid the rent on time.
Among her many talents, cooking has to be at the top of the list -- Renee certainly knows her way around a kitchen, especially the exits.
Once she learned to remove the cardboard insert from a frozen pizza before heating it in the oven, our calls to 911 were cut in half. I mention this factoid for purely selfish reasons, only as a logical segue into an applicable Joan Crawford quote: "Love is a fire. But whether it is going to warm your hearth or burn down the house you can never tell."
Now, Sunil, don't let any of this scare you off. Any man who can capture the attention and love and praise of Miss Ryerson is that rare creature who so often eludes us. That you two have found each other is both heartening and restorative; it renews our faith that despite protestations to the contrary, we do often end up with the happiness that we deserve. You have married a girl we used to know with the kindest, gentlest and loving heart who became the woman who sits next to you today. It is a noble pairing that will continue to grow and thrive and shine as a beacon of light to all who know you.
I am parched.
With that, I propose a toast to the bride and groom, hopefully with crystal goblets. Much like with love, as Dorothy Parker once observed, "Styrofoam will not do."
In the event of my absence please notify the appropriate authorities and have them check the floor of the international mail room at the Dublin General Post Office. I fear I may have fallen out of the envelope. If I do not turn up there, I can most likely be found on Bridge Street at The Brazen Head. I fear I may have fallen off the wagon.
If neither happens to be the case, my trusty literary executrix (point to self) has been given a copy of this ransom note to be read via proxy to the bride, groom, all assembled, and dissembled.
My friends, and no small amount of bill collectors, refer to me as Brian ...
Brian Carr. But if you happen to bump into me after the reception, I will gladly answer to Brian "can I get you another drink?"
Today, however, is not about hydration, rather it is a day we join together in celebration to honor the bond between Renee and Sunil; a bond that has spanned 3,900 miles, two continents, and a fairly minor puddle in between.
(For those of you having trouble with the conversion rate, it is 6,276 km).
It was precisely two decades ago when I first met Renee, give or take another decade. We met over a folding board at the Gap and became instant friends, attending the University of Texas together and eventually becoming roommates. If Renee ever needs a credit reference I can vouch that she always paid the rent on time.
Among her many talents, cooking has to be at the top of the list -- Renee certainly knows her way around a kitchen, especially the exits.
Once she learned to remove the cardboard insert from a frozen pizza before heating it in the oven, our calls to 911 were cut in half. I mention this factoid for purely selfish reasons, only as a logical segue into an applicable Joan Crawford quote: "Love is a fire. But whether it is going to warm your hearth or burn down the house you can never tell."
Now, Sunil, don't let any of this scare you off. Any man who can capture the attention and love and praise of Miss Ryerson is that rare creature who so often eludes us. That you two have found each other is both heartening and restorative; it renews our faith that despite protestations to the contrary, we do often end up with the happiness that we deserve. You have married a girl we used to know with the kindest, gentlest and loving heart who became the woman who sits next to you today. It is a noble pairing that will continue to grow and thrive and shine as a beacon of light to all who know you.
I am parched.
With that, I propose a toast to the bride and groom, hopefully with crystal goblets. Much like with love, as Dorothy Parker once observed, "Styrofoam will not do."
Friday, July 2, 2010
42 minutes to save the world
It has been an extremely trying month, both days of it; a mensis horriblus in layman's terms. Everything is all mixed up. We are heading to hand in a hellbasket I tell you. Something must be done about something.
Thank the Founding Fathers for this well-deserved long July 4th weekend to help us forget about the trials and tribulations being trumpeted from the webtops. There's still that annoying oil spill in the Gulf that refuses to pause even as I put pencil to paper. And more troubling, last week's Supreme Court decision that allows every man, woman, and fetus the right to own a handgun upon conception. (In an apparent oversight, stem cells were left out of the ruling.) Couple that with last month's passage of a short-sighted and discriminatory illegal immigrant bill in Arizona, drug cartel murders along the Mexican border, Lindsay Lohan's imminent arrest on probation violations and a hurricane that nearly missed slamming into the Texas coast yesterday. The Haitains never had it so hard.
Here I sit with only 39 minutes left before logging off my computer and leaving work for a three-day bender. As an American, I have the distinct privilege of carrying on with a relatively care-free existence while occasionally pondering how to solve world hunger armed with just my iPhone, car keys, a paper-clip and a sense for what the modern man wears in a beachside resort after 8pm.
The advent of the 24 hour news cycle has exposed us to strife throughout the globe, condensed and captured within the confines of a 15” LCD screen. The world is at once smaller yet more treacherous. The charwoman in Leeds may as well be cleaning the house across the street for all we know, so much have our boundaries been erased. When I was a kid, all you had to do was buy the world a Coke, and smiling hippies in pre-Stella McCartney era peasant-skirts would be grasping hands swaying from the hilltops. The halcyon days are indeed in danger of extinction, so here are my ten recommendations to help start us on the path to singing in perfect harmony:
1) The BP “environmental catastrophe” in the gulf needs to be resolved. Plugging the oil well will only be the start in a decades-long cleanup. But it will be the end of the beginning at least. (Contrary to popular belief, BP does not now nor will it ever stand for "bitch, please.")
2) Apple needs to embrace Adobe Flash. Period. Why can't we all just get along?.
3) Congress must end Don't Ask Don't Tell immediately. Much like desegregating the troops in the 50's, gays in the military should be addressed as a civil rights issue, and it is.
4) Immigration reform must occur this year. We cannot deport 11 million people and conversely, we cannot sustain the current untenable path to citizenship. Si se puede.
5) Lady Gaga must perish from the earth, forever and ever, amen.
6) Replace high fructose corn syrup with sugar. In everything. In moderation.
7) People should be required to read at least one book a month, a paper one with pages that can be turned manually.
8) Watch more Wheel of Fortune and less Housewives of New Jersey.
9) Gays should gain the right to get married, in the eyes of the law and the Crate & Barrel gift registry.
10) And finally: End the wars. Iran, Afghanistan. Iron Chef.
With the two minutes I have left, I'd like to buy more time, Pat.
Thank the Founding Fathers for this well-deserved long July 4th weekend to help us forget about the trials and tribulations being trumpeted from the webtops. There's still that annoying oil spill in the Gulf that refuses to pause even as I put pencil to paper. And more troubling, last week's Supreme Court decision that allows every man, woman, and fetus the right to own a handgun upon conception. (In an apparent oversight, stem cells were left out of the ruling.) Couple that with last month's passage of a short-sighted and discriminatory illegal immigrant bill in Arizona, drug cartel murders along the Mexican border, Lindsay Lohan's imminent arrest on probation violations and a hurricane that nearly missed slamming into the Texas coast yesterday. The Haitains never had it so hard.
Here I sit with only 39 minutes left before logging off my computer and leaving work for a three-day bender. As an American, I have the distinct privilege of carrying on with a relatively care-free existence while occasionally pondering how to solve world hunger armed with just my iPhone, car keys, a paper-clip and a sense for what the modern man wears in a beachside resort after 8pm.
The advent of the 24 hour news cycle has exposed us to strife throughout the globe, condensed and captured within the confines of a 15” LCD screen. The world is at once smaller yet more treacherous. The charwoman in Leeds may as well be cleaning the house across the street for all we know, so much have our boundaries been erased. When I was a kid, all you had to do was buy the world a Coke, and smiling hippies in pre-Stella McCartney era peasant-skirts would be grasping hands swaying from the hilltops. The halcyon days are indeed in danger of extinction, so here are my ten recommendations to help start us on the path to singing in perfect harmony:
1) The BP “environmental catastrophe” in the gulf needs to be resolved. Plugging the oil well will only be the start in a decades-long cleanup. But it will be the end of the beginning at least. (Contrary to popular belief, BP does not now nor will it ever stand for "bitch, please.")
2) Apple needs to embrace Adobe Flash. Period. Why can't we all just get along?.
3) Congress must end Don't Ask Don't Tell immediately. Much like desegregating the troops in the 50's, gays in the military should be addressed as a civil rights issue, and it is.
4) Immigration reform must occur this year. We cannot deport 11 million people and conversely, we cannot sustain the current untenable path to citizenship. Si se puede.
5) Lady Gaga must perish from the earth, forever and ever, amen.
6) Replace high fructose corn syrup with sugar. In everything. In moderation.
7) People should be required to read at least one book a month, a paper one with pages that can be turned manually.
8) Watch more Wheel of Fortune and less Housewives of New Jersey.
9) Gays should gain the right to get married, in the eyes of the law and the Crate & Barrel gift registry.
10) And finally: End the wars. Iran, Afghanistan. Iron Chef.
With the two minutes I have left, I'd like to buy more time, Pat.
Saturday, April 3, 2010
beg, borrow, still....
I do not condone begging, panhandling, imploring handouts, or any general anxiousness that infringes upon my person in general. There, I've said it. In my last writing assignment, I was accused of hiding the crux of my story in the closing graf. However, I gather here today to not bury my leads, but rather to praise them.
Today on my way to the coffeehouse I was accosted by no less than three vagrants who were essentially attempting to tax me with representation. There was the war veteran – I didn't ask which war and he didn't tell me -- who commenced to cleaning my front windshield with the expectation of some small gratuity in exchange for services rendered. Instead, I asked to see an operator's permit which he said he conveniently left at home. However, I seriously doubt that when pressed he would have been able to give said address of any domicile cardboard or otherwise.
Then there was the female amputee who stood at the corner of 51st and IH-35 unabashedly holding a sign that said “ON MY LAST LEG.” Now any advertiser worth their salt would know better than to neglect to include a call to action.
I was tempted to offer my freelance writing services to her, pro bono of course, with a 15% cut of the profits but thought better of it. She needed something more along the lines of “GENTLEMEN PREFER L'EGG, DONATE TO A GOOD FLAWS.” (The grammatical error was wholly intentional and added to elicit sympathy.)
I dissemble.
Lastly, there was an amiable enough fellow who appeared to want to throw his body in the path of my moving vehicle in order to secure payment from GEICO. As I approached the intersection and mouthed the words “no insurance,” so that he could clearly see my lips move he thought better of it and stepped back onto the median.
Times may be hard, but I find it difficult to wrap my brain around the notion that anyone would want to stand in the hot sun for 8 hours and degrade themselves by asking for a handout. I personally sit in a dark cubicle for 8 hours and degrade myself and ask for a handout every two weeks, but that is neither here nor there.
My mother was right: People are starving in Africa and might I add, closer to home.
After several unsuccessful attempts to ban public solicitation by the Austin City Council, it looks as if we are indeed headed down a slippery slope that leads to the Mumbai-ization of our fine city. This does not bode well for Austin, or San Francisco, or Peoria or Trenton for that matter. The ACLU would be better served fighting for the rights of the franchised if you ask me.
I am seriously tempted to scout the nearest intersection and solicit donations for that iPad that was just released today. You see, I am short of funds and can think of no other way to bridge the gap between my current lack of monetization and the object of my affection. All that I can offer are words, words and more words. And perhaps the occasional windshield cleaning or two.
Today on my way to the coffeehouse I was accosted by no less than three vagrants who were essentially attempting to tax me with representation. There was the war veteran – I didn't ask which war and he didn't tell me -- who commenced to cleaning my front windshield with the expectation of some small gratuity in exchange for services rendered. Instead, I asked to see an operator's permit which he said he conveniently left at home. However, I seriously doubt that when pressed he would have been able to give said address of any domicile cardboard or otherwise.
Then there was the female amputee who stood at the corner of 51st and IH-35 unabashedly holding a sign that said “ON MY LAST LEG.” Now any advertiser worth their salt would know better than to neglect to include a call to action.
I was tempted to offer my freelance writing services to her, pro bono of course, with a 15% cut of the profits but thought better of it. She needed something more along the lines of “GENTLEMEN PREFER L'EGG, DONATE TO A GOOD FLAWS.” (The grammatical error was wholly intentional and added to elicit sympathy.)
I dissemble.
Lastly, there was an amiable enough fellow who appeared to want to throw his body in the path of my moving vehicle in order to secure payment from GEICO. As I approached the intersection and mouthed the words “no insurance,” so that he could clearly see my lips move he thought better of it and stepped back onto the median.
Times may be hard, but I find it difficult to wrap my brain around the notion that anyone would want to stand in the hot sun for 8 hours and degrade themselves by asking for a handout. I personally sit in a dark cubicle for 8 hours and degrade myself and ask for a handout every two weeks, but that is neither here nor there.
My mother was right: People are starving in Africa and might I add, closer to home.
After several unsuccessful attempts to ban public solicitation by the Austin City Council, it looks as if we are indeed headed down a slippery slope that leads to the Mumbai-ization of our fine city. This does not bode well for Austin, or San Francisco, or Peoria or Trenton for that matter. The ACLU would be better served fighting for the rights of the franchised if you ask me.
I am seriously tempted to scout the nearest intersection and solicit donations for that iPad that was just released today. You see, I am short of funds and can think of no other way to bridge the gap between my current lack of monetization and the object of my affection. All that I can offer are words, words and more words. And perhaps the occasional windshield cleaning or two.
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