Category: peculiar

On Rules and Flouting the Rules

There is a quote attributed to the Dalai Lama that goes like this:

“Know the rules well, so you can break them effectively.”

I generally agree with this sentiment. I’ve seen it applied beautifully to music and painting, and I personally break the principle rule of photography with gusto every chance I get.

The one area that I get a little persnickety about breaking the rules is the discipline of spelling and grammar.

In this area, I get out my schoolmarm glasses and become VERY strict.

I believe that both effective communication and indeed, the very fabric of the English language, depends on proper grammar and spelling.

Despite, of course, the daily assault on the English language lobbed by the texting/twittering/facebooking phenomenon.

I recently read the bestselling book, “The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake” by Aimee Bender.

It’s a sad, melancholy tale of a young girl who can taste the emotions of the person who prepared the food she eats. It’s an odd and slightly surreal book that delves deeply into the secrets and strange predilections of the family at the center of the story.

But as I dived into the book, I was brought up short right away by the complete lack of quotation marks to designate dialogue.

You know, dialogue is bit tough to follow when there are no quotation marks. Indeed Ms. Bender didn’t even follow standard dialogue format as often the sentences spoken between characters overlapped in a single paragraph.

I found it maddening and it made my progress through the book slow and rather difficult. I often had to re-read pages to be sure I knew what was going on.

I did get through the book, however, because Ms. Bender is a teller of beautiful stories.

There is a book that also eschewed quotation marks that I tried to read ten or twelve years ago that didn’t fare as well. In fact, I got a third of the way through the infernal book then got up the moment I’d had enough, got in my car, went to the library and dropped the blasted book into the donation slot. Literally. I got so mad I hesitated not a moment before I ejected the book from my home.

That book is one you might know, “All The Pretty Horses” by Cormac McCarthy. Mr. McCarthy may be an award-winning author, but he’s no favorite of mine.

Mr. McCarthy’s style on display in his recent spate of bestselling books may be something of a driver to this now popular style of throwing out useful punctuation marks.

To be blunt, I blame McCarthy for the trend.

However, my blame may be poorly placed.

Recently The Good Man and I watched a documentary called “It/ll Be Better Tomorrow” about the author Hubert Selby Jr. Known best for his books “Last Exit to Brooklyn” and “Requiem for a Dream,” over his career, Mr. Selby also flagrantly violated the rules of punctuation, most notably his apostrophes are replaced with slashes. So she’ll becomes she/ll.

However, at least he’s consistent in his use, and there is some sort of mark designating what’s (or what/s) going on, so I can at least follow along.

Not so with ol’ Cormac.

It seems I’m not the only one who has noticed this literary shift.

In an October 2008 essay in the Wall Street Journal, author Lionel Shriver also notes the lack of quotation marks, quoting material from McCarthy’s “No Country For Old Men” by way of example, but McCarthy is far from the only author out there employing this device.

To me, it feels indulgent on the part of the writer to expect that their readers will simply figure it out for themselves.

I think Mr. Shriver sums it up quite nicely at the end of his essay:

“When dialogue makes no sound, the only character who really gets to talk is the writer.”

And the thing is, as a writer, I’ve always thought my job was to get out of the way.

Ah well, as NewMexiKen and I discussed in the comments section of this post, art can be a tricky thing to define. The rules go all slidey* when we talk about what is or isn’t acceptable in creating works of art.

That means I get to keep my punctuation marks and while others can set theirs free.
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Oh…and then there is the inappropriate use of quotation marks. That’s a whole other discussion.

*Also there is my personal habit of making up words. Ah well, back to throwing stones at my own glass house…

The Shame…The Shaaaaame!

So…a couple years back, looking for something easy and sort of trashy to read, I stumbled across some online hubbub about that Twilight book series.

Ya know, I do love tween/teen fiction. I mean, I read every Harry Potter through to the end. The Golden Compass series too.

So I ordered the first three books in the Twilight series (the fourth wasn’t out yet) from the library and I read ’em through.

Well, I read the first two all the way through. The third, I stopped about halfway through and returned it to the library. I was done. So done. Completely, utterly, oh my god why did I read this, can’t unread what I’ve read, d-o-n-e, done.

Oh the angst! The agony! The yearning!

Fine, sure. I imagine the perspective of a 40 year old married woman and a giddy hormonal teen girl are, indeed, rather different.

But I got *pissed off* at the “I can’t be with you” aspect of it. And the “you deserve better” bullsheet.

Ok look, I’ve dated a few men in my time. My thing wasn’t vampires, like Bella. It was cowboys. Beautiful and amazing and soul sucking in their own way.

I’ve had MORE than my fair share of guys who come on all strong, wooed me along, then gave me the “you are too good for me” line. Or the “I’m too dedicated to my work/life/horse/truck/school to be with you.”

Or the “you shouldn’t be with a guy like me.”

It is ALL a form of utter, unadulterated bullsh*t.

Ya like me, ya wanna be with me? Be with me. Ya like me but wanna like a whooole lotta other girls too? Well, sack up about it!

And so in this book, oooh here is this poor *suffering* vampire who can’t be with the girl (cuz he wants to kill her), but then he CAN be with the girl, but I can’t! Yes I can!

No, I break up with you!

But I can’t liiiive without you.

Bella, sista, run. Don’t walk. Run. Find a nice dependable guy (and not that Jacob dude who ends up naked in the woods. That’s just…weird) and get on with your life.

Yeah. I might have had a sort of personal, visceral reaction to the story based on things that might have little to do with the story.

Aaaaanyhow….

So, utter fool that I am, ya wanna know what I did? Well, I’ve been hearing all this mess about the new Twilight movie opening up. I thought…hell, why not. Maybe the movie versions are better.

I finally watched the first movie in the series, Twilight.

I’ll say this, the screenwriters did a fine job of adapting the book. Really. They stayed very true to the story and visually it’s very well done.

And when I first saw a photo of Robert Pattinson, I thought “yeah, ok! He really looks the part of Edward. Perfect!”

But his acting! My god, son! I realize that Edward is all cold (literally) and sullen and austere and a bunch of other things that make him squinch up and be overly emo and serious and stuff.

But dude. Are you even in there? Was your preparation for this role to just go limp and then stand in front of a camera? Have some presence, man!

Gah!

And then the whole push-pull, yes-no thing got me all worked up again, too.

And now I’m just stalking around being irritable.

If you are the sort of person who loves this whole Twilight thing, good on ya. Believe me, I understand. Enjoy your team Edward/Jacob tug of war. Enjoy that moody monster. Really. I bid you no ill will!

Me. I need a brain cleanser. I cannot believe I watched that.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to squirt scrubbing bubbles in both ears and wait for this memory to fade like mold from my shower stall.

Flash Fiction – Day Four & Final

Whoooo, yes! Fist pumps and happy jigs. I managed to pull off this massive stretch goal of writing a new Flash Fiction story four days in a row.

I’m not going to lie to ya, this has been challenging. Getting today’s story done was tough, and I think it reads like it. This challenge really took some work.

Today, the overworked Muse got a little silly. I hope you’re willing to come along for this final ride.

Tomorrow, as promised, I’ll be posting an oral reading of a New Mexico folktale as my wrap up of this crazy off beat week of Flash Fiction and Fables.

It’s a good one, I think you’re going to like it, especially the readers/listeners from my home state.

But for today, my randomly generated word is: portability

Without further ado:

The Device

by Karen Fayeth

Darryl and Sean worked quietly, side-by-side in the corrugated metal work shed they referred to as “The Lair.”

Work was wrapping up on their invention, a device without a name so far. If you asked them, it was totally a fusion reacting, power providing, super über top of the line invention.

The whole deal was this, it was a small reactor that creates enough power to run a small city. Clean burning, no electricity or fuel required, and it only fills up a small footprint.

The genesis of the invention came when Darryl had entered a project in his college science fair to show how he could make small fusion reactions.

Sean had also worked on an entry for the fair, but wasn’t able to complete it in time. His was a device for efficient distribution of power in a small space and without heat or exhaust.

The two ideas put together was an invention in which Pajaro Ventures had invested $3 million in R&D money. It would totally pay off, assuming they could get the device to be stable.

Initial trials were not as successful as they’d hoped.

The Lair had been replaced three times due to what the boys referred to as “misfires.”

But if they got it to work right, they could rule the world. Literally, they hoped, because that would be cool.

When they weren’t working on, or fighting over what to call the device, they were arguing over what to call themselves. Darryl favored Captain Hazard as his superhero slash evildoer name. His costume included a bright yellow vest, the kind road crews wear to be seen by passing cars.

Sean was leaning toward Dr. Reaction. His costume was a bit more ill defined, consisting mostly of a white lab coat with nuclear symbols attached to both shoulders like epaulettes.

The U.S. Army was interested in the unnamed device, as they needed strong, reliable power at many of their installations in the Middle East. A clean burning self-contained unit that kept them off either generators requiring gasoline or power lines requiring infrastructure was looking real enticing.

However, the U.S. Army was a bit skeptical that two recent college grads had the gonads to actually pull this thing off. No matter, the risk was on Pajaro Ventures. If it worked, Parajo got a huge contract. If it didn’t, Pajaro ate the R&D fees and the U.S. Army would keep on looking.

Early on, Darryl and Sean had flown out to Washington to meet with senior ranking officials, including one five star general. The field commanders gave the boys their list of must haves and nice to haves around this thing.

The team agreed on device specs. Darryl and Sean would come back in six months to demo their progress.

That demo was due to take place the next morning. After a good night’s sleep, the boys rose early and got ready. A black Suburban rolled up and men in dark sunglasses loaded up The Device and the boys and delivered them to the airport, where they boarded the Parjaro private plane headed for the Pentagon.

The flight went without a hitch and soon Darryl and Sean found themselves in a large auditorium surrounded by a lot of people, most wearing dark green uniforms.

“Yeah, so, ok, let’s get right into this,” Darryl said, doing the talking. He was the more eloquent of the two.

The Device sat on the floor in front. When signaled, Sean hit the go button.

Fans whirred, parts rumbled and the machine’s lights flashed.

“As you can see,” Darryl said, “It takes only a few moments to come online. Once you see an orange light here, at the side, it’s fully charged and ready to go.”

The light came on, and Darryl took the plugs from a refrigerator, a clothes dryer and a microwave and plugged them into the outlets built into The Device.

“These high power drawing items are but a fraction of what The Device can power. When up to full capacity, this device could power a small city, say the size of Austin.”

The assembled crowed murmured their approval.

It worked. The Device was generating smooth power. It shook a little, but no fires so far.

“Gentlemen, I believe this meets your requirements for high voltage yet safe and steady power. We have achieved your list of must haves. Oh, wait, there’s one more item we haven’t demoed,” Darryl said, flipping a red switch on the back panel.

Immediately a bright blue undulating hole, about a foot wide, ripped into the fabric of time and space above the machine.

“And there you have it, General, sir. Your requirement is complete.”

General Johanssen looked at the eerie opening in the air that was starting to exert a gravitational pull.

“What the sam hell have you boys done?” he shouted.

“You said that your key requirement was portal ability. We’ve succeeded. The Device not only facilitates powering your base camps, but also provides the beginning stages of time travel. This really is a cutting edge machine.”

General Johanssen’s face turned tomato red with anger. “I said it was mandatory that this device have PORTability, meaning moving the stupid thing as our troops relocate around the world. I did NOT ask for goddamn portal ability! What the hell is that, anyway?”

Darryl and Sean looked at each other, eyes wide. Darryl began frantically fiddling with the red switch.

“Boys, close that goddamn worm hole before someone gets hurt!” a major called out from their left side.

“Um, I’m trying, sir,” Darryl said, sounding panicked.

Suddenly, a nearby office chair was sucked into the depths of the wormhole and sent two thousand light years ahead into space. It landed with a “whump” on the fifth moon of the planet Kranon, killing the opposition leader of the attempted violent overthrow of the King of the Kranonians.

Two thousand light years back on Earth, Darryl could only reply, “Whoops.”

Creative Commons License
“The Device” by Karen Fayeth is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 United States License.

New Mexifail!

Whoooo! Some homestate love once more on the Failblog!

Oh Fair New Mexico!!!

Wait. That’s not the shape of New Mexico.

Uh…..

I know, I know…the *name* of the company is New Mexico Soap. But…it’s still confusing.

Maybe the label could be…”State Shaped Soap, brought to you by New Mexico Soap” or something similar to avoid the perils of the Failblog?

For the record, the people at New Mexico Soap also carry this little product:

There ya go! That’s the right shape! They left off that little jut up near Oklahoma, but that’s ok.

I’m sure the people who live up in the jut (uh, that would be round about Clayton, NM) don’t mind being left off the soap. Much.

By the by, this is not the only New Mexico fail on the failblog. Here’s the one I posted back in October.

Voice from the past

So I’ve been lightly reading the kerfuffle and conversation surrounding the new Nike ad featured Tiger Woods, with an overlay of the voice of his father, Earl Woods, taken from an interview in 1994.

Here’s the ad, if you haven’t already seen it:

Of the ad, Tiger has said: “…I think any son who has lost a father and who meant so much in their life, I think they would understand the spot.”

Hmm.

I’m not a son, but I’ve lost a father and I have to say the ad makes me very uncomfortable. I’m not sure I do understand the spot.

While it might be “…very apropos. I think that’s what my dad would say,” the context of an advertising spot, intended to sell Nike gear, seems…a little wrong.

I’ve no doubt Tiger might have turned to his dad for guidance during the fallout from his recent troubles. But would his dad have chosen that forum to have that conversation with his son? I think not.

I find the ad very powerful and I think it’s a very public reckoning for Tiger. But I still gotta say…it makes me uncomfortable. It just doesn’t feel respectful to the memory of his dad. Just my .02

By the by, hearing your father’s voice from the past can be an eerie thing. I recently found a video of my dad giving a presentation. It was filmed about five years before his passing. The Good Man and I watched it, and I found it difficult and a bit disturbing. And oddly, in some ways, comforting.

I’ve no plans yet to use it in a marketing campaign. I’ll keep you posted on that…..