[FIK-shuhn] IV: The Red Herrings that Swim in the Water Treatment Facility of Potemkin Village

How many obscure references can I slide into a blog-entry-title?
At least two, unless the term “red herring” is more obscure than I believe it is. In which case, I guess three.

Sometimes a story is an accident. Sometimes you get a half-formed idea as you’re dozing off or getting ready to go to work so you scrawl a few sentences on a torn receipt and forget about it.
Nine times out of ten, if you ever see that scrap of paper again, you see that what you’ve written is garbage.
But sometimes you find those sentences and you think, “Hey, not bad. At least worth starting a Word file for.”
So you do.
And whatever the original idea was, doesn’t matter. Because you’ve got something new on your hands that’s being reshaped and re-imagined every morning. Every time you think about it, every time you turn on the computer, the story grows and surprises you. And sooner or later what you’re writing seems like it came from someone else—not in that you’ve read it before, but in the sense that it never seemed like and idea you had in your head.
And you’re as excited to see where it goes as anyone you’ve been brave enough to show it to.

What you’re about to read is the first few paragraphs of just such a story. Originally the idea was a very short story about a man whose marriage happened to be falling apart. I thought I might juxtapose how one’s personal world can fall apart against the more literal idea of a dying planet.
That’s still the central idea. What’s changed is the scope of the story. I find that every time I try to end it something in me says, “But wait, there’s more!” and I have to give my inner Ron Popeil an opportunity to sell me on it.
The story now looks to be taking shape as a novella. I know there’s no market for long short stories, but what can I do?

I will briefly say that what you are about to read has gone through no revisions whatsoever. It is raw and probably not what you will see in the final version of the story.
Still, try to enjoy.

(Title withheld for now)

J. D. Buston

Nothing that starts in slow-motion ever stays slow-motion. Everything’s cumulative. Like floodwaters; like a river spilling over its banks. Like an invasive species experiencing a population boom. Like a new mutation of a virus becoming an epidemic. Like the greenhouse effect burning the grass on a dry prairie. Like a marriage falling apart.
Are these similes getting through? Everything speeds up. Like the end of the world.
And what I want to know is; if there’s eight pints of blood in the human body, how much cement mix do I need to inject for my blood to become rock?
Some people say this is just the way it is. They say these are just the laws of thermodynamics doing their thing, asserting themselves. The game you have to play. The game you can’t win. The game you can’t break even in. This, they say, is merely the entropic principle. This is another system breaking down. The game you’re destined lose from the beginning.
And what I want to know is; if I stay away from major arteries, can I extract enough veins from my body to weave myself a noose? I know I’d have to learn how to do surgery and I’d have to give myself enough time to heal between extractions and I’d have to refrigerate my rope—forget all that. What I want to know is; could I do it?
These people, these thermodynamicists, they’ll tell you it was evident from the outset. No system can continue indefinitely—it will always break down. Order will always become disorder. The very idea of a perpetual-growth economy, they say, is laughably absurd when viewed through the scope of science.
They’ll tell you most things are absurd when viewed through the scope of science.
And what I want to know is; is there a poetic way I can kill myself for my own crimes? For my part in the absurdity?
My wife—my ex-wife—said I was a cynic. It’s starting to look as though she was right. I think, at heart, she was happy to see entropy at work on our marriage. It forced her to craft an exit-strategy. She never could have done it on her own.

[FIK-shuhn] III: A Line or Two and You'll Live Forever

What you have here is a bit of flash fiction that I submitted to Grain Magazine a while back. I had hoped to win their Short Grain Contest. Unfortunately, according to the contest website, the winners were to be notified sometime in late April or early May.
There is no reasonable definition of the words “early May” to which I can cling. Ergo, I assume it is safe to publish the story here and now.

Flash fiction is very much the province of the minimalist. Definitions vary but the accepted word limit is usually 1000 or fewer. A writer has to tell a whole story—introduce a protagonist and a conflict, insert obstacles and reach a resolution—in the space of a few moments.
As such, every word has to be chosen carefully. Every sentence must be structured perfectly. Brevity is the aim and not a word can be wasted. This means that some of the elements of the story can only be implied and must remain unwritten—and the writer must decide what can be left unsaid.
What appeals—at least to me—about this form is the precision required. The ad for this particular contest spoke to me. Picture it: a razor blade emblazoned with the words: “A line or two and you’ll live forever.”
The Short Grain Contest set it’s flash fiction limit at 500 words excluding titles. The following 390 words were written over a few sleepless nights at the end of February.


VIESALGIA

J. D. Buston

As he comes to: the boozy smell of vomit; the curt, white light of a winter morning's sun; the cold pain portent of frostbite. He tries rolling over. No good. The hangover kicking neurons around inside his skull—so like the long ago mornings when he would awake to the repeated sound of his son's soccer ball against the wall of the house.
No more.
His eyes fix on the barn across the yard, a ramshackle assemblage of wood and steel. The red paint peeling, dark rot showing through the lesions. He wonders how many of the calluses on his hands are leftover from the time he built it. He wonders if his partner still has calluses from that time.
Hands: he wonders if his partner still has them.
They'd been so proud of themselves and each other. There's a photo in his office, father and son, the two of them still wearing their tool belts. Side by side they stand, arms draped over each other's shoulder. The newly finished barn behind them. Before the decay set in.
This barn and everything in it was their shared ambition. Their retreat from wage slavery, multitasking, office droning. Their re alignment toward a meaningful life. A destiny of their own choosing.
No more.
The barn door hangs open; one of the upper hinges torn out of the decaying frame. The hard-packed dirt floor inside decorated with stones and straw. The roof beams—some of them decomposing, needing replacing—a confusing tangle. He hears no noise inside. He hears nothing but the steady throb of blood through his desiccated brain.
It occurs to him to wonder who has been feeding, milking and caring for the cows these last weeks. Certainly not himself; drunk and lost in his own grief. Not his partner either; halfway around the world fighting dust storms and terrified terrorists…
…no more.
He turns his head a little; looks up. The faded sign above the door—green and white painted plywood: Brodsky and Son Dairy Farms.
No more.
He focuses his attention on one crossbeam inside the barn. It looks weaker than the rest. Termite ridden, perhaps; dry rot, maybe.
Tomorrow, he thinks to himself, I'll test the strength of that beam with my weight and a rope.
He'll have to sober up.
He'll have to learn to tie a noose.

A Hastily Written Entry to Prove I'm Still On The Ball

Monika is playing soccer. Her team is up five goals to none. The sun is setting and I stand on the sidelines a little way off from the rest of the crowd. My feet are planted firmly on either side of my empty coffee cup, which sits in grass. I’m listening to Bowie on my iPod.
When Monika calls for a sub and comes off the field she sits on the bench with her team. I take the time to pull my eyes away from the game.
I look past the field at the hill. And listen: the air is so still right now that everything beyond the fence at the back of the field could be a painting. All it needs is a “happy little pond” and you could see a white man with an afro, painting it and whispering encouragement to his students. It’s that still. It’s that beautiful.
It’s that cheesy.
I turn off the music.
And listen: it’s so still that the only thing that gives any impression of life is the occasional glimpse of a car, caught briefly though a gap in the trees, coming down from the university. And I almost want to stop breathing and tell everyone to shut up and stand still for a moment. Just so I can have it last a little longer. It’s that perfect. It’s that peaceful.
I need it that bad.
The trunks and branches of the trees are grey-white against the bright leaves and dark needles. Every shape is exactly as it should be, every colour is vivid and exact. And from here, this little spot of grass on the west side of town, I feel better than I’ve felt in a long time.

I know it’s been over a week since I’ve updated. I’m also aware of the fact that the entry on climate change I promised has yet to materialize. I apologise: it sort of morphed in my mind and I need to wait for it to finish its growing pains before I can continue.
Rest assured: when it’s read, it will be written.

In a fit of selfish angst regarding my stalled writing, and as an exercise in pop culture absurdity I entered the question, “What should I do?” into the search field on Wikipedia and hit enter. What came up was the page for humanism. That brightened my day in a sort of bittersweet way. On one hand it seemed like an affirmation of the way I’ve been living my life.
On the other hand, what I was looking for was an indicator as to what I’d been doing wrong.
Alas, if the great e-oracle of our time cannot set me straight then who or what can?
I have to confess: I haven’t tried the other oracle. Y’know, Google.

I’ve finished revisions on three stories: Paint; Hibiscus, Baby and When One Cannot Do Anything Else. I’m going to have my favourite little proofreader, Monika, look at them soon. Then, possibly after a couple more revisions, I’ll be ready to send them off to various literary magazines.
I admit, I’m feeling a little bit of drag on my writing lately. I feel exhausted by the lack of interest I’m getting from a couple of sources. Mind you, it’s not enough to stop me. But I’m slowed-down.
I suppose, because writing means so much to me, that when things seem to stall I take it a little harder than I should.

And listen: here on the soccer field, with the air so still and the moment so perfect, I am calm. Here I feel like I can lie down and breathe so slowly.
I sit in the grass, I kick my legs out in front of me and lean back on my elbows. When Monika goes back into the game I will pay attention. But right now, I’m not part of this world. The one with people and cars and competition and fighting and disasters just waiting to happen.
I’m part of the other world. The one with trees and sunsets and cool evening air so still you can believe nothing will ever change and everything will be alright.

The fourth rule in the Thinking Person’s Guide to Suicide is:
Try to find that moment of perfect stillness and make sure that that is not what you’re looking for.

[FIK-shuhn] II

More fiction. This one’s short enough to post here. I’m wary of posting anything greater than 2500 words or so. I just finished a story this afternoon that’s in the 5000 word neighbourhood but, as good as it is, it’s a little long for most literary magazines.
This particular story (1990 words, including the title and quote, if you’re keeping score) is actually not one of my favourites. I took minimalism to it’s extreme in a lot of ways and I felt like the narrative came out sounding childish.
However, it is my second-most complimented story (after The Myth of Gravity—which I wrote over three years ago) so what do I know?
And yeah, I stole the title from the Ramones.
Enjoy!


I Don’t Wanna Walk Around With You

J. D. Buston

Live to the point of tears.
-- Albert Camus

“Christians don’t deserve Jesus,” Cassie says, into the chest of her enormous parka.
She shouldn’t be here, so I ask: “What’s that?”
“Christians don’t deserve Jesus because Jesus was a good guy and all the Christians I’ve ever met are dickheads.”
“Hm.”
Cassie likes to speak in aphorisms. I don’t think she’s very good at it though because I don’t think she really knows what an aphorism is. Still, you’ve got to respect her laboured attempts, as flat as they may fall.
I pull up the collar on my overcoat to block the cutting edge of the wind. They told me it would be brutal. I wish I’d worn a hat or earmuffs or something. Winter is needling its bitter way into my ears. I’m praying for the transition from pain to numbness.
The wind here is nothing like it was at home. It tastes like dirty ice and sulfur.
My overcoat doesn’t look anywhere near as warm as Cassie’s fur-lined parka. I don’t know why she’s wearing it. She never wore one before. It makes sense now but…
“It’s windy,” she says. She laughs and adds, “I almost said, ‘Jesus, it’s windy’, how weird would that have been?”
“Huh?”
“If I said Jesus’s name? I mean, unintentionally, after saying that Christians don’t deserve him. Not that I’m a Christian but…”
I hold up my index finger to Cassie, indicating simultaneously that I want her to be quiet a minute and to wait for me. I put one hand on her shoulder as I slip behind her and into the grocery store. I wonder briefly how that must have looked to the people out on the street—raising my hand that way for no reason.
No matter.
I approach the customer service desk of the grocery store, which is immediately inside the doors, near the produce. I smell the earthiness of it, the fruitiness. It makes me want to bury my head in the apples and never leave.
“Excuse me,” I say to the woman behind the counter, “is this where I would drop off a resume?”
She smiles at me and she seems, for a minute, to be looking out the window over my shoulder. I wonder if she sees Cassie? I turn and look out the window. There she is. She waves at me. I don’t wave back.
“Yes, this is where you would drop off a resume. Have you filled out an application yet?”
“No.”
The woman retreats into an alcove behind the cigarette rack and returns with a green and white sheet of paper. It’s a form and it bears the grocery chain’s logo at the top. She sets it on the counter before me.
“If you haven’t filled out an application you’ll want to. They won’t look at your resume otherwise. You can fill it out and return it later.”
I take the paper and look it over. “But, couldn’t I leave a resume behind and attach one to this when I return it?” I hold up the application at arm’s length like a stinking fish.
“It wouldn’t do any good if it’s not attached to an application. There are questions on there that wouldn’t be answered by your resume.”
I look at the sheet in my hand again. It seems so inconsequential. How could employment rest on a piece of paper?
I look over my shoulder again and Cassie waves at me again. I want this job so I don’t wave back.
“But, I really don’t want to wait,” I tell the woman. “I need a job and to go home and fill this out and come back would--”
“Sir, really, I can’t help you. If there’s no application your resume will go in the garbage.”
I put the paper into the creased manila envelope that holds my resumes.
“Thank-you,” I say, departing.
Outside Cassie tells me I look upset.
“Hm.”
“Was she mean to you? You want me to go back and beat her up?”
I imagine telling her no, but instead I just shake my head and grunt. I would have ignored her completely but that doesn’t seem to work anymore. Nothing that should work does—not sleep, not drugs, not the reams of books on mental health I’ve bought over the last few months.
We walk in silence for a while. Cassie looks about town as she always does, as though it were her first time seeing everything. I don’t think she likes this place. I’m not sure I do.
“Why did you move here? It’s so cold and different from home.”
I shrug my shoulders. She’s asked this question before. I used to have an answer. The answer was quite simply, “because it is so different from home” or, “to get away.” It seems, however, to have failed. Everything I was attempting to get away from is here; accompanied by a bunch of other shit I’m not real fond of.
Sometimes I wonder if I’m actually happy that Cassie is here.
When she first showed up, sitting on the end of my bed, I was surprised and very happy to see her. It felt like God had broken his ages-long silence with man. I’m sure it started to fade almost right away, when I rubbed the sleep out of my eyes and the implications bored their way into my consciousness. She wasn’t supposed to be there.
That morning, that first conversation went something like this:
“Wow, this place is fucked. Why here of all places?”
“What do you mean?” I’d said.
She got up off the end of the bed and looked out the window. “I mean, why did you move here? It’s not near as nice as home.”
“To get away.”
“I guess I understand that,” she said.
“Yeah, well after--”
“I know.”
I hate conversations I know I shouldn’t be having.
That’s what I’m thinking about when Cassie grabs my hand. I used to love when she did that. Now it just seems wrong.
“Don’t--” I say.
“Why not?”
I turn away from the street and head behind the nearby gas station. Cassie, still hanging on, has no choice but to follow. Behind the station I make sure we’re alone. I don’t want anyone to see me give her hell.
“Why not?” I repeat her question to her. Then again for good measure: “Why not?”
“Yeah, why not?”
“Don’t pretend you don’t know why not!”
“Oh… that.”
“Yes, that. What else?”
She drops my hand. I start walking, turn the corner and get back to the street. There’s a heavy silence between us for a few pregnant moments. I take the opportunity to study the red-brown patches comprised of the dead pine trees on the ridge that encircles the town.
Dead.
Cassie keeps an even distance between us. There’s about three feet of space there and she’s rigid about it. If I move toward her, she moves away. If I move away from her she pulls closer. There’s an invisible tether.
And that’s the problem.
The tether is all in my head.
Looking at Cassie I try to remember pulling her out of the car in the rain ten months ago. That was April. It was pissing. I was drunk. My car was wrecked. Cassie had been in the passenger’s seat and when I wrapped the car around the tree she took the brunt of the impact. Her legs had been crushed into the tiny space that was left between the engine compartment and her seat. It took forever to pry her out of there.
I got her away from the car and laid her out carefully on the gravel at the side of the road. She asked me to talk to her. I couldn’t think of much to say so I nattered on about… something… I don’t know what. Hockey or music or something really stupid.
She smiled the whole time. She didn’t say anything but she smiled until the paramedics put her into the back of the ambulance.
I decided to move far, far away very soon after that.
How she came to join me here… I don’t know.
We stop in front of another gas station. “Why don’t you try here?” Cassie says.
I look at her and put the question in my eyes rather than my mouth: “Here? You think?”
“Why not?”
I slip past her again, careful not to touch her this time. I enter the store and extract a resume from my manila envelope. “Hello,” I say to the kid behind the counter, “Could I leave a resume here?”
“Sure,” he says. He’s about ten years younger than I am.
“Are you, uh… are you the manager?”
“Huh?” says the kid. I’m distracting him from something. He’s watching a cute blonde girl at the pumps out front. Cassie is standing very near her. She waves and I don’t wave back.
“Are you the manager?” I ask the kid again.
“Oh, uh, no. Manager’s off today. I’ll see he gets it,” he says, taking my resume from me without ever turning his attention away from the blonde.
I leave. I haven’t got time to watch this kid embarrass himself. I need to find a job. I can’t stay on Employment Insurance forever. As much as I wish I could, that’s a river that will run dry soon enough.
I had a job when I first moved out here. I was working with a contract carpenter. The pay was decent and the work kept me busy during the day and tired at night and so, out of trouble.
He laid me off. Fired me really. He caught me talking to Cassie one day.
“What’re you doin’?” he said.
“Nothing. Just talking.”
He looked at me and shook his head. “Okay, whatever.”
He never looked at me straight again. He acted weird around me and kept asking if I was feeling okay. He stopped inviting me out for beers after work. A week after that he sat me down and said things were getting lean and he couldn’t afford to keep me on. He said to consider it a lay-off, that when he needed help again I’d be the first person he called.
This was his delicate way of firing me, and ensuring the crazy guy didn’t burn down his house or whatever.
I’m thinking about how Cassie cost me that job when I rejoin her on the sidewalk out front.
“How’d it go?” she says.
I don’t answer. I’m pissed and she can tell.
“Don’t be like that,” she says.
I thought about asking her what she meant by “like that.” Then I realised that was a question designed to instigate an argument in a relationship that was still alive. This relationship was most definitely dead and so there was no reason to antagonize.
Dead.
I grunted, hoping it would shut her up. I shouldn’t have made any noise at all. I should have ignored her.
“Come on,” she said, touching me on the shoulder. It feels like a remembrance, a vague familiarity on the wind. “Don’t be like that. Remember when you used to come over to my place? Before we got together? You told me how you’d be all butterflies waiting for me to buzz you up to my apartment? Why can’t we go back to that? Those nice nights, just you and me, sitting in front of the TV, cracking jokes about Lloyd Robertson’s hair?”
I thought, for a moment, about the blue-ish light from the television flickering on the walls. And how that light looked through the window as I stood on the doorstep waiting for her to buzz me into what used to be her apartment.
Y’know, before she died. Before I killed her in that car wreck.I really have to tell Cassie to quit hanging around.

"Strunk and White" is Not the Dirty Thing You're Thinking About

Oops, I lied. No fiction. Not yet at any rate. I’m having a hard time finding anything suitable for posting here. Most of what I’ve written lately is a tad too lengthy for the web.

Since my last entry—and a few arguments on spelling and grammar with a few old friends—some people have asked me privately how to improve their writing. I have pondered what advice to give. I have to admit that it’s a tough area to advise anyone in. I am an untrained writer chastising people for poor written-communication skills.
Still, since I have been asked I have considered the question. I’ve come up with a couple of suggestions that I hope are helpful.

Suggestion one:
Read more.
I think the reason that people have trouble communicating—especially in the written word—is that they have no reference point. The reason I know what I do about writing, about grammar and usage and spelling, is that I read. I read a lot. At times I read four or five books in a week—on top of whatever magazines and newspapers I pick up.
A lot of people I talk to these days don’t feel that they have very much time to devote to reading. Between taking care of the kids, going to work, keeping house and trying to find time to relax; people just don’t have the energy in them at the end of the day to sit down with a book.
I know there are times when I’d rather watch TV or play on the internet (and reading on the internet doesn’t count because the writing one finds on-line is usually unforgivably poor). Still, I find time to read. The newspaper, a book, a magazine; anything where the writing significant and well-edited.
I have a number of volumes of short stories. Short fiction is the answer for anyone who feels like a novel is too great an undertaking but prefers fiction to magazines and newspapers. The short story is designed to be read in one sitting. Even a slow reader can finish a twenty-page story in an hour before bed.
What reading will do for you is reacquaint you with the written word. It will reintroduce you to the rules of grammar and style in a painless, fun way. You won’t notice it’s going on, but sooner or later the rules will make themselves clear and though you may never be able to put into words how you know, but you will know when to use its and when to use it’s.
Getting friendly with the language will make a good chunk of the rules seem like second nature. A good writer is a good reader. I’m sure you wouldn’t attempt to build a deck without first looking at one carefully and considering its structure and form. Words and sentences are the same way.

Suggestion two:
Get yourself a copy of The Elements of Style by William Strunk Jr. and E. B. White.
There are a few different editions out there and some of the newer ones, apparently, are better. However, it is the third edition that sits to my left now and so that is the one I will comment on.
First written by William Strunk in 1918 and published privately for use in Strunk’s English classes at Cornell University it was later revised by one of his former students: E. B. White. (If White’s name seems familiar to you, you probably read his book, Charlotte’s Web, as a youngster.)
This book is tiny. If you take the liberty of lopping off White’s introduction and the index, it’s a mere 85 pages. The rules in the book are, for the most part, short, barked commands: “Do not join independent clauses with a comma,” “The number of the subject determines the number of the verb,” “Use the proper case of pronoun.” These are followed by simple explanations of the rule, a couple of examples and a hint or two. There’s not a lot of doubt or wonder in Strunk’s work.
The foggy area is provided by Mr. White’s revisions; specifically his chapter, An Approach to Style. Here White manages to soften the language and allows the reader to get comfortable because it is here that White discusses the practical application of the English language. He sees to gently imply that not every rule need to be taken so seriously in every situation.
The Elements of Style is an excellent tool to have for those times when you just aren’t sure about a specific rule. It’s also an easy, quick read that will improve your writing immediately.
A couple of caveats regarding my own perception of this book’s usefulness:
At one point in the second chapter Strunk tells us to make the paragraph the unit of composition. What he means by this is to focus on writing one paragraph at a time. This is, for writers of fiction, bunk. The sentence is holy. If you’re writing fiction, make the sentence the principle unit of composition. Tight, perfect sentences will always sound better than carefully draughted paragraphs.
Which brings me to my second warning. These rules should probably be followed rigidly if you’re writing a formal essay or article in school. If you do as the book says no teacher in his or her right mind will contest your style. Of course, when writing fiction—especially in a first-person narrative—you can abandon some of these rules in a judicious way to very positive effect. I’m not suggesting you do away with your Strunk and White while you write fiction, but you should consider which rules to use and when you should use them.
My last caution regarding this book is in regards specifically to the third edition. If you happen to pick up the third edition second-hand it’s important to realise that what was true about language in 1979 is not necessarily true today. If it sounds out-of-date, ignore it. For example: White champions the use of “he” for nouns embracing both genders. This is, of course, not the way we communicate today. We use inclusive language and to hell with the clutter caused by saying “he or she”.
Regardless of these warnings though, The Elements of Style is the best book on style I can recommend (unless you plan to become a fulltime writer, in which case we should discuss the Chicago Manual of Style). Strunk and White’s book is simple and small. And, it’s worth noting, fits into a blazer pocket without decimating the lines of a nice Italian cut.

Suggestion three:
Read what you’ve written out loud. If it sounds wrong, it probably is.
Never, ever write something and send it out into the world without reading it over at least once. You won’t catch all of your mistakes as you write. You probably won’t catch them all on your first re-draught either. A well-written piece—be it an essay, a story, an email or even just a note to your boyfriend or girlfriend—is one that has been read over and rewritten numerous times.
And yes, from time to time mistakes will creep into your work and you won’t catch them. But if you take the time to ensure that what you’ve written is the best you can do, the people who read it will appreciate the work you put in.
And as I said, read it out loud to yourself. If something sounds wrong it probably needs another pass.

I hope these suggestions help the people who want help. I hope they cause the people who didn’t ask for help to consider their skills where the written word is concerned.
If not, forget it. It’s not important.

Now, this time I promise to update with some fiction. I swear I will not post again until I find a story suitable for publication here.
Following that I have a little ranting I want to do on the issue of Climate Change. Get your conservative claws sharpened because I’m about to tear into the right-wing argument with the wild abandon of a priest in a kiddie-pool.

U R DUM

Language is the foundation of culture.
I doubt very much that you could find someone to dispute the above claim. Language—the way we communicate—is a necessary tool in shaping our communities, our economies and is woven inextricably into the minutia of society. Without effective communication we cannot organize, we cannot create and we cannot move forward together.
Now, I’m no linguist. I’m not trained in the study of words. But I’m a writer. I use language all the time. As a matter of fact, it’s one of the few things I feel I can use well. Granted, my English isn’t perfect and it’s the only language I can speak fluently; but I acknowledge and respect every language and the contributions communication has made to humankind.
I was thinking after writing yesterday’s post about the stories we tell and the ways we tell them. If we are (as Thomas King suggests) the stories we tell, and if (as Marshall McLuhan reckons) the medium is the message; then it stands to reason that we may all be in very deep doo-doo.
Now, I don’t want to come off as a stuffy highschool English teacher here. Monika has presented to me a hypothesis formulated by one of her linguist friends that English is a “living language”. This is a hypothesis I am willing to accept. I think that any language currently in widespread use has a right to evolve; and we, as the users of language, have a duty to push it forward and make it better.
I have nothing against a language that grows and becomes more malleable and, in doing so, improves communication. I have nothing against portmanteaus or Stephen Colbert’s contributions to the lexicon of modern discourse. I think words like “truthiness” and “wikiality” are very useful in discussion of current events and the trends that concern our civilization. I think the addition of Homer Simpson’s “D’oh” to the dictionary is a good thing; even if they chose to use an unconventional spelling.
What I take issue with is the dumbing down of language. Things like replacing a word with a letter or number: “u” instead of “you” and “2” instead of “to” or “too”. I am offended by the fact that a good number of kids these days can’t make heads or tails of Tom Sawyer or Huck Finn because they can’t understand a written language more complex than, “u r 2 cute.” I am even more put-off by the number of adults I see communicating in this way.
You would think that the brevity of message and the economy of language necessitated by modern forms of communication like text messaging and email would please a minimalist writer like me. Certainly I think there’s a lot of garbage in language that we can do without. And I think there are times when it is acceptable to ignore various rules of grammar and usage. I think we could all cut out some of the fat in our communication—language that is lean and muscular is more useful than language that is doughy and slow.
But what I think I’m seeing is a perversion of language that leaves a lot of the garbage in place and removes the meat with less-than-surgical precision. If language were a chicken wing we’d be eating the skin and throwing the rest away. The meat, the bone, the marrow… gone. Instead of communicating with the exactitude of haikus we’re talking about nothing in misspelled words.
I think part of this has to do with the fact that no one really reads anymore. We have no appreciation for a well-constructed sentence. We can’t admire wordplay because we don’t get it anymore. We can’t relish effective communication because we barely read the newspaper. The fiction we ingest (if we bother with fiction at all) is garbage: Danielle Steele, John Grisham, Stephen King and Dan Brown. We don’t read poetry—when was the last time you saw a book of verse on someone’s shelf?
And so our culture suffers. No one can say what it is they want to say because they no longer know how. Our art, music and entertainment has become obtuse as our language has been hobbled: reality television, pop music, Larry the Cable Guy… can it get any worse?
And the intelligent voices are obliged to stand out on the fringe. The voices that are relevant are only relevant to a few. The ideas that can shake up a person’s mind and get him or her to change are inaccessible. Those of us who want to take a big hearty bite out of culture are forced to seek out the meat that’s been thrown from the table.
Which brings us back to the point of this ramble.
If you enjoy watching culture as much as I do you might have noticed an interesting undercurrent lately—one that I’ve reflected in my blog. One that I commented on very specifically in my last entry.
I think we have come to know—subconsciously—that we have entered a twilight. That we have reached the end of something. Maybe it’s not the doom-and-gloom stuff I wrote about yesterday. But it feels like the future is uncertain and that at very least a chapter of civilization is coming to a close.
But we’re ignoring it.
I think we have also begun to realise the importance of the stories we tell. We’re starting to understand how our perception of reality is determined by our histories. We’re finally seeing that our myths are the source of both our joys and our sorrows.
But our mythmakers are fools.
And so we have a question to ask ourselves: If language is the basis of culture, if we are the stories we tell and if the medium is the message, what happens when our stories suck and the medium is atrophied and useless?

Rule number three in The Thinking Person’s Guide to Suicide is:
If you intend to check out; leave a legible, coherent note. It’s important that those who find you know what happened and why.


I’ll try to post more fiction soon. Maybe tomorrow.