The written word should reflect the language of the time

Fri, 29 May 2009 19:45:41 GMT

By Julian Bravo/Staff Reporter/column

Metaphors are for punks. For people that can’t be concise and have read too many classics. Too much Twain. Too much Hemmingway. Hawthorne. Rand…and have had their creativity characterized and stamped, bludgeoned like a really ugly looking cow with the prod of pretentiousness and wordiness. Maybe it’s that now that we’re in the 21st century, language has to evolve towards a different audience that doesn’t respond to ‘The Old Man and the Sea.’ I didn’t read that book. Too wordy. It’s not that language has devolved into blog-esque ugly language full of acronyms…even though acronyms are probably and forever will be insulting and remnants of a ‘1984’ world that we might end up living in. I probably wouldn’t bother too much with diaries…or man-journals if that’s the case. But we’re more concise and straightforward, beautiful in our directness and agility, the nimbleness of syntax that matches the rhythm of telegraphic sentences. They’re not bad. They have their value. More value than the random run on sentences that most kids write nowadays to show that they’ve grown out of their bottom flap pajamas-bananas…in pajamas- and in the end, you know what they all look like. A bunch of emperor’s without clothes. Pretentious. Pedantic. Pathetic. Without substance. Oh fie, fie, fie, why can’t we create something new, something representative of the short attention span of a globalized and technological 21st century where twitters force haiku-esque memorials; where we live in five second spots. Let’s explore fragments and the terseness of our minds. It’s a challenge to aim towards a more structured, poetic, expression where we can take solace in the cloister of blogs. I say we discover a new identity. Something unprecedented and fresh. Where videos, and pictures, and selfish expressions create murals to ourselves and our culture. How else are we to remember these days when our minds are lost to dementia than through the expression of the unique art that characterizes our era. Baroque. Romance. Rennaisance. Realism. Blogoque.

The Viper Vibe

The written word should reflect the language of the time