Today’s WORK is best read aloud…but then most good writing is, isn’t it? And…we’re having a contest. You should enter.
WORK
This sentence has five words. Here are five more words. Five-word sentences are fine. But several together become monotonous. Listen to what is happening. The writing is getting boring. The sound of it drones. It’s like a stuck record. The ear demands some variety. Now listen. I vary the sentence length, and I create music. Music. The writing sings. It has a pleasant rhythm, a lilt, a harmony. I use short sentences. And I use sentences of medium length. And sometimes when I am certain the reader is rested, I will engage him with a sentence of considerable length, a sentence that burns with energy and builds with all the impetus of a crescendo, the roll of the drums, the crash of the cymbals–sounds that say listen to this, it is important.
So write with a combination of short, medium, and long sentences. Create a sound that pleases the reader’s ear. Don’t just write words. Write music.
—Gary Provost
—from 100 Ways To Improve Your Writing
WORD(S)
imago /i-MAY-go/. noun. In psychology, an idealized image of a person—including possibly one’s self—formed in childhood and persisting into adulthood. In biology, the final, adult stage of an insect’s transformation (see also: nymph and pupa), usually winged. From classical Latin imāgō (representation, natural shape).
“But it had all come hard upon: realignment of mother, death of father (the two imagos now transfigured)…” (Margaret Atwood)
“Signifying the imitation of a portrait, the word imago was applied to the image of the deceased. It designated the mask made from the imprint of a face.” (Barbara Cassin)
“The burst of lightning was the white of the sunlit room when he came up for air and opened his eyes. His mother’s tiny rotating imago faded against the ceiling. What seemed like heavy breathing was him trying to scream.” (David Foster Wallace)
Beneath the dun and the watershine—
Incipient spinner, set for the take-off…
And does, in clean tear: imago rising out of herself
For the last time, slate-winged and many-eyed.
(Charles Wright)
WEB
-
In The Care Package, editorial cartoonist Jack Ohman illustrates his father’s final years. And it is powerful.
-
Ever heard a podcast so good you didn’t want to listen to the last episode because you just didn’t want it to end? That’s how I feel about Mystery Show (which isn’t about mysteries in the sense of Serial or even crime). Thankfully it’s just on a short hiatus. Treat yourself!
-
“When a writer invokes the insidious progress of a cancer, you know she hopes to forestall the objection that there is little visible evidence to support her argument. What is this cancer threatening democracy and the world? Declining enrollments in literature courses.” → Why College Kids Are Avoiding the Study of Literature
-
“Calvin and Markov digests Calvin and Hobbes strips and generates new comics using Markov chains…”
-
Today in 1983, the coldest (natural, ground-level) recorded temperature on Earth—−128.6° F (−89.2° C)—is recorded in Vostok, Antarctica. That’s, as various writers have put it: colder than a hair on a polar bear’s ass / colder than the frost on a champagne glass; colder than a well-digger’s butt; colder than a witch’s brass brassiere; colder than Hoth; colder than a Tibetan tin toilet top; colder than a cavern eel; colder than a halibut on ice; colder than moonlight on a tombstone.
WATCH/WITNESS
“Dali’s title — ‘Gala Contemplating the Mediterranean Sea Which at Twenty Meters Becomes the Portrait of Abraham Lincoln (Homage to Rothko)’ — provides a perfect description of this painting…”. Instead of backing away from your screen, you can also view the thumbnail size to get the full effect.
REPRISES/RESPONSES/REJOINDERS/RIPOSTES
-
Reader B. on Salinger: “I, too, enjoy rereading Catcher in the Rye. ¶ And both of my children hated it.”
-
Reader S. shares an anime connection: “The anime Ghost in the Shell also draws on Catcher in the Rye, with the Laughing Man using a quote from the book as part of the image he displays in people’s visual implants instead of his actual face: http://ktxc.to/laughing-man-logo ¶ I’m more of a Franny and Zooey fan myself.”
I welcome comments, suggestions, thoughts, feedback and all manner of what-have-you. Just press ‘Reply’ or email to: clippings@katexic.com.
And please feel free to share anything here as far and wide as you want! If you want to give a shout-out, please link to: http://katexic.com/clippings/.