Sunday - September 30, 2007

Oh, the poor written word. 

In my hands it has suffered, lately. The functionality! Oh, the functionality! The poor word, sheared of possible other-meanings, reduced to perfect unmistakable linearity, the tyranny of absolute clarity. 

An accounts person told me to work on my "fluidity and semantics." There is the fluid nightmare unpunctuated of Ulysses, there is fluidity of the verb as the very metaphor in Steph Swainston, there is Bradbury fluid hiding in the secret canals of Mars, there is the fluidity of successive whip-snaps of realization in Jared Diamond's Collapse, and then there is this fluidity being asked of me: what is it? In as many ways as water can flow, there are variations and symphonies of fluid. I can only guess. 

It is like playing hopscotch on a minefield, hoping one of my legs will blow up to prove me right - yes, see, there are mines here, Dorothy!

The guessing is what irks me, for I still have faith in the words, that they will be themselves in spite of my uncertainty. 

It is like a good soldier being told to shoot at something somewhere in that general direction. Thataway! Spock frowns at Captain Kirk and another episode dangles, certain of a successor next week.