Tongue sticking out of

October 19, 2002

Tongue sticking out of the music star cat. Time clock devil angel sees the sun rainbow movie dog cry then hug right, hug left, from his angry age sex location beside a wilted flower. These are the important emoticons in the MSN messenger vocabulary. Perfect fridge magnet poetry. Read the list up or down and add conjunctions to taste. Kiss the ideas asleep telephone vampire bat. Drink rose handcuffs. Preteen language created by people who are not teens. I don’t think any of them are stringing them together in poetic couplets. Hanging on the telephone has moved into an even more banal realm. Shorthand codes for shorthand conversation. This is full colour black and white. Actual emotional connections are most excellently avoided. The computer seems to be a bigger filter. The sound of a voice in your ear holds you to a time and place. Accountability is a possibility.
I suppose this messenger thing is a safe game whose only result is more lethargy and distance. Dumb it down kids. Perhaps the evolution of the computer keyboard is written. Pictures corresponding to the only objects and words needed as decided by kindermarketing will replace letters and punctuation. There will be a row of keys for different inflections of the word “like”. I see about 47 symbols on the emoticon list and there are at least three times that many spaces on a conventional keyboard. Language and spelling evolves. It is hoped that this works toward all things being described in more vivid and accurate ways. I see devolution. As corporations become the only gatekeepers of our day to day communication some majestic words become extinct. The multisylabic world is in danger. Nicknames become names. The lazy tongue inherits the earth.
Familiarity is part of the nickname world. I call you by your nickname because we are intimate. Chums use nicknames. It is an obviously false intimacy. All words do not have to come with a three beer buzz. Hype is now mundane and there is fatigue linked to the mundane. If all things are giant and amazing then nothing is giant and amazing. Are we stripped down to hyperbole for the strip mall droning. So...I beg of you...try some ten dollar words. Trip on them and use them inappropriately. I’d rather see fumbling with pretentious language than six thousand solid “right ons”. Ebonics are great. There is something new in there every minute. Lets stab at he piñata and get some candy. We know its in there. Carnivores: would a meat piñata be a real goat? The cat plays with the little stunned, hyperventilating mousie. His pupils dilate and he seems to be smiling as he bats the little ball around on the moonlit glass blue grass. You want to step in and stop him. How could nature be so intentionally cruel? Isn’t the food chain about necessity and nobility? Words can be used like that cat’s claws. Its not a simply inflicted, black & white hurt. Its not a simply inflicted black & white world. Torture can be artful and result in the perpetuation of the species. Survive the learning curve and you can do five thousand more damage. There is an emoticon for cat. He has a nickname given to him by the kids. This does not describe him in this situation. Tongue sticking out of the music star cat.

After looking back I realize this is a companion piece to October 3rd's entry. I am not very complex but I want you to be complex.