Meditations/Sat AM Cartoons/E Literacy/Salinger Eyes
William Hochman (wh14@is9.nyu.edu)
Sat, 20 Nov 1999 08:10:55 -0500 (EST)
I was thrown off line last night trying to respond to Scottie's "welcome
the reader" post. I was nodding my head up and down as I read it since I
think he's right--writers need to work to merit readers...even on the net.
Writing is so difficult and can be art even if "only communication"
because I believe art can exist anywhere...and art is evolving on the net,
perhaps this list is a work of art?
Just recently, when I picked up "For Esme" on the occasion of
my 14 year-old niece receiving a solo in her chorus, I knew my faculties
were not intact when I suggested lower case is ok with me...but then when
I thought about scottie's use of *ambiguous* I realized that breaking
rules of punctuation, grammar and syntax and creating ambiguity is
something literature loves. You don't have to plow through William
Empson's _7 Types of Ambiguity_ to know that it's often useful writing.
And if you enjoy a writer like Cormac McCarthy or Ivine Welsch, you have
to throw out plenty of conventions and adopt new ones. And if I must,
there's e.e. cummings:
eyes
you know if a
lit tle
tree listens
Remember I started by saying I was thown off line? This is my morning
time writing time, different than my tired self at the end of the day. I'm
saying things differently, but still drifiting on and off the shift
key...and while we're at it I confess to over using and confusing ...--.
--with love and squalor,
will