Monday, June 30, 2008
Saving Love Lives the World Over
I’m interrupting posts on punctuation today because it’s Monday, and there’s a new Breakup Girl comic online. For fear of being overly self-promotional I haven’t pointed to the site yet, but isn’t that really reverse discrimination? You know I’m the champion amoureuse of comics, superheroes, humor, love, and justice. So you can appreciate how psyched I am to be a superhero sidekick. Now when my keen eyes spot the intersection of technology and romance, I post on breakupgirl.net.
Every Monday there is a new comic, story by Lynn Harris (aka Breakup Girl, advise columnist at MSN.com, regular contributor at Salon.com, and author of Death By Chick Lit
Posts throughout the week cover all manner of topics and tangents, and can be counted on for their insight as well as entertainment factor. Right now for instance, Chris has posted a link to a blog I just fell in love with called “Lady That’s My Skull” and a post to a word search game of the occult: “Help, Doctor Strange!”
It’s all good stuff, and it’s all part of my ongoing mission to change the world.
You know I mean it when I say I love you guys. Just the excited emails I got about semicolons were enough to fill my heart to bursting. I had to google the spelling of verklempt…
You’re my bunnies, for reals.
And remember today’s Breakup Girl message — closure is up to YOU.
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
The Semicolon
“Writing and programming have a lot in common. In both, you can make or break a statement with a semicolon.”
This is what I used to tell potential employers in interviews, when they asked how my BA in English translated to programming.
Slate has posted a terrific article about the semicolon, modern life being to the semicolon what video was to the radio star.
The article’s history lesson begins with two dudes dueling over a colon and semicolon, and though my fencing experience taught me I that am more formidable simply handing my opponent my foil and kicking them while they hold two swords, I can identify with their visceral sense of rightness, battling til there’s blood on the ground. I have strong feelings about the semicolon.
Slate’s semicolon story traces the evolution of technology (Morse code), the Victorian internet (the telegraph) and reading tastes (action fiction). “The semicolon is the enemy of action; it is the agent of reflection and meditation.” (quote from a NY Times 1943 editorial).
Researching this article must have been so interesting. I totally want to write articles just like it when I grow up.
Curious though, the article never clarifies when it is actually correct to use a semicolon. If my copy of A Writer’s Reference were here next to me, I believe it says semicolons are used to join two statements that are very related in their line of thought. The test for proper use is that each statement on either side of the semicolon must be a complete sentence that can stand grammatically on its own, but it’s not the same as a compound sentence which uses words like “but, and, so, therefore” to join two complete related phrases. A colon is followed by a list or some sort of tack-on, a comma is a pause (though we’re all dropping the formal ones around a person’s name or “you” as is proper punctuation). I wonder if our hesitancy to gauge the “relationship” of two statements is due a little bit to the overall breakdown of conventional structure and hierarchy. (Did you know the word “family” used to mean the household servants and had nothing to do with blood relations?)
Yeah, so.
I feel self-conscious when I use a semicolon, but sometimes it’s what works best. Granted, there might be none, or no more than one, in 20 pages of my writing. I make the decision based on how I want the statement read, how I want to encourage the reader to time their reading so as to absorb what I’m saying. Most of what writers do all day is add and remove the same comma twenty times. I’ve probably used the semicolon on this site, but I can promise you I debated the use, felt like some kind of antediluvian steampunk, then embraced it, because I can fight with or without swords.
The hilarity of it all is that I’m a horrible copy editor of my own work, as anyone who reads mintJelly was probably thinking at the top of this post. My fingers type faster than I think, and when I reread I’m hearing more what I meant to say. Only time, a change of mood or caffeine level allows me to “hear” myself. I think good punctuation is a matter of ear, listening to the sound of the statements. A sentence’s punctuation might seem too heavy or merely adequate on page or screen, but the ear can be the best test for missing commas, colons, and semicolons. I wonder if it’s slightly like kerning for typographers. The only rule I’d share with someone unsure of themselves would be to begin with a capital letter and end with a period. Just listen to the sentence and let your ear decide where additional punctuation could help with clarity.
I feel self-conscious writing about clarity and correctness when mintJelly is all “squeee la la la <3 bunnies!" but oh well.
That's why writing code is nice; it's terribly reassuring. The statement runs or it doesn't. There's always more than one right way to "say" or "do" something, but the coder gets a nice happy brain spark of instant gratification if their code at least runs the first time around. heh, maybe I'm only speaking for myself?
The fussy multisyllabic language that the George Orwell essay (from previous post) highlighted is the self-aggrandizing ugly stepsister of hard-working Cinderelly thought. It’s not a battle of short clear sentences versus long loopy ones, it’s about thinking as opposed to laziness.
The socially awkward semicolon suffers from sucky usability. It’s so weird and fussy that it distracts people just as much as poor grammar and bad writing. Who knows what will happen to it?
Long live the semicolon; death to all who oppose us! And don’t get me started about exclamation marks.
Monday, June 23, 2008
George Carlin and the English Language
~ RIP George Carlin ~
George Carlin will always be known as the foul-mouthed comedian who went to the Supreme Court over the seven dirty words you can’t say on television, but let’s give it up for a person who thought a lot about language, how we use it, and how we respond to it.
One of my favorites is his bit about Airline Language, and other examples of fussy, inflated speech intended to sound more scientific or authoritative that it is. George Carlin said with stand-up what George Orwell said with the essay “Politics and the English Language.”
Both Georges really wanted folks to be aware of the language they hear all the time, and the foolish or emotionally-manipulated thinking that language encourages.
The movie Idiocracy shows where that takes us (I gave up looking for a clip of the cops talking, but that would have been perfect).
Let’s pour a little Brawndo on the ground for our dead homie George.
Thursday, June 19, 2008
I Have Fun Everywhere I Go
Stop being so lame all the time and come join me tonight at a reading/rock show for Mike Edison’s memoir I HAVE FUN EVERYWHERE I GO!!
Savage Tales of Pot, Porn, Punk Rock, Pro Wrestling, Talking Apes, Evil Bosses, Dirty Blues, American Heroes, and The World’s Most Notorious Magazines.
Check out my review in the June issue of The Brooklyn Rail to read more about the book’s greatness. I have yet to tell anyone the book also made me cry twice, and pee my pants (more than twice), because I wanted to include the part about the cartwheel. tee!
Holy hand-grenade, this is a fantabulous read and you’re a doof if you don’t come rock with me tonight. Check out the comics and video at mikeedison.com and get yourself educated.
From the promo email (which I lazily apple-veed for everyone’s convenience):
This is where the rubber meets the road…
The Final Blast of The World’s Loudest Book Tour!!
TONIGHT ONLY AT PETE’S CANDY STORE IN SWINGING WILLIAMSBURG!!!
(709 Lorimer Street - btw Richardson and Frost)
Be there early, 7:30 for more XXX-Rated Rants and Savage Tales…
Starring Evel Knievel, Ozzy Osborne, the Raunch Hands, Reagan Youth, GG Allin, Larry Flynt, Liberace, Joe Franklin, and more strippers, wrestlers, LSD-sodden punks, picturesque drunks, and comically dysfunctional potheads than have ever been assembled in one book!
Soundtrack provided by the Delta Science Arkestra!
Once again we’ll be laying waste to all previous art forms!!!
This is our new band featuring superstars
HOLLIS QUEENS, DEAN RISPLER,
JON SPENCER, AND MR MICHAEL CHANDLER!!!
Can ya dig outerspace grooves, beatnik bop, and greasy sidewalk preaching??
And then Rock’n’Roll with the Edison Rocket Train (9 pm)…
It’s a revolution in words and sound!!!
Can’t wait?? Check out our new single, Pornography, Part 1, and hear the filthy truth about the Jews for Jesus at http://www.mikeedison.com (and don’t forget to check out the outtasite comics and read all the agit-prop!)
Have you seen the Bong Guitar video??? It’s a YouTube smasheroo!!!
Can’t wait? Need the book now? One Click on Amazon!!!
Need more info?? Just holler!!!
Need a dose of super sonic rasslin’ and high-minded racontouring!? Come on down!!
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
Suck it, Sinner!
I could talk about the Apocalypse until the end of time. Today’s Wired stories, like signs, or horsemen, or actual blog posts bearing hilarious portents of the end times, have me all *!*squee!*!
What Is the Ultimate Apocalypsemobile? An important question for those hell-bent on mobility when the shit goes down. (Ya betta be ready.) More on the Honda CRX soon, but first I need to have some fun with YouveBeenLeftBehind.com.
YouveBeenLeftBehind.com lets you send post-Rapture emails to the sinners in your life that got left behind when you were taken up (bodily) to Heaven. Here’s another article on ABC’s website. Both articles explain that one of the functions of the email is to (you know, just to be helpful) provide all your bank and asset data, and hold all your important documents, for those left behind so your worldly possessions can be accessed when you’re gone, but can’t be proven dead because your body is missing. They’re so logical and naive in their magical rationale. Ever play Magic the Gathering with a four year old? Anyhoo
This website seems to do all the work of a cult, without the messy cleanup or need to house and speak to the sheep in your flock, right up until the ritual mass suicide. Diagonally?! Pretty sneaky sis.
I love the potential for evil, in messing with the five people responsible for logging in. The system is designed to assume there is an apocalypse if five of the seven (7 of 9? the final five?!) people don’t log in for six days in a row, which could only mean that they had been taken up by the Rapture.
Knowing this, a few agents of darkness (email me at mia at this domain dot com to sign up!!!) working in tandem, could trigger a false apocalypse through shenanigans (shenanigans!!!) distracting, or detaining the secret logger-inners purportedly such good Christians that they know they’ll be taken up in Rapture. How ‘bout the rapture of a vegas stripper for a few days distraction? Ho ho ho! Or perhaps an old lady with car trouble who looks like your aunt Doris? muahahha buuahahahah! Foolish mortals. If they commit a mortal sin do they have to give up their post? Clearly they’re on the honor system.
What if they want to log in but can’t get their iphones activated?
This is serious though, people. It is entirely possible that I will receive one of these emails if el Rapturo Grande goes down. One day… after a week of not getting aggressively Christian chain email forwards or emails comparing Iraq to the legitimacy of WWII.... I’d get an “I Told You So” email informing me how serious it is that I am an unrepentant sinner. What would an email replying to that email sound like?
LOL that’s me! They don’t call me Miss Demeanor for nuthin! Anyhoo
After the initial brimstone and raining ash, the sky really cleared up. I haven’t used my inhaler in ages and bees came back. Not long after you guys disappeared, we noticed pollution in some parts of the country started clearing on its own. Fewer people, less traffic, I guess. So our rigorous efforts to work on the environment got a helpful jump start, thanks for that! Turns out the resistance to saving the environment was all related to people dismissing our one and only planet as place that wouldn’t be inherited by future generations (because of all that apocalypse jazz, ironic eh? Totally why people were buying SUVs and stuff too). We had the zany idea to use scientists instead of politicians to make and enforce an environmental plan, and since people stopped arguing with them, they only argue among themselves about how to do things better… so things keep getting better. Big nerds, but effective!
Wars totally did end (so you were right about something!). People just stopped throwing stones, since everyone here is officially a sinner. Well, the old sinners still like playing bocce ball, but there isn’t much fun in fighting over ideology and religion after the Rapture. Abortions are down, my friend with MS was cured, my friend with AIDS was cured, and thanks to new education and programs, everyone’s living in sin way healthier and longer. We found tons of money in the budget for schooling and higher education, also for caring for dirty old men, old witches and naughty children.
Now I can afford to live in Sin City and have the babies I’ve always wanted, so be sure to curse the little hellions from above when you see their multiple heads emerge from my originally sinful nether regions!
Lotsa love left!
~ Mia Miss Demeanor (sinning since 1975)
What would yours say? Or are you the smug & saved?
Monday, June 09, 2008
MoCCA Art Festival
When the name of my own website doesn’t autocomplete in the address bar of my browser, it’s been too long since I’ve posted. It’s just that when you’re pondering the mysteries of Lost, the days all blur together in a stomping cloud of black smoke that sounds sort of like those low tech credit card machine tillers when they print receipts in triplicate. You know how that gets.
Ummmm
So. Hi there!
The MoCCA (Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art) Art Festival yesterday was well attended and air conditioned, in the lovely Puck building.
We caught Chip Kidd’s talk about the comics and toys that inspired his upcoming book Bat-Manga!. (wow that punctuation looks weird)
I went around to all the tables but didn’t stay nearly long enough to fully enjoy the many independent writers and artists. I had a great time accidentally but very happily chatting with Bill Plympton, internationally super famous talented and brilliant cartoonist, illustrator, and animator, about his most recent film Idiots and Angels. He handed me the pencil sketch from the scene in which the main character notices he’s sprouted wings in the shower, and described how the hero initially resents the wings, because they make him do good. What a nice guy Bill Plympton is! And soooo bloody talented.
Less famous folks were also nice, talented people I very much enjoyed meeting.
This one couple’s work, The Bazaarium and especially “The Dollar Dreadful Family Library” caught my eye, because it reminded me of the (early days of print style) rubber stamps from J.C. Casey that I adore and use in my own chapbook thingies. W. Staehle does the design and typography, T.D. Rio writes the fiction. These are printed booklets you want to hold in your hand and trace with your finger, and the stories are delightful (if you’ll pardon the un-sarcastic use of the word), surreal of course, and are in perfect harmony with the design. I encourage you to check them out, and I’m sure they wouldn’t mind me passing on this discount code good for 5% all purchases (limited time) at The Bazaarium: ODDGOODS. Believe me, I know someone who simply needs The Victorian Delorean.
I found Hyeondo Park and Jim Dougan to be especially charming young men of art and letters, respectively. I picked up a handful of their comics Come the Dawn, Neurotica, Fate by Yali Lin, and The Vile Demonic Show. With the exception of the last title, the art is lustrous and detailed, the writing solid comic goodness. The Vile Demonic Show is more cute and funny, in the spirit of the badly-drawn-on-purpose-but-that’s-ok comics we see (and i like) on the web. Through them I learned of The Chemistry Set a collective of budding comics. Can I just stress that these guys were young and sweet and talented and it makes me all tenderhearted and well-wishful to think of them. I’d also like to ask them about the printing on Come the Dawn, as I’m not sure how it was done, but it reminds me of the effect created with salt and water in silk painting. Clearly I have zero idea what I’m talking about.
Now back to Mac Rumors Live and staying indoors on this nasty hot day.
Monday, May 19, 2008
Oh My Ape Overlords!
Webmonkey is back!
Pardon me if this is outrageously old news. I’ve been finishing my finals, and the first year will be all over after tomorrow night.
Oh, the small tasks they helped me flub or kludge my way through completion, and the skillz I learned more than ten years ago. We were but shoeless children, putting the internet on CD-Roms. And now to me, jokes like this are funny.
Memories…
Can it be that it was all so simple then?
Or has time re-written every line?
If we had the chance to do it all again
Tell me, would we? could we?
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Fan Fiction
Mintjelly is coasting on the rails of human RSS. Peeps are feeding me the good stuff without my doing a thing. I may have the self control to not read the entire internet today, but I can’t be expected to ignore living breathing avatars, can I?
Exhibit A: The McGriddles Fan Fiction Community, as paid homage with a short story by Bonnie Burton (via tweet) founder of Grrl.com and woman of letters, crafts, vlogs, blogs and writer at Lucasfilm.
Is fan fiction embarrassingly awkward because it’s presumably bad writing? Because like fiction it often begins with a hangover described in the third person? Or because the writer reveals (vulnerability!) not only their writing but their (cooties!) unabashed love and obsession? Are ghost writers and writers of television shows or movies, anything that’s a spin off, just the biggest, best fan fiction writers out there? I don’t think I could write a lick of it myself, but I take comfort that people love their monkey enough to make it their muse. I can’t fairly call that lame.
I’ve noticed more people joke about what would inspire them to write fan fiction, and the funny thing is the way they sound like they’ve thought about it, they’ve gotten the urge, alone and in private, so they toss their idea out there to see what kind of reaction they get, and if their friends don’t admit to the same maybe they go online and find a group of people just like them where they’re appreciated.
I like that story.
Exhibit B: This one via Daring Fireball (via Mike laughing and me wondering what was so funny) is a classic example of the beautiful, complicated intersection of bromance and the sophisticated prank. I dub this post Fan Fiction as well. (Make sure you have sound. Watch both videos after reading. Yes, I’m the boss of you.)
p.s. Is it wrong that I want school to end so I can redesign this freaking website? You know, at least get it up to last year’s standards? I have a barrel of desires and a pocketful of plans. Bah! No time for love, Dr. Jones.
p.p.s Next imaginary band: The Living Breathing Avatars!
