Monday, March 24, 2008
References
Last week I was reading an article in Salon with the phrase, “even with an income and a room of her own....”
I thought, wow, they just made a reference to Virginia Woolf.
My little thrill as a reader came from Salon’s editors trusting I knew the reference. Side note: the article was in the Broadsheet section, and apologize for not having re-found the article. I read them all, so I don’t remember which one.
This morning I just about died laughing at a political article that included this: “Sixteen years ago, the last time the Democrats won back the White House, fewer than half the delegates had been selected by the end of March, with big-state primaries in New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio and California still on the docket. This campaign year the Democrats are already down to seeds and stems with 82 percent of the delegates having been chosen by March 11.”
Did you notice what just happened there? OMG did you just totally see it?! Seeds and stems. They’re talking about weed, dude.
There’s knowing your audience, and knowing that if they know what you’re talking about, they won’t be writing angry letters. They’ll just keep reading, with a chuckle, solid with the information that all the real stuff is gone, and this is what’s left. Yeah… what that says about the readers (me), about Salon, the Democratic Partaay… is um, not lost on me. I defend myself thusly. (damn skippy, thusly!). A writer has a duty to not be naive.
I practically think in allusions. They’re a pretty shorthand, like a gesture waving at something larger, telling you to take in all [that] while applying it to what we’re saying about [this]. It’s a picture with a thousand words, done in a few words.
Course, just dropping a reference that doesn’t create that picture is a quick way to annoy a reader. I could write, “we’re down to seeds and stems” and even if you have no idea what I’m talking about, you can infer something like, “yeah, there’s no fruit in there… or something, so that’s not so good, should we be planting?”
The trick is, I can only put an image in your head with my own words, but if I reference something out in the world, I’m actually pinging your brain to see if you have that picture already in there. If you do, we get a nice little moment, you and me. If you don’t, I have to work harder to help you see what I see.
Writing on your own web site is different. Any time I make a reference, I can find a link to help us out. The problem though, is if you have to follow a link, it distracts you. It takes you out of the flow. But if you get it and want to cozy up on that other web page for a second, it’s still nice between us, since I sent you there. Formal, article-type sites don’t send you off in this way, because they don’t want you to leave. A less business, more editorial reason is that an editor would probably not let a reference that did all the heavy lifting stay in an article.
That heavy lifting is why Dennis Miller annoys people. I can’t just say that the 6 train pulling out sounds like the opening bars of the old HBO theme song, and expect you to hear and feel what I’m talking about. It’s a lot more work to begin to describe the poignant sound and the curious tilt of the train as it pulls itself screeching through the tight curve of the station. How the train seems sad and repressed, the jarring volume of the tones contrasting with the memory the chords evoke, of being small, expectant. I’m not even doing a good job. It’s hard, this using of words to get to a place deeper than language. Bah.
I have a nagging problem. As we lose culture, and replace culture (included in that is religion), what sorts of references will be lost, and what will we have to work with? Why is it alright to use the word “upgrade” everywhere all the time now, and how much longer before historical and mythological allusions fall on deaf ears (or ping empty minds)? What’s it say when they change? How cool would it be if we could map this change?
Now if only I could find a better way to describe my ex-stepmom than referencing her cheeky doppelganger Ursa in Superman II, I’d earn my freaking MFA.
Kneel before Zod!
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