Sunday Stream (114) ~ dalley-waggin' for soul
Posted: February 18th, 2007, 3:19 pm
dalley-waggin' for soul
((sshhhh... *hush*....)) : I smile alot. Lots of things bring a smile to my face... probably too many. Other's may see me as a bit strange if they noticed the smiles and what brought them on.
~~I wrestle with capitalizing the first letter of each new sentence. tradition versus something other than tradition~~
When I open Studio 8, I scroll down seeing the different names of repliers to the different boards. Some are new to me. I don't usually click on their replies... the one's i don't recognize.
~~i tire or capitalizing 'I'... i've got to loosen up and break with my early conditioning~~
it's not that i don't give a flying fuck over what some new person here has to say. not at all. but i look for the familiar... folks that have been around here awhile... even the first chosen. it must be that tradition thang... dammit.
~~doesn't look bad - de-capitalized "i's" (too many "'s...) makes typing flow a bit easier for me. you've probably noticed that for yourself~~
but i do get around to introducing myself to their words. Writers express themselves thru the written word. yeah! no shit, batman. writers rely on few tools, other than pen/pencil, paper or a keyboard w/ monitor to create a visual image of what see, their vision of what is before them at the time they're at. but you know that, too. why do i write about something so mundane as what a writer does!
i read a book many, many moons ago, "how to read a book." i couldn't resist the temptation of experiencing reading a book about reading a book that taught someone how to read, not only that book, but all books. i'm glad i did. it's always good when we read a good write... left in a place where we've possibly never been before. or we could return to a place we've been before, only because we like it there. we mix tradition with mescal and let the worm wiggle its words across the backlit monitor.
but the book tells the reader that many readers don't get the writing the first time... there's more if you go back and read the book again, maybe just a chapter or two, but the author felt that too many readers miss the essence of the book without re-reading the book.. any book. not just that book.
~~i wonder: should i go back a reduce all the capital letters from the beginning? it doesn't last long, that wonder. it just wanders off...~~
armed with only thoughts, those transparent veils reproducing the pictures with their head, writers take themselves upon the journey. yes, themselves. the writer may 'channel' another one, keeping an other in mind, telling them his/her (gad! i don't like that split 'his/hers'... it just aint' right! no... hers/his isn't any better. hmmm.... their story.
[the story of bob dylan is by robert zimmerman]
((I felt compelled to capture that passing thought))writers period (.) stops the sentence. the sentence, the flow, required a period. but unless this period is the final period, those preceding periods are more semi-colon. not full, outright colons :, but semi-colons... colon-like, but not exactly. taking the lower period and adding a tail, a comma. this assumes a brief pause, this single symbol ,, the comma. but keep a period above it and the two join together in semi-colon heaven. they were a match made. but writers by tradition always use period, period.
my thought patterns just flow... i catch a phrase, sometimes a paragraph, while other times what could be a chapter or even a book is 'caught.' clutched tightly by mind, the impulse to take that fish, fillet it, prepare it for a wordy feast , the fingers type out or squeeze that special pen, and words they begin. (capitalized? nah.. not today) periods abound, but that ;... semi-colon, why haven't i used you? you're a gate, one that isn't locked but slows down the journey... eases the flow, it's not a fence. isn't that what period does. brings the thought to an end. if only briefly. not necessarily a high, insurmountable fence, but a short reminder to stop before the writer trips.. stumbles over the words.
~~what about those apostrophes sprinkled liberally across the page..?~~
used as contractions for mostly the word 'not', but those same apostrophes surround the word, not, also. Yes, then there are the double apostrophes... the quote marks... something quietly powerful about those. they seem to make special certain words. even certain strings of sentences... quoting someone else's words. the apostrophe is not only singular but is also dualistic, not just symbolically, with one mark or two, but used in a rather dualistic way - contractive and quotive. (i got a red underline for using the word 'quotive.' i think it's a worthy word: worth quoting; quotable. i just added that word to the dictionary inside the 'puter) the word apostrophe sounds big - apostolic. how much grander can the sound get. apostolic ends with a harshness, 'ik' sounds rough with a beginning sound of 'a-pos-tol'... kinda icky. but 'a-pos-tro-fee' has a freeing sound, a release about it that makes the word nice to say. it's also nice to use them, those little apostrophes, like ground pepper over a fried egg, they had spice to the visual feel of words - contracting the not's, the have's and the occasional t's and lighting special places in writing.
writers liquidating thought into words. distilling certain ideas into catchy phrases, analogies, poetic tunes that speak and even sing of the thoughts that arise within. making stories out of our journeys within or with outside of us. the stories can be short, the stories can be volumes and volumes; these stories can be poems, the y can be fantasy, they can be facts from observation of life' the stories are one's sharing with others. why else to translate those feelings, those ideas, concepts, theories, experiences.. the list is as long as humanity and beyond... writers sci-fi us, they fi us with their tales of fiction, imagination, wonder and spectacle. from the letter writer writing to only one, the words give the reader something.
~~words, like notes of music, compose meaning, however obtuse, as long as writing has soul~~
what percentage of writing has soul? this is a question that could be found thru the longevity of the written piece. will the writing end up tossed out in tomorrow's trash, will it line the bird cage. is the writing no better than junk mail, as spam in out email?
in my email this morning i received a spam with the subject 'the mime' from kfind. the first line of the spam was this copy/paste quote :
"say that he is ill is false, to say that he is not ill is true. Thus may exhibit a quality in a greater degree than it did before: if a the thing known is explained as that which is known by something, that wings, but qua winged creature. If, then, the statement is made" ((???))
of course this had nothing to do with what was being sold: a hot stock market alert! kfind mistakenly thought these words with the title, the mime,' would cause me to purchase stock in this chinese neutraceutical sector. like thousands of others this was quickly given the trash can and deleted... but only before i cut and pasted the above quote. i get these often as i'm sure many of you do, too.
i wonder if those words were lifted from some other writer's book or writings without the writer being told about it. i wouldn't doubt it. this type of spam has been seen using current political news without using any source for credit. but it's just spam. plain and simple. there's no soul in it. if they used a writers full essay or story, there might be some soul there, but overall? fuckno! ain't got no soul. and any writing that doesn't have soul has other uses - trash or spam.
the marketing world is probably responsible for more trash writing than any other subject. new this, new that, on sale, improved, buy now, free with the purchase, the lingo goes on. some are fun. commercials, visual sales techniques can be clever. i happen to enjoy sonic drive-in commercials. i wouldn't tape them and save them, but they give me a momentary smile, sometimes a laugh. those types of marketing words at least offer something besides false-need to have the object of marketing speared down one's throat.
politics uses words to impress the politician's voting crowd. but that's marketing, not politics as it should be. so we treat each promise as spam and delete it because it has no soul. soul has to be honest. maybe not truth, but an honest attempt at finding truth. politickin' should have soul. it'd attract a good crowd and good people.
what we call holy books have soul. that's why these types of books have lived for so long... the words within have connection to the soul. many of us don't like to rub our souls with other souls, but we can do it through reading another's soulful words in the quiet of our reading. maybe that's why they're called 'holy' books - they're whole in sharing soul. something comforting about being in the company of soul.
of course, even the best of writers can't write from the soul all the time. those are precious moments. like musicians, artists, dancers, even designers... when soul is touched they know when they found soul. it's infectious. drawn to light, we all crave soul on some level some time. it's universal with us. we can hear the soul of a singer and not understand the words but be moved by the singer's connection to that place... soul touching moment.
it's not the words alone, not the commas, the apostrophes, the paragraphs alone that make the soul connection. it's just being there at the right moment to capture those emotions and successfully translate them into words that stir.
Cecil
18 February 2007
early
