Really, these are not rants. They’re very much sane. And very much honest. And there might be some lyrics in there, so cheers! to selling one’s soul, draining one’s “life” reservoir in order to fill up the “art” one. I will leave a literate landfill of broken and fragmented thoughts behind, for experts to sift through. Might as well point them in the right direction, eh?
Tues, Feb 12, 2008, 10:52 a.m.
- I love your brittle, bleached teeth that will fall out prematurely. I love your black lungs that can’t inhale without spasming into a throat-ripping cough. I love your fake hair that you have to keep frying because the healthy, natural look is so cliché and boring. I love your jeans that are not worth two hundred dollars for which you’ll gladly pay without batting an eyelash, you Citizen of Humanity, you, with your neverending debt and your neverending legs with the varicose scars, and your neverending sleep with its snores and farts and twitches and adorable cheek creases from your pillow. I love your terrible diet that you don’t even care about changing and the exercise and activity that you don’t even care to attempt, except for those adorable sit-ups on your living room floor and that little extra skip in your step that happens when you get excited about something, like the trip from your kitchen to your bed, and how best to shorten it and fast forward to the sex that you want so badly sometimes[...]
Tues, Feb 12, 2008, 11:01 a.m.
- I love all that, and the long socks, doubled always – and the long-necked sweaters, and the long face when I tell you “I Love You” – and your short patience, and you’re shorter than me and that’s very cute, and the short shorts that you’ll wear in the summer for those short-lived flings and their even shorter promises and the short sun and the short fun and the short life that will end before you know it, and your short list of accomplishments. And the short deliberation on Judgment Day, deciding whether you will float or burn – I will wait for you in the flames with my pitchfork and my hooves and my black, soulless eyes – I will burn here for all eternity so that one day my Queen Katie* can join me. I love your sin and vice that is just an escape hatch, a drug to hide the fact that you are the most wonderful person underneath it all – you’re just ashamed of it. I love your blindness and your cluelessness. Who else could? Who else will? I really hope you read this. I love that you won’t, because you already know these things – like you already know that I LOVE YOU.
- I love your brittle, bleached teeth that will fall out prematurely. I love your black lungs that can’t inhale without spasming into a throat-ripping cough. I love your fake hair that you have to keep frying because the healthy, natural look is so cliché and boring. I love your jeans that are not worth two hundred dollars for which you’ll gladly pay without batting an eyelash, you Citizen of Humanity, you, with your neverending debt and your neverending legs with the varicose scars, and your neverending sleep with its snores and farts and twitches and adorable cheek creases from your pillow. I love your terrible diet that you don’t even care about changing and the exercise and activity that you don’t even care to attempt, except for those adorable sit-ups on your living room floor and that little extra skip in your step that happens when you get excited about something, like the trip from your kitchen to your bed, and how best to shorten it and fast forward to the sex that you want so badly sometimes[...]
Tues, Feb 12, 2008, 11:01 a.m.
- I love all that, and the long socks, doubled always – and the long-necked sweaters, and the long face when I tell you “I Love You” – and your short patience, and you’re shorter than me and that’s very cute, and the short shorts that you’ll wear in the summer for those short-lived flings and their even shorter promises and the short sun and the short fun and the short life that will end before you know it, and your short list of accomplishments. And the short deliberation on Judgment Day, deciding whether you will float or burn – I will wait for you in the flames with my pitchfork and my hooves and my black, soulless eyes – I will burn here for all eternity so that one day my Queen Katie* can join me. I love your sin and vice that is just an escape hatch, a drug to hide the fact that you are the most wonderful person underneath it all – you’re just ashamed of it. I love your blindness and your cluelessness. Who else could? Who else will? I really hope you read this. I love that you won’t, because you already know these things – like you already know that I LOVE YOU.
Where is the line between "life" and "art" anyway? The Romantic poet William Wordsworth, in a Prelude to his work entitled Lyrical Ballads, proclaimed that, within it, he sought to recreate the language of real men: the common man, the rustic, the creature closest to nature because he didn't pause to reflect upon his diction, did not aspire to adhere to an accepted aesthetic measure of expression, a man who simply existed and spoke and did not give a single thought as to how he said something, only what was being said. Mainly, Wordsworth was reacting against Alexander Pope's declaration, in his Essay on Criticism, that a poet should aim to present some truth or insight that was commonly accepted but "ne'er so well expressed." A classic example of the battle between high art and low art, of elitism and egalitarianism.
If we fast forward to the turn of the 21st century, we find a similar battle brought on by the advent of text messaging (previous incarnations of which include e-mails and chat rooms, but they may conceivably be lumped together under the umbrella category of "digital communication"). Text messaging exists in a digital arena of trial and error, a vestibule wherein one may send one's own words to oneself to be audited, edited, corrected (if necessary), and, finally, sent to the intended receiver - all in real time. It is the social version of turning in a paper to an English teacher: you write a rough draft, read it, make the necessary adjustments until you're happy with the finished product, and then finally "turn it in." The lag time allows for so much emotional complexity to be either added or subtracted that it is quite unnatural.
Of course, there are exceptions to every rule, and no where does this apply more fittingly than to text messaging. There is a gigantic margin of error: the wrong message can be sent to the wrong person; an emotionally heated message may be littered with so many typos that it is unreadable and the intended sentiment is not accurately expressed; along the way shortcuts are discovered which cut to "the heart of the matter," which, upon examination, appear to be a "deadening" of language that many preservationists find appalling. The ambiguity of black and white text allows for so many interpretations of exactly what is meant that it becomes very difficult to decipher at times without the visual and auditory clues of gesture, tone, and silence. Text messaging has become its own language, to which anyone with a younger sibling can attest.
My desire is to re-present (as in, present again) a project I presented for a Poetry Writing Workshop two years ago here at Wayne State (appropriatetely titled TEXT), consisting of a long series of snippets from text message conversations I had with primarily one person (although it does include a few others), edited to illustrate the dramatic arc of the relationship. Now, because I've taken our class, ENG 5080, as an approved substitute for English Seminar (meaning this is my Writing Intensive requirement), and with the creative aspect of the project already complete, I will write the paper that the workshop never required me to write, explaining my reasons for endeavoring in this somewhat unusual yet, in my opinion, unique undertaking.
These text messages (an excerpt of which I included above) were culled from a four-month long affair that was turbulent, sexual, and emotional, and affected me deeply. They are my interpretive yet, I feel, quite readable attempt at blurring the lines of the perceived digital distance afforded by this technology, at exhibiting the emotional acuity heightened by the ability to articulate EXACTLY WHAT ONE WISHES TO SAY.
The reason I invoke Wordsworth and Pope is to show that, with this new technology, one can express oneself in the "real language of men," while at the same time utilizing the discipline of the poetic mind to either radically abbreviate or expand what desires to be expressed, to separate one from the common pack.
If this is a futile endeavor - if it smells like a copout - or if its ramifications deserve further explanation or clarification, please feel free to comment. I intend to fully explore any scholarly literature that has been attempted on the subject, assuming that such literature exists.
-M.C.
*Once again, names are changed to protect privacy.