A Different Kind of Language

Give me a stagnant backwater swamp where the water is still and the air is thick with it and the heat and the smell. Give me damp pools of silent water nourishing the cattails standing in the night. Give me the feel of water at my feet and sand and black muck oozing thru my toes.

It has a logic of its own, a structure sufficient unto itself, a grammar decorated with meaning. Give me the foreign syntax of the swamp. I may not master its idioms or recite its rhymes and meters well, but I still yearn to speak that strange tongue.

Meaning without words. Substance exploding from chaotic form. Give it to me, please.

9:32:21 PM   permalink: []   feedback:   comments: []  

Lori Wyatt

Who is this Lori Wyatt that sends me this "unsolicited" email:

Lori Wyatt is playing the Beat Kitchen this Sunday at 8:00 this Sunday night. The band is welcoming their new drummer Ben Hasan. "We are all very excited about Ben." Lori has just returned from Mid Point Music Fest in Cincinnatti, and is looking forward to playing in her hometown for a change. The band will play for one hour, so all can be home early for work on Monday. So take a nap, or some No Doz, and get on out there. For directions to Beat Kitchen....log on to www.beatkitchen.com

Another message for the SPAM can. No wait! Her drummer is Ben Hasan!? I know him! You go, bro.

2:13:46 PM   permalink: []   feedback:   comments: []  

Words

It's all in the words you choose. No ideas without the right words first. But not just the words you choose, not just the words you stumble on, not just the words that first come to mind. But words that convey, that stand alone and radiate meaning. Words that shed unambiguous light on the thoughts about which they are woven.

This sometimes gets in the way when I code. I struggle for the words to make the code clear. To make the algorithm speak for itself. I struggle with the declarations like a teacher at the blackboard in front of an algebra class: How can I make all this clear to them? And the struggle itself often massages the code. The search for words widens into a search for meaning. The thoughts themselves give way when the right words can't be found.

Perhaps I let it bug me too much, this thing about words. Whatever, they say from across the table looking back at me blankly at best but more often rolling their eyes.

Still I'm stuck with this way of being, inherited from who knows where. I'm stuck with it. It's inside me. I can't pretend it isn't there.

So give me a good word or two, and we can share your thoughts over a cup of hot tea.

Sugar cube?

3:53:44 AM   permalink: []   feedback:   comments: []