My Fear Is They Already Do

We Want the Right to Abuse Our Rights

This is an old picture, I don't remember which protest it's from.  There was some kind of political event, and some batch of random college kids turned out to make sure their voices were heard.

And their voices demanded free speeck.

More specifically, they demanded "free speeck," instilling a sense of irony with the use of open and closed quotation marks.  They wanted their speeck to be "free," that is, not free at all, and what they wanted free was their right to speeck, that is, not actually speeck at all.  Whatever that might be.

This quotation mark scramble comes up all the time.  ALL THE TIME.  As a copyeditor working with adults on every level, it is surprising and discouraging how rampant this misuse is.  In fact, it has been abused so widely, so frequently, throughout such a protracted period of time, I'm a little surprised that Merriam-Webster hasn't canonized it and declared it yet another valid convention of speech.

I tried to create a little mnemonic device to help people remember what effect quotation marks have: fresh fish.  Would you eat "fresh" fish, or even fresh "fish?"  It helps if I'm there in person to do the hated air-quotes.  This drives the point home, and hopefully it gives them something to remember next time they're writing anything out.  It's just an interesting semiotic breakdown, to me, that someone could look at quotes being used ironically but interpret them as emphatic.  Fresh "fish," to them, means it's fresh and it's doubleplus fish.  The freshness is regular and the fishness is superlative.  But gods preserve anyone to whom that sounds especially delicious.

As for the egregious misspelling of "free speech," I don't know how to address that.  It is far beyond my ken what may have been going through his head when he thought he would defend the nation's right to free speeck, but first he should have made sure he knew what the hell he was saying.

Or!  Maybe that's what he was protesting!  Maybe there was a parade of editors and proofreaders, and he was defending his right to abuse spelling and punctuation!  That thought only occurred to me just now, and it makes total sense.

Exploring Semiotics

Don't you hate it when you have a GIF and it's a tedious and stupid trial to convert it to a JPG? I did not save this item as a GIF, it's terrible GIF material, but that's how it landed in my hard drive. I hate that.

Also... no one really knows why there's writing on this skull. There are dozens of skulls like this in the same gallery--we might call it an ossuary--and many of them also have writing across their foreheads, and many of the words can be translated (but not all), and to this day we're not precisely sure of the function of this. Were they curses? Were they identification? Were they simply reminders?

It looks creepy, but it also looks really cool. Of course it looks cool! It's a skull with awesome handwriting: two incredibly cool things! Would I decorate a room in such skulls? I would, until I got creeped out.

But what does this skull say to you? When you glance at it, what is the message that flashes through your own head? What do you suppose the function of that handwriting could possibly be? Does this image make you feel a connection with the past, like some isolated group of people were doing their best to reach forward into the future and connect with some unknown reader? Or does it make you feel threatened, like there's much more to the world than you were previously aware, and there's much you don't understand?

How else could you achieve this effect? What else could you use to strike your impressions of the skull into the imagination of another viewer? What other effect could you achieve that would evoke the same emotions as that dignified handwriting?

And if you ever found yourself in a position where your only reasonable course of action was to inscribe a message upon the skull of a deceased person, what do you think your motives would be? What could have driven you to such straits, beyond a simple lack of paper?

Sugoi Kawaii

Oh, that darling Japanese stationery! One of the easiest ways to embed yourself in the imagination of another person is to simply find an outlet that sells a pad of super-cute Japanese stationery, write out a letter of a few pages, and send it along to a friend. The onus of being interesting has fallen squarely upon the shoulders of another nation, and Japan is more than apt to rise to the challenge.

These are little pads of paper with designs on them. The designs are in groups of ten or 20 sheets, with several variations in one pad, so you can select one of each design and write a small five-page note, for example. Sometimes they come with little envelopes, too, but these are formatted for Japanese addresses so you kinda have to superimpose our Western addressing system upon that.

I like them because they're cute in a way that isn't insulting. For some reason, with gimmicky Western icons of cuteness, I feel like the item in question carries the expectation that I have to meet it halfway in the suspension of my belief. On an abstract level I see a pitchman in a business suit wearing a shit-eating grin and proffering some tedious little doll at me, insisting, "Here's your brand-new beloved nostalgic icon! We're sure this doll is one for the ages, and you'll love her ever more with each year!" But they say this every year with some new piece of crap, and they're not even listening to themselves.

But with the Japanese items--well, maybe this is my naivete, my perception of everything Japanese as exotic and therefore favorably biased--it seems like they come with their own stories and backgrounds. Rather than "here's Strawberry Shortcake and all her dessert-themed friends," or "here's Rainbow Bright and all her color-themed friends," it's like "here's Ikumono: she loves green tea and lemon cookies, but her handwriting is not very good." There's something in those details that appeals to my humanity. I like the cute little character with weird little quirks. I want to meet her friends and see her town. I really feel like there's a context to them, a background, a substantial world that some thought went into.

The US keeps trying to refine a marketable Utopia, but Japan has mastered wabi-sabi, the beauty of slight imperfections. I know which world I'd rather live in.

Math is Really Our Strong Suit

You can't tell me the world doesn't need copyeditors.

This was a street-mounted marquee set up at the beginning of the school year, on the sidewalk by Hennepin Avenue. It was set up to direct students to their new campus, to one particularly important location for students. But I want to ask the school: if the room is that important, nay, if you want to inspire faith in the new students paying good money to your institution for a solid education, is this how you want to represent yourself?

Then again, if everyone's on the same erroneous sheet of music, most people aren't going to notice the error. They will look at the sign, understand what it's trying to express, and there is no practical breakdown in communication. That's the Living Language argument: "it's only wrong for now."

One Day, We Will Be Free

Here's a little artifact I was excited to find online: the lyrics to "Born in Xixax," ostensibly in Nina Hagen's own handwriting.

Looks like something a hyperactive kid would crank out in Study Hall, right? Well, why not? Pink Floyd plundered their childhood poetry for songs, lots of people have taken the inspiration of their youth and transformed it into something memorable.

I especially like her fonts, the manic switches and degrees in which everything has been represented. It goes all over the place, as the words and meanings do, communicating much more than the words themselves. Completely acceptable.

I realize I sound crushy on Nina Hagen, and that's accurate. I wish she hadn't been strung out on drugs but hers was a soul in torment, that's clear, and some people have to figure out these things for themselves. "Born in Xixax" was a transformative song for me, one of those portals that opens up to a new universe, a key that shows me how much more is possible than has been represented or hinted at previously.

Behold the Lowly Vandal

This was an interesting trend in graffiti: lacking self-publishing resources, steal a bunch of post office labels for a canvas. Grab a stack of these from the courtesy desk, write out your tag or slogan, then go around down and slap them to any available surface. Very handy if you're too scared to stand in place long enough to write out your tag.

Wish I could remember whose quote it was: "The blank wall is the idiot's canvas."

In no sense do I support or admire vandalism. I choose to see little distinction between a street artist and a crude tagger: they are each forms of fascism, in which one person decides his values supersede those of others--in this case, those of the property owner. I can admire a street artist's work, but I will always wish he chose a legitimate venue by which to succeed, rather than expressing himself at the expense of someone else's rights.

That said, it's not impossible to admire the techniques of one's enemy. Just as we can be impressed by the persistence of the cockroach or the robustness of the latest season's flu virus, so can I admire the resourcefulness of a vandal. If you really, really don't want to spend any money, where would you go to look for free stickers? And if by radical chance you happen to know someone with a legitimate job, you could ask him to swipe a couple markers for your craft. All that's left is for you to refine your misguided and misapplied calligraphy, then disseminate your non-message throughout town for everyone to see and not understand. Awesome: way to fail to communicate anything of value. You have achieved nothing useful and only worsened your living environment.

Plus, you stole supplies from the post office. That's pretty sad, stealing something that's free from people who legitimately need it. Yeah, vandals are somewhere just above pond scum in the grand scale, somewhere below jackals and carp.