-whereas ralph malph bragged, "i've still got it!," i myself may in fact no longer have got anything. my best sentences are like six years old.
-my own personal spouse does very funny theatrical readings of my most convoluted prose.
-i cannot, for the life of me, write a good, direct, hook-y introduction. what i really want to write is this:
OK look, people. i've been reading and thinking a WHOLE LOT about this issue. and you know what? you're pretty lucky i have been. and you know what else? i bet you're pretty sorry that you yourself didn't think about this issue before now. which means that your minds will be TOTALLY BLOWN when you read what's coming, because there's no way you could have anticipated it. and you know what else? if you don't think this is important you might be totally stupid. but! if, by contrast, you do think this is important, and if you sufficiently appreciate the prose which is to follow, there may be hope for you yet. in any case, sit back, relax, and get schooled.
why oh why does my industry not reward this particular kind of posturing?
4 comments:
why oh why does my industry not reward this particular kind of posturing?
Wait, it doesn't? When was the last time you were at MLA?
right -- the trick is to do the posturing, but cloak it in just a wee tiny bit of faux humility. Start, for instance, with "this is part of a larger, ongoing project..."
In my drafts, I use shorthand for the impressions I want to flesh out later. Example:
"Holy crap! Can you believe the shit you just read? Hang on, cause it's about to get even better!"
"That last paragraph was a total setup. You thought I was gonna completely agree with Freud? Jokes on you, sucka. Watch this..."
But you could just do a supershorthand:
"Clever. Funny. Clever. Whoa--good point."
duh -- i would read that article before all the others.
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