My written art

Here's a story about James Joyce, told by Stephen King (On Writing)

A friend came to visit James Joyce one day and found the great man sprawled across his writing desk in a posture of utter despair.
'James, what’s wrong?' the friend asked. 'Is it the work?'
Joyce indicated assent without even raising his head to look at his friend. Of course it was the work; isn’t it always?
'How many words did you get today?' the friend pursued.
Joyce (still in despair, still sprawled facedown on his desk): 'Seven.'
'Seven? But James… that’s good, at least for you.'
'Yes,' Joyce said, finally looking up. 'I suppose it is… but I don’t know what order they go in!'

I looked up the word "ephemeral" the other day.  Sometimes I look up a word I know for no apparent reason.  And as I was looking over the comments, I saw this:

"Life is too ephemeral."

I instantly cringed when I saw this.  Doesn't it just sound so crude?  Short bro, short.  "Life is too short," or "life is fleeting," is fine, but "life is too ephemeral?"  It sounds like someone looked up a thesaurus and replaced an easy word with a difficult one in an effort to sound smart.  But just change the order, and there's magic:

Life too, is ephemeral. 

Oh the beauty of the written art.

“The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one’s real and one’s declared aims, one turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish spurting out ink.” 

-George Orwell, "Politics and the English Language," 1946

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Someone told me the other day that my writing was wonderful, which was nice but not so flattering (oh my arrogance!).  Well, I had written the letter in Korean so the compliment meant something but really, words like great, marvelous, wonderful, fabulous, are not only subjective but merely denote a positive feeling towards something.  

An articulate compliment per se would say that a writing is succinct, witty, or genuine.  Sure, these are all subjective too, but it goes beyond "I like this."  It says, "I like this because."  

And it's so much more powerful. 

I shou“The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one's real and one's declared aims, one turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish spurting out ink.”

– George Orwell, "Politics and the English Language," 1946

Read more at http://www.merriam-webster.com/top-ten-lists/top-10-favorite-quotations-about-words-vol-1/clear-language.html#6W5qf4bxi4VYQA8v.99

“The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one's real and one's declared aims, one turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish spurting out ink.”

– George Orwell, "Politics and the English Language," 1946

Read more at http://www.merriam-webster.com/top-ten-lists/top-10-favorite-quotations-about-words-vol-1/clear-language.html#6W5qf4bxi4VYQA8v.99

“The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one's real and one's declared aims, one turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish spurting out ink.”

– George Orwell, "Politics and the English Language," 1946

Read more at http://www.merriam-webster.com/top-ten-lists/top-10-favorite-quotations-about-words-vol-1/clear-language.html#6W5qf4bxi4VYQA8v.99

“The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one's real and one's declared aims, one turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish spurting out ink.”

– George Orwell, "Politics and the English Language," 1946

Read more at http://www.merriam-webster.com/top-ten-lists/top-10-favorite-quotations-about-words-vol-1/clear-language.html#6W5qf4bxi4VYQA8v.99

“The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one's real and one's declared aims, one turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish spurting out ink.”

– George Orwell, "Politics and the English Language," 1946

Read more at http://www.merriam-webster.com/top-ten-lists/top-10-favorite-quotations-about-words-vol-1/clear-language.html#6W5qf4bxi4VYQA8v.99

“The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one's real and one's declared aims, one turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish spurting out ink.”

– George Orwell, "Politics and the English Language," 1946

Read more at http://www.merriam-webster.com/top-ten-lists/top-10-favorite-quotations-about-words-vol-1/clear-language.html#6W5qf4bxi4VYQA8v.99

“The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one's real and one's declared aims, one turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish spurting out ink.”

– George Orwell, "Politics and the English Language," 1946

Read more at http://www.merriam-webster.com/top-ten-lists/top-10-favorite-quotations-about-words-vol-1/clear-language.html#6W5qf4bxi4VYQA8v.99

“The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one's real and one's declared aims, one turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish spurting out ink.”

– George Orwell, "Politics and the English Language," 1946

Read more at http://www.merriam-webster.com/top-ten-lists/top-10-favorite-quotations-about-words-vol-1/clear-language.html#6W5qf4bxi4VYQA8v.99

“The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one's real and one's declared aims, one turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish spurting out ink.”

– George Orwell, "Politics and the English Language," 1946

Read more at http://www.merriam-webster.com/top-ten-lists/top-10-favorite-quotations-about-words-vol-1/clear-language.html#6W5qf4bxi4VYQA8v.99

I just spent an afternoon debating whether to replace a dash with a comma.  The answer is always the same.  Replace. 

But at least I know that I prefer en dashes over em dashes, with a space on each side.  Heresy I know, but it just looks so much better.

Oblivious

I decided to give in and check out what this EXO fad was all about (a boy group in Korea/China).  Four months ago when several zit-faced adolescent girls enthusiastically explained some nonsense about EXO-K and EXO-M having superpowers, coming from different planets, losing their memory and living on Earth thinking they were human, that was it for me.  I thought to myself, I would rather read twilight.  Well, not really.  

But I did want to ask how these idiots failed to see the marketing ploy behind having two groups, one singing in Korean (EXO-K) and the other in Mandarin (EXO-M), to the identical tune. I also wanted to ask whether their superpowers included interspecific intercourse (or extraterrestrial intercourse?), but decided in favor of my better judgment.

Mockery demystifies, but also angers.  One ought to use it sparingly.

Anyway, I watched the video and I must admit, embarrassingly, that I was blown away.  Not by their voice (though the song is surprisingly good), nor their dance (fantastic), nor their face (don’t give a fuck, but I really needed a third example), but by the camerawork.  They only use one viewpoint throughout the entire music video.  Maybe the idea was copied but I’ve never seen such camera work before. 

So I proceeded to watch the video about 30 times, completely mesmerized.  And then I realized that I was listening to Chinese. 

I’m really glad that I’m not a pilot.  Ho Lee Fuk.