Wednesday, June 27, 2007

MY BLANK PAGE

The problem with writer's block is that it's called writer's block. I mean, that's an example right there of writer's block isn't it? When they named that? You have all your smart wordsmiths together and they're trying to give a good name to this problem of not being able to write for a temporary period and the best they came up with is "writer's block"? Man, they must have all been suffering that day. Where's the romance, where’s the excitement?

Now, I do admire the writer's block name. It has a certain flow. It sounds kind of Soviet, like some big commune full of writers that has declared itself free of the mother country. "Yes, we are now Writer's Bloc."

It just doesn't seem a great term for something that's all about using words. If I was giving a name to the phenomenon of not being able to write I'd want to call it something clever, something poetic and kind of flashy. Something that romanticised the whole thing just a little.

I'd call it Scriptonite poisoning.

Saturday, June 23, 2007

THE DON'T WORRY, BE HAPPY

If misery loves company does that mean a hermit is the happiest guy in the world?

He's spending all his time alone, he has no company and hence, no misery. You see my reasoning here, yes? I'm not pretending to be an expert on making people happy, don't let my cheery demeanour and jolly expression fool you.

I'm just trying to work the equation through, simple mathematics. If x = y, where x is misery and y is company, you see this, don't you?

As a rule, serial killers are loners. Often the term used is "neurotic loner", that's a popular catch-all descriptor for the serial killer type. I think they must be very, very happy people. And serial killers. Hmm...

I guess too much happiness is a bad thing. That's a good lesson to take away from your old pal Krusty, I think.

Thursday, June 14, 2007

THE HALF TERM OF AFFECTION

Were people really calling their loved ones "honey" before the advent of pop music? There's a lot of "honey" and "baby" going on in the rock and the roll, I notice, but I'm suspicious that no one uses these terms in Victorian novels.

Now "darling", that's very popular. Darling has it covered in the pre-pop music world. The term darling is dropped with gay abandon. ("Gay abandon" is also dropped with significantly more gay abandon than it is today, I've noticed, but that's a whole other issue. Not that there's anything wrong with that.)

But "honey"? Nope, that just doesn't show up.

I get the meaning here. My darling is sweet, honey is sweet, I call her honey. But I think it's really down to lazy lyricists who couldn't come up with enough rhymes for the accepted term of endearment.

You see, "My honey" can easily be funny, earn money, enjoy days that are sunny, have a pet bunny, like her eggs runny and so on. The rhyming opportunities are as limitless as you need in a three and a half minute pop song.

But "darling"?

I love my darling,
She looks like Joe Stalin.


That's all I've got, comrade, and, let's be honest, no woman wants to hear that comparison.