Tazmanian Devilish vs. Hurricanal

Sometimes in an attempt to express myself I invent neologisms like “hurricanal,” meaning to feel like being trapped in a whirlwind. But as a colleague has pointed out, you can’t get away with just adding the suffix “al” der. Latin to any noun to make it an adjective. What would you say then I asked.

I don’t know, Tasmanian Devilish?

Of course! Because the Tasmanian Devil is so engrained into our cultural unconscious that we all know he arrives a flurry of dust from his rapid spinning.

But. What happens if I write this phrase in a certain post postmodern work of fiction, which I believe will be more closely aligned with classical styles of writing and postmodern styles of narrative than a continuation of postmodern stylization, then what will people who read it in two hundred years think? Will the image of Taz resonate as loudly with them? Or will they view it as an arcane 21st century allusion? And we all know Daniel Adler, the unpretentious does not want to seem arcane nor esoteric. 

So I will continue to use my poetic license however I deem necessary, and if an allusion to popular culture strikes me, you can bet your tootsie that people in a couple of hundred years will be able to identify. What do you think?

The Friendship Garden

Social class and similar interests are the most important fertilizers in the friendship garden, and sowing requires effort. From there, the sunlight of frequency and the water of luck bring forth agape flowers.

 Some people are grounded. You can tell this immediately from the flash in their eyes and their first words. But then they may be working on a different wavelength, which can be hard to negotiate. Others are attractive, and you think they may be okay, but you feel obliged to laugh at their jokes. Will this get in the way, you ask yourself? Perhaps it can change once you get to know them better? But eventually, the false laughter produce a friendship that lies like a fallen apple with sweetness clustered in one spot, bitter and rotten around. And so you go taking bites from all the apples, trying to eat your fill, but wishing that you might find one entirely ripe, sweet.

You scour the orchards, move into the vegetable garden. Hey, there, look at that ripe vegetation. You take a bite, revolted with its bitterness. Maybe the bitterness becomes tasty when cooked with the herbs of time. You watch outer layers wilt sweetly like the blackened leaves of a buttery baked brussel sprout. Covered in garlic and butter delicious, those crispy, tasty layers fall off and leave a greener core still tasty, more substantial.
 
-A post postmodern excerpt, by Daniel Adler

Postmodern Classic Literature: Bright Lights, Big City

The second person is a fine technique to use. It is adjuratory and precise. The first person is confessional. The two effects are distinct. In Jay McInerney's classic literature roman a clef, the second person is exhortatory, nearly allowing us as readers to tell the protagonist how best to deal with his sexual abandonment and job loss.

I dreamed about Bolivian Marching Powder last night. Not doing it, just the metaphor of the marching armies, brigades tramping through the forests of a brain. Well done. "Her voice was like gravel spread with honey." Voices are hard to describe, and McInerney's imagery is beautifully suggestive, though not necessarily illuminating. The protagonist is pathetic enough to sympathize with. Goosebumps for the last line, when he must learn to live again, the way we all must, in every single moment.

Constantly we revert to habit and routine. Despite the expectation of cocaine, sex, and high pleasures, luxuries lose importance, a notion exemplified by the '80s me-generation of fast-money and its repudiation in this great read. Our generation is a tad more in touch with what matters, maybe because of the Great Recession, maybe because of the physically-distancing nature of the internet. So I'm working on how to convey that in my writing.

Gerundizing in Post Postmodernism

The latest trend in post postmodern language is gerundizing, or making a noun a verb. Julie's example was, "Hey are you guys Bostoning this weekend?"

But you don't have to gerundize necessarily - the larger trend is that nouns are becoming verbs. Take the word "reference."  It is gaining momentum as a verb instead of a noun. How often do you hear people talk about the reference section in the library. Forget the word "cite."

Indeed, gerundizing makes English that much easier. As Thomas Jefferson said, why use two words when one will do?

It is also popular to shuffle between tenses and styles, not necessarily incorporating and alluding to different brands, people and ideas, but instead to different styles in order to express different trains of thought. Let's say a character wants to experiment with drugs. It's very effective for a post postmodern writer to imitate the exploration of subjectivity used by modernist writers to simulate his experience while high.

Or perhaps the protagonist is remembering his youth: a self-conscious remembrance in the postmodern style would do well in such an occasion. Post postmodern writers have all this history from which to borrow, and as such, can move fluidly from one style to the other.  

-Prophetically,
Daniel Adler