Tag: creating

Making stuff: up, real, and nicely.

Fandom as Cargo Cult

IF WE BUILD IT, THEY will come — again.

First, you need to know what a “cargo cult” is: a folk religion among some groups of Melanesian Islanders who believed that they could attract cargo-carrying airplanes by engaging in sympathetic magic. They got this idea during World War II, when real airplanes (both Allied and Japanese) visited these islands and airdropped actual cargoes — food, weapons, clothing, medicine, and the like. After the war, the planes stopped coming. But the islanders, convinced that the proper conditions would bring more goods, built airstrips (in some cases, complete with landing lights) and otherwise mimicked certain behaviors they thought would achieve their goals. It’s a powerful communal buzz, and easy to get lost in. Continue reading “Fandom as Cargo Cult”

Words To Bring Back: “Fervent”

– Definition: adj. Having or displaying a passionate intensity.

– Used in a sentence: “Our” cat was a fervent consumer of rats and squirrels.

– Why: There are good and bad manifestations of this quality. On the one hand is our hyperpolarized political landscape; on the other hand are fen of all stripes. One is harmful, the other harmless. You decide.

Words To Bring Back:: “Unctuous”

– Definition: adj. (of a person) excessively or ingratiatingly flattering; oily.

– Used in a sentence: The current president* (at this writing, anyway: 3/26/20) enjoys and prefers the company of unctuous sycophants.

– Why: It’s nice to have words to match your observations, isn’t it?

Words To Bring Back: “Cryptic”

– Definition: adj. Having a meaning that is mysterious or obscure

– Used in a sentence: The president’s* speeches are somewhat cryptic to those who don’t share his gestalt, and altogether not for those who do.

– Why: What with the instant-knowledge advent of Google and Wikipedia, the cryptic quality is in danger of disappearing. Don’t let that sense of enigmatic mystery die.

“…And Just Exactly What Is A ‘Buopoth?'”

“MUCH HAS BEEN WRITTEN ABOUT the quaint and lumbering buopoths native to the Exilic Lands and other curious places – but to this day, little remains understood about the shy beasts beyond the proverb that ‘they will haul all day on a fatberry-cake and a kind word.'” — from Road Bound

That’s the in-universe explanation from one of my Prosatio Silban stories. Outside the stories, it’s a different matter entirely…

According to H.P. Lovecraft‘s 1927 novella The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath (a ripping good read if you’re so inclined):

In former dreams he had seen quaint lumbering buopoths come shyly out of that wood to drink, but now he could not glimpse any.

Continue reading ““…And Just Exactly What Is A ‘Buopoth?’””

Words to Bring Back: “Lacustrine”

– Definition: adj.; geological Of or pertaining to lakes.

– Used in a sentence: I prefer deep-water sailing to the lacustrine variety.

– Why: For one thing, it feels good in the mouth. However, I must admit to some self-service with this WtBB, as I am writing a series of stories some of which occur in an island-city surrounded by a lake, and I’m always on the lookout for ways to concisify. And “lacustrine Pormaris” sounds much better than “Pormaris, an island-city surrounded by a lake.” (To me, anyway.)

5 Thoughts: The Third Thing

1. ONE OF THE THINGS THAT frustrates me as a writer is my own self-limitation. Specifically, I am speaking of the notoriously difficult and bothersome Third Thing.

2. The Third Thing works like this. I will write a sentence that begins, say, with a simple thesis: “There are three things that Elmer worried about…” Two examples will occur to me right off the bat: “…death, taxes, and …” It’s what comes after the “and” that always gets me.

3. Now, you might say, “Who really needs three examples of something? Just write two and be done with it.” But my Muse won’t let me. Continue reading “5 Thoughts: The Third Thing”

Words to Bring Back: “Pernicious”

– Definition: adj. Having a harmful effect, especially in a gradual or subtle way.

– Used in a sentence: Pernicious “tweets” should not become a presidential* standard.

– Why: It’s enough out of current usage to possibly sound like a compliment. Imagine the look on their faces when they discover it isn’t.

Words to Bring Back: “Parvenu”

– Definition: n. a person of obscure origin who has gained wealth, influence, or celebrity.

– Used in a sentence: I like to think the electorate smiles unkindly on parvenus, but evidence indicates otherwise.

– Why: Because, in the early 21st Century, there’s so damned many of them.

Confessions of an Earnest High School Dropout

IT ENDED LIKE THIS: “MRS. J—–,” I said evenly, “you should work for the city sewer department instead of teaching English — because you know more about scat than you do about good writing.”

Except I didn’t say “scat.”

And that’s why I didn’t graduate from high school.

Some background is in order: Mrs. J—– co-taught senior AP English at my Walnut Creek high school. She was a bitter, vindictive, tenured old woman who terrorized the other teachers, to say nothing of her students, and she had it in for me from day one. Continue reading “Confessions of an Earnest High School Dropout”

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