Deferment

I was sitting at the Caribou coffee shop in the Rosedale shopping mall, about nine months ago, waiting for an appointment at the Apple Genius Bar, when inspiration struck after reading a post in the Writing and Literary Discussion forum of the local Craigslist message board.  After reading my response to the initial post, and thinking about whether or not I answered the question or just sought to bring attention to myself, it seems redundant to struggle for authenticity and genuine effort when the likelihood of being sold down the river is so great.  Forgive the overtly antiquated and obviously inflammatory reference - if I didn't feel it suited my burden I wouldn't apply it.
So, Monday morning. 

and so this night, it started - < mlmck > 01/18 16:00:39

I wrote a short story, about 17 years ago, over the course of a week. It started with that phrase, "And so this night it started..." I submitted for review to the highest chair of the English Department at the University I was attending, and he informed me of two things:

1. Starting a sentence with "And so..." was pretty pedestrian and hackneyed.
2. If you have the goods, sell them.

I kept the draft I submitted, with his handwritten comments, and went further in asking him what he meant by selling the goods. His assertion was the short story was relevant, in some way, and needed to be sold. Never happened. In response to your question, I think starting a sentence with the word, "Incidentally" is a little pretentious and conceived. You're setting a tone for the rest of the story, essay or novel that indicates a certain malaise / boredom / narcissism / "Being half in love with an easeful death"
I like the idea though, and the concept of introducing a narrative half in thought is true to the nature of inspiration...as if to imply the reader already knows at least as much about the world, oneself, general practicalities, social constraints and cultural differences between peoples, and then introduces a new radical thought with "Incidentally...". I believe it worked for JD Salinger.
Here's my effort, for posterity.
Incidentally, psychiatric wards in hospitals don't allow fresh air into the rooms of the patients. Opening a window, feeling the wind, the breeze, smelling the night air and the passing of time between night and day is not allowed. A shadow on the ceiling, a certain amount of natural light, the constant sounds of doors opening and closing, buzzing of locks, arguing of patients, your roommates sighing lack of sleep become the environment of your stay. The artificiality of your surroundings seems to reinforce the dramatic need for calm, as if your natural inclination to flee and return to the wilds of your youth will only cause further duress - a thunderstorm passes and though every day of your life you've sought an open window with which to be closer to the tremendous wind, rain and sounds, your stay is not a voluntary attempt at seclusion. It is a compulsory effort to alter your experiences, to change the perceptions of what defines your mental health, to encapsulate your behavior and present it as either autonomous or sympathetic.

I think this piece of writing can be readily juxtaposed with a review I wrote on Goodreads, back in 2010 -

The Simpsons and Philosophy: The D'oh! of Homer by William Irwin

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


So, yesterday, while cussing out a library computer, well within earshot of an innocent bystander, sitting at her computer with a dazed, mildly insulted look on her face, I started into a rant worthy of another Francis Ford Coppola movie.  Something to do with JFK, the Bar Mitzvah I never had; it all pertained, of course, to why the library's computer would not print my document.  Which was, of course, user error. 

So, Philosophy...you're kidding right? 

Every philosophy person/student/professor I've ever met exudes calm, quiet, serenity, perfect and unassailable equanimity with their surroundings.  They are aloof, they are unapproachable, they are the persons of interest on any college campus, think-tank or place of intellectual stimulation.  I don't know JACK about philosophy...or String Theory.  But, I've watched the Simpson's ever since I saw Doctor Marvin Monroe try, try, try to manage the classic familial aggression so ingrained in the Simpson family. 

"Apparently, Homer, your family sees you as something of an ogre." 

Since those words, and laughing myself silly at the sight of all five family members hooked up to electric shock therapy, shocking each other while trying to get one another to "...shut the hell up...", I've succumbed to the most classic of all enabling devices, the television.
So, what does this book have to do with me, with ranting, with the Simpsons, with philosophy and tolerance? 
After acknowledging education is the long process of unlearning what you know in order to accept what you don't, there is a gutless feeling...like falling off a cliff, or being publicly shamed.  There is a feeling that everything you've been taught, learned or have been given, is suspect.  Dirty.  Undignified.  Soiled. 
As if what you've been working so hard to construct is just an enterprise for somebody else to take credit for.  Nothing has been more difficult in my life than that realization.  Every time it is brought back to me, I encounter that same, fatalistic thought.  "What's the point?"
To establish the quality of life that allows an individual to learn in the first place, seems like an achievement; to undo it all and start over, seems like an impossible and pointless goal.  Among the people you meet and see every day, new faces or old, there are few to whom struggle is a foreign concept.  If nothing else, The Simpson's can alleviate the feeling that everyone has something to laugh at, but you.  Learning to appreciate that can make all the difference between asking what's the point and why not. 



View all my reviews

Juxtaposition

I got a case of writer's block, if you want to call it that, about a month and half ago.  Similar to the clogged toilet of October 2011, I decided to ask Craigslist.  There follows three separate threads of discussion, with postings from Craigslist users who might prefer not having their posting shared on my blog.  Sorry about that, I removed the user handle / ids except my own, (mlmck).  I eventually remembered the word, while showering.

Aqua Vitae. 

However, I am still not convinced using it as a way to describe an ironic parallel between two disparaging parties or ideas is a suitable use. 

Word Association Discussion Forum



min paradigm shift § < mlmck > 12/05/2011 13:50 
      : . . Morals §
      : . . : . . paradox § 
      : . . : . . dichotomy § 
      : . . : . . dualism § 
      : . . : . . open marriage §
      : . . : . . morale §
      : . . : . . Morales, §
      : . . : . . ethics §
      : . . : . . : . . juxtaposition §
      : . . : . . : . . : . . adjacent §
      : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . antacedent §
      : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . antecedent § 
      : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . : . . precedent §



Education Discussion Forum



another word for < mlmck > 12/05 13:51:13
what fifty cent word with three syllables means paradigm shift, paradox, dichotomy or dualism?

-here are some
But these are only 10 cent phrases, so you might have to use five of them to convey the same point.
conundrum

dilemma

reframing

bifurcation

gordian knot

-Are you writing a really boring haiku? §

-no
I'm trying to remember a word somebody used that impressed me. And then trying to decide if I was impressed by their accuracy or their ignorance. I am juxtaposing my own ignorance with theirs, in order to compare and contrast my own shifting paradigm.

-
hard to say
those words don't mean the same thing


Literary and Writing Discussion Forum

another word for paradigm shift < mlmck > 12/05 13:53:09
Hey- I am wondering if any of you literary types know of another word for paradigm shift, besides paradox, logical fallacy, dichotomy or dualism.

-My understanding would equate it more
to transition or metamorphosis than the nouns you used.

-Maybe
model shift, change of form, new recipe for; removal of pillars from the old cathedral; a phnomnenal algorithm (yikes!); deconstructing the unworkable model; putting more bones into the body of the plan, so it can run twice as fast; etc. The main idea would be change. Check your Roget's Thesaurus under change and related ideas of model, form, growth, etc.

-Mlmck asked for another word, not expression

-but I admit your list is impressively good

-agree with swamp, mlmck your sysnonyms are not

-Paradigm can be Shifty, but
"paradigm shift" merely means change in the status quo. It's a catchy phrase and the Ad-Man are working it to the bone during the Silly Season--or political campaign year and a half.

Republicans abhor change in a forward direction; they want to return to that mythical yesteryear of Lone Rangers and two-bit actors like Reagan. The last thing they would want, if they comprehended its meaning is a "paradigm shift."

-juxtaposition
I was looking for Juxtaposition, in the Dan Akroyd / Eddie Murphy sense of the word. Trading Places. I guess there's a literary use as well as an abstract space definition.

The Mortimer brothers create a juxtaposition by hiring street beggar Eddie Murphy, (Rudolph Valentine) and giving him Wall Street Executive Dan Akroyd's, (Louis Winthorpe III), job. Their juxtaposition is mitigated by a simple wager, can rich well educated Winthorpe survive on the street, and can Valentine be their new syncophantic yes-man? The Mortimer brothers bet a dollar.

I assume a paradigm shift would be a little more all encompassing, and likely void of singular entities...like the gradual change in thought about the theory of relativity, neutrinos and dark matter.

-juxtaposition 
The word I was trying to remember, and thought was a synonym for paradigm shift, was juxtaposition. thank you for your input.

For some reason, this word rings a bell in my memory, maybe it was used out of context or something? But it,(in my memory) seems to have related to a contrasting of ideas, or a competing set of ideas that change in conjunction with one another, more than the actual definition of juxtapose.

As in, Mitt Romney's change of political stance has juxtaposed the political viewpoints of those loyal to him, and not his politics - which doesn't make sense at all, considering the actual definition of juxtapose.

- Mybe the word
for "uxtaposed"should have been "adopted".

"As in, Mitt Romney's change of political stance has (juxtaposed) adoptend the political viewpoints of those loyal to him, and not his [own sense of] politics"

- This is likely the definition I was looking for
Let's take a situation from any generic film. A very poor woman gives birth to twins and dies immediately after. The sons get separated at birth. While one son finds himself adopted into a wealthy factory owner's house, the other is a street child who turns into a petty thief. The film story traces their journey through life. At a crucial moment, the son who is a petty thief corners the other son in a dark alley and mugs him.

Thus a juxtaposition is drawn here which shows the contrast that both sons, born of the same mother and identical to look at, are yet so much different in their motives, lifestyles and characters. Thus the literary device of juxtaposition is used to draw a contrast between the two, but it is still connected somewhere and it is possible to place them side by side to draw a contrast.

From Buzzle.com

-polar shift