As weird as it sounds to non-writing people, I have been thinking about punctuation a great deal lately. The source of my pondering flows from a four-page essay by Pico Iyer titled “In Praise of the Humble Comma.”
Iyer writes that punctuation “scores the music in our mind, gets our thoughts moving to the rhythm of our hearts.”
As I was teaching my young tutee, Taegong Ha, about punctuation, we read this essay together. Because he plays the flute, I watched him mull over the comparison of punctuation marks to musical notation and visualize in his mind the ideas that Iyer expresses in this essay.
“Punctuation is the notation in the sheet music of our words, telling us where to rest, or when to raise our voice; it acknowledges that the meaning of our discourse, as of any symphonic composition, lies not in the units but in the pauses, the pacing and the phrasing. Punctuation is the way one bats one’s eyes, lowers one’s voice or blushes demurely. Punctuation adjusts the tone and color and volume till the feeling comes into perfect focus, not disgust exactly, but distaste; not lust, or like, but love.”
Punctuation is a bit like the adjustments I make on my camera when I want to shoot in low light, sunlight, or shadows. I adjust the setting to create a mood of passion, suspense, dark humor or gay abandon.
As the years pass, subtle exclamations and faint brush strokes of expression call my name and dazzle my imagination. The swish of the humble comma on the page, the measured breath of the flutist on an exhale, or the shutter speed and f stop I select to create the mood of an image are among my circle of intimate companions.
”Thus all these tiny scratches give us breadth and heft and depth.”
Thanks Pico Iyer.
Sunday, July 02, 2006
Saturday, June 24, 2006
the refrain of Mexican love songs
I have at last found an on-line shelter and repository for the literary passages I treasure. When I find a group of words that creates an entirely new thought in my mind or floods bold hues from the color wheel of knowledge into my living room, I am excited. I work to make this happen at least once a day, preferring multiple times.
June 24, 2006
Mexico is poor. But my mama says there are no love songs like the love songs of Mexico. She hums a song she can remember.
Men sing in Mexico. Men are strong and silent. But in song the Mexican male is granted license he is otherwise denied. The male can admit longing, pain, desire.
HAIII-EEEE- a cry like a comet rises over the song. A cry like mock-weeping tickles the refrain of Mexican love songs.
Richard Rodriguez, “Proofs”
June 24, 2006
Mexico is poor. But my mama says there are no love songs like the love songs of Mexico. She hums a song she can remember.
Men sing in Mexico. Men are strong and silent. But in song the Mexican male is granted license he is otherwise denied. The male can admit longing, pain, desire.
HAIII-EEEE- a cry like a comet rises over the song. A cry like mock-weeping tickles the refrain of Mexican love songs.
Richard Rodriguez, “Proofs”
Friday, June 23, 2006
Discovering Self
It is strange to join the world of blogging fools- publicly displaying my thoughts to other Web users- because I have always considered myself a private person, careful with my cascading trains of thought and sparkling epiphanies.
Yet, here I am flashing my private bits to the masses, feeling nervous and downright revealed.
Writing has always caused me to ask myself the question: Why is my writing important or interesting to others: if, in fact, it is. So many writers through the centuries express in words what it means to be human- their intellects trapped within rough, oily, thick or sensitive skins- squealing to assert mind over matter. Themes emerge of human suffering or fleeting joy, recycled again and again in the orbit of eventual mortality.
What strikes me as promising though is that no individual human being can ever truly have the same experience as another human being. The individual and solitary perspective on existence and its connection to the human condition is what a writer brings to her pages.
As a writer, I see it as my job to capture the smallest details that personal observation will allow and serve those remnants of being alive to my readers on a silver platter.
Appetizers for the mind and annotations on life if you will.
I must always remember that the main course of a savory piece of work only satisfies a reader’s palate if her mind has something to chew on after she swallows the last word. And, I want the reader to return to my vegetarian kitchen of intellectual delights.
Yet, here I am flashing my private bits to the masses, feeling nervous and downright revealed.
Writing has always caused me to ask myself the question: Why is my writing important or interesting to others: if, in fact, it is. So many writers through the centuries express in words what it means to be human- their intellects trapped within rough, oily, thick or sensitive skins- squealing to assert mind over matter. Themes emerge of human suffering or fleeting joy, recycled again and again in the orbit of eventual mortality.
What strikes me as promising though is that no individual human being can ever truly have the same experience as another human being. The individual and solitary perspective on existence and its connection to the human condition is what a writer brings to her pages.
As a writer, I see it as my job to capture the smallest details that personal observation will allow and serve those remnants of being alive to my readers on a silver platter.
Appetizers for the mind and annotations on life if you will.
I must always remember that the main course of a savory piece of work only satisfies a reader’s palate if her mind has something to chew on after she swallows the last word. And, I want the reader to return to my vegetarian kitchen of intellectual delights.
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