This is my very first entry, from my some-time-ago blog, PENCHANT, now closed.
If you find much meaning here, I'd like to know what it is.
Enter, view.
September 29th, 2008
Imaginary Character This interview is now in session.
Troy Howell Sounds like school to me.
IC Speaking of school, where did you go?
TH That should be: To where did you go. Captain Raymond Collins Elementary, Long Beach, California.
IC That’s it?
TH Isn’t that enough? My grammar proves it, I think.
IC I mean, any degrees … writing programs …
TH Oh, that. Sure. Plus the school of soft knocks.
IC Please expound.
TH To the degree that one suffers in life, giving, and the pursuit of happenings. Not to mention.
IC Not to mention?
TH Exactly.
IC Mr Howell, you made an interesting point earlier, something about grammar.
TH Yes. There’s the good and there's the bad.
IC No in-between?
TH And the in-between.
IC I mean, surely, you’re not one of those everything’s-black-or-white kind of guys?
TH Only when I’m drawing with graphite, charcoal, or pen and ink. Or writing with my trusty white Bic round stic fine USA, a pen that is increasingly hard to find these days, if you can find one, which is hard.
IC You’re being redundant.
TH Well, Mr Ick, I think we all can be redundant at times, now and then.
IC You’re still being … what did you call me?
TH Ick. Mr Ick.
IC I’m glad you included the Mister. Otherwise—
TH Otherwise this interview would come to a close?
IC Exactly. Moving on, earlier you mentioned the school of—
TH Soft knocks.
IC Is that anything like soft rock? Or Fort Knox?
TH Only to the degree that music—in the vehicle next door, say—can be deafening, or annoying, like a buzzing fly—
IC Don’t all flies buzz?
TH Not after they’re dead. But you interrupted. Or to the degree that the price of gold plummets.
IC Could you give our blog audience an example?
TH Gladly. Take this blogjam, for instance. I’m trying to download the theme of my tamest dreams, because I’m not into rounded corners, except on city streets, in case you cut it too close, or on pizzas, and the window vanishes on the computer screen. Every time. So I download a new browser, which is kind of like Bowser, the dog I always wanted. Ta-da! I can now download the theme of my tamest dreams (after my password is invalid, every time, and I’m prompted to create a new one, which I do, but which still is invalid, every time, and after I creep through the digital back door while some invisible programmer’s ancestor—I won’t say who—isn’t looking, and ta-da! I can download the theme. Then, Lo and behold—which is a biblical term the literary equivalent of, “Yo, check it” —now I get to upload the theme, but that name, the name of the theme of my tamest dreams, is already taken, which is kind of like “Reserved for Employee of the Month”, so I rename it with a past-tense form, and somebody—I won’t say who, because I don’t know—doesn’t like the name, and wants me to rename the rename, so— Where was I?
IC Lost?
TH Oh, yes. Ah-ha. A solution peers over the penumbral horizon like moonrise. I’ll just change the color of the header banner to white! Now everything’s white!
IC So you are, indeed, one of those—
TH Now I have a less-than-desired look, constructed of chagrin and technological vexation. But it will do. For now.
IC The ta-da moment.
TH Anyway, the point is, you have to work with stuff like that, to soften the knocks. I’m speaking metaphorically, of course. The terrain of life.
IC I see. What school did you go to?
TH That’s: To what school did you go.
IC Moving on, before we close this interview—
TH I’ve bored you, I see.
IC I’m glad you called me IC. Instead of that other word. Before we close this interview, you spoke of speaking metaphorically—
TH Yes. Take this interview, for example. You enter, you look around, you “view” the wordscape—
IC I don’t follow.
TH Wordscape. Like landscape, only it’s not made of terra firma, flora and fauna. But there are images nonetheless, some of which appear in the words before you, others on the pages within you, by the camera obscura of the intellect.
IC You’re outgribing, or something.
TH You’re imaginary, or something.
IC Could I be Humpty Dumpty?
TH OK.
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| illustration by Sir John Tenniel |
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Alice And what does outgrabe mean?
HD Well, outgribing is something between bellowing and whistling,
with a kind of sneeze in the middle.
(Regards to Lewis Carroll.)
