Catching Up

...is what I'm doing right now, as you may have guessed from the appearance of C-WE #6 and 7 out of sequence. I'm now uploading my backlog of C-WE's and WE's in approximate chronological order (using my best guess for some exercises I didn't date--viz. C-WE #2). One last note: for arcane and inexplicable reasons, there was only one C-WE between the first two and the next (officially #6); I have decided to label that one C-WE #3/4/5 and have it do triple duty. It's certainly long enough for three...

C-WE #2: Take Us To Your Leaders

Written shortly after C-WE #1

From Take Ten #16-4, "Construction Phrase": Select one word from each of six columns in order to construct a six-word phrase with which to start your story. [The seed phrase used, as well as the selected famous landmark and superhero, are in bold.]

The aliens adamantly demanded cookies with milk after they had been taken to the obligatory leader (in this case the President himself), but this was Cold War II; the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (plus China) or USSR+C had risen again (on the foundation of the dead bodies of its resisting citizens), was in a state of perpetual distrust and complete lack of negotiation (other than via nuclear warhead), and as it happened, possessed the only glass of milk and plate of cookies left on Planet Earth. Every other set had been requisited for war preparations, and with rationing in effect, no company dared produce them. The only milk&cookies remaining were under quintuple guard in a dour little cube in (and extending under) the Red Square. So how were the aliens going to get their milk&cookies? This was a matter of great importance, as the aliens threatened to destroy the continent they'd crash landed on if their demands weren't met--and who would protect the world from the hideous threat of communism then? Luckily, the the First Lady had a secret identity. Not even her husband knew she was really Wonder Woman, but now she was forced to tell him, and formally requested that she be allowed to search for milk&cookies. The President, knowing full well the location of the only milk&cookies on the planet, and the dangers inherent in their acquisition, tried to dissuade her, but she would not be moved. It was her duty to the United North American States (UNAS), she said, to keep it from being vaporized by alien particle cannons. And so Wonder Woman (aka the First Lady), departed on her epic quest, the details of which are so incredible, intense, and action-packed (not to mention ultra-secret classified) that they cannot be recounted here--not even whether or not she succeeded.

C-WE #1: A Dream

Written February 2, 2012

From Take Ten #2-8, "Out Cold": When the ball hit you in the head, you were knocked out cold for ten minutes. During that time, you had what you can best describe as the weirdest dream of your life. [The seed phrases are italicized here.]

I was in the Yellow Submarine, and the Beatles were serenading me with a calculus exam. (I don't know how but it all made sense while I was dreaming.) There was a potted venus flytrap looking rather out of place on the ivory grand piano (which took up most of the space apart from the drumset). The music was off-key and completely out of whack (what does a math test sound like after all), and I got lost trying to solve the problems. Then the submarine went out of town on route I-90, and although I was inside the submarine with the Beatles and the piano and the musical exam, and there were no windows, I could see all the purple cars passing us on the left-hand side, more like ghostly violet smears. The sun was shining brightly until it got mysteriously dim, and pretty soon it was dark and the Beatles were singing weird and unearthly tunes that grated on my ear. Then their songs turned into shouting, and then I woke up to see everyone yelling at me to "WAKE UP, ALREADY! We want to get back to playing!"

After writing this, I added this irrelevant postscript for reasons I now cannot fathom...for completeness I include it here:

I'm done, because the parts of my dream that took half a minute to write actually took several to experience, and so I wrote 10 min of dream in less time than that.
And it's too late to add anything because I already ended the dream, and I can't go back and edit!

What was I THINKING?! (Probably nothing.)

Explanations and Conventions

So C-WE #7 ended up appearing even later than I'd thought. This was partly because I didn't (or couldn't) take enough time to finish it up, but more pertinently because (despite what I said in my last non-WE post) I edited the crap out of it. I know; I'm sorry. But I can't leave it at that, oh no. I can't let it go without explaining my choice and conventions in excruciating detail. Please bear with me (again) as I indulge myself.

C-WE #7 was intended as a classwork writing exercise like C-WE #6, but as I wrote, it became clear to me that I wanted to make this a definitive list, not a sketch, and that this would require a bit of research and, of course, editing. So I left the written version unedited, but for the blog "edition" added, reorganized, and corrected extensively. I think it was worth it, but at the same time I don't want to make that the standard for the supposedly informal, unedited WE's.

So I adopted a convention for my use: any editing after the first version of any WE that should(?) have remained unedited will be underlined. In this way you can see that I left only about half my original material untouched for C-WE #7--an unacceptable ratio for the usual WE. If there is no underline in a WE post, the only changes I will ever make to it are correcting typos introduced between the original and the web copy, adding informational headings and notes (easily distinguishable from the WE proper) and (my favorite) changing the formatting and style. In addition, I solemnly promise to keep underlined sections to a minimum and authentic, unedited text to a maximum.

There, I'm done. I got it over with. I hope you're happy now, because I certainly am.

C-WE #7. Favorite Rhetorical Techniques

Written February 12, 2012

From my own head, uploaded way late and overedited:
A list of my favorite 7 (or so) rhetorical techniques

1. Paraprosdokian: setting up an "obvious," often clichéd, phrase or situation, then adding an unexpected surprise twist. E.g. Groucho Marx's "I once shot an elephant in my pajamas. How he got in my pajamas I'll never know."
2. Irony: My provisional version of the (often misunderstood) definition of irony is an unexpected reversal between expectation and reality. The Wikipedia article I referenced to check says that in an ironic situation "actions taken have an effect exactly opposite from what was intended." E.g. (again stealing shamelessly from Wikipedia) "being shot by one's own gun."
• That was situational irony, irony in events; irony can also be used for rhetorical effect. In that context, irony involves consistently and intentionally asserting the opposite of one's true beliefs.
• Related are sarcasm (irony's ignoble cousin) as well as satire:  commentary on the human condition, usually filled to bursting with deadpan ironic delivery; exemplified by Swift's Modest Proposal.
3. Litotes: intentional understatement. Works well with irony; very enjoyable to use; shades into euphemism if employed only to deceive or spin.
4. Parallel structure: many subspecies; among them chiasmus (a-b-b-a format); anadiplosis (starting a phrase with the word(s) used to end the previous one; anaphora (starting several phrases with the same word/phrase); and epistrophe (ending several phrases with the same word/phrase). Repetition, especially when it involves twisting the sentence structure just enough but not too much, is an excellent attention grabber.
5. Hypallage: another one of the techniques (with apostrophe and paraprosdokian) I presented on in AP Lang & Comp; really cool, when you know it's there. It's the transfer of adjectives from the usual subject to a more unlikely (or convenient) one; examples include "drunk driving" (the driving isn't drunk, the driver is, but "a drunk driver driving" is cumbersome) and "the winged sound of whirling" (from Classical Greek; replaces "the sound of whirling wings"!).
6. Asyndeton: a very popular device; leaving out the "and" in a list. This creates an unusual but powerful effect by removing the emphasis on the last element. Rather than saying "something weird, wild, and wonderful," put all qualities on equal footing by saying "something weird, wild, wonderful." Ah! What a difference.
7. Polysyndeton: Asyndeton's evil twin brother. Rather than taking the "and" out of the list, add "and" between every element. Produces a sensation of relentless and unceasing flow: "He ran and jumped and shouted and laughed and cried and ate and slept."

III. Favorite 6-Word Memoirs

Smith Magazine 6-Word Memoirs I particularly enjoyed (with reasons why!):

1. Told I "overanalyze". Let me reflect. I like jokes like this one (set-up plus immediate comeback); emotion evoked was "Oh yeah, me too!" -- see previous posts for (perhaps unnecessary) confirmation.
2. Never really finished anything, except cake. I love cake! And again I identify with the first part of the statement.
3. Constantly wondering what I did wrong. Me again. although here I can't tell whether the author shares my self-doubt or was just chronically in trouble. If the latter, I (somewhat, though not entirely) sympathize.
4. I wrote it all down somewhere. That he did--right there on smithmag.net. Or, of course, he wrote down the answers to life, the universe, and everything somewhere, then forgot where he put them. Either snarky or profound, and I can't tell which. Result: more identification with the author.
5. Grow up? Had to. Mama died. The only serious one in my selected set. (I don't know what it is about these 6-word memoirs, but it seems to be a lot easier to make them facetious than serious.) This one evokes instant pity and/or sympathy (hard to distinguish) and manages to encapsulate a whole (adolescent) life story, with triumph and tragedy, loss and recovery, in three short sentences. This one, I think, epitomizes the "serious" six-word novel, up there with Hemingway's original.
6. Wait, what is going on here? Story of my life. Story of everyone's life, really. What is actually going on in this crazy, messed-up universe? Stop to seriously think about that, and you have little choice but to be just as confused as this writer. Nobody really has a clue, so you might as well go ahead and admit it. That's what I see in this sarcastically philosophical little gem.