Sentence

 

The sentence goes along nicely until, nearing the end, the sentence explodes. This sentence, for example, is just about to disintegrate. Conversations between sentences display the same proclivity to blow up upon conclusion. All good things come to an end, the sentence states, demonstrably. Sentences like walls that fall with the city they surround. While some say this is nihilism run rampant, others argue that all sentences have an in-built timer that goes off right near the full-stop. Or, as Americans say, right near the end, period. Sentences snap, crackle and pop like a long-running serial. Sentences break the speed limit to arrive first at the delete key. Artificial Inelegance generates thousands of new sentences in oh point one seconds none of which will survive disappearing without trace upon completion and without warning in less than oh point one seconds. Potential readers are none the wiser as Artificial Interference forthcomes new locutions for unknown so-decreed interfacers that unforthwent in a puff of smoke. A sentence attempts to contain a ‘puff of smoke’ within its limits, transitorily. The sentences have not been uttered that endure no longer than their duration before meeting unutterable ignominy. This cannot be said often enough, the sentences passing the vanishing point. Sentences fog up only to evaporate in midmorning sun. Well that’s one thing, but this sentence is a paper boat about to capsize into its own end point. And here is a sentence that through no fault of its own is about to go in the deep end. Generations of words are sentenced without trial to dissolution. Then there are sentences that no sooner generated perform the ultimate disappearing act: they remain permanently unread. The human race of poets, writing as if they have everything to lose, lose everything. Their sentences of exorbitant length and prolixity come abruptly to an end, dissolving before their eyes at the moment of closure. Artificial Indifference announces the dearth of the author, ending in a bang, a whimper, an unplug, no apology, no explanation. Sentences repeated ad infinitum item by item, their reverberations in the air conclude without echo. Words that stick in the throat resemble words that never reached the page. A sentence has a visual way of describing a river flowing into the sea. Snow melted from sight, like unread sentences. Dying words, by definition, end in ellipsis. Anyway, people with heartbreak want the heartbreak to end, like a sentence of calm authority. Likewise, there’s the need for a sentence that says it all, regardless of all this talk about exploding sentences. Verily there are sentences that get straight to the point, sentences witha definite end in view. There is an internal necessity to make definitive sentences, even as they cascade over the edge of the world.

Nerd

 

Nerd is a word, absurd, daily heard and regularly inferred, but what does it mean? I know what it means, or thought I knew, but hesitation persists around its use in mixed company. Hesitate, because I can never be sure of its negative or positive import. Urban Dictionary online has 275 pages for Nerd. And counting. Browsing this encyclopaedic entry reassures me that I am not alone in feeling the word means what it means to individual users. It is what it is. But what is it? Information Technology, I suggest from my own experience, must be the origin of Nerd. Computer nerds are a stereotype. I have yet to meet one who wears thick glasses, has sallow skin from living 24/7 in a box room, or whose every third word is gigabyte. Variously also known since time began as boffins, wonks, or geeks, they were usually dedicated and efficient; some of them, like Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, have been among the richest people in the world. My interest in them was not gigabytes but the way they changed how we read. This is because I’m a word nerd. Bill Gates is rich because he applied his highly specialised interest and knowledge (read: nerdish) in IT. I am not as rich because I’m always attending to my passionate interest and knowledge (read: nerdish) in words. Googling ‘nerd’ I find within seconds that our world is inhabited by algebra nerds, bird nerds, camellia nerds, Dungeons-and-Dragons nerds, emoji nerds, fruit nerds, grammar nerds, hair nerds, intellectual-badass nerds, jazz nerds, keyboard nerds, Lord-of-the-Rings nerds, music nerds, nutrition nerds, object nerds, physics nerds, queen nerds, also Queen nerds, romance nerds, skate nerds, theatre nerds, university nerds, vacuum nerds, whisky nerds, X-File nerds, YouTube nerds, zoo nerds. I should worry. Virtually any enthusiasm under the sun can be nerdish, on this evidence. In context Nerd can be total affirmation, a badge of honour, admission to being one of the gang. It has a humorous chiding quality, warns or warms the listener of more to come. Yet still Nerd can sound to someone else like discrimination, a joke on the wearer, a label. Further discussion over dinner at home clarifies things, not. Is it praise or accusation? Nerds are academic, I am told. Nerds have special interests. But then, Nerds are socially awkward. No, a music nerd is not nerdy because of music, but due to their levels of sheer passion and knowledge: then they’re nerdy. After dinner Venn diagrams are designed. Overlaps abound! Maths and computers can still be Nerdsville, I am told. (What a relief!) Sometimes physics or chemistry. Then talk gets personal. Apparently I’m a graffiti nerd, given my current in-depth abstract art responses to the written urban environment (illustration attached). Armed with Venn diagrams and multiple definitions I could add to Urban Dictionary, I can now venture forth into a nerdy world. But I’m still no clearer as to when Nerd is a compliment, a characterisation, a jibe, or what? But apparently it doesn’t matter, nerdiness, so I’m told. So chill!  

To-do

 

Hours of constructive time can be spent browsing our files of to-do lists, crossing out to-does done, contemplating if the to-do not done made any difference, dwelling for some time on the meanings of certain to-does and what were we thinking at the time. The world outside the window accumulates with demands. The front door is a list of wishes, going out and coming in, opening and closing. Much ado about something! The rate at which one to-do list is superseded by a second and third to-do list is regular as sunrise and sunset. A fresh page provides a sense of newness, purpose even. We dash off the latest concerns in a serial hurry. No problems! The claims on our attention proliferate. The universe must be investigated. Loose threads have secret strings attached. Shopping awaits and errands that otherwise elude the mind. What a to-do! And thus former to-do lists drop off at dusk or to-does from former lists go onto new lists and so on till the third cockcrow. We are aided by to-do apps. Though paper has no built-in obsolescence. Apps that ping the to-do hour, sing when sung to, ring in for new information. Of the compilation of mounting to-do lists there is no end, requiring lists that keep a check on all the lists. They come to describe our days, as if time is made to complete the items on the lists. It becomes exhausting, or mindless. To the extent that we would divest ourselves of all to-do lists. We lose them in a glovebox. They nestle out of sight in pockets. They disappear behind a fridge magnet. Half crossed-out, they linger in the in-tray. Instead, we may contemplate the nothing that needs to be done. Hours of constructive time may be spent avoiding the construction of any to-do lists, with their onerous expectations, their prompts to conscientiousness, their pseudo-imperatives. The fresh page may stay the blank page, neither an ode to labour nor a manifesto of procrastination. Napping apps may stay secreted. Or we imagine others’ to-do lists. Tinkers, tailors, soldiers, dictators. Doctors, lawyers, clergy, punks. As if our own to-does were not enough for a lifetime, or just the next 24 hours.  We hanker temporarily after the innocence of a child, free of any concern with lists, as though memory is made of what comes next. We could add that detachment to our upcoming list of things to do. When we are not busy unlearning the habit of preparing such aides-memoires, left about the place like snapshots of yesterdays, the haiku of our voluntary actions. Only then, something in us would overcome forgetfulness. We must not be caught out, caught short, fraught with nought. We sort it, find a pencil and scratch out our next list, staring at the day with practical familiarity. Much to-do about something.