Old Posts, New Comments

“Human nature is eternal. Therefore, one who follows his nature keeps his original nature in the end.”

“The Lady from Shangai”, directed by Orson Welles


While chasing down an old link to include in a recent post, I stumbled across a relatively new message in the comments section. Such comments come as a welcome surprise, it being gratifying to find new readers still discovering this blog and exploring the archives* -- and when such a comment is positive, so much the better. Still, it seems slightly odd that new readers would bother to comment on a six month old post. Perhaps this is the digital equivalent of the old “Kilroy was here” scrawled on walls in those innocent times before spray cans and graffiti “artists” emerged from the cultural compost pile to deface buildings and public spaces in every American city**

This particular comment was a mixed bag: positive, but carrying a familiar message of constructive criticism. Still, I’d never heard it put quite this way, with both message and medium melded into one.

“enjoyed your prose,
like it more if it was
short like a haiku.”

That’s right, a haiku, compact and concise by nature, declaring that the post was worth reading, but too long.

Ah yes, that again – tell me something I don’t already know. Yes, I write long. Too long, most of the time, and occasionally (as anybody who tried to wade through several recent posts can attest) waaaaay too long. I can explain – oh could I explain... churning out paragraph after endless fracking paragraph that would put you all deep into REM sleep - but a certain longwindedness at the keyboard seems to be in my nature. Why use ten words when thirty more are sitting there on the bench just itching to get into the game? "Kill your babies" might the first rule of the Writer's Ten Commandments, but I find it hard to be so ruthless. As the estimable Tim Goodman replied after reviewing my one and only paid submission to his newspaper: “You’re one wordy MF, my friend. Just like me."

I took this as high praise at the time, but perhaps that was a mistake.

Pithy, I am not. You'll just have to trust me that I don't actually set out to write such rambling, unwieldy tomes in these posts -- quite the opposite -- but all too often a post gets away from me, leaps the fence, and is gone with the digital wind.

One who follows his nature, keeps his original nature in the end...

Maybe it’s time to give it another try. Like the punch-drunk boxer climbing back off the mat to take another beating -- or the hopelessly addicted smoker trying to quit those infernal cancer-sticks one last time -- I’ll make an honest attempt to tighten up future offerings in this space, and thus follow Strunk and White's timeless advice: “Omit needless words.”

I’d be tempted to try “tweeting” for the iron discipline enforced by that 140 character limit, but being past a certain age, can’t help regarding “Twitter” with the sneering contempt that comes from being old and utterly out of it. I’ll stick to a real keyboard, thankyouverymuch, and leave such bright and shiny digital baubles to a younger generation that seems born to the modern art of thumb-talking.

Write shorter? I’ll try, gentle readers, I’ll try. That’s all I can promise.


* Although it was the unknown person who left those eighteen “comments” after one old post -- which were actually links to some commercial porn site – who drove me to activate the comments verification feature of this blog...

** Clarification: I appreciate the clever, visually complex murals created by the best of these artists, whether their work is legally sanctioned or not, but have no patience for the low-life cretins who simply spray their name and/or gang affiliation on every unguarded wall, window, and street sign. This isn’t a valid form of self-expression IMHO, but behavior akin to that of of dogs marking their local fire hydrants. Dogs have a good excuse -- they're animals running on instinct -- but I expect better from humans. In that, however, I am often disappointed.