MISCmedia for 4/2/01
Letter Imperfect

PEOPLE ARE WRITING MORE THESE DAYS.

Some written-word defenders apparently don't like it.

Yeah, some of the same types of hibrow guys n' gals who, just a few years ago, were all a-moanin' about the supposed Death Of The Word are now all a-moanin' about the exploding volume of words being issued by persons less astute than themselves.

In a recent NY Times piece, they kvetched to high heaven about e-mails and chat rooms and newsgroups and other online verbosity collectors wherein ordinary folk who don't even have graduate degrees can show off their noun-'n'-verb-wranglin' skills (or lack thereof) for all to see, in almost-real time.

The careful discipline of written English will collapse if this is allowed to continue, cry these SNOOTs (to borrow David Foster Wallace's term of self-description in the April Harper's).

I say bunk. Double bunk and triple bunk, even.

Fortunately, my longtime pal Rob Wittig was around to add a voice-O-sanity to the NYT piece. He (correctly, I believe) noted that online writing is an exciting, albeit no longer really new, medium, whose rules and conventions are still in great flux. We're not seeing the end of Real Writing, or even the beginning of the end, but the slow beginning of our ever-evolving language's next phase.

To Wittig's statements, I'd add that practice doesn't necessarily make perfect (certainly there are dozens of awful fiction and poetry writers who've never goten significantly better and probably never will). But there's no way to become a decent writer without it--especially if it's in a medium that can give you near-instant feedback and criticism.

So yes! More chat rooms! More mail lists! More weblogs! More message boards! More personal websites!

Keyboard-and-mouse jockeys of the world, arise! You have nothing to lose but your would-be silencers!

NEXT: Et tu, KCMU?

ELSEWHERE:

• That Snow Falling on You-Know-What guy notes "the recent rapid ascent of Seattle as an object of some envy and derision...."
• Now it can be told: Life, geekiness, and sex-sex-sex in the now-dismantled gaming empire that was Wizards of the Coast....

RECENT HIGHLIGHTS:

• Remember rain?
• In defense of DIY publishing.
• A special offer on slightly-hurt Losers.
• Parts one and two of Boeing becoming just another global corporation.
• Could you be turning into a hippie without even knowing it?
• Is it time to privatize welfare customer-service?
• Tell me a story.
• A TV critic faces cancer.
• Music to accompany the mattress mambo.
• Goodbyes to film critic John Hartl, the outre-music zine The Tentacle, and some cool stores.
• A last lingering look inside the OK Hotel.
• Seattle as a city that works (and works and works).
• The terrible beauty of the freeways.
• The end of our little makeover parable.
• PBS discovers marketing to kids.
• Courtney Love reinvents herself as an anti-major-label crusader.
• Handicapping the Seattle mayoral race.
• The local Mardi Gras ought to be just as dumb and naked, just less fight-prone.
• Fun, sort of, with earthquakes.
• Hardcore porn producers tone down their works for a new mainstream market.
• Comparing a couple of WTO protest videos.

ARCHIVES:

• 2001, 2000, 1999, 1998, 1997, 1996, 1995, and 1986-94 columns
• Reviews of literature & art, nonfiction & culture criticism, movies & videos, and music & noise
• Longer articles and essays
• Some slightly weird little fiction pieces
• X-Word crossword puzzles, now with on-screen solving
• Cyber Stuff, links to cool and/or useful sites
• A listing of many Things I Like (and a few things I hate)
• The origin and future of MISCmedia