Words Count
January 12th, 2010 § 1 Comment
We now have about three and half minutes to share, if you stay with me and read this little 500 word expose to completion. Three and half little minutes – not long hey?
Today I have set myself the task of writing to a word count, for I am apt to generally wander over any set limits, and approach a word limit in much the same way as a builder approaches a quote– i.e. always factor in another 20-30%!
Whilst it will take well over 30 minutes to write this draft, you will read it in less than a tenth of that time.
Three and a half minutes seems to be all anyone can spare to read anything these days. I know in my life, three and a half minutes is about as long as I get alone before a child is at my knee ordering more juice, or to be read a book.
I love words. I love reading. I love writing. I always have. I always will. I love the smell of a new book, and don’t see myself ever being attached to a Kindle. But the truth is, with the encroachment of Twitter, Facebook, even texting into our lives, it seems that most people just want to read the shortest possible way home.
In the process, I fear our language is being macerated and that we are losing the very essence of a life filled with beautiful words. Instead we try to say it all in less than 140 characters. Get to the point and get on with it.
What if my favorite poet Pablo Neruda had adhered to the less is more word economy of today?? The opening line of Ode to a Beautiful Nude, “With a chaste heart, with pure eyes I celebrate your beauty…” would become “UR a QT”
A friend last week shared enthusiastically how much she liked reading my writing. But, she said, she found herself scanning quickly through rather than reading them properly and we discussed how trained we are now to expect bullet points and our information mainlined.
The Web has certainly been a catalyst for succinctness, but it would be narrow minded to suggest that all writing for the Web be stripped to its essence for the sake of brevity. In this context the Web is simply a vehicle for publishing articles, one of many publishing destinations.
I cannot compromise pleasurable writing for word economy. Victor Nell author of Lost in a Book, talks about ludic reading (reading for pleasure) and how the Web environment works against such writing. “Read a nice sentence, get dinged by IM, never return,” he says, and there is truth in that.
Lets not get too caught up in brevity at the expense of beauty. Lets slow down as we read and savor the selection of words. Lets slow down and savor life.
Writing is a wonderful and creative process.
Reading wonderful writing is a simple pleasure worth lingering over.
Time’s up.
A night out with Lloyd Cole
November 6th, 2009 § 2 Comments
It is fair to say that if you weren’t fortunate enough to make the connection to Lloyd Coles music in the mid to late 80’s, – anyone remember “Perfect skin” or “Rattlesnakes?” – you may have missed out entirely on his career, which now spans some 3 decades and 15 album releases (and a few more in compilations and slash other).
As a singer song writer, the last 10 years of his career in particular, have been hallmarked by a return to a simplified acoustic approach, as he has taken greater artistic and commercial control over his music. In fact he seems to have skilfully avoided anything other than critical success, his desire to be authentic to his craft, and his long standing fan base, a kind of mantra.
Melbourne greeted him again last night for the fourth time this decade, in a sold out acoustic show in the intimate surrounds of a mid suburban theatre. For well over 2 hours he filled the room with the sweet melancholia of the verses he has penned, ever faithful to each era which has defined his musical journey.
Usually I struggle to find others in my life that know much about Lloyd Cole, so there is something very poignant about sitting in a room with a few hundred other fans who must be as die hard as I, or they wouldn’t know to even be there. There we all were, regarding each other respectfully, as we silently mouth along with the lyrics we know so well – (it’s a little hard to break out at an acoustic gig I’ve discovered!).
His performance is heartfelt, many songs offered with a sense that he is perennially in love with them, but I suspect many of us enjoy the wry and often self deprecating humour the peeps through mid set just as much. As he stumbles on a lyric of a song he has sung, I imagine, thousands of times before, he breaks and says “if you ever saw a concert of me that was flawless, you’d be watching a tribute act.”
Now in his mid 40’s that angst and melancholic disposition that provided the literary fodder in earlier years, has been refined to something that is more reflective and somewhat amused at the plight of middle age. He is open and real, offering personal asides like “As you can see, I am in peak physical condition, about 5-6 kg heavier than I should be, which affords me sufficient self loathing to sing these songs, and padding on which to rest this guitar.”
So I don’t feel so embarrassed that during this week I found myself, like the 15 year old I was, tearing out adverts from the newspaper for Lloyds show. Or that I still have, tucked inside an old album cover, an interview he did with Dolly magazine, way back in the mid 80’s, along side the autograph and photo I had taken with him in 2000, or the VHS tape with two of his film clips I taped from Sounds Unlimited, (a Saturday morning music clip program that defined my teenage years), despite not having a VHS player for at least 15 years.
Upstairs with Lloyd Cole, The Continental, Prahran, 2000
I am a lover of many genres of music but there is no other artist that has endured my admiration for what is now around 25 years. I guess many others would cite Dylan or Cohen as worthy, and at the risk of sounding like an 80’s hangover, many years later I do still enjoy the music of bands like The Cure or New Order. But this music still carries for me the feeling of my youth, whereas Lloyds music has changed and matured with me, and provides a kind of anthem which marks a passage of time on my yellow brick road.
For us fans, I imagine that is why we are ever faithful, that an insightful writer like Lloyd creates for us, a feeling of connection and being understood, in neat little three minute packages that form our own personal ‘life’ soundtracks.
And my shameless ‘Lloyd love’ seeded in me a healthy interest in ‘anguished blokes with guitars.’ Now I am a grown up, I have my own guitar bearing man, my talented partner Tex, who refuses to ever play me anything from Lloyds catalogue – and that’s probably a good thing!
