for 28 March 2000. Updated every WEEKDAY.
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The Jawbone of a Scare Quote in your article for today's edition of suck, you wrote: "Let's make a pledge right now. If you ever find you need quotation marks up against a word or phrase so you can tell a sarcastic insult from a straightforward one around here, let us know. We'll fix things right up. You want that shirt of vituperation, you won't have to "mess" with any typographical snakes to get it. And that's not any Mazola, friend: that's a promise." how about: "Kaufman, a lecturer in American Studies at a university in England, has written an entire book predicated on a stray remark of Kurt Vonnegut, that 'American humorists or satirists or whatever you wish to call them, those who choose to laugh rather than weep about demoralizing information, become intolerably unfunny pessimists if they live past a certain age.' Never mind that some of the subjects of the book, like stand-ups Lenny Bruce and Bill Hicks, didn't exactly make it to 'a certain age,' or thatothers, like Herman Melville and Sinclair Lewis, were always more pessimistic than humorous: An academic book that tells its readers that all irony, even its highest literary manifestations, is a priori doomed, is bound to please a lot of people who would rather social critics like Lenny Bruce and Sinclair Lewis never even went through the laughing-rather-than-weeping phase, much less the intolerably pessimistic one. 'Irony fatigue,' a phrase Kaufman coined looking for what American humorist/pessimist Fran Lebowitz described as 'undue fanfare,' is a concept whose time has come. Even as knowing a filmmaker as John Waters, never exactly Frank Capra, ends his latest film Pecker with a toast to the end of irony. We've come a long way from what Spy magazine in the '80s labeled "the irony epidemic." The Irony Backlash has set in. Everyone is tired of the trickled-down and facile irony that pretty much defines the media sensibility of recent years; now, a professor gives the people who never liked any kind of irony, facile or otherwise, the chance to declare it self-destructive and unproductive. Unfunniness and optimism, freed from their shackles, can reign in the land once more, and shine on us even at midnight. I feel warmer already." (see also joshua glenn's "fake authenticity: an introduction" for scare quotes run rampant.) despite the perceived inconsistency, however, i appreciate your analysis of the phenomenon as well as your writing in general, and look forward to reading more. (this will include, of course, a more thorough exploration of the hermenaut site as time permits.) Jim Kuemmerle <J.Kuemmerle@m.cc.utah.edu> While writing about scare quotes, I learned many things. Among them? The New York Times used to write better headlines. Weeks go by now with barely a mention of wolf girls or whisky-demanding bandits there. That's because the world has changed. And so have I. So please don't GET ON ME for the lapses of that pretentious BUM Hamrah. How do you feel about all caps instead? I appreciate your research. Thanks for outing me. The world may have changed, but it can only be for the better when we're unafraid to be who we really are. Slotcar Hatebath  Hey Slot, I enjoyed this one a lot. Today's essay put into words several vague ideas that had been swimming around the back of my half-semi-subconscious. I believe that in the greatest of current writing, both words and punctuation should have meaning. As televised culture threatens to make readers into little more than a literary cult, it is up to the "true" readers to put depth of meaning beyond the reach of "couch potato America". Just for fun, take an inventory sometime of all the words NPR disdains with their "so-called" quotes. Ironically, Rich <richard.banks@cpa.state.tx.us> That's because National Public Radio is where scare quotes meet air quotes. The little jingles that brackett everything on NPR are perhaps are form of quotation marks around all they do. Slotcar Use and Abuse -loved- today's article. *s* (insert healthy contempt for the 'average user' engendered by time spent in tech support) my retail site has just one hoop, and that's just in case of the unlikely event there are ever scantily-clad humans demonstrating the products *sigh* all six customers thus far haven't seemed to mind. take a look. maybe you'll be amused. Rafe Proprietor & Lead Deviant www.digitaldiscipline.com Amused? More like amazed. Who knew goth marital aids were so expensive? Hae you considered buying in bulk, then selling them as tech support devices? Pixel Vixen With the number of new computer users and web surfers that keep getting added to the fray every day (not to mention the entrepeneurs trying to make money off of these people) it ends up becoming the equivalent of urban sprawl--too many sites being built too quickly-with no attention paid to whether or not people can easily access the things they need. If you have to drive around three brand new mini-malls to get to the grocery store, you haven't progressed at all. Keep the suck sucking!!! Robert C. You know, you've just outlined the premise for Mike Davis' new book: City of Silicon: Excavating the Profit Line. Consider the similarities between the Web model you put forth and Los Angeles: - both are filled with people attracted to shiny objects - both require inordinate amounts of time simply to get anything done - LA has air smog; the Web has data smog - Studio business model: banking on ephemeral celebrity; Web business model: banking on ephemeral stock Pixel Vixen Of late, rewarding bogus competence ("My Child Is A Super Student At Nosebleed Elementary") has drowned real achievement. The unfortunate answer is that the programmer was right: the users are stupid. This will only get worse as the Web audience expands beyond the yokels sporting aol.com addresses and gets to those with full frontal lobotomies, the beneficiaries of sustained electroshock therapy, and Democrats. I can only hope none of these savants end up in technical support -- on either side of the phone. Rob McMillin <rlm@pricegrabber.com> I admire your joie de malice, but really — bogus competence has been very good to me. How else do you think I ended up writing this? Pixel Vixen Hurrah! Well written, and echoes truths bound to leave the inane buggered and the web marketers choking on their own latex inflatable ego. As a technology manager trying (I emphasize trying) to implement an e-commerce system for a major financial services company, very few understand that Functionality and Usability are the priority when trying to develop a tool to lead to success. I cannot possibly cite the number of instances |
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