Advice for the shopworn

When composing dadaist works, or nonsense verse, or, really, anything designed not to be tractable by hermeutic villainy, one has to be on one's guard against the accidental production of meaning, for, as we know, the slightest slip in one's vigilance can result in the inadvertent writing of semantically rich sentences.  Even if one thinks one is producing text with utter randomness, occasionally a second reading reveals that, in fact, something was indeed said—sometimes even with a plainness that would be admirable in other contexts.  And of course one never knows what one's readers will make of a passage wholly impenetrable to its author, what significant words or phrases might have been yoked together by chance.

Therefore, after completing a draft, it's often advisable to go back over it, and stanch any flowing prose, leaky references, or inadvertant significance with a cryptic pencil.

(For writing polemics not too polemical, defamatory verse just on this side of libel, jeremaids that won't rouse the rabble too vigorously, or sarcasm not too bitter, on the other hand, one might want to exchange one's poison pen for a caustic pencil.)

Comments

[dave zacuto]

jeremaids that won't rouse the rabble too vigorously,

I don't know why one would employ a jeremaid anyway. They mouth off for what seems like an eternity over a trifle, and they have those irksome revolutionary tendencies as well. If you can't trust the help, you might as well be a tradesman.

[ben wolfson]

I now “get” the above comment.