Looking Back at Jack

So, because it is the 50th anniversary of On the Road, one of the greatest books I've (shamefully) never read, there's been a lot on the blogs about Jack Kerouac. The most interesting fact to me right now is relearning that he died in St. Petersburg, FL. That's just around the corner! Well, for another week at least.

Car Accidents

So, last week when I drove up to Jacksonville to visit my good friend Diana, I saw a pretty nasty looking accident on the side of the road. A Budget moving van had tipped over on the driver's side, and there was furniture and clothing all over the ground. A family was standing near the truck, and a mother was hugging her daughter tightly. I didn't see the father, but, as I didn't want to get into my own accident, I couldn't really slow down for a look. I don't know if anyone was hurt, but it was no doubt a traumatic experience for everyone.

My thoughts then drifted to the dangers of driving. Car accidents are one of the top 5 causes of death in the United States, and they are number one for people under 35. And nobody seem to realize how big of a deal this is.

People and organizations sink money into breast cancer research, heart disease awareness, AIDS research, preventing terrorist attacks, etc. But the highest profile driving awareness program is MADD, and that just addresses one of the (albeit very dangerous) peripheral issues. The United Statesian population is mostly passive in regards to one of the riskiest activities in which we routinely participate. People just don't seem to want to attack this element of their comfortable lifestyles, even if it means that they run a much much higher chance of injuring or even killing themselves.

Some obvious measures that could be taken to make the roads safer:

• better public transport in cities that were built after the car
• Basically, anything that reduces the number of cars on the road makes things safer for everyone.
• This would also help to reduce carbon emissions and gas guzzling, which are both fashionable and important right now.
  
• lower speed limits and/or slower cars:
• I don't really understand why most cars have speedometers that go up into the hundreds. It is illegal and dangerous to drive that fast anyway.
• This would be highly unpopular, but maybe combined with lots of PR and education it could work, which leads me to...
• better education and advertisement:
• It's too easy to get a permit and it's too easy to get a license. Everyone should be able to, if they put in the work. But they should have to put in more work. I'm talking really comprehensive tests and thorough, mandatory driver's education classes.
• Teenagers should have to have their permits for 2 years before they drive, and there should be different categories of licenses. For instance, until you've been driving alone for 2 years, traffic violations should be considered more serious and require more mandatory driver's education, etc.

These are just ideas, and I know that I sound like a totally uptight prude, but I'd rather be a loser than a dead woman.

this sentence contains only eighty percent of all possible vowels

Recently, I learned about a type of writing called the lipogram. The basic concept behind the lipogram is that the author entirely omits either a single letter or a group of letters from his/her text. Obviously, lipograms tend to take the form of poetry- a medium accustomed to serving as the casualty of linguistic experimentation. Some braver writers, however, have ventured into the realm of lipogrammatic novels.

Courtesy of my friend Jatin who located this poem, here is an example of a lipogram:

A jovial swain should not complain
Of any buxom fair,
Who mocks his pain and thinks it gain
To quiz his awkward air.

Quixotic boys who look for joys
Quixotic hazards run;
A lass annoys with trivial toys,
Opposing man for fun.

A jovial swain might rack his brain,
And tax his fancy's might;
To quiz is vain, for 'tis most plain
That what I say is right.

[**Note: This poem also happens to very nearly be a pangram. While it completely omits the letter E, the author manages to use every single other letter of the alphabet at least once. While this comes as close as possible, a perfect pangram could never also be a lipogram, obviously.]

The univocalic is variation of the lipogram in which the author only uses one vowel. Here is an example of a univocalic:

Incontrovertible Facts
by Charles Bombaugh

No monk too good to rob, or cog or plot.
No fool so gross to bolt Scotch collops hot.
From Donjon tops no Oronooko rolls.
Logwood, not lotos, floods Oporto's bowls.
Troops of old tosspots oft to sot consort.
Box tops odd schoolboys oft do flog for sport.
No cool monsoons blow soft on Oxford dons,
Orthodox, jog-trot, book-worm Solomons!
Bold Ostrogoths of ghosts no horror show.
On London shop-fronts no hop-blossoms grow.
To crocks of gold no dodo looks for food.
On soft cloth footstools no old fox doth brood.
Long storm-tost sloops forlorn work on to port.
Rooks do not roost on spoons, nor woodcocks snort,
Nor dog on snowdrop or on coltsfoot rolls,
Nor common frog concocts long protocols.

Whilst contemplating the deeper meaning of this sophisticated art-form, I decided to write my own lipogram/haiku, which omits the vowel U:

sometimes i wonder
why people do what they do...
like write lipograms

***

And, for a bit of fun, check out this random haiku generator

Dylan Thomas and the Fall

During last night's insomnia, I cracked open the Dylan Thomas collection of poetry that my brother got me for my birthday one year. My attention was caught by the following poem, entitled "Now."

Now
Say nay,
Man dry man,
Dry lover mine
The deadrock base and blow the flowered anchor,
Should he, for centre sake, hop in the dust,
Forsake, the fool, the hardiness of anger.

Now
Say nay,
Sir no say,
Death to the yes,
the yes to death, the yesman and the answer,
Should he who split his children with a cure
Have brotherless his sister on the handsaw.

Now
Say nay,
No say sir
Yea the dead stir,
And this, nor this, is shade, the landed crow,
He lying low with ruin in his ear,
The cockrel's tide upcasting from the fire.

Now
Say nay,
So star fall,
So the ball fail,
So solve the mystic sun, the wife of light,
The sun that leaps on petals through a nought,
the come-a-cropper rider of the flower.

Now
Say nay
A fig for
The seal of fire,
Death hairy-heeled and the tapped ghost in wood,
We make me mystic as the arm of air,
The two-a-vein, the foreskin, and the cloud.

It is a beautiful poem, and the sound of it is what attracted me most, although the visual elements are almost equally appealing. As to the meaning of the poem, the best I can guess that this is Thomas' plea to Adam not to eat the apple from the Tree of Knowledge. Thomas' poetry often deals with death and aging, and he also writes poems connecting innocence and the wilderness. His treatment of the wilderness is often Eden-like, and he references both Eden and Adam in many of his poems. I think it is safe to say that the Fall of Man was at least on his mind.

Addendum: Take a look at the visual structure of the poem. Do you see the the way the text looks like it's falling? I'm convinced I'm correct.

blahgs

Today I found the website trendwatching.com, which is basically a marketing company that keeps an eye on major consumer trends. The site was linked to through a news article talking about how, as technology moves forward, it simultaneously moves backward. While it is hip to have all of the latest technology- iPhones and iPods and iEverythingElses- it is also hip to have an Atari and a record player.

In fact, just last week I went to a fashion show at a skatepark in which the models wore old flannels shirts or linen dresses with cassette tapes, headphones, and film strips painted on them. It was almost a requiem for the forgotten technologies of the eighties. And it was really cool. Trendwatching.com really got the right line there.

The other trend that the website featured, they called "Female Fever." Evidently, over 80% of consumer purchasing decisions belong to females, and therefore it seems very logical that businesses should start marketing more heavily to females. Some of the items that caught my eye were cutely packaged car survival kits and a swiss army knife designed for women. This knife includes blade, key chain, corkscrew, etc. But it also has a tiny perfume bottle and a mirror, among other features. And you can get it in a variety of colors! Despite my sorry financial state, I almost bought myself a pretty one. I decided, though, just to wait for Chanukah when I can ask the 'rents for it.


***

Also of interest in today's blog reading, I came across this post featuring a video of Jack Kerouac reading his masterpiece while Allen Ginsberg accompanies him on piano. Talk about awesome.