Monday, May 31, 2010

Secrets of X


X is an employee manual for a corporation based in Atlanta, Georgia. X has done away with the usage of words that tend to induce a sense of hope for its factory based employees. Incentive, benefits, appreciation, increase, integrity, acknowledgment, recognition: all of these words X has made sure to omit. Also any words that might lead one to think that the corporation keeps emissions down and helps protect the environment, are deleted immediately. Sustainable, green, clean, quality, protect, environment: you will find none of these words.

June Topic - "Boy That's A Lie!"

In the original spirit of Mark Twain's beloved characters Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, write a lie. A fib, a stretch of the truth. A tall tale, an innocent enough invention of story standing in for the real thing...for what harm could a little self-serving anecdote do? Write the lie in a first person narrative like Huck did in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. The character is your entire creation, same with the scenario in which the character finds him/herself needing to fib.

*Just so everyone understands, you don't have to write in the style of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, or use that time period...etc. I was just inspired by that book to have a topic featuring a lie.

Tuesday, May 25, 2010

About X

X would be happy to never hear the word IRREGARDLESS again. X prefers to just use REGARDLESS. X is even more distraught by the fact the word originated in western Indiana.

X would also like to eliminate the word AT, though only when used to end a sentence.  X also proposes the use of an 'AT Jar' where the guilty party would deposit one quarter every time he or she ended a sentence with AT. 

X longs for the elimination of the letter S, though only when added at the end of a store name where it is not already present.

X is leaning toward the removal of the word WHY, but only after the seventh time hearing it in less than a minute.

X would be pleased to never see the phrase NEW IMPROVED FLAVOR on products he plans to purchase, because it almost always eludes to the addition of MSG.

X is in favor of the elimination of the word IDIOT. For reasons unknown, the word resonates poorly with X, cringing every time he hears it.

This is a list of words X would like to see eliminated, though, it could also be viewed as a list of X's pet peeves. Go figure.

Friday, May 21, 2010

eXplained


This X is so tempted to hate the words DISCOURAGE, HOPELESS, and DISCORD, but knows better, for without them, their opposites couldn't exist.
She thinks she can do better than I'LL TRY so has omitted it.
She's nixed IT/HE/SHE MADE ME FEEL, taking full responsibility for feeling good all the time.
The word GOSSIP makes her shaky and she'll never utter BUSYWORK because she thinks it's a crime.
Because her Grandmother didn't approve, she doesn't say BELLY when referring to the abdominal area.
The most distasteful words she can think of are DIVORCE and ACNE because they destruct, disorder, and scar.
X doesn't really care what you're AGAINST, but is curious to know what you're for.

Tuesday, May 18, 2010

x marks the spot

x is as at home hovering above the environs of the outer planets as manifesting as treasure, Earth-deep, and might be found anywhere, at any spot in-between. x took a tumble one day and was given a hand up by +. Tumbling together ever since, x and + happily shine the combined light of their eight-point star, splitting up to do stints in complex mathematical equations only when absolutely necessary.

x and + have discovered that making or even hearing the statements 'I'm so tired.' and 'I'm worn out.' serve only to reinforce exhaustion. They prefer the classic A.B.L.E. line 'I just don't know anymore.' which they find endlessly amusing, therefore energy-boosting.

x would ban forever any interview question that begins with 'What was going through your mind when . . . ? ' and + would ban the phrases 'at the end of the day' and 'that being said' . In somewhat of a paradox, x and + abhor diversify, yet adore diversity.

Tuesday, May 11, 2010

Free

In this case, X is a man!

X was never for want.  His parents always had enough money to offer X whatever he wanted. Evidently X had no time to spend in a mall even if it was easy to lighten his wallet that could be too heavy.   X prefers walking in trash dumps, watching insects, smelling conifers, or sucking on licorice sticks.  He is known in his community but he has not a lot to share with them.  He's probably an in-the-moment anti-conformist even if it's not clever to be exposed as someone different.
X doesn't understand why he has to put on dark jeans when stonewashed jeans are more wearable and why he has to go to the barber to give himself and the barber a hard time with cutting his hair perfectly, always resulting in a fake gelled mess.
X thinks that some old people are not really wiser than teenagers and that stupidity is not a question of age but a question of conditioning.
That's the system for X!  He thinks that everything can only be SYSTEMIC even if he doesn't understand this word and knows that if a dung beetle changes it's habitat, it's to find the same shit in another place.
X is in the system or out, he doesn't care.
Nights, X likes acting crazy during punk rock shows in the most dirty dives of the city to forget reality for a while,  too much conventional!  To drink a lot of beer and vomit on the wall to add more color to the gray walls around him looking like a kaleidoscope,  X likes.  He knows that carrots and egg salad add more contrast, beer helps it to stay on the wall for several weeks.
Sometimes X has to drink more beer than usual to totally disconnect from the crowd composed of some junkies with plastic cups in their hands and expensive skate shoes on their washed feet, showing off with the worst band making a ritual against society.  X knows junkies who define themselves as REBELS because they refuse to wash their dad's truck when it needs to be shinier to make the neighbor jealous.   He doesn't like watching the news.  He prefers to ignore what could plunge him into a depressive state.  He knows only that there are some great persons who nobody talks about who save lives, make proud, make clever, give pleasure, in accordance with their thoughts, even if they risk being out of INTEGRATION into the global way of life.  X doesn't understand people who spend their youth burning their last neurons studying a profession that they will not like.  X is looking for a job that nobody wants.  He has a CURRICULUM VITAE or 'Path of Life.'  For him, 'Path of Lies' is more appropriate.  He learned early to lie at school.  It was fun for awhile but now he's sick of that.  
One time, after a job interview, he peed in a plant pot, not by contestation but because he didn't find the toilettes.  And yet, he asked the cleaner in the corridor who didn't answer after washing.  He asked another employee in a hurry, hidden behind a pile of documents without an answer at all.  
Sometimes he thinks that it could be easier to live away from the city, next to it, in the woods.  The last time X was there, he saw a corpse of a hobo in a cabin that probably laid there for a long time.  To see death was a shock for him, giving him feelings of impotence and resignation.   
X decided to leave.  He doesn't need money, he doesn't need a car, he only needs his mind.  Now, he will occult all that he doesn't like and follow his inspiration, to be proud, to be useful, to be happy.

Sunday, May 9, 2010

Chiasmus Corner: Between the Folds

Just watched the DVD Between the Folds The Science of Art. The Art of Science. Highly recommended!

Here's the official website: Green Fuse Films

Tuesday, May 4, 2010

X-Traordinary's Words

X knows that his job is, and always will be, to join together with friends to form words; creating the perfect language for mankind. Sometimes it frustrates him to hear this language misused. He hates the word SHAME when it is hissed from someones lips. The SSSHHH suggesting that one is such an embarrassment that they should be neither seen nor heard. The word CONDESCEND bothers him too. It seems to infer that one is conniving to descend into the deceit that others are beneath them. He grieves over the beautiful word PAGAN which was created to represent the simple agricultural people who worked the fields with their hands, supporting themselves with their crops. Now demonized to mean one who is a non believer. Sometimes X dislikes a word for no reason at all. PRAGMATIC has always stuck in his throat. He doesn't know what it means nor does he care. He simply hates the feel and taste of it on his tongue.

May Topic

X is a man. But it doesn't matter, he could be a woman....
Words for X aren't just products of a mechanical reflex, they have a significance.
X no longer pronounces certain words because they are too common or because they evoke sentiments far too painful, some of which are: tendencies, systemic, rebel, integration, Curriculum Vitae.

What other words could X eliminate and why?