Brain Farts Brain Fart brain farts brain fart brain-fart brain-farts brainfart brainfarts LEO Louisville Eccentric Observer parody lampoon satire Louisville Kentucky Kevin Gibson kgramone@aol.com kgramone humor
Brain Farts was a weekly humor column that ran in the Louisville Eccentric Observer (LEO) from mid-2000 until the summer of 2002. It was, well, eccentric. And occasionally satirical. And sardonic. Some liked it, some hated it; some just didn't get it, and that's OK. There were times when I didn't get it either. I've compiled here some of the archives from Brain Farts for the enjoyment of friends, family and anyone else who happens by. I also have written some new Brain Farts, and added some links and other trivialities that you shouldn't be too concerned with.
Unless you're as bored as I am.
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Brain Farts: Voluminous Verbiage |
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By Kevin Gibson |
I detest when writers purposely try to write over their audiences' heads; it vexes me that they cannot squelch this craving. Seriously, if you have something to say, just come right out and communicate it. Don't numb readers' intellects with vacant declarations or overdeveloped bombast.
Much like the music or film critic who spends the first five paragraphs of a review telling the reader his or her own personal history within the specific subject matter ("I first saw a Huston film at the tender age of nine; 'twas a summer of reckoning, it seems to me now ..."), this type of writer engages in what I term "journalistic masturbation."
This is the same scribe who in a very serious sense will utilize the word "alas" in a column to convey some sort of sadness or regret. All I can think at the very moment my mind digests such rubbish is, "Shakespeare could get away with it, pal; this is the 21st friggin' century." (You never hear anyone employ the phrase "but soft" these days, correct?)
And, prithee, how many times must we suffer French phrases in journalistic prose? Is this Paris? French Canada? Must we really be pummeled with repeated usage of c'est la vie? Honestly, Je ne comprends pas. Not at all. And if I ever hear another writer utter the phrase nom de plum again, I shall surely purge on the spot.
Do me this additional favor, dear readers: Never, ever let us get away with addressing you directly in our short scribblings (or causerie, as it were), as if we know exactly to whom we are speaking in any given sentence. It's merely a ploy to make you feel more involved, and it is condescending at best. Trust me, friends.
Perhaps worst of all is how we manipulate readers with interrupted rhythms. An example of this is to try and bolster a sentence with an incomplete thought. Or short phrase. Or word.
The most abused of such tactics is the ultra-dramatic one-word sentence. As in: "Since little Jeffrey had cancer and would surely die within six weeks, he was given his Christmas presents early. Alas." Incomprehensible.
Truly.
Why is this rodomontade so mandatory in this edition of Brain Farts? Because I need to share a secret: We in the Fourth Estate are ensured from day one that the typical reader (or paradigmatic reader, if you prefer) can't comprehend anything written above an eighth-grade level. In order to feel as one with the more intelligent readers of our respective publications, we try to reach them as if delivering a literary nudge and wink, so as to feel a part of their intellectual fraternity.
That and, because we are writers, people often give us thesauruses (or thesauri; they're both acceptable) for Christmas and birthdays, and we just [italics]have[end ital] to use them for something. Otherwse t'would be a wasted gift would it not?
Almost forgot: The word "rhapsody" rather pisses me off too.
E-mail the scribe at kgramone@aol.com. Indeed.