The Art of Profanity

Let's talk a bit about dirty words.  It's been on my mind lately, especially after a #kidlit chat on Twitter regarding swearing.  It's an interesting - and often polarizing - topic.  It's one quite fascinating to me.  Of note, be advised this post contains quite a few, so if you're squeamish or you aren't really old or mature enough for the higher caliber words, please see your way to the door.  This is a discussion for sensibly minded adults.

"Some guy hit my fender, and I told him, 'Be fruitful and multiply,' but not in those words."

- Woody Allen

That quote shows - not tells - a scene far more effectively than if it were written exactly how it happened. We know in one sentence what Allen actually said. We know he swore at the guy, even though he mentioned nothing about swearing. It's a great example of how to create a mental image of the profanity without saying anything bad at all. Masterfully done. If Allen had said he'd told the guy to go fuck himself, it wouldn't have been funny, and furthermore the scene would have been instantly rendered mundane and forgettable - just some guy yelling profanities after a car crash.

So very obviously, we often don't need to swear to get our point across.  Many times the point is made even better without profanity. Actor John Ratzenberger, best known for his role of Cliff Clavin in Cheers, reportedly once said about a project, "There are times over different projects when I've asked the writers why people are swearing for no good reason. I tell them that it would be funnier if there weren't these swear words." That's true. Cussing for cussing's sake is stupid. Sometimes less is more.

But sometimes it's not. Sometimes we need a larger shock to the system. Sometimes our intention is not humor as in the quote above, but rather horror, or revulsion, or any number of the baser emotions. And sometimes the "dirty" words are just the best damn tools for the job.

Consider the scene in Planes, Trains and Automobiles, where Steve Martin's character, after a horrible debacle trying to find a nonexistent rental car and a journey from the middle of nowhere, across highways and even a runway, returns to the agency counter and has to deal with a smarmy agent who has no desire to help him at all. Watch:

If it wasn't for that barrage of eff-bombs, this scene would have been nothing.
It would have been a forgettable part of the movie that pushed the plot along, and tried perhaps unsuccessfully to endear us to Martin's character and his plight. The swearing not only personalizes his problems to the viewer, but also positions the dialog to enable him to tell her how much he doesn't appreciate the way her company treated him. It also sets the scene up perfectly for that succinct and very vital punchline: "You're fucked." Without it, the scene falls limp, destined to be forgotten with every other harried airport/car rental/bus station/train station scene out there. It doesn't, precisely because of the obscenities. Could the scene have been rewritten to conform to "PG" standards? Certainly. Would it have been as funny and memorable? Hell no!

Gunnery Sergeant Hartman (Lee Ermey) in Full Metal Jacket would not have been nearly the character he was if not for his colorful language. Without the carefully constructed obscenities, the character of Tony Montana (Al Pacino) in Scarface would have been just another two-bit gangster. Profanity was one of the traits that made both those characters living, breathing people instead of cardboard cutouts. The use of colorful vocabulary is not vital to round out every character, but for those it was.

"Obscenity is whatever happens to shock some elderly and ignorant magistrate."

- Bertrand Russell

Obscenity is what we make it. A word is only as inflammatory as people take it to be, and that varies from circle to circle. One person may interpret a word very differently than another person. And obscenity can be starkly different culture to culture. Swearing in most Eastern European cultures is fairly acceptable, and most Slavic languages have a wide range of very colorful swear words. In many parts of Asia, however, it is not. Many Asian and Pacific languages don't even have a direct translation of some of the more vulgar terms.

Really, dirty words are just "dirty"; no word is inherently a dirty word because they're all just words. Though to some we assign more value than others, giving them varying degrees of power and influence. They're given power by those who use them in certain ways, and have power taken away by others who use them differently. If a word offends, it's because of the experiences and prejudices of the reader or listener that it does.

"Vulgarity is the garlic in the salad of taste."

- Cyril Connelly

This quote serves to show that profanity is a vital part of language. Like garlic, it adds spice, and like garlic, a little usually goes a long way. There's a fine line between use and over use of any word, and this is particularly the case with words that aren't acceptable vernacular in all parts of society. The more inflammatory the word, the more punch that word delivers, but only if used right. If used wrong, it has the opposite effect, which is a bad thing.

Another aspect of vulgarity is its propensity to lend itself to unique and imaginative forms. Run of the mill profanity is mundane, and as a result, often falls into the category I mentioned above, "cussing for cussing's sake". You can take it out and subtract nothing from plot, scene, atmosphere, or character. The imaginative stuff you can't. Describing someone as an ass-clown, or saying they were engaged in some kind of asshattery or another, evokes images which can't easily be explained with other words. Saying "tomfoolery" instead of "asshattery" isn't quite the same. It's too innocuous, too innocent. Saying they were juveniles engaged in delinquent behavior is similar, but not nearly the same. Not by a long shot. It may convey meaning, but it does shit-all for the tone. And inventive swearing makes for the best insults, by far.

Don't get me wrong; this type of colorful wordsmithing can be done without the use of profanity.  Tom Robbins, one of my favorite authors, applies colorful, imaginative forms to all his writing, but it is truly an art to do it the way he does. Not many can imitate him successfully, and profanity often does in one word what takes a paragraph of polite words to do.

Use, of course, varies between not only characters, but authors themselves. When you get to know a writer, you start figuring out what you're going to get when you read their books. You understand the words they use, how they use them, and how they work for that author. Consider Chuck Wendig, an author who wields curse words like a samurai wields a katana. It's largely because of his irreverent love of profanity, and dark, twisted writing style that his books are so great to read. Constant swearing works for him, and quite well. It doesn't for everyone, and if it doesn't work for someone, then trying to force it will probably end badly.

No matter if certain words are off limits for you, whether uncouth, blasphemous, racial, or otherwise obscene, they all have a purpose.  As long as they serve their intended purpose, they're a necessary part of a story, even the "dirty" ones. I think so anyway, but that's just one idiot's opinion.

Thoughts?

Book Review: Slaughterhouse-Five

Kurt Vonnegut's best known work is part war memoir, part dark comedy, and part science fiction.  None of those genres make the book what it is.  Stellar writing, satire, and a voice like no other are what make this book one of the finest pieces of literature ever to be penned, and Vonnegut one of the finest novelists to put pen to paper.

The books' plot is jangled and fragmented, and follows a quite nonlinear narrative.  The main character, Billy Pilgrim, jumps around from one point in his life to the next, without real pattern or reason.  He has become "unstuck in time".  He's quite fatalistic, resigned to his fate, and simply along for the ride much of the time.  He is so not because of any negativity, but because he's seen his death and he knows why it happens.  There is nothing he can do to prevent it and he knows this.

We follow him as he jumps between life on the planet Tralfamadore (where he was kidnapped by aliens, thus unsticking him in time), to Dresden, Germany during World War II, to his life before the war and after it with his wife and son.  The jumps are at random, but allow him to have a realistic view on his own life and death without becoming pessimistic.

The plot is merely secondary to the reading experience, though.  What shines through is Vonnegut's ability to tell a story.  I think one of the paragraphs that shows that ability the most is how he describes a minor character near the end of the book.  He doesn't write a word about how she looks, but he doesn't need to.  When he writes that she is "a dull person, but a sensational invitation to make babies," the image in the reader's mind is crystal clear.  He has no need to enhance an image of her using any physical descriptions because she is already fully formed in the reader's mind.  With a single sentence, he accomplishes what most authors need several paragraphs to do.

And this is common throughout the book.  Many times he never really says what is going on directly, but rather talks about how a character relates to it.  And every time, the reader gets a clear vision of what is going on, without actually reading it.

The book has an intimate feel to it, as though Vonnegut is sharing an inside secret with only a single reader.  At several points in the book, he breaks the fourth wall and explains that he was there when a particular thing happened, inviting us to believe the whole as recounted memoir, and not just scattered incidents serving as inspiration for a work of fiction.  It makes it that much more believable, even when he explains that the alien Tralfamadorians can see in four dimensions, and have already seen every instant of history, past and future.

It's an interesting look at a wide array of colorful, interesting characters, more a study on human nature and personal interactions than classic story line.  It's a look into behaviors, and into our very souls.  We find ourselves drawn into the story not only for the plot and characters, but the way Vonnegut puts words together. All authors have the same words to use.  Kurt Vonnegut was better than most at arranging them in a pleasing manner.

So it goes.

It's available on Amazon, should you somehow not have it in your collection.

I Forgot my Phone

It's a pretty common phrase nowadays: "I forgot my phone."  Hear it quite often, as a matter of fact.  Everyone has cellphones, everyone's life is practically tied to them, and they're little, often misplaced, items.  Along with that phrase, you'll also hear ones like "my phone died," or even "I lost my phone."  Happens all the time.

The technology is on the way to make those phrases obsolete, to throw them right in with "I would have called, but I didn't have a quarter," "I couldn't get a hold of you because your phone was busy," "I couldn't find a pay phone," and "I can't find the number because I don't have a phone book."

Pictured below, what we use today to write messages, take pictures, watch videos, read books, buy items, pay bills, retrieve information, and play games.  Among other things, such as actually talking to someone located elsewhere.

Ramsbury: telephone box, © Chris Downer

I think the end result will be a merging of several technologies, the first of which is "wearable, depth-sensing perception."  We're also seeing more of these sorts of advances with contact lenses supporting alternate reality.  Soon the two will merge, creating the first non-device-centric communication ability.

The next data point in this progression is implantation.  It's bound to happen.  We're seeing how this can be integrated with surgically implanted intraocular lenses.  Now imagine this, but fused with cellular phone, Internet, and GPS technology.  You'd quite literally have the virtual world available in front of you at all times.  Your phone would be with you at all times, because it would be a part of you, accessible with the touch of an imaginary button.

Of course, not everyone likes that.  Many would love to be able to escape from connection, to disappear into the woods on an extended camping trip, or go on vacation, without the need for a constant link to home, work, friends, or family.  Like it or not, we're connected, and that connection will only get stronger.

It's the future of communications, the forefront of the virtual world.  The only question is, how soon will it get here?  How soon will that connection fuse with us, allowing us to skip the devices and connect on our own?  Do we even want that?  And if we don't, how long will it be before we do want it?

I'd guess not long at all.

The Great Amazon KDP Select Experiment

I'm doing a bit of an experiment.  What's new, really?  Separate Worlds has always been a bit of experimental fun.  It's told from two perspectives, it's a novella in a world of novels, and I threw it to the wolves in an attempt to learn the brave new world of self-publishing.  In that regard, I already consider it a success.  It's hardly a bestseller, hardly selling well at all.  After all, exposure is everything; just ask Snooki.  At least my book's coherent.  But I feel I learned more than if I'd taken the money it cost to publish it and spent it on a college course on self-publication.

And it's still a learning experience, still teaching me things about the business that I'll use, no matter if I self-publish again or not.  There are so many things to be learned about this business, and pecking out words in solitary hardly scratches the surface.

Marketing is one aspect many authors lack experience and expertise in.  It's not their forté; slinging words onto the page and conjuring images in readers' minds are.  But in spite of that - and more and more in today's publishing age - they have to learn it.

And that's where programs like Amazon's KDP Select come in.  Foremost, it's a marketing ploy by Amazon, a way to gather more attention to their products and sell them.  If you're an author, with books available for purchase online, that means it's your marketing ploy as well.

Essentially, when an author enrolls a book in the program, they allow Amazon to lend it to Amazon Prime members for free, while making a small percentage of the monthly fund allocated for it.  Using numbers from their FAQ page - not mine; I wish I had such numbers - we see that:

"... if the monthly fund amount is $500,000, the total qualified borrows of all participating KDP titles is 300,000, and if your book was borrowed 1,500 times, you will earn 0.5% (1,500/300,000 = 0.5%), or $2,500 for that month."

Now, it would be fantastic, downright amazing to reach numbers even close to that, but I'm going to assume the book won't be nearly that popular.  Its success is bound by the number of people who see it and choose to borrow it, and there we come back to that pesky exposure thing.  It will be an interesting experiment, though, and at worst it will offer my book for free to a large number of readers, who will hopefully find a great little story, a great escape from this world through a portal into another, at least for a while.

It's exclusively on Amazon for the duration of this program, as exclusivity to the Kindle is one of the stipulations of the program.  Enjoy, spread the word, share it with friends.  In fact, please consider writing a review on it. You can also spread the word by tweeting or sharing the following blurb:

Separate Worlds, by Jonathan Dalar. When worlds collide, perspective can mean the difference between life and death: http://goo.gl/fb/ohzLf

Hopefully I'll have some positive results to pass along in a few months.

Ten Technological Advances of the Future

There are a ton of cool technological advances out there, with seemingly hundreds more every day.  Every time I turn around, I'm amazed by what I see.  Our knowledge of what's possible scientifically is expanding at an exponential rate.  What was impossible yesterday becomes a reality tomorrow.

So in light of that, here are a few fun ideas, things we need to develop from the infant technology we have already discovered.  They're concepts we will likely see at some point in the future.  The technology is already sound; all we have to figure out is the logistics.


MagLev Transit

MagLev is magnetic levitation, the science of levitating something by using magnets. Now, imagine that as a full-sized locomotive, pulling cars filled with passengers, merchandise, foodstuffs, natural resources, you name it. Japan is already working hard on this technology, creating bullet trains that have achieved speeds of over 581 KPH. This could easily take over as a viable way of moving people place to place in the future, and could replace air travel for many domestic destinations.

3D Printing

We've seen the advent of 3D printing using a specially engineered composite material to create semi-functional objects, accurate to within 40 microns, or smaller than the width of a human hair.  We've seen it expanded to include 3D metal printing, where metal powder is layered into the form needed and then forged at high temperatures. It's grown to include everything from ceramics to chocolates. The next step seems to be identifying a process that's cost-effective for mass use.  Just think of how this could change the dynamics of merchandise as we know it, how we purchase what we need.  And as soon as we make the leap to printing food items and human organs, it will completely renovate the business of living.


Augmented Reality

We've seen this in its infancy already.  Mobile virtual information available upon need.  Augmenting such things as eye glasses and phones with this information.  In the future, saturation is the key: the ability to reach any and all information needed instantly.  Couple this with technology below, and we'll have the ability to integrate the virtual world seamlessly with ourselves.


Nanotechnology

Nanotechnology now allows us to view things on a scale smaller than that of the microscopic, down to the level of single atoms.  We're already working on nanoengineering, designed to create anything atom by atom, as small as imaginable.  In just a few years, we could be able to create fully functional engines, electrical circuits, and complex machines, the size of just a few molecules.  Imagine doctors with the ability to inject a camera into your blood stream and send it completely through your body, even through capillaries, looking for diseases or other health issues.  Imagine the ability to create specially adapted devices allowing us to remove tumors, cancerous cells, etc., all without cutting a patient open.


Wireless Power

This is not a new concept.  Nikola Tesla imagined the technology around a century ago.  And we're finally seeing practical applications.  You can buy wireless phone chargers, where you can charge your phone without actually plugging it into the source of power.  The next step is unplugging completely, providing wireless power around the globe, allowing us to unplug for good.


Mind-Controlled Bionics

It's already possible.  It's already been done.  And the ceiling doesn't have to end with recreated body parts.  Integrating these prosthetic appendages permanently into the human body is the first step, but from there, this technology can be adapted and expanded to exploration and discovery, controlling machines to go where humans can't, and yet controlling them as though they were extensions of our own bodies.


Invisibility

It's the stuff of science fiction, the Holy Grail of science, but it's getting a lot closer to reality than fiction with recent technological advances.  Although this appears at first blush to have more military and government applications, it's something that would benefit many areas of society in practical application.


Holograms

The applications for this go beyond business meetings and teleconferencing.  Think of this in educational terms, where students could go beyond seeing an illustration of something in a textbook to actually seeing it, actively participating in something, no matter where they were.  And the prospect of this as a logical evolution of entertainment is pretty exciting too.  If you thought 3D changed movies, just watch as this sort of technology replaces it.


Force Fields

This has more applications than just space travel.  Sure, the immediate evolution is that to protect astronauts, but here on earth it could be just as effective, and advances could provide the ability to more effectively protect against radiation.


Machine Translation

Although this is showcased in a military setting, the possibilities of it are endless.  From here, it's quite possible we'll see this technology grow smaller, and even embedded or implanted in us, creating the ability to speak in one language and be understood in another.  In the future, it may be entirely possible to go anywhere in the world and face no language barriers whatsoever.

Yea, folks, we live in some exciting times, and I'm stoked to be a part of them!  What are your thoughts?  How do you see these technologies adapted to our future?