Radical Transparency

(in case the other blogs need a friend)

The Colors Are Superb

Little is more impressive in this world than a well-turned dinosaur simile:

It is the roots and the root-shoots of manzanita and other shrubs. The colors are superb, terra-cotta reds, shading up to flesh pink, and down to dark mahogany; but the forms are grotesque beyond comparison: twists, querls, contortions, a boxful of them is an uncomfortable presence in one's room, and putting them on the fire is like cremating the vertebrae and double teeth of colossal monsters of the Pterodactyl period.


Thank you Helen Hunt Jackson.

On Folding

He clumsily tried to fold her into his arms, a bit like folding a bottom fitted king-size sheet but not getting it right and starting over and getting it wrong again and finally saying oh the hell with it.

The Spectator calls that a "toe-curlingly bad analogy." Andrew Sullivan seems to agree, though he does offer some approval by calling it a "beaut." I'm a less critical audience; I call it metaphorical genius.

Memory as a Naysayer

As earplugs. As a blindfold. As a nasal clothespin. As loose fitting gloves. Or, probably truest to omitted context, memory as a buzzkill:

Banality depends on memory, as do irony and abstraction and boredom, three other defenses the educated mind deploys against experience so that it can get through the day without being continually, exhaustingly astonished.

Thank you Michael Pollan.

Of Web Search, Destiny, and a Metaphorical Reverse Slam Dunk

The Zocalo editors have assigned me a book called The Googlization of Everything (AND WHY WE SHOULD WORRY) by Siva Vaidhyanathan. As one of the brainwashed billions, I feel myself cringing at the lack of love for the my email service provider. But the man makes some great points (for which I'll be sure to praise him in my forthcoming review). And, more importantly, he has given the world one of the strangest metaphors it has ever known:

The story of Google's relationship with universities is not unlike the tragedy of Oedipus. Since its birth, Google, overflowing with pride, has been seducing its alma mater - the academy. If Google is the lens through which we see the world, we might all be cursed to wander the earth, blinded by ambition.

Wow, right? 

Gotta love the use of "not unlike," the rarest and spiciest of the simile turns.

Seeds, Frogs, Tea Parties, Bad Science, Etc.

A strange metaphorical moment in Jane Mayer's awesome article about the Koch brothers and their quiet but enormous influence:

A Republican campaign consultant who has done research on behalf of Charles and David Koch said of the Tea Party, “The Koch brothers gave the money that founded it. It’s like they put the seeds in the ground. Then the rainstorm comes, and the frogs come out of the mud—and they’re our candidates!”

I wonder if said campaign consultant's assumptions about amphibian reproduction reflect an ideologically strained relationship with science?

Creativity Is A Prairie Dogg

This one's for Wiley, a great admirer of fast-twitch suspicion:

Original thoughts are like shy animals. We sometimes have to look the other way – towards a busy street or terminal – before they run out of their burrows.

Alain de Botton wrote that, referring to a week he spent writing at a desk in the middle of an airport.

Thank you PSFK.

(Note: I'm again and again impressed by the jolts of happiness that good metaphors give me.)

Certain Flat Worms

When you collect marine animals there are certain flat worms so delicate that they are almost impossible to capture whole, for they break and tatter under the touch. You must let them ooze and crawl of their own will onto a knife blade and then lift them gently into your bottle of sea water. And perhaps that might be the way to write this book - to open the page and to let the stories crawl in by themselves.

John Steinbeck wrote that, two blank pages before chapter 1 of Cannery Row begins.

Been almost a year since I tagged a metaphor on this blog. Clearly I'm not paying enough attention.

Thank you Giuls.

Any Way You Feel

I'm still not sure how (or if) a wagon wheel rocks, but I love the microphone, the sideburns that don't fit the suit, and the shot of the ticket stand, the nodding head, and the empty carnival in the background.

That was one of many awesome covers that featured prominently in the muzfest last weekend.

And has anybody else noticed something of a southbound bias in musical train similes? There must be something that happens like a northbound train...