dangling participles

Williams and Fayette. By the Legion hall. Misting. Next to the Open House. Closed. A skeletal artifact from before The Ending. Gutted. Payphone on a pole. Dangling handset. Nodding in the breeze. Forgotten. Booth or kiosk. Prenuclear minimalism. Raided. Metal, wire, plastic, screw, bolt, time, pleadings, hustles, cries, calls. Jangled coins an eternity ago. Deserted. Abandoned pedestrian loiterers. Freeze-framed headlights. Telling. Remnant. Torn. Ghostly metronome. Busy signal. Blaring. Humming. Buzzing. Waiting. Having had. Having been. Dangling.

emojification

When I took, and passed, a linguistics course 127 years ago, the prof said, "The simpler a language is, the more complex and sophisticated it is." But he couldn't have said that. It's patently absurd. He likely said the opposite.

Never mind.

Linguists debate whether languages are equally complex or sophisticated. They quibble over whether as a general rule languages become more complex over time. Do they?

Consider emojis.

Emojis don't constitute a language, not exactly. They evolved from emoticons. Both alternative "languages" grew out of keyboard demands and changing habits as our planet, especially Japan, became more digitized.

I'm driving out of my lane here, yet I wonder about the apparent simplicity of sign languages, pictograms, and ideograms. (Don't ask me about the linguistic differences between each. My ignorance means I am not free of cultural biases and preconceptions. Duly noted.) But what if we were to communicate solely by emojis? Are we moving in that direction? And does it signify progress or decline?

Before going further, allow me to note that I will resist resorting to emojis in this post. It's too facile, cheap; somehow cheating. Better to have us picture an infinity of emoji images in our minds.

Part of me feels that a stripped down, minimalist method of communicating by emojis would declutter the conversation, like filtering out static on a distant AM station. That may be so, but we already know the perils of methods such as texting, where tone and intent are easily misconstrued. 

Can emojis be misconstrued?

I once had neighbors who communicated by sign language. When an argument ensued, I could almost hear them shouting. Almost.

What would an argument by emojis look like? For all I know, this happens every day.

How about a stately speech? Could these stark iconic symbols be "stretched" into formal, lofty language, the polished-marble discourse of courtrooms and capitols? 

This invites the topic of translation. I would opt for the opportunity to wax eloquent, soaring above the pedestrian emojis of commonplace chatter.

Something tells me these musings are far from original, already obsolete and outdated. Something tells me that government, corporate, and private hackers and programmers have secretly crafted a post-apocalyptic ready-to-go language, bereft of words and sounds, portable and universal, handmade for a denuded, simmering planet.

paper clip phone bowl

It was here on the desk. Seconds ago. Where'd it go. Where could it go. It didn't just grow legs and walk away. Who took it. Say a prayer to St. Anthony, they say. So I did. Feel the surface of the desk, shake the sheaf of papers. Shuffle the pages. Look and feel on and under the chair, on and under the desk, in my cuffs, in, on, or under my shoes, between the buttons of my shirt, down my bra if I wore one (didn't), in my hair, under the stapler, under the mug, in the mug, in, on, or around the stitching of the rug, the walls, the ceiling. Search all of these once again but ever more slowly and with more concentration and feeling. Then in reverse order. Then randomly. Again. And again.

I have been swept from simple OCD to the shores of insanity.

Fear.

The universe is supposed to make sense. Things don't slip into another dimension. This isn't sci-fi or Harry Potter or Narnia. Objects do not evaporate or disappear. The laws of physics do not permit this. The laws do not stop for one paper clip. Nor does my rationality, its fragile vestiges. Like that time I lost my cellphone. I was in the first row of a theater, watching a ballet rehearsal. The phone was on my lap in the dark. I was shielding the screen’s blue light so as not to distract the dancers, so as not to be caught in flagrante delictu rudely checking inconsequential texts. I stood up. I heard a clunk, the phone falling. I felt around my body, my seat. Where did the phone go. I surveyed the floor, ran my hands under the seats, the scummy dusty grimy floor in front, my row, a cellophane candy wrapper, and the rows in back, places of impossibility, as if the phone were on a magical pogo stick. The fear of personal collapse, order dismantled, structure demolished. Repeat all those tactile and barely visual, slightly auditory, search exercises. My daughter the guest ballerina comes out during a break, after I went back stage and pleaded my case, my fervent wish for a universe with functioning rules, laws, and protocols. I told her of my incomprehensible plight. We spied a ridge in front of us. A slot, a gap running the width of the stage. The crevice had been there all along, a few feet in front of my first-row seat, several inches wide between the fixed floor of the auditorium. A movable stage raised and lowered for the orchestra. The orchestra pit. Of course. And that's where the phone dived, cascading into the deep dark. I couldn't have mailed it into that slot if I had tried. Mind the gap.

Back to the paper clip.

I discover a glimmer of hope — but not for finding the paper clip. As if in a biblical dream, I picture a ceramic tea bowl from Japan sitting in my kitchen cabinet. It was a non-occasion gift from a friend in America, a painter. I rarely drank tea from the bowl because it was too hot to hold. When I received it, I was given a gentle two-minute lecture. “You see that tiny squiggle on the rim? It’s not so much a mistake as a statement. It’s imperfect, unfinished. It’s meant to be.”

Until now, I had forgotten that tutorial on wabi-sabi, the Japanese aesthetic of imperfection, asymmetry, impermanence, incompleteness.

A paper clip. A cellphone. A tea bowl. Me. Who knew we were cosmic cousins. I got up from my chair in front of the desk. Averting my eyes from the floor, the desk, and the chair, I walked into the kitchen, went to the cabinet, retrieved the tea bowl, poured water in the kettle, and turned on the right rear burner.

mother's day, first and last

so dawned the day

breaching my birth

of quickening light

so broke the bleak midwinter

bearing December's child

too early on

touch and go

no breastful of milk

while homeward bound

we now ask what

moonlight we can give her

besides memory

of love like a stone

dropped into an empty well

echoing

still