How Much Is That Doggie in the Window?

When I was very young, I was enthralled with the song "How Much Is That Doggie in the Window." Maybe I wrote this because I was subconsciously influenced by the fact that the song's singer, Patti Page, just died, on January 1.

You know what? We never did find out how much that little doggie cost.

But I want to ask you something: "how much is that word on the Internet?"

What I'm asking is, how much would you be willing to pay if you had to pay for each word you send out into the ether of the Etherworld, the Internet, cyberspace, you-name-it?

I'm not engaging in a debate over free speech or free Internet. I am asking you to put a value on the words tapped out on your keyboard and transported into and onto and through the digital realms of the planet.

How much would you be willing to pay for each word, if you were forced to do make such a payment?

The great writer Jorge Luis Borges, one of my favorites, once commented that censorship imposed in his native Argentina by the regime there forced him to choose his words more carefully.

Would Modern Wordcost Internet Protocols (MWIP) make us act in a similar manner? 

And how would such a "cost" influence what you tapped, typed, wrote, scrawled, whatever-you-want-to-call-it?

Tilting at Titles

I tend toward minimalism. (Make that: I tnd twrd mnmlsm.) I really love titles, such as the book cited in yesterday's post, Stumbling on Happiness. As a writer, I often start with that. At work, for example, in crafting a proposal, I like to forge a consensus around a slogan or catchphrase, something simple enough to remember, something distinctive; iconic.

Trouble is, the flame burns out quickly. I could never be a novelist. I can barely complete a short story. I love haiku. I have neither the patience nor fervor for the long trek. (Attention all armchair psychoanalytical "specialists": yes, these are classic symptoms of some sort of sexual dysfunction, I'm sure, as well as attention deficit disorder, or attention surplus reorder. Fine. All well and good. And feck off.)

Jorge Luis Borges (and Stanislaw Lem, I recall) was known to create book reviews of nonexistent books. I recall Borges once declaring something like, "I could've written the whole book, but why bother?" (I'm sure he said it in Spanish, and I've lost lots through mistranslation -- and misremembering.)

Let's go a step further. Why bother writing the review or the book? Why not just the title?

Alas, I am an imaginary slacker of the highest order, and shortest duration. I love titles (not Mr. or Mrs. or Ms., though I did like that recent faintly erotic "sir" appellation left by Wanderlust Scarlett).

I just typed the words

So, here follows "A Titular Trickling"

and began a nascent parade of would-be clever titles.

None were (was?) clever. None even remotely amusing or evocative.

It figures.

(For those lapping their tongues for blog titles, you are urged to review my richly mined archive, arcing with buzzing intensity at the hive of creativity. Wot?)