LSJOFIGPEGIMARAYYT schwhat????
My initial reaction to “Stitch Bitch.”
However, after I finished the first paragraph, stepped away from my computer and grabbed a soothing, highly caffeinated cup of coffee, I was able to come back and calmly address the issue I was faced with: What the hell am I reading?
Alas, I figured it out. And I shed a tear for its wonderful poetry.
Ironic how this entire piece is written to match the information it shares. The author wants more of intricate syntax and creates a new vernacular, well the analogy of a patchwork girl, or “stich bitch,” does just that.
The section that specifically grabbed my attention, titled “We Like to Make Statues” correlates to the destruction of the forever classic The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Apparently, society feels educating the young minds of the next generation includes eliminating jargon that does not showcase itself in the best of light. In this case, the word Negro replaced “niggar” in a story that mainly dealt with racism. Face it America, we were racist at one point in our history, and to be even more honest, there are still racist people in our society in the good ol’ 21st century. I can also tell you right now that the word niggar has a read underline in my word processor telling me that this word does not exist. America goes to great lengths to erase its dark past.
Anyways, this example connects with “Stich Bitch” because the authors explain how books fall apart just like our bodies. No not “our” bodies such as anatomy, but our bodies of content. How society and publishers and all other people involved in the world of writing decide that they have the power to destroy literature shows a flaw in the system.
Who defined what good writing is? I can go through my curriculum in high school and tell you that no two books were the same that teachers forced me to read. Have you ever read A Clockwork Orange? Give that one a try and tell me how that defines good writing along with Shakespeare’s Macbeth. Two entirely different pieces of literature good enough to be in curriculum across the country that tell two different stories and shaped in two different forms; so what is bad writing?
Maybe I am missing the point here, but I love the campaign written in this section. Don’t tell me my writing is bad. Maybe your eyes are bad! Of course we as writers cannot forget how sentences are structures: subject, verb, noun, etc., etc. If sentences weren’t written this way we would not be able to read! Might as well throw some Japanese in front of me and call it a day. The argument against linear storytelling imposes new rules and rights to the creative mind- in other words, a completely new phenomenon.
And, hypertext does just this. I can say screw it to the rest of this 1,000 word paragraph if this little hypertext gives me a straight answer. It simplifies the process but still makes reading interesting by putting control into the reader’s hands. This would actually help with the first blog post- sure, I have to read this stuff for class, but I won’t despise it if I can get a little control over what I’m reading and how I am reading it.
Maybe I missed the point here because I’m not used to reading such disruptive and sharp writing, but I feel this piece praises how glorious a new form of writing without boundaries can be. To top it off, it correlates with the media involved with it. Media has evolved for decades now, perhaps it is time the writing did as well.