It's All a Metaphor for Something

Some might say that all these reposts are disrespectful to my few remaining readers.

Hi Mom!!

No excuses. Next time something new fersure. But, I thought it was funny looking back and seeing that I experienced a MySpace blogging malaise back in "aught-seven" too. For the exact same reasons.

Malaise.

Sounds like I'm some Fin de siècle poet smoking cigarettes in a long holder sipping absinthe bemoaning fallen standards and dodging a rodgering from Arthur Rimbaud... not that there isn't a good deal of assplay on MySpace... but the pain usually precedes the poetry... usually.

Let us speak of it no more.

So on to the blog, hold the malaise.

I'll hold my ass.

---

I haven't blogged in a while. I've been conducting an experiment in reconnecting with my family where I actually talk to them in the evening instead of tuning out in front of a
computer screen.

Yeah well that didn't go too well so I'm back.

Hi
hi.

OK so hmmm…. blogging. The well hasn't run dry, I have plenty of things to write about but I've been getting tired of turning the crank to raise the bucket. Some days I feel like I'm cranking something else here without the money lubrication that might make this blogging business more enjoyable. Lubrication is important to prevent lasting injury to parts that can't be replaced at my current blogging salary of zero.

As you can tell by now, I have no idea where this blog is going. I feel rusty and random and out of practice so this blog is likely to turn into a toboggan ride down a trash hill.

Hands and legs in please. Trust me. I'm from Jersey so I know how to take these turns. The trick is to slalom through the normal household garbage at the top and hope no one threw out a fat dead mobster this week.

Some metaphors are unsafe at any speed.

I've been thinking about metaphors lately. Metaphors that surround and infuse the world we live in and are inextricably linked to the way we communicate. Anyone who has ever watched the language development of a child from infanthood to the toddler stage has observed the phenomenon of metaphorical thinking in action. Baby first thinks of mom in terms of mom's boobs. The child will
start using a name for momma's boobs like "nana" or "num num" or "bodacious tatas" or whatever. Sometimes they'll say this word and it means they are hungry and at other times it might mean that they just want the comfort of momma. Some of us never get past that stage.

Truth time. I more than likely started out thinking about boobs and then moved on to thinking about metaphors and not the other way around. If it makes a difference, I think I was staring at a picture of John
Travolta's moobs. Brrrrrrrrrrr!

Anyway, the boob thing is a pretty good example of a synecdochic metaphor or possibly a metonym – or using a part of a thing to represent the whole or the concept behind the thing named. That's right. Women are objectified right from the get go. Don't feel too bad. We all start out objectifying or being objectified in the word association game that is metaphoric language development. Dad's fare far worse - we are usually associated with noise and stench and scratchy faces.

Cognitive theorists have posited that much of our daily language is structured by conventional metaphors and is translated back in our brains via conceptual metaphors. Like when you look at a hammer, you see its shape, you say the word, and your brain automatically puts together a metaphoric association like blunt - clubby - metal - finger - whacking – thingy. You SEE a picture of
George Bush and you MIND supplies dimwit - doucheface - cowboyhat - spongecake - yodel - blank - cheesedip - flightsuit - poodle -silverspoon - phonydiploma - blunt - clubby - metal - finger - whacking
- thingy. Cool huh? 

And, some theorists believe that our memory is structurally organized by these conceptual metaphors or conceptual mappings. It's all bits and pieces of a thousand different metaphoric associations that go on from moment to moment in our brains that make up our perception of reality.

This might explain why I can remember the Oscar Meyer jingle from my childhood but can't tell you whether I'm wearing underwear – but I have to be staring at salamis in a deli case to make the associative leap..............

..........................................

...................................................

......................................................um……………

...............................................................................yes.

So much for the Cartesian Theatre; I may not have a little man in my head watching memory films but I have plenty of stock footage of car chases and exploding bunnies.

If the little guy in my head isn't watching movies projected on the back of Plato's Cave why is he wearing a
trench coat and groping the other homunculi in the dark? Or was that Plato's Retreat I'm thinking of? I'm pretty sure the guy working the door was Greek or Armenian or something.

Quick! Somebody bring in some puppets!

"Now show me
where the metaphor touched
you on this Hello Kitty doll, Joe."

This is why I don't drink any more or hang out with Greeks.

"Hello...
and welcome to the Cartesian
Theater.... a Clearview cinema... to hear show times for... The
Persistence of Vision Conspiracy starring Charlie Sheen... press or say
ONE... to hear show times for.. Rob Schneider in The Animus... press or
say TWO..."

Metaphors have been part of written language since earliest times. The Epic of Gilgamesh is layered in metaphor and Homer's Iliad was really the story about a guy who went out looking for a girl and a
pack of Trojans.

Ahem.

A well formed metaphor can shock us into seeing the world in a new way or from a different angle. Whether poetically elegant or brutal and blunt; it can reveal truths in a flash of recognition. 

But when metaphors go bad, kittens die.*

*meeooooooow –ack –ack – arrrrgh…………….. miew! See? That one just killed a

litter.

"Make it as  simple as possible. But no 

simpler." - Albert Einstein

Metaphors are great communication tools. They are commonly used in science to describe processes and phenomena in ways that are understandable to people like me who are mystified by… um… boiling water. 

Therein lays the beauty and the danger of metaphors. They can be used to make the world more understandable or they may lock us into a narrow view depending upon who is doing the framing and their skill at weaving a good metaphor. But, metaphors are like black concert T-shirts – you might think that if you look hard enough you can find one that will fit any situation but everyone at the funeral is secretly laughing at you and wondering who The Butthole Surfers are. 

My next blog will be about sets and categorization which should thrill the bejeebers out of at least two of you. I'll be sure to pack it with plenty of sex & drugs and maybe a bit of gun play to keep it rolling. Wheeeeeeeee!!!!!

We strap on honking big metaphors and take them to war with us. Remember when Saddam Hussein was found hiding in "a spider hole"? The Bush administration has never beenshy about dropping the vermin metaphors when it came to "the enemy" be they Iraqi, Democrat, Michael Moore or Dixie Chick. Stupid needs no shorthand but that never stopped anyone from trying. Simple metaphors give lazy journalists something to eat up with a spoon at mid-day press conferences and regurgitate later on the six o'clock
snooze so that we in turn can consume it like starving baby gulls chowing down on momma seagull halibut barf.

Strrrrretch!

Then there's this whole "War on Terror" metaphor thing-a-ma-bob.

War?

Really?

The war metaphor kind of breaks down for me when I'm at the airport getting my shoes sniffed by a guy who snaked the job under the American's with Disabilities Act after becoming permanently disabled in a battle of wits. Wake me up when we "win" this one, 'kay?

Don't even get me started on the "thousand points of light" fart bubble that was the first Bush Administration.

"The main thing is that everything become simple, easy enough for a child to
understand; that each act be ordered, that good and evil be decided
arbitrarily, thus clearly." - Albert Camus

Metaphors come in many flavors. Sometimes it might paint its face in team colors and don a beer bong helmet to become hyperbole. Or, it might be a straight forward "like or as" comparison: metaphor's simple minded banjo playing cousin, the simile.

When a metaphor becomes popular it graduates to cliché – which is a metaphor characterized by its overuse.

If you've ever taken an English class (I see a lot of blank looks about now) at one time or another, some pointy headed teacher probably told you that clichés are a sign of lazy writing. Boy, if I had a nickel for
every time I've heard that old saw. Well the road to hell is paved with good intentions and this advice should be taken with a grain of salt.  I think it is a good idea to be aware of clichés when writing, but
there's no need to avoid them like the plague.

Pure and simple, clichés are often the shortest distance from point A to point B so if the shoe fits wear it. 

After all, why re-invent the wheel?

I Hate Catachresis to Pieces

Bleh!

I have an addiction to bad metaphors I just can't kick. I might as well take my shirt off and write Internet poetry. Time for an intervention before they find me dumpster diving behind the Hallmark store for
inspiration.

Stop me before I blog again!