Sometimes It Doesn't Work

[tablesaw]

There are sentences I would enjoy in fiction, which is an exercise in shared imagination, that I do not enjoy in nonfiction, an exercise in communication. Take this sentence:

Globalized neo-noir hip-hop fizzy water is the most advanced form of urban erasure I know.

As an invitation to imagination, speculation, and the creation of a constellation of possible meaning, it is marvelous. As an insight into a real person's thoughts about real issues, it is terrible.

---

I've been sleeping terribly since getting back from Boston. I think the Mystery Hunt jolted me into a mode of getting only a few hours' sleep every day. This is less than I require, and I'm feeling drowsy at the end of the workday. I'm going to try to get some sleep before going to a party tonight.

Comments

[yeloson.livejournal.com]

Whu? Was that sentence an attempt to talk about the issues of stuff like Crooked Eye Ice Tea, etc. which they started marketing 2 decades ago, which is basically non-alcoholic drinks aimed at kids in cans that look just like malt liquor? Cause, I mean, yeah, there's a lot of issues with it, just. What?

[tablesaw]

Uh, let me try to give what I think I know.

Google Books will get you the page(s) with the sentence, if you want it. It seems to be based heavily on the work of Mike Davis, who was interviewed earlier in the book. (I intend to read more of Davis's work soon.) Southern California (as I interpret their argument at the moment) relies so heavily on the destruction of the past, both distant and recent, that the city and its people become sociologically disoriented or amnesiac. Globalization, which imprints itself identically across cultures, including cities, is a large part of that process.

So, that's what I think the beginning and end of the sentence means. But this author, Norman Klein, doesn't seem to give any indication of what hip-hop means in this context. "Neo-noir" is used several times, but in a myriad of ways that obscure any meaning. (CNN's Hardball is neo-noir! Planet of the Apes is neo-noir!) And "fizzy water" . . .

Fizzy water's pretty much where I go to the next chapter.

[queen-elvis.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't really enjoy that sentence in fiction either. Just tell me a damn story and skip the pretension, people. Then again, I think my tastes may be skewed by what I do for a living.

[tablesaw]

This may actually be a difference in genre expectation. It fits more squarely in speculative fiction than in boring fiction.