Two Obscure, to look up

[tectak]

There are two kinds of obscurity....

Divorce in Obscurityville.

Strange affiance, two for ever, broken by amaurosis;
one can see, the other write. Aspectual neurosis
put her in the barracoon of thought…held behind aeneous bars.
Alone she dances, arabesque, content beneath Eleatic stars;
sensory illusions, maybe, she splits in to disepalous flowers.
Free to loose coarctate bonds, yet weak with leptosomic powers,
what chance to beat timocracy, with nothing but slumgullion
……………………………in urceolate jugs.


Camera Obscura

Cold winds spin salt like candy-floss, sweet as a currant bun
but by the kettle on the fence, there pines a lonely one.
Port and whisky, beer and brine, bile because she’s starving;
yet will not take and must not eat the eagle she’s been carving.
Bald and wrinkled like the moon, left to circle blindly,
picking up the poisoned pen, she starts to write unkindly.
She slashes with the beaks of gulls, stabbing at the sky.
But no one looks, and no one cares, and no one hears her cry.
Passing close, lens cap in hand, his shutter button presses…
he takes her image home with him whilst slowly she undresses.

tectak
2015
(another for dale. God I love that guy!)

[shemthepenman]

There are two kinds of obscurity....

Divorce in Obscurityville.

Strange affiance, two for ever, broken by amaurosis;
one can see, the other write. Aspectual neurosis
put her in the barracoon of thought…held behind aeneous bars.
Alone she dances, arabesque, content beneath Eleatic stars;
sensory illusions, maybe, she splits in to disepalous flowers.
Free to loose coarctate bonds, yet weak with leptosomic powers,
what chance to beat timocracy, with nothing but slumgullion
……………………………in urceolate jugs.


Camera Obscura

Cold winds spin salt like candy-floss, sweet as a currant bun
but by the kettle on the fence, there pines a lonely one.
Port and whisky, beer and brine, bile because she’s starving;
yet will not take and must not eat the eagle she’s been carving.
Bald and wrinkled like the moon, left to circle blindly,
picking up the poisoned pen, she starts to write unkindly.
She slashes with the beaks of gulls, stabbing at the sky.
But no one looks, and no one cares, and no one hears her cry.
Passing close, lens cap in hand, his shutter button presses…
he takes her image home with him whilst slowly she undresses.

tectak
2015
(another for dale. God I love that guy!)

Oh these are superb! And no better argument against using footnotes. Really great. Thanks for the read.

[Leanne]

I've always found that the most urceolate jugs are the ones found in aeneous bars...

PS. Your Camera Obscura is rather spectactorific. It made me immensely gleetorous.

[tectak]

I've always found that the most urceolate jugs are the ones found in aeneous bars...

PS. Your Camera Obscura is rather spectactorific.  It made me immensely gleetorous.

Ah the hell wit' the lotoya...yer all takin the michael outta duh seriosity of a humble po-it...and if that ain't awird it shore as hell shud be or I'm Dylan Thomas.
Give me ragadds tuh broadway and remember me tuh Lester Square*.
tectak

*Footnote.
A laminar shape wit four sides awl equal and disposed at right angles to each and udder...or a jockey. No..dats piggot.
Footnotes? I've shittem.
tectak

[rayheinrich]

Vis-à-vis Camera Obscura

[ellajam]

Vis-à-vis Camera Obscura

A huge thank you to my boyfriend for filming and writing the music. A huge pat on the back to me for doing everything else myself.

Poor nameless guy.

[tectak]

Vis-à-vis Camera Obscura

A huge thank you to my boyfriend for filming and writing the music. A huge pat on the back to me for doing everything else myself.

Poor nameless guy.

I have no idea what that was about, ray, and so I say nothing.
On the original issue I can appear justifiably smug...because I am.
The two kinds of obscurity tend to get treated as fungible. I contend that they are different.

Obscure words...Divorce in Obscurityville

I rarely get accused of using "words" which are obscure but when I do I get all defensive. Not an attitude I am proud to assume. We each have a unique vocabulary. I took pains recently to explain to a valid crit that  "big words" only offended those whose vocabulary did  not include the word(s) in question...this circumstance did  not imply that my protagonist had a "smaller"  vocabulary, just a "different" one. The accusation of being obscure-for-merit appals me. You see, I cannot know what the reader knows any more than I know what he doesn't. So should I footnote "fungible" and "protagonist"? Or how about "contend"...anyone feeling patronised yet? OK. So no, to footnoting "words". Look them up. You could use one of those "book"* things if google is  not your scrabble bag. Incidentally, neither of my "online" dictionaries included the word "pendulate". (See Salad Blues, Winter Leaves). Google did...and it was correct. So was I. See, smug.
* Dictionary made of pulled cellulose reformed in to "pages" upon which lots of words and their meaings are recorded. Most homes had them at one time, now, seemingly, rare.

Camera Obscura
Obscurity of expression is a peculiarity of inward thinking being presented to the reader as though through an osmotic membrane. The writer assumes that the mind of the reader butts up against his own in a very intimate and close fashion, such that thoughts diffuse between them . It never does and so the reader cries "obscure!".
The words used to create this kind of obscurity can be "small" and familiar...in fact, they are often so because the writer thinks in small words. In attempting to write profoundly with simple  building blocks the only option is to muddle things up in the subconscious hope that the readership will think that random complexity is actually deep thought. It is very, very easy to write this kind of stuff. Anyone can churn it out in seconds...but it is valueless, and it offends the writer to be told so. To cover up the inadequacy certain ploys are apparent. Recently, a posting on the rennaissance chutney-tunnel rogering of vaginaless virgins incomprehensibly employed a little cameo with a mobile phone. The relevancy was then, and continues to be, lost on me, involving as it did some "endless list without a pattern" (sic) binary digits. Some well-meaning crit pointed out that the digits were character code for the "apostrophe". This was odd as there were nine digits...not a known coding for anything. The writer leapt joyously at this revelation as if intent had been his greatest reward, proclaiming with confirmed (but oh so obviously recent) belief that the coded apostrophe had been his greatest profundity. " I'm glad someone catched that!"(sic) was his cry, now on a roll, as apostrophes "often mean possessive"(sic) and THAT was what he meant all along. Sadly, if the eight-bit binary code was translated to the character set, it was, in fact, the "£" sign!
So there we have it. Obscurity through serendipity. Can you imagine how much joy would have been mine if he had footnoted  the binary intention.

Please note that I am aware that no one suggested footnoting the obscure expression...because it cannot be done. By its very  nature this kind of obscurity is, frankly, nonsense.

Concluding, there are some esoteric works that rely wholly on a sound and in-depth knowledge of the chosen subject. I cannot say that I enjoy such adventures in to thickets of the unknown. Footnotes to such tomes ensure that I feel inadequate..but I accept the necessity if only to avoid the obscurity that lack of specific knowledge would lead me to...and who wants to be obscure.

Best,
tectak

[Erthona]

"The lady doth protest too much, methinks" *

You know perfectly well what your sins were and trying to deflect and obscure from them does not bring you forgiveness. The ones I was targeting were the ones that should a person "look them up" in the dictionary, it would avail them not at all, because your usage could not be found in the dictionary. So despite the fact that you can be clever and avail yourself of the thesaurus does not expiate your crimes. BTW, your words are not "big" your usage is just obscure and/or provincial. Evidently though your cognitive powers do not extend to the point where you can recognize the difference between obscure words, and obscure usage. As you are not a dull fellow, or one lacking in wit, I must assume it is a problem of awareness expressed in an extreme and severely limiting form of ethnocentrism. Unlike Whitman who states, "What I know, you will know..." you mantra appears to be "What I know you should know!"
Although I love you dearly, I will not abide you writing a bunch of crap and thinking you have won this argument, for you have not Sir, you have not. I eagerly await your next salvo, hopefully of greater substance and less fluff.

dale  



*Hamlet

[tectak]

"The lady doth protest too much, methinks" *

You know perfectly well what your sins were and trying to deflect and obscure from them does not bring you forgiveness. The ones I was targeting were the ones that should a person "look them up" in the dictionary, it would avail them not at all, because your usage could not be found in the dictionary. So despite the fact that you can be clever and avail yourself of the thesaurus does not expiate your crimes. BTW, your words are not "big" your usage is just obscure and/or provincial. Evidently though your cognitive powers do not extend to the point where you can recognize the difference between obscure words, and obscure usage. As you are not a dull fellow, or one lacking in wit, I must assume it is a problem of awareness expressed in an extreme and severely limiting form of ethnocentrism. Unlike Whitman who states, "What I know, you will know..." you mantra appears to be "What I know you should know!"
Although I love you dearly, I will not abide you writing a bunch of crap and thinking you have won this argument, for you have not Sir, you have not. I eagerly await your next salvo, hopefully of greater substance and less fluff.

dale  



*Hamlet

Aww, the hell with it. Battles are for the bourgoisie...but au contraire, I am provincially relaxed. Whatever I think I know is not enough in another man's mansion. I mean, where's the shitter? I may not know now, but if I ask it's only because I don't want to shit on your carpet...local knowledge is EVERYTHING.
On these grounds I cannot assume greatness...in myself or others. As I said, there's more than one dictionary. Seek and ye MAY find...eventually.
In the meantime, I give the benefit of doubt. Who could ask for more?
Pendant,
breast.
tectak

[Erthona]

I'd settle for an unabridged OED

[Leanne]

Unabridged? Too far.

[rayheinrich]

I was sorting books for a second-hand bookstore in 2002 when I came across this book
that looked like it had gone through a thresher. Its front was torn off along with
a bunch of pages. This is the kind of thing I hated, people dumping their trash
books into the damn boxes along with all their valuable romance and scifi novels.

But when I examined it I found it was a 1991 Compact Edition of the OED!
Holy Dog Fuck! I stole it, it was mine, my precious. Yes, it was missing most
of the A's, but I never liked A-words that much so it was no big loss.

My life changed, every time I read a word I felt compelled to look it up.
'The', why not look up 'The'? Wow!