This post is very much over due, "slacker" should be my
middle name.
But this post is really about language. My roommate and I are
sitting in a downtown coffee shop working on piles of homework. The interesting
thing about being here is not so much the steady stream of people coming in and
out getting their daily dose of legal stimulant, but what
I truly find intriguing is how they interact and speak with one
another. I recently watched the video that Eutrepe Brooks posted on her blog,
and heard the line " Shakespeare used over 50,000 words, were as the
modern American only uses around 3,000". I'm sure that many of you
have done the whole "people watching" thing: Sitting in a public area
watching others walk by performing daily tasks, going to lunch or dinner,
holding hands and just enjoying the simple pleasure of being in the presence of
a loved one. The sun is shining or the clouds are passing, you get a tune stuck
in your head that seems to put your experience into
a serendipitous scene out of a movie.
Next time you get to experience this cosmic moment, listen to what
the passerby's are saying. Not just the words they are saying but how they are
saying them. Listen instead to the tones and the melodies in the voice. This is
what being in this coffee shop on Martin Luther King Monday is like. There is a
woman and her friend sitting behind us. The woman directly behind me has a voice
that is low pitched, very serious, and very musical. Her friend: a mild and dry
voice. There is a little girl sitting with her loving mother. Her voice mirrors
that of a spring song bird: high pitched but full of beautiful tones. "Hi,
and My colors" seem to be her favorite phrases.
I believe that Shakespeare new that such tones and rhythms were
important to the language that he was "creating". Ted Hughes says
Shakespeare, along with creating his own language also created his own
"translation machine". I believe that this was something extremely
important because it put a melody and rhythmic patterns into a system of
language brand new to the time that was going through a cultural change.
"The complexity of knotted metaphor melts, that is into a musical complexity , a sinuous, melodious orchestration of tones where words have resumed their simple directness with out losing their amplitude" . Next time someone speaks, count out the timing of a sentence, or find the melody in their voice.
"The complexity of knotted metaphor melts, that is into a musical complexity , a sinuous, melodious orchestration of tones where words have resumed their simple directness with out losing their amplitude" . Next time someone speaks, count out the timing of a sentence, or find the melody in their voice.
Onto the next big adventure!
