Writing Inspiration | 21 | 06.12.17
Excerpts
Someone should write an erudite essay on the moral, physical, and esthetic effect of the Model T Ford on the American nation. Two generations of Americans knew more about the Ford coil than the clitoris, about the planetary system of gears than the solar system of stars.
from Cannery Row by John Steinbeck
A thing is valued, she says, only if it is rare and hard to get. We want you to be valued, girls. She is rich in pauses, which she savors in her mouth. Think of yourselves as pearls. We, sitting in our rows, eyes down, we make her salivate morally. We are hers to define, we must suffer her adjectives.
from The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
As Foucault or any bullied school kid could tell you, the powerful often wield scrutiny as a weapon, punishing the powerless for any deviation from an exacting code of speech, dress, behavior, and physical appearance. For those thus rendered visible against their will, the dream of invisibility is not about attaining power but escaping it. Camouflage is, after all, an adaptation not only of predators but also of prey.
from Sight Unseen by Kathryn Schulz, The New Yorker
I stayed in a grand Art Deco building on the banks of the Huangpu River. As if to atone for its decadent past, the edifice suffered the indiginity of serving as a hostel.
from The Disruptors’ Feast by Frits van Paasschen
Words
bowdlerize: (v) remove material that is considered improper or offensive from (a text or account), especially with the result that it becomes weaker or less effective
The prime goal of censorship is to promote ignorance, whether it is done via lying and bowdlerized school texts or by attacking individual books. — Felice Picano
synecdoche: (n) a figure of speech in which a part is made to represent the whole or vice versa, as in Cleveland won by six runs (meaning “Cleveland’s baseball team”)
The daily press, the immediate media, is superb at synecdoche, at giving us a small thing that stands for a much larger thing. Reporters on the ground, embedded or otherwise, can tell us about or send us pictures of what happened in that place at that time among those people. — Bruce Jackson
peroration: (n) the concluding part of a speech, typically intended to inspire enthusiasm in the audience.
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