Twenty-One Genres and How to Write Them

6 Blog

6 Blogs example: Weather or Not We’re Ready, It’s Here, Mark Edson Sunday, June 10, 2012 I’ve been thinking, again, about the weather. This time, though, I mean the external meteorology, climate change, not the solipsistic this-is-how-it-looksinside -so-that’s-how-I-see-the-outside stuff. I know I’ve written about things climatic before, at least tangentially, but it’s getting harder to deny that we’re entering a strange new world unless you’re a multi-billionaire already, someone who’s made your fortune on environmentally-degrading endeavors and wants still way more money and so you spend barrels of cash on having “experts” plant the seeds in the minds of average people that this whole climate-change thing is a hoax and no, this isn’t a run-on sentence, just a lengthy and barelycontrolled one. But really, is there any plausible deniability left? David Letterman started his TV career as a weatherman in Indianapolis and once said that there were 46    Genres hailstones the size of canned hams falling in his broadcast area. I don’t guess that’s accurate even now, but as Jackson Browne said, “Don’t think it won’t happen just because it hasn’t happened yet.” We’ve had at least 3 hailstorms in the last couple weeks in this area, some quite damaging; I certainly can’t remember belonging to the hailstorm-of-the-week-club ever in the past. And in case you’re wondering, I got a great deal on hyphens on E-bay recently, so I’ve got plenty to use willy-nilly (see?). I know, too, that I mentioned Kurt Vonnegut’s Cat’s Cradle a while ago, so I’m sure I’ve given you all a chance to reread it. As you’ll recall, then, the book’s basic premise is that, the US military, grown tired of being mired in swamp after swamp in their various wars, have (that may be a more British verb form there, the “have” rather than “has,” “military” for them being a collective noun rather than a single entity, thus “they have” rather than “it has,” leading to the awkward-sounding, to our ears, use of the singular v--oh, never mind) commissioned their scientists to come up with something that dries up any mud they might encounter. The result is something called “Ice Nine” (Jerry Garcia named his music publishing company “Ice Nine,” for what it’s worth). It works great, essentially freeze-drying the water in the mud and allowing their vehicles to ride atop the suddenly hard ground. The problem, of course, one which no one considered, is that Earth is a closed system and all water on the planet is ultimately connected to all other water. Hence, the entire planet becomes a rime-covered waterless uninhabitable desert. Oops! As Vonnegut describes it: There was the sound like that of the gentle closing of a portal as big as the sky, the great door of heaven being closed softly. It was a grand AH-WHOOM. I opened my eyes--and all the sea was ice-nine. The moist green earth was a blue-white pearl. The sky darkened...the sun...became a sickly yellow ball, tiny and cruel. The sky was filled with worms. The worms were tornadoes. When my kids were babies and I’d stop in their rooms to kiss them one more time on my way to bed, I often took the opportunity to apologize to them (they were asleep--I wasn’t trying to give them nightmares. What kind of person do you think I am, for chrissakes?) for having brought them into this world. The only reasons, it seems to me, to have kids intentionally are the biologically-encoded drive all organisms have, to propagate to ensure the continuation of the species (hardly necessary in our case, what with seven billion others around to handle that) and ego: the need to ensure a specific genetic line’s continuation, or to attempt to ensure one’s own immortality, or whatever other socio-psychological theory is currently in vogue about that issue. But I don’t think it’s ‘cause we think we’re giving these new beings a slice o’ paradise. Maybe the sky’s not falling, maybe it won’t soon be filled with worms of tornadoes , though I bet there are people in this country who’d say it already has Blogs...