the song of the schwa, for sophie

feeling compelled to offer up thanks to a dedicated reader and commenter, whose jaw-droppingly honest and revelatory musings may be found in my blogroll.

below is an excerpt from a recent reply to a comment of hers. i offer it here in thanks, among other things because my writing it afforded a spontaneous crystallization, not previously realized in form, for the schwa and what i take it to mean as i play with it, routinely, in my art.

as for my dear friend the schwa, i am coming to view it as a universally-human-recognized tone. a tone that leads up the the om. we have to make steps along the way to enlightenment, and i posit that the cosmic “uhhh..” is what plays in our heads when we encounter such as synchronicity, coincidence, cognitive dissonance, an insight into the fucked-upedness of what we’re surrounded by but only start to question, etc., lather rinse repeat.

in brief, we may hear the song of the schwa in moments that may seem or feel on the surface to be good, or bad, which should serve to indicate that they are in fact neither. when we hear the song of the schwa, we are afforded a brief, reflective pause along our journey. or not. it’s still a rough draft.

the cosmic uhhh… i can’t be the only person who hears it. i just can’t.

i need a scanner

I’ll tip my hat to the convenience—among the many amenities within walking distance of the apartment that are at the disposal of my carless ass is a Kinko’s with a range of self-services, including a scanner-appointed graphics workstation. In light of the volume of stuff I intend to render into digital form though, alongside consideration of my current income sitch,spending upwards of 4 bucks to get a jpeg or two is not a great long-term solution.

Anyhow, another drawing to cough forth. Scanned this one yesterday, along with my dirty girl Mary Todd.

I feel a bit stunted in the way that Bob Hope was golf and war, golf and war, all the time: golf and war. For me, though, its bunnies and schwas.

I have an inkling as to why, but I’m still piecing together my theory.

And sometimes “y”? Well, schwa dee dah.

It’s possible that somewhere along the line, the vowels gathered to commiserate, and reckoned themselves to represent five points of a linguistic pentagram. No others need apply.

(e: “But what about that ‘y’ character?”

o: “Yeah, he seems pretty cool. Sometimes”

u: “I dunno, he’s OK I guess. I don’t mind if he hangs out with us from time to time, but no way do we teach him the secret handshake. 

i: “Oh, you…”     etc., etc. )

Not being old enough at the time to understand the neatness of the number 64, when I was a pre-schooler, I was briefly convinced that my life’s mission was to bestow unto the world the 65th Crayola crayon. Of course the folks at Binney and Smith have long since blasted past what was long ago to my mind that once seemingly unsurpassable limit. I now can’t help but laugh at my very early capacity for grandiosity combined with my innocent translation of the box-of-64 into the construct of all-the-colors-known-to-exist; and, well, hey, if I could just push that envelope, even incrementally, and unleash that mind-blowing 65th color, then dang! That’d be bitchin’.

Very much in the same vein though, I see no need to cap the vowel count to five, nor, for that matter, the population of Alphabetland to 26. I think that our alphabet would be richer with the inclusion of the schwa, with full rights and privileges to be bestowed (contingent upon background check, and credit check, natch).

Among his many enjoyable and astonishing pieces of writing, Bill Bryson offered a real gem that I especially enjoyed and have widely recommended, titled The Mother Tongue: English and How it Got That Way. In it is a disarmingly approachable discourse on the development and evolution–past, and yes, ongoing–of the English language. The way in which we use words in a manner agreed to be appropriate and correct remains in a state of slow-motion adaptation.

Point being: we’re up to the task of making room for the schwa. The sanctity of the 26-letter limit to our alphabet is a mere figment of an inflexible collective mind.

That said, I’m not so sure how hard I’m prepared to push on this. The existing letters no doubt, like the vowel subset, have grown used to their roles, and would likely harbor deep resentment at the prospect of bringing someone new on board, and the schwa could be particularly problematic. Any character with a definite article introducing it is pretty off-putting to the old guard. T is quick to point out that he’s T, not the T. Most of the other letters chime in in agreement. W stays mostly silent during the discussion, pondering its own knotty existential challenges.

I think that the biggest problem however is that while the schwa’s mission is to serve in the place of any and all of the vowels depending on application, this mimicry and malleability defines its very being.

When you define yourself as all things to all vowels, it’s a sure bet that you’ll lose yourself in the process.