Chrisonomicon

Tuesday, April 1, 2003

April Foolery aside, we'd gone to Cho Revolution on Friday night at the Paramount for Dave's birthday, which was very funny and up-to-date -- we were relieved to see her perform some new material after the relentless Notorious C.H.O. -- and a few skits really extended her reputation as a master of physical comedy, particularly the imitation of an old-world Asian woman on an airplane criticizing the attendant for the inaccuracy of the Asian Chicken Salad. Dead-on. And then of course she ended with the usual inspirational solicitation to be yourself, fight for your rights and keep on keepin' on, which I sort of appreciated even though it was a pretty drastic divergence from the "Oh my God, I shit my pants" routine and the political criticisms -- "Bush can't even correctly say 'nuclear'" -- but worked on the whole "Don't take shit from anyone and don't take yourself so seriously" level.

So, I've been thinking a lot about this idea lately, you know, trying not to take myself or anyone else so seriously, and it's pretty hard when you've been educated as an engineer and you program computer code for a living. Yet, I love the order and logic. It's been a rock for me the past few weeks, being able to spend my days in the quiet flourescent-lit office and type, think through a problem from beginning to solution, fit everything into its variable space and let elegant code take care of itself. Computers are man's attempt at ordering a chaotic world where solutions require international consensus, bank on the uncertainty of quantum mechanics and scoff at Boole.

Andy Lamey wrote about prescriptivism, or "language bullies," at The National Post yesterday, reminding me much of Margaret Cho's statement regarding our oh-so-articulate president and also of myself, having had a long-standing rule dictating the refusal to read websites, of which the authors refuse to use -- or, at the very least, refuse to attempt -- correct punctuation, grammar and spelling. Sure, that can come across as a little elitist. However, I'd always thought that if I'm taking the time to make my thoughts readable and publicly available, by God, everyone else ought to hold himself to the same standard and make a similar effort.

Now, here I am thinking that I've been a little too strict -- with myself and others -- meanwhile enjoying the seriousness and orderliness of my work, and it's only considering this that the source of my rigidity makes sense. After all, computers require absolute uniformity and correctness of their users. Computer commands must be exact or the machine will not understand you. Effort is required to eliminate the habitual, "non-standard" English of everyday conversation and think in structured, systematic, syntactically correct modules. Protocols -- whether social or linguistic or computational -- are developed for this very reason. Our world is too small and humankind is wont to deviation -- perhaps inherently so -- and therefore it seems that a certain degree of seriousness ought to be expected for an appropriate level of communication. I mean, just look at where miscommunication has gotten our current administration. Take, for example, the recently misunderstood disagreements of the international community. Perhaps a worldwide language protocol ought to be initiated; protocols for dry humor, sarcastic satire, dead seriousness, empathy and sympathy.

Did I mention that this gray shirt of yours makes me look fucking hot?