Wednesday, July 07, 2010

Dick Move, Jargon Juggler.


I am an American. For the most part we are an English speaking country, but there is no amendment or law that explicitly states, “We speak English here, take your other worthless language and go suck on a dead dog’s nose.” Of course, this is a good thing, because other languages aren’t worthless at all, especially not to the people who speak them.

Similarly, there’s no official language of AAYSR. It’s not like we called together a reviewers gin rally and debated the semantics of our FAQ over bucks and Tom Collinses (Tom Collinseses?). Since the FAQ is written in English, we arrogantly assumed like the vainglorious dicks we are that all submissions would subsequently be in English.

Obviously, some asshole out there decided that he was entitled to a review, even with having less an a third of his posts written in a language I understand, as if he's testing me. You sonofabitch, I got a 34 on my ACT because I test so good. Pop quiz, jargon juggler: who's got two fists full of round bombs with fuses of scorn for bilingual bloggers testing my lexical patience? This girl. Dick move, jargon juggler. Dick move.

But I thought, you know, hey--this guy’s got to have some reason for doing this. Hopefully he'll reveal himself as some kind of pretentious fuck, and then we can set him on fire with leftover bottle rockets from this past weekend's patriotic debauchery. Maybe he'll be counterfeit and full of shit. Maybe he'll nearly plagiarize but not quite, and circumvent any accusations of plagiarism because of the nature of the concept he's addressing, thus brilliantly demonstrating the idea he's floating--but did he know that I've read that book? Does it matter?

Fine, so I didn't necessarily predict he would do that last bit, but motherfucker did itnonetheless.

And by golly, I fucking like him. He turned out to be feisty and hilarious and obnoxiously ostentatious because he is totally a Bombay hipster (which he would adamantly deny, true to hipster code), and I love that kind of unapologetic bastardization of self. Sure, some of this poetry crap is just nonsense, but I assure you: although it doesn't look like a standard poem, this blog is all poetry, even if a little wordy and rugged (the entry at the bottom), even if sometimes he comes across as a kind of drunken swan, where you can see how elegant he could be if he weren't such a flashy fuckdunce.

His template is horseshit, the navigation is a sterile, complicated hospital nightmare, sometimes the links lead to streams of shrapnel html and most of the writing is in fucking Hindi. Opening each quarter-monthly archive link is like passing around a live fucking hand grenade. There is no profile, no comments, no way to go back to a homepage, no way to click on an individual entry. He hasn't posted in a couple of months, which makes me believe he either joined Facebook or Twitter, where his brevity could be more immediately appreciated by his peers.

This guy is good. This guy is really, really good. And he fucking knows it. I'm guessing he's a professional (apparently he has already written some film scripts). He's above detailing his life or personality for any potential readers, because if they don't get it, if they cannot just deduce his dreams and self from his poetry, which "does not burnish on paper as much as it embers in the mind," why would he want them reading his blog?

So, Manish Fuckwad, you are a cocksucker.

I want you to take your superior word choice, your smooth, jerkface prose, and your aloof, cryptic layout back to Bombay's version of Brooklyn and dump it in a trash bin at the local ditchwater coffee shop.


Then I want you to straighten up your thick-rimmed emo glasses and start over with a simple template with a plain, classic header that's just your title and a drop-down archive. I want you to tag your posts with "English" or "Hindi" so people can just skip to whatever language they understand or feel like reading that day. And I want you to write more often, because I want it.


21 comments:

  1. I so totally didn't see this coming.

    ReplyDelete
  2. When the writing is good, I gotta give credit. And I thought it was good.

    ReplyDelete
  3. So Geo, when are you submitting?

    ReplyDelete
  4. And I'm curious to see what other reviewers say, too.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Bravo Shiner, I wouldn't have dug as deep as you did. The crew's all professional and shit here.

    He writes pretty well, reeks of a "professional".

    As much as I hate transliteration, I read his poetry as well. The stuff in Hindi is super hipster too, meant for readings in dim bookstores to an audience clad in wool (Indian hipsters are like that).

    ReplyDelete
  6. So by "professional" we mean "gets paid to write sometimes" correct? Because if that's the case, then I am a fucking professional. Kind of.

    Sometimes I blog during work hours.

    ReplyDelete
  7. His Hindi stuff isn't 'super hipster'. It's in a style that's fairly common for Hindi/Urdu poetry, which may come off as pretentious if you don't know the language and haven't been exposed to the style before. And it's actually really good.

    ReplyDelete
  8. As we all know, there can be only one opinion about poetry.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Anyone who sits around reading Ghandi and talking about Mein Kampf in a coffee shop is automatically pretentious. End of story.

    ReplyDelete
  10. And thank god we have an anonymous Hindi poetry expert around to define words for us and put us in our place.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Muther Theresa7/07/2010 3:32 PM

    Ghandi was the ultimate hipster.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Rassles is a consummate professional.

    I love you / her!

    ReplyDelete
  13. Most of the links only give me a ratking of html. A few of the poems made me feel.....tired. Appreciated some of the imagery but not as much as I would a clever Haiku or Cinquain or even Terza Rima.

    Maybe he should add some dirty Limericks.

    Maybe that's just the pharma cocktail I'm nursing speaking.

    ReplyDelete
  14. "I have lived in the desert for years and I have come to believe in such things. It is a place of pockets. The trompe l''eil of time and water. The jackal with one eye that looks back and one that regards the path you consider taking. In his jaws are pieces of the past he delivers to you, and when all of that time is fully discovered it will prove to have been already known."

    Now that's the kind of poetry the Miss likes, those Sri-Lankans, so poetic.

    ReplyDelete
  15. I was strangely unmoved by this blog. It's funny how sometimes you seem to write a two star review of a three star blog and vice versa. You tend to get the very good and very bad ones bang on, though.

    Still, what do I know?

    ReplyDelete
  16. Guys, this is my blog, and I am a sitting duck on Facebook, please come over to shoot.

    :)

    Manish Gaekwad on Facebook

    ReplyDelete
  17. Once you're in the "good but not perfect" territory, everything gets all muddled, and it really becomes a matter of personal opinion more than anything else.

    ReplyDelete
  18. I guess here's the thing: Manish writes with originality. To me, at least. It's a little self-absorbed and overconfident. In the end I would definitely rather read that than the blog of someone who is funny and clever, but desperate to be noticed and discovered.

    Everyone who blogs feels misunderstood and unappreciated, and they want to be discovered and valued. It's just the way it is. Maybe you don't want to be famous, but you want someone in the ether to acknowledge that yes, I think you are worth my time and attention.

    The more a blogger points out that not enough people paying attention, the less I want to read their writing.

    I'm not reading to make you famous. I'm reading to connect. And your bitching makes me dislike you.

    ReplyDelete
  19. Best review I've read in a long damn time.

    ReplyDelete
  20. Shinerpunch - I didn't see the response on this thread. But again, I HAVE submitted. Like 8 months ago.

    ReplyDelete
  21. It navigates the realm of slang and expressions, demonstrating linguistic agility and wit. How Use VPN This linguistic escapade amuses, highlighting the power of words to evoke laughter while embracing the dynamic art of language manipulation.

    ReplyDelete

Grow a pair.