Ruminations

Hooray! After much trepidation and worrying about time spent not Writing, I've started a blog. I'm kicking things off with thoughts about my new love, Urban Fantasy, the early sources of creative inspiration, the genesis of the Abracadabra Series, developing news about The Garden of Abracadabra, Real Magic, stories about my other books, life in the San Francisco Bay Area, and more. Visit me at www.lisamasontheauthor.com, leave comments, start new topic threads, and have fun!

I trust I'm not being vainglorious by claiming this domain name. There is, apparently, a Lisa Mason who is a popular hip-hop radio DJ on the East Coast, a Lisa Mason who is a super-model, and a Lisa Mason who drives a UPS truck. Sometimes I receive emails intended for them.

I promise I won’t talk about politics, how I got abducted by space aliens, or food and wine. Well, maybe sometimes about wine. As for here--

Profanity: Enough, Already

It’s everywhere. From celebrities interviewed in glossy magazines to twenty-five dollar hardcover novels to the humblest swain on the street, it seems like every other word out of people’s mouths is the F-word or the S-word or some variation.

Lately, I’ve been picturing a little ball of excrement rolling out of that person’s mouth every time Johnny D or Jennifer L utters some needless, ugly profanity in Vanity Fair.

People used to employ such words to shock or to be cool. That was a long, long time ago. Aren't those words just tiresome in these hip, modern times? How many props does someone need to try to be cool?

When I was remastering Summer of Love, A Time Travel, I found myself searching for other ways in which my characters could express anger, contempt, disgust, and lust. With one exception: I reprinted the late Lenore Kandel’s classic, infamous Beat poem because her language so aptly captures the frenzied sensuality of the time. And, at the time, she was original. Revolutionary. The police raided City Lights Books in San Francisco's North Beach, seized copies of the poem, and shut the store down for peddling porn.

It's actually a lovely, passionate poem.

But that was then.

The other day, I was standing outside my home, chatting with a neighbor about a newspaper article. My neighbor is a tall, sophisticated woman with a degree from Stanford who takes her art students to Italy every summer to study print-making. The article was about fault-lines in the Bay area; a detailed map indicated that our particular neighborhood stood on solid ground. As we chatted about how lucky we were, my neighbor peppered her speech with the F-word and the S-word (and variations). I finally had to say, "Linda, could you not talk to me like a rapper?"

If profanity has become the norm, then let us as writers and speakers become revolutionaries once more. Let us move beyond the mediocre mainstream to a New Age of poetic, articulate speech. If you need to insult someone, I recommend Shakespeare’s Insults by Wayne F. Hill & Cynthia J. Ottchen for fresh ideas.

If an author or a speaker wants to use the F-word or the S-word, go ahead, I won’t censor him or her. I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it. But I don’t have to read that author, either, or listen to that speaker. So please, if you must, use profanity only when you really, really effing mean it.

Copyright © 2000--2012 by Lisa Mason. All rights reserved.