Play It as It Lays

 

After typing out an excerpt from a Joan Didion book yesterday, I had to ask, What does the word etiology mean?

online definition

etiology

noun

1.  The cause, set of causes, or manner of causation of a disease or condition.

"a group of distinct diseases with different etiologies"

2.  The investigation or attribution of the cause or reason for something, often expressed in terms of historical or mythical explanation.

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Okay.

But -- what does etiology mean?

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As I have been reading The Art of X-Ray Reading, by Roy Peter Clark, it makes you notice different things when you read...In yesterday's Didion paragraph, where the word "dark" is used three different times in the same sentence:

--------------------- The place is physically dark, dark like the negative of a photograph, dark like an X-ray:  the atmosphere absorbs its own light, never reflects light but sucks it in until random objects glow with a morbid luminescence. -------------------

Two of the "darks" are right together, separated only by a comma.  (I think I'm catching on! -- call Roy Peter Clark!) -- dark, dark like the negative of a photograph, dark like an X-ray...

        Hey, there's another coincidence (or connection?), Joan wrote "dark like an X-ray" -- and Clark's book is about "X-Ray reading."...

        (We're going to need a lasso and some horses to "round up" all these words and word-relationships.)

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        Another thing I noticed because of the "X-ray reading" was when the Texas chair-throwing rabbi news-story was giving me a "call-back" to those Kemelman book titles.

They are great titles, i-m-o, because there's power in the arrangement of the words.  They are unforgettable titles -- they grab the reader.

Friday the Rabbi Slept Late

Saturday the Rabbi Went Hungry

Sunday the Rabbi Stayed Home

Monday the Rabbi Took Off

Tuesday the Rabbi Saw Red

Wednesday the Rabbi Got Wet

Thursday the Rabbi Walked Out

----------------------- Why are they powerful?  Partly because there are words omitted -- "the" and "when."

'The Friday when the Rabbi Slept Late'

'The Saturday when the Rabbi Went Hungry'

More complete, as sentences (or -- phrases) -- but less powerful.

When we drop those two words, the book titles sound more like what journalist Tina Brown calls "the vernacular of the street" --

Monday the Rabbi Took Off

Thursday the Rabbi Walked Out.

And by losing the "The" at the beginning, it becomes more immediate, more arresting.

The titles sound more tough, this way, like The Sopranos.

Saturday Tony Didn't Kill Nobody.

No,

Saturday the Capo Made Lasagne

No...

Saturday the Capo Bowed Out.

        Yes, maybe more like that.

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The New York Times had an article on Joan Didion's passing, and her body of work, and her life -- some Reader Comments:

Finn McCool

Boston

------------------ Please go back and rewrite this and include Slouching Towards Bethlehem and The White Album.  Notable essay collections from a notable essayist.  If we told ourselves stories in order to live, let's at least get the names of the stories down.

Sally

California

------------- Just read Joan Didion died.  What a loss!  She lived long enough to chronicle so much, and with such poise and feeling.

Lonnie Anaheim

NYC

------------ Life changes in an instant.

Ralph Petrillo

Nyc

------------------------ She was the best of the 20th century.  Clear, concise, deliberate, and the ability to lead the reader to an intellectual clarity of what is actually occurring.  Didion spared no punches.

Paladin

New Jersey

------------------------------------- She, indeed, played it like it laid.

Joe Gentile

New York, NY

---------------------- What a phenomenal talent.

Alex

Down Here on Earth

------------------ Never a smokey drive on PCH to surf in offshore Santa Anas or warm reckless night out amidst the devil winds when I didn't reflect on Joan Didion's ability to capture LA's physical and psychological essence.  

Gotta thank my English teacher for turning me on to her perfectly composed atmospherics.  It would be a crime to leave STB out of any LA kid's syllabus.  

Godspeed Señora.

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