Monday, November 7, 2011

Grammar Nazis and Iconography

I'm fascinated by good writing.

(Occasionally I even attempt it myself.  Mixed success.  Writing well is just as hard as good grave digging, making every corner "neat and square," as Mike Mulligan's steam shovel would put it.)

So in reading this month's Naked City: Taboo, Wichita's art magazine, I had to laugh out loud at Bart Wilcox's description of being edited by a grammar sensitive, yet poorly informed, writing client:

"A client once told me that I had to rewrite a sentence because 'you can't end a sentence with a verb.'  My reply was, 'I can.  And I just did.'"

Grammar geeks in the audience: can you parse that joke?   For more fun with parts of speech I recommend reading Lynn Truss's Eats, Shoots, and Leaves.

More interesting stuff from this issue: an exhibit of Chris Parks' strongly graphic art work at the Naked City Gallery.

Images of art by Chris Parks at Naked City Gallery, Wichita, Kansas

These are really strong, crisp visuals - no surprise the artist also designs logos and signage - but beyond the first pow! impact of shape and color and wit, there are subtler messages.  Iconography.  In an earlier age, surely Parks would have been slipping clues into somber paintings of saints or palming memento mori skulls into the innocent shadows of portraits.  Here and now his colors are brighter and the jokes and skulls easier to spot.  

(Click on the image caption to read the magazine article.)

No comments:

Post a Comment