Etsy Opening: Get Ready. Get Pumped. Get Taped.

I have now opened my shop on Etsy, Adherently Awesome. Here you can purchase the wallets or other duct tape creations I've made, order a custom wallet, or suggest custom duct tape pieces. If you have any questions, you can contact me at AdherentlyAwesome@gmail.com.
Please enjoy the tape!

Also, if you like my poor cartooning, check out the "Too Literal" page for more puns :)

My Love/Hate Relationship with Hyperbole

So. I hate hyperbole. Sure, it's beautiful and adeptly describes situations that are comedic, poetic, or frustratic (Yeah, I made up a word for the sake of parallel structure, so sue me. -- please don't). But-- it's terribly inaccurate and tears apart the severity of situations, turning life into an over-dramatized performance. "All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players" (huzzah for Shakespeare). 

I do love hyperbole. Nothing makes me happier than throwing out the most absurd analogy to depict a preposterous position, a tangle of diction to distill discomfort and disconcertion (More word-crafting. Deal with it). I'll tell you with the utmost certainty that the contact juggling I witnessed today was the coolest thing I've ever seen. I mean-- it was freaking awesome. (But was it really the coolest thing I've ever seen? Well, I've never seen a guy literally lit on fire (before today), but I doubt it really was the coolest thing I've ever seen).

But still, hyperbole kills the very impact of words. Because we use such extreme terms to describe mundane--or at least much less intense--events/situations, we force our language and diction to shape more emphatic ways to express ideas that are slightly more awesome/depressing/scary/strange than the ones for which we already used hyperbole (Or we re-use hyperbolic statements and equate situations with unequal quantities of severity). By using extra-emphatic diction to describe less-emphatic scenarios, we degrade the very meanings and connotations of the words we use.

The Degree of Scandal.

It occurred to me that in Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, there is the concept that "everyone belongs to everyone," which is just a euphematic way of describing socially encouraged sexual promiscuity. (I don't judge.) However, the promiscuity is limited in the society Huxley created by male-female couplings. Women are expected to have fleeting relationships with as many men as they wish, and men with many women (though not at the same time). There is no discussion of promiscuity outside the bounds of male-female relationships.

Granted, Brave New World was written in the early '30s, so the idea of promiscuity in general was probably less scandalous than the idea of homosexuality or any non-M/F-sexuality (However, I cannot be sure, I'm not from the '30s). That though, the different degrees of scandalousness, is absolutely fascinating. The idea that one idea is taboo, but another is double taboo. Like, for example, swear words that have different levels of gasps attached to them if used in front of parents, or certain audiences. A child says shit-(aki mushrooms) and parents' eyes get wide and they direct the youth toward the preferable "shoot,"-- but a child drops an F bomb and parental units tweak as if miniature grenades just burned the soles of their shoes, and proceed to take away privileges as if they were candy. Why is there that distinction?

It makes sense though, due to the cliche which discusses the many shades of gray in life. It's the difference between belching and mooning someone at a black tie event. Society is just wonky.

Belated disclaimer: I have not read Brave New World in a year, as it was summer reading for AP English, so my recollections are probably hazy.