From The Atternen Juez Talen: Ketuba

In this brief scene the Atternen Ju, who is getting married, watches as his ketuba (marriage contract) is produced by a scribe. The first version is in meta-English, followed by a standard English version. For all you calligraphers and sofers...

Meta-English (Stevetok) version:
...
The skrieb hav a hole jarfule a penz
An a mennee bottellen ov eenks, az wel.
An not a sheet a linnen, starcht,
But rit on a parchmen skind ov a goet!

He puelz owt a goos kwil an kaerfule inspeks;
Sharps it a bit; then a dipt in eenk,
Shaeks it, an taken a long deep breth.
Fliez forth him han, like a swawlo that dievz
An sord thru the aerz, dip an fly,
Dip an fly, an thaer on the parch
A weengen chareb toppen the page.
Then annuther pen in annutherren jar
An annutherren sereez ov shaek an fly.
An wo! the chareb lumen in goel;
An with a flik he a spatterren, starree a sky.
Then, with kaerfule, a mezherren stroek
Larjen letterz in lappis blu,
Youd hay vuv hay*, the holeyes Name
                * Hebrew letters, code for ineffable Name; 
                spoken: Uddoniy
Between the owtstrechen chareb weeng.
Then in a liten a shaden a blu,
El Shuddiy, the nercherres Name
In smawler letter inside Uddoniy.
Now kum the marij kontrak tex,
Awl bizzee an aeree an fule a pomp,
‘Waerfor this’ an ‘waeraz that’
In blak letterren, smawl an skware.
Then zigzag an swerrel tu border the siedz,
An heez dun, we sine, an I’m a mareeyes man.

Standard English (dulltok) version:
...
The scribe has a whole jarful of pens
And many bottles of ink, as well.
And not a sheet of linen, starched,But written on a parchment skin of a goat!

He pulls out a goose quill and carefully inspects;
Sharpens it a bit; then dips it in ink,
Shakes it, and takes a long deep breath.
Flies forth his hand, like a swallow that dives
And soars thru the air, dip and fly,
Dip and fly, and there on the parchment
A winged cherub atop the page.
Then another pen in another jar
And another series of shake and fly.
And whoa! the cherub illumined in gold;
And with a flick he spatters a starry sky.
Then, with careful and measured strokes
Larger letters in lapis blue,
Yud hay vuv hay*, the holiest Name
                * Hebrew letters, code for ineffable Name; 
                spoken: Adonai
Between the outstretched cherub wings.
Then in a lighter shade of blue,
El Shaddai, the nurturing Name
In smaller letters inside Adonai.
Now comes the marriage contract text,
All busy and airy and full of pomp,
‘Wherefore this’ and ‘whereas that’
In black letters, small and square.
Then zigzag and swirl to border the sides,
And he’s done, we sign, and I’m a married man.

Atternen Juez Talen - the Dammaskis roed

The following is a 2-stanza excerpt from The Atternen Juez Talen, early in the story, as our hero flees Jerusalem and the Roman conquerors. I present two versions. The first is the "meta-English" (stevetok) version. For those who want to check their reading, reflect on the grammatical and linguistic changes, or just can't figure out the meta-English, there's a standard English version below. You'll see, the text is really not hard to understand. The stevetok version is simply more layered, conveying more effectively the essential translucency of "reality."
Meta-English (stevetok) version:

So thaer I wer on that Dammaskis roed,
North a Tavveeryah, an thru Gawlan*.        * Romen lanz noreest a Lake Tavveeryah
Romen masenz an us lokel slaevz
Laed this roed an pield its brijjez.
An now, the krossen eech humpbak brij,
Thay extorten a toelz, a buksheeshen too.
Thats wy I kawlz it 'that dam asskis roed'.
Tu pave a hiway for Sezerz troops,
Thay braken ar baks tu lay the makkaddem,
An taken ar skrach tu wok it now.

Heer ar fother, Yah'akkoev*                        * Jakeb
Wokt hizselz on the way tu Kharron.            * Beraysheet 28:10
Laen him hed on a stane that niets
An up raze a staerway, an aenjelz klime
Owt ov ar gravvelz* tu kristellee korts.        *eka d'omray: grovvelz
Now, jes louk at theze kerstee staenz,
Dustee an gray. Lay yur baenz
Uppon em a-nite, but doen expek
Seengen an starz an soren dreemz,
But steengen sarroez an a soren bak.

Standard English version:

So there I was on that Damascus road,
North of Tiberias, and through Gaulan*.        * Roman territories NE of Lake Kineret
Roman masons and us local slaves
Laid this road and piled its bridges.
And now, to cross each humpback bridge,
They extort a toll and bakshish, too.
That's why I call it 'that damn asskiss road'.
To pave a highway for Caesar's troops,
They broke our backs to lay the macadam,
And take our scratch to walk it now.

Here our father, Ya'akov*                         * Jacob
Walked himself on the way to Haran.        * See Genesis 28:10
Laid his head on a stone at night
And up rose a stairway, and angels climbed
Out of our gravel* to crystal courts**.        *others say: grovels; 
                                                                            ** quartz?
Now, just look at these crusty stones,
Dusty and gray. Lay your bones
Upon them at night, but don't expect
Singing and stars and soaring dreams,
But stinging sorrows and a sore back.

Rethinking Grammar

I was sitting on the bus going to work, annotating George K. Anderson's The Legend of the Wandering Jew. My mind drifted away from the text, to my act of annotation, and from there to the grammatical form of the word “annotation.” It's a simple word, a noun. And of course, a noun is a person, place, thing, state, or quality; or more fully, as most dictionaries will remind you, the subject or object of a sentence that can be modified into plural and possessive. But that definition hardly begins to describe the grammatical function that the word “annotation” implies.

Consider. It's root is “note”, , which can be either a noun or a verb, but in this case I'll call it a noun. However, by adding the prefix “an-” it is transformed into a verb, which is thence retransformed back into a noun with the suffix “-tion”! Those ambiguities and transformations all are processed instantly by our minds, and are equally instantly ignored as we read a sentence with the word “annotation” in it.

Now, I ask you, is “annotation” a noun, and if so, what is a noun?!

The more I explore stevespell, the more I realize that the apparently strange and foreign grammars and constructions embedded in it, such as noun-verbs like “annotaten”, are neither strange nor foreign. We simply choose to ignore the complexity that already exists in the language. In actuality, like the quantum mechanical electron, our words are constantly changing forms and states, and we are hard-pressed to know when they're particles and when they're waves and when they're something else entirely.

Of course, back here in the real world, my 7th grade English teacher, Mrs. Newton, will wag her crooked finger in my face and scold me with nary a second thought, “I'll have none of that, young man! A noun is a noun, and you better be able to diagram it correctly on the next test, or you'll be back in the corner sitting by yourself again!”

Another thing Mrs. Newton doesn't know: I like sitting by myself.

Quantum Mechanics and Language

Upon reading David Bohm's Wholeness and the Implicate Order.

From the first paragraph of Bohm's introduction to Wholeness and the Implicate Order, I realized that what he was theorizing about in this book, published in 1980, I was concurrently developing in my poetry since the mid 70's. You can find many of my short essays on language and consciousness on this blog or at my website, shivvetee.com. If you are unfamiliar with my thoughts on this topic, I suggest you begin with a pleasant and easy little essay, “Wy I Rite So Funnee” at:
Wy I Rite So Funnee
If you want to then go deeper, you can explore some of the labels on this blog, such as 'complexity,' 'phenomenology,' and 'poetics,' or you can jump right to this link which is a partial summary of my various posts:
Literary Complexity

Bohm's path emerged from quantum mechanics; mine from phenomenology and consciousness, but both of us realized the necessity of interdisciplinary analysis. My ideas have been greatly influenced by the development of quantum mechanics over the 20th century, as Bohm's have been by phenomenology and the philosophy of consciousness.

Consider this statement by Bohm, who is widely regarded one of the Illuminati of quantum mechanics:
"It is clear that in reflecting on and pondering the nature of movement, both in thought and in the object of thought, one comes inevitably to the question of wholeness or totality. The notion that the one who thinks (the Ego) is at least in principle completely separate from and independent of the reality that he thinks about is of course firmly embedded in our entire tradition.... But this confronts us with a very difficult challenge: How are we to think coherently of a single, unbroken, flowing actuality of existence as a whole, containing both thought (consciousness) and external reality as we experience it?" (Bohm, p. x of Introduction, 1981 paperback, Routledge, Kegan, Paul Ltd.)

He then goes on two pages later:
"In chapter 2 we go into the role of language in bringing about fragmentation of thought.... We then inquire whether it is possible to experiment with new language forms in which the basic role will be given to the verb rather than the noun. Such forms will have as their content a series of actions that flow and merge into each other, without sharp separations or breaks." (ibid, p. xii)

Now consider this excerpt from my mid-80's essay, “Wy I Rite so Funnee”:
"My second intention with stevespell was more ambitious and radical. I wanted to develop a grammar in which subject and predicate, object and action were merged. I had heard that this was possible in Sanskrit, and it seemed intuitively right to me. Surely, the actor and the action are not two separate things, but aspects of one thing.... Perhaps our language was creating unnatural distinctions between actor and action, or between past, present, and future."

In chapter 1, p. 9, Bohm explores his first love, quantum mechanics.
"In a more detailed description the atom is, in many ways, seen to behave as much like a wave as a particle. It can perhaps best be regarded as a poorly defined cloud, dependent for its particular form on the whole environment, including the observing instruments. Thus, one can no longer maintain the division between the observer and observed (which is implicit in the atomistic view that regards each of these as separate aggregates of atoms)."

Here we see the confluence of quantum mechanics and consciousness in two important areas.

First, Bohm, working from Heisenberg, says that, in atomic spaces, the act of observation affects what is observed. We see this in precisely the same way phenomenologically. The act of self observation modifies what is observed (our thoughts). The closer we observe ourselves, the more completely our act of observation is what we see, obscuring and obstructing a free flow of thought. This is a precise corollary to Heisenberg's principle that when we observe phenomena at the atomic level, the more accurately we desire to know where a given object is, the more inaccurate our understanding of where it is going.

Second, just as at atomic level observation we see the breakdown of the “division between the observer and observed,” so we see in consciousness that there is no clear division between individuals. This is quite obvious by observing the transmission of emotion from one person to another. An individual shouting angrily at another causes an immediate and visceral reaction, usually either anger or fear in like measure. This transmission is not based on proximity, and can be verbal or non-verbal. Two people shouting at each other will each become increasingly disturbed, while an onlooker, to whom their anger is not directed, can observe dispassionately. I have also often observed in myself, when sitting silently with someone who is extremely anxious, that although I am not consciously aware of their anxiety, I will find myself inexplicably anxious, inexplicable, that is, until I ask them, “are you anxious or nervous?” Their answer almost always confirms that what I am feeling is their emotion!

I will offer one more example of the confluence between quantum mechanics and consciousness using Bohm's observations as a starting point. On pp. 9-10 he says:
"What is needed in a relativistic theory is to give up altogether the notion that the world is constituted of basic objects or 'building blocks.' Rather, one has to view the world in terms of universal flux of events and processes. Thus,... instead of thinking of a particle, one is to think of a 'world tube.'
This world tube represents an infinitely complex process of a structure in movement and development which is centred in a region indicated by the boundaries of the tube. However, even outside the tube, each 'particle' has a field that extends through space and merges with the fields of other particles."

Let me now rewrite the second paragraph, speaking of human beings rather than atomic particles:
"This human body represents an infinitely complex process of a structure in movement and development which is centred in a region indicated by the boundaries of the body. However, even outside the body, each 'ego' has a field that extends through space and merges with the fields of other egos."

These overlapping fields are not limited to atomic and subatomic particles and emotional sensitivities. I would posit that the very nature of consciousness is represented better by behaviors described by quantum mechanics than by any Euclidean or Newtonian model. Therefore, time, also must be understood in a quantum mechanical way, since time is a product of consciousness. While the ego is focused into a present moment, that looks back into a past and forward to a future, human consciousness itself is not so bounded. Events of the past can have a profound effect on present behavior without there being any direct series of causal connections. Consciousness connects past, present, and future into a single interactive continuum with multiple, direct causalities.

Our language is structured to make concrete distinctions between objects, between objects and the actions that connect them, and between moments in time. These distinctions can be a helpful artifice, but they misrepresent the true behavior of objects in motion (events in time), and thought (consciousness). Bohm postulates a more active, fluid, verb-based language, but that is insufficient. Stevespell attempts a more comprehensive interleaving of objects, events, and time periods. I would call it a quantum mechanical language, which attempts to represent the more complex, non-Euclidean, interactive causalities operating in the human observation of the mental and physical worlds.

In sum, as we begin to peer into the atomic world, where matter “sublimates” into energy and energy “condenses” into matter, we are also observing the workings of consciousness as it articulates the foundations of space-time. This more accurate observational ability that evolved in the 20th century, shattered our ancient world-views (Aristotelian, Euclidean, Newtonian). Now we are beginning to understand that our further development is inhibited by our language, which also needs to evolve to represent this new, subtler understanding of our world.

Wy I Rite So Funnee

This pleasant little essay, entitled "Wy I Rite So Funnee" was my first statement about the transformations I'm applying to the English language, and was written sometime in the mid 1980's. You can find it on my website, www.shivvetee.com, but since I'm reorganizing that site, I thought I'd post it here too, because I'm going to make reference to it in my next post.

Wy du I rite so funnee?

This question has been asked of me consistently, since I began altering standard spelling and grammar back in the mid 1970's. It has been asked politely and it has been asked with expletives undeleted. Readers and editors have been offended and confused by it, as well as delighted by it. A friendly but critical colleague from the Pittsburgh Poetry Exchange dubbed it “stevespell” many years ago, and that has become my preferred name for it.

Sometimes I feel I am hewing the words out of wood or stone, rough approximations to a deeper, more accurate language. Sometimes I feel like I am taking the “found art” of English, and refining and polishing it. Sometimes the words are like very soft clay in my hands, oozing through my fingers. Sometimes the words are like nuggets of gold discovered as I sift through gravel and fast running water. Stevespell has allowed me to discover new words, new meanings in words, and new relationships between words, and it has become one of the modalities of my creativity.

I realize that to many readers, my language appears idiosyncratic, obscure, and nearly impenetrable. Yet, when I am writing, I feel like I am speaking in an “English” that underlays the infinite variations and personal morphologies that are illusorily lumped together into a single language. People question stevespell, as if “English” were a pre-existing, complete, and unalterable phenomenon in nature, and I am breaking the rules. I am not breaking the rules; I am discovering them; I am extending them.

Here’s the metaphor that I keep coming back to: most people think of words as if they were bricks. They think of words as hard, clearly shaped, baked clay units. They’re made in some factory somewhere – doesn’t matter where or with what clay – to be used to build permanent things. I think of words as soft clay, easily shaped and re-shaped, mostly used to build impermanent things in impermanent and poorly designed ways. It is the rare structure, indeed, that survives these harsh conditions that we build in.

I have two friends in Provincetown, Conrad and Anne, who are among the most beautiful people in the world. One of the tricks Conrad likes to play on the world is to sculpt in brick, in ways that appear to defy gravity. When you see these sculptures, you are forced to wonder: are these “bricks” really styrofoam, or are they real bricks somehow being held up with invisible wires? You bricklayers, when was the last time you made a brick float in air?

Stevespell evolved organically. You can find two relatively early examples of it in the Reading Room on my website, shivvetee: the poem In the Harvest ov Nations and the story “A Pilgrimmage to Mecca.” Compare those writings to In the Ruwenz ov the Tempel, I Herd...! At least to me, the language in them seems so normal, so unadventurous. To my eyes they also lack a certain sparkle and intensity. And yet, those writings, too, generated questions and controversy not unlike what I hear regarding my most recent work.

My earliest intention was two-fold. First, I wanted to normalize English spelling to spoken English. This seemed easy to accomplish, in my naivete. I soon discovered that I wasn’t the first to try such a project. For example, the Chicago Tribune attempted to partially normalize English, only to be booed into submission. On top of that, normalization presented all kinds of new problems. Conjugational and etymological continuities often had to be stretched or abandoned. And what was I to do with regional and national accents? If a written-spoken normalization had been my only motive, I too would have quit the project. But that is not the case. By the way, if you study the evolution of my spellings you will see that I have progressively moved towards a normalization that reflects my accent.

My second intention with stevespell was more ambitious and radical. I wanted to develop a grammar in which subject and predicate, object and action were merged. I had heard that this was possible in Sanskrit, and it seemed intuitively right to me. Surely, the actor and the action are not two separate things, but aspects of one thing. Later, when I began to learn Hebrew, I saw how root words and the absence of written vowels were used to create dynamic, interweaving structures of sound, meaning, and perspective. But English, and most European languages, don’t have (or don’t focus on) these kinds of conceptual tools. Perhaps our language was creating unnatural distinctions between actor and action, or between past, present, and future. So I began to work the clay, and I found that the possibility of merging noun and verb in English was waiting patiently just below the surface. Actually we are doing it all the time! Colloquial usage commonly slurs the “ing” verb form into “in,” as in “I’m goin’ to the store.” Superimpose this on the form that converts a verb into a noun using “-ence” (as in “transcend” to “transcendence”), and, presto, yu ar the transenden ov normel Eenglish!

Critics pointed out to me two other inter-related and important effects of stevespell. First, it forced them to read more slowly. This really annoys a lot of people. We have so much to do, and so much to read, we don’t have time to crawl along, actually paying attention to individual words. But just a second. That’s precisely what poetry is about! It’s about paying attention to each word; hearing them, considering them, going back and reading phrases again and maybe even again, slowly proceeding, and ohmigosh, actually enjoying the sensuality of language. I hope you speed demons don’t have sex the way you read, trying to get done as quickly as possible. I much prefer to read slowly, sensuously, seductively engaged with each word.

The other complaint I got, a complaint by another poet, mind you, was that my poetry forced him to read my work aloud if he wanted to understand it. Darn, that annoyed him. Say what?? That too is exactly what poetry is about: hearing the words, speaking the words, creating not a fleeting shadow of a thought as you rush on through a zillion words a minute, but resonating the words through the very bones of your body, from the chest outward. I remember a wicked northeaster on Cape Cod one February. I was living alone in my parent’s cottage on the beach. The waves were thundering, battering the seawall mercilessly; the wind was howling furiously and pummeling the walls. The curtains were swaying and the cracks in the walls were whistling, and me, I was reading Blake’s Jerusalem, screaming it at the top of my lungs, for hours, until the storm faded around dawn. It was one of the most glorious nights of my life. And I swear, Willy B. was right there with me belting it out, the two of us laughing till we could hardly breathe, then reading on.

So, you’re not breaking my heart if you have to read slowly, and if you even have to read my poetry aloud to get it. That’s what you’re supposed to do with poetry.

There is at least one more effect intended by stevespell. Poetic language has ebbed and flowed for thousands of years between the use of heightened, formal language, and the use of colloquial, simplified language. Often, when language is used to convey a sense of the sacred, it tends towards the formal, and this may easily become awkward or stilted. Nonetheless, I want to separate my poetry from mundane and secular literature. Whether or not I succeed and achieve a sense of the sacred in my poetry is for you to decide, but that, too, is part of my intention.

some literary mechanics

Unpacking the literary mechanics of a work in progress:
I have been working on a 3 part poem for some time called Nacherrel Gradeyenz (Natural Gradients). Part one of the poem is a bit abstract, a kind of exploration into the causality behind randomness. My first draft of the first stanza looked like this:

Like a planet held in the grip of a star,
Slowly, slowly it spirals around,
Slowly accelerating inward and down
Til it plunges into its inevitable fate.

Besides some rhythmic roughness, it tells its story rather explicitly, and in a one dimensional manner. Like a painting built up in layers, it became the ground, providing the basic shapes and tones from which I worked. Borrowing a term from rabbinical exegesis, it provided the “peshat” meaning, the plain or most directly accessible meaning. After a series of overlays and glazes, the stanza took on a more complex and superimposed quality, attempting to merge inner vision and outer vision. As you will see, this version includes some unavoidable stevespell. Thus...

Like our planna spun in the solar sway,
Slowly, wobbly, spiraling around,
Accelerating irresistibly, coils it down
To the light core emanating breath of it all.

But of course, my actual composing was happening in stevespell, not normspell. That had a big impact on the evolution of the text. Now consider the stanza. With a further sacrifice of simplicity, for the sake of amplified communication, multiple and more complex impressions can sparkle out of the language. This is what it looks like:

On ar planna appool in the sol aspin,
Slolee, wobbellee, spirellee rownd,
Aksellen erazzistallee, koyelz ee down
Tu the lite koer emmannaten breethen ov all.

new work for Pardaes Dokkumen, 2

As promised, here is my first translation (normspell version) of I. Tranzskripten the Divvine Kort, posted on 11/10/08. This is not just simply the same poem, spelled “normally,” since many of the words in the original, stevespell version have no simple corollary in standard English. They are words presenting a fusion of multiple words and ideas, or they are noun-verbs, a grammatical form that embodies both object and action at the same time. Thus, in this translation, I try to capture one interpretive version of the poem. You will see, when I post my second translation, another interpreted version. Superimposed, the 2 translations will approach the stevespell original.

I. Transcriptions of the Divine Court

From heaven the Souls of those awaiting
The great Tekoun,* prepare themselves          * Repair/Redemption
With prayer and meditation. When their courage arises,
They approach the Throne of the Lord.
Present they evidence of their clarity,
Their conclusion being:
     “I am ready to descend and instill God’s will.”

Each Soul that would live as a Jew declares,
     “I am as a Messiah. All my will is to redeem...”
And thus descend they, and after 8 days there
Cry out to their Parent, “circumcise, circumcise,
     “For this is will be Your writing on me as Messiah.”
Oh their sadness and sorrow as they confront the marble walls
Of this inflexible psyche that embodies the Soul.

And those Souls that would live as Christians, cry they out,
     “I take upon my psyche the yoke of the Lord
     “To understand heaven in the ways of the earth.”
Ah, their tears at all that they forget
When they experience earth’s resistance to knowledge.

And those Souls that would live as Muslims, they cry out,
     “Send me down to the warrens of the spirit,
     “To the slums on earth, harlots and thugs.
     “There I'll enforce compassion and peace.”
Promptly they abandon their promise to the Lord,
To revel in those warrens, angry and cruel.

new work for Pardaes Dokkumen

I have been counseled for many years now, that I ought not to write in altered English (stevespell), or that I ought to at least include a translation into normal English (normspell). This latter advice, recently repeated, I am now trying. Thank you David.

What follows is part of a work in progress called The Pardaes Dokkumen. “Pardaes” is a kabbalistic term with multiple meanings, including: “paradise,” “the garden of Eden,” and the 4 levels of spiritual consciousness. Today I am uploading the stevespell version of the poem, entitled Tranzskripten the Divvine Kort. It is still pretty raw, indeed only a few days old. In subsequent days I will upload 2 normspell translations that converge and diverge as the poem winds its wandering way. You can compare the 3 versions and decide for yourself about their worth.

I. Tranzskripten the Divvine Kort

Frum hevvenz the Seelz ov thoze awwaten
The grate Tekoun*, prepare themsellz          * Repair/Redemption
In praerz a meddattatenz. Then wen kerrij arrize,
Thay make ulleya* tu the Throenz ov Lor.          * a spiritual ascent
Prezent thay evvaddens ov thaer klaratteez,
Konkluden
     “I am reddee tu dessend and instill Hem willz.”

The Seelz hu woud liv az a Jew deklare,
     “I am az Messiya. All my will tu redeem...”
And thus dessend thay, and but 8 dayz thare
Kry owt tu thaer Parenz, “serkumsize, serkumsize,
     “For this iz the ferst riten ov Messiya.”
O thaer sadness and sarroez az thay konfront the marbel wallz
Ov this inflexxen jenome, this boddee a Seel.

And thoze Seel that woud be Kristyen, kry thay owt,
     “I take uppon mysellz the yoken ov Lor
     “Tu see the hevvenz in erthaz sway.”
Ah, thaer teeren and all thaer forgettenz
Wen thay klap on the fetterz ov Erthaz kontra diktenz.

And thoze Seelz tu be Muzlim, thay kry owt,
     “Send me down tu the worren ov speerz,
     “Tu the slummen Ertha, harlot and thug.
     “Thare tu enforser kompashen and pees.”
Promplee abbanden thay prommis tu the Lor,
But revvel in the worren, anger and kruel.

Blog talk (blogtok) and stevespell

In September of 2004 my very good friend, and Shivvetee webmaster, Steven Toleikis, had the following brilliant insight. He wrote:

Was reading the paper ystrdy 'bout blogs. (If by some small chance you don't know what they are see: http://www.blogger.com )

They were going on about how they're changing how people communicate, report on news, yadda, yadda and how they also seem to be leading to an evolution in ........ SPELLING! Bingo - I thought, the perfect arena to use SteveSpell! Whatdoyouthink. It might just catch on!

My response:
Well, blogtalk (blogtok?) has definitely caught on. Both my 19 and 9 year olds are teaching me new "words," acronyms, and abbreviations all the time. Perhaps it will indeed open a door of acceptance for stevespell. In that case, stevespell might take on the status of the (dare I say) priestly and "high" form of the language, while blogtok will be the cockney or bronx dialect (or "dialects" assuming the evolution of variants). On the other hand, perhaps blogtok, as the organic form that is evolving in a communal arena, will ultimately become the canonical form, while stevespell will be rejected as a contrived and academic aberration.

There are some important similarities in the origins of blogtok and stevespell, that's for sure. I began with the dual impetuses of normalizing English and breaking open its grammar to allow the infusion of new rhythmic and conceptual energy. Blogtok seems to have a similar, tho less articulated dual impetus: to speed up (and maybe also normalize) spelling, and to allow, or promote, an "individualized" voice (or more accurately, a counter-cultural voice, since there's nothing terribly individual about it). Not so different, eh? Blogtok has the virtue of being organic, grass roots, and interactively evolving. Stevespell has the virtue of being more conceptually articulated and purposeful in its evolutions.

I'd like to say that this proves that popular culture (blogtok) follows art (stevespell). Or more personally, "see, I told you so!" But given how well-known I am (burn!), I think this really suggests something quite different: that both art and popular culture originate (and bifurcate) from the same sources. Artists may hear it or see it or feel it first, but they don't create it. They just try to represent it.

Now a question for you, Steven. Are you suggesting I do something to promote stevespell in the blogtok arena??? If so, please enlighten me to the opportunities and venues.

Note from 8/2006:
It took me 2 years to get enlightened and create this blog, but here I am blogging tokking on my bloggie tokkee.