Close Reading Broadway Boulevard

2024/10/05

On my way to lunch I pass a lovely mural. As the car approaches it from a distance, I see first a collage of red, white, green, and black, and before I can form a conscious reaction I'm close enough to read the actual demand of the mural: "FREE PALESTINE / END THE OCCUPATION". Given how discourse on Palestine is often obsessed with bet-hedging, constructing a Goofus-and-Gallant opposition between "Hamas" and "Gazan civilians", these two imperative simple sentences read as clear and unapologetic. And it's only made more beautiful by the fact that I approach it by car at 40+ miles per hour. First the immediate visual symbol, and the warm reactions it provokes-- then the further explanation of that symbol with more precise ones. It's like music. The instruments play for a couple of bars, then the voice comes in.

Then, just when that mural has faded into the distance, something else makes its bid for my attention, on the other side of Broadway Boulevard. This time the Girl Scouts of Tucson are admonishing me to "CHANGE THE WORLD". I chuckle a little bit at the contrast between the firm "END THE OCCUPATION" and "CHANGE THE WORLD", which is more a Rorschach test than a demand. That chuckle turns into a laugh as I approach and realize that hidden behind the untrimmed bushes is a secret preamble; in full the sentence is "INVEST IN GIRLS, CHANGE THE WORLD". It's deeply unfortunate for the writer that I've already formed an opinion on "CHANGE THE WORLD". Given that I read the conclusion as twee and over-gestural, I'm primed to approach the premise in worse faith, and settle on an overcritical reading of "INVEST IN GIRLS" as something akin to "GIVE US YOUR MONEY, YOU IDEALIST CLOWN". In my defense, at this point in my drive the merch store is visible through the window. Of course the writer did not intend this; they likely planned this all out on a piece of paper, to be read as a complete sentence. Nevertheless, what would otherwise be a vague but inoffensive expression of feminism has been distorted, tainted by the fact that it occupies time-space.

I'm asked sometimes why I seem to be "always on"-- that is, why I'm always making comments like this about the world around me, at the cost of seeming pretentious and solipsistic to some. My standoffish answer might be that the world around us is constantly barraging me with weird and sometimes defunct art, how could I ever turn "off"?! But the real answer is that I'm obsessed with time and abstraction.

We read texts in different levels of abstraction to suit our moods, tastes, and perceptions of what the text is. If I am listening to a pianist, I am usually paying attention at a low, granular level of abstraction. The details are what's important: rhythm, timbre, collaging, articulation, "soul", all these qualities that are specific to the performance. But if I am the pianist facing unfamiliar sheet music that represents a piece well above my skill level, I would do well to think at a higher level of abstraction. That is, I should treat two middle C's as interchangeable, regardless of how they vibrate in air. Abstractions remove information from play for the purposes of human processing, and despite their utility this is all they do. Abstractions elide. This is both sword and knot, in the Gordian sense. Abstracting an infinite set of notes into "middle C" temporarily suspends my ability to describe the note-- but it also makes it easier to play and discuss.

Some texts invite us to read them at high levels of abstraction-- essays, persuasive letters, straightforward negotiations about where to go for dinner. Maybe the most prominent example is the news article. The genre carries an explicit promise: If I'm a good girl and read at this high level of abstraction, not focusing terribly on any particular word, then it will smoothly and seamlessly transfer ideas into my head. Like Vonnegut's Tralfamagorians, aliens who experience time all at once, I am to forget my time-mediated experience reading the text. I am not to think about the smudge-level differences between different capital A's, the layout of articles on a page, or the effect of typography on my reading. Nor should I be thinking about rhythm, stress, accent, word choice, sentence structure, and certainly not voice. That's not to say these things don't matter. If the writers slip and use a clumsy sentence structure, or lay out the text in a way that makes it laborious to read, I will be forced out of this high-abstraction reading-- one step further from having an idea ineffably beamed into my head.

But there is nothing innate about the news article that makes more granular reading impossible. Genre just makes a suggestion. Often times it's a good suggestion-- it's hard enough to communicate across time, space, and subjective experience, so to participate in the exchange of ideas with another human being (sounds appealing!) I might do well to at least approach the text in the way they were thinking about. But I might also refuse by abstracting or de-abstracting. It's famously useful to identify passive voice in news headlines about police killings. ¹ Or more sinisterly, consider Fox News' bad-faith reading of Kendrick Lamar's line "And we hate po-po, wanna kill us dead in the street fo' sho'". Abstractions elide, and their deadpan reading elides rhythm, context, rhyme, and everything else enjoyable and meaningful about our time-mediated experience with the song. The goal of this deficient reading, of course, is to make Kendrick look like a deficient writer. ² Abstractions elide. This is both sword and knot.

Past the Girl Scouts' base there are countless other texts waiting to be de-abstracted. A shop claims to sell "metaphysical experiences", an awkward noun phrase for a sign otherwise about "crystals", "gems", and other tchotchkes. The chain where I grab lunch advertises a new dessert with a hardened chocolate shell they describe as "crackable"-- an odd word in a sea of taste adjectives for how directly it demands the reader imagine performing a verb. Are these oddities offshoots of that modern maxim "Millenials crave experiences"? Have readers simply become oversaturated with dime-a-dozen taste words like "mmm", "ooey", and "oreo" that are better suited for crossword filler? Who can say! All I know is that it's impossible for me to have a day in the city anymore without close-reading it.

My default form of everyday close-reading is viciously examining the most out-of-place word on each advertisement I see. I recommend this, nominally because it's a form of resistance against our corporate overlords and a natural reaction to having one's eyes bombarded with symbols all the time-- but mostly because it's entertaining. My favorite way to close-read a sign, if conditions are right, is to de-abstract it beyond even the sentence, into words or even sounds. Consider Drew Gooden's iconic rejoinder to "ROAD WORK AHEAD": "Uh, yeah, I sure hope it does!" ³ Or consider comic-strip character Zippy the Pinhead, and his echolalic celebrations of the syllable-feel of phrases like "SURGEON GENERAL'S WARNING! SURGEON GENERAL'S WARNING! SURGEON GENERAL'S WARNING!". He flippantly explains:

And don't forget, often embedded in th' "non sequiturs" is a scathing cultural critique! ⁴

Abstractions elide. This is both sword and knot. And by choosing abstractions on our own terms and selecting what to elide, we can have exhilarating control over what we pay attention to.

#hof-theory #theory