The American Spectator

Campus Scenes

Writer's Cramp

5.30.03 @ 12:04AM

(Page 2 of 3)

Next are the mixed metaphors, the inevitable consequence of disconnecting words from images -- of not thinking:

The stinging yellow dust grabbed my eyes and yanked.

His fist was released like an arrow from a bow.

My hands began to shake like an earthquake.

The dugout erupted like a broken piñata.

Covered with Christmas lights, our home shines with the beam of a lighthouse.

A third pattern is the keynote: a kind of insistent commentary horning in on the description and crowding out the images. The commentary is always clichéd:

The vibrant warmth of the sun covered the verdant wilderness.

I was awed by the river's elegant windings.

Dusk is the time to look at the breathtaking sunset.

But often the commentary seems redolent of a cultural narcissism, a weirdly vagrant specificity of self-absorption:

My car's ignition sounded similar to the boom heard from an F-14 Tomcat or any other jet featured in the classic movie Top Gun.

The sky attained the color of the silver tea set that has been kept in the attic since my grandma died 20 years ago.

A 1973 Buick-sized orange moon fills the evening sky.

Of course, the three patterns, like Greek conditional sentences, can be mixed into bewildering varieties. Here's a composite served up by one student:

Letter to the Editor

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