Book Review: Anti-Twitter

Down Goes Twitter!

We were not always a fan of short-short prose collections. It took us a while to warm up to them. We did a less-than-appreciative review of Amelia Gray’s AM/PM last year, citing repetition of brevity as something of a nuisance, and while we partially stand by our aforementioned stance — that variance in modes is what we regard most highly — we have grown less skeptical of truncated-prose in continuous riffs. AM/PM, for instance, has sat on the front of our brains much more than we figured it capably could, on account of its aesthetic repetitiveness. In revisiting that particular text we now see a courageousness in its self-imposed limitations. We drastically appreciate that book. This might lead people to say that we, as reviewers of texts, are not to be trusted. Perhaps you think we are wafflers. Maybe. But here’s a quote from Emerson:

“If you would be a man speak what you think to-day in words as hard as cannon balls, and tomorrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said to-day.”

That’s our fancy way of saying, “Go fuck yourself.”

Last week we had the honor of meeting author Harold Jaffe, whose most recent book, Anti-Twitter, is a raucous display of brevity. Anti-Twitter, Jaffe’s 15th book, is a collection of 150 50-word stories that analyze everything from sex machines to kangaroos.

Collected from “mainstream news sources and other public sites,” these found texts are illustrations of the effectiveness of language in limited spurts. The idea here was to show that mediums like Twitter — whose appeal is in some ways that limiting language’s length makes language more accessible — don’t have to sacrifice content in order to convey quick messages.

Take, for instance, the hilarious “Stunt Dick.”

You’re a prime time stunt-dick in porn vids.

Uh-huh.

What do you do when you’re not . . . dicking?

Mass-murder.

Your preference: porno dick-play or mass-murder?

Mass-murder.

And you’re Jewish to boot?

Uh-huh.

So it’s fair to say you’re a Jewish stunt-dick who moonlights as a mass mass-murderer?

Uh-huh.

In demonstrations such as these, Jaffe shows that quite an amount of story can be handled in a limited frame.

But Jaffe is also the editor of Fiction International, and therefore one of the more politically-minded writers in our nation today. Many of his anti-twitter tales focus on far broader issues, as in “The New US Strategy.”

8 bloody years into Afghanistan is perception.

The current perception is that the campaign is wildly adrift. Afghans must perceive that Americans are defeating the insurgency.

Afghans must perceive their irrecoverable loss should they choose insurgency over democracy.

That’s the idea; implementing it won’t be easy.

In this regard, the truncation of information — limiting the analysis — highlights with precise detail the crux of the current situation. That the most complicated component of the current military struggle can be shrunk to a quarter page evidences the effect of language in a narrow space.

Jaffe, who holds a Ph.D. from NYU and currently serves as a professor of English at San Diego State University, also devotes attention to literary figures in his endeavor. Take, for instance, “Aldous Huxley.”

Died of throat cancer while “under the influence” of 200 micrograms of LSD administered intramuscularly by Laura Huxley.

Huxley wished to witness his dying.

He died with — Laura Huxley’s words — “an ineffable smile on his lips.”

The date of his death coincided with the date of JFK’s assassination.

Read through in linear fashion, this collection offers some fantastically juxtaposed and paired pieces. Here are two that we found fabulously placed.

Central Heating

A 49-year-old male murdered his mother by turning off the central heating.

He found his mother, 77, unconscious on the kitchen floor of their Manchester flat.

Instead of alerting emergency services, he turned off the heating.

At a hearing, the son admitted his guilt.

No motive was offered.

—————————-

Hitchcock

A male, 49, impersonated his mother since her death in 2003 to claim her social security benefits.

He wore a wig, dress, corset, make-up . . .

“I held my mother when she died and inhaled her last breath, therefore I am my mother,” the man, in drag, asserted at his arrest.

Of course, readers might find the stringent observance of the 50-word limitations off-putting. We understand that repetition sometimes grows boring, grows boring. But there is a brilliance in this discipline and routine that we both envy and recommend. -- Brian Allen Carr

Video: Jaffe Reads Anti-Twitter