When I read that this afternoon, I didn't think it "hung together" well. Starting with the first sentence. Waves don't unfurl. You know? Flags unfurl, which is where I thought he was going with Britain and America, waves don't; waves "crash." I read that first paragraph a couple of times. It just didn't "read" well to me.
The second paragraph: I don't think that "hangs together" well. Classically, the paragraph is to start and finish a thought. That one starts with victories, war, and then,
The distance between metropolis and periphery grew into a cultural chasm.
That does not complete the thought, that does not continue the thought--That is a completely different thought.
Another fun thing you can do with paragraphs is aid the reader's attention by breaking up the page. You pick up a book and see a page with no paragraphs, you're like, "Unless this is 'Remembrance of Things Past,' no." Everybody but Proust does that, this guy does it, but the paragraphs here are of an unusual, unnatural, uniformity in length. That was the second thing I noticed when I got near done reading this article. The paragraphs were "boxy." It was weird!
The third box does what the second one does in reverse. Starts out on jobs and then goes to war. Same paragraph, same "thought." No!
The article as a whole does not hang together well. "NATO will grow weaker..." is the start of the seventh paragraph; "Fossil fuels will make a comeback..." is the start to the eighth.
When you finish the entire article--What do you think it is about? What do you think the title is?
"The Rage of 2016."
The article is by Roger Cohen of The New York Times. I thought the article dissembled and I thought Roger Cohen's mind dissembled there. I think that the article is revealing of a mind that is "unfurling." I thought Roger Cohen was paranoid in an article he wrote, in 2015 I think, where he tied Scotland's coming independence vote to the coming Brexit vote to fears of a revanchist Russia to worrying about the safety of his grandparents' native Lithuania. He got some of those wrong and some of those right, but didn't foretell Trump. You know? It was all "over there."
So thinking these thoughts of Roger Cohen's mind dissembling, thinking of the Times' editorial board's clinical depression when they wrote that "America has seen worse than Donald Trump" editorial, thinking of David Brooks' personal crises, thinking that the entire glass box on W 41st Street was unfurling and crashing, leaving only Charles Blow standing, I then went back and read Conehead's last column before "Rage."
His mother was manic-depressive. (You can also emphasize a point by making of a single sentence a paragraph.)
His mother was manic-depressive. (You can also emphasize a point by making of a single sentence a paragraph.)
Times people might want to check on Roger more frequently than they do.
Good night. Good night, Roger. Get a good night's sleep, K?
Good night. Good night, Roger. Get a good night's sleep, K?
