Part I of a series that will be Greater-Than-One Parts.
an unproper story
i’m a freshman or sophomore in after-college. i’m living downtown nyc. i hang out with friends. i go to dinner. i go to pre-games. i go to parties. i go to bars. i go see bands. i go shoot pool and shuffle board—occasionally there’s ping pong involved. and maybe i’ll pick up a slice or two before calling it a night. when i come home, i pass out.
in the morning, i complain to my roommate about my hangover, made worse by his waking me up when he got home.
i ask my roommate what he did that got him back so late. he tells me some story. he went to some bar after getting drinks with his coworker and ended up back at that clubby-bar a block and a half from our apartment—the one with that stupid name that’s also kind of clever—and he was so drunk that he walked all the way to our favorite late night pizza place like 10 blocks away and got 4 slices, eating 1 on the walk back, 1 on the walk up our 5 flights of stairs, and 2 in front of that international food/travel network tv show he loves.
what’d you do, he wants to know, who were you with?
college friends. we pregamed and then went to a pretty cool asian-fusiony-type restaurant in, like, the east village? or lower east side maybe? and then went to our friend’s friend’s apartment for a party on their rooftop and then to a bar kinda back where we were for dinner, but maybe a little further east, or lower, maybe? it was some bar on a street—an avenue, actually—it must’ve been around where the numbers turned into names, or the names into letters, maybe? is that a thing? it was really crowded and dark and smoky and the music was just alright—kinda-loud but not that good, really just like trancy-or-whatever. then we wanted to shoot pool and listen to live music so we came back here—
oh, to—what’s-it-called?—that place down the block, downstairs, the one with all the games and the jazz and the obnoxious entrance-stamps that cover your entire hand and don’t wash off for like 2 days? we went there a few weeks ago with your buddy, from work maybe?
yeah exactly that place, we were there and there was nobody on the shuffle tables when we got there and they had a band still going so we had a couple beers and—the band i think goes til like 4? but we weren’t there that late—then we got pizza and came back here and rolled a joint and smoked it on the roof and then ate the pizza and watched an episode of some show—that new cartoon that just came out? or it was the second season of the show recently? everyone thinks it’s so funny? i don’t know it was ok i guess, kinda weird though—and then everyone went home.
wait, where’s the big guy? still sleeping?
is it too early to open his door?
no, it’s after noon already. no big deal waking him up at this hour.
he’s not in there. huh.
yo! what the hell man? he left the air conditioner going all night—bastard!
dude, he’s always such a nazi about the a/c
yeah i know dude he yelled at me like yesterday for not turning it off when i went to the bodega—hypocrite.
you think he slept over at whats-her-name's? that blonde girl?
the girl that went to college with—what’s-his-name? his friend from high school? did he start seeing her again?
yeah, i think.
oh. yeah, then, i don’t know. maybe.
Re-Capitalizing
You were probably all “WTF, mate?!” reading that unproper story, huh?
I say this because the most common feedback I receive from You, Kind Reader, is “Your use of, like Names and stuff, is… interesting?”
You’re right, though. It’s true I have an interesting relationship with proper nouns. But I’m not alone in the Exploration of Proper Nounage.
Many writers take fascination—obsession, remorse, other weighty-opinion—particularly with lower-casing proper nouns. I don’t totally understand lower-casing. Maybe I don’t read enough E.E. Cummings or Patti Smith. Maybe I just don’t get Poetry. Maybe it’s understandable because, as You remember, the role and responsibilities of Writer is a new addition to the Department of Sam’s Identity.
But, as unproper story indicates, for a while there I looked at the world, more or less, without upper-case proper nouns. I stripped the world of Names. It was easier that way. It felt like a good act of Rebellion, especially as I joined the Work Force.
What were names anyway? Just arbitrary words that made it easier to talk about things. And words? Arbitrary letters. And letters? And so on… until “Everything’s just atoms, maaannn” (high-level, Big Brain stuff—Quantum Physics—You wouldn’t get it).
Worse than reducing the world to molecules, I watched the way other people interacted with proper nouns, enlarging them into colossal Names. I was frightened of what all these Names would turn me into.
This started at University where People were all: I’m going to a Party at This Fraternity, joining That Sorority. I’m gonna Study Abroad at This Location so I can travel to Those Places. I’m gonna get This Job at That Firm so I can become Whatever and continue buying cabanas at This Santa Monica Beach Club or at That Vegas Hotel Pool Party Where One Of The Swedish House Mafia Guys Is DJing On Saturday.
I didn’t like that proper nouns were most often used for Status. Proper nouns belonged to things that mattered, like Movies—Grand Budapest Hotel, The Godfather—and Albums—To Pimp A Butterfly, Doing It To The Death. Proper nouns seemed necessary for Art and not much else. Maybe I found them useful so I could talk about the Art separate from the Artist. Sometimes the Art didn’t measure up to the Artist. Other times the Person behind the Art didn’t measure up to the Art itself. Being able to make distinctions like this made The Conversation more interesting, whatever The Conversation was.
Instead, I let my fear of Status-driven Names get the best of me. I started abandoning proper nouns altogether.
by the time i left college, i figured i’d rather be blown by the gusting manhattan wind-tunnels than succumb to the game of Seeking Jobs With Titles And Wearing Valuable Brands To Places With Tables And Models And Bottles.
So I started to live a lowercase life, as portrayed above. I was flippant to the point of feeling self-righteous.
I even opened up to writing that way too, from time to time.
i had to admit i started to get it why poets flock to it it is cool it is liberating it is equalizing like i could be anyone like i was any one like i was obama or mom or cowboy or sophia loren or walter white or gandhi or if & … i was everyone i loved that but it started to get confusing confusing to know where one should begin to separate ideas from one another or where one should begin to separate wordsfrom oneanother orifwords reallyallbelongedalltogetherwithoneanotherallthesameandindistinguishablelike.
Most importantly, it opened me up to the underlying importance of this liberating, equalizing form of anti-proper-nounage: I is everyone.
Or, put less Zen-koanical (and more grammarly): Everyone is an I. Everyone has an I, an Identity. Everyone is equal in that we are all Individuals. We should celebrate our Individuality. We should embrace Our Togetherness as a People. We should celebrate what makes us Us, unique Individuals. Not minimize it. Not run from it, or hide in the puritanical minimalism of lower-casing.
By avoiding Names, I was depriving Things—yes, of their somewhat Arbitrary Status, of Man’s comfort-seeking over-dependance in Naming Things, but, more importantly—of some intrinsic value. I was minimizing or otherwise not acknowledging the concept of Identity. Without an Identity, what becomes of a Person?
Next week, we’ll get into The Identity Equation and try Solving For X. That, or we’ll take a detour into the land of Cats. Who knows…
References + More
The book that, perhaps, first piqued my interest in Proper Nounage is In Persuasion Nation by George Saunders
lower-case poems by two great Poets:
“dive for dreams” by E.E. Cummings
“the sheep lady from algiers” by Patti Smith
“You wouldn’t get it”, a scene from The Joker
Grand Budapest Hotel is a 2014 Indie Adventure Romance by Wes Anderson
The Godfather is … The Godfather
To Pimp a Butterfly is a 2015 Jazzical Hip-Hop Masterpiece by Kendrick Lamar
Doing It to the Death is a 1973 Funkified Masterpiece by The J.B.s
Grammarly is a Writing Tool that, of course, has written a blog on Proper Nouns (which I didn’t bother reading, because I am Writer and make my own Rules)