Last Chance! Whatever

In a recent post, Daisy Fried discussed the deflational aspect of standard journalese, how it flattens all horrors big and small into an efficient monotone. Newspaper lingo as tranquilizer. But there’s also yellow journalism, which is sensationalism for the lower class. (This term originates from the Yellow Kid, the first comics character.)

A no-nonsense type, the working man doesn’t tolerate bullshit. That’s why his tabloid, the New York Post, for example, must have clear, eye-popping photos and a spine so it'll open symmetrically, fair and square like a coloring book, unlike the deviously-folded New York Times, that goddamn, supposedly liberal bastion. (In Philadelphia, where I normally dwell, both the tabloid and respectable newspaper, Daily News and Inquirer, are owned by the same cartel. To ensure their ads snag all souls, it’s best to speak out both sides of the blow hole.) But yellow journalism is a fringe phenomenon. The real schizoid counter to deflational journalese is inflational advertising. Both of these conventions, now so ubiquitous, have only been with us for over a century, their growth coinciding with that of modernism. Existing side by side, juxtaposed in a newspaper or webpage, they dictate what we should really get excited about. Buy Now! Last Chance Sale! Trapped in this nasty funhouse, we’ve been living in a sort of linguistic stagflation, where trivia is endlessly hyped while crimes, including those directly against us, are nullified or pushed as entertainment. That’s why the enchantment of Apollinaire, the “first modern man," now seems so quaint:

Tu lis les prospectus les catalogues les affiches qui chantent tout haut
Voilà la poésie ce matin et pour la prose il y a les journaux
You read prospectuses catalogues and posters which shout aloud
Here is poetry this morning and for prose there are the newspapers
[translated by Roger Shattuck]