Give me a comment; please, oh please, this post is basically a shameless bid for them. (This blog’s ratio of posts to comments stands at 4:1.) Here’s the quiz: Give me your synecdoches! Give me your synecdoches!
Synecdoche, in case you’re not a fanatic about arcane figures of speech that even English professors might have forgotten: is a metaphor wherein a part stands for the whole, or vice versa, the whole for the part. Such as, when someone refers to his or her car as “wheels.” Likewise, calling a cop “the law,” or clothes, “threads.”
Synecdoche is also the title of an upcoming movie by Charlie Kaufman ( Being John Malkovich and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind), a tiny part of which will be filmed in my building’s lobby tomorrow. Philip Seymour Hoffman’s in the scene. The movie’s cast, although not in the scene and so not expected to hang around the mailboxes adjacent to the mosaic surrounding my blog photo, includes Catherine Keenan, Michelle Williams, Emily Watson, Samantha Morton and Jennifer Jason Leigh.
But forget that. Concentrate on the movie’s title: If you don’t like the quiz, comment anyway. Argue, rant—I’ll email you back if you make me cry.
Fourth of July this year, where I’m sitting, is dark, gloomy, and basically pathetic. Manny hurt his back attempting a tripod headstand as part of his at-home yoga routine and my migraine was still seething. So we skipped the picnic to visit an acupuncturist in Chinatown. The premature darkness has changed to heavy rain. Maybe we’ll get to the fireworks next year, though to be honest, without imbibing some chemical potion to enhance the experience, upon reaching “the age of reason,” I have found them boring. And chemical enhancers of even the mildest quotient bring on migraines, which sometimes compare to fireworks, exploding inside your head.
See how bad I’m hurting? Give me a synecdoche and I’ll be a loyal friend as long as I live.
