No Things!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

In all scrawling realms, from newspaper op-ed pieces to academic writing, student papers to published fiction, the word "thing" is now rearing its head more roubustly than the shadow-seeking groundhog who promises us (this year at least) an early spring--which is something, not nothing, and a prospect and not a "thing." The frequent use of this word is largely laziness or incoherence-- that is, the writer cannot fully articulate a thought and "thing" becomes a place-marker for that thought. So vague, so imprecise, so abominably a reflection of our current decade that cloaks itself in euphemism, crowds itself into muddled hallways of pseudo-logic, and shoots tear-gas at the windows of clear thought. The following lines of Lorine Niedecker should be tattooed on the inside of everyone's eye-lids:

O my floating life
Do not save love
for things
Throw things
to the flood

Yes, dear Reader, throw things to the flood. Make the no-thingification a quasi-biblical-apocalyptic event. And, oh yes, thanks for no thing. -jc