Colorless green ideas sleep furiously

Monday, October 5, 1998

Colorless green ideas sleep furiously

STYLE: After leaving home for first time, everyone seems to be
speaking another language

By Spencer HillThink about this: "Colorless green ideas sleep
furiously." How about that? This convoluted phrase is most often
tied to Noam Chomsky, which could begin an interesting
philosophical discussion regarding the nature of language in
relation to the development of meaning, but that’s not what this
column is about.

But still, I rather like the headline. It’s a good collection of
words, but if you don’t like it, write another one. That’s right.
You write the headline. In fact, do it now.

Come on, why not? Why should the copy editors and I have all the
fun? This is your chance, but before I go any further, this column
is not a frosted-over, take-the-road-less-traveled bundle of fluff.
I’m not going to spew cliches about how to start off the year by
forging your path for the search for truth today – as though that’s
something that you can do on a Monday afternoon.

This is not an infomercial for the applied philosophy
department. This is school. This is life. How about that? Surprises
me too.

And a special hello to all the freshmen. Although everything is
fresh, things change (sorry about the cliches, I’ll stop). This is
your chance. Today is the day: Monday, Week One. I’m sure that you
may be saying, "But what about Week Zero? Doesn’t Week Zero count?"
Well, no.

Follow me on this: "zero" is nothing. Zero stands for nothing;
zero can’t hold a cold soda, won’t fill your wallet and it doesn’t
make for much of a relationship.

So, is this what you’re paying your tuition for?

Yes, but at least you’re getting something for free. I’m always
in favor of getting something for free, but the problem is I’ve
never heard of a company or a school giving something worth having
unless you have something to give them.

But I do think that the whole "zero" concept may be worth
something. Think if we had "date zeros."

You could go out, cut through the nervousness and just date
because the date wouldn’t count. That would be great, but perhaps I
should come back to reality. Besides, who would ever say "yes" to
an invitation to go out on a "zero-eth" date? No one, because you
wouldn’t get credit for the date on your dating resume. I suppose
Week Zero really isn’t worth anything after all.

Nevertheless, welcome to Week One. Hopefully, your Week One will
get off to a good start. I’m sure you’re settling into your new
room – whether you’re in the dorms, in an apartments, in a home or
in a condo (if I’ve left anything out, I’m sorry – I’m trying to be
politically correct here).

And, moving is a lot like school. You forget a lot of things:
the lunch bags that you were supposed to bring, or maybe you forgot
to bring a sauce pan for the apartment’s kitchen, or your cool
all-leather hiking boots. There is something to be said for having
the opportunity to burn your own water, but independence has its
down side. After leaving home for the first time, gone is the
familiar feel of the carpet beneath your feet and in its place a
chilling sense of what psychologists could classify as
"adjustment."

Don’t get me wrong (be careful of people who start a sentence
with "don’t get me wrong"), change requires adjustment – don’t
worry, I’ll work through the cliche. Follow me on this. It’s like
when you move into your apartment and you’re afraid to buy an air
freshener for the bathroom, because you’re afraid that you’ll
offend your roommate, because he’ll think that you’re reacting to
his B.O. when he doesn’t have any. Besides, I know that you’re into
potpourri and your bathroom is a hallowed hall of cleanliness, and
you sacrifice Tidy Bowl Drop-Ins to Mr. Clean.

Always account for difference, because some people’s idea of fun
is not watching "Happy Days" reruns on a Friday night.

And, while many college students are still trying to forget the
days of wearing a retainer and hope to be put on retainer and stand
in line at gourmet markets – it’s a matter of style.

You’ve got to take a hard look at things and decide what looks
good, which may be a problem if you aren’t used to it. This isn’t
much of a problem for me, because mirrors fill my apartment walls.
Apparently the original owners thought, "Hey, we can’t usually
afford to build large apartments. Let’s just put a lot of mirrors
around the place so it looks as though they have a lot of space.
They’ll never know – or at least they’ll have signed the lease by
then and then we have them."

Now what does that have to do with "style?" Well I could say
that you need a mirror to have style because otherwise you wouldn’t
know what you look like. Or I could say that style always requires
a little bit of deception.

But remember there will always be people who just feel pretty in
lime green and think that buying Blue Blocker sunglasses is a
stylish and sophisticated upgrade – Blue Blockers only as seen on
television. Quite a marketing line, don’t you think? I don’t know
why that makes them more enticing.

Maybe it’s because celebrity appeal sells. And, of course in
their minds anyone who has been on television is a celebrity, so
why can’t anything seen on television be a celebrity too?

In many people’s minds perhaps Blue Blockers are style, but they
definitely are not the way to build your unique independence style
– after all this is your day. And I’m sure that there will be
surprises along the way.

What kind of surprises? How about our friends who live in the
garbage dumpsters – you know, the trash monkeys. But you don’t
discover these monkeys until you toss your trash into the dumpster,
turn your back, and you hear something move behind you; by then
you’ve met.

But you have to take out the trash, or do you? You can either
fill your apartment with garbage or deal with the trash monkeys
(rats).

Nonetheless, you should understand that you’ll have to deal with
the trash monkeys and all other catch-22s. Imagine you’re sitting
in the living room and the room is a little hot – a little spicy –
and you’ve got to deal with the classic apartment catch-22: open
the door to cool things off, but have to listen to the passing cars
or shut out the noise and deal with a simmering room. Such is life.
(Sorry, I promised no cliches.)

But still, I suppose that you may think that I’m full of hot
air. It’s possible. And the thing about hot air is it rises. I know
I live on the third floor of a three-floor apartment building. And
as hot air rises, the hot air gets closer to God, because that’s
where God lives. He has the ultimate penthouse apartment and He –
from what I understand – owns the place.

Now I’m not saying that people who are full of hot air speak the
only words that reach God (even though it may sound that way). I’m
just saying that people who are full of "hot air" think that
they’re closer to God.

Anyway, I hope that by now you’ve thought up your headline,
because I’m not going to do it for you. Maybe if you can’t come up
with any ideas, just steal one off a bumper sticker, because I’m
sure you’ve Xeroxed the rest of your life, but remember, copies are
never as good as the original.

Hill is a fourth-year communications studies student. E-mail
comments to [email protected].

Comments, feedback, problems?

© 1998 ASUCLA Communications Board