dino-blog

A Ponderance on the Best Public Weirdness Can Aspire To

Can I point out something that I learned in linguistics class last week?

Language is relative. Words are not just ways to name things that exist. Other languages might not even have the equivalent of our ‘weird’. There isn’t any real Truth, there are just different ways of experiencing our planet. Languages are arbitrary.

Anyway, HP Lovecraft spent a lot of time figuring out how best to instill ‘weirdness’ into his stories. He uses the words ‘weird’, ‘ghastly’, ‘unearthly’, ‘uncanny’, and ‘unnameable’ often. So sometimes weirdness is desirable.

Sometimes, at least in my experience, when people see something they don’t understand, or don’t have the verbal capacity to explain, they just say it’s ‘weird’.

I mean, I was the “weird” one in school. Everyone always said to me: “Dana, you’re so weird”. I don’t think they knew the dictionary definition for weird.

Maybe weird is just another way of saying ‘other’ or ‘outside my descriptive abilities’

Could Performance Artists aspire to something other than weird? Sure - but weird sticks with you. Weird can be unsettling and unnerving. Weird could be used to carry a different message.

tba:

tmwitten:

One of the things that we appear to be struggling with or challenged by is capturing meaning from a particular word or phrase. It is easy, for example, to state that something is the truth. But who defines that? Is it God’s truth, observer truth, whatever. The same can be said for the challenge of “weird” the other day. So, given that we all have our own internalized realities that are based upon our unique, though often shared realities, let’s start by making some definitions and seeing what we get from that. Therefore, I turn to dictionary.com as a source with which to start.

10 results for: weird Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1) - Cite This Source WEIRD ---- Pronunciation[weerd] adjective, -er, -est, noun –adjective

1. involving or suggesting the supernatural; unearthly or uncanny: a weird sound; weird lights.
2. fantastic; bizarre: a weird getup.
3. Archaic. concerned with or controlling fate or destiny–noun Chiefly Scot.
4. fate; destiny.
5. fate (def. 6).

[Origin: bef. 900; (n.) ME (northern form of wird), OE wyrd; akin to worth2; (adj.) ME, orig. attributive n. in phrase werde sisters the Fates (popularized as appellation of the witches in Macbeth)]

—Synonyms

• unnatural, preternatural. weird, eerie, unearthly, uncanny refer to that which is mysterious and apparently outside natural law.
  
• Weird refers to that which is suggestive of the fateful intervention of supernatural influences in human affairs: the weird adventures of a group lost in the jungle.
  
• Eerie refers to that which, by suggesting the ghostly, makes one’s flesh creep: an eerie moaning from a deserted house.
  
• Unearthly refers to that which seems by its nature to belong to another world: an unearthly light that preceded the storm.
  
• Uncanny refers to that which is mysterious because of its apparent defiance of the laws established by experience: an uncanny ability to recall numbers.
  

  —Antonyms 1. natural.

  So the question becomes, what did we actually mean when we used the phrase - “That was weird.” It would seem to me that we meant fantastic or bizarre and in “weird getup” above. But that doesn’t necessarily carry a judgment with it does it. Bizarre is often just radically different or out of the ordinary. And, if you look at the synonyms of weird, you see that it relates to things that are out of the ordinary. In fact, it relates to items that are more along the lines of supernatural, ghostly, fate, the gods, etc.. So, we discover layering onto words. There is the definition and then the emotional/social content or baggage carried along with the word. Another example is the word selfish; which means to look out for one’s self. In and of itself, the word selfish has no negative meaning. Yet, 99% of the time, it is used in a very negative context, “Boy, was he selfish!” Thus, we are left with addressing the transmission and interpretation of words and meaning. But that is left for yet another time.

  kingbross:

  Not long ago, a few videos were shared in a Time Studio class created by Improv Everywhere. Here are the videos:

  After displaying these videos, there was some discourse in the class about how the witnesses of these strange and manufactured events all felt compelled to comment on the things they’d seen as “weird.” It seemed that a few people felt that these people were using “weird” like it meant “bad” and discussion went on from there, eventually ending with the question, “Is weird the best public performances like these can aspire to? Can one of these be moving?”

  For some reason, I didn’t articulate my feelings at the time but I come forth now to say “Yes. You can get any reaction you want from an audience and if you want them to say something other than ‘That was weird,’ then you need to work within the bounds of conventional reality.”The performers in the video above were doing really weird things. Of course people are going to call that out. Imagine some possibilities.

  Hypothetical performers could be leading strangers along incredible adventures of all sorts. Actors could depict crimes in progress, families in need, public arguments that get strangers involved and protesters. There aren’t really limits to the possibilities and you can tell just about any story you feel like if you set it up right.

  See if they call any of that weird.