"Words are all I have..."

I think that among all the inanimate things this world, what I love most are words. I love the way different words in the English language can actually be synonyms, but mean subtly different things.

I love what great authors can do with words. PG Wodehouse, obviously, is the master of that art. Jeeves does not enter a room, he 'shimmers' in. Aunts do not shout at each other, they 'bellow' like 'mastadons calling out to each other across a swamp' or something to that effect. A scared gentleman is 'white and shaken, like a dry martini'. And obviously, 'I could see that, if not actually disgruntled, he was far from being gruntled'.

I keep on searching for the perfect use of the English language, for words used just so. The right word at the right time is a miracle.

So, yesterday, when I saw this absolutely beautiful peice of art of a letter from copywriter-turned-screenwriter, Robert Pirosh, it gave me enough happiness to last me till the weekend.

Read on, not once but many times, and see what I mean:
http://www.lettersofnote.com/2012/03/i-like-words.html

Reproducing the letter below:

When copywriter Robert Pirosh landed in Hollywood in 1934, eager to become a screenwriter, he wrote and sent the following letter to all the directors, producers, and studio executives he could think of. The approach worked, and after securing three interviews he took a job as a junior writer with MGM.

Pirosh went on to write for the Marx Brothers, and in 1949 won an Academy Award for his Battleground script.

(Source: Dear Wit.)

Dear Sir:

I like words. I like fat buttery words, such as ooze, turpitude, glutinous, toady. I like solemn, angular, creaky words, such as straitlaced, cantankerous, pecunious, valedictory. I like spurious, black-is-white words, such as mortician, liquidate, tonsorial, demi-monde. I like suave "V" words, such as Svengali, svelte, bravura, verve. I like crunchy, brittle, crackly words, such as splinter, grapple, jostle, crusty. I like sullen, crabbed, scowling words, such as skulk, glower, scabby, churl. I like Oh-Heavens, my-gracious, land's-sake words, such as tricksy, tucker, genteel, horrid. I like elegant, flowery words, such as estivate, peregrinate, elysium, halcyon. I like wormy, squirmy, mealy words, such as crawl, blubber, squeal, drip. I like sniggly, chuckling words, such as cowlick, gurgle, bubble and burp.

I like the word screenwriter better than copywriter, so I decided to quit my job in a New York advertising agency and try my luck in Hollywood, but before taking the plunge I went to Europe for a year of study, contemplation and horsing around.

I have just returned and I still like words.

May I have a few with you?

Robert Pirosh
385 Madison Avenue
Room 610
New York
Eldorado 5-6024

Naked women on my door

 

I guess you have reached somewhere in life, if your office is bigger than the sum total of all the offices and cubicles you have sat in ever? And that it is a three room ‘suite’ – main room + a decent anteroom + a loo? And that it has a table big enough for an average Mumbai family to happily build their 1BHK on? And a couch, bigger than the one I have at home? And, to top it all,  it is guarded by half a dozen naked women!

Well, welcome to my office at Genesis Colors. For people who have ploughed through my earlier post, you would know that this is where I am spending a bulk of my time these days. It is quite a cool office, though the broadband pipe resembles a soft drink straw, and no one knows what a calendar invite means. And since my palatial digs are a part of the studio, I am surrounded by Macs. The people are super nice, and there is beautiful fabric all over… And an innocuous door near my room surprisingly opens out to a large, cavernous hall where about 30 workmen are busy making sarees!!! A bit different from Microsoft, I guess

I have just been here for 12 hours totally, and have been very busy doing nothing productive (guess one has developed that to an art form). As I know more, and meet more people, I will update those interested here.

And for the (mostly) male readers of the blog, here are the naked women :