One True Voice
My best friend from high school always has had a freakn’ hilarious sense of humor. After we bonded on comic books and Motown music, we bonded on Saturday Night Live and were THOSE KIDS that had to reenact THE ENTIRE SHOW on Monday mornings. To this day, we have some lingo left over from some of our favorite skits of that time.
She also had a love of phonetic spellings and language. We tried to make up our own slang and I would try to relate some of those “words” and “meanings” to you, but it would take TOO MUCH explaining and STILL would only really be funny to me and her. Don’t even GET ME STARTED on the amount of nicknames we have for each other. The language and its ongoing development continued on into our college years and then when e-mail kicked in, it REALLY went into high gear. She would send me e-mails with photographs of juicy eyed teacup puppies attached with such bylines as: I KINT TAKE EEET. I would send her a reply: Don’t you have work to do??
Do I need to tell you where all this is going? Do I need to tell you what happens to a girl who loves humor, phonetic spelling, and cute images, and who happens to be a graphic designer and a total technology nerd? There’s only ONE WAY to go, people, and that is to the world wide web to create a MAJOR DYNASTY called Cute Overload.
The world ADORES Cute Overload—I also happen to think it is total, hysterical genius—but it is also like reading a public display of nearly every e-mail I’ve received from her since 1997. I went to a party in New York City and proceeded to hear a STRANGER utter the dog sound: BAROOO and I almost FELL OVER. I felt like one of those purist punk rockers who feels the need to legitimize their punk roots by saying, “Hey! I’ve been saying ‘BAROOO’ since 1989, lady—how can YOU be saying it?” Or as I would have said, “How can YOU be saying EEEET?”
It’s NUTS.
I think Meg’s success is one of the GREATEST examples of “Trust what you love.” Or “Do what you are.” Or “Follow your truth,” etc. etc. etc. Cute Overload is original because it’s what is original about Meg. It is SO SPECIFICALLY HER and as it turns out, there is a MAJOR audience for it. When I think of this, I am reminded what the writer Sandra Cisneros said to a crowd at a reading a few years ago. She said, “Think about what separates you from everyone in this room, what makes you different. Then think about what separates and makes you different from everyone in this town. Then think about what separates and makes you different from everyone in this state and so on and so on and then write from that place, because when you die, that one original voice will go with you and we will have missed out on that one true voice.”
Thank god we didn’t miss out on Meg’s one true voice. Otherwise, we’d be missing out on this and who wants to miss out on this?
She also had a love of phonetic spellings and language. We tried to make up our own slang and I would try to relate some of those “words” and “meanings” to you, but it would take TOO MUCH explaining and STILL would only really be funny to me and her. Don’t even GET ME STARTED on the amount of nicknames we have for each other. The language and its ongoing development continued on into our college years and then when e-mail kicked in, it REALLY went into high gear. She would send me e-mails with photographs of juicy eyed teacup puppies attached with such bylines as: I KINT TAKE EEET. I would send her a reply: Don’t you have work to do??
Do I need to tell you where all this is going? Do I need to tell you what happens to a girl who loves humor, phonetic spelling, and cute images, and who happens to be a graphic designer and a total technology nerd? There’s only ONE WAY to go, people, and that is to the world wide web to create a MAJOR DYNASTY called Cute Overload.
The world ADORES Cute Overload—I also happen to think it is total, hysterical genius—but it is also like reading a public display of nearly every e-mail I’ve received from her since 1997. I went to a party in New York City and proceeded to hear a STRANGER utter the dog sound: BAROOO and I almost FELL OVER. I felt like one of those purist punk rockers who feels the need to legitimize their punk roots by saying, “Hey! I’ve been saying ‘BAROOO’ since 1989, lady—how can YOU be saying it?” Or as I would have said, “How can YOU be saying EEEET?”
It’s NUTS.
I think Meg’s success is one of the GREATEST examples of “Trust what you love.” Or “Do what you are.” Or “Follow your truth,” etc. etc. etc. Cute Overload is original because it’s what is original about Meg. It is SO SPECIFICALLY HER and as it turns out, there is a MAJOR audience for it. When I think of this, I am reminded what the writer Sandra Cisneros said to a crowd at a reading a few years ago. She said, “Think about what separates you from everyone in this room, what makes you different. Then think about what separates and makes you different from everyone in this town. Then think about what separates and makes you different from everyone in this state and so on and so on and then write from that place, because when you die, that one original voice will go with you and we will have missed out on that one true voice.”
Thank god we didn’t miss out on Meg’s one true voice. Otherwise, we’d be missing out on this and who wants to miss out on this?
posted by Summer Pierre at
11:15 AM
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