December 2010
3 posts
backmasking
n. the instinctive tendency to see someone as you knew them in their youth, a burned-in image of grass-stained knees, graffitied backpacks or handfuls of birthday cake superimposed on an adult with a degree, an illusion formed when someone opens the door to your emotional darkroom while the memory is still developing.
adomania
n. the crushing sense that the future is arriving ahead of schedule, that all those years with fanciful names like “2012” are bursting from their hypothetical cages into the arena of the present, furiously bucking the grip of your expectations while you lean and slip in your saddle, one hand reaching for reins, the other waving up high like a schoolkid who finally knows the answer to the question.
sluffing
n. the practice of smiling and nodding when you have absolutely no idea what someone just said, a method of smoothing over built-in glitches in conversation, an archaic medium that marries the bandwidth of a planetarium with the fidelity of a tin can telephone, for which we compensate by wrapping the Earth with fiberoptic cables until it looks like a gigantic ball of twine.