Blog: The Changing of the Venue

Lake Tahoe, friends. That's the spot that hep people call the bee's knees. The place looks like Lake George on steroids--all muscular mountain peaks, blue-green lakes, and people seemingly unaffected by my acquisition of a (white!) iPhone. There is something about beautiful spaces, about nature really stepping up its game, that makes me want to write in a philosophic and pseudo-moralistic way, even if I only stayed there for 26 hours. I have no doubt that--if I lived in Tahoe-- I would exclusively write fuzzy, confusing short(ish) poems about the need to recycle cars. Something to this effect:

Judgment will rain Down from
The green heavens on
Your SUV, especially
Because It only Takes Premium
Gas.
No, I know I'm in
an Audi
(but it's a sedan)

Can you believe I just came up with that poem right here, sitting in a car, driving through a city I want to call Sacramento? But honestly, the more I think about this, the more I think I'm onto something. Do you think that your writing style is reflective of your habitat? For example, do you think that I write in a pseudo-snarked, semi-cynical sarcastic tone because I live in a city that has no spring and lots of people wearing skinny jeans? Or do you think I write like that because I am just afraid that earnestness will make me vulnerable to well-timed verbal snipes via my Facebook wall? My opinion is that everyone has a certain style that they feel most comfortable in, but that the place where you express that style influences your tone in subtle ways. Let me put it another way: if the same writer, same talent, same style, same ideas, etc, lived in San Diego and Fargo, ND, would he/she write differently? And how do you think things would change?

... Is this too general to be applied in any relevant manner? Maybe. But that is why you are here, friends. You take my questions, turn them into answers, and we then, in turn, make those into writing world laws. That is why the Internets are so powerful.

Anyway, the world awaits your dropping of knowledge, friends. I will check in as a move all over the Pacific NW, and fill you in on all the hip fads those Near-Canadians utilize.

Life is,
A Highway

Tom Cochrane