purple prose

[smcder]

Perhaps we can't see the UFOs for the high flown language we've sent out on the waves ...

In honor of @Burnt State 's guestship on The Paracast, I am opening a thread on the Paracast's Purplest Prose - dedicated to the liturgidy - that core body of writings, the canon that underwrites our attempts at putting to pen the impossible (not to mention the cannon they should be shot out of!)

... descriptions of paranormal experiences, describing consciousness, predicting the future, etc etc -

and to set the proper tone, I start with one of my own offerings, I call it:

Pretty in Purple

Stravinsky's "Rites of Spring" ... Jodorowsky's "Fando y Lis" ...
artists have a particular and peculiar ability to outrage ...
that no one much minds an artist is obvious art and artifice on my part (art without talent)
The Marquis de Sade finds sanctuary as Le Sacre Monstre' - base pornographer reformed as humanist philosopher when his God given talent is self-promotion ... much of what is damnable in modernity finds it's Genesis in Justine ...
The film "Amadeus" hits the right note in Salieri, a man of great intelligence (are you paying attention?), envious of an obscene little man in whom God invested his most defining characteristic of creativity ... perversely it seems ... and who can but admire a God who indulges in perversity?
The public recognizes it's need to be outraged and forgives those who trespass against it ... although nowadays we are so confused as to accept the word of the bold as to their talent, hopeful that time will see out the survival of true talent given the least opportunity.
So take heart, Artists - except for the Fool, you have the least choice of your vocation .., the mystic, the priest, the pedant all have a choice ... but you must have the blessing of talent to begin and so have Divine imprimatur in your vocation.

(from the "Consciousness and Magic" thread)

Now, gentle readers, go and scour the threads and return with the best pickings, the choicest morsels for the feast!

 

[Burnt State]

In no particular order, my three favourite Paracast experiencer experiences are:

Synchronicity and the Mantis | The Paracast Community Forums by @Wade Ridsdale

The Blue Snow | The Paracast Community Forums by @Posey Gilbert

Childhood Hallucination | The Paracast Community Forums by @ProphetofOccam

 

[smcder]

In no particular order, my three favourite Paracast experiencer experiences are:

Synchronicity and the Mantis | The Paracast Community Forums by @Wade Ridsdale

The Blue Snow | The Paracast Community Forums by @Posey Gilbert

Childhood Hallucination | The Paracast Community Forums by @ProphetofOccam

These don't appear to be purple but rather perfectly serviceable prose.

I'm looking for language pushed to the limits under the weight of the inexpressible.

I take the term "purple prose" from your own description - some of it's exaggerated qualities are an honest result of attempts to communicate experiences or concepts alien even to the one who experienced them.

The felt necessity of this expression can be mother to much invention!

 

[Burnt State]

Ok then try this inventive mother of a story, another great favourite:
I see my mother bodies may UFOs | The Paracast Community Forums

 

[Wade]

And all this time I thought purple prose had something to do with erotica because the autobiography of a flea is considered purple prose.

The learnin' never stops here at the paracast.

 

[Burnt State]

smcder, former librarian in the Great Library of Alexandria, could host master classes. This is a picture from his basement which I remote viewed once while he was busy outside setting up his orgone machine.

Beware his wicked humour and philosophical jargon that he jangles on that consciousness thread. While we hang from thinly typed lines he sews neologisms in his sleep. One day he will take his quilted floating dictionary back to his interdimensional homeworld leaving a trail of fossilized human skin cells in his wake: new constellations to read him, bye.

We will call this spooky action at a distance The Higher Purple Path to Quantum Bliss, a hologram of the universe in every pot.

 

[Constance]

?? What's with the tone?

Btw, I love that room. It's where we talk philosophy in the C&P thread.

Do you by any chance have a larger version to post? I'd like to use it for a screen saver.

 

[boomerang]

The Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest

It's about time things were set aright. Bulwer-Lyttton has been maliciously maligned.

Think rather of turgid prose as that god sent puffy flotation device that has kept untold thousands of first year students afloat in a stormy sea of letters. One can distill and paraphrase only so many dozen periodicals on a given subject before sinking into an hallucinogenic vortex of pseudo recursive elaboration that rings heady with insight at 3:00 a.m. of the day a term paper is due.

I always suspected my teachers were not so much fooled as touched with pity for this poor slob of a student willing to document his self-induced insanity for a passing grade.

Or consider the art of resume writing. Or if your job is in hiring job applicants, please don't.

Indeed, this is all unfair to those like smcder, Burnt, Constance and others who verily seem to seem to comprehend what they have penned. But as one of our more infamous former Presidents once said: "I accept the responsibility but not the blame !"

 

[Polterwurst]

These don't appear to be purple but rather perfectly serviceable prose.

Dude, talk about high expectations. "Blue Snow" is full of surprising language constructions and innovative punctuation. Not as ingenious as "I see my mother bodies", to be sure (that one will probably stand out for eternity) but quite intriguing nonetheless.
And "Synchronicity and the Mantis" deserves to be mentioned for the pure imagery the thread title calls forth.

But to be serious, I don't see too many people using "purple prose", especially when talking about their own experiences. IMO, simple but strong language seems to prevail, which shows how impressive and out of the ordinary the experience was, even if its been years since or if it's obvious that it's not easy to find the words to describe it.

One post which I found rather artistic recently, though, was this

My body was energized by that spinal energy that can arise and resonate from the base of the spine and radiate into one's head and spread outward all over. Just after that energy surged to fill my body the "other music" started to play, but not through my headphones! THE most beautiful symphony was playing inside my head on its own. My body became "whole" as if inside a morphic-field I was connected to outside myslef, and my limbs were awash in it as if my skin surface was no longer just sensing it. I was inside myself and outside too. It was a kind of whole-body-to-oneness that gave a sensation similar to the idea of being underwater and swimming, and this field interaction was fully awash with sensation. As if my body was a cup, and it flowed in to fill all of me. I was swimming in the cosmic pool fully feeling as if one inside it too.

That's pure art. I'd like to have one of those, too.

There's probably lots of others, but it's going to take some digging.

 

[smcder]

smcder, former librarian in the Great Library of Alexandria, could host master classes. This is a picture from his basement which I remote viewed once while he was busy outside setting up his orgone machine.

Beware his wicked humour and philosophical jargon that he jangles on that consciousness thread. While we hang from thinly typed lines he sews neologisms in his sleep. One day he will take his quilted floating dictionary back to his interdimensional homeworld leaving a trail of fossilized human skin cells in his wake: new constellations to read him, bye.

We will call this spooky action at a distance The Higher Purple Path to Quantum Bliss, a hologram of the universe in every pot.

Brother, that's so damn purple as to be Ultra-violet baby!

 

[Burnt State]

Better ultra-purple than the ole ultra violence. Oh bliss! Bliss and heaven! Oh, it was gorgeousness and gorgeousity made flesh. It was like a bird of rarest-spun heaven metal or like silvery wine flowing in a spaceship, gravity all nonsense now. As I slooshied, I knew such lovely pictures! It's funny how the colors of the real world only seem really real when you viddy them on the screen.

 

[boomerang]

See there? Purple prose fills a vital niche in the ecology of art and literature.