Ranting As An Artform

Okay...you can tell when I don't have clients. I've had two no-shows in a row. It's been awhile since that happened. Otherwise, it's been a good week so I'm not worried.

This rant is in response to Brandon's earlier rant about nothing, which I thought was a clever idea and I was honored that he would imitate my writing style in his first blog. Rants are two types: The Machine Gun and the Long, Slow Drowning.

The Machine Gun approach is where you say
brief
to the point
statements that get attention
and cause the reader to become overwhelmed
as item after item
slams against their brains
until they scream for mercy
but they keep reading anyway
looking for some relief
hoping against hope
until finally
there is
an unexpected relief valve
or perhaps no relief at all
it just depends.

The Long, Slow Drowning is where in one sentence the writer goes on and on about the opposite of what the ranter believes or practices or encourages, pointing out subtly the error in a particular world view or stance or slice of life or lifestyle or choice taking it's logic to it's unforeseen conclusion so that the reader can finally see the error of his ways while all the time the writer is quite aware that even though this is the writer's goal, the reader may take the rant in the wrong way and judge the writer as arrogant and self-absorbed which is one of the subtle purposes of the rant, namely, to expose the hypocrisy of hypocrisy that as the judger is judging he is breaking his own tenants, so that later, when the rantee can't sleep at night because of the ever so slight twinge of conscience that was pricked by reading the rant, the rantee may come to his senses and no longer need to be the subject of said rant.

Or not.