I’m a simple, subliterate man. For instance, I believe modal adverbs should come in pairs, like Twinkies. Why say you “might” drive out to the Shady Lady, when you “might could” drive there?
So when I go browsing for a good book, I try to pick something that has been rewritten in simpler language by screenwriters, filmed, distributed to theaters, released on DVD and then marked down to $6.50 at Target. It’s very economical, and, in my opinion, books shouldn’t ought to be hard to understand. There, that was another bonus pack of modal adverbs for you.
But sometimes, you need to ascend to loftier literary heights. Today, I immersed myself in the heady, Salonlike atmosphere of the Web site of the 2007 Kansas City Literary Festival, which informed me that
...the Kansas City Literary Festival is proud to present of the finest writers found in the American today. They cover a wide breath of genres and fascinating topics for everyone in the family.
This isn’t the fancy, mortarboard-wearing copywriting of the ivory-tower intelligentsia, such as your Noam Chomsky or your Tina Fey. It’s the denim-wearing copywriting of the working man – the kind of regular Joe who likes Hamburger Helper and meaty postprandial farting.
The “wide breath” of genres includes the usual array of local poets and writers you’d expect to see, more or less, minus Whitney Terrell but plus a generous helping of Jack Cashill’s two-fisted sociopolitical commentary. He’s the executive editor of Ingram's and the author of the modestly titled Hoodwinked: How Intellectual Hucksters Have Hijacked American Culture, among others. Also, he believes that Secretary of Commerce Ron Brown was, I dunno, murdered by Bill Clinton, or something.
One thing’s for sure: Intellectual hucksters drive their presidential motorcades past Cahill's metaphorical Texas School Book Depository at their own risk. He's gunning for the intelligentsia, which I interpret to mean that he likes double modal adverbs, he doesn't like the Barton Finks who organize literary festivals, and he’s really looking forward to Delta Farce, starring wage-earning common man Larry the Cable Guy. Which makes him a workingman, like me and whoever wrote the Web copy for the KC LitFest. -- Chris Packham
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