Digital Video Job Opportunities
Chapter Four of the textbook which the author wrote, Careers in Video and Digital Video, is titled “Name Your Poison” but from the very opening lines the metaphor that is developed follows neither the concept of poison nor alcohol. The poison in question here is creating a symbolic idea of which niche one might pursue within the larger casino of digital production: producer, director, researcher, writer, art director, etc.:
“What I'm about to do is like a card trick. Pick a card. Pretend that I'm holding a full deck and, one by one, I drop cards in front of you. Stop me when you see your card.” The card in this case is the particular job which he then goes on to describe in greater detail.
“The Frozen Archive”
The opening lines of the short story “The Frozen Archive” is a tapestry of metaphor that sets the creative tone for the story to be pursued. This is, in its entirety, the first paragraph and it is somewhat ambiguous as far as metaphor goes. Thankfully, the opening lines of the second paragraph explain everything: the “spaghetti” is symbolic imagery indicating the new treasure uncovered a century after the Gold Rush ended: film of silent movies long thought to have been lost, some of which did not exist anywhere else.
“By the time we were called to the Yukon, the damage had been done. The blade of the backhoe had already pierced the permafrost below the abandoned skating rink in Dawson city and came up spilling frozen chunks of dirt with strands of black spaghetti in its teeth.”
Friends of Otis
The picaresque novel written by Allman, Otis: On the Occasion of His Foray into the Wilderness of Civilization, is a filled with metaphorical imagery. The similes run hot and fast when it comes to description of character and place and since there are a lot of characters and a lot of places to describe, the book becomes a festival for those who prefer something a bit more imaginative than something like “It was a dark and stormy night.”
“Hal tipped over to the limo. He looked as if he had been tarred. His hands, when he placed him gingerly against the driver's window, were as black as asphalt. His face, between those hands and pressed against the glass, was an abandoned bird’s nest.”
Rapunzel
Even a great many of those who don’t know Dan Rather from Walter Cronkite are in a way familiar with the strange events of an otherwise normal October evening in 1986 when two strange—and strangely well-attired—men accosted Rather on the sidewalk a message. That message was transposed slightly to become the hit song by REM (which provides the link to their knowledge) titled “What’s the Frequency, Kenneth.” The essay which also takes part of that bizarre message which the two men asked Rather—who doesn’t even have the middle name Kenneth—as its title ("The Frequency") rather wryly and cryptically suggests the official story of the incident is bunk and the true story involves a very respected if not particularly famous author named Donald Barthelme. The central metaphor is one everyone can related to as it situates Rather as someone who really would just put the whole thing behind him but never will because of forces beyond his control:
“Rather is like Rapunzel, locked in a tower, peering out from his window, giving the evening news. Dan Rather, Dan Rather, let down your hair! But no, he's cut it short. He doesn't want to be saved.”
And the King Who Imprisoned Her?
By the end of “The Frequency” the author has admitted that Barthelme is one of his literary heroes and that while Rather is not one of his heroes, he does recognize he is a mere victim. Nevertheless, it perhaps telling that the central metaphor he assigns to Rather is that of damsel in distress locked in a tower and not even unrolling that long hair down as a means of potential escape. On the other hand, Barthelme enjoys a much more esteemed metaphorical description. But that’s just the start of a fabulous fabulist extending of the metaphor almost to the limits of absurdity intertextuality and connectedness between the two men:
“[Barthelme] was king of the irrational, the surprising juxtaposition…Rather's very name is contained within the name Barthelme. Barthelme's last novel was The King, about King Arthur. Rathur?”
