A sound I'm familiar with.
One might say that linking is a sort of improvisatory art - like jazz. The critic
Whitney Balliett gave what is perhaps the best (and most probably the most often
quoted) definition of jazz as "the sound of surprise". I love that phrase,
and use it often. It embodies much of what I love about that music. But I also
have to admit that not all jazz is surprises. In a very real sense, jazz demands
an identifiable framework because if we don't expect something, we're not able
to be surprised if something else shows up in its stead. Without a set framework,
everything is unexpected, and instead of surprise we get confusion. Because of
this, improvisatory music often finds itself in a bit of a bind. If it only "plays
the changes" it becomes almost completely predictable, while if it allows
itself to be fully "free" there's no longer any framework from which
the surprise can jump out as us.
A written page, at least when its finished, isn't improvisational. I can only
hope that it still houses within itself, both in words and in structure, elements
of surprise, hints of the unexpected, daring jumps into the deep waters, and any
number of other attempts at overcoming the predictable. Good writers have numerous
tools which help them do this. Not being as skilled as those good writers, I rely
on the link.
Go to: Write now - sense later, or
Go to: Hooray for the banality of linking, or
Go to: The (ir)relevance of hypertext