{"version":1,"type":"rich","provider_name":"Libsyn","provider_url":"https:\/\/www.libsyn.com","height":90,"width":600,"title":"Donna-Michelle St. Bernard - Thought 8 - PRETTY","description":"My name is Donna-Michelle St. Bernard and this is my eighth thought.  I rarely use the word \u201cpretty\u201d without irony.  It\u2019s like \u201cnice.\u201d  Essentially positive but so banal as to be back-handed.   Lately I think it\u2019s curve-related: The air is so thick with hyperbole that if you\u2019re pretty, you\u2019re several levels below drop-dead gorgeous \u2013 so attractive that you could literally end someone\u2019s life, aesthetically.  And we don\u2019t even know what the top of that scale is yet, but pretty ain\u2019t it.  We\u2019ve gone so high that pretty is about one up from plain.   I understand that language evolves.  I just don\u2019t like when words get taken away in bad faith.  Not over time, with usage, but in front of our eyes, with malice.  Which is happening. It\u2019s probably the thing I appreciate most about African American vernacular \u2013 a survivance tongue that can\u2019t be taken:  it\u2019s resistance to codification, it\u2019s improv-adeptness, both in creating and interpreting new configurations of old symbols, old syllables, the reuse of existing expression invested instantly with new meaning by context.  It\u2019s verdant, sprawling and variegated.  It\u2019s complex and alive, and I love it.  It\u2019s pretty.   (photo by Desmond Cole.  Sounds from zapsplat) ","author_name":"The Thought Residencies","author_url":"http:\/\/www.spiderwebshow.ca","html":"