In a surprising turn of events, I am surmounting my innate distaste for technology and keeping a non-material archive. Everything you read here is biographically-related, by which I mean it’s incredibly unqualified and narcissistic.* Then again, that’s the point, isn’t it?
You, my devoted reader, probably have a number of questions, which I shall now answer in a manner befitting my brilliance:
Why now?
For reasons that are probably obvious, I sometimes think of my undergrad life as a play. It’s an extremely ununified play, however, and the first two acts have very little to do with the plot of the fourth act. They are also very poorly written, like the work of Philip Stubbs.*
This year, though, I have taken a number of theory courses (political theory, literary theory, literary theory redux, literary criticism, early modern theories of text) and been reading a lot of Butler-Derrida-Orgel-Baudrillard for my 4P99 paper. This has tended to make me (over)think. A lot. Far more than I can comfortably fit in my term papers and thesis. I now feel, though, that I have the vocabulary to voice these thoughts the way I would like.
That’s it?
Not quite. This morning I was reading Woolf, and was reminded of the necessity of articulating one’s self (not allowing someone else to articulate your self for you). It may be that the mass of the internet effaces the particular voice, but webpages like this do allow you to locate yourself within the political and social geography of larger government, religious, or commercial sites.
Isn’t this a bit academic?
Yep. I tend to think that way. I like essays.
Essays are kind of dull.
Maybe. Then again, I’m not forcing anyone to read any of this. In the event that I catch the eye of one or two readers, I may resort to gimmicks to keep it more interesting. These may include, but are not limited to:
-inventing conversations with fictional (or dead) people
-incorporating random pictures of (or by) famous* people
-including jokes that 2 out of 900 people will find funny*
-including footnotes and a fun* glossary of terms!
Are you being self-referential?
Always.
27 March 2008 ~ St. Catharines
Glossary of Terms:
Famous: adj. (occ.). Writers, mainly dead.
Fun: adj. (rare). Amusing for those who find Philip Stubbs jokes humourous.
Funny: adj. (elitist). Remarks that elicit a knowing smirk, or the response “ah, that’s clever,” but produce no real laughter. Remarks of this nature often engender pity or anger in the general public and should be used carefully.
Narcissistic: see Erin, n. nom. fem.
Stubbs, Philip: n.nom.masc. (obs.) Early modern English anti-theatricalist. Widely abused.
