My dear friends:
I think by this time we’ve gotten to know each other fairly well. By which I mean you read my archive, and I revel in my increasing reader-counter. I like to imagine you each morning, anxiously awaiting my newest post: Will it include poets you’ve never encountered, or theorists you wish you’d never encountered? Will it have inexplicable references to dormice and Michael Palin? [i] Will you find yourself graced with fame and fortune as I lovingly mock your personage?
Obviously you value my wit and charm. The self-referential humour of this archive, too, is brilliant. I’m hoping that my next confession, then, doesn’t lower the massive esteem you must hold for me.
I’m not that good with the technology.
I know: the format of my archive is beautiful. To be honest, I owe a lot of the professional facade to the pre-provided formats and helpfully-labelled icon palettes offered by the WordPress people. Hovering over these palettes, I can see exactly which icon will make my text into a “Blockquote,” or will “Remove formatting”.
I can’t find the helpful “Turn this bit of text into a link to another website” icon, however; I’ve been copying and pasting the utterly necessary addresses from Word or Gmail. This is growing tiresome. Will someone please indicate to me the necessary html to make these links work?
Too, you, my dedicated reader, may have noticed I like to use footnotes. Now in online academic articles the notation numbers [ii] are generally linked to the notes at the bottom of the page? Can I do this too?
Finally, is there an etiquette that says I should respond to every comment left on my articles? I fear my potential rudeness. I also fear overly-attentive response will make me more of a pedant than Ben. [iii]
End Notes
[i] http://www.palinstravels.co.uk/
[ii] This notation was clearly provided only as a visual example. Why are you reading it?
[iii] more of a pedant than Ben. Obviously a reference to yesterday’s article. By the way, I know that Kari only leaves comments so that I’ll mention her in future articles. It’s very narcissistic and selfish of her. Not like Steve. His comment about artificially aging my Seamus Heaney was both amusing and helpful. Thanks Steve!
13 April 2008 ~ St. Catharines
