I came to the important and mind-searingly simple realization that in order for this blog to be anything like a success, I would have to allow myself to be much more pithy than I tend to want to be as I’m writing for it. Perhaps the pretentiousness of monikering (I know… it’s not supposed to be a verb. I like it that way.) this site in such a way that every post ought to be a “minor literary work” (Thank you, Merriam-Webster) had gotten into my head a little too deeply. I really felt like in order to put anything up, I would really have to put Something up. Every post, an illumination. Every thought, an invention. This was the space for the minor aristocracy of my mental hierarchy.
But today I decided that my blog needed a little bit of democratization; an egalitarian movement; genuine self-revealing, entertaining pithiness.
So I sat down and thought, “Pithy. Pithy, pithy, pithy. What’s pithy?” and tapped my computer’s keys impotently. It was really rather pathetic.
“Pithy. Pithy. Pith helmets. No. Not pith helmets. Why am I thinking of pith helmets? Ah, Peter, because ‘pith’ is in ‘pithy.’ Thank you, Peter, I was aware of that.”
This could take a little while to get used to.
And then, in exasperation, I decided to write this in the hope that a self-referential picture of my impotence to pith (also not supposed to be a verb) might itself count as pithy in a sort of strange, simultaneously self-defeating and self-empowering way. But I fear it may have simply turned into a stream of consciousness, self-centered scree bank on the slope of the Mountain of Posts useful only in illuminating me and not doing a very good job at that. What would it have illuminated? That I might find both pith and pithy on a Boggle board?
It seems to be something of a challenging balance, I think, to blog with a proper balance between posting in a starched-collar style and letting it all hang figuratively loose. Challenges, however, are meant to be met, as any good Olympic fan could tell you. Therefore, I proceed to articulate the foremost policy point of Iterant Opuscule’s Reformation Party: That no post whose final articulation and refinement has been fermenting in the draft bin shall be allowed for that reason to effectively freeze and liquidate the general liveliness of the Blog.
So let it be written; so let it be done.
August 16, 2008 at 11:51 am |
:)
August 16, 2008 at 11:55 pm |
Make us proud! =]
August 17, 2008 at 11:23 am |
Glad to see you blogging.
This post made me smile and chuckle–precious assets both. I would like therefore to point out the parts I particularly liked both that I might encourage you to blog further and that I might pay due respect to good entertainment.
1. The sophisticated yet subtle employment of rhetorical isocolon by means of elliptical clauses: “Every post, an illumination. Every thought, an invention.” Me likey.
2. The clever metaphor of your blog as “space for the minor aristocracy of my mental hierarchy”.
3. Pith helmets.
4. Unabashed anthimeria.
5. “Pith” and “pithy” on the Boggle board.
6. The adoption of eloquent blog-governing policy.
Keep ‘em coming.
August 20, 2008 at 9:27 am |
You owe me some discussion. ;p
August 20, 2008 at 1:23 pm |
I applaud this Reformation. Think your thoughts out loud sometimes, however inconclusive or incoherent. Sometimes, the more porous things we say, those where the joints are still visible, where the structure has gaps that show, are the most thought-provoking for your audience. All this to say, swing by my blog if you need tips: I’m the queen of incompletion.
August 22, 2008 at 1:22 pm |
Be encouraged:
“Although my critical training and competence, such as it is, is as a careful textual critic, I have [...] flung this sensible approach aside in favor of enthusiasm, free speculation, blind assertion, dumb joking, and diatribe.” ~ Annie Dillard, “Living by Fiction”