eine kleine shoutout
A quick hit today to welcome Clay Walker’s blog to the blogroll.
Hi Clay!
metamoment
I’ve decided that–while I still like the blog being primarily a space for textual reflection and theoretical workouts–I should on occasion devote more time to writing about personal things. Of course, that phrasing suggests theory etc. is not personal and that it’s just something I do, not part of who I am. Which is silly: I’m a theorist. Or, at least, aspire to be so.
So, faithful reader(s), why the decision? Well, the blog I read most attentively is Yellow Dog, and although Jeff’s theory/pedagogy/discipline/profession posts are always great, I often enjoy the little slivers of personal info that find their way to the blog. Again–the t/p/d/p2 stuff is, I’m sure, “personal” to Jeff as well. But I like those moments, and they’ve been echoed in certain ways by Collin’s recent Barthesian ”Summer of Personal Reflection” theme on his blog (until recent undisclosed events have made it difficult for C to blog), and the floating webmemes like “7/8 random things” that encourage bloggers toward similar “personal” scenes of invention.
So I’m introducing the new, semiregular feature called the “metamoment” which is devoted just to those scenes where the object is solely or primarily myself–again, with the caveat of the personal/professional divide being one of those dichotomies that Derrida warns against (and Ulmer and others have tried to deconstruct or work against through mystorical invention). This decision also finds its roots in last week’s chat with Jessica–one topic was whether, in the process of professionalization, one feels some sense of “authentic self” slipping way. For me, no–I’ve always been into theory and abstraction, and the professionalizaton merely gives me an appropriate database to draw from in expanding those interests. But one way to destablize that risk of losing authentic selfhood–ill-defined, true, and troubled as well by questions of essential/discursive subjectivity–might be to offer–against the usual concerns of theory, rhetoric, pedagogy that dominate the blog–insights into myself. And, to show I’ve been reading Jeff’s book (why I still kiss ass when he’s at a new university, I don’t know, haha.) to juxtapose (personal and theory) and commutate (blog becoming site of personality rather than theory).
I’m nearly done with both Jeff’s book and Johnson’s Everything Bad is Good for You, which by chance I’ve found myself reading along one another. There are echoes btw the two, and when time comes to write about that, I’ll try to address the two together . Also, I have yet to do the full Derrida post (where in god’s name to start?) and the post of Lackoff/Turner (easier to start, but not much to say). Also like to do one in response to the aforementioned music post from Jeff’s blog. I guess that prompts something else: “Metamoment” will be category for those such posts, whereas category “meta” will remain the category for blogging about blogging. So I guess that makes this a metametamoment?
Lastly, a cry for help. Very generously, my mater has decided to purchase a laptop for my upcoming birthday. I’ve pretty much decided on a PC (sorry, my Mac-lovin’ pals) ‘cos I’m a glutton for punishment, if you believe the recurring Mac vs. PC ad campaign. But most new PCs I’ve checked out have the new Windows Vista OS, and I dunno much about it–I’ve heard the folks at Microsoft are still having a lot of problems with proggies not running on it and such, so I’m hesitant to choose a Vista-based PC if that’s the case. So, here’s my cry: if you know aught about Vista, pro or con, drop a line or two; or, if you want to plead your case on Steve Jobs’ behalf and convince me to come over to Mac, take that up. Why not? I’ve already abandoned lit studies for rhetoric, right? I’ll just do whatever you kooky folks tell me to do.
Next time on . . .
Usually when I leave these posts, half of the topics never materialize. Really, they serve more for my purposes to remember things. Suckaz.
- epistemic machines
- rhetoric=pedagogy. Or the other way ’round
- CBS SEP wrapup
- Lakoff/Turner
- More on Derrida
Ob, btw, the current tag line is from Of Grammatology, if anyone was wondering.
Three One Six
Something I noticed reviewing the previous post:
316 pages of Derrida’s Grammatology
Times six minutes a page equals:
1896 minutes to read Derrida.
Divided by sixty minutes per hour equals:
31.6 hours to read Derrida.
Divided by 24 hours per day equals:
1.316 days to read Derrida.
Is anyone else slightly creeped out by the preponderance of the numerical series 3-1-6 popping up in that series of calculations? I’m not getting all Jim-Carrey-in-The-Number-23 or anything, just something that caught my eye.
It might make the start of an interesting research project: what else can we associate with a common series of numbers? Starting with the basic series, we might read this any number of ways:
3/16-March Sixteenth. What has happened on this date historically or personally?
1896-The year, perhaps, as a strating point for research (like Rice’s temporal invention projects).
1/31/(0)6-January 31 2006. As starting point.
I’m not proposing this as a great assignment, but I like how simple series of mathematical calculations revealed a) a small, and no doubt arbitrary, repetition of a three digit sequence; and b) how that might be useful as at least one way of developing an invention strategy. Maybe a dumb one, but an invention strategy nonetheless.
Also, a meta tag here:
Please welcome Jessica Rivait’s new blog, Vita Activa, to the blogroll. As Kim Lacey has recently said, Holla!