Comments on: following the simple instructions http://theunreliablenarrator.net/2007/10/29/fatally-uninteresting/ "bringing you all the news that's fit to mistrust" Thu, 20 Nov 2008 11:11:03 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.0 by: unnarrator http://theunreliablenarrator.net/2007/10/29/fatally-uninteresting/#comment-15979 Wed, 31 Oct 2007 16:12:25 +0000 http://theunreliablenarrator.net/2007/10/29/fatally-uninteresting/#comment-15979 It's funny cos only a couple of weeks ago were we talking about the passive voice in class; I asked students to bring in examples and one guy came up with "Bombs were dropped," which I thought was brilliant—I mean, in terms of rhetorically eliding the agent of action, <em>not</em> in terms of taking moral responsibility. So....yeah, it can get messy when we (you? I? them?) leave in that process-piece which creative writing workshops like to call "prewriting," and which I call (in ENG 101) "throat-clearing and pointing." What Ezra Pound is <em>trying</em> to say is that she wonders when/if her prewriting will ever NOT be instinctively self-deprecating? And for some reason she is saying it in the third person? With question marks? Thank you for your deep cookie generosity. I don't know where I'd be this fall without you. Even more addlepated than I am, prolly. It’s funny cos only a couple of weeks ago were we talking about the passive voice in class; I asked students to bring in examples and one guy came up with “Bombs were dropped,” which I thought was brilliant—I mean, in terms of rhetorically eliding the agent of action, not in terms of taking moral responsibility. So….yeah, it can get messy when we (you? I? them?) leave in that process-piece which creative writing workshops like to call “prewriting,” and which I call (in ENG 101) “throat-clearing and pointing.” What Ezra Pound is trying to say is that she wonders when/if her prewriting will ever NOT be instinctively self-deprecating? And for some reason she is saying it in the third person? With question marks?

Thank you for your deep cookie generosity. I don’t know where I’d be this fall without you. Even more addlepated than I am, prolly.

]]> by: oleoptene http://theunreliablenarrator.net/2007/10/29/fatally-uninteresting/#comment-15978 Wed, 31 Oct 2007 15:31:45 +0000 http://theunreliablenarrator.net/2007/10/29/fatally-uninteresting/#comment-15978 Thank you for the post title change! Among the lessons of four days of art with middle aged women was that the impulse to bond by putting your own stuff down is a good one to resist. Again with the impersonal and passive constructions, which have become ironic and political in a "mistakes were made, lessons were learned" sort of way! And linguistic fun is a much more charitable explanation than over-identification and not being sure where the appropriate pronoun is you and where it is I. Thank you for the post title change! Among the lessons of four days of art with middle aged women was that the impulse to bond by putting your own stuff down is a good one to resist. Again with the impersonal and passive constructions, which have become ironic and political in a “mistakes were made, lessons were learned” sort of way! And linguistic fun is a much more charitable explanation than over-identification and not being sure where the appropriate pronoun is you and where it is I.

]]> by: unnarrator http://theunreliablenarrator.net/2007/10/29/fatally-uninteresting/#comment-15937 Wed, 31 Oct 2007 05:15:15 +0000 http://theunreliablenarrator.net/2007/10/29/fatally-uninteresting/#comment-15937 Kind of a lame post title, but the right one refused to come to me. As far as why one is doing this (successfully, I think, not merely "trying") in the third person: because one knows this is a weirdly sophisticated and adult way to have a weird amount of linguistic fun? :o) And as far as the B. being all that--yeah, but, so, why am I going to have to nurse him through his fatal lung cancer, why, Why, WHY?!? Kind of a lame post title, but the right one refused to come to me. As far as why one is doing this (successfully, I think, not merely “trying”) in the third person: because one knows this is a weirdly sophisticated and adult way to have a weird amount of linguistic fun? :o) And as far as the B. being all that–yeah, but, so, why am I going to have to nurse him through his fatal lung cancer, why, Why, WHY?!?

]]> by: mandarin http://theunreliablenarrator.net/2007/10/29/fatally-uninteresting/#comment-15932 Wed, 31 Oct 2007 02:33:03 +0000 http://theunreliablenarrator.net/2007/10/29/fatally-uninteresting/#comment-15932 You look bloody fabulous. And the B. is all that and a bag of chips. Please post river otters! I might have more to say for myself, if I weren't getting up at four and had already eaten dinner. LOVE LOVE LOVE Your ever-lovin goose-down Fruitbat You look bloody fabulous. And the B. is all that and a bag of chips. Please post river otters!

I might have more to say for myself, if I weren’t getting up at four and had already eaten dinner.

LOVE LOVE LOVE

Your ever-lovin goose-down Fruitbat

]]> by: oleoptene http://theunreliablenarrator.net/2007/10/29/fatally-uninteresting/#comment-15925 Tue, 30 Oct 2007 19:48:01 +0000 http://theunreliablenarrator.net/2007/10/29/fatally-uninteresting/#comment-15925 Neither fatal nor uninteresting. I don't know why October does inspire such brooding thoughts of climbing under a big fluffy comforter and hiding until spring comes or of obliterating one's online existence, cutting the phone wires, despite the need to know one is thought of or perhaps exactly because of it, indulging in shared food and movies with one's beloved, and wondering about the responsibilities others have bestowed upon one, finding the balance between inwardness and outwardness precarious and exhausting. One cannot blame the weather because it is glorious weather... How does one accept the cyclical nature of moods and seasons without feeling utterly invalidated in the experience of them? And what the hell is one trying to do this in the third person for? Neither fatal nor uninteresting. I don’t know why October does inspire such brooding thoughts of climbing under a big fluffy comforter and hiding until spring comes or of obliterating one’s online existence, cutting the phone wires, despite the need to know one is thought of or perhaps exactly because of it, indulging in shared food and movies with one’s beloved, and wondering about the responsibilities others have bestowed upon one, finding the balance between inwardness and outwardness precarious and exhausting. One cannot blame the weather because it is glorious weather… How does one accept the cyclical nature of moods and seasons without feeling utterly invalidated in the experience of them? And what the hell is one trying to do this in the third person for?

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