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Tuesday, May 11, 2004
Let me critique my first post, because if the lit world -- or in this case the quote unquote blogosphere -- needs anything, it is more critics. Right?
To start at the beginning: Here, in "I, J. D. Finch" I have in a mere eight characters (this is not including punctuation -- are punctuation marks characters? I'm a writer, not a typographer...) set up a powerful mood, promising lit and journalistic thrills aplenty for the careful reader. I’ll tell you how.
First, one thinks of the classics and in particular "I, Claudius", so you know -- or at least, with this clever device, I lead you to believe -- that there will be confessions here, some perhaps salacious, but, based on my oblique reference to "Claudius" you know (think) they will be high-toned confessions.
But this simple phrase, "I, J. D. Finch" is more than just a classic reference. In fact it is more than a double-edged sword, perhaps even a quadruple edged sword (i.e. more than "a sword and a half", and perhaps even two double edged swords) of meaning that cuts more than one way and usually has a meaningful point. Ouch!
"I, The Jury" was a book by hardboiled writer Mickey Spillane, whose titillating tomes of sex, violence and cruelty were the cause of many a drugstore owner telling curious young potential readers to stay away from the paperback rack and its "dirty titles". Well, perhaps if the reader thinks my "I, J. D. Finch" will offer Spillane-esque titillation they will hang around this blog like a thirteen year old kid trying to check out the "dirty titles". And that would be fine with me. (Unless you are actually thirteen, in which case I can pretty much guarantee the subject matter that will be featured here would bore you to tears.)
But truth be told, when I started the first post I had something else in mind, between the high and low brows mentioned above. And it was "a declaration of principles". I know that down through the annals of time many principles have been declared, but the declaration I'm thinking of is journalistic, via the cinema.
But that will have to wait because right now I see someone about to throw my childhood sled in the furnace.
What’s up with that? (TBC)
¶ 11:11 AM
To start at the beginning: Here, in "I, J. D. Finch" I have in a mere eight characters (this is not including punctuation -- are punctuation marks characters? I'm a writer, not a typographer...) set up a powerful mood, promising lit and journalistic thrills aplenty for the careful reader. I’ll tell you how.
First, one thinks of the classics and in particular "I, Claudius", so you know -- or at least, with this clever device, I lead you to believe -- that there will be confessions here, some perhaps salacious, but, based on my oblique reference to "Claudius" you know (think) they will be high-toned confessions.
But this simple phrase, "I, J. D. Finch" is more than just a classic reference. In fact it is more than a double-edged sword, perhaps even a quadruple edged sword (i.e. more than "a sword and a half", and perhaps even two double edged swords) of meaning that cuts more than one way and usually has a meaningful point. Ouch!
"I, The Jury" was a book by hardboiled writer Mickey Spillane, whose titillating tomes of sex, violence and cruelty were the cause of many a drugstore owner telling curious young potential readers to stay away from the paperback rack and its "dirty titles". Well, perhaps if the reader thinks my "I, J. D. Finch" will offer Spillane-esque titillation they will hang around this blog like a thirteen year old kid trying to check out the "dirty titles". And that would be fine with me. (Unless you are actually thirteen, in which case I can pretty much guarantee the subject matter that will be featured here would bore you to tears.)
But truth be told, when I started the first post I had something else in mind, between the high and low brows mentioned above. And it was "a declaration of principles". I know that down through the annals of time many principles have been declared, but the declaration I'm thinking of is journalistic, via the cinema.
But that will have to wait because right now I see someone about to throw my childhood sled in the furnace.
What’s up with that? (TBC)
¶ 11:11 AM
