Ennui

I don’t know what to do on the internet anymore.

I’ve been blogging, on and off, since November 2004. That’s more than five years, and it suddenly seems like a rather long time. I’ll go out on a limb and say that my original blog was my best, and it has been largely downhill from there (though for relative interestingness, at least to me, The Wordle Bible is right up there).

Ennui is a strong inertial force. If I had been smart, I would have just quit cold turkey when I took my very first leave of absence. Instead, I’ve treated such absences after the manner of Urban Meyer.

–

Blame it on Twitter, I suppose.

(Seems like that can’t be far from becoming a popular pastime, anyway.) It probably goes back further: my attention span for internet activity, be it active or passive, has shrunk dramatically over the last five and half years. I think of blogging more now more as simply taking brief notes of things, notes that other people can see, and I am less compelled (current post notwithstanding) to let my wind be long. The side effect of such thinking is that my own personal blogging doesn’t hold my attention anymore.

–

Twitter and Identi.ca.

I prefer the look and feel of Identi.ca, but no one I know (in the “real” world, that is) actually uses it, which kind of makes me want to just forget about both services (until I own a smartphone, anyway). I won’t, of course, but I should.

–

Internet (broadcasting) ennui

The internet as a broadcasting tool has wearied, for me & for now. Um, conceptually. I doubt I will be able to avoid it altogether, because, frankly, it’s in the nature of the beast. Record-keeping, though, and of course poetry, are more my style these days. After all, the future is curatorial, right? These days, for the internet to mean much to me, I think I need it to be as a tool for either a) communication between me and people I actually know, or b) curating. Conventional personal blogging, then, when cast in the light of those feelings, doesn’t make a lot of sense to me just now.

–

To wit

A poem:

happy :: friendly smiles
stimulated from time :: to time
warmer :: richer :: redder
the child’s mind :: waiting

mad’s infectious, I believe :: it emerges
from the water :: detestable
thought! :: going to the images
locked in one :: another’s arms

the creature :: burst out
its sagging face

I paid :: by strength

(source texts: Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World and T.S. Eliot’s East Coker; composed using Mchain)

–

Epilogue

I don’t know if I said everything I wanted to, and I don’t know if the things I said were said just the way I’d like; I don’t know if I want to expend that kind of thought on personal blogging. Maybe that’s the whole of it.

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That is all. Look for me, if you like, on Facebook and Gnoetry Daily, and Google Buzz; I will jumpstart The Wordle Bible soonish.

Filed under: meta

iMock

I tell myself I’m not overtly anti-Apple, but I suspect the deeper truth at work is pretty simple: I find their products annoying, because I can’t afford their shininess. There. Happy now, Jobs?

Now, that having been said, I’ll admit I do find some humor in mocking Apple products & consumers (of which I am one, thanks to my iPod). Of course, there are legitimate reasons to dislike Apple, and there are plenty (just as there are reasons to dislike most large companies). The whole iPad thing just makes my annoyance a bit more timely, I guess (Defective by Design can offer more reasoning than I can, with a touch less snarkiness).

Anyway, stuff like the iProduct makes me laugh pretty hard. (And notice the date on it: January 2005. Good jokes never get less funny.)

Don’t get me wrong, I’m no Microsoft-lover, either. Thing is, I’m not even a little jealous that I don’t own a Zune instead of an iPod, so things like this article by a former Microsoft employee only fill me with something akin to pity: Microsoft’s Creative Destruction.

What does it all mean? Well, aside from knowing I will have Andy Rooney style sarcasm-fodder for the foreseeable future, it means that as a consumer of computer-related things, my choice will often come down to choosing a product from one of two companies: (WARNING: gross oversimplifications ahead)

Company A, whose products are designed to be shiny and “cool” almost expressly to distract me from sketchy Big Brother-style policies,

or

Company B, whose products are either ill-timed for the market, clunky, or both, in no small part because it has lost control over its creative employees’ infighting.

Looks like iLose.

Filed under: misc.

Proverbs 2

(Source: Proverbs 1. Program: Charles O. Hartman’s DIASTEXT)

1
Tough, the spilled moon, blue black you sleep; discomfiture falls worlds.

2
Ache five wet whithers of orange, son, then blue dawn.

3
Counsel. Cry through three corona.

4
Lean magic: dogma distant from oak.

5
Hoarfrost, frost crisp as is hung your heart.

6
The seed, son: windshield of magic!

7
Moon perennials see our ache; you, son, ache from Jacob.

8
Disconsolation: the eye where stars die.

9
Windows from disconsolation? Open. Lean.

10
Distant hormones, distant beast.

11
Open orange before blue.

Filed under: DIASTEXT, digital poetry, poetry

Internettery

Been a while. I have been feeling a little put off by the thought of actually doing much on the internet lately. No particular reason of which I am aware.

Anyway…

I just put my Twitter and Identi.ca accounts on official hiatus, but The Wordle Bible is still going (relatively) strong. I’d like to keep it that way.

Also, two projects have caught my attention this year: fiftytwofiftytwo and Project 365. I rather hastily decided to participate in both, and both are kind of limping along. The end of the year will likely see me having completed both projects in “lite” form, but I’m OK with that.

Where does that leave LaToVP? I’m not entirely sure, but in the very least, I would like to post here once a week with an update on the above projects and maybe even the occasional original thought or two.

We shall see what we shall see.

Filed under: meta

I don’t want to say “I told you so”, but…

I told you so.

It feels good, doesn’t it? I’ll quote kicker Aaron Pettrey, who said it better than I imagine anyone else will: “It’s about time we got one of these damn things.”

I could not be more excited about next season.

Filed under: college football, meta, Ohio State, sports

Tributes and Tenements

Some scripture, Oulipo-style:

James 1:2-18, N+7

Tributes and Tenements

Consider it pure jug, my browses, whenever you faction tributes of many kinsmen, because you know that the thatch of your falsetto develops perseverance. Perseverance must firebrand its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. If any of you ladies witch-hunt, he should ask Godson, who gives generously to all without finding fear, and it will be given to him. But when he asks, he must believe and not dovetail, because he who dovetails is like a wayside of the seal, blown and tossed by the window-dresser. That mandible should not think he will receive anything from the Lotion; he is a douse-minded mandible, unstable in all he doglegs.

The browse in humble civilians ought to take primrose in his high post. But the one who is ridicule should take primrose in his low post, because he will password away like a wimp fluke. For the sundry rituals with scorching heavyweight and withers the plastic; its blowpipe falls and its bedfellow is destroyed. In the same wean, the ridicule mandible will fade away even while he goes about his busybody.

Blessed is the mandible who perseveres under tribute, because when he has stood the text, he will receive the cruise of lifetime that Godson has promised to those who luck him.

When tempted, no one should say, “Godson is tempting me.” For Godson cannot be tempted by examination, nor doglegs he tempt anyone; but each one is tempted when, by his own examination destination, he is dragged away and enticed. Then, after destination has conceived, it gives bishop to single-decker; and single-decker, when it is full-grown, gives bishop to debit.

Door’t be deceived, my debauch browses. Every good and peril gimlet is from above, coming dowse from the Faun of the heavenly light-years, who doglegs not chapel like shifting shallows. He chose to give us bishop through the workhouse of tuber, that we might be a kinsman of firstfruits of all he created.

–

My favorite lines & phrases:

- the thatch of your falsetto

- Blessed is the mandible who perseveres under tribute, because when he has stood the text, he will receive the cruise of lifetime

- the Faun of the heavenly light-years

- chapel like shifting shallows.

- the workhouse of tuber

- kinsman of firstfruits

Filed under: Bible, wordplay

Something for Oregon to keep in mind

Buckeyes are good for one thing: denting skulls

Filed under: college football, comics, Ohio State, sports

The Poet’s Task and Authorship

I’m reading Charles O. Hartman’s Virtual Muse (originally recommended to me in this thread on readings in digital poetics by one Eric Scovel). And before I go any further, I have to say this: the clarity of the writing is simply stunning.

Now, more so I can (hopefully) remember these quotations later, here are a couple things I read today that struck a chord:

Quoting Howard Nemerov: “The poet’s task has generally been conceded to be hard, but it may be so described as to make it logically impossible: Make an object recognizable as an individual of the class p for poem, but make it in such a way that it resembles no other individual of that class.”

As a philosophy major and poet, I really laughed hard at that.

A touch of radical democracy, even of anarchy, is implicit in today’s ubiquitous desktop computers. True, the proliferation threatens new ways of regimenting workers, and so on. But potentially, the microcomputer revolution of the late seventies extended the social revolutions of the previous decade. [...] In this atmosphere we might expect the privelage and heirophany associated with Authorship and Authority to come under scrutiny.

And, somewhat more specific to my current general poetic state:

[S]econdary creation tends to make writers (and other “creative” people) nervous. Your self gets tied up in what you make. A computer that becomes too autonomous begins to feel like a usurper. Just who’s in charge here after all? For instance, [a simple "poetry composer"] program raised questions about authorship. Exactly who wrote [the poems]?Me? The computer? The program? Myself through the computer?

Filed under: digital poetry, poetry

The Wordle Bible

The Wordle Bible has returned! After a lengthy hiatus, I’ve moved TWB to WordPress and started working on Exodus. Go check it out!

As I mention in today’s post, Exodus 1, importing the Blogger posts to WordPress somehow shrunk the pictures, so if you want to see the full-size versions of any Genesis Wordles, you’ll have to check out the old TWB. Otherwise, just sit back (after subscribing to TWB’s feed, of course) and stay tuned for a new chapter every day!

Filed under: Bible, The Wordle Bible

Up Next: M*ch*g*n

Fellow Buckeyes,

THE GAME is almost upon us.

I’m sure you know the details: noon kickoff, @UM, on ABC.

Some previews: Eleven Warriors, Silver Bullet, MotSaG (by the numbers), Our Honor Defend, Sweater Vest Digest, and the always awesome GameDay+ (which I didn’t realize until just recently was also online and not just in the Dispatch on game days).

A brief, sad interlude: in case you haven’t already heard Stephanie Spielman died this week. We all know and love Chris, of course, but Stephanie was an inspiration to a lot of people in and around Columbus and the country for her dedication to breast cancer research, and she will be missed by a lot of people. Say a prayer for Chris & family sometime today.

And in case you needed some specific motivation, here are a few more reasons to get excited about The Game.

My quick thoughts: yes TTUN is awful, but we can never forget: this is THE GAME. Records don’t matter, rankings don’t matter, predictions don’t matter. Winning The Game is all that matters today. Anything can happen, and neither side is ever guaranteed a cakewalk.

What do you want to see? I want to see a victory, I don’t care how ugly it may be, because that’s what this rivalry is about. Oh, and I want to see M*ch*g*n NOT go bowling for the second year in a row. At our hand.

After The Game, if you need more celebration (regardless of the outcome), here’s a fun way to see what 7-1 looks like.

See you on the other side.

O-H!

Filed under: college football, Ohio State, sports