Saturday, May 21, 2005
(2:35 PM) | Adam Kotsko:
A couple recommendations
John Emerson has solved the problem of reality. You will be surprised by his results. You will be even more surprised, and delighted, to learn that he has signed a contract to blog here as a part-time consultant. He estimates that his first post will appear here some time within the next week or so.Le monde has published an article entitled «L'univers des blogs, ses habitants, ses rites, son langage». I know that the majority of you can't read it, but the point here is that the article exists: Le monde is publishing stories about the blogging phenomenon. Last week, they were also covering the continued progress of the video game console wars. I remember a New Yorker article about how Le monde is really going downhill -- and I think that I speak for all twenty-somethings when I say that I'm really tired of witnessing the slow decline of nearly every once-treasured cultural institution (Saturday Night Live, The New Yorker, The Paris Review, the United States Constitution, etc., etc.). What do we get in their place? Oh yeah: McSweeney's. Thanks. And even that is in decline now!
And I guess there's someone hanging around here who thinks The Weblog is in decline, too! Well, screw that. We didn't used to be better. We were always exactly this bad.
Okay, so the important aspect of the story in Le monde is that the French term for Internet user is internaute, which looks to both me and Ben Wolfson as though it is formed by analogy with "astronaut."
m2 of The H was O[1] has a characteristically insightful and incite-ful post on the recent death of Paul Ricoeur. Why does it seem like towering French intellectuals always die on the weekend? Why?! Anyway, my call is that the response of the press to Ricoeur's death will be much more sympathetic than its shamefully ridiculous coverage of Derrida. I predict absolutely no vitriol. I mean, we're talking about the guy who came up with the ideas of "hermeneutic of suspicion" and "second naïveté" -- he's become part of the language!
[1] I would ask, now that all the lovable H is O characters have been either destroyed or banished to The H was O -- is the inevitable decline of The Weblog over? Was that the problem? Did F. Winston Codpiece III have to be sacrificed[2] on the altar of everyone's "expectations" of what The Weblog "should" be?
[2] I quietly note that the comment thread in which I got into a fight with F. Winston Codpiece III was perhaps the greatest bit of bloggery that has ever happened, ever. See, here's the joke -- I am/was F. Winston Codpiece III! Get it? (I never was any character who had "Kamala" in his name, nor was I the short-lived F. Winston Codpiece IV.) I was having an argument with myself, in which I deeply insulted myself under an assumed name! Wow. Good stuff. But that's when the bitching began in earnest. My question: If Fafblog can write nonsense and everyone loves it, why can't The Weblog?[3]
[3] I think I know the answer: everyone has come to expect that The Weblog will be characterized by posts on religio-philosophical topics, together with personal stories from me, of varying degrees of seriousness. I'll admit it -- it's a good formula. It has served us well. We're back to it now. If you liked that "The H is O"-style stuff, there's a page where they do nothing but. But for whiny cerebrality, this is your best destination.
