Thursday, June 2, 2011

E.A. Robinson's "The Mill": a poem capturing todays I can't find a job / life's a bitch mood

E.A. Robinson


I thought and googled: The best I can't find a job poem is e.a. robinsons's "the mill"

"Perhaps no person can be a poet, or even can enjoy poetry, without a certain unsoundness of mind" (Thomas Babington Macaulay)

I will not pretend that poetry can be accessed and sought out by all people to find some solace like music or movies or even fiction. At least not today.

But hear me out those of you who think poetry is boring or hard: Reading E.A. Robinson's better poems, you understand how poems matter. I remember reading Robinson's "The Mill" as an undergraduate. I read him along with other Modern poets. Robinson, along with many other early modernists, wrote the kind of poems that outlined modernism's entire principles of mood and subject matter. Early modernist poets like Robinson (along with Housman and Hardy to name a few), made it so that poems could contain layers of ambiguity while attending to the readers' demand to literal meaning. This is no easy task. Later poets failed to achieve this duality of meaning and discovery.

Like I mentioned in an earlier post about poetry, there is no point debating the cultural utility and viability of Poetry in our age: it simply does not register as a cultural force or art form.

Wednesday, June 1, 2011

Notice something new? Google launches +1 "plus one" and further joins the clutter and fray

Google's +1 plus one button screen shot
Google +1 (plus one)

Google's plus one screenshot
In its continuing effort to rival Facebook, Google launched its own version of the ubiquitous "like" button.  Google, of course, says that their +1 (pronounced "plus one") feature is better because its recommendations will contextualize information thus making them more relevant.

Monday, May 30, 2011

Oh Betty! More on Nostalgia: Betty Brosmer

In a related query to my earlier I Choose Nostalgia post, I present you this:
Betty Brosmer Skirt Backshot visit bettybrosmer.com for more
I thought women could only look like this in cartoons
 Who is this iconic figure with the dazzling figure?

Saturday, May 28, 2011

Vladimir Nabokov Hates Your Prose

Lolita is famous, not I
                                --Vladimir Nabokov


If you are like me (which I hope you aren't, for your sake), you cringe whenever people refer to a "Lolita" in some salacious yet totally out of place context. Language is dynamic and changes, I know. And truth is, I enjoy seeing literary references used outside of academia; I like to think that literature is still somewhat relevant and capable of penetrating our technocratic, solipsistic culture. But as a Nabokovphile, I am tasked to side with Nabokov's obtuse and often times untenable tenets about his characters and his motivations.

Thursday, May 26, 2011

Dropping the e in websites and techy things ending in er, like in flickr, tumblr...[someone already blogged this]

e crossed out, no e's allowed

After glimpsing a news story on yet another tech company that drops the "e" if the ending sounds like the word should end in "er" ( I say sounds like because, after all we cannot really know since some of these are made up words), I thought and googled: whats with these tech company names dropping the e?

Wednesday, May 25, 2011

The New Criterion and their Love of Big, Fancy Words--A Love Hate Sort of Thing


Wordle: Untitled

I thought and googled (after reading The New Criterion) : Why does the New Criterion love big fancy words?

If you read or have read enough of this publication, you will note its predilection for using big words especially in its "notes and comments section", which is basically the editorial section to voice its current grievances with culture for an already--how shall I say--heavily voiced journal.

I am not a pedant, but I do like the swift exactness that "long" words often offer the writer.

Tuesday, May 24, 2011

All Google Needs is its Own Power Source to Conquer the Technocratic World--And This May Happen Soon

I thought and googled : All Google needs is its own power or energy source for it to theoretically (as opposed to practically, maybe)  be able to take over our technocratic world.

I realize articles describing and deriding Google for its hegemony are a dime a dozen. And, frankly, when the articles are older, they seem to give Google more credit than possibly due; other contenders have emerged.

I usually don't think twice when I read articles similar to this one asking if Google is too powerful.

Why don't I worry much? Well, besides the fact that I am apathetic to most things described in such articles, it is because my power has gone out it in my home more than once in the past two months. I realize

Stop Saying Zeitgeist

Stop using the word zeitgeist. If you must use it, at least don't echo the word in your article (echoing in editorial, writer speak means repeating your language).

ZEITGEIST!

Now excuse me while I go wallow in my weltschmerz.

Sunday, May 22, 2011

It's like Tina Fey without her glasses

I googled: It's like Tina Fey without her glasses

I'm not big on identifying and following the careers of celebrities. I am usually the person who has to describe the actor before I name him--and this doesn't really work since my descriptions rely on foggy memory. So when I happened to catch a glimpse of Tina Few without her glasses I experienced a strange double-double take. I sort of knew who she was, but didn't: something's missing...