It has been brought to my attention (by Quincy, lovingly) that some of the things I say in these postings may not be readily meaningful to all readers. You know, like when I riff, in French, on the opening lines of a Camus novel, or refer obliquely to some particular piece of ornate architecture, or make some obscure allusion to someone like T. S Eliot or Richie Brockelman. "Nobody's gonna get that reference," Quincy says, "Nobody's gonna know who that is." And when I assure her that there may be someone out there for whom those lines from Camus ring a distant but fondly-remembered bell, or who might actually recall that Richie Brockelman, Private Eye debuted on NBC in the spring of 1978 and ran for all of six episodes, she (Quincy) just looks and me and nods and says, "Uh-huh." And when I mention that it's all okay anyway because anybody reading this blog is just two mouse-clicks away from a full deciphering courtesy of websites like Wikipedia or IMDb or KnowYourMeme.com, she just closes her eyes and exhales slowly to show me how much it pains her when I insist on using words like "meme" [1] in ordinary household conversation.
"Maybe you need to add footnotes," she says. It's possible that is was a joke. I mean, I don't think Quincy really wants our blog to resemble some semiotics essay published in PMLA [2]. But still. Footnotes. Hmmm. Okay, I'll try it.
It turns out, though, that this Blogger interface doesn't make footnoting all that easy. Clearly, the software code wasn't written for T. S. Eliot [3]. So, okay, here's how I'm going to handle it. I'll indicate foonote numbers in square brackets like the ones you just ran into after "meme" and "PMLA" and "T.S. Eliot." The explanatory notes themselves will appear in separate post below. (That separate post will be titled, simply, "Footnotes," to distinguish it from the more prolix – but deceptively straightforward – title than this one has [4]). Got it? Okay, let's proceed.
But wait. There is one more issue that I'm struggling with here: The question of just what exactly needs a footnote. Does T. S Eliot really need a footnote? Does Camus? And if I worked in some timely allusion to Epic Beard Man [5], would I need a footnote there? And what about when I conclude this post with the words "Datta. Dayadhvam. Damyata. Shantih shantih shantih" – does that need a footnote too? Well, actually, that last one's easy. "Datta. Dayadhvam. Damyata. Shantih shantih shantih": That's pretty transparent stuff, isn't it; no explanation needed.
Whew, that's a long preamble. I'm exhausted. And I still have the footnotes to write. I'd better get the point of this post. The point is this: What, if anything, does any of this have to do with France? Why am I even posting this stuff here, on our blog about France, instead of on our blog about blogging about France? Well, smarty-pants, it's cross-posted. (See: Click here.) [6] So there.
Datta. Dayadhvam. Damyata.
Shantih shantih shantih. [7]
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
Footnotes
[1]. The word "meme" was coined by Dawkins (1976). But it's now in common parlance, at least in some circles. So there's really no need for Quincy to give me that pained look.
[2]. Proceedings of the Modern Language Association. (Again: pained look.)
[3]. The allusion here is to T. S Eliot's poem The Waste Land which is so famously abstruse that Eliot himself added footnotes. There was a time (back when I was a parody of a 19-year old University student, so please prepare to roll your eyes) when I fetishized T. S. Eliot's opaque oeuvre. I can always elicit a particularly pained expression from Quincy simply by bringing up the fact that, in 1982, I attended a Halloween party dressed as the title character in The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock. "I'm so glad I didn't know you then," she says.
[4]. The prhase "a practically meaningless collection of phrases, learned allusions, quotations, slang, and scraps in general" is not just an apt description of this particular post. It's also the exact phrase that another writer (H. P. Lovecraft, of all people) used to describe The Waste Land. It's true. And, yes, Quincy is making that face at me again. Oh, but you should've seen the original title I'd put on this post before I changed it to that H. P. Lovecraft line. The actual title may be footnote-worthy, but the original title – of which I was embarrassingly proud – is the verbal equivalent of me going out in public dressed up as J. Alfred Prufrock. When I read it out loud to Quincy she ... well, you can just imagine the pain behind her eyelids. [i] To spare you, I've buried it in a footnote. Or more exactly, it's in a footnote to this footnote. I'm signifying footnotes-to-foonotes with little italicized i's in square brackets -- like what you saw after "eyelids" a couple of sentences ago. These foonotes-to-footnotes themselves appear in the post immediately below this one. (You suggest footnotes to me, you get footnotes. In fact, you don't just get footnotes; you get an over-the-top exercise in self-refential silliness. You're welcome)
[5]. Oh yes, I've been going on and on about Epic Beard Man recently, waving my laptop at Quincy and blathering madly about video mash-ups and Amber Lamps and the whole weird cultural power of camera-phones and the Internet. It's entirely the fault of Epic Beard Man and all those millions of YouTube enthusiasts that I've been using the word "meme" a lot recently, and causing Quincy so much pain. (You don't know about Epic Beard Man? Well, look it up. I recommend KnowYourMeme.com.)
[6] Yep, I actually created an entirely new blog simply so that that I could take this ludicrous exercise to whole new level of hackneyed self-referential post-modern pain.
[7] Nope, sorry; I told you I wasn't going to offer an explanatory footnote for this. Besides, if I did, it'd just be painful. [ii]
[2]. Proceedings of the Modern Language Association. (Again: pained look.)
[3]. The allusion here is to T. S Eliot's poem The Waste Land which is so famously abstruse that Eliot himself added footnotes. There was a time (back when I was a parody of a 19-year old University student, so please prepare to roll your eyes) when I fetishized T. S. Eliot's opaque oeuvre. I can always elicit a particularly pained expression from Quincy simply by bringing up the fact that, in 1982, I attended a Halloween party dressed as the title character in The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock. "I'm so glad I didn't know you then," she says.
[4]. The prhase "a practically meaningless collection of phrases, learned allusions, quotations, slang, and scraps in general" is not just an apt description of this particular post. It's also the exact phrase that another writer (H. P. Lovecraft, of all people) used to describe The Waste Land. It's true. And, yes, Quincy is making that face at me again. Oh, but you should've seen the original title I'd put on this post before I changed it to that H. P. Lovecraft line. The actual title may be footnote-worthy, but the original title – of which I was embarrassingly proud – is the verbal equivalent of me going out in public dressed up as J. Alfred Prufrock. When I read it out loud to Quincy she ... well, you can just imagine the pain behind her eyelids. [i] To spare you, I've buried it in a footnote. Or more exactly, it's in a footnote to this footnote. I'm signifying footnotes-to-foonotes with little italicized i's in square brackets -- like what you saw after "eyelids" a couple of sentences ago. These foonotes-to-footnotes themselves appear in the post immediately below this one. (You suggest footnotes to me, you get footnotes. In fact, you don't just get footnotes; you get an over-the-top exercise in self-refential silliness. You're welcome)
[5]. Oh yes, I've been going on and on about Epic Beard Man recently, waving my laptop at Quincy and blathering madly about video mash-ups and Amber Lamps and the whole weird cultural power of camera-phones and the Internet. It's entirely the fault of Epic Beard Man and all those millions of YouTube enthusiasts that I've been using the word "meme" a lot recently, and causing Quincy so much pain. (You don't know about Epic Beard Man? Well, look it up. I recommend KnowYourMeme.com.)
[6] Yep, I actually created an entirely new blog simply so that that I could take this ludicrous exercise to whole new level of hackneyed self-referential post-modern pain.
[7] Nope, sorry; I told you I wasn't going to offer an explanatory footnote for this. Besides, if I did, it'd just be painful. [ii]
Footnotes to the Footnotes
[i]. "He Do the Police in Different Voices." Yep, that was the working title of this particular post. Why? Do you really want to know? Really? Okay, you asked for it: It's because that exact title – "He Do the Police in Different Voices" – was T. S. Eliot's working title for of The Waste Land. Hey, don't blame me for the intense pain you're experiencing behind your eyes. I warned you.
[ii] No. Absolutely not. I refuse to torture you any more. If you're that kind of masochist, you can just look it up for yourself. No more footnotes.
[ii] No. Absolutely not. I refuse to torture you any more. If you're that kind of masochist, you can just look it up for yourself. No more footnotes.
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