When you know you shouldn't be trusted with the welfare of another living creature.

I logged in to blogger today after an 8 month hiatus.  Only to realize that my poor fish, swimming around on that lower right hand corner, had gone without food for at least that long.  That's when my maternal instincts kicked in.  I clicked my mouse over that panel as fast as I could, and sure enough, they were clamoring for some fish food.  Momma's here, little guys.

Ceci n'est pas un hipster.

Now. I'm no fashion blogger. But today Edleman--a website for bougies rich, young professional men in the Silicon Valley--(who came across my resume, which I somehow forgot to take off of MediaBistro) thinks that I am.

But after looking at their site (and in particular falling absolutely in LOVE with the bookbook they have posted there) I thought it might be fun to congregate some of the things I have had my eye on. Or, in the case of the chocolate and soda, had my eye on two hours ago and readily consumed. It was about this moment that I realized: yes. yes, indeed. I do seem to want to be a hipster. (And considering that my friend Kellie's definition of hipster is "someone who denies being a hipster," I'm not quite sure what to make of that. I guess it's a pure Catch-22. Oh, wait! There is a vintage-style t-shirt with THAT image on it, too! I can look both retro and well-read a the same time, for $40.  At any rate, in acknowledging hipsterness, I'll never actually attain it. Which I'm somehow very okay with, considering my self-consciousness of, oh, buying $40 shirts with retro book covers on them.)

Actually more on that. I think, certainly, I have the hipster tendencies. I have big, dark glasses. Have three bookshelves. Frequent organic food aisles more and more frequently. And really, really, really want a fixie. You know, buying a 1970's racing bike frame and fixing it up? And yet my friends reassure me, anxiously, that I'm not hipster. All the symptoms are there. (Except I've mercifully avoided the androgynous Bebian haircut.)

I'm going to avoid the obnoxious cyclical, pseudo-philosophical discussion on whether a person's classification can be defined by one's self or if it's up to external interpretation and perception. Mostly because it will inevitably move towards Stanley Fish and I hate, hate, hate Stanley fish. But also because people like Magritte (whom I flippantly and pretentiously quoted for this blog title) have already done a better job. Also: I haven't read any theory recently, and I'm no longer technically in academia, so I'm afraid I would just sound like a would-be academic rather than a real academic. You know, those "independent scholars" that people roll their eyes at at conferences.

So, really, there is no point to putting this up here, I suppose, except to prove, I guess, that the 1 hour I spent congregating these items into one image wasn't a total self-indulgence. Oh, who am I kidding. This blog, if anything, screams self-indulgence.

Mostly when I look at the above, I see awesome. And also one paycheck's worth of merchandise. Dangerous.

Mixing Business and Pleasure

For those of you who don't know, I've started an awesome new job. I'm a writer-editor with the government's Office of Inspector General. We do audits and investigations, making sure that all runs smoothly in our government and that we're meeting not only our program objectives but also the needs of the nation through our programs. I love it. Nearly as much as I love Harry Potter. Which made me think: what if I combined them? What if I audited Harry Potter? Or J.K. Rowling?

It might look something like this:

In another instance, we discovered that a member of the Wizarding community has published seven extensive books on life and events in the Magical world with a Muggle publisher, which are sold in Muggle bookstores. While publishing it under the guise of fiction -- and thereby circumventing Statute of Secrecy disclosure clauses -- the books have become vastly popular, selling over 400 million copies and being translated into 67 languages. The author receives frequent correspondence with Muggle children, requesting admittance to Hogwarts. While the books have been banned in some Muggle schools, the household nature of these books has become too significant to overlook. As it stands, the author has not violated any direct requirements or laws of imposed by the Statute of Secrecy. However, the Wizarding world, most particularly the Ministry of Magic, must deal with the consequences of even "fictional" disclosure, including a higher traffic of sight-seers hoping to enter Platform 9 3/4 and attempting to enter Ministry premises through toilets and telephone booths.  Ministerial departments and divisions are ill-equipped to deal with this rising situation. . .

Ministry of Magic, if you are reading this, I have some sexy and new innovations for your organization.  But, until the Ministry of Magic starts hiring, I guess I'm okay being incredibly (and probably inexplicably) nerdy in Washington, D.C.

I Write Like. . .

I'm not sure if anyone has heard -- though I've certainly heard from certain outraged friends who may or may not have gotten unpleasant results -- that there is a new website out there to tell you what literary great (debatable, but to be discussed later) you write like. Well, this will hardly surprise anyone those who know the extent of my passion for Harry Potter. I got J.K. Rowling when I plugged in some of my writing.

Now, I'm not saying she's a literary great. She's engaging and imaginative. She writes clearly (and better than me). One very notable difference between her and me  is -- well, aside from the Oxford degree -- that she happens to have a great deal of money and I? Well, let's just not go there. Hopefully a job will be coming shortly.

What I am saying is that it could have been worse. My aforementioned outraged friends got Dan Brown. That's right. I send pity their way. Stephanie Meyer is also a menacing prospect. In fact, after plugging in some of my thesis and getting H.P. Lovecraft as a result, I'm beginning to wonder if their list consists of primarily sci-fi and fantasy authors. Or if that's the only thing I'm capable of producing. (Which, I will note, is not what I write. I write criticism on that stuff. It's quite different. -hem-)

So, who do you write like? Props if you can pull off Faulkner. Creepy points if you pull off Nabokov. And all honors if you actually get Hemingway. I covet your writing. If you got some unpleasant results, you can take consolation in this: after plugging in an excerpt from Hemingway's "True at First Light" and he, apparently writes like Leo Tolstoy. As it turns out, they don't know you. Or Hemingway. Everyone is misunderstood.

Case-in-point? On one instance, got James Joyce. (Oh, dear, and I was so hoping for Stephanie Meyer!)

I write like
J. K. Rowling

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

Cram Session Ritual.

In case you've been wondering what I've been doing the past two months, here are the components of a fully-fledged write-a-thon.

1. Solitary confinement.
Stay in your room for days on end.

2. Popcorn.
Stove-popped popcorn and plenty of it.

3. Dance parties.
Well thank goodness my ribs work well enough now to let me do isolations  because I don't know how I could make it through my thesis without them. Lady Gaga, it's nice to have you back in my life. Oops.

4. Diet Coke.
And yes, I did cave on my no Diet Coke resolution. Tough.

5. Oh, and writing.
Did I mention I'm averaging 18 pages every two days?
UPDATE: I have written 80+ pages in the past three weeks. If I can't brag here, I don't know where I can. Oh, yeah. Facebook.

I'll see you all on the 27th.

Word and Flesh

So lately I've been thinking that I haven't done a lot of thinking. As it's summer, I've gotten complacent in my education -- rhetorical, academic, and spiritual. I'm trying to fix that with this post -- trying to get what has been swirling in my head since my Milton and rhetoric courses last year. What follows might seem garbled, but in the absence of being able to post in my course blog, I've found that I need to sometimes just fill these little white texts boxes with words. (Don't worry, ma. I'm working on filling my white word documents with words for my thesis, too.)

I've been thinking that, come September, when the hubbub of Gothic scribbling has ended, I'll look into the Lingua Adamica and rhetorical theory in light of my religion. For those of you who do not know, I am a Mormon (i.e. a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) and one of our most core beliefs is that Jesus Christ is our Savior and atoned for mankind. Our ability to understand Him and, likewise, His ability to save us, is made possible only through His condescencion -- that is, becoming mortal and living on this earth and sharing of the Fall of Adam.

In August, I'll be going through the temple, a step in our mortal existence which we (as Mormons) believe enables us to make sacred and important covenants with our Heavenly Father in order to fully utilize the blessings of Christ's sacrifice and atonement. (For more on temples, please visit our official website. It really is a valuable resource on learning, first-hand, what we believe, know, and feel on the matter.) The temple is regarded to be the House of the Lord -- a place on earth so holy that He can occupy it with His presence and spirit -- and where we can, for a time, put aside the world and learn more about our eternal heritage.

What I've been considering recently, as I read my scriptures is this: we know that Christ made the first condescention in becoming mortal for us. The Word made Flesh. But I'm thinking there is a necessary and inevitable step that also must be made in order to become comprehensible to us as fallen beings: the Flesh become Word. Christ Himself did not record His life but rather allowed his prophets to chronicle it. Many scholars debate the accuracy and validity of these words. Were they written as first-hand accounts? Did these men know Christ? Does it even matter? I've reconciled, some time ago, that any error found within my scriptures is the error of mankind. (Yes, yes. For once I agree with Derrida.) Human transcribers cannot be perfect; in fact, human language cannot be perfect. As Derrida is keen to point out in Grammatology, there are multiple meanings, multiple translations, errors brought about by the wear and tear of time and a translator's choice in alternative meanings . . . (For an example of this, see the Joseph Smith Translation -- JST -- of the Bible.) To me, this is a second violence which Christ and our Heavenly Father subject themselves to, not unlike the first, which furthers my appreciation for them. As Christ allowed us to feel the nails in His hands and feet and to know of Him, learn of Him, and follow Him, so, too does He allow us to speak of Him, testify of Him, and encounter Him through Words expressed by Him, but mediated through someone else.

Mediation, as we know from Derrida, allows confusion between signifier and signified. . . It allows for error, but it also allows for personal interaction, interpretation, and interference, which need not all be bad things. I am someone who firmly believes in personal revelation and a direct connection through God. But, as I've come to think, God is experienced through me -- I cannot help but see through my own eyes. I'm mortal; it happens. But He allows us to experience and express Him ourselves, in part submitting to us in order for us to come to Him. But ultimately, of course, we are to come to Him. . . not he to us.

I'm curious; I look forward to exploring the linguistic rammifications of this. Medieval and Renaissance scholars (largely of the Kabbalistic tradition) such as Paracelsus (actually not Jewish. I modify my previous comment) strove to achieve once more the Lingua Adamica: the unmediated language of Adam -- before the Fall. Before there was a disjunct between Being and Meaning and Existing. Before form conflicted with matter. Of course, this is the very language that both Derrida and Nietzsche would say is impossible, but I'm curious: is this a pre-Fall language? And what does it mean about or own language and our relationship with God if we have to mediate with a defunct system of words?

I think it's beautiful in a way that only such things can be beautiful. It's mortality and flaws are what make it extremely personal and intimate, but its promise of transcendence just makes my heart swell. I think it shows the mercy and the willingness of God and our Savior to come to our level and attempt to become knowable in the only way we know how, even if at great risk to themselves.

And, because everyone else is doing it, I'll reference Inception. Cobb goes to Limbo in search of his wife, Mall and finally, when given the choice to settle for a dreamed-up Mall or the Real Deal (arguable which he chooses and I wouldn't mind hearing your thoughts on that, either), tells her, sadly, that she is but a shade: he cannot imagine her with all her perfections and imperfections. I'm thinking that that is how we must view God. There is a limited, myopic scope on the world, view, and language we have today. Our God is ours -- that is, we've tried to imagine and experience Him as best we know how through what tools we've been given. But ultimately, He is but a shade (don't worry. I'm not spouting heresy. Hang on a second.) I therefore look forward to a time when, beyond the veil, we can see through not our own eyes but His -- where we can see God in his Totality. I think of the fortunate prophets in the past who have been transfigured to see God in glory, who have indeed been able to see God with God's eyes, not their own. I think that this is the Lingua Adamica, and I think it is what we are striving for -- something beyond this life, this view, this understanding.

Now, isn't it nice to know that Derrida can actually help you understand the meaning of life and the Gospel? If only I could make Neitzsche do the same. . .

Anyone have any good reads on this topic (both rhetorical or spiritual) that could help me look further into this? Any thoughts? I realize I don't have the most avid readership (hahaha), but if you do come across this, I'd love to hear what you believe -- regardless of what belief-system you subscribe to.

BENTLEY DISCOVERED AFTER 1.5 MONTH DISAPPEARANCE

PRESS RELEASE for immediate distribution:

Melissa Bentley, 25, a Master's Student at Georgetown, has been discovered in her bedroom--alive. After a month and a half disappearance, roommates were alerted to her presence when the coca-cola can debris spilled out from her 10'x10' room into the hallway.

"I had no idea; she studies really quietly, I guess," one roommate said of the alarming discovery. "Of course I was beginning to wonder, but I thought Melissas hibernated at this time of year, so I wasn't too concerned. If she wasn't sleeping, though, you have to wonder what she's been up to."

While this time last year, another roommate recalled, Melissa had written both mathematical equations and paper flow charts on her windows in whiteboard marker with the feverish intensity of John Forbes Nash, Jr., a recent investigation of Melissa's room has yielded few clues. However, records show Melissa has accrued over the past semester 40+ books which she has nearly completed reading. Now that the list is almost complete, it appears that Melissa is growing more intrepid, even leaving her habitat in search of interpersonal encounters.

In an emergence more monumental than Punxsutawney Phil's, last Friday, Melissa crossed the threshold into her front room. Upon seeing her shadow, she scurried back into her room, a fully transformed nocturnal creature. This week, she has undergone several expeditions to the Georgetown Library where, once, she recalls, after sitting still for eight hours, the native freshmen who frequent the area grew so accustomed to her presence they resumed their customary conduct of making-out. "Yeh, I'm not going back any time soon," she stated, rubbing the back of her neck.

Melissa's "social sabbatical," she has said on her personal blog, will end on May 13th. Until then, Melissa welcomes donations of baked goods, caffeinated (Mormon-kosher) beverages, and witty and idle facebook messaging to break the tedium of finals and Orals Examinations.