beat

Poetry
is words
words with a flow, yes, words with
beat
     rhyme
          sing-song tag-along meter and 'mastery'
yet words, nonetheless

Infinite Hipsterism

I'm about 35 pages into the 981 page behemoth which is David Foster Wallace's magnum opus, Infinite Jest. A brief overview, though clearly I'm not near far enough into the novel to know much for myself: Infinite Jest is (surprise surprise) a metafictional novel centered around an eponymous movie within the book. This movie is "so entertaining that anyone who watches it loses all desire to do anything but watch it", and so it quickly becomes the target of various groups and individuals who want to control it. While I haven't experienced enough to judge strongly either way, Wallace's writing and storybuilding are unique and fascinating, and I look forward to exploring them further over the coming days.

Metablog (or Ramblings on Amanda Palmer)

I listen to a lot of music. My last blog touched on that subject, and I hope some of that passion I feel translated through that tenuous medium of text. I bring that up again to add emphasis and to show that it's not a simple empty statement when I say: Amanda Palmer is my favorite musician, likely ever. But this post isn't about music (though I would recommend you give hers a listen at some point in your life). This is a blog about blogging, because that's so delightfully meta, right?

Here's the deal: on top of being an excellent musician and songwriter, Amanda Palmer frequently blogs, on topics ranging from her music, to her life experiences, to musing on the internet and its nature. She's been doing so since 2003, so it's needless to say she has quite a bit of experience on the subject. That's why, especially considering this blog that I've been writing, I was particularly curious when she wrote this post titled "from under the hood of the blog".

Blogs are interesting. They're not professional, essay-style writing (though I suppose they can be, that's not how they are used best). From what I've seen, blogging as a medium is best when the emotions, thoughts, ideas and feelings are raw and untempered. Amanda says "my best blogs are the ones i write spontaneously when i wake up in the morning with a fresh head, or late at night with a melancholy window into the cosmos, and think “hey i’ll write a blog about what i’m thinking right now”.", and I believe it. The meticulously planned writing has its times and places, but I don't think that's what a blog is.
I've written two posts since I started this thing (maybe three now) that I've really felt like I been proud of. Funny enough, those first two came from conversations I had with friends: one on the lyrics of "Some Nights" by Fun., and my most recent post on digital media and music.

Looking at those, thinking now, what I really was proud of was my personality: I wasn't forcing myself to write that, I wasn't thinking about the grade I was receiving  I was just writing to share my thoughts. So I'll make that a goal from now on, and maybe that means I won't be able to write about literature as much (sorry Mr. Mullins!) but I think it'll make my writing more interesting to read in the long run.