How to write a blog entry? I have been reading along a few blog connections, once-, twice-, three-times removed from the usual haunting-grounds. Doing so is always a reminder of the “style” that affects blog writing-and-reading: ennui.
Synonymous with apathy, fatigue, languor, tedium and a weariness of the world, ennui [/ahn-WEE/ - though if you have nothing better to do the first syllable can take the stress] is its own history lesson. Ennui is actually a Latin phrase which has been wadded up into a little paper ball by the tedious, nervous palms of passing languages. The original Latin read mihi in odio est and meant: “I am in a condition of dislike or hatred.” This was vulgarized into inodiare, odious, which the French subsequently seized and digested down to a single adjective: anoier, “to annoy, worry or bore.” Later still, having nothing better to do, they modernized it into its present form, ennui.
Reading and writing blog-copy is always an immersive exercise in sustained ennui. Posts accrue as the levels of ennui build up like plaque in one’s life. (There is that observation about the inverse relationship between the status of one’s blog and the state of one’s employment.) This makes sense because blog writers blog their own opinions which they usually at least have some inkling of before they begin to write. Not so blog readers. Blog reading is a unique experience in literature in that one seeks out blog-copy, rejoices at the discovery of a good, well-written bit of it, and then begins to read already well-within a state of fight-or-flight ennui. It takes tremendous effort not to simply give up on the whole process of reading, even if well-satisfied, and for no cause other than the erotic possibility that something elsewhere might prove more titillating. (How many people will make it this far?)
So, how does one write a blog entry? What can a writer do to make their blog-copy (blopy) irresistibly sticky to every cornea languishing like sinners in the lake of ennui? It is a good question, but, on the other hand, I’m bored with this topic. Maybe one of you can suggest something, that is if you can muster the effort required…and I haven’t even addressed the aspects of ennui that have to do with hatred. Who is hating whom? Is hatred involved in every blog relationship (blogship). Have we stumbled into a sado- (writer)-masochistic (reader) literary genre which deserves all the deconstructive and hypercritical techniques which literary theory can possibly bring to bear? Will anyone actually read far enough into this post to sit agog at the use of the words “sadist” and “masochist” in this post? Are the feminist bound to show up? Could this be a doctoral dissertation? Who am I oppressing? What does this have to do with racial inequality? Is the university system just a self-indulgent petri dish for the infliction of cultural and financial French ennui (or perhaps Freedom ennui) upon the world?
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3 comments:
I simply need to comment to prove that I read the entire blog. Do you ever find yourself reading all the way through my post just because you are my friend? Are you ever thinking "My word this is terrible! While I'm reading this lets see if I can stick this pencil through my eye to tickle my brain. Ow! Lemmie try again!"?
I'm always too bored to stick anything in my eye. ;) Thnx for the review of whatever-the-name-of-that-Red-Sox-movie-is.
I, too, have to post to say I read it fully, and that I laughed aloud. By the time you started with all the questions I couldn't figure out if you resembled Socrates or Seinfeld more.
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