First

The first post of 2009. I begin with a fragment. Why exactly are fragments such anathema to English teachers? In and of themselves, fragments are just bits and pieces, not quite finished but often bearing meaning. Then there is the infamous comma splice, an unpardonable sin of stringing independent clauses together with only the meager comma to separate them. So I guess stringing fragments together using commas as barriers would not constitute the comma splice error. This situation would only be compounded fragmentation. All of this grammatical sifting appears to be elitist fantasy, and making fun of the grammar police provides a few fun moments. I must, however, continue to defend the rules because they give us order and allow our musings to make sense to others. Readers bring so much to the text that can color their understanding. Writers might as well strive for clarity so at least some of their meaning will survive.

Do I gotta?

I emailed my daughter Bridgett (far left with Bevin) that I have begun a blog and she replied that if I keep it up for a while, she would link to my blog froms hers. That's just what I fear: the obligatory diary, the dishes that must be washed, the plants that must be watered. How different then is the monitor from the TV screen? Am I replacing one kind of mindlessness with another? Now I have mixed my metaphors. Is it a chore or is it a mindless passtime? hmmm. I would tell my students that writing is never a waste of time, and this particular experience is anything but mindless. Actually, the more I write, the more I have to consider.

Derrida, Derrido

So, like I was readin' this stuff by this dude named Derrida and he says, "To be what it is, all writing must, therefore, be capable of functioning in the radical absence of every empirically determined receiver in general. And this absence is not a continuous modification of presence, it is a rupture in presence, the "death" or the possibility of the "death" of the receiver inscribed in the structure of the mark. . ." And I like thought about it for a minute and my head exploded.

I am strangely drawn to him. But is it only nonsense wrapped in a pretty French package? What would Woody Allen have to say about Derridas? So much thinking to do and so little available brain space.