One Irritatingly Esoteric (One Might Say Parochial) Post; or, Combo, Anyone?

With 400 posts under my belt I finally feel a bit like a blogger.  But I still despise the word "blog."  I want to suggest something more dignified like "combo."  "Combo"?  Instead of forcing "web" on "log" why not make sweet love to the old notion of the "commonplace book" and call these collections of links and ramblings "combos."  But I can't do it on my own.  If everyone doesn't dignify their mental excreta with the unnecessarily lofty appellation of "combo" this whole pile will turn to . . . you know.

What I really meant to do was note that I've written more than a post per day for a little under a year and have acquired an audience of at least 450 readers . . . and to thank you readers and commenters and lurkers alike for reading.  I never thought I'd best 100,000 reads in my first year of comboing.  Then again I never thought I'd walk in on two indignant undergraduates going at it in my office.   So I didn't think a lot of things.  However, given that I've nearly achieved my first anniversary (PAPER!) and am hosting a book event and am doing many other commonplace and bookish activities, I thought I'd share with you some of my most recent reviews.

Positive Obsession asks:

Ever wondered about the term "Crazy Lit Prof"? This professor from UCI gives you an inside look into the world of books, writing, and crazy student stunts that can cause countless nightmares for a poor professor.

The Fastest Milkman In The Midwest thinks:

Actually, if you ever want to know what life in a US English department is like, the following blog, recently brought to my attention, gives you a good idea. I find this blog how I find my professional life: interesting, kind of great fun, but irritatingly esoteric (one might say parochial).

All of that amusing (and not altogether untrue) commentary aside, The Geeky Mom reads my regularly and thinks me deserving of this Koufax Award.

'Cause I'm a Jew.  (Not practicing.)

From Brooklyn.  (Not really.)

And a Mets fan.  (For life.)

You know Koufax skipped a World Series start to attend High Holy Day services.  So they named a blog award after him.  Apparently I'm one of the best "Jews" "from Brooklyn" ever.  Huzzah!  (More stoning on the morrow.)

Comments

[eM]

If I remember correctly, you are a Red Sox loving traitor. 8-P.

[Scott Eric Kaufman]

Now I'm convinced I know you, since you've brought my greatest shame to the fore. I'm not a Red Sox lover. I'm a Mets fan, ipso facto I'm a Yankee hater. Despite the history between the Mets and Red Sox (which, Mookie Be Praised, is all good from my end), I can't help but cheer Cheer CHEER for the BoSox when they're a couple games ahead of and/or surpassing the Most Hated Yankees in the playoffs.

'Cause really: A true Mets fan loves David Wright/Gregg Jeffries/Darryl Strawberry/Dwight Gooden to the same degree he hates the Yankees. Hold that against me if you will, but as a tried and true, orange and blue Mets Fanatic (with a slightly smaller head, of course), Yankee-hatred is only next to godliness.

[Craig]

Please devise a new term. I'm sick of writing variations upon the theme of "my 'blog'". When I say the word, I try to say the quotation marks. I try to use the term "my 'site'", but that sounds really boring. How about "the online depository of my ill-conceived thoughts"?

[Ancrene Wiseass]

Congrats on the nomination!

[Tom Perrin]

Hi there -- hope my rude blog comments didn't cause too much offense. Actually I enjoy reading this page a lot, but was feeling a bit cheesed off with PhDs in general yesterday...

[Scott Eric Kaufman]

What a motley bunch of comments. It's probably my fault for writing such a coherent post. Pffft.

No offense taken, Tom. Ph.D.'s aren't the most likeable lot. I found your comment quite insightful, to be honest, since I make myself want to throw me through a window sometimes.

Craig, I'm trying. I'm discussing blogs as contemporary commonplace books in my minnesota review article, and am toying with the idea of a paragraph on the sheer ugly silliness of the word blog. Maybe you can call it your combo one day.

[Adam Roberts]

Motley? Cheek. Your workforce of hard-labouring gnome-like comments-cratfers will walk out if there's more of that sort of language, I warn you.

And what's wrong with "blog" anyway? You say ugly: you mean ugly sounding? (But I think it has a delightfully bouncy, gloopy sound). Ugly looking? Far from it: the two uprights paralleling one another at the start of the word, framing one circle, which shape is echoed beautifully by the free-standing circle to the right and the two stacked circles on the far side. It's a De Stijl composition of cool harmony and balance.

[Adam Roberts]

(.... "comments-cratfers" sounds more insultingly dismissive thanI intended. Comments crafters ...)

[Belle Lettre]

Man, I was totally trying to promote "combo" in my inaugural post, and I didn't even show up as a trackback! How are people supposed to know that your combo idea (brilliant) is catching on?

At any rate, I enjoy your blog. Don't tell anyone (I am blogging pseudononymously), but I am an alumni of your current school. I too, have Anteater pride. Reading your blog makes me miss those glory days and studying English Lit. Who, knows, had I stayed there and not gone to the evil hell that is law school, we might have been in the same cohort! Thanks so much for giving me a window into a life I might have had, and sometimes still wish I had (reading Flannery O'Connor is much more interesting than legal theory). But I guess we both do our bit, in our own ways, for the advancement of human knowledge. Dude, I SO miss the pretension of humanities! I can only utter platitudes about "justice" and "right" now!

Best,
Belle

[Belle Lettre]

Man, I was totally trying to promote "combo" in my inaugural post, and I didn't even show up as a trackback! How are people supposed to know that your combo idea (brilliant) is catching on?

At any rate, I enjoy your blog. Don't tell anyone (I am blogging pseudononymously), but I am an alumni of your current school. I too, have Anteater pride. Reading your blog makes me miss those glory days and studying English Lit. Who, knows, had I stayed there and not gone to the evil hell that is law school, we might have been in the same cohort! Thanks so much for giving me a window into a life I might have had, and sometimes still wish I had (reading Flannery O'Connor is much more interesting than legal theory). But I guess we both do our bit, in our own ways, for the advancement of human knowledge. Dude, I SO miss the pretension of humanities! I can only utter platitudes about "justice" and "right" now!

Best,
Belle

[Ancrene Wiseass]

Just to add another patch to the motley:

I'll acknowledge that "blog" is kinda an ugly word. It sounds like something rather squat and lumpish. But, I dunno, "combo"--even when derived from the elegant phrase "commonplace book"--just sounds a little too much like something I'd order at McDonald's.

Plus, I kinda think my blog is rather squat and lumpish.

[Craig]

Both "combo" and "blog" make me think of "poo". It's likely just me and I should likely be ignored.

[Xerxes IX]

This is not really a blog, but more akin to like an endless Babs Streisand tune, with bad strings, with some extra garlic

[ben wolfson]

I'm a Metsbaseball fan, ipso facto I'm a Yankee hater.

"Commonplace book" isn't really right, as blogs, well, aren't commonplace books. However, they are often essays in idleness, or thoughts not yet fully worked in to your mental balance sheet.

[Scott Eric Kaufman]

Ben, I realize the imperfection of the analogy, but a combo bears more relation to a commonplace book than it does a log, no?

(Note to readers: Ben's html went funny and Typepad won't let me fix it. That should read "I'm a [crossed out "Mets"]baseball fan, ispo facto I'm a Yankee hater.)

Craig, I'm not ignoring you. Alright, I am.

Xerxes the Fourteenth, if you'd waited a day to spew you'd realize that the correct answer is not "Babs" but "The Man who writes the songs the whole world sings." But thanks for playing.

BL, welcome to the wide world of comboing. Alone, we are invincible; together, the whole world will ignore us. Or maybe it's the other way around.

Adam, I'm sorry to say I disagree. "Blog" is the fugliest word I've ever seen; that said, I think the word you're describing is actually "blop."

[Adam Roberts]

'Blog' is fugly, but 'comboing' is OK? Think of 'com' with the sound of an enormous spring releasing at the sound of the 'm'. Not pretty.

'Blog' is not ugly. It is differently beautiful. Like Picasso's Desmoiselles or Dylan's voice. Plus it's 'golb' backwards, which is kinda cool. Wasn't 'Golb' the King Goblin in the Hobbit?

[Craig]

'Blog' is fugly, but 'comboing' is OK? Think of 'com' with the sound of an enormous spring releasing at the sound of the 'm'. Not pretty.

Like I said: images of poo.