One is struck by the ponderous and patently silly nature of Mr. Munson’s deconstruction. Hey, Sam, I’ve got your deliberately informal tone right here. It’s called letting your hair down.
[UPDATE: Mark’s opened up a can of whipass.]
[FURTHER UPDATE: It looks like the devil will cite scripture to serve his purpose. Because it’s now clear that the assclowns at the New Partisan have too much time on their hands, and because they feel the need to frame ad hominen attacks within faux MLA essays (that’s editing?), I have delinked their post. I’m all for a democratic discussion about what literary blogs are. I’m even willing to be called every name in the book (and have). But when the purpose of these posts serve as pale Dale Peck imitations (e.g., “as word-drunk and pointless as a Foucault-worshipper’s dissertation” used shortly before bemoaning name calling — a hypocritical framing in the extreme), without a single reasonable argument or example, and are used as efforts to get attention, then I will ignore them. Memo to New Partisan: If you want to go after the heavy-hitters in an intellectual way, go check out Dan Green’s the Reading Experience, where Green regularly cites from books and articles to back up his points. Now excuse me while I try and recover.]
I’ve read that piece three times and I’m still confused (more accurate: what the fuck?) OTOH, if anyone wants to deconstruct my blog posts in the same fashion, I think I’d be slightly flattered. O, to be worthy of such elliptical analysis! It warms the cockles of my cold, black, pop culture-saturated heart.
Never underestimate the horror of a snobbish grad student with too much time. I actually thought at first that it was a brilliant satire, but it appears he’s serious.
Maud-bashing, whether by this person or by people who’ve made careers out of worshiping Freddie Mercury, totally mystifies me. The blogosphere is filled with people who truly deserve a good smackdown (at the risk of being immodest, I would nominate myself). Maud is definitely not one of them. She’s great at what she does and never pretends to be something she’s not. She is unfailingly generous and civil. I don’t get it. Leave her the fuck alone.
I agree with all of the above, though I doubt Mr. Munson thought he was Maud-bashing. Though I second Jimmy’s allegiance to the right-on-ness that is all things Maud. What I was struck by is how he seemed to be holding blogs to print standards. When in fact, even in the short time I’ve been paying attention, it’s easy to see that it’s a whole other form, with its own elaborate set of manners and systems of citation & disclosure.
Watch TEV in the next hour or so – a response is in the works.
Ed, I was thinking parody rather than your broader category of satire, but then I realized it was only critical discourse, poorly imitated.
I’ll watch if you can promise naked and/or snarky pictures.
Clarification: I just re-read Munson’s piece more carefully (sorry, in a whirl at work today). Somehow in the first skimming I got the cluelessness, but missed the reek of condescension coming off the thing. My bad.
I think it’s safe to say that Sam Munson just. doesn’t. get. it.
(And you can substitute what you like for the “it.”)
Naked pics of whom? Munson, we’re working on. TEV, you’ve already got …
AN OPEN LETTER TO SAM MUNSON
Sam, Your recent post, A Farewell to Blogs, demonstrates such a total lack of understanding about the nature of blogs that I felt compelled to offer my services and clarify a few things for you, since you are clearly utterly