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March 09, 2009
Links for 2009-03-08 [del.icio.us]
- E unibus pluram: television and U.S. fiction. (22-JUN-93) The Review of Contemporary Fiction, David Foster Wallace
"And make no mistake: irony tyrannizes us. The reason why our pervasive cultural irony is at once so powerful and so unsatisfying is that an ironist is impossible to pin down. All irony is a variation on a sort of existential poker-face. All U.S. irony is based on an implicit "I don't really mean what I say." So what does irony as a cultural norm mean to say? That it's impossible to mean what you say? That maybe it's too bad it's impossible, but wake up and smell the coffee already? Most likely, I think, today's irony ends up saying: "How very banal to ask what I mean." Anyone with the heretical gall to ask an ironist what he actually stands for ends up looking like a hysteric or a prig. And herein lies the oppressiveness of institutionalized irony, the too-successful rebel: the ability to interdict the question without attending to its content is tyranny. It is the new junta, using the very tool that exposed its enemy to insulate itself." - bubbl.us - free web application for brainstorming online
Originally from paulbailey.us (beta), ReBlogged by newmusicrebloggers on Mar 9, 2009 at 08:10 AM