Entering the Blogosphere (Discourse Chronicle)
Posted by Bobby Kuechenmeister on October 30, 2005 
Comments(8)
Comments(8) [Becoming a blogger is something I postponed for a long time, possibly too long, but here I am. For those who visit my website on Bravenet, I plan on importing all of those pages over here soon, so please be patient. Movable Type is a new program for me and once I learn how to apply my web design skills here, this blog will resemble my static website. BK]
category: Life
For Pete’s sake, it’s about time! 😉
It could be said that a blogger abhors a vaccuum or perhaps a vacuous commmnt Perhaps my effort to address the former takes the form of the latter. I know with certainty that it is unlikely to be of great interest to most Bobby Bloggers.
I find some humor in the following (and at the tender age of 81, I truly appreciate humor wherever I might find it.
This seems to deal with elitism. It might elicit commentary as to its sources and its defensibility.
There was thought to be need for a Book Club at our local Senior Center. A previous effort had failed. Perhaps this was because the first book select was Crime and Punishment.
The new Book Club was to be led by a local university English major. I attended the first meeting and then bugged out for personal reasons. A book —the title escapes me—is current and deals with five people encountered in Heaven. I have no idea of how any discussion of that went.
I found out that the second book slected was Candide by Voltaire. I’ve never read it, but I assume that it is A great book. There are great books and there are merely good books, probably a lot of them. Does some sort of elitism enter into this selection which suggests that only “great books” are worthy of reading? Most highly educated senior citizens that I know would not be drawn to read Candide. Is this the death knell for the Book Club? If so, were their alternative ways of proceeding. Keep tuned for the outcome.
Glompf JJ
Thurston, unfortunately, I have not read Candide either. However, I heard people talking about it before and none of them called that text leisure reading. The title escaping from you is _The Five People You Meet In Heaven_ by Mitch Albom, another book I have not read, since most of my time is devoted to graduate course readings.
I have read Candide and it was not an easy read. I would like to revisit it again sometime and get more out of it.
New worlds and old. Since meeting Bobby, I’ll never look at comic books the same way as I had previously. What if I had had that some of that perspective when I was devouring comic books during the 1930’s? Recollections of my mind set at that time escape me, but perhaps my reading skills were enhanced by that enjoyable reading. And that may have been especially important in light of the rigid and uninspired schooling to which I was exposed.
As a retired psychologist, I probably come to this site with interests that are a far cry from most Bobby Bloggers. One of these might be described by a title of “Then and Now.” I allude to the “Then” of my distant chidhood; I am experiencing the “Now” as I type.
Let me attempt to be a shade more specific. Did my exposure to poetry “Then,” impact my reactions to it subsequently, even “Now?” I know this to be true.
I can still remember my introduction to poetry sometime in the 3rd, 4th, or 5th grades. It took the form of the poem that began “Under the spreading chestnut tree, the village smithy stands ……” and went on for many verses. Was there any attempt made at understanding deeper meetings or the purpose of the poet? No. Each of us was to memorize it verbatim. And if we didn’t, we had to stay after school until we did. Although I was intelligent by most standards, rote memory has never been my forte. It took me forever to satisfy my teacher. One word forgotten or mispronounced near the end, would necessitate a return to the beginning to start all over again. I grew to hate that goddam blacksmith and his smithy. And this experience, and many comparable ones, undoubtedly colored my views regarding poetry from that point on. (It is directly analagous to the student of piano who has his knuckles rapped every time he hit a wrong key. Eventually, he learned to hammer out a few simple tunes. But most importantly, he learned never to get in range of a piano again).
That was “Then” Hopefully, in a more recent “Then,” things have changed. But “one never knows, do one?” Many Bobby Bloggers have developed deep and diverse interests in various forms of literary expression. Did the system provide freedom and encouragement early on? Was there perhaps a teacher who led to your emancipation if the system still resembled mine? What happened? I’m curious. Thurston
Thurston, one may assume that English studies are striving to become more interdisciplinary and welcoming toward nontraditional areas of literary study, but this is only possible if both scholar and audience is flexible. For example, during my undergrad career, I worked on applying literary theory to comics with Joel Pace and our collaborations contributed significantly to my entrance into graduate school along with the McNair Program.
However, Joel told me before I graduated that as amazing as our work was, graduate school would take me to an entirely new level of scholarship. His words are proving true as I complement literary theory and comics with rhetoric and composition, but my academic growth only occurred when I let go of my naive idea that I would continue on with only theory and comics.
There are five figures that contribute to my current status as an academic scholar. First, Dr. Patrick Day, who is responsible for unlocking the academic talent within me; Second, Dr. Dennis G. Jerz, who taught me how to become a better writer than I thought possible and continues showing me how technology may be incorporated into pedagogy and literary study; Third, Dr. Joel Pace, who honed my skills of analysis with comics and theory; Fourth is Dr. C. Jan Swearingen, my committee chair, who encourages me to blend rhetoric and composition with my scholarly interest and present skill set; Fifth are people with a genuine interest in my academic studies, such as you, Ms. Scobie, and all of my other friends who listened to me talk about comics.
Hopefully that summary helps shed light on how I got here while giving proper credits.