scattered thoughts

Well, aren’t they all?

I’m prepping for teaching Beowulf (the Seamus Heaney translation) in one class tomorrow and Fantomina in the other. Depending on whom you believe, a thousand years or so separate these texts.

But I’m tempted with other readings, having learned from Edith that there is a Bonny ‘Prince’ Billy tour diary that’s pretty blog-like and from Grumpy Girl (scroll down, if necessary; no permalinks in this blogspot, I think) that Harvey freakin’ Pekar has a blog.

The issues chewed over in the identity thread keep coming up, don’t they? Is that Bonny ‘Prince’ Billy’s blog or is it Will Oldham‘s? Do I refer to “Grumpy Girl” or “Meredith”?

Edith, who records for Drag City, like Oldham, er, Billy, er, you know what I mean, writes

Being very blog-aware I can’t help but compare his and my writing styles. If I were an outsider I think I’d prefer reading his blog over my own, but I’m not an outsider and who wants to read their own writing?

I like reading both of their blogs, but one thing I like about Edith’s is that she comes across as a real person while the Bonny ‘Prince’ Billy blog feels more like a performance. But as Ryan astutely points out, just about everything could be said to be a performance, even the the behavior of “real people.” I also like the fact that I can comment on and trackback to her blog while the BPB blog (and the Pekar blogs) are impenetrable by such interlinking. You can email BPB, but that’s not the same thing.

And just to wrap this entry up with a neat little bow: Fantomina is a 1724 novella by Eliza Haywood about a young woman who adopts a variety of different identities in order to maintain the romantic interest of the clueless and fickle man she has fallen for. At one point, he cheats on one of her identities with another of her identities. That Haywood was something else.

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3 thoughts on “scattered thoughts

  1. I actually *gasped* when I read that Will Oldham, er Bonny “Prince” Blly has a tour blog. That is so cool. Harvey Pekar is pretty cool, too. I’m gonna try to see “American Splendor” this weekend.

  2. How Cool Is It….

    …to learn that one of your favorite musicians has a blog. Just learned from George that Will Oldham, er Bonny “Prince” Billy, has a “tour diary,” which looks suspiciously like a blog. BPB gave one of the best concerts I’ve…

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