Fear of the blogosphere
Posted on January 11th, 2005, under Academia
There are explanations for the reticence here on the blog lately, but most people who care about these things already know them. At the moment life is one big experiment in nomadism and turn of the 90s sedan capacity. Maybe this is the stuff of my pending Deleuze chapter: nomadology for the independent twenty something quasi academic laydee. But there are things to be excited about. For instance:
1. First line of email from Palgrave Commissioning Editor: “Dear Melissa, I am very pleased to be able to wish you a happy 2005 while sending you a positive review of your book proposal - it arrived today.”
2. Random and favourite line of email from Sage Commissioning Editor: (Dot point six of proposed contract) “Advance: do you need one?” [Gee…do I?]
3. Quasi PhD student rock star RAs doing interesting summer research gigs that can involve YOU if you drink card-onnay in the park long enough.
4. The feminist frat house art/life project. More details soon, but how cool would this place have been:
Living in a church would pose all kinds of interesting new possibilities. Curse you out of date realestate.com site.
On January 12th, 2005 at 1:04 am, Glen said:
Well that is some wicked shit! Palgrave and Sage, awesome! When are you going to send out chapters for far off mates to have a look-see, aye?
RA rock stars and da loser playing the guitaree.
Advance! Advance! Yes please, except for the mild Enlightenment-Project ring to it, haha!
On January 12th, 2005 at 2:34 am, Glen said:
what am i trying to say?
On January 12th, 2005 at 6:11 am, Glen said:
What the?!?! Hmmmm…
[No joke first line]
Just another example of me giving a trick answer to a question which wasn’t a trick question and the question in question was in fact one which no one asked.
[That was a joke. It was primarily derived from something my high school chemistry teacher said to me once (about the trick answers/questions, I failed chem, haha) combined with the joke about philosophers answering questions which no one had asked.]
Or maybe my jokes are just too lame.
[Above does not contain any jokes.]
Translation from Padwan-Blogger Glen-speak:
[Ditto.]
—- —- —-
Welldone on the publication response (ie wicked shit!).
Joke (deleuze and guattari :: de loser and guitaree, connects with rockstar RA’s, fashaw bro!).
Another joke (advancing ‘humankind’ to the lofty ideals of the Elightenment Project connects with the forward of cash-money from aforementioned publishers for the book you have mentioned and briefly written about on here and in emails sometimes).
—- —- —-
[The above has been stripped of jokes, although it could contain some humour, so please be warned.]
Clear that one up!?!?!
[Serious question, does not contain any jokes.]
I am perfectly jealous of course and my inbuilt suburban pseudo-wog/bogan masculinity refuses me the opportunity to articulate a simple compliment which is exactly what my seemingly random dumbass jokes and comments were obscuring. Certainly that is a cop out, as I am quite capable of self-reflexive thought, so I guess it also is a bit of heroine worship as you have managed to get your foot in the academic door, ala ‘early career researcher’ (or whatever the grant-thing was called from a blog post a few weeks ago).
[No jokes in that paragraph.]
Though I was dead serious about having a read. I am just starting to build up the pressure now so eventually you will have to crack under the relentless blog-post pressure and give us a look (all cloak and dagger like, so the publishers are none the wiser, haha!).
[That last bit was joke-ified by the way, it wasn’t a joke, it was a serious comment *modified* with a joke.]
I need to use more emoticon winks and shit when I write messages, maybe use more zeds and numerics in place of the alphas, too, cause then I’ll look blogger core. Maybe even start letting a bit of progamming language ‘accidently’ creep into my email and blog discourse so it looks like I was born with a tail thinking in ones and zeros.
[That was a joke, and I am thinking of some of the posts to the fibre-culture list and some of the blog and forum posts I have read during my history as an internet user.]
Or maybe not.
[A non-comic response to a joke.]
Writing in the face of my online communicative disabilities, let me try that again:
[Serious. I am trying.]
—- —- —-
Excellent work Mel
. I feel proud to know someone who has successfully taken the next step after postgrad life into postdoc life. The book sounds very exciting (!!!) and I hope one day you will feel comfortable enough with your draft to let me have a read. 
Your comments about the rockstar research assistant thing reminds me that when I first started reading Deleuze and Guatari’s work. I used to call them ‘de loser and guitaree’ (as in the loser and guitar);). I used to think that a romaticised Deleuze (check out the old Spoon’s D&G list, it was infested with nutter schizo-poets) is probably the closest thing to being an tragic academic/rock-god like the rock/metal gods such as Jim Morrison or Bon Scott who died before their time. lol
Lastly, the question from Sage Commissioning Editor about whether or not you would like an advance is quite funny if you think about it not being an advance of money, but an advance in the sense of the old Enlightenment tradition. Coming from a tradition (or maybe coming from a tradition that was influenced by another tradition, postmodernism) that was critical of the Enlightenment project it is highly ironic that some Germanic critical theorists (and now maybe even Badiou) would probably think of your book as an advance for scholarly human kind. lol!
I would make a good comic if my sense of humour wasn’t so damned introverted and I was, in fact, funny. Hopefully you will forgive me for being a man of mirth and easily incited to giggles about these sort of inane nerd jokes.
Glen.
—- —- —-
[Warning: Above contains some jokes, but hopefully I have written it clearly enough for the meaning of each paragraph to be clear.}
Yep. Dang I am up late! Bloody panel vans…
[Serious. No joke line.]
Glen.
[Serious, this is actually me.]
On January 12th, 2005 at 10:59 am, Mel said:
Well done! Soon I’ll be able to say “I knew her before she was famous…”
On January 12th, 2005 at 11:18 am, Ian said:
Thanks for plug.
That wasn’t card-onnay on the weekend at the picnic. I was drinking it out of a BOTTLE remember? Admittedly it was a sub-$10 bottle but hey, I sacrificed quite a sizable quantity for that step up in percieved quality. And it didn’t mean a dang thing the next day when I missed the Christening of my friend’s first born child because I was incapacitated. Pity me, I’m obviously a terrible person.
On January 12th, 2005 at 11:22 am, mc gregg said:
oops, yes now i see the difference. thanks for the correction!
On January 12th, 2005 at 2:39 pm, Christian McCrea said:
Reticence is understood… but remember you can often shield yourself from anything by revealing everything. In any case, you’re an excellent read at the moment.
Reading (and writing) Deleuze is the ultimate style of the Secret Conspiracy… the unfolding lysergic confidence, just let it amplify and see what happens.
On January 12th, 2005 at 2:55 pm, jean said:
way to go mc. and glen, I’m pretty sure I made up the de loser and guitaree joke, in reference to my former belief that D&G was a 1980s UK new wave pop duo that I’d missed out on at the time. de loser and guitaree is way more metal than that of course.
On January 14th, 2005 at 5:36 pm, danny said:
Congratulations Mel! I hope this isn’t a trend, you know, suddenly you’ve got all these book contracts to deal with and blogging doesn’t pay the bills. There are a bunch of us out here relying on your insight
.
BTW, could you write something on Greer and Big Brother? Pretty please?