In Which Her Internal Nerd Begins to Salivate...

For those of you keeping track, I handed in my rhetoric of conspiracy paper yesterday on time. In fact, I dropped it in the box a whole 5 minutes early, I think.

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So before I forget, Terry Whalin pointed out a great article about blogging at The Atlantic . Many great lines and insights (though I disagree with a few of the statements--for instance, the first blogs were primarily used as a navigational tool to supplement search directories, so I've been told, rather than as a personal diary-ish log).

But it's a good article. The best line, for my purposes as a media scholar and as a writer, is this, from near the bottom of the last page: "The message dictates the medium. And each medium has its place—as long as one is not mistaken for the other."

He's talking about writing for different media--for the magazine, for the book reader, and for the screen--and I think it's just fabulously well-put. Delightfully non-media-determinist.

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In other news, I got word yesterday that, while I will not get a general reader's pass for the Huntington Library in California for my visit this weekend, they have kindly granted me access to view the three documents that will help me, hopefully, write a paper leading toward my dissertation work. I'm very excited about this, as I was a bit worried, seeing as how I could probably work from photocopies, but who knows, what with the potential smudging and such.

For those of you who fail to find your internal reading nerd salivating big-time at the prospect of going to cool libraries and burying yourselves in the marginalia of nearly-forgotten Kingsley Amis mystery novel manuscripts written in the 1970s, the grounds of the library are supposed to be amazing. If you've seen the chick flick The Wedding Planner with Matthew McConneaghey (awful movie but that's not his fault), there's a garden scene with nude statues that's I'm told was filmed on the grounds of this library. So I'm hoping to also hang out on the grounds a bit if I can (though I have no need of meeting a guy there--got one already, thanks).

I also have a couple other activities planned while I'm out there. There should be writing material gathering a-plenty, for creative stuff as well as the academic.

And I'm excited about getting a change of scene. The mid-semester doldrums within me have been crying out, and I haven't been to California since I was 9. Woohoo, I say! Woohoo!