Should I drop the whole third-person "The Pithlord is in high dudgeon today" thing?
Arguments for getting rid of it:
-It's getting to be a bit like one of those old joke voice mail messages everybody tried out in the mid-80s or when they got their first place, whichever came later. Very mildly amusing at first, and increasingly annoying every other time.
-I stole it from Marshall Wittman, who's a lunatic.
Arguments for keeping it:
-If you can't be simultaenously geeky and pretentious on a blog, where can you be geeky and pretentious? Along with wikis, blogging is the first major technological development that has been a major boon to those of us beaten soundly by our peers in middle school for smugly correcting teachers on fine points of European military history, and smart-ass nit-picking know-it-alls need to reclaim our identity.
Decisions, decisions.
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3 comments:
Keep the persona and its lofty viewpoint, Pith: but the mask needs a new paint job…
I don’t care about geekism or pretentiosity or this Yankee halfwit you reference; but the not-quite-me pulpit is an honourable tradition, with deep roots in English-language literary and political comment. I refer you to the many Spectators, Amblers, Observers, Idlers &c., semi-anonymous wits of print who predate the Internerd by, in some cases, centuries. I have a half-formed memory of an English columnist of the 1930s who called himself Cassandra and proved to be prescient… anyway, many third-person(alities) in public life have been useful, and there’s no shame in it. See, you avoid the relentless “I” of this radical-individualist era, plus you gently suggest that you’re not a lone mouth but in fact an institution or establishment of some kind. Which is true, innit? – every blog gets to be a bit bigger than its author…
That said, “Pithlord” is a numbnuts tag, for sure, man. I won’t speak to its echoes in George Lucas’s endless attempt to smear and degrade science fiction’s good name. But an honest voice’s honest title shouldn’t put on aristocratic airs (Sir Mix-A-Lot being the obvious exception). You want to be of service, I assume. So may I suggest instead: Her Majesty’s Loyal Pith. Or, The Pot That Pith’s In. Or, Pith-Tory (inaccurate? Not really). Or, Sober Second Pith. Or, The Pithy Council. Or, Pith Among Equals (you can see some acronymic possibilities developing here, I think). Or, seriously? Just, The Pithy Canuck.
Ahem. Should any spambots tire of the relentless insiderness here, I myself am the Anonymous chatter referred to elsewhere in this worthy blog as the Literatus. Which I love! I will note, should anyone care, that I once wrote for a small Western paper in the voice of a persona called The Inquisition. And I loved *that!* Hopefully this will not blow the cover of The Pithy Canuck here. We have no professional relationship anyway; the Inquisition has always hated lawyers…
But an honest voice’s honest title shouldn’t put on aristocratic airs (Sir Mix-A-Lot being the obvious exception).
Maybe I'm in violation of the Nickel Resolution. I mean, Pithlord is...
I second anonymous. The persona and the third person thing fits your writing well. Your like a Canadian Ricky Henderson.
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