Every blog I create seems defective, and I’ve come to realize this is deficiency is a function of the blogs themselves. My first blog was the now-defunct dukeofearl.org. It was a journal of the whimsies of my middle school and high school years. Thus the failure of dukeofearl was present in its very inception: my jejune comportment was the very thing that made the blog supurfluous.
A blog is at its best an expression of the author’s personality. If the blogger is an immature twit, the blog itself will be immature. But I learn from my mistakes, and I have discovered a beautiful way to correct my past wrongs: create a negative definition of the proper blog, and try to adhere to it as much as is possible or warranted. Thus, if immaturity is to be avoided, a new nadir must be mature. Let’s make a list. A New Nadir will be
mature
gifted
original
critical
creative
These words are purposefully and necessarily vague. I haven’t written the blog yet, so a mission statement is at best an admonition, never a description. Deviation from these norms will be required from time to time. A New Nadir is, like most other blogs, a comment. But to be original, A New Nadir will have to comment on the complex, the arcane, and the quotidian (the unusual, interesting parts of life’s milieu are already quite capably handled by the rest of the ‘net). These things are often opposed to the adjectives which I hope will come to define this blog, so a dialectic of the gifted and the retarded, the original and the fake, the critical and the sycophantic, the creative and the mundane is necessary and meritorious.
The equation for a blog thus modified, I think that A New Nadir has a valuable contribution to make to the current flurry of discourse. It may be neglected from time to time, and may come to mean something else to me and to everyone who reads it over time. That is to be expected, and in fact welcomed. “Nadir” evokes a low, and I came up with the name when I was obsessed with the downfall of man, both as it is perceived and as it exists. This subject still excites my curiosity, but I think it is my duty as a critic not so much to deride the low but elevate that art, writing, music, and photography that is worthy of our good judgment. Some of this will be a product of my own efforts, which is to say that I will not post my own creative work often. Most of it will be the work of others.
Anyway, this is a mission statement. It will be consulted regularly and revised as needs dictate.
a statement of aims
Every blog I create seems defective, and I’ve come to realize this is deficiency is a function of the blogs themselves. My first blog was the now-defunct dukeofearl.org. It was a journal of the whimsies of my middle school and high school years. Thus the failure of dukeofearl was present in its very inception: my jejune comportment was the very thing that made the blog supurfluous.
A blog is at its best an expression of the author’s personality. If the blogger is an immature twit, the blog itself will be immature. But I learn from my mistakes, and I have discovered a beautiful way to correct my past wrongs: create a negative definition of the proper blog, and try to adhere to it as much as is possible or warranted. Thus, if immaturity is to be avoided, a new nadir must be mature. Let’s make a list. A New Nadir will be
These words are purposefully and necessarily vague. I haven’t written the blog yet, so a mission statement is at best an admonition, never a description. Deviation from these norms will be required from time to time. A New Nadir is, like most other blogs, a comment. But to be original, A New Nadir will have to comment on the complex, the arcane, and the quotidian (the unusual, interesting parts of life’s milieu are already quite capably handled by the rest of the ‘net). These things are often opposed to the adjectives which I hope will come to define this blog, so a dialectic of the gifted and the retarded, the original and the fake, the critical and the sycophantic, the creative and the mundane is necessary and meritorious.
The equation for a blog thus modified, I think that A New Nadir has a valuable contribution to make to the current flurry of discourse. It may be neglected from time to time, and may come to mean something else to me and to everyone who reads it over time. That is to be expected, and in fact welcomed. “Nadir” evokes a low, and I came up with the name when I was obsessed with the downfall of man, both as it is perceived and as it exists. This subject still excites my curiosity, but I think it is my duty as a critic not so much to deride the low but elevate that art, writing, music, and photography that is worthy of our good judgment. Some of this will be a product of my own efforts, which is to say that I will not post my own creative work often. Most of it will be the work of others.
Anyway, this is a mission statement. It will be consulted regularly and revised as needs dictate.