Les Bulletins d'un Grand Enthusiast #1 - Lessons from the Front

 April 29^th 2012 – Lessons from the Front

• This bulletin established: The author has decided that his blog could use a more “personal” voice.  At the same time, he would like to keep a record of himself for his descendants to gloss over in due silence during their future (no-doubt "unpersonable") family mealtimes. A handwritten Moleskine journal is a bit too precious for him, so he has taken the public at large into his confidence by means of some Confessions with the added innovation of boldly publishing them:
• a)  before personally achieving anything of note that would give them interest
• b)  before his own death, in order to avoid public ridicule.

• Persons Act: Nevertheless, he finds the “first person” too intimate to be conducive to public objectivity. As for the “second person”, he believes it can only be used without histrionics by relationship columnists and traffic signs. The “third person”, however, has the unbiased pencil-case smell of the academe that the author finds irresistibly charming and is, in his daily life, less often met with than he would prefer. He has furthermore determined that egoism demands, before everything else, good formatting.

• Completism: The author apologetically begins his account “in media res”. However, a summary of his life to this point may be approximated by the reader who will approach his or her local reference librarian and request (with no irony): “Can you bore me, in print– before 1850?"

• The weather sucked: On the week of April 23^rd 2012 the weather officially sucked.

• Taking note: In an unexpected follow-up manoeuvre to an academic career built on illegible and be-doodled loose leaf pages, the author has established himself @ his place of work  as a master note-taker . He finds the art of note-taking is much like the art of drinking: just get it all down, keep track of your tabs, and the rest will fall into place.

• Chicken of the sea: This week the author indulged in beer-battered fish and chips, sushi, fish-tacos, Korean sea-food pancake, and some Swedish Fish gummies to top it all off. He supposes this is healthy, but intends to investigate the question more thoroughly when he has the time.

• Student riots: The author has taken note of the student riots in Montreal. He mentally urges them to stop being so immature about their "future", and asks them politely but firmly to “go home and blog about it.”

• The Revolution: The slated Revolution is looking more than ever to be a smashing success, especially among the ever growing contingent of clercs mécontents gathering steam (and not much else) in the National Capital Region. The author, however, has forgotten the date, and would appreciate if someone could forward it to him sometime in the near future.

• First passage, best passage: The most splendid thing he read all week was a passage from Stendhal's La Chartreuse de Parme, in which a sonnet about "divine love", written by the main hero, is described coldly and with a clinical level of detail in a straightforward paragraph. If, on the other hand, Stendhal had just stuck in a sonnet, the whole tenor of the chapter would have been ruined.

• Quotation of the Hour: “I know not what to call this, nor will I urge, that it is a secret over ruling Decree that hurries us on to be the Instruments of our own Destruction, even tho' it be before us, and that we rush upon it with our Eyes open.” – A slightly bitter Robinson Crusoe.