because i'm in a position to invent him

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I was writing today about the choices we make as bloggers. Or, as people on the internet more generally. Papacharissi (2009) Calls it an "information game."

But for the moment I cannot talk about that. I've been stuck on High Fidelity because I find a bit too much of myself in Rob Gordon (John Cusack). Tonight, I'm checking out the deleted scenes before I get into the film proper, and I just watched one that surprised me because who else plays Rob's father but Harold Ramis.

And, I'm done.

I mean, to loop back around like that. Andie MacDowell's real first name is Rosalie (my mother's name) and now Harold Ramis is playing the father of a guy named Rob (my name, you inattentive passerby). Everything loops back to Groundhog Day, eventually. Every movie is every other movie. I intended to talk about white male privilege today, I want to talk about punctum, but here I am talking about links back to Groundhog Day because every blog entry is the same, every bit of writing the same. There's no presentation of self, just some deluded exercise in revelation, because I've got the time. Like Rob talking now about that afternoon of his first breakup--"All my romantic stories are a scrambled version of that first one." I would guess that's true for everyone. First time with anything becomes the yardstick by which we measure all future instances of anything similar. Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose. Like eternal recurrence or the Groundhog Day effect or just the simple fact that every day you have to wake up and be who you were yesterday. Because what else are you going to do?

 

 

 

 

 

I'm reminded of that "magic" scene in Chaplin--what a lovely concept, that one might happen upon a new persona on the spot and just become. Like change could happen in a single moment... When you want it to, I mean. So many bad changes happen suddenly. Or at least we experience bad changes suddenly. A breakup, being fired... whatever. Catches us by surprise.

When we should have damn well expected it.

But, we get stuck on the good. Stuck in the... What's the opposite of a rut?

Coasting on a daydream
Limited only by our imagination
And our expectation
And nothing can yank us out of the clouds

Nothing but pain and heartbreak
Loneliness and disillusion
Because no silver lining is forever
Except for when it (still) is

 

 

 

 

 

What information do I have left?

References

Papcharissi, Z. (2002). The presentation of self in virtual life: characteristics of personal home pages. Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, 7(3), 643-660.

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