Althouse: The "familiar essay."

June 6, 2007

The "familiar essay."

Listen! She says something in there about blogging that I really identify with.

ADDED: I meant for you to click the "listen" button at the link.

13 comments:

Ron said...: What's this? You identify with the house fluffer? Really, we're all shocked!....

;); 6/6/07, 6:13 PM
Ruth Anne Adams said...: Ron: She once wrote about fluffer-nutter sandwiches [see #9]. Does that count?; 6/6/07, 7:39 PM
Bissage said...: Whoa, there, Bossie. Whoa, there!

Holy Cow!!!

Consider my mind officially blown.; 6/6/07, 8:37 PM
Ron said...: Bissage: S'cool. Ruth Anne and I didn't mean to harsh your mellow. Et Bein Tout!

As Ringo sez these days, Peace and Love, Peace and Love...; 6/6/07, 10:30 PM
Maxine Weiss said...: But, where are her eye lids? How is she gonna wear all the cute new frosted eye shadows without prominent, deep eye lids?

It matters, trust me. There are surgical procedures (on your lunchhour) that can open up the flap of the eyes, so that you can have a more prominent lid, and facilitate the use of eye makeup.; 6/7/07, 12:30 AM
hdhouse said...: Would that for an instant anyone on this board could write as well.

Not sure yet what the link is that Ann wants us to see but I've read the section aloud several times now and the words simply leap.

I wonder when she writes she does so aloud...I'm amazed and really really humbled.; 6/7/07, 4:51 AM
hdhouse said...: ahhhh "wrote about themselves, but at the same time about a subject that they knew their readers knew"

This is a very nice find Ann. It's 545a and I think it is going to be a very good day as a result of this..thanks.; 6/7/07, 4:54 AM
Ann Althouse said...: You're supposed to LISTEN to the segment! Click the "listen" button.; 6/7/07, 4:54 AM
hdhouse said...: Yes mother. I did listen. Yes I did get the coffee house implication and the esoteria..and yes you/blogging/unfiltered blogging was not lost on me...

nevertheless, her prose is magnificently vivid and I like that a lot.; 6/7/07, 5:46 AM
Ann Althouse said...: It still doesn't sound like you got the "familiar essay" point....; 6/7/07, 6:26 AM
Bissage said...: Ron,

A good night’s sleep and I’m back to what passes for normal.

But boy, did I have a weird dream. It had something to do with a cow named Hugh Ballsack eating unfiltered marshmallows with Edith Pilaf, the inventor of the famous rice dish. A lamb offered me a large and small coffee and then a revolving door appeared. Suddenly I found myself at 19th century Yale smoking my slippers in a parlor.

Weird! And yet it all seemed somehow familiar.; 6/7/07, 6:47 AM
hdhouse said...: Ann, I think I did. Suggesting then you write more sometimes then to get into that..sometimes I think you write the familial essay by starting the topic sentence and perhaps much of the first paragraph and then the thread developes by the readership and various sub-threads, i.e. the rest of your essay, is laid out....do you take the responses and put them aside to later work them into a coherent "essay"?

I just went back to hear the interview yet a third time. I won't disagree with you that I may not have caught the meaning you were suggesting...and she speaks clearly but not as well as she writes...I'll keep trying to "get it".

In the mean time, there is still a certain part of her writing that makes one want to write to add to it and in the excerpt the bohemian room waiting ... that is a very nice idea..very fresh.

good post Ann. Thanks. food for thought today.; 6/7/07, 7:59 AM
Bottom Feeder said...: I want to be a better writer. Because quite frankly I think that my writing is lackluster.
I remember listening to this interview at work earlier this week. The way she describes Familiar Essays sounds like something that could help me with my writing. Here is the problem, they assumed that the reader knew what a familiar essay is....I don't. Can anyone point me in the right direction?; 6/8/07, 2:38 PM