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February 15, 2006
Love and Irony
I admit it. I wanted to blog something sweet and wifely for Valentine's Day. Glancing at my archives you, gentle reader, can of course see that I did not. It wasn't completely a matter of time management or writer's block, either. You see, in my mind, writing a simple Valentine's profession of love would have broken two of the cardinal rules of hip blogging: 1) never admit to celebrating a holiday that Hallmark also celebrates and 2) never say anything without a touch of irony. Sincerity is rarely hip.
Thankfully, this morning, I realized that, as Jane Tompkins writes in her seminal essay "Sentimental Power: Uncle Tom's Cabin and the Politics of Literary History,":
...twentieth-century critics have taught generations of students to equate popularity with debasement, emotionality with ineffectiveness, religiosity with fakery, domesticity with triviality, and all of these, implicitly, with womanly inferiority.
She argues that sentimental novels actually evidence an underappreciated "intellectual complexity, ambition, and resourcefulness," and can actually function as catalysts for change. In some ways, she argues, they are more effective and valuable than the rational, ironic, modernist discourse we cherish.
So.
Noel, you love me so well that events like Valentine's day become superfluous; I am already sure of how you care for and delight in me.
Hmm. This all didn't come out as unironic as I had hoped...
Carefully Dramatized Life Accounts | By elissa | 12:09 PM
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Comments
It sounds like you and Noel subscribe to the Rush Limbaugh philosophy of V-day (he too hates it as a commercialized marketing scam) - Rush said yesterday that when he truly loves somebody, everyday is Valentines Day with them.
Put that on your Hallmark card.
good work weichbrodts.
Posted by: Luther at February 16, 2006 10:45 AM
Jason, are you trying to kill my hipness points by grouping me with Rush? I take comfort in the fact that Rush would never reference Jane Tompkins. /sigh/
Actually, I very carefully phrased my sincere declaration of love so that it would not say "every day is Valentine's day." With my stomach, that would be expensive... ;)
Ah, I miss giving you a hard time, Jason.
Posted by: elissa at February 16, 2006 11:27 AM
Nani,
I liked reading your post. Don't read my blog, i fall for all that commercialized scamming of holidays....I buy the hallmarks cards too--when you care to send the very best! :-)
Hope you and Noel are doing well.
Miss you lots. Let me know about grad school when you hear something!
love, bell
Posted by: Bell at February 16, 2006 02:59 PM
