Thursday, August 18, 2011

Me, Pseudonymously

A few years ago a couple friends of friends started a journal at the University of Chicago called The Point (it being a Hyde Park institution, the reference is to the beloved Point, a sun-soaked piece of land that extends into Lake Michigan from 55th street on the South Side). While most aspirants to the intellectual mag category, including such inimitables as Harper's and The New Yorker, rise and fall like dust mites in the wash cycle, The Point caught my attention. The articles aren't just clever and intelligent. They're topical, they're funny and they have a real point of view. The majority of its writers (and all of its founders) come from the University of Chicago's Committee on Social Thought, a name that continues to wow me simply on account of its impenetrability (what on earth is a committee? do they meet in a basement?) and whose adherents are without a doubt the smartest and most interesting people I've met at the U of C (with the possible exception of the R&L community in the Div school).

While it seems a little backa$$wards to invent a pseudonym (for the purposes of not revealing one's identity) and then to completely blow cover by blogging about it ... I wanted to share my own, little contribution to The Point's newest initiative, Pointing. Oh, wait. That's wrong. Pointers? No, anyway, I forget. Just read this.

2 comments:

Humingway said...

Great idea. I've had the same wish for a long time.

The New Yorker ran an article some years ago about first-generation drivers in semi-rural China, and the opening paragraphs were about the nuanced vocabularies of horn-honking. Each driving instructor had their own idea of how to send each message, so there were effectively regional dialects of honking! And more seriosuly, I've been thinking recently that music-studies folks should pay more attention to paramusical phenomena like car horns, microwave beeps, and elevator chimes…

And alas, your anonymity was blown even before you posted this here: did you see the URL that “Twyla Bell” links to?

Majel said...

Wait, what URL? (I get a 'Not Found' page...)

Can you dig up the honking article? I'd love to read that.