Hi, all, and welcome to The List.
My name is Sean and I live in China. So as I noted in the other half of the The Awesomeosity Project (TAP)—Blogworthy, if you are ever reading an entry where I seem like I’m not trading in the same cultural currency you are, then it’s because I’m not.
For me, The List is an especially bold undertaking, since I’m going to have a hell of a time getting the books I need for it—reading material on-demand in China is out of the question at this point, so I have to rely on a planned trip home in May, meaning that I’ll be far behind on the novels. In the meantime, I’ve started tackling the only fiction that’s on The List for Year 1: Tolstoy’s War & Peace, so you can expect some posts on that soon, and Mariel has been generously sending me the essays as she obtains them, so I can also keep up there.
In the meantime, for me, The List is not so much about a sense of accomplishment as it is about the absolute drive to know everything. Of course I don’t expect to obtain omniscience, but if you were to look at my Facebook profile under interests, you would find the intentionally ubiquitous word “everything.” And it’s true. So as far as my minor contributions to the literary content of The List goes (I’ll probably have a lot more to say once we start working out the Music and Movies part), I’m much more interested in literature that operates as a mirror of the human experience and a repository of collective knowledge and the simple necessities, such as The Odyssey. Music and Movies will also reflect that interest as well, I hope.
And that’s my biography pertaining to my participation here. I hope you all join in, and if you’d like to contribute, either to the blog or a view on some media that should be added to The List itself, please contact us at our addresses listed on the side.
I’ll post again by Tuesday with something resembling my Booklust 2008. ‘Til then, happy reading!
-S
1 comment:
Haha. Well, you can definitely tell which one of us will be the fun one. Your first post practically screams ‘hey guys, I’m the cool kid on the blog’ whereas mine is very ‘from the editors.’ I guess it serves to illustrate the lingering effects of IB on my brain.
Reading over your two posts, I couldn’t tell them apart in subject matter, and really, if you hadn’t labeled them for me, probably would have reversed them. Add in Escaped and the EI (where I’m sure we’ll undoubtedly continue the conversations begun here, and probably end up starting new ones) and you and I have created a universe of thinking and writing.
When I first broached the idea of The List (sitting in the Caribou Coffee at 17th and L before a YPFP session) I intended it as a private enterprise, mostly because the idea that others would be interested hadn’t occurred to me (I am well aware that my geekyness crosses normal lines). I wanted to see what I could learn about the world, and what connections would become apparent thru this undertaking, but most projects of this kind are regarded as novelties by the general populace (Know-It-All link)
But then you wanted in, and then we’ve expanded into Awesomeosity, and it really has become a Project. I keep returning to something you said (but can’t find, altho it’s doubtlessly in the ‘hundreds’ of conversations between us stored in gmail) about ‘if the universities did their job, then we wouldn’t need think tanks.’ My question to you is, is this some test of that hypothesis? None of us are still in university, altho grad school eventually, but even so, there is a kaffeeklatsch feel to this – themed, perhaps, but not structured.
In any event, I’m all in – fully tied to these projects, this ring of blogs, and these conversations. Talking with you is a source of inspiration for me, and I can only look forward to expanding the discussion.
By the way, why is it that the Germans have such great words for intellectual endeavors? My new favorite word is gedankenexperiment, but I hope is that what we think here will not be limited to thought only. That is actually my one complaint with ‘Without Isms’ – that Xianjiang would have speech be without consequence. Perhaps in his circumstances, that is best, but how can we expect that as humans? That is not what humanity is, that is not how our minds are structured. Words create reality. Let’s then be careful with those words, because without a doubt, they have meanings and consequences, and once spoken, exist forever.
As for the whole nickname thing, well, go for it. As I mentioned in a previous post (you are falling behind, but we expected that) I’ve never really had a nickname. Supposedly I was called Sparks as a baby (the provenance of Iskrashka – remember your Russian?) and more recently, M^2, but that’s more of a pet name, and only make sense to geeky WM-type people. So let’s see what you come up with; I’m curious. If it’s good enough, maybe I’ll even adopt it. For now tho, I’ll stick to M.
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