It oversells its point, but it’s absolutely right that Ender’s Game reads as a fulfillment novel. As much as I enjoy reading Orson Scott Card books, there’re some nasty edges to it. It’s also astonishing how sexist the books are when you reread them at an older age.

I don’t necessarily think it will go terribly. I just don’t see the point. Your hair’s fine as-is.

Christ. That’s hard to answer succinctly and accurately. Postmodernism is a blanket that encompasses dozens of ideas.

The easiest way to look at it is that it’s an answer to Modernism, which was an answer to Realism, which was an answer to Romanticism. Romanticism portrayed an “idealized” version of the world. Realism then tried to portray an “accurate” version. Modernism thought realism was still arbitrarily assigning meaning to things which had no meaning, so it was colder and more alienated. Postmodernism was the conclusion, which said even Modernism was assigning arbitrary definition, and that the real way to go was to declare that everything goes. So Postmodernism embraces essentially everything. But that’s only one definition, and one that some Postmodernists would disagree with.

One common definition is that Postmodernism eschews linearity. The movie Slacker, which was a series of unconnected vignettes rather than a single traditional story, was postmodern because it wasn’t telling a story per se. Or the music of Philip Glass is postmodern because, instead of establishing a melody, it repeats a handful of phrases. But while you could see that as some sort of heavy artistic statement about how life has no meaning, I think then you’re missing out on something. Because while Slacker’s not a traditional film, it certainly establishes things like mood and setting and character. Perhaps it’s not a story. Perhaps it’s more of an animated portrait. Are photographs postmodern because they don’t tell an ongoing story? Of course not! Similarly, Philip Glass’s music isn’t about saying Fuck you to melody. It’s about focusing on other aspects of music, like rhythm and tone. It’s postmodern because certain Western music used to frown on people who concentrated on anything other than pretty melodies, and because now people are allowed to try anything and everything. But I think it’s more in a playful sense of exploration than it is an asshole sense of asshole.

But the term, while a little interesting, is usually meaningless when applied. Hypertext, and in relation the entirety of the Internet, is called postmodern by literary minds who think the only way to write is in a book. Horseshit. The Internet introduced new ideas to writing, and let artists try new things, but all those new things are classifiable without insisting that everything is postmodern just because it’s not a standard book. I know people who’ll insist that they find it hard to read, say, blogs, because they can’t get their minds around what they mean conceptually, and my reaction is, people write, and you read what they wrote. That’s nothing complex or futuristic.

The other “aspect” of Postmodernism that frustrates me is the idea of meta: That is, art that refers to itself. People point to books where the author is also a character in the book and go Look! Postmodern! Certainly this trend of art that’s aware of itself has swelled a lot in the last half century. But it’s not like this self-awareness is new. Look at Hamlet, wherein Hamlet puts on a play within his play about essentially the plot that’s already going on. Was Shakespeare a Postmodernist? Or was Homer, when he wrote poems in which he, Homer, was talking to the same muses that appeared in his stories?

Another argument I had: Somebody wrote something about how Girl Talk and his music mashups were something original in art. How this idea of remixes was something new to the last thirty years or so. But what about the Greek playwrights who all told variations on old myths? The version of Oedipus Rex by Sophocles was not the only version of the play. Euripides wrote an acclaimed cycle which was unfortunately lost. I hate that it’s lost because Euripides was a better writer. I’d love to see his interpretation of the myth.

So Postmodernism is a lot of things. It’s used to refer to pretty much everything by people who’re too ignorant to know other words. Because of that, people get mistaken and think there’s this huge enormous movement that’s just too intellectual to easily understand, when really it’s just a lot of comprehensible work lumped illogically together. Hopefully that says what you wanted it to say; if not, feel free to have me clarify things.

Well, stop doing that.

Many of them are in Tumblr’s theme garden. I also do custom theme design for people who want something special. The deal is you figure how much you think a theme is worth to you, and then I give you your money’s worth.

(Incidentally, that one you’re using now? Mine.)

Hating Valentine’s Day isn’t making it go away. I hadn’t realized it was coming up, which I guess is how to beat it. But it’s Sunday, and Sunday I’m attending a choir performance. Suppose I’ll wear red.

Xin Xin has asked me already to write one with her.

George Carlin. Brian Regan. Neil Hamburger. Bill Cosby. Emo Philips.

Destroy? Nothing. Destroying things is immature.

Undermine? I guess a handful of things, but it’s not like I wake up and tell myself to start subverting. So I suppose that doesn’t count as active undermining.