Castrated Punctles, Too?

As my last post showed, the aching ignorance of bloggers never ceases to amaze me—to wit, a blogger linked to this very blog. Rosamary, aka Webspidie, in a ridiculous blog about Modern Punctal Theory, completely abandons synesthesia in her treatment of these very important typographic marks. Her first post criticizes punctal pedagogy: her alternative—treat them as characters to be made fun of. To be made fun of? Something seems off. These are the most sensuous of the typographic possibilities afforded us. Indeed, I’d go so far as to say these marks are more synesthetic than typographic ones.

Punctuation is, as this blogger noted, punctuated pause. But it is far more. These subtle and elusive marks are visual glyphs! Indeed, they operate primarily thus: they palpate us visually first; and then, synesthetically. An early case of this blogger’s unforgivable offense could perhaps shed some light on this.

This wily blogger tried and failed to understand the space in a particularly synesthetic Cummings poem, titled, aptly, “The Grasshopper.” Take a look at it: a punctal image of a confused unarranged grasshopper becomes a rearranged grasshopper, quite literally. As Rosamary notices, the space is central—she (falsely and ridiculously gendered by this certain blogger, not the poem or by punctal theory itself) rearrangingly becomes grasshopper herself. But the point of this “becoming” is missed altogether: it is a synesthetic-becoming.

At first, the poem proffers an unspeakable grasshopper—it exists as a visual glyph, as unarranged punctuation threatens to obscure meaning. But as space itself becomes a grasshopper simultaneously with Cummings’ punctles, however, we see and hear meaning emerge: the punctles rearrange so as to be spoken. This is a thoroughly synesthetic movement: seeing to speaking, which is to say, visual to hearing. And, through it all, the confused and slighted space can not help but palpate us, can not help but thoroughly drench us in its pathetic plight, an overly-sentimental drama of punctuated pause.

Modern Punctal Theory thus operates: punctuation is not simply punctuated pause—it is at once synesthetic movement and punctuated stillness. Hence, punctuation seems almost too apt for a Derridean (the differential structures behind the effacement of this dichotomy are only too obvious)—and alas, this nihilistic blogger has, um, missed the point entirely? 

How Blogs Castrate Us

Today I would like to talk to you about blogging. It would seem that some bloggers have, um, missed the point entirely.

Blogging is far more than a way to publish writings you couldn’t otherwise have published, more than a shameless capitalistic advertisement to further a career, even more than a way to publish writings anonymously a la Kierkegaard, more even than a public diary. Which is to say, the blogosphere does encompass all these things. But these are merely symptoms of a virulent technological mutation (extension qua Marshall McLuhan) gone awry. Indeed, the blogosphere really is an elaborate holocaust of sensibility, a total abandonment of synesthetic possibility. 

At first, it would seem to parallel reality, and more interestingly, to ground Foucault: the internet is the panopticon par excellence. Think about it: just as our identity in society is molded by the gaze of others, the constant fear of humiliation, so it is with blogs. The total effacement of the expert, of editors, brings with it a bevy of relentless and merciless bloggers waiting to criticize every word you write. And in effect—to shape your identity, to inaugurate your soul. And stranger, blogs, unlike prisons, even unlike society itself, are voluntarily chosen. Do you understand what I just said? People are actually seeking humiliation!

And what, then, becomes of synesthesia? Our attentions, obviously, are directed elsewhere—as if in a prison, quite literally, our behavior transforms before our very eyes, unconsciously. We are castrated so thoroughly, so thoroughly sucked of vitality—we become bile-drenched zombies, utterly abandoning the notion of anything interesting, indeed stripped bare of that synesthesia we so desperately need as we try to war off shame and humiliation. This is no different from the Renaissance: the total effacement of synesthesia, as rampant societal discourse shames us, humiliates us, makes cuckolds of us all.

Do they (that is, us bloggers) really think we can bask in our synesthesia as cuckolds? Can that really be a question at all? It all seems so obvious now: blogs are the root of everything evil in this world, of the recent surge in terrorism, the depression, etc. How can politicians have missed this blindingly obvious fact—blogs are hell bent on castrating us left and right, and we are desiring it, even going so far as to give up our synesthesia voluntarily. For what?

Take this as a call to action: abandon the blogosphere. And question. Question identity, and question society. Always.

Demand your synesthesia.