Post Postmodernism Manifesto

If all movements are reactions, then it's clear that post postmodernism is a reaction to postmodernism. As such it will move away from the banal, the free form, and the ironic. It will relish the sublime, the subjectively universal, and the English Poets.  In short, it will participate in the tradition of classic literature.

My friend L.N. is working on his dissertation at Harvard, and in the meanwhile is creating a book of poems entitled "The Cold Wisdom of Northern Europe." It will be a collection of imaginative translations and adaptations from Old English and Old Norse, with poems expanding upon scenes in Beowulf, Bede, the Edda, etc (a companion volume, entitled "The Hot Blood of the Mediterranean," with poems from Latin and Greek, will come out in 2012). Here's a taste.

THUS SPOKE ODIN:

Deigning one day to descend from above
Odin came before the Folk.
The people pressed him for wisdom pure
And this is what he spoke:

“Your dearest friends will dearly die
Your cattle will die too.
Your crops, your crown, all will crumble
All will die, even you.

I know one thing that does not die
One thing not doomed by death;
One thing alone that will live
As long as men have breath:

The reputation of the renowned dead!
This will perish never.
Strong through song and saga long
A man’s fame lives forever.

He who holds this in his head
Will sure live wise and well;
But the fool who fast forgets it
Will be consigned to hell.”

This poem is based, by the way, on four lines from the Old Norse poem Havamal, which is a wisdom poem put into the mouth of Odin. The four lines are as follows:

"Friends die, cattle die,
You yourself will die.
I know one thing that does not die,
The reputation of the dead."

Christmas in Post Postmodernism

For Christmas this year, I received an e-mail from a company offering a $40 gift certificate and the chance for you to have a tv stand, if I blogged about it on my site.

During the process of my decision, I vacillated between the notion of selling out, and remaining true to my cause. Maybe my followers will scorn me for a truer blogger, more dedicated? But this is also a sign of how big your blog has become in the course of a year – that this post which took ten minutes to write, is itself worth $40.

 I decided that the mention of the decision I had to make would be an excellent example of postmodernism (due to the self-consciousness of this post), and that the sentiments of guilt and resultant intrigue in being able to choose a material item from the site, which I have no doubt I will not need – although an attractive pair of boat shoes caught my eye – will be a good example of modernism and will ultimately be overshadowed by my greed and covetousness.

In any event, this is my Santa tracker. And I hope the expression of my fears and ideas about the process provides a good example of postmodernism; my attempt at relaying said feelings has succeeded, and that the vacillation between these two styles is a good example of post postmodernism.

Merry Christmas!

Daniel Adler's 100th Blog Post

Hey Guys and Gals,
This is my 100th blog post, and it has been nearly a year since I started this thing. I want to thank y'all for staying tuned, and I want to reassure you that there's a lot more good stuff to come. I hope you've enjoyed reading excerpts from my forthcoming novel, Hot Love on the Wing (which believe me, still needs about a year of work). My ideas and thoughts on our moment of late postmodernism, post postmodernism, metamodernism, or whatever you want to call it, are always subject to interpretation based on our the definitive quality of our interaction. And my hopes and love for Brooklyn and New York can always be enhanced with more information.

If you have any ideas for me as to what I should blog about, feel free to drop a comment. To all you new viewers, don't be scared to follow me. I'm working hard to make my blog the most interesting one on the internet, and with your help and my hard work, it will be.
All my love,
Daniel Adler