About a Boy

DISCLAIMER: The title refers neither to the Nick Hornby novel nor to its film adaptation, but more to Patti Smith’s threnody for Kurt Cobain. And yes, I like Kurt. But I love Patti.

Am I an effect of my alphabet?

A: My name is Andrew. My wife’s name is April. I teach at the Ateneo de Manila University. Auteurism was the topic of my undergrad thesis. These days, I’m more interested in what I can call autre-ism.

B: Barthes and I have the same birthday. I’d like to be like him. Also, (Walter) Benjamin: no, we don’t share a birthday, but he’s yet another magpie scholar I admire. And as much a magpie as a chameleon: (David) Bowie. Also Ballard.

C: Cave. As in Nick…and the Bad Seeds. And Cave Canem. Creative Writing, which is the MA degree toward which I’m working. Cole, too: that’s my son.

D: Dada. Because I’m a Dad to Cole. And because I like the movement and would dance to it if I could (square) dance. I also like what Emma Goldman said (or didn’t say) about dancing and revolution. But I can’t dance, or so I think.

E: Editions of You. Great song (partly thanks to Eno!), fair to middling blog. I edit my self here, like we all do. Also, ekphrasis is a term I always think about, and which I like to expand to encompass poetic encomia to the other arts.

F: Film theory is where my academic career began. Foucault is the first post-structuralist philosopher whose ideas I fell in love with. Both offer the pleasing illusion of origin.

G: Goth, not the architecture, a chunk of the aesthetic, mostly the subculture. Someday I’ll tell my grandchildren about that time when I was in a band. Was I good? Not really, but for a while…Goddamn!

H: Happiness (is a warm Hans Richter). Horror. Hats I wear: husband, father, teacher, graduate student. Hamburgers.

I: “I” is the issue in this blog, in any blog. In any instance? Indeed. Also, Iggy Pop’s The Idiot: Immense. Intense. Incredible.

J: Joy Division. I once toyed with calling this Boy Division, but it’s taken. I once had a photograph of myself which bore Joy Division as its title. There was another called “Shadowplay,” too. And we’re back to Ballard: JG. Again, Joy Division.

K: Kafka, Kafkaesque, Kafkamesto.

L: Later. It is always later.