living, thinking and writing
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| PRACTICE living, thinking and writing |
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Saturday, January 25, 2003 Cecily the blogger When I was in college, I took a role in an English drama called ¡°The importance of being Earnest¡±. We only presented the last few acts of the whole comedy, in which I was the ravishing but overbearing Gwendolen. That was really fun, but nothing is as funny, cynical and sophisticated as the Wilde¡¯s original play write, which I finally read when I came to the US. One of the details that most impressed me comes from the other pretty girl in the show, whose name is Cecily. She had a thing about writng; like she wrote letters everyday to an imaginary man called Earnest, and eangaged and then broke off with this Earnest in her mind. She kept dairy and recorded things anywhere anytime, even while her admirer (Algernon) expressed his affection to her. Here is how the wonderful conversation goes: Algernon: I hope, Cecily, I shall not offend you if I state quite frankly and openly that you seem to me to be in every way the visible personification of absolute perfection. Cecily: I think your frankness does you great credit, Ernest. If you will allow me, I will copy your remarks into my diary. [Goes over to table and begins writing in diary.] Algernon: Do you really keep a diary? I¡¯d give anything to look at it. May I? Cecily: Oh no. [Puts her hand over it.] You see, it is simply a very young girl¡¯s record of her own thoughts and impressions, and consequently meant for publication. When it appears in volume form I hope you will order a copy. But pray, Ernest, don¡¯t stop. I delight in taking down from dictation. I have reached ¡®absolute perfection¡¯. You can go on. I am quite ready for more. Algernon: [Somewhat taken aback.] Ahem! Ahem! Cecily: Oh, don¡¯t cough, Ernest. When one is dictating one should speak fluently and not cough. Besides, I don¡¯t know how to spell a cough. [Writes as Algernon speaks.] Algernon: [Speaking very rapidly.] Cecily, ever since I first looked upon your wonderful and incomparable beauty, I have dared to love you wildly, passionately, devotedly, hopelessly. Cecily: I don¡¯t think that you should tell me that you love me wildly, passionately, devotedly, hopelessly. Hopelessly doesn¡¯t seem to make much sense, does it? Algernon: Cecily! I could not think of any more nasty way to caricature a pretty and dreamy girl. You can hardly point out what¡¯s really going wrong with her, but you could not but laught when you read here. Few days ago, I read a story about Glen Reynolds, kind of the godfather of blogger, who posted like 30 times at instapundit.com each day. He has warned many people thinking about starting a blog that it can quickly become an addiction. He seems to know it from his own experience. Here is his confession: "Today, I was in the gym, on the treadmill, watching CNN," he said. "And as I was watching it, I was composing a blog entry in my head. Then I thought, 'This really isn't normal.' " And you can guess who burst into my mind when I read this. Yes, Cecily! How could that be so odd for the girl to addict to diary, while blog, the online diary makes so much sense to so many people today? The basic motivation for these two things really have no big difference: recording your secret (or not) thoughts and then get published in future. Cecily just speaks the whole truth, and Wilde just unveiled relentlessly the vanity of human beings- while reflecting of our own thoughts by writing them out, we always keep in mind the readership of potential audience. Weblogs satisfy both of the illusions for everyone: self-reflecting, while attention or recognition from outside readers. Maybe somewhere from above, Oscar Wilde is tittering somehow, and deliberating the most sinister and naughty plot for bloggers. posted by lmeimei @9:22 PM| permanent link| | |
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