Texts

The notebooks are intended, in the first instance, for my own use, a way of storing ideas, references, questions, puzzles, connections, possible connections, mistakes (unavoidably), things to look at or look into. My interests change; my time is limited; I know very little and have less to say about many things. For this reason, many of the notebooks are little more than placeholders. These do grow over time into more substantial documents, some of them anyway; in the meanwhile, it's not my fault if the search-engines serve them up to you.

A decade ago, before the rise of the Web, there wasn't a lot of scholarly research on pseudonymity. Almost none. I know this because I dealt with journalistic pseudonymity in some detail in my dissertation, and when in the early 1990s I went looking for stuff on the history of pseudonymity, I really didn't find much at all.

Strange, I thought, since pseudonymy was so central to the rise of the bourgeois public sphere. I needed to understand the historical context of newspaper pseudonymity as background to some literary questions, so I went hunting and spent a godawfully long time trying to piece together some information and make painfully simple inferences from primary sources. I thought I had some publishable surmises. Then by the time the Internet became popular, every senior scholar and his sister published a book on the topic within a year. Okay, not every senior scholar. But I got scooped and I'm bitter.

Here are a few random tidbits about 18c pseudonymity, gleaned from my rusty and resentful memory. . . .

This is the book I was reading when I realized I could read.

Just as Gadsby was thinking nothing was now lacking in Branton Hills, a child in a poor family got typhoid symptoms from drinking from a small brook at a picnic and, without any aid from our famous Organization, a public clamor was forthcoming for Municipal District Nursing, as so many folks look with horror at going to a hospital. Now District Nursing calls for no big appropriation; just salary, a first-aid outfit, a supply of drugs and so forth; and, now-a-days, a car. And, to Branton Hills’ honor four girls who had had nursing training soon brought, not only small comforts, but important ministrations to a goodly part of our population. In districts without this important municipal function, common colds may run into long-drawn-out attacks; and contagion can not only shut up a school or two but badly handicap all forms of public activity.

“Too many small towns,” said Gadsby, “try to go without public nursing; calling it foolish, and claiming that a family ought to look out for its own sick. BUT! Should a high mortality, such as, this Nation HAS known, occur again, such towns will frantically broadcast a call for girls with nursing training; and wish that a silly, cash-saving custom hadn’t brought such critical conditions.”

ALRIGHT SO ONE BRIGHT MORNING IN KINDERGARTEN FOR SHOW AND TELL I MADE AN ANNOUNCEMENT ABOUT HOW SOME OF THE FLOWERS IN OUR FRONT YARD HAD BEEN TRAMPLED DURING THE LATE EVENING. I GAVE EVERYONE WHAT I HOPED TO BE A SUSPICIOUS SQUINT, AND THEN WAGGED MY INDEX FINGER AT THE CLASS AND DEMANDED TO KNOW IF ANYONE ELSE HAD ALSO BEEN THE VICTIM OF AN OVER-NIGHT FLOWER TRAMPLING. A LOT OF KIDS STILL WANT TO COPY THEIR PEERS AT THAT AGE SO A WHOLE BUNCH OF KIDS IMMEDIATELY STATED THAT THEY DID THINK SOME OF THE FLOWERS IN THEIR FRONT YARDS LOOKED AWFULLY TRAMPLED, AND BEFORE YOU KNOW IT I’VE GOT HALF THE CLASS BOASTING TO THE OTHER HALF ABOUT JUST HOW TRAMPLED THEIR FRONT-YARD FLOWERS ACTUALLY ARE.

NOW THAT I HAVE ALLIES, I DECIDED TO FORM SOME SORT OF ‘POSSE’ TO CATCH WHOEVER IS RESPONSIBLE FOR THE FLOWER TRAMPLING. EVERYONE VOLUNTEERS, AND SINCE IT’S FRIDAY I ANNOUNCE THAT WE’LL MEET IN MY FRONT YARD AT 10AM SHARP SATURDAY MORNING.

SO ANYWAY SATURDAY MORNING ROLLS AROUND, I COULD NOT CARE LESS ABOUT FLOWERS ANYMORE, I’VE GOT OTHER IMPORTANT SHIT ON MY MIND AND CARTOONS TO WATCH, WHEN A CAR PULLS INTO OUR DRIVEWAY, A PASSENGER DOOR OPENS, AND THIS RANDOM GIRL IN MY CLASS WHO I DON’T EVEN KNOW THAT WELL IS BOOTED OUT INTO OUR FRONT LAWN. MY MOM GOES TO CHECK IT OUT AND COMES BACK ASKING IF I HAD CALLED A “MEETING” AND THAT THE GIRL IS HERE FOR THE “MEETING”. MY MOM LOOKS REALLY AMUSED.