In which I post simply to use the phrase "in which"

I just finished this book called Young Romantics which wasn't particularly good. I told my British Literature professor I was reading it (after we just finished discussing the Romantic period in class) to which he responded "The Publishers Weekly review was lukewarm, but it would be hard not to be a good read with the crazy lives of the people featured in it". That's about how the book went. Sub par writing, but those 19th century poets knew how to get down, and therefore I stuck with it to the end.

I give a much heartier recommendation to Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet for ALL readers of this post. Truly fantastic book. Great writing, engaging narrative, very informative of a kind of different perspective about the Japanese internment during WWII (but it is fiction so have no fear, non-fiction avoiders).

Anyway, back to these dead white guys. For as much as everyone rags on the literary canon being filled with dead white guys, I really love these dead white guys. John Keats, in particular (although, he's wasn't a rich dead white guy so I think everyone in general hates him less. And probably because he died so prematurely, that usually gets you off the hook easier than your older dead white guy friends). Unfortunately Young Romantics really didn't talk about Keats that much. But I digress.

Finishing this book made me think about how different the death of our generations stars will be. At first I thought "There won't be any biographies needed because everyone's stories and personal thoughts are on Facebook, Twitter, and blogs". Then I thought "Nah, I'm sure there are still some hidden gems of celebrities lives that will be exposed upon their death, and people will clamor to read their posthumous biographies". Then I realized, "No, the paparazzi and MTV specials have truly exposed all of that already. When famous actors or musicians die now, people will just go to their Facebook profile to memorialize them". I finally settled on the thought that "Actually, there are some crazy celebrities in the media today. I'm sure there will be a heap of unrevealed information about the majority of celebrities after they die. Plus, Snooki has a book sooooo...biographies will never cease to flourish, even in the midst of all this instant access media".

One time it crossed my mind to write a memoir. I think it was after I read A Girl Named Zippy because that was a great book and to my knowledge, that author wasn't famous before that got published. Of course, I don't have the same kind of good 'ol days, small town America stories that she does (and I'm sure that's what ultimately detracted me) but still...it's an interesting thought to say the least.

...I had a point to this. I think it was something along the lines of: I just finished a huge research project about Facebook last week. It was about how Facebook interactions effect relationships offline. I wouldn't imagine there's much of a counter argument to that, but I just wanted to talk to people about Facebook (I have a sickness, this I know) so I went with a definitive project, not really an exploratory one. My end result: the one thing that all of my interviewees had in common was that they strongly disliked when people posted information deemed "too personal" on Facebook (as do I).

A few other people in my class did research projects about dating culture at BYU. One sentence from both presentations was that "blind dating really isn't blind any more". While sometimes I'm grateful for that (although my only blind date was in high school...) it also makes me a little melancholy. I love Facebook, I love blogging, I love Twitter, and checking my e-mail on my phone. But I can honestly say, more than doing all of those things, I love talking to people and getting to know someone and (I can't believe I'm admitting this...) feeling empathy with someone in a conversation to the point that I cry when they cry, or in a less dramatic way, laugh when they laugh. I'll probably never delete my Facebook account, my Twitter account, or this blog, but I truly hope that when I die and am famous and am having my biography written (after I've published my own memoirs of course) that these are just interesting tidbits and that like the 'young romantics' of the early 19th century, someone has to find out about my personal relationships to know who I truly was.