Comments on: No Fightpicking. Just a Question.

By: Brian Brodeur

Brian Brodeur — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 18:18:20 +0000

Mike:
I’d ask the same question with just about the same degree of (mostly sincere) curiosity. It seems like Moore could’ve re-written his “essay” to be even more brief, if brevity is the point. “Tendency toward glibness” would seem even more glib of a statement, implying that the narrator is so glib that he has stopped bothering with (believing in) complete sentences.

I guess the main trouble I’m having with Moore’s essay is that I don’t make an immediate connection between glibness and brevity. It’s the same problem I have with belabored similes, i.e. similes that don’t create an immediate physical comparison between two things. I mean, what’s the point?

That’s all I got.

By: JosephScapellato

JosephScapellato — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 00:42:41 +0000

I 100% agree that this piece is steered (and sustained) by irony. It’s ironically making an argument that at the heart of this essay (and all essays) is “glibness”.
That said, I don’t think I agree with this argument. Which may be part of the point of it, that readers are likely to disagree? (What you were saying about the essay’s role in conversation, maybe?)
Furthermore– and this echoes what I think you’re saying– this piece TELLS “glibness” but SHOWS “irony.”

By: Mike

Mike — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 03:36:55 +0000

Joe: I thought about the thing as a mechanism for proving its own argument re: glibness, but Is *glibness* what the “essay” is really conveying, or is it steered mostly by *irony*?

Glib: http://bit.ly/U0MNo
Irony: http://bit.ly/RVYN2

By: JosephScapellato

JosephScapellato — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 01:20:33 +0000

My immediate, gut-level reaction– which I fear may not be clear, sober, and intelligent– is that this piece operates first and foremost as a *definition* of the essay. An essay, Moore seems to be arguing, is a written manifestation of the having-of-a-tendency-toward-glibness.
So although this “essay” may not take the traditional form of an essay (mostly because of length?), it perhaps embodies the essence of the essay– or, at the very least, argues for what the essence of the essay might be. (You will only write an essay if you want to make a “try.” And this piece says: It often takes a lot of talking to make a “try.”)
And of course, Moore gamely presents this glibness in a single sentence. Too-cute, or clever? Both?
To me, Moore’s piece is definition first. Essay second?
I mean no disrespect to Moore when I say it’s difficult for me to call this an essay if I accept that length is a factor in defining forms. I hope this doesn’t make me stodgy. Sure, in some cases length is irrelevant to identity (prose poem, or micro-fiction?), but, broadly speaking, length helps determine if a reader mentally frames a piece as a novel, novella, or short story– right?

By: HTMLGIANT / What is an ‘essay’?

HTMLGIANT / What is an ‘essay’? — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 22:56:02 +0000

[...] Of Dinty Moore’s piece, Mike Scalise sincerely asks “can someone please explain to me, in sober, clear, and intelligent terms, what makes ‘I… [...]