What people usually mean when they yearn for an end to irony is an end to postmodernism. I'm not sure this will ever happen, since it places itself after originality and progress (what comes after the afters? Well, cheese, I guess). Zoe Williams examines the uses and abuses of
irony Lately boynton has been thinking it is ironic to live in Australia.
That is irony in the lazy moronic sense of the word of course, meaning some general disjunction or even specifically, seasonal opposition. The northern hemispherical blogosphere seems to have gone into summer mode, many favourites on
hiatus (perhaps italics increasingly signify irony) en vacance, or are soaking up the light and languor of sunshine. Meanwhile here in the southern parts of the oz-blogosphere, boynton is enjoying the stimulus of cold weather, when thoughts are crisp, brisk and cool-headed (but never foggy, bitter and misted), when to stay inside is logical and not a waste of sunshine, squandering valuable vitamin D. The summer reading lists travelling from the north are too light, we need less of the airport and more of the bunker, the remote antarctic base.
'I wonder if I shall fall right through the earth! [said Alice] How funny it'll seem to come out among the people that walk with their heads downwards! The Antipathies, I think -' Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland
Boynton notices the current ads for the popular Christmas in July packages (though she's not tempted to book for
this one)- which is one way to deal with an Antipodean complex. She wonders if the North is also trying a bit of seasonal inversion and sampling a christmassy cold meat and salad lunch in July, trying as boynton's family does in December, to add ceremony and cheer to a salad platter? Actually this is the first time in years that boynton hasn't done the January in July holiday. She normally enjoys the brisk bracing blast of Bass Strait along deserted beaches at this time of the year. She'll just have to curl up with a book and a glass of red in town this week, and maybe do the January in September instead.
Meanwhile some good wintery web reading is to be had here, at the new postings at
Ecotone,
How are we shaped and defined by the Place We Live,
and a personal best-of selection for June at
Rise.
Comments: antipodes
I only do January in January- the liver can only cope with so much...
Posted by Scott Wickstein at July 3, 2003 01:27 AM
just as long as Cup Day stays put. One can only have so much fizz.
Posted by boynton at July 3, 2003 11:58 AM
