Ian Thal, click
here to update your pages on AuthorsDen!
Blogs by Ian Thal
On Groupies and Bloggers: Part II: The Blogger 10/27/2003 6:52:11 AM
How the public perceives artists. Most of the quotes come from a public blogsite that has since been deleted. Those quotes that are not my own are used as sparingly as possible and only for journalistic purposes.
While researching the background of my groupie, I discovered a blog entitled “Wicked Pissah.” Despite the fact that the title is a New England regionalism (I have been told that it either originates in the Massachusetts suburbs, South Boston, or rural Maine) the author, a woman named Elizabeth, is a recent transplant to the region, having just moved up from Georgia. “Wicked Pissah” was mostly about Elizabeth’s love/hate relationship with food, her disgust at other people’s fashion faux pas, how she had the best boyfriend in the world who was very good at telling her that she did not look too masculine in her clothing, and an occasional dream diary. Essentially it was the work of the sort of person I label as a “mundane.” Mundanes are boring and unimaginative, they do not control the world but the world is structured around their unimaginative and formulaic lives which some will viciously defend against anything they view as strange.
“Wicked” Elizabeth “Pissah” had found a flyer for the October 12th show that I was doing with Puppet Master Jake and it caused her some offense. In her blog, she described me as a “doughy guy wearing what looks like a floppy jester's hat, posed in some idiotic mime fashion” and Jake was described as “equally displeasing personage with a puppet on his arm.” Then she added the non sequitur of “I'm not joking. The worst part is, they aren't either.”
With some sarcasm, I responded to her.
> You are correct, we were not joking. Jake and I performed
> as advertized.
> I am quite amazed that you are so easily shocked to
> discover the existence of mimes and puppeteers in your new
> town, a major metropolitan area and regional cultural
> center. I should also note that there are dancers,
> painters, sculptors, musicians, actors and jugglers.
> Speaking of which: is it not pretentious for such a recent
> transplant to use a New England regionalism like "Wicked
> Pissah"?
This aroused Elizabeth’s anger further. She called me an “ASSHOLE” (note the use of capslock) and added further non sequiturs as:
> Are you, perchance, involved in any roll [sic] playing
> games? If so, stay the hell away from my blog.”
> Please keep in mind that you are DISTRIBUTING these
> wretched fliers PUBLICALLY [sic], therefore subject to the
> ridicule that you so deserve.”
> If you think I'M pretentious, you can take your stupid
> jester hat and shove it up your ass.”
Of course, I posted a reply:
> a.) I'm not involved with any role [as in persona] playing
> games. My literary, theatrical, and choreographic output
> precludes such entertainments.
> b.) The hat in question is a Northern Renaissance hat. You
> will oft see similar hats worn in paintings by any of the
> Dutch and Flemish masters. A "jester's hat" is more
> properly called "a motley" and is generally made of many
> oft mismatched (motley) colors and has horns and bells.
> c.) Shocking as it might be to you, performers often wear
> costumes, and we pose for photographs in ways that are
> appropriate to our given artforms. This is not pretentious
> as it is designed to give the potential audience a hint at
> what they might see should they attend the show.
> d.) Yes, my publicity was distributed to the public as is
> your blog, which is also subject to any ridicule it may
> deserve.
> Best regards,
> Ian
Elizabeth had very little to say in response on her blog page. I had rested my case. Others began to post their own opinions. However, Elizabeth then emailed me privately, called me “pathetic” and told me that she had “about four readers [...] in Georgia laughing at [me]”
I told her that the ridicule I had received was “inane, superficial, and uncultured” and only interested me in that I did not customarily deal with people like her. She didn’t write back.
After I returned from work the following day, I discovered that “Wicked” Elizabeth “Pissah” had deleted her site. I presume that she realized that she had multiplied her readership by many fold by attacking me, and that people all over the English speaking world were making fun of her. Mundanes hate that.
