Wednesday, June 11, 2003

MetaMeme List

meme n (mëm): A unit of cultural information, such as a cultural practice or idea, that is transmitted verbally or by repeated action from one mind to another. From the Greek mimëma, something imitated, from mimeisthai, to imitate.

Looking for a Wednesday blog meme (in blogging, a meme is an idea which is presented or based in one blog but carried along and reacted to in many others) I stumbled across The Meme List at I Am Pariah. Pariah has scoured the bloggiverse and come back with a growing list of over fifty weekday Q and A memes, at least three for every day of the week. They don't list Monday Mosh yet, but I have submitted it; we'll see if Pariah accepts a meme with no home site and a question that doesn't change over time, like most memequestions do.

For now, here's one of the Wednesday memes I like -- it's called What's On ______ Right Now?. Each week it asks us to muse about what's "on" something; this week it asks:

What's on your TV/entertainment center right now?

The answer, of course, is it depends what you mean by "on".

The components are "on" the center, of course: VCR, broken DVD player, radio/amp, CD player, and television each have a shelf. Side shelves hold mismatched CDs and jewel cases, blank VHS tapes ready for the Fall sitcom season, a few notebooks, the best of the vinyl. The top shelf of the black, angular corner-based mediastation flanks Boston speakers against a decent turntable.

But there are also those things "on" this infrastructure, too. The turntable serves more often as a base for a black lamp that didn't fit anywhere else but is never used, the speakers are adorned with Willow Tree figurines of anonymous fathers and mothers and their porcelain children, and a gilt mask Darcie's sister brought back from Italy shines under the brim of the lamp.

And then there's "on" as opposed to "turned off." Of these objects and components, some are still "on" in the sense that they are plugged in, powered up, ready to go. The CD player's actually going; it's muted, but it's on and spinning disks. I think it's still playing The Waifs, so technically, they're on, too.

And Darcie's on the couch watching movies; The Big Kahuna's on. So the TV is on, and the VCR, too. Danny DeVito's on right now, and Kevin Spacey, on bar stools in a hotel bar, waiting on a client. There's a smile on Spacey's face; I can see it, because my eyes are on the screen, there in the corner on the tv/entertainment center.

posted by boyhowdy | 8:13 PM |

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