Metadata Now

Now New Jersey as an Impossible Object has some metadata, although, since this blog is probably a kind of metadata itself, then . . . so . . . there is no data. (How do you say that in French?) That would imply an informational core that even the Falls of Williams does not really provide. Probably the only reason I didn't add these tags so far is that, since Blogger calls them "labels," they were invisible to me (compare the annoying way that Apple insists on using the confusing and vaguely patronizing command "Share" rather than the less value-laden "Export.") I probably have to comb through these one more time, as I did them today in a fairly casual manner while procrastinating from other more official demands on my time. As with any index, it's the concepts that tend to be hard to organize; while "no ideas but in things" was pretty easy to trainspot, there are other concepts and themes I'd like to map out. The proper name is, of course, the easiest way through, and I try to avoid indexing what is in truth only a dropped name, but the index is name-dropping elevated to a science, afterall, so I am not too hesitant to have Bob Fosse, Bunk Johnson and Lao Tzu vying for Marcia Nardi's attentions at this cocktail party of the mind. And the proper name is its own intoxicant. Since my geovistor's map is lighting up, I guess this deluge of proper names is triggering all manner of Google alerts, although I didn't think merely tagging would affect those. As our friends at for godot have so aptly illustrated with their Issue 1 publication, the name is a strange attractor in the chaotic system we call "poetry." Or, if there are any Sokals out there ready to pounce on my physics metaphor, let's just say simply that the name is driftwood, clung to in a data tsunami. Or if there is anyone who sniffs at such a pedestrian metaphor, we can say that the name names the name naming name, namely "name" named "Name."