Give it up, Sub-Subs! For by how much the more pains ye take to please the world, by so much the more shall ye for ever go thankless!

Call me Grimm. Some years ago - never mind how long precisely - having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me abroad, I thought I would sit quietly in the corner of my room and type a little blog.  The blog would primarily revolve around books, though I would also sometimes write about film, music, visual art, and current events.  If a blog has to serve a purpose, then this one would be about my attempt to understand the world through the narrow lens of art and art through my even narrower lens on the world.  

Yes, approaching the world this way is absurd.  In the often over-looked prefatory section of Moby Dick, Melville has a good laugh at the expense of a "poor devil of a Sub-Sub" who approaches the vastness of the Whale through snippets of musty books.  (Ha, ha, Herman... you're hilarious.)  Thinking about Heman's little joke and about the thousands of literary blogs that are already online discouraged me for a few years.

Since the blogging urge first tugged at my sleeve, though, I have found myself leading a life that fed my body, but not my mind or soul.  My friends and family have kept me sane, but part of me has missed the deep engagement that I used to feel in university when reading books, watching movies, and listening to music.  We Sub-Subs are not a "hopeless, sallow tribe which no wine of this world will ever warm".  

If anyone does read this blog, I uneasily hope they will take some pleasure from it.  In my next entries, I'll probably begin with a brief entry on hip hop and sizzurp, followed by a look at the novel that I'm current reading, Stephen King's The Stand.

Yep, Herman, I'm expecting to go thankless for a long, long time...