I’ve got friends, status, money, health
I’m popular, good-looking
There must be something else
There must be something else
[NOTE: Today's 2 or 3 lines features the second part of our groundbreaking interview with . . . 2 or 3 lines! Just click here if you missed part one.]
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2 or 3 lines: You’ve reached an important milestone. Ten years is a long time to keep a blog going.
2 or 3 lines: Truer words were never spoken.
Q: Do you plan to keep going? Will 2 or 3 lines be around for another ten years?
A: If I live that long.
Q: [Knocks on wood.] So no thoughts of pulling the plug?
A: I might have done that after the first year. But the longer I go with 2 or 3 lines, the less likely I am to pull the plug.
A: Pulling the plug would take a lot of pressure off me – which may sound silly, because that pressure is 100% self-imposed.
Q: So why not do it?
A: I’m still hoping that 2 or 3 lines will become something better than what is currently is. Did you take Latin in high school?
Q: I did – but that was a long time ago.
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2 or 3 lines: It’s clear that 2 or 3 lines is very important to you. Can you articulate why that is?
2 or 3 lines: One reason that I write 2 or 3 lines is that I feel a need to explain myself to the world – to communicate who and what I am. I recently came across a quote from a Swedish academic named Jenny Sunden that may explain the motivation for 2 or 3 lines as well as anything: “In order to exist online, we must write ourselves into being.” That’s what I’m trying to do with 2 or 3 lines – I’m writing myself into being, and sharing that being with my readers . . . especially my children and my grandchildren (when they’re old enough to read).
Q: Do you see 2 or 3 lines as a kind of legacy?
A: I suppose 2 or 3 lines is a legacy in the sense that it’s something tangible I’m leaving behind, but it’s of more than casual interest to only a very small number of people. The fact that people worry about their legacy proves how vain we are.
Q: Speaking of being vain, do you think it’s at all vain to have yourself conduct a lengthy interview with yourself about yourself?
A: I’ll ignore your interruption and continue with my response to your question about whether I see 2 or 3 lines as my legacy. I’ve come to terms with the fact that no one will remember what I accomplished as a lawyer, and that I haven’t written a great novel or created some other memorable work of art – but the vast majority of lawyers and novelists and artists will be forgotten relatively quickly after they die. The most meaningful legacy I will be leaving behind isn't 2 or 3 lines. It's my children, and my grandchildren, and so on. A lot of what I write is intended to enable them to know me better.
Q: You once paraphrased the famous Louis XIV quote, “L’état, c’est moi” – which can be translated as “The nation is me” – as “Le 2 or 3 lines, c’est moi.” That statement can be read in two different ways. Maybe you’re simply saying that 2 or 3 lines is wholly your creation – that you’re the chicken and that 2 or 3 lines is your egg. Or maybe you’re saying that you are what 2 or 3 lines says you are. Which is it?
Q: Was what you wrote about your hot (age-adjusted) French girlfriend the truth? Did she really exist?
A: Absolutely!
Q: We haven’t heard anything about her in a long time – just sayin’.
A: That’s because she’s now my hot (age-adjusted) French ex-girlfriend.
Q: I’m sorry to hear that.
A: Not half as sorry as I am.
* * * * *
2 or 3 lines: Let’s shift gears and discuss today’s featured song. It is well-known that you love irony, and I’m smelling more than a whiff of irony in the lines from today’s featured song that are quoted at the beginning of this post.
2 or 3 lines: I can’t deny it – I am one ironic son of a b*tch.
Q: Is the singer of “The Problem Is Me” being ironic?
A: You bet your *ss she is. She doesn’t really believe the problem is her – she believes someone else is at fault. After all, she’s popular and good-looking, she has money, status, etc. – how can she possibly be the problem?
Q. Good question.
A: But the real irony here is that the singer really is the problem. There’s a type of irony called dramatic irony, which is when a character in a play or a movie says something that he or she believes is true, but which the audience knows is false. Here we have an ironic variation on dramatic irony: the singer intends her words to be ironic, but we know that what she is saying is actually true.
[NOTE: Here endeth part two of the 2 or 3 lines interview of 2 or 3 lines. Click here to read part three of the interview.]
[NOTE: Here endeth part two of the 2 or 3 lines interview of 2 or 3 lines. Click here to read part three of the interview.]
* * * * *
Click here to listen to “The Problem Is Me,” which was released in 1982 on Tru Fax and the Insaniacs’ first and only (to date) album, Mental Decay:
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