Crunchy Sweet

Because 1.) dissertation jokes are funnier to me these days than they will ever again be for the rest of my life and because 2.) I had a floaty-full bowl of whole grain Cheerios for lunch today, check this from McSweeney’s, “From My Unfinished Doctoral Dissertation on Breakfast Cereals,” by Dave Frye:

In Linnaeus’s rudimentary typology, all cereals were divided into two broad categories: those that float and spill all over the place when you pour the milk in and those that sink and harden into something like cement if you forget to rinse the bowl. Linnaeus’s work was greeted with broad enthusiasm in the 18th century, particularly in England, where Dr. Johnson adjudged his work “crunchy sweet,” and Gibbon was inspired to begin work on his magisterial Sinking and Floating of the Roman Empire.

Plus, who doesn’t feel overjoyed at the prospect of reading from an unfinished dissertation?

Network Typology

There are other typologies. There will be more. I may have
glanced a few of them casually (i.e., lightly & forgetfully), but I have not
gathered them together as part of any concentrated, focused effort or project. What I am trying to work through here is hit and miss. I think
hit
more than
miss
; if you think miss more than hit, tell me why, will you?

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Barthes – Rhetoric of the Image (1964)

In the advertising image, nice bright colors–a net-sack of Panzani pasta and
assorted spaghettimakers including vegetables, fresh and plenty.
Though non-linear, many of the signs accord with a variety of "euphoric values,"
says Barthes: domestic preparation, freshness, an unpacking, the casual
market-knowledge of slow foods of a pre-mechanical pace (no need for
preservation, refrigeration). Also, in the coordination of colors and types,
Barthes suggests second meaning–Italianicity or a gathering of things
Italian, much of this "based on a familiarity with certain tourist stereotypes"
(34).  Each of these meanings match with distinctive kinds of knowledge.

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