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Hello Everybody!

So, it’s been one year since I started posting on this blog, and it’s been a blast, but now is a good time for a change. Here’s the deal:

A few things occurred to me a couple months ago.

First, there are several themes and principles that underlie my writing here which are largely assumed and have not been explored in a lot of depth in this forum.

Second, this makes sense, because it has always been my effort to stick to short, provocative pieces here (around 600 words is my goal, although I go under and over).

And, third, even at only (roughly) 600 words an article, 52 posts means a lot of words (31,200 to be exact).

With these three things in mind, I’ve decided to write a book.

The aim of the book is largely the same as the aim of the blog has been: to take pop-cultural artifacts seriously as works of art, with the understanding that art is for everyone, and so is understanding it.

The difference is that the book will be intended as a kind of primer; a suggestion of a place to start in thinking about art in general and how to apply that thinking to pop-culture. I’ll have time to look more deeply at the thinking that has come before, more time to lay out principles and ideas in more detail, etc.

So, where does the blog come in?

I’ll still be making posts every week. But, instead of weekly articles, they’ll be weekly updates about the progress of the book (notice the title of this post). This might be showing y’all a draft or some part of a chapter, it might be showing you the current outline and how I intend to structure the thing, and it might mean talking about what research and reading I’ve been doing and how I think it’s relevant. I’ll still try to be funny and insightful (like I’ve been trying so far) but it will be more like a public journal.

The posting schedule remains the same (articles and updates released on Mondays). My desire for feedback and conversation also remains the same. I’d love to hear your suggestions, comments, critiques, etc. Keep me on task and help me write this thing, people!

I’ve started taking notes, working on the bibliography, and I’ve got 30,000 some words of raw material to work with. I want to hit the ground running, and I hope you’ll join me.

© 2014 John Hiner III