On Saturday morning, some friends and I attended a reading by Iris Chang on the occasion of her new book The Chinese in America [booksense,
amazon, LC,
BPL]. The event
turned out to be substantially more than and different from the book readings
I've been used to attending at Cody's Books
(one of the co-sponsors).

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Quite a few years ago, my former housemate Ken referred me to a wonderful line from Umberto Eco's Name of the Rose: "The list could surely go on, and there is nothing more wonderful than a list, instrument of wonderful hypotyposis." Ken knew how much I love lists.

Since that day, I've wanted to use the word hypotyposis in some appropriate context. I've toyed with using the term in the name of my website but have hesitated -- largely because it sets the expectations too high. For how will I consistently provide "lively description[s] of an action, event, person, condition, passion, etc. used for creating the illusion of reality?" (following one particular definition of hypotyposis)

So to manage expectations and to use that lovely word, I've chosen to temporarily christen my personal weblog "Hypotyposis on a Good Day" I suspect that I'll change my name quickly enough since it's going to be darn difficult to remember, not to mention a bit stuffy.

Well, here I am, writing my first entry at my new personal blog. It's going to take a while for me to get used to this new system, to figure out what I can do easily and what I can't. Can I link back to my professional blog? Yes, I think I can...OK, now can I publish it?
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