when i started annotating, i kept comparing this essay to that one we read in block 3 where i said it felt like the author was using her personal experiences as a tool or an object devoid from her identity as the author (i don't remember which, it was either the one by didion or "ecstasy")

when i first read this, my first reaction was "wow this is shockingly visceral" - i suppose it could be a way to counterbalance the effects of the form and the number data - this intensely visual language is an excellent way of reaching right past that distance right into ourselves - so even if the feelings described aren't cognitively felt, they're emotionally felt, which creates this really weird contrast in feeling emotionally towards something that keeps a distance in some way - possibly ticks off the box on the checklist for "maintains a contradiction?"

personal voice shows through deliberate shifts in formality - essay maintains more sophisticated grammar and also contrasts the formality in vocabular (e.g. "not aesthetically pleasing" and "rendered inoperable" vs "use his slop")

omg a list - straight back to block 3's checklist - i really wasn't expecting this aspect to get ticked off, but hey

the essay has so many numbers and data points - compared to other details, which use evocative language and are representations of the author's subjective experiences (e.g. "the wrapper picked clean of caramel pus" or "dumped ketchup on his popcorn moon"), the number details enforce the concept of distance -- (so this kind of concreteness creates distance rather than drawing the reader closer like we've seen in other essays?)

actually feels more authentic in a way than the personal pronoun "I," which to me always stings slightly of fakeness (unless the essay compensates for authenticity in otherwise) because "I" usually promises a glimpse into the author's mind and greater authenticity, but since the essay must be edited and polished, it's not a thing of the present but rather a display --> which is why this illeism feels more true because it acknowledges the act of display

the form removes the natural closeness we feel to the author - the vast majority of the essay is written in the third person, and while normally when we read a standard essay we can remember the author's presence through the existence of the words in paragraphs on the page, here the essay's shape as a product listing encourages us to forget that the author wrote these words in the first place

essay's on himself

annotating on formal features (compiled from block 4's bookmark and block 3's interview checklist)