Welcome to The Yellow Shirt

Hello, and welcome.

At the outset, I offer you this continuum of modern life:

Consumer: Watches, rents, buys, channel surfs, web surfs. Information is consumed, judged on the basis of a) I like it or b) I do not like it and is shortly thereafter discarded altogether. Information is not processed. The consumer is your average 21^st century target marketing audience: a mental sheep.

Critic: A consumer with an interest in the structure of things. Consumes, but has an understanding of what he consumes and why. Interested in how and why things (things = tv show, newspaper comic, movie, cereal box, car bumper, etc.) are built. Has an opinion on just about everything.

Producer: Makes things. Writes the tv show, draws the comic, directs the movie, plans the cereal box, drafts the car bumper. Enjoys the blind adoration of the consumer, risks the interrogative wrath of the critic. Most importantly, creates something new, whether it’s the Great American Novel or a humorous e-mail to a friend.

Quite simply, this blog* is an effort to shift my relationship with the world towards “producer” and away from “consumer.” As a graduate student, I have a fair amount of free time on my hands, and I’ve found lately that I’m doing a lot more consuming and criticizing than I am creating.

As such, I offer you this: My thoughts. Yes, this doesn’t promise much in the way of distinction from every other freaking blog out there except the “my” part, which is what I’m counting on. My thoughts. And at the end of the day, there are worse things that I could be doing with my time than writing, even if nobody’s watching.

Some lofty goals:

1. I will write at least once a week.

2. I will try to remember that brevity is wit.

3. I will not set any other lofty goals, lest I shoot for the moon and hit the ceiling. Baby steps to the door.

Likely topics:

Hell, I don’t know. Whatever comes to mind. I do intend to include recommendations on things that I have consumed and enjoyed from a critical standpoint: music, movies, books, breakfast cereals, etc.

Other explanations:

I have chosen "The Yellow Shirt" in an effort to keep it simple. I was going to dig up some cool latin phrase or obscure historical reference, but there is a fine line between educated and pretentious. I wear a lot of yellow, mostly in shirt-form. It’s a small wardrobe-based philosophical statement. A simple reminder to myself that a moment of sun is good, no matter what. Some days a yellow shirt reflects where I am, other days it's where I wish I could get back to . Bottom line, though, it’s just a title, not an all-encompassing statement of belief, so don’t read too much into it.

I have chosen this font because it is familiar and because of the seven fonts from which I could have chosen, none defines me as a person. If such a font exists, I'm in big trouble.

I have chosen this aesthetically pleasing template for similar reasons.

And you have chosen to read this far. Thanks for that. More to come, within a week.

-Tyler

*Regarding the word "blog": I don't like it. I understand where it came from, but it's a goofy word, and not goofy in a good way like "noodle" or "spaz" or "adobe." I'm working on a substitute. Online Journal? Too clunky, too boring. Brain Postings? Too clinical. Personal perspectives? Sounds like a self-help book. Web Log? That’s about right, but if we could just shorten it to something catchier than that…