BnV???

So, here we are, post number two already and you’ve come back for more.  More, in spite of the askance glances you may have received or the incredulous responses to your description of your initial experience here to your friends or colleagues or strangers on undergrounds and, yes, perhaps, even against your better judgment.  Yet regardless of your reason(s)… Welcome back intrepid voyager!  And while I cannot offer you a tiny cup of refreshment or a miniscule packet of peanuts to fortify you on your journey, I might just be able to offer a few potential explanations as to why you may be here.

Morbid Curiosity?  A Predilection for the Bizarre?  Sheer Insanity?  Or maybe….just maybe….although you can’t positively say why, you actually enjoyed that preliminary assay into The Book and Volume of this Distracted Globe.  If any of these are the case (and even if they aren’t), let’s get down to it, shall we?  The Book and Volume of this Distracted Globe, Book and Volume, BnV…what does it all mean?  I’m sure you’d love to gain some insight, apparently, since you’re here again (a state of affairs about which I am over the moon, by the way), with that perplexed look on your face.  Lucky for you, I’d love to elucidate on that very topic.  (for clarity’s sake, the BnV topic, not the puzzlement on your face.  We’ll leave that for another post).

First and foremost there’s the obvious (and almost certainly not all that innovative) Hamlet reference (my absolute favourite Shakespeare play ever, of all time, always). For those of you unfamiliar with this marvelous tragedy: the following is Hamlet speaking about his Father, now a ghost, who only just told his horrified son about his foul and most unnatural murder…  (Go ahead, read it…I’ll explain, I promise!)

Ay, thou poor ghost, whilst memory holds a seat In this distracted globe. Remember thee?
Yea, from the table of my memory I’ll wipe away all trivial fond records…
…And thy commandment all alone shall live Within the book and volume of my brain,
Unmix’d with baser matter!

OK, so there you go…(although you had no idea you were going to read Shakespeare tonight and hopefully it wasn’t especially horrific or scarring for you.)  This Distracted Globe is, to put it bluntly, Hamlet’s skull and The Book and Volume is his mind and all that it contains.   So Yes, BnV- otherwise known as Book and Volume- is my brain, in all its splendid absurdity and eccentricity poured out for you…yes YOU…on the pages of this otherwise non-descript little blog.

I know…its positively intoxicating (or potentially terrifying), isn’t it?

Secondly, ( you forgot already, didn’t you, that I was talking about the blog and not the whirlings of my  mind) , BnV is a blog about nothing and everything, about the commonplace and the atypical; it’s a place where you may find poetry I’ve woven or tales I’ve spun;  it’s a place for me to share insights (or revelations, as I like to call them ) that I might have on any given day (which, with any luck, will hold some significance for you as well and not leave you sitting there wondering, yet again, what exactly it is that I’m blathering on about.)  Visiting BnV could also lead you to discover a new recipe I’ve created or could find you reading all about some character I’ve come across or created, or why I loved, hated or generally became nauseated by the latest flick I’ve seen or book I’ve read (although I am more often found writing my own rather than reading one by another). Potentially, you could also find yourself looking at a pictorial review of my day, should I have the most inconceivable impediment imaginable and find myself without anything to say (which, if you know me at all or even if you are just getting to know me is something you must be quite certain never happens).

So, BnV?  Yes.  And now you know why….or why not.