Creek Running North

Hey, the_bone?  I like “Vaya con nada,” but you could also probably safely tell Chris to “Vaya con perros,” or at least, for now, “con perro.”

Beautiful dog.

I’ve had the thought that blogs are “over.”

It’s a question worth posing on every blog:

What has all the good writing, the confirmation that there is really Someone Intelligent and Caring out there, actually accomplished—besides making us feel a little better for a few minutes?

Be honest about that. Even with the really big-time blogs. What real, solid gains—for people other than the big bloggers themselves, who enjoy a quasi-celebrity and a quasi-legitimacy—have been made because of blogs?

I’m not posing the question to put this blog down. It’s thoughtful, it’s well-written. But Chris himself mentions doubt about the real utility of blogs among his reasons to go on hiatus.

I think it’s a doubt worth addressing.

What is this medium for, exactly?

wapsie, my immediate response; on blogs like this, there is writing (essays, poetry) that very few of us would have seen otherwise, and which some of us will treasure for a long time. That in itself would justify their existence to me.

Apart from that - sharing perspectives and information that would otherwise also be hard to come by. With judicious filtering, blogs are an excellent complement to one’s news+opinion intake.

So I think the solid gains are to individuals, not so much to some Grand Cause, although Daily Kos readers would argue with that, I’m sure.

I’ll leave the question of “community” to someone else, as I am at heart a misanthrope, and would never join any community that would have me.

Sorry, but the wapsie’s question feels to me like asking why there’s art and literature at all.  Good heavens, what good do all these paintings and books serve?

The work exists, and people read it.  People learn, think, grow, feel, and make their own stuff, which other people experience and then learn, think, grow, feel, etc.  This process is one of the better parts of being human.

When we are lucky, celebrity and “legitimacy” pay the light bill.  That’s not why to blog, though, just like it’s not why to paint or write a novel.  We do these things ultimately because we have to, it’s a drive, an itch we’ve got to scratch.  The effect, if any, is mostly out of our hands.

Meanwhile, writers have enough voices in their heads and in their lives telling them why not to write, telling them not to waste their time on such a frivolous pursuit.  And here we are in a new medium, a place where anybody can write, can develop a voice, maybe even develop a conversation with other people, and here we have even more people asking us to consider why we do it and implying the question of whether there isn’t something more useful we can be doing with our time.  Nice.

Every artist figures out his own drive.  Some people do need applause, or at least the attention of an audience.  Some of us would still do it even if we each thought ourself the only person alive still using words or imagining images slightly different from reality.  It does not mean anything for the rest of us.  What you make that you share means something, but you cannot determine that any more than we can determine why you should choose to make it.  Your drive is your own, and no one should attempt to set policy for other people’s.

At least, that’s what I think.  For what it’s worth.

Peace to you and Zeke.  Thanks for all of your wonderful writing.

Kimberly

“What is this medium for, exactly?”

Does it have to be for anything?  Does any outlet of expression have a defined or singular purpose? (Beside televangelism or hate radio, I mean - purpose clearly being to enrich blowhard fuckwads by spewing vile BS to the clueless.)

The creative human mind has an innate need for expression, and to choose to broadcast the fruits of creation, via any medium, can provide satisfaction and release for the fermenters-of-thoughts, and delight to the appreciative recipients.  Perhaps some social movements can be furthered by particularly convincing or moving expressions - perhaps not - even without such results, there is communication and art, even, and so much the better.  Even a solitary curmudgeon like Rousseau needed to be heard, and so influenced the course of human thought down to this day.  Even if no lasting philosophical truths emerge from blog-culture, some of us will have been inspired, in ways perhaps not so different from more traditional sources of inspiration, but perhaps with more immediacy and opportunities for feedback.  It is this last that seemingly leads to imbroglio and teapot-tempestry - and it is not in the nature of many to stay above the fray, despite best intentions. The blessing and the curse of bloggery, one might say.  To hold forth, to be heard, to be misunderstood, misunderestimated, misquoted, to be celebrated and to be reviled - these are the beauties and the burdens of free expression - long may it live!

“Man is born free and everywhere he is in chains.�

“Insults are the arguments employed by those who are in the wrong.�

“I may not be better than other people, but at least I’m different.â€?

The only reason i blog (and i do so in a very quiet sphere with no comments or much attention at all) is simply because it provides me a structured forum to say things i think of saying in those moments.  I have no desire for it to be read or discussed or dispersed; indeed it has seriously pissed off people of a certain libertarian persuasion.  Be that as it may, i greatly appreciate the process and application.  It is also great for National Novel Writing Month, that just started yesterday…

Now, as for what greater good blogs can do.  I am a daily reader and contributing commentor to Horse’s Ass.  David Goldstein has created a blogsphere that provides a direct interactive forum for political discourse (in the moment) in the State of Washington.  His blog is open to some of the craziest wingnuttiest commentary imagineable, which, unlike so many other spaces, is allowed to flourish amidst more serious and relevant commentary.  Because the far right gets to share, the moderates of both also feel welcome, as do we of the radical anarchic left.  Just this election cycle, Horse’s Ass directly raised several thousands of dollars for progressive and liberal candidates to use in close elections in the state.  This money enabled Democratic candidates to close in and draw even with GOP ones who were considered shoe-ins a few months ago.  Did this make a difference? Absolutely!

I can’t improve on Sara’s response to wapsie’s question. To me, blogging makes a great deal more sense than what I used to do, which was compete to get published in any array of small, high-brow literary magazines with very few readers. Through blogging, I’ve been able to connect with a larger audience of mostly non-academic people, and that, for a poet at least, is more than enough.

good dog…

Why blog?
Why Shakespeare?
Why share human experience?
Why indeed.
For the sake of humanity. 
You see, Chris, for some of us, you express our world. 
We, after all, are not alone. 
Proof, others experience life as deeply as life deserves to be experienced.
You are not “just any� blog.

March 3, 1879.--…�All forces and all principles are brought into action at once in this world. The result is, on the whole, good. But the struggle itself is hateful because it dislocates truth and shows us nothing but error pitted against error, party against party; that is to say, mere halves and fragments of being--monsters against monsters. A nature in love with beauty cannot reconcile itself to the sight; it longs for harmony, for something else than perpetual dissonance. The common condition of human society must indeed be accepted; tumult, hatred, fraud, crime, the ferocity of self-interest, the tenacity of prejudice, are perennial; but the philosopher sighs over it; his heart is not in it; his ambition is to see human history from a height; his ear is set to catch the music of the eternal spheres.� (Amiel’s Journal)

Chris,

Chris, you owe your anonymous readers nothing.  What this journal has cost you to write is obvious to any sentient observer.  None of your readers has the right to urge you to continue opening your veins and pouring your spirit onto these pages for the pleasure you, a thinking and feeling man, have given us. I do thank you, though, for your generosity. 

From childhood to my present age of seventy, I’ve been partial to Lake Michigan and Lake Superior, to swamps and marshes, to hardwood forests and water, rather than the dry lands you love.  In contrast to your feeling for Joshua trees, I love the skunk cabbage and wintergreen that grow by springs flowing out the side of a northern hill, oak trees of all species, tamarack trees, and the birches and dogwoods that grew in groves where I grew up. (Skunk cabbage sprouts and blooms in the snow and generates its own heat.) I love to paddle a canoe up the creek that feeds a lake and pick watercress for supper.  When I was a child, you could see in the tall grass the footprint of a log cabin that had long since melted into the soil, because the long-ago builders had brought roses and iris and myrtle that still surrounded the place their house had occupied.

You have made me think new thoughts about the desert, though. One might be partial, you have taught me, to both tamarack swamps and arid mountains.  I have loved hearing word and seeing photographs of your dry-land garden of native plants; of Becky and Zeke; of your hikes and your unforgotten beloved and your mighty destruction of old concrete.  You have made me care about a landscape foreign to me because you particularized it and enabled me to travel with you.

What is this blog medium for, one of your readers asks.  One thing it has been for, without your personally intending such a result, something that matters deeply to me, is the education of my soul.  As a naturalist and a land-lover and a caretaker, you have won me over to a larger responsibility than I had before I read your passionate words.  Your journal has entertained me, but it has meant more to me than just a pleasant pastime.  People take what they may from your work, and some of us you have subtly changed.  Thank you for that.

Thank you, too, for telling me about your friend and companion on the trail into the Grand Canyon, as I recall, after her hip replacement.  Thoughts of her and you gave me courage the past two months, as I recovered from an excruciating knee implant.  Although I doubt I’ll ever descend the cliffs of the Grand Canyon, I can walk a mile in the park now.

All good wishes to you, wherever you go and whatever you choose to do, from Jane Thomas.

Chris, thank you thank you thank you.

And hugs to Zeke, again.

After reading wapsie’s question I had many of the same thoughts as Sara, Fred and Jane.  I’m not as eloquent as they are, however. 

Whether blogs are on their way “out” I can’t say.  I’m not cool enough to know anything about trends of any kind.  Any medium of expression has its life cycle, I suppose. 

spyder hits on something that’s close to what I was thinking.  The unique thing about blogs is the commentary, the exchange of views.  Much more often than not I’m enriched or engaged (or both, and sometimes enraged) by reading the comments.  After reading writing that affected me in some way I enjoy finding out something about how it affected others.  spyder, for instance, regularly posts comments that prompt me to think about what I’ve just read in a different way.  Many others here do the same and I really like that.

So that’s my 2 cent answer to wapsie’s question.

I’ll look forward to your return.

More attention for Becky and Zeke is worth 10,000 unwritten posts.

tangents anyone??  sara concluded with: For what it’s worth. Well forty years ago those words meant:

There’s battle lines being drawn
Nobody’s right if everybody’s wrong
Young people speaking their minds
Getting so much resistance from behind

I think it’s time we
stop, hey, what’s that sound
Everybody look what’s going down

Paranoia strikes deep
Into your life it will creep
It starts when you’re always afraid
You step out of line,
the man come and take you away

We better stop, hey, what’s that sound
Everybody look what’s going down
Stop, hey, what’s that sound
Everybody look what’s going down

I still don’t trust most people over 30.

I still don’t trust most people over 30

I give over-30s the benefit of the doubt if they’re not wearing a suit, or if wearing one, look as though they’d rather not be. A trite and possibly unfair rule, but one that has largely served me well.

To answer the “Why Blog?” question first: because with blogging, the means of production are in the hands of the writer...no middleman! In all art, this is the OPTIMUM. The artist is free to do whatever he wants, and the people who appreciate it get to give their $ straight to the artist.

It’s like having your own magazine!

Take Luck, Chris, and we will enjoy you later when you feel like writing again.

(What do you mean by “politics without cause”? Do you think the current administration isn’t evil enough to object to?)

Happy winter break, friend.  May this be a time of regeneration and warmth for you.

per blogging: obviously, I’m still for it.  i think that blogs won’t, of themselves, “split the world open,” (nothing does, of -itself-) but they may cause some individuals to do so (in a good way, I mean), and that’s enough of itself.  i have found the exercise tremendously valuable in many ways; i have made friends, (online and off) learned one hell of a lot, laughed, cried, hurled...you know.  and gotten quite a bit of writing done myself.

that said, burnout is burnout, and one needs to honor it.  and it must be said that while there are many treasures to be found online, there’s also just an awful lot of shit to wade through, inevitably; occasionally one simply needs to rinse off.

there’s probably also something to be said for biting the bullet and writing (and publishing) the book; maybe i’ll finally learn that lesson one of these days as well.

I can’t speak for CC, but given the context, I’m gonna tentatively interpret “politics without cause” as “picking one’s battles, not getting caught up in needless drama.”

which is a fine idea, yes.

I’ve been blogging for a decade so I have some historical perspective, which I wrote about here:
http://tommangan.net/twoheeldrive/archives/2006_11.html#003202

What is this medium for, exactly?

I understand the sense of futility, and I have only one example of blogs “accomplishing anything” in the real world (and I’ll set aside my issues with that term for now).  As most of what I want to mention occurred via a since-deleted blog I’ll have to rely more on memory than I would like to, but:

In early January 2005, Democracy for Virginia reported that a bill was being introduced in the Virginia State Legislature that would criminalize as a Class I misdemeanor failure to report “fetal death,” including miscarriages, to state authorities within 12 hours.

You can imagine all the horrible implications of such a law, and I probably don’t need to mention that the state delegator who sponsored HB1677 was a Republican.  That isn’t what interested me about this. 

What interested me was that the post was picked up by infertility blogger Getupgrrl at Chez Miscarriage (now sadly offline), and simply by presenting the bill not as a pro-choice/pro-life issue (which is how I suspect Representative Cosgrove had hoped it would be portrayed), but as a vicious kick in the gut to infertile women in Virginia, she was able to mobilize hundreds of women to write letters and send emails in protest of the proposed measure, and those women included pro-life Republicans.  In fact, as I recall it, her first three or four commenters were women who announced themselves with disclaimers like, “Hi Getupgrrl, delurking to tell you that as a staunch Republican I am outraged by this bill and am sending a letter . . .” etc.

That’s simply impossible to imagine happening, that kind of unity, if someone from Feministing had written about it.  But these women identified with Getupgrrl personally, beyond their political differences, and so they were willing to listen (or read, rather), without the knee-jerk reactions, without the automatic defensiveness, without going “but what about the bayyyyy-by?”

So I saw something happen just because a woman who’d acquired a sizeable enough readership to do something, urged people to do something, and they did it.  The bill was withdrawn.

Getupgrrl wasn’t an overtly political blogger.  She never wrote about Bush or elections that I can recall.  But she was always pro-woman, and she always found ways to get across that the personal is political, even to those who’d normally resist that idea.  This was just the best example of her doing that that I can remember.

Blogs can help accomplish change, I believe.  But there’s an awful lot of drama and minutiae to avoid to do that, and just personally I suck at avoiding drama and minutiae.  Normally I wallow in it.

Isn’t it obvious what they’re good for? I’m in it for the money. And the groupies. And the awe-struck look of respect and amazement when someone asks what you do, and you proudly reply, “I’m a blogger.” I screwed up and failed to capitalize on that decade when any no-talent hack could learn three chords, grow his hair down to his ass, and become a rock star, so I jumped avidly on this new, glorious opportunity to win fame and love and riches without actually having to do anything.

OK, I probably lied a little bit in that last comment.

Good “fishin’” to you “guys”!
Glad you’re “back”, but also that you take time off for your “people”!
Most probably will be here when you decide to return, but have/spend some good time with your “people”!

I’ll see you in the new year…