My dear David, I hope your excellent sense of humour is intact, because of all the comments which this enigmatic quotation could have elicited, “exactly” would seem to beg the question, and “well said” to laud the adroitness of its evasion. That said, I give thanks for not one but two gifts of advice, whether or not they mean the same thing, apart from meaning well.
I can’t begin to guess what blogging for oneself would be like; I only thank my lucky stars that its two leading exponents (to my hearing) not only blog radiantly for the public, but with apparent inexhaustibility (allowing for the odd 90-day gap, here and there, in the caring and feeding of readership, by one of them).
They also have ‘this’ in common - they think of their blogs as disposal bags for a life surfeited by accomplishment and activity, while I think of mine as a syncretic kind of gathering-in of little things worth understanding. I give you (obviously) the preceding posting, drawing together here a familiar cinematic experience, there a novelty in reading, a couple of pretty pictures, a spiffy little ballad, and countless flouted copyrights.
But underneath this debris, which my mentors so merrily and marvelously toss out (having created or lived theirs, or both, in the first place), I propose to find a nexus that makes minor but amusing critical sense. At least I don’t think audiences will ever see darling Natalie’s exuberant start of the death race in quite the same way again - or doubt the relevance of Homer.
In my limited experience, however, I'm not so sure that blogging can do more than win one predisposed converts to one's page, for pleasure. William Hazlitt's pleasure, Charles Lamb's, are what I think mine would be, if blogging were a proper medium for it. We shall see?
But I value your readership, and AIP's, and that of anyone, passing by; and I thank you for it, David.
Dear Laurent, yes my sense of humour is still quite intact!
When I began my ramblings on my Blog Savoir Faire, I only had one purpose and that was to blog for myself as, being the sloth that I am I saw that it was an easier way than the journal I had been keeping for years where I would write things down and paste pictures of magazines etc into which I would then make comments on. The internet and blogging opened up a whole new world of as you write "countless flouted copyrights"as essentially I am a visual being.
And yes it is now a stroke to one's ego to find out that people actually read the dribble that I write and post about, and like you I am eternally grateful for it. Maybe I am being validated by complete strangers!
Yes, I find that belief (if that is not too strong a term) in the validity of the work - both of our blogs are about reclamation or preservation, in a literal way - is not inadequate incentive, but that other considerations come into play. A fair test of the medium's effectiveness as well as one's own, is in its readership. Blogging is, as you say, a darn sight more effective than private journal-keeping, but when you look to your left (YHBHS) and your right (Terestchenko), you notice that their natural habitat of print publication is possibly also your own. Blogging may be a rough draft?
Take your excellent "sketches" of the Normandie and Molyneux. Presumably it would be possible to obtain passenger lists and client lists per annum, so that you could almost "color in" the seating chart at dinner.
What, by the way, is the matter with those people at Lanvin, that you should be without a bow tie?
Exactly, well said!
ReplyDeleteMy dear David, I hope your excellent sense of humour is intact, because of all the comments which this enigmatic quotation could have elicited, “exactly” would seem to beg the question, and “well said” to laud the adroitness of its evasion. That said, I give thanks for not one but two gifts of advice, whether or not they mean the same thing, apart from meaning well.
ReplyDeleteI can’t begin to guess what blogging for oneself would be like; I only thank my lucky stars that its two leading exponents (to my hearing) not only blog radiantly for the public, but with apparent inexhaustibility (allowing for the odd 90-day gap, here and there, in the caring and feeding of readership, by one of them).
They also have ‘this’ in common - they think of their blogs as disposal bags for a life surfeited by accomplishment and activity, while I think of mine as a syncretic kind of gathering-in of little things worth understanding. I give you (obviously) the preceding posting, drawing together here a familiar cinematic experience, there a novelty in reading, a couple of pretty pictures, a spiffy little ballad, and countless flouted copyrights.
But underneath this debris, which my mentors so merrily and marvelously toss out (having created or lived theirs, or both, in the first place), I propose to find a nexus that makes minor but amusing critical sense. At least I don’t think audiences will ever see darling Natalie’s exuberant start of the death race in quite the same way again - or doubt the relevance of Homer.
In my limited experience, however, I'm not so sure that blogging can do more than win one predisposed converts to one's page, for pleasure. William Hazlitt's pleasure, Charles Lamb's, are what I think mine would be, if blogging were a proper medium for it. We shall see?
But I value your readership, and AIP's, and that of anyone, passing by; and I thank you for it, David.
Dear Laurent, yes my sense of humour is still quite intact!
ReplyDeleteWhen I began my ramblings on my Blog Savoir Faire, I only had one purpose and that was to blog for myself as, being the sloth that I am I saw that it was an easier way than the journal I had been keeping for years where I would write things down and paste pictures of magazines etc into which I would then make comments on. The internet and blogging opened up a whole new world of as you write "countless flouted copyrights"as essentially I am a visual being.
And yes it is now a stroke to one's ego to find out that people actually read the dribble that I write and post about, and like you I am eternally grateful for it. Maybe I am being validated by complete strangers!
Yes, I find that belief (if that is not too strong a term) in the validity of the work - both of our blogs are about reclamation or preservation, in a literal way - is not inadequate incentive, but that other considerations come into play. A fair test of the medium's effectiveness as well as one's own, is in its readership. Blogging is, as you say, a darn sight more effective than private journal-keeping, but when you look to your left (YHBHS) and your right (Terestchenko), you notice that their natural habitat of print publication is possibly also your own. Blogging may be a rough draft?
ReplyDeleteTake your excellent "sketches" of the Normandie and Molyneux. Presumably it would be possible to obtain passenger lists and client lists per annum, so that you could almost "color in" the seating chart at dinner.
What, by the way, is the matter with those people at Lanvin, that you should be without a bow tie?