Category / Blogging

by Edward Champion

Just Don’t Forget to Use Alt-Tab When the Boss is Coming

Everyone seems to be pointing to this Advertising Age article about how U.S. workers will waste 551,000 years reading blogs. Well, what the article doesn’t say is that businesses will, in turn, waste countless eons destroying people’s spirits with tyrannical middle managers, mundane job duties, mandatory office meetings that are utterly pointless, and by hiring high maintenance people who constantly make workers’ lives a living hell. If workers are maintaining their sanity through reading blogs, thus ensuring that they will be able to focus their energies accomplishing vapid and meaningless tasks to justify their employment (and in turn increasing productivity), then quite frankly, 3.5 hours a week isn’t nearly enough.

by Edward Champion

New Literary Blogs

For those interested in thinking outside of the box (i.e., sick of reading the usual suspects), here are a few literary blogs I’ve recently stumbled upon : Notes on Non-Camp (who quite boldly suggests that he’s as good a short story writer as T.C. Boyle), Essay Format (unsure of whether this is abandoned or not, but it aims to teach students how to write essays and it’s a promising idea) and Harsh Mistresses (a frowning Las Vegas-based former lawyer and “nice guy” charting his progress writing a suspense thriller).

by Edward Champion

Roundup

  • Frances Dinkelspiel covers the Northern California Independent Booksellers Association.
  • This week, in the City, it’s Litquake. We’ll be crawling ourselves this Saturday, in more ways than one.
  • Word on the street is that the long-delayed Nobel Literature Prize will finally be announced this Thursday. Apparently, one of the Swedish intellectuals lost a few meatballs along the way. Knut Ahnlund gave notice that he was quitting in disgust over last year’s winner, Elfriede Jelinek. Ahnlund said that Jelinek’s work was “whinging, unenjoyable, violent pornography.” Well, that’s all very fine, Knut. But why wait a year to pull out? There’s still the risk of impregnating the proceedings with spurious seed. There’s been some speculation that Orhan Pamuk might be this year’s Nobel winner and that Ahnlund’s resignation has something to do with this year’s choice. But if my experience with self-important people serves as any guide, I’m guessing that Ahnlund wanted to sabotage this year’s proceedings by raising a stink and that the real winner will be someone completely unexpected. Let us hope that it’s as edgy a choice as Jelinek.
  • And speaking of awards, I’m not sure what to make of the Blooker. The Blooker hopes to award books that are based on blogs. But how many “blooks” are there? Certainly not enough to create a longlist. Further, are any of these really readable, much less enduring? More importantly, does Wil Wheaton really need another silly trinket?
  • Another day, another Dave E—- profile. His latest cause? Granting teachers more pay. While he’s at it, he may want to champion offering his volunteers some recompense. He’s also getting the little tykes to read every periodical in America, presumably to keep tabs on any naysayers. Child slave labor too? Why, in a parallel universe, Dave might very well be the literary equivalent of Phil Knight!
  • Four-Eyed Bitch wants to know why literary readings are so dull.
  • A new Internet radio station devoted to poetry has been launched by Brian Douthit.
  • Also worth looking into: Circadian Poems, a poetry blog.
  • Can pop culture be tracked in the 21st Century in book form? Encyclopedia of Pop Culture authors Michael and Jane Stern (among others) say no.
  • Literary critic Wayne C. Booth, author of The Rhetoric of Fiction, has passed on.

[UPDATE: The Complete Review has the full story on Knut “I Like My Literature Non-Pornographic” Ahnlund. Apparently, he’s not even a bona-fide Nobel judge and, whether he likes it or not, Ol’ Knut Basket Case won’t get his much vaunted reprieve until he meets his maker.]