Category / Technical
Confidential to Some Sexy Correspondents
Folks, folks, folks, folks. I should point out that just because some of us may disagree on minor points (and, boy, they sure are minor), this does not mean that I’ve stopped respecting you. Particularly since you’re good enough to offer a reasoned and impassioned argument along with your thoughts and you’re willing (much more than that!) to weigh in on subjects literary and cultural, and offer the Good Doctor some contrarian food for thought.
This is the cornerstone of democracy, I think. If I don’t respond to your emails within 24 hours, it is because I am busy with research and preparation on a few projects. It is not because I don’t love you or value your thoughts. You are all incredibly sexy. The fault here is entirely mine, because I’m a slacker, I can only do so much, and I don’t get back to people as quickly as I’d like. But trust me on this one, folks. You’re all hot mommas.
Regular Coverage Involves Subjecting the Host to Misery
Some of you may have noticed that I haven’t been posting a lot of literary content lately. I promise to get back to the usual book news, reviews and other thrills that keep my three regular readers glued to the monitor, along with another staccato burst of audio blog entries, but until then, let me offer some reasons why:
1. During the weekend, I had an incredible experience that lasted twenty-four hours. It did not involve drugs or any out-of-the-ordinary debauchery, but it did involve lack of sleep. Just as bad I suspect, given that I didn’t have a bite to eat during seventeen or so of those hours, save for a rat I found wandering underneath an ancient icebox located in a dingy basement that I escaped from, moments after the blindfold was removed.
2. In the past two weeks, I have been pretty darn happy and very pro-active in other parts of my life. If there’s any downside to this, well, it’s prevented me from engaging in this little web-based distraction. Your only hope for regular and focused blog content is a bona-fide state of misery and anger which causes an impromptu 4,000 word dirge on how lit blogs are organized into academic, non-academic, post-academic, pre-operative, pastoral, paint-by-numbers, postmodern, and OFF (i.e., outright fuckin’ funny). Then again, who wants another manifesto about blogs that only a handful of people care about?
3. I believe I’ve been writing more and reading less. I read only one and a half books last week, as opposed to my usual two or three. That’s clearly not enough stacked next to the amazing folks who can get through six books a week, have a full-time job, live life, and apparently amputate all four limbs from a random pedestrian in less time than most of us take to make a sandwich.
4. George Bush and his policies are bankrupt on almost every level.
4(a). Political discourse revives the same damn arguments. But it doesn’t refrain me from expressing horror. Still, even with politics fired off in extreme bursts, it fits the same damn arguments.
4(b). John Kerry is a goddam bore and I’ve been spending way too much time trying to convince other people that they must vote for him. Frankly, it’s a tough sell. I feel like a snake oil salesman or some guy on a used car lot named Bernie. I’d be able to sell shit-scented toilet paper better than this guy.
5. Because there is no way to modify the size of the little window in Movable Type, my eyes hurt after about 600 words of rambling about something. Factor in thinking under the radar of emolument, and you begin to realize how it’s become next to impossible to post long magnificent entries like Sarah’s.
So there you have it. I’m sure some of these things will change. But your only hope for regular coverage is to kill my friends, destroy what remains of my reputation, and otherwise make my life miserable. It’s not going to happen, of course, because my head will keep popping up like a jack-in-the-box. But you can try.
I will, of course, try to maintain the blog under these conditions. But, dear readers, if I abstained from the truth, I wouldn’t be able to keep up the grand echelons of blogging seen here.
Forecast
The Time Has Come
At long last, I have figured this gambit out. The Life, only occasionally referred to here in Reluctant-Land, has become one of those things where one wonders how to maintain a blog under the circumstances. Over the past two weeks, I have been trying to figure out how to balance reading, writing, and living — all three of which are far more important than anything I could possibly post here. Like most bloggers, posts are offered to stave off afternoon boredom (hence the one-third nudity clause referenced not long ago — 66% of everything else is illicitly penned with frequent Alt-Tabbing, often with sizable mistakes, quietly corrected after being pointed out by nice people). This Walter Mitty existence is all fine and dandy. It allows me to keep up with literary-related news, you to read it (and/or poach it — I don’t care), and everyone remains more or less happy. But I thought it might be a good idea to point out what this blog is and isn’t.
1. This is not a 24 hour literary news powerhouse. That would be nice, but quite frankly I have other things to do with my life. If I do not read, I do not improve my writing. If I do not write, I do not improve my writing. If I do not live, I do not improve my writing. There is an ostensible goal here. It will take years. As a result, early morning and evening updates have been abolished, so that necessary existential duties and functions can be carried out. Maud, the Saloon and Mr. Sarvas (among many other swell places) pull this off better than I can. But frankly, I just don’t have the time anymore. In an effort to kill the needless distractions in my life, the plan is to blog (for the most part) daily, but only during hours in which I am renting myself out to unidentified overlords.
2. No more posts while nude. A few weekends ago, a priest buzzed my apartment. He wasn’t a Jevovah’s witness, but he did identify himself as “a man of the cloth.” The priest offered to observe me for a week and determine if there were specific activities I was particularly adept at with clothes on and (he preferred) with clothes off. I didn’t ask about the scientific principles involved. But it was either this or a three-hour effort to convert me to Catholicism. So I caved. The priest determined that I was more successful reading in the nude than writing in the nude. Since I have this tendency to take my clothes off, in part or in full, close to bedtime, and since I feel more comfortable doing this, now that a priest is no longer hanging around the flat, the choice has become obvious.
3. A greater emphasis on journalism. I don’t have Laila’s drive to do a book review every week. But I admire her ambition. And I also admire Mark for his Dan Rhodes interview. And, yes, despite my differences with Dan Green, the man is trying to come to terms with the role of criticism. So props to him too. This is the kind of stuff that we, as literary blogs, should be doing. If we are to have any real credibility or purpose here, then the time has come for us to put ourselves out there, rather than compiling collections of links. Imagine the kind of coverage that can be found at Bookslut or January or Book Ninja transposed to any of your favorite places. Elaborate comparisons, attempts to gain insight that the major newspapers can’t (or won’t) cover. You know what I’m talking about.
This whole “link plus commentary” business is about as difficult as microwaving a burrito. I think blogs can do better. I know I can do better. There’s something extant in the form that has made us all lazy.
Fuck Google News. How about making some phone calls and confirming facts? How about looking at your local literary calendars, calling up a publisher’s publicist, and arranging for an author interview? How about showing some actual initiative?
In fact, I double dare everyone involved in the lit blog world to pound the pavement.