Daily Blague

Barely recovered from bronchitis, Kathleen is on a plane to Chicago, flying out to attend a wake and the funeral of a very dear friend. The death had been anticipated for some time, but the victim made many brilliant rallies. Finally, after a short spell on palliative care, she succumbed.

Friends of ours will know whom I'm talking about, but Kathleen has asked me not to identify her late friend - and certainly not to upload a lovely picture of the two of them sitting on a lawn in the season of their graduation from college - because she would not have wanted her health or her death discussed in public, before strangers. That she had less to hide than almost anyone I've ever met had nothing to do with this reserve, which was deeply constitutional. It was often mistaken for shyness, or for mere shyness. Most of the world was kept, discreetly and not unsmilingly, at arm's length. No Web log appearances for Kathleen's friend.

This has set me to musing on anonymous blogging. When I began Portico at the beginning of the century (what pretentious fun to say!), the site was not about me at all, but about books and music and New York and all that sort of thing. "My philosophy," as somebody put it. I was committed to identifying myself from the start, and it was only with the addition of this blog that questions of privacy and discretion became routine. In my posts from Istanbul in January, for example, I did not say what it was that had brought us there until the product that Kathleen was working on (the DJIST) was launched, halfway through the sojourn. One fairly recent entry was rewritten, at the prudent suggestion of Ms NOLA (who wasn't personally involved in the subject), and a misleading clutter of details was withdrawn. But the fact is that lots of interesting things happen that I can't write about very directly. Could I do so anonymously?

I'm rather inclined to think that I could not. My hunch is that every anonymous blogger, or at least every interesting anonymous blogger, will inevitably be identified. But that's a minor issue next to the question of bad taste, of invading privacy, of speculative tittle-tattle. This has nothing to do with anonymity. Spilling the beans is spilling the beans, and blacking out the names doesn't make it less unattractive. And when I look round at the good anonymous blogs that I like to follow, I find very little - nothing, in most cases - that would have to be changed if the author identified himself and provided a photograph.

I daresay that anonymous bloggers have other reasons for keeping their identities to themselves. It is perhaps not the safest course in the world to reveal your particulars on the Internet. But I am always heartened to see people sharing some of them. I am also refreshed, because, frankly, it is not always easy to read anonymous blogs. Maybe you're different, but I'm consumed by elemental curiosities. Because I believe that history shapes us more than any other influence, I want above all to know how old a writer is. It's almost impossible for to weigh and consider what anyone says if I don't know the age of the speaking mind. This is obviously a matter that becomes more salient with age.

Nonetheless, I tip my hat to the author of Outer Life. That's some damned great entry today.