Daily Blague

Why do I feel that I'm leaving something, when nothing is going anywhere? The only change, for me, will be no longer having to deal with MovableType, a blogging platform that I chose in 2004 precisely because it was said to be the most daunting. (And it was daunting. I discovered that I am a closet masochist.) Exchanging MovableType for WordPress is like taking off a very heavy backpack. Life is suddenly, startlingly easy. I have no regrets.

But it's true that I am leaving school. I started the Daily Blague at a strange time, right after George Bush's second victory. The Blogosphere had been hopping during the campaign and was still very lively, as the writers at political sites that I visited, such as Crooked Timber and Obsidian Wings, tried to make sense of the disaster. Eventually, I lost interest in political blogs. I lost interest in all single-issue blogs. And I really didn't know what to do with my own. For far too long, I filled it with reams of material that belonged in a different setting. I was like the bore who shows up at a cocktail party and wants to talk about the death sentence.

At some point or other, the old Daily Blague developed a serious comment-spam problem, and my Web host actually considered shutting it down, along with at least one other MoveableType site. That's when I decided to move, both to another host and to another platform. By now, I had a very clear idea of what The Daily Blague ought to look and feel like. Thanks to the heavy lifting of Searchlight Consulting, the look and feel has been realized. But as Steve Laico can tell you, I knew what I wanted.

What distinguishes a blog structurally from other Web site is, of course, its interactivity: the solicitation of comments. Most blogs don't get nearly as many comments as their creators would like, and The Daily Blague is one of them. But every comment is a lively acknowledgment that someone has been reading what I've written. I don't know why any writer doesn't keep a blog for that reason alone. (Writers who aren't celebrities, that is.) The comments that the Daily Blague has accumulated have given me a better idea of where I stand in the world than I had before blogging.

To all readers, but especially to those who were "in at the birth," I say Thank You!

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You can't imagine how difficult it is to run two sites concurrently. Problems that you've never imagined sprout like toadstools. And then, after laborious rewrites, copy is lost to mis-pushed buttons.

The whole thrust of this old-DB entry is to urge my regular readers (you know who you are) to start posting comments, in barrages if you wouldn't mind, at the new site, www.dailyblague.com/blog. Don't worry about being witty or clever; the idea is public service, and and your shopping list will do. Just post!

Seriously, guys, we're on our way to a new transport. Pack your bottles!

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Coming next month, The Daily Blague will have a new address. Don't worry about it just yet, because I'll be here for a while. But if you're interested in watching an out-of-the-box blog theme become personalized, you may find the new site amusing. I'll be posting concurrently for the rest of August. It's also part of my plan to host Portico at one server, and The Daily Blague at another. You'll always be able to reach me: aren't you lucky.

This is probably a good moment to applaud the man who is making everything happen:

Steve Laico

Searchlight Consulting

www.searchlightweb.com

I know how difficult it is to be a friendly and/but effective professional. (I used to be a lawyer!) Steve not only delivers but he also makes it look easy. As the client from Hell, I'm not fooled.

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Like you, I am distressed to learn that The Weekly World News is folding. Now George will have nothing to read every week. Seriously, I loved the paper. Who else could deliver headlines such as "DINOSAURS - HONKED JUST LIKE BUICKS"? Do you remember the story about the overweight lady who was compelled to purchase two airplaine seats, because of her "titanic tush?" Oh, the laughs.

August begins early at the Daily Blague - it begins today! I spent so much energy on podcasting last week that I never got round to writing up a book. I never got round to reading one. Not until yesterday, anyway. So I offer no link, this morning, to Portico. You wouldn't follow it if I did. It's summertime!

Come September, there will be a new Daily Blague, complete (one hopes), with podcasts that you can actually hear without maxing the volume. "Sing out, Louise," as one friend wrote. Yesterday, Miss G gave me some thoughts about how to make podcasts downloadable (she also asked if I'd come along to a ball game in Coney Island! Bien sur!). The new site is already up. All I have to do is massage the style sheet - doesn't that sound like fun?

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Good morning. Welcome to my first podcast. I hope that you will provide plenty of feedback, about the production values if nothing else.

There is still a lot to learn, let me tell you.

¶  A New Look at the Cloisters.

UPDATE: Many, many thanks for the kind comments. When I tried to re-record the page at a higher volume, a host of bugs gummed up the works. I have been more or less tearing my hair out for the past twenty-four hours (with breaks for sleep and martinis), but at the moment, progress looks good. I'm aiming to have mastered podcasting by the end of August, when I'll be inaugurating the new Daily Blague.

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Last night, I finished reading Alexander Chee's fine first novel, Edinburgh. Then I wrote to the author, who happens to be at the MacDowell colony at the moment. I had first come across his work in From Boys to Men. But it was someone's recently mentioning him at a blog that prompted me to order his book from Amazon. Who could that someone be? It didn't take long to identify the evilganome - although I can't for the life of me locate the particular entry.

Edinburgh starts off brightly, with a successful singing audition, and it holds this tone ever more tightly as the story very shortly takes a turn for the horrific. The writing is lyrical but firmly controlled. Attention is required: the terrible things are only mentioned once, in a flash, and if you're not careful you might skim over them.

Mr Chee has a new book, Queen of the Night, coming out soon*, and I am going to wait for it before writing up Edinburgh, which I may re-read after Queen. I do, however, want to share this magnificent paragraph.

Do you remember what it was like, to be young? You do. Was there any innocence there? No. Things were exactly what they looked like. If anyone tries for innocence, it's the adult, moving forward, forgetting. If innocence is ignorance of the capacity for evil, then it's what adults have when they forget what it's like to be a child. When they look at a child and think of innocence they are thinking of how they can't remember what that feels like. 

I recommend this book very highly.

* Autumn 2008.

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That's where you'll find me this week, in the "sandbox" of the impending Daily Blague. There will be a new URL, a new Web host, and a look and feel that may or may not be different. The platform will be WordPress, not Moveable Type, and comments will , I hope, be less of a pain. The old Daily Blague will stay where it is, as I slowly shift its less ephemeral contents to Portico. (Very slowly.) The old DB taught me a lot. The new TDB will reflect what I've learned. Portico remains, as it was always supposed to be, the heart of the operation.

This calls for business cards. People ask, what do I do. That's what business cards are for - to spare the awkward writing-down of URLs in the middle of cocktails. I'm going to have cards for both sites. The Portico cards will look just like that site's front page, with a multicolored logo over a washed out, somewhat blurred scan of a print that we actually own, Joseph Pennell's Cumberland Gate. 

As for a Daily Blague card, though, I have no ideas at all. I want it to make people smile. I'm thinking of incorporating the "About me" line under the old photo at the top of the index page: "Who is this joker?" I ask the question often enough in the blog, if not in so many words. But is it a tag I'll be still be happy with when I'm handing out the five-hundredth card?

"Eheu Fugaces" has its charms - its dangerous charms. (Speaking of Latin, don't miss this review of Diabolum Pradae vestibus indui. [Thanks, Édouard.]) Input from the Peanut Gallery would not be unwelcome.

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UPDATE: I am immesely proud to be part of this picture. It's the first collective photograph that I've ever belonged to with my heart and soul.

For some time, I've had plans to get together with the Ganome when he came to New York for the GB:NYC4 meetup on Bear/Blogger Hill in Central Park. In other words, today. The Ganome called just before noon, from the Port Authority. We agreed to meet at the Met, which is, among other things, not too far from Central Park, being in it. He arrived with his boss, the Butter Monkey. The Monkey is a few years younger than the Ganome (ie our children's age), but smart as a whip and extremely pleasant to talk to.

When we'd finished our lunch, I asked my friends if there was anything that they wanted to see in the museum before heading out, because I could probably take them straight to it. I am so abominably conceited about my familiarity with the museum's layout. But I didn't get to show off today, because what they really wanted was directions to the Sheep's Meadow. I was only too happy to walk them there. I didn't yet know where Bear/Blogger Hill is, because I hadn't planned to attend one of Joe's weekly retreats. But I know how to get to the Sheep's Meadow, and we walked all the way round it - a complete circuit! - before finding that the Hill is very near the Naumberg Bandshell, which we'd passed earlier. But we did find it. I was privileged to introduce the Ganome and the Monkey to Joe. I met a few people and nodded to a few others whom I'd seen at other gatherings, but, having just met the Ganome and the Monkey and gotten to know something about them in person, I wasn't taking in much new information. One of the farmboyz took a picture of the group while I was there, and I'm in it, I suppose.

For the most part, I watched the rollerbladers at the base of the hill. There were very gifted dancers, such as Disco Grandma, who performed as if they were Olympians on the ice. There were character dancers, like Bladey, wearing loud costumes (I got to see Bladey's arrival on his clownish bicycle, announced by its throaty klaxon). There was a wonderfully chunky middle-aged woman who had no moves at all. She just huffed her way up the gentle slope and stood still on her skates coming down the other side. My favorite act was Bottle. Bottle is a very graceful and well-built black man who, in addition to his skates, wears only a pair of very exotic harem pants and two wristbands. He's called Bottle because he likes to glide along with a liter of bottled water standing on his head, but unattached to it in any way. If he could find a more artistic vessel, he would look like something out of the old Ballets-Russes. He and Bladey danced together a few times, side by side. I applauded a few times, although that generally wasn't done.

So there I was in Central Park on a Saturday afternoon, surrounded by interesting guys and overlooking an appealing spectacle. The weather was perhaps a trifle warm, but there was a lovely breeze, and I was comfortable enough.

At about four-thirty, I said goodbye to all and went to catch the Third Avenue bus. As packed as the Park was, the Upper East Side was empty. Neutroned! We've entered the Hamptons season. 

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Do you think that it's possible to engage with the Internet in a reasonable manner? Or will we always surrender to pings and possibilities, no matter what we're in the middle of? Or will I, that is; I only care about you if you're doing better. Heaven knows, I'm a shambles. Once I have decided to write something, I'm all discipline, and only take breaks when it's useful to do so. But when I get the work done, I sit at the computer like a zombie, clicking on links without rhyme or reason. And if it's incoming email!

I don't get as much email as I'd like to get. Not nearly. This is not because I don't send email myself. I send plenty. That is the problem. Allowing for all the dumbing down of the Twentieth Century, I think that I can proclaim myself the Henry James of email. The late Henry James of email. I never met two sentences that I didn't prefer to join with a semicolon. I get "raising the bar" a lot from friends who want to excuse themselves from the burden of replying in kind. It appears that my correspondence is an infliction.

(On at least two occasions, one affable friend has actually checked out of Gmail in order to check my chat. I want to say to this friend that it's not necessary to take such drastic action, but then I think, why should this person trust me? I'm not sure that I have the gift of the gab, but I sure have the gab.)

I appear to be coming out of a period during which most of the people on my affinities list (doctors call it "the blogroll" - and does anyone out there still get the "doctors call it..." joke?) have had other things to do than write blog entries. Two of the Paris blogs, for instance, are showing signs of life after long hiatus*. Michael Smith has promised to write more. Ms NOLA is finding time to write, despite a harrowing schedule (M le Neveu moves his digs this weekend.) All of this is good, because I was beginning to feel like the only one.

When will I start following political blogs again? I haven't looked at a political blog in over a year. Part of me gave up on the politics of the United States in 2004, and even the Democratic recapture of Congress has done nothing to recapture me, probably because I am never going to believe in the Democratic Party again; the Democratic Party is like a philandering spouse whom I have forgiven for the last time and who has then philandered.

And when will the Virginia Tech story go away? I ask this abstractly; it's still pretty fresh and awful. But it will linger into staleness. Such stories always do. Such is the degraded state of the American spectatorate that reality horror is the preferred entertainment. It's frightening, but it's also inconsequential. There's nothing to do about what happened at Virginia Tech, except perhaps to reconsider gun control (the NRA would have liked the victims to be armed, so that they could shoot back - what a great idea!). Kathleen and I both believe that the most decent response to the massacre is to stop tuning into it. Talking about it is one thing; "reliving" the nightmare is ghoulish. Kathleen says that, if she had a child who had been killed at Virginia Tech, the last thing she'd want is protracted media exposure. As a parent, I have to agree. I would hate to see Ms G's photo plastered everywhere simply because she'd been unlucky.

You might be wondering what this entry's title means. It's taken from an ad that was reported in Tuesday's Times - an ad from China. What it's supposed to mean, according to a caption that translates the accompanying Chinese characters, is "Find something new and be pleasantly surprised," which, even though it makes literal sense, strikes me as pretty inscrutable. Why would anybody say such a thing? If the US and China are fated to be coadjutant superpowers, we're looking at a long future of linguistic disasters. Both nations - China for ancient reasons, the United States for novel ones - top the list for diplomacy failure when it comes to understanding other cultures.

Meanwhile, I stagger from blog to blog in a disordered haze that, even when no drinking is involved, must be called "alcoholic." Whipsawed every day by the unique offerings du jour, I waste countless hours playing FreeCell just to restore some sense of equilibrium. (I never play FreeCell for fun.) I was discussing soft-boiled eggs with a British friend not too long ago. We agreed that tapping the egg in a pretty little egg cup, opening it up, and then managing to eat it - as opposed to cracking the contents into a bowl - is something that one is "bred to." You grow up knowing how to do it, or you never learn the trick of it. I shudder to think that the same is true of the Blogosphere. Having grown up in a blogless world, I'll never develop a smart way of responding to the huge variety on offer - when it's on offer.

* Thank you, Wheelock. (É, are you reading?)

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Father T over at Perge Modo is having a lot of fun with Benday dots. Go have a look at his Sol LeWitt!

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Reading about the shootings at Virginia Tech this morning generated two distinct waves of misery. The first, of course, was about the event itself. I'll have to own up to a certain Schadenfreude, though, given that Virginia's gun laws are a total disgrace. I was not as unhappy about the shootings as I might have been.

The second wave of misery was much worse, because I was the wounded party. Wounded by whom? How was it possible that I sat at my computer for a few hours yesterday and yet didn't see anything about the shootings? I received an RSS feed from Joe.My.God at 4:57, but I wasn't paying attention to feeds. I was having a "reading day" and staying away from the machine as much as possible. Fossil Darling knew all about the massacre, of course - traders always have the latest news. I was curt with him this morning because he hadn't called to tell me. But I don't really believe that I ought to be depending on him.

Is it ironic that I was telling M le Neveu, yesterday, that my plans for a new blog have been inspired not inconsiderably by the recognition that I am not cut out for journalism?

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Blogs on the front page of the Times! What will they think of next?

"A Call for Manners in the World of Nasty Blogs," by Brad Stone, directs readers to O'Reilly Radar, where Tim O'Reilly has proposed a code of conduct for blog owners that, among other things, carries their responsibility for what appears on their sites so far as to include comments. The lawyer in me found the code hopelessly vague and ad hoc, but that's precisely what good manners always are.

There's no ambiguity, however, about Article 3 of Mr O'Reilly's code. "We connect privately before we respond publicly." All well-brought-up people know that it's best to give someone whose behavior or appearance may be out of line a quiet word on the side. If you see a guy whose fly is open, you don't (if you're well-mannered) expostulate and point. You tap him on the shoulder and whisper. The fewer people who notice an error, the better. That's in the real world. It ought to be the same in the Blogosphere, but for some reason the very opposite idea seems to have taken root. The more people who notice an error, this thinking runs, the healthier the Internet will be. Pointing out typos and offering factual corrections in comments, however, doesn't so much improve the reliability of blogs as it discredits erring bloggers - to the extent that it doesn't poison the atmosphere with self-righteous aggression.

I had to laugh, though, at the bit about Six Apart diva Mena Trott, whose talk on civility at a Paris conference was disrupted by real-time responses to her speech that were posted on a screen. Ms Trott "lost it." What's ironic here is that Six Apart has refused to equip its MovableType software with meaningful defenses against noxious comment spam. That's why I'll be abandoning the platform at some point later this year.

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Yesterday, Joe posted a link to the Mr Deity videos at YouTube. Brian Keith Dalton's hugely funny shorts, which the Mr Deity site tells us are sketches for a half-hour comedy show, seem on the face of it to poke fun at Judeo-Christian beliefs. But that's not how I see it. I turn the telescope around and peer through the other end. What if Creation were the undertaking of some American corporation?

What if "God" were played by a dithering project manager, so beset by delusions of grandeur that the idea of accountability never crossed his mind? What if the Holy Spirit - "Larry" here - were the impatient, stressed-out, but ultimately sycophantic deputy actually responsible for making things happen? What if "Jesus" were an aimiable, team-playing lug who looked great with football greasepaint under his eyes? And what if Satan - "Lucy" - were the hysterical female executive, butting her head against the glass ceiling?

Now, go watch the clips again.

All four actors are superb, but there's something about Mr Dalton's high-pitched wheeze that's truly divine.

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The author of A Flickering Light has decided to take a break - and possibly permanent leave - from blogging. That's to be regretted, because few if any bloggers have his range of interests or can write so intensely about them. Sometimes, life takes big turns, and new people are involved. Or it may just be a new place - and W- is soon to be moving from Geneva to Singapore. Wasn't it about this time last year that the author of Journal d'un Vrai Parisien retired? He was quite open about his reason: he had fallen in love. Kids can fall in love in public. With older folks it's likely to be awkward, and you can take it from me that the new loved one is probably not going to be keen on the new crowd of virtual friends, all of whom know how you liked last night's dinner.

I often regret having started the Daily Blague at such an advanced age. But reflection and experience suggest that I may be just old enough.

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This is to wish you a happy holiday, and to thank you for visiting the Daily Blague. It's also to remind you that my birthday falls on the Twelfth Day of Christmas, and that what I really want this year is to hear from you about how you think the DB, Portico, and Good For You are - well, good for you, or not. You may comment on the DB or write to me privately, whichever suits you better.

There are days when I think that I know what I'm doing here (beyond simply writing a lot of stuff), and then there are days when I feel quite fatuous and dim for even imagining that I know what I'm doing. What I do know is that nobody has done this before. I also know that I've made, particularly in the past nine months, a lot of choices that have narrowed the scope of the project. Or you might say that it's more focused. Either way, I wonder if I have made good choices. Only you can tell me.

Thanks again for fitting me in to your busy life!

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My Pittsburgh correspondent (She Who Never Comments) whiled away a long afternoon today by playing on the Internet. The appropriation of my image was involved. Kathleen finds the results "a bit scary," but I think it's jolly. It's rather sweet to be normal-sized for a moment. 

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Before settling down to work this morning, I followed an interesting link from Joe.My.God, and the result is a new group of photoblogs on my roster. Have a look! But by all means don't miss this incredible shot from Travis Ruse's site. I just can't get over the two cops, leaning against the upright beam with a symmetry befitting Castor and Pollux.

Late last night and early this morning, I read the December issue of Vanity Fair, which of course went to bed before Election Day. Surprisingly, the wonder-who-will-win note struck in many of the articles doesn't seem benighted. We can only hope that Michael Wolff is right when, having written off Rummy, he predicts that Henry Kissinger will "urge" the President to get rid of his Extravagantly Unattractive Vice President and replace him with John McCain. Intéressant.

Anyway, now that the elections are over, we can take up more benign controversies, such as Jason Kottke's new glasses. Follow the link to Flick'r and see which camp you're in: are the frames edgy or girly? And would you say that Mr Kottke has a round face? I sure wouldn't. Don't miss the comment that advises him to grow a Mohawk and "pierce everything."

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This wonderfully raunchy satire would be amusing even if it weren't for the drunkenly libinous "Oh, yeah..." right in the middle, but that one line lifts the whole piece to a higher level. Now turn over.

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As it turns out, we did not escape Thanksgiving. It's a holiday in the US Virgin Islands as well. At the Mermaid, there was a "football menu" of finger food, and chairs were arranged in front of a big screen over in a corner. There was turkey at dinner, and Kathleen actually ordered it, even though she always says that she hates turkey, and especially on Thanksgiving.

After lunch, which we had on the early side in order to avoid the football, Kathleen melted into sleep. She had entered what we call Stage II of fatigue relief. In Stage I, which occurs every weekend, Kathleen naps but is otherwise alert as usual. Stage II is reached only after several days away from home, and it never lasts long enough to wind up naturally because Kathleen can't away from the office for more than a week. While Stage II lasts, though, Kathleen is so tired that she hasn't got the energy to be anxious about how tired she is. This is very different from, and infinitely preferable to, the dark exhaustion that can overwhelm her when everyday stress becomes chronically acute. It's too bad that our time in St Croix ends tomorrow.

I'm ready to go home, though; I've had my little reboot. At dinner (at which I was one of the few gents in jacket and tie), I tried to take the measure of how much I had changed in the past two years, not because I'd set out to change but because keeping the Daily Blague (and adding to Portico) has proven to be - what? The image that comes to me now, heaven knows why, is that of the pump and filter system in a fishtank. For the first time in my life, I can get up in the morning and expect that my mind will be aerated and fresh. I will work harder than I have ever worked in my life, day after day after day, but the effect will be the opposite of draining or exhausting. While I'm mostly grateful for having stumbled upon the knack of life at last, it is more than a little sobering to look back on decades of occupational confusion. So! No more looking back.

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It's been a while since my last visit, but Betty Bowers is still going strong as "America's Best Christian" at What Would Betty Do? Her take on the Haggard scandal is priceless.

(Thanks, Joe.)

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Looking for something fun to do that costs only $25? Buy a book. (Jason sent me.)

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For your weekend entertainment.

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Did anyone get one of these? Titled: Joy of Giving Something, Inc - Brain Gym #1 - the small booklet has the air of a small-museum exhibition program with a nice budget. Inside are (a) many photographs, almost all of them illustrating the carnage of war and (b) two very brief essays, one urging Americans to seek the advice of Europe when intervening in the Middle East (written by an American), the other denouncing Europe as appeasement-prone (written by a German). Both the American piece and the translation of the German piece date from last November. The German text itself dates from 2004. Along the bottom of the booklet's pages runs a list of history's major wars, from the Algerian War to the War of the Spanish Succession. Aside from a brief mission statement and a quote from Senator Clinton about Iran, that's it.

The mission statement invites one to visit the Brain Gym, a branch of the Joy of Giving Something.Inc Web site. I'm not going to characterize the Brain Gym, not, at least, until more people have had a chance to look it over. The site has a rudimentary feel, which only means that its creators are making things up as they go along. (I'm familiar with that!) The "Monthly Views" appear to be written by the pen of Bill Jay, a professor of photography. 

Joy of Giving Something.Inc is a charitable foundation that supports photography exhibits around the country. It operates out of an Upper East Side brownstone. Thanks to a link from an entry at Wikipedia, I gather that the foundation was endowed by Howard Stein, the financier who made $1.8 billion when he sold the Dreyfus Corporations (mutual funds) to Mellon Bank in 1994.

I have no idea how I wound up on the mailing list.

Did anybody else get one?

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Maybe it was the green hat. A fun, very short quiz that predicts which of the awful outcomes in Edward Gorey's The Gashlycrumb Tinies will be yours. (Thanks, Patricia!)

What horrible Edward Gorey Death will you die?

You will be sucked dry by a leech. I'd stay away from swimming holes, and stick to good old cement. Even if it does hurt like hell when your toe scrapes the bottom.
Take this quiz!

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An "old friend" ("Must EVERYONE know how you treat me") has been good enough to forward the following exciting release.

A major research institution has just announced the discovery of the densest element yet known to science.

The new element has been named "Bushcronium."

Bushcronium has one neutron, 12 assistant neutrons, 75 deputy neutrons, and 224 assistant deputy neutrons, giving it anatomic mass of 311.

These particles are held together by dark forces called morons, which are surrounded by vast quantities of lepton-like particles called peons.

The symbol for Bushcronium is "W". Bushcronium's mass actually increases over time, as morons randomly interact with various elements in the atmosphere and become assistant deputy neutrons in a Bushcronium molecule, forming isodopes. This characteristic of moron-promotion leads some scientists to believe that Bushcronium is formed whenever morons reach a certain quantity in concentration. This hypothetical quantity is referred to as "Critical Morass".

When catalyzed with money, Bushcronium activates Foxnewsium, an element that radiates orders of magnitude more energy, albeit as incoherent noise, since it has 1/2 as many peons but twice as many morons.

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It was only a matter of time. My first YouTube link. The Scissors Sisters sing "I Don't Feel Like Dancing," while doing nothing but.

Having run into this fantastic video at two sites (Meanwhile, Marginalia), and having discovered that Kathleen is a fan, and having ordered both SS albums from Amazon, I found that I still had to do more. Chalkenteros rightly points to the BeeGees and to Roxy Music as influences, but Kathleen and I hear a lot of George Michael as well.

And you thought I was an old fart.

(Thanks, Aaron!)

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Afterward, I couldn't believe that I'd done it. We were at Carnegie Hall last night, at the first concert of the new Orpheus season. 

At intermission, two thirtysomethings who had been sitting four rows ahead of us were joined by a friend. He stood leaning on the back of the seat behind him, facing the rear of the hall, as he chatted. I was standing in the aisle, beside my seat, waiting for the other people in the row take their seats before sitting down myself. From snippets overheard, I hypothesized that the visitor might be pianist Jeremy Denk, who will be performing at Orpheus's next concert, and who also keeps a very intriguing Web log, Think Denk. Mr Denk has posted a snapshot of himself at the blog, something that hastened the identification process.

Qua pianist, he was safe from my attentions. Qua blogger, however - quite another matter. Still, I had to work up the nerve. When he left his friends, appearing to my mistaken ears to decline their offer to join them in an adjacent, empty seat, I let him pass right by. When I turned to see where he'd gone, I'd lost him. But, lo, suddenly there he was again, returning to his friends. I caught his eye, tried to look as harmless as possible, and asked him if he might be who I thought he was. He very affably said that he was, and he shook my outstretched hand as I told him that I was "R J Keefe, Daily Blague," effectively taking it for granted that he would know what that meant. He registered recognition, although it may have been simple politeness. I made a remark to show that I'd read his latest entry (indeed, I'd been thinking about it while hypothesizing), said that I was looking forward to hearing him in December, and then let him go. He couldn't have been nicer.

The encounter firmed up my resolve to make some additions to the main-page list of links to other sites. A recent exchange with Steve Smith, author of Night After Night, inspired me to make an exception to my general rule, which is that I don't link to monothematic blogs. Blogs exclusively devoted to music and concertgoing would seem to fall under the ban, but in fact it's impossible to write at any length about music without being very person, however inadvertently. If you're at all interested in serious music, I'm sure that you'll find the sites that I've listed under the rubric "I Musici" interesting.

As for the concert....

Posted by pourover at 06:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

A few years ago, I couldn't stand being the only kid in the crowd who didn't have a Filofax. Kathleen and my old roommate carried the leather-bound calendars, stuffed to bursting with all sorts of ad hoc addenda, the very height of organizational efficiency, c 1850. So I begged and whined, and eventually got one for my birthday. It wasn't long, though, before my Filofax was buried in a drawer. Filofaxes don't ding you with an alarm the day before you have to do something. No, you have to look at them first. If it were up to my Filofax, I'd miss half the plays and concerts that I had tickets for. Don't laugh - there was a bad season in which we missed far more than half! Outlook keeps me straight these days.

But a Filofax is still an objet de luxe - if you have one, you ought to use it. In a recent burst of fevered optimism, I made up a to-do list that included the following: "Filofax - other uses?" The answer to that question came to me this evening, and I'm still choking. Because what I propose to do with my Filofax is to run the Daily Blague with it. I am going to schedule entries and pages, instead of waiting until the spirit has moved me to write them. Every day, there will be certain things to do. The era of "What do I feel like doing now?" is over. It's killing me, frankly, because what I "feel like" is not having to make such decisions all the time.

So the management part of the blog will henceforth be conducted in pencil. That's the other crazy thing: I'm incapable of using the computer to "automate" my editorial duties. Outlook has a more or less useful task manager feature, but I've never been able to bring myself to look at it. The computer is for writing and looking things up, not for brainstorming. Planning is something that I do on paper. Typically, I then ignore the paper. But if it's folded into a Filofax, along with all my Daily Blague deadlines and Internet contacts, then maybe the small leather-bound bundle will insist upon being the start of my day.

You think that working for yourself is easy, until you have to do it.

Posted by pourover at 11:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Little did I know that yesterday's Times would prolong the quandary that I spoke of in the previous entry. The front-page story was entitled "In Tiny Courts of New York, Abuses of Law and Power: Judges Without Legal Degrees or Oversight Rule in Arcane System Across State."

Does that sound, maybe, a little Iraqi to you? Let's not go into why it does. (If it doesn't, you're reading the wrong blog.) Let's just take a breath and sing "O Canada." Things are so much simpler there. There are so many fewer people, for one thing!

Why has no one written of the melodrama that yokes New York City, an international entrepôt that draws thousands of disaffected Americans-from-elsewhere to its bosom every year, to New York State, a red-meat outfit that, except for all of Ithaca and just the University of Syracuse, ought to be offloaded to Tasmania? Where are the witnesses to this atrocity? The non-New-York-City parts of New York State are just big enough to arm-wrestle the city to the ground. There ought to have been a "civil war" in New York, just to free the enslaved intellectuals.

The whole story about the baboon judges is great, but here is my favorite excerpt:

In an interview, Justice Pennington said the commission had treated him unfairly. But he may not have helped his case when he told the commission that "colored" was an acceptable description.

"I mean, to me," he testified, "colored doesn't preferably mean black. It could be an Indian, who's red. It could be Chinese, who's considered yellow."

There are probably lots of provincial Americans who think that "colored" is still a useful term. That's how we are. But we don't have to make them justices of the peace, capable of incarcerating strangers who don't gratify their expectations. And here is my question: if this is the state of things in New York State, why would we expect anything better in Guantánamo or Iraq? When on earth, people, are we going to clean up our own little mess? We're certainly not going to do any good abroad while "simple men, and their simple wisdom" are running the show in American localities.

Posted by pourover at 12:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

It's late Sunday afternoon, and I'm about to sit down with an oppressive stack of magazines. I won't be looking at The New Yorker or The New York Review of Books, nor probably the London Review of Books, either. Or Harper's. Those are the periodicals that I look forward to reading. It's the homework mags that I've got to look at: The Nation, The Economist, the Wilson Quarterly, and Foreign Affairs. France-Amérique doesn't get the attention that it deserves, and I can't make up my mind about The Atlantic. Bookforum shows up from time to time, its continued existence always a faint surprise.

In a fantasy that I find increasingly beguiling, an efficient intellectual expert shows up one fine day and tells me how to do my job. Sometimes, the expert even tells me what my job is. I know what some of my duties are. I have to publish a fresh entry every day. I'm expected (by whom?) to review The New York Times Book Review - a weekly task. Ditto my trip to the movies every Friday. I used to read the blogs on my list every weekday, but I've lost that habit and must fight to regain it: this is a two-way street, buster. But a list of duties doesn't add up to a job. The one thing that the expert does every time that I indulge my fantasy is to persuade me that I don't really need to read The Nation, The Economist, or even The New York Times. Yippity yay!

Yes, that's the problem with fantasies.

It does occur to me quite regularly, however, that although I may want to run a daily Web log, writing about books, ideas, and the bits of New York's cultural life that I make time for - although this may be my desire, and although I may actually get it done, somehow, it does not follow that I know how to do it. But perhaps the very idea that I'm not doing the job very well is the first step to enlightenment. 

Posted by pourover at 05:36 PM | Permalink

J'allais lire un chapitre de La télé - euh, I was going to read a chapter of La télévision when I discovered that JR has undertaken a new blogue, Mnémoglyphes. I like the playfulness of the name itself, and I refuse to translate it other than as Mnemoglyphes, dropping only the accent aigu. "Nemogliffs" - Greek for "marks of memory," or somesuch. Oh, crikey, there I've gone and translated the new blog's name into something that sounds out of a cemetery. Alors, that's why there's Greek!

Near the start, JR talks of the sentimental journey that he's taking, back to his first Blogger blog.

Mais c'est solide, autant que ça l'était quand j'ai débuté avec eux en 2001 et j'ai la nostalgie de ces premiers temps (un peu).

[But it's sturdy, just as it was when I began using it in 2001 - and I'm feeling nostalgic for those early days (a bit).]

It's yet another reminder that the world in which I spend my days did not exist ten years ago. There were rudimentary precursors of blogs, but even HTML was still in flux.

Although it is not taught anymore, "Reading French" - or "German" or "Chinese" - used to be a respectable academic course. It was designed to equip scholars to read literature written in a language that they would never speak. This was particularly useful to Americans, so many of whom never leave the country. It still would be. Learning to read a language fluently is infinitely easier than learning how to speak it - just as it's much easier to learn to read than it is to learn to write (how soon we forget). Let this entry be a small encouragement to anyone who regrets having let her high-school French fade away. With the help of a nice, fat dico - one that lays out a lot of idioms and prepositional phrases - immense and satisfying progress can be made.

Does anyone know of any good Italian blogs? Mnemoglifi, per esempio?

Posted by pourover at 09:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

You probably already knew this, but BBC's Mark Savage recently interviewed La petite anglaise and Zoe in Brussels. Complete with Quarsan! Don't miss the chance to hear the Blogosphere's two most celebrated Anglophone expats talk!

Posted by pourover at 10:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(Thanks to Joe.My.God.)

Posted by pourover at 11:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Take a few minutes to listen to the apologia that Cipriano, the Canadian author of Bookpuddle, has recorded to celebrate his first anniversary as a blogger. He's quite right about one thing: because blogging and reading blogs are purely voluntary, everyone involved is predisposed to think the best of everyone else. Amazingly - in my concededly limited experience - this good feeling carries over into personal encounters. Never before has it been possible to meet people on the basis of shared sensibility. (Thanks to Patricia Storms at Booklust.)

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As a frequent visitor at Wikipedia.com, I was quick to read Stacy Schiff's "Know It All," in the current New Yorker. Not surprisingly, the crux of the story is the tension between users' desire for a reliable product and contributors' insistence upon equal standing. Vandalism and pranksters aside, Wikipedia confronts very thorny problems of accuracy. "Was Copernicus Polish, German, or Prussian?" Ms Schiff reports that

Even Eric Raymond, the open-source pioneer whose work inspired [Wikipedia founder Jimmy] Wales, argues that "'disaster'" is not too strong a word" for Wikipedia.

Kathleen is of much the same view. But when I rely on Wikipedia, I'm rarely placing very much weight on what I find. I'll be checking a birth date, or the BWV number of a Bach composition. In many cases, I'm looking for things that I could find somewhere in this room, if I were willing to get off my seat. When I come across something really new and interesting, something about which I knew little or nothing before finding out about it at Wikipedia, I seek out a second source before getting carried. away.

I have never edited a page of the encyclopedia, even when I've come across small, obviously typographical, errors. This is partly because I don't want to take the time to learn how to do it (even if it takes "no time at all"), but more because I'm afraid that I'll come back to a page and not recognize the work as my own. I've had this very unnerving experience several times on the Internet, reading an interesting quotation and really agreeing with it - wondering why I didn't say that - only to find that it was indeed I who said that. The experience leaves an agreeable afterglow, certainly, but it is creepy at first. I have a nightmare from time to time, which always ends with the realization that I am writing the text that I'm reading. I wake up shuddering, as the ink on the dreamed-of page fades to invisibility. That's what consulting myself in a reference work would be like.

For the time being, I can say that I've never encountered anything at the online encyclopedia that roused my suspicions. Given the sober subjects that I'm usually exploring, this is not surprising. I'll continue to trust my instincts when it comes to judging Wikipedia entries. Which is by way of counseling you, the gentle reader, not to put too much weight on what you may learn here!

Posted by pourover at 11:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Welcome to modern times. What I am doing this morning is reading the blogs and Web sites of people who will be interviewed later today as prospective housemates of a friend of mine in Brooklyn. I ask you: how weird is that?

How weirdly wonderful?

Posted by pourover at 11:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)