Wednesday, October 29, 2003
Camille Paglia on Blogging
I don't always agree with Camille, but I think she is spot on here, and it I will be working even more to develop my voice. And say something meaningful about culture, personalities and events. I agree with her, I am ambivalent about the proliferation of endless politcal rant blogs. Although some are quite good, they are somewhat incestuous and inbred, repetitive and boring. More good, punchy writing is needed, and more visuals!!
Thank you.
Why aren't you a fan of blogs?
Blog reading for me is like going down to the cellar amid shelves and shelves of musty books that you're condemned to turn the pages of. Bad prose, endless reams of bad prose! There's a lack of discipline, a feeling that anything that crosses one's mind is important or interesting to others. People say that the best part about writing a blog is that there's no editing -- it's free speech without institutional control. Well, sure, but writing isn't masturbation -- you've got to self-edit.
Now and then one sees the claim that Kausfiles was the first blog. I beg to differ: I happen to feel that my Salon column was the first true blog. My columns had punch and on-rushing velocity. They weren't this dreary meta-commentary, where there's a blizzard of fussy, detached sections nattering on obscurely about other bloggers or media moguls and Washington bureaucrats. I took hits at media excesses, but I directly commented on major issues and personalities in politics and pop culture.
If bloggers want to break out of their ghetto, they've got to acquire a sense of drama and theater as well as a flair for language. Why else should anyone read them? And the Web in my view is a visual medium -- I don't log on to be trapped on a muddy page crammed with indigestible prose.
Do you also think that anyone is interesting enough to have something worthwhile to say, sometimes several times a day, on a blog?
Sure, if there's a powerful sensibility behind it. But every writer must work on his or her prose to find a voice. No major figure has emerged yet from the blogs -- Andrew Sullivan was already an established writer before he started his. A blog should sound conversational and be an antidote to the inept writing in most of today's glossy magazines.
As a writer, I'm inspired not just by other writing but by music and art and lines from movies. I think that's what's missing from a lot of blogs. Most bloggers aren't culture critics but political or media junkies preoccupied with pedestrian minutiae and a sophomoric "gotcha" mentality. I find it depressing and claustrophobic. The Web is a wide open space -- voices on it should have energy and vision.
[More...]
Thank you.
Why aren't you a fan of blogs?
Blog reading for me is like going down to the cellar amid shelves and shelves of musty books that you're condemned to turn the pages of. Bad prose, endless reams of bad prose! There's a lack of discipline, a feeling that anything that crosses one's mind is important or interesting to others. People say that the best part about writing a blog is that there's no editing -- it's free speech without institutional control. Well, sure, but writing isn't masturbation -- you've got to self-edit.
Now and then one sees the claim that Kausfiles was the first blog. I beg to differ: I happen to feel that my Salon column was the first true blog. My columns had punch and on-rushing velocity. They weren't this dreary meta-commentary, where there's a blizzard of fussy, detached sections nattering on obscurely about other bloggers or media moguls and Washington bureaucrats. I took hits at media excesses, but I directly commented on major issues and personalities in politics and pop culture.
If bloggers want to break out of their ghetto, they've got to acquire a sense of drama and theater as well as a flair for language. Why else should anyone read them? And the Web in my view is a visual medium -- I don't log on to be trapped on a muddy page crammed with indigestible prose.
Do you also think that anyone is interesting enough to have something worthwhile to say, sometimes several times a day, on a blog?
Sure, if there's a powerful sensibility behind it. But every writer must work on his or her prose to find a voice. No major figure has emerged yet from the blogs -- Andrew Sullivan was already an established writer before he started his. A blog should sound conversational and be an antidote to the inept writing in most of today's glossy magazines.
As a writer, I'm inspired not just by other writing but by music and art and lines from movies. I think that's what's missing from a lot of blogs. Most bloggers aren't culture critics but political or media junkies preoccupied with pedestrian minutiae and a sophomoric "gotcha" mentality. I find it depressing and claustrophobic. The Web is a wide open space -- voices on it should have energy and vision.
[More...]
Wednesday, October 08, 2003
This Speaks Volumes, not only about the country, but about what just happened in California
All Hail the Bush Literati
A BUZZFLASH READER COMMENTARY
by Suzanne
It's amusing when Jr. and Pickles try to go all JFK and Jackie. Dubya wrote a sophomoric poem that would embarrass an inebriated undergrad, describing his wife as a "lump in the bed." JFK was a best selling Pulitzer Prize winning author of "Profiles in Courage" and "Why England Slept." His Inaugural address and "I Am A Berliner" speeches entered the lexicon as no others. Both JFK and Jackie were certifiable eggheads, history buffs and bibliophiles. Both lived in Europe after college, traveled widely and were true internationalists.
Mrs. Bush just opened the Book Festival comparing reading to an "itch you can't reach." Ugh. Jackie edited over 100 fine books for Doubleday; and wrote articles for the "New Yorker" under a nom de plume. At Vassar she won the "Edna St. Vincent Millay" prize for literature. She restored the White House to historical authenticity, redesigned lovely gardens and wrote the first White House Guide book ever which has been a big money maker for the White House curator's office.
She caused historical preservation laws to be enacted. And worked to save and restore historical buildings and sites including Grand Central Station in NYC, and the pyramids in Egypt that were threatened by the Aswan Dam project. The gift of the Temple of Dendur to America in NYC's MOMA was in honor of her efforts. She worked on the Save Venice projects, and was instrumental in bringing the Mona Lisa to America for public viewing. These are but a few from a very long list of her efforts to lift others and preserve and highlight cultural heritage while avoiding publicity for herself.
After only 90 days in office the Kennedy's were beloved all around the world. Millions poured into the streets waving American flags across Latin America, Europe and Asia because the Kennedy's lit a match of hope in the world that reflected American civilization in a glittering light. Jack--an actual war hero--was present in San Francisco for the ratification of the United Nations. He gave the world the Alliance for Progress, the Peace Corps, the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, the President's Council on Youth Fitness, the first ever presidential Committee on the Status of Women, and the reach for the moon. His press conferences were legendary for his quick wit. When Helen Thomas asked him "What are you doing for women?" He quipped, "Well, I don't know Ms. Thomas, but I'm sure whatever it is, it isn't enough!"
Jackie spoke French, Italian and Spanish. President de Gaulle said "She showed the whole world how to behave."Both had infinite respect for other people's dignity and opinions. While Dubya brags he doesn't read the papers, JFK took speed reading in order to read more. Jackie's beautiful watercolors graced UNICEF greeting cards, she raised two beautiful children, and was one of the top horsewomen in the country.
I hope that the "lump in the bed" and the "lumphead" are "having a nice day" planning what next to bomb, destroy, empty of meaning and vulgarize.
Suzanne, San Francisco
A BUZZFLASH READER COMMENTARY
A BUZZFLASH READER COMMENTARY
by Suzanne
It's amusing when Jr. and Pickles try to go all JFK and Jackie. Dubya wrote a sophomoric poem that would embarrass an inebriated undergrad, describing his wife as a "lump in the bed." JFK was a best selling Pulitzer Prize winning author of "Profiles in Courage" and "Why England Slept." His Inaugural address and "I Am A Berliner" speeches entered the lexicon as no others. Both JFK and Jackie were certifiable eggheads, history buffs and bibliophiles. Both lived in Europe after college, traveled widely and were true internationalists.
Mrs. Bush just opened the Book Festival comparing reading to an "itch you can't reach." Ugh. Jackie edited over 100 fine books for Doubleday; and wrote articles for the "New Yorker" under a nom de plume. At Vassar she won the "Edna St. Vincent Millay" prize for literature. She restored the White House to historical authenticity, redesigned lovely gardens and wrote the first White House Guide book ever which has been a big money maker for the White House curator's office.
She caused historical preservation laws to be enacted. And worked to save and restore historical buildings and sites including Grand Central Station in NYC, and the pyramids in Egypt that were threatened by the Aswan Dam project. The gift of the Temple of Dendur to America in NYC's MOMA was in honor of her efforts. She worked on the Save Venice projects, and was instrumental in bringing the Mona Lisa to America for public viewing. These are but a few from a very long list of her efforts to lift others and preserve and highlight cultural heritage while avoiding publicity for herself.
After only 90 days in office the Kennedy's were beloved all around the world. Millions poured into the streets waving American flags across Latin America, Europe and Asia because the Kennedy's lit a match of hope in the world that reflected American civilization in a glittering light. Jack--an actual war hero--was present in San Francisco for the ratification of the United Nations. He gave the world the Alliance for Progress, the Peace Corps, the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, the President's Council on Youth Fitness, the first ever presidential Committee on the Status of Women, and the reach for the moon. His press conferences were legendary for his quick wit. When Helen Thomas asked him "What are you doing for women?" He quipped, "Well, I don't know Ms. Thomas, but I'm sure whatever it is, it isn't enough!"
Jackie spoke French, Italian and Spanish. President de Gaulle said "She showed the whole world how to behave."Both had infinite respect for other people's dignity and opinions. While Dubya brags he doesn't read the papers, JFK took speed reading in order to read more. Jackie's beautiful watercolors graced UNICEF greeting cards, she raised two beautiful children, and was one of the top horsewomen in the country.
I hope that the "lump in the bed" and the "lumphead" are "having a nice day" planning what next to bomb, destroy, empty of meaning and vulgarize.
Suzanne, San Francisco
A BUZZFLASH READER COMMENTARY
Saturday, October 04, 2003
Limbaugh In The Shadow Of His Own Words
Ellis Henican
Actually, the thing about Jerry is that he did not destroy his life on drugs. He actually seemed to have a pretty good time, both as a musician, and on drugs. Not always, but quite a bit.
What he really did was to destroy his health in a fairly All-American way. He smoked, he was sedentary and did not exercise, he ate a crap diet, he was obese, and he did not deal with the resulting diabetes very well. He struggled with the discipline it takes to be healthy in American society, where we are all encouraged to make unhealthy choices on a daily basis.
Jerry's use of cocaine weakened him, I'm sure...but what killed him was the same thing that kills many "typical" Americans, and ruins the health of many more.
Another public moralist had been caught in a personal jam. And Rush's words were coming back to haunt him.
The constant digs at Bill Clinton not inhaling.
The heartless shrug when Jerry Garcia died.
"'When you strip it all away," Rush had said of the Grateful Dead guitarist, "Jerry Garcia destroyed his life on drugs. And yet he's being honored, like some godlike figure. Our priorities are out of whack, folks."
Rush Limbaugh isn't the first prominent finger-pointer to eat his own words. It wasn't so long ago that Bill Bennett was explaining how an anti-vice crusader could also be a degenerate gambler.
And Jeb Bush, the president's brother and Rush's governor, was pleading for leniency and privacy when his daughter got arrested for drugs. Yet he'd been happily sending other Florida youngsters to long prison terms for similar crimes.
Typical
Actually, the thing about Jerry is that he did not destroy his life on drugs. He actually seemed to have a pretty good time, both as a musician, and on drugs. Not always, but quite a bit.
What he really did was to destroy his health in a fairly All-American way. He smoked, he was sedentary and did not exercise, he ate a crap diet, he was obese, and he did not deal with the resulting diabetes very well. He struggled with the discipline it takes to be healthy in American society, where we are all encouraged to make unhealthy choices on a daily basis.
Jerry's use of cocaine weakened him, I'm sure...but what killed him was the same thing that kills many "typical" Americans, and ruins the health of many more.
