Our friend Mark, at Fouroboros, has posted an intriguing piece. In it, he presents matters of both content, and form. While I find the content intiguing, I chose to comment on the form, which I quote here for your consideration:
The test of a "communicative medium" (I don't know if that's the best phrase to capture what I'm thinking of, but it's as good as any as a placeholder) is its ability to convey the full range of thoughts and experiences for which people use it.
Take poetry, for example. People "use it" to convey nuances of thought and emotion too subtle for prose, or in different timeslices than prose would require. (Like Ogden Nash's wonderful poem about my beloved home town: "The Bronx, No thonx"). Can't get any more succinct than that, right?
What I'm wondering relates to your question: "Do I misunderstand this 'blog' thing?" I wonder if the blog, as a communicative medium, is up to the task you place before it in the Precis you've presented here.
I don't know.
Let's see.
I mean, how long did it take novels, or films, to evolve to their current communicative/expressive niches?
As blogs evolve, we'll begin to see ourselves interacting with one another about different things in different ways. I think we already see this in the "stratification" of the blogosphere into various recognizable "sub-genres," like "politics," "business," "tech," and so on.
The content of Mark's post puts it into a sub-genre of co-creation that we're also seeing (or rather, were promised to see) in The Red Couch. It remains to be seen whether the kind of rich interaction that takes place within the face-to-face workings of a creative group can morph into something amenable to this communicative medium.
I didn't know that about poetry, interesting.
Maybe blogging is just a way to communicate.
Posted by: Connie Sartain | February 17, 2005 at 02:04 PM
Fascinating. And timely, since I get to plug my recent piece on blogging:
http://futuremd.blogspot.com/2005/02/everything-you-wanted-to-know-about.html
Nice work on your blog.
Cheers,
Victoria
Posted by: Victoria | February 17, 2005 at 02:06 PM
Well, Connie, you didn't know it 'cause I just made it up! What I mean is, that's my experience of the differences between reading the two.
Thank you, Victoria. Appreciate the comment. Like your blog as well. I have that Charlie Rose on TiVo, but just haven't gotten around to watching it yet. I share your thoughts about Wonkette; she can be fun, but a little of her goes a long way for me, either on her blog or on TV.
Posted by: Tom Guarriello | February 17, 2005 at 02:57 PM
Heya Tom!
Sorry for the tardy reply (my style lately, eh?). Blame it on my talented kids and my swim-dad/driver-to-meets status.
Indeed, I do find myself vesting a certain ambition to actually see more volleying of sorts happening. But, creative 'exposure' is such a squirrely thing. I once ventured while facilitating a town-hall type development meeting for an arts org: "In some ways, is creating and communicating art a way to reach out to others? To venture your idea of things and see who agrees?"
I never did get the crab puff and fois gras smell out of that sweater.
Posted by: fouro | February 22, 2005 at 01:23 PM
Oh yeah, those arts socials can be rough.
No doubt there's a tension between "creating" and "exposing,"(especially the kind of half-baked puddings I often offer up here). Virginia Poster has, of late, been writing about the blog's inherent limitations for exploring ideas in depth. I'm not sure about that, but I know at present the medium is skewed in favor of brevity and real-time exploration. But, Rageboy certainly takes on ideas at length, and, with a certain creative flair, so I believe it's possible for blogs to evolve.
Posted by: Tom Guarriello | February 23, 2005 at 09:52 AM