(no subject)

[pat]

A week or so ago I discovered that a friend of mine had a blog -- a Blogger blog. With those damned word verification things at the bottom. I signed up and got a blogger account so that I could bypass the word verification because I hate those things with a passion (something about the way the letters are garbled always bothers me). It didn't work -- even Blogger members have to go through the verification process. Meh.

However, when you sign up, they walk you through the process of setting up a Blogger blog. So I had this blog just sitting there.....

It's like having a blank notebook, really. You can't just leave the damned thing blank, even if you only draw pictures of your history teacher with buck teeth and an arrow through his head on the first page you have to do *something* with it.

So I wrote. I wrote one personal post -- about why I write -- but I am not writing about my family, or day to day events. This is not a journal. This is a blog. Well, actually, it's a place for me to practice my writing.

Tonight I ended up writing something I really rather liked, and rather than simply repost the whole thing over here, I thought I'd link to it.

Comments

[calebbullen.livejournal.com]

I was going to comment but then it wanted me to comment as my blogger character mancoulter and I didn't know whether to maintain the character or not and my brain froze up.

I think it's a bit of a stretch to conflate a guy with a memoir lacking in truthiness and an administration with more blood on it's hands than I have songs in my head. But that's exactly the kind of jump in logic that the character would love. Which uh... seems ironic eh?

Some of my favorite autobiographies are chock full of lies, exaggerations and stories that are as old as vaudeville. Especially the autobiographies of old vaudvillians. I've heard the same story attributed to many a marx brother, george burns and jack benny so obviously someone was getting out of hand, so be it.

I found Frank Lloyd Wright's autobiography to be moving, philosophically engaging and gave me an interest in archetecture but is it terribly truthfull? Nope. but it doesn't detract from my enjoyment of archetecture.

Seems harmless to believe the exagerations of artists and entertainers because there's no body count and no one was hurt. The same cannot be said for believing the lies of politicians. Especially not this current crop.

[klwalton.livejournal.com]

Mine is here (http://www.secondbloom.blogspot.com).

[phinnia.livejournal.com]

That's a wonderful story.
I hate those CAPTCHAs too. (And tallin hates them more, as not everyone is considerate enough to put in an audio solution. Although he does get to meet some interesting people in the course of complaining about that.)

[patgreene.livejournal.com]

Woo hoo!

[kightp.livejournal.com]

Those verification things are annoying, but you'll probably find out soon why people enable them: Blog spam. johnpalmer hadn't had his blog more than a month before random spammers started invading his comments to sell their junk. Grrr.

The blog entry: Good stuff. Speaking of the culture of lies, have you been following the saga of the unmasking of J.T. LeRoy (http://www.newyorkmetro.com/nymetro/news/people/features/14718/)? Susie Bright has had some particulary trenchant (http://www.newyorkmetro.com/nymetro/news/people/features/14718/) and perceptive (http://susiebright.blogs.com/susie_brights_journal_/) things to say about thisdarling of the ever-so-hip literati, who apparently never actually existed.

[patgreene.livejournal.com]

The JT LeRoy stuff... wow. That's appalling. And what's most appalling is the people who are going to say, like they do with Frey's work, that it doesn't matter if he's a fraud or not.

[datagoddess.livejournal.com]

I made a blogger account so I could comment on a certain person's journal (http://yarnpirate.blogspot.com/) who doesn't allow non-blogger comments. I don't have enough Deep Thots to actually use it, though. I pretty much just comment (and I just did on your post :-)

[epi-lj.livejournal.com]

Have you read, "A Fan's Notes," by Frederick Exley? I think it's a wonderful achievement. It's also exceptionally loosely based on the life of the author.

In the beginning of the novel, or at the end, I can't recall which, there is a note that states outright that sections of the story are dubious or outright fabrication and that while it may be based on his life, the reader should treat it as a story rather than as historical fact. (Unfortunately, I can't find that note using the Amazon "Look Inside," function, so I can't quote it now.) That's the way to handle those sorts of distortions honestly. To not mention them and then later claim that it's commonplace is not.

That said, I think you may come down a little hard on the things that people wish to believe, at least insofar as that implies that those beliefs are false. While there is a great deal of work involved in most creative processes, many great creations are accidental and spontaneous. Usually you don't wind up with the Great Thing directly from the Spontaneous Glitch -- there's typically refinement in between -- a large number of creative and scientific people have cited such incidents as having been a part of their process. I know that when I'm exercising my creativity, I purposefully introduce chance and randomness. This is something that's being supported directly now by many of the tools that I use and is explicitly taught in the composition training software I'm using.

[epi-lj.livejournal.com]

Oh, also, would you be averse to someone making an LJ feed of your blogger account so it could appear on their friends list when you made a post to it?

[patgreene.livejournal.com]

You may be right, that I am being too hard on people, but I am including myself in this -- I think as a species we tend to prefer easy answers to hard.

[patgreene.livejournal.com]

Not at all! I'd be honored!

[epi-lj.livejournal.com]

madameverdi_rss

:)

[epi-lj.livejournal.com]

That's true, and that's a bit of a driving force behind some of my current art projects. The part I was nitpicking about was the idea that chance playing a role was false. Chance often plays a role. The answers provided by chance are rarely easy ones, though. ;)

[patgreene.livejournal.com]

Thank you!