Filed under: myself/this blog
Trying yet another template. The sidebar was starting to take over the actual blogging, so I’m bringing the focus back to the writing, which I hope to do at least a few times a month, maybe more. In the last few weeks I’ve cut out Facebook, Gchat, and Twitter almost entirely. It’s not part of an experiment or anything, I just got really sick of them. Probably not forever, but for now I’m enjoying the time away. In theory this should lead to more substance; in practice it’s lead to piles of newspapers and magazines waiting to be read (now that I’m reading more, that is), but I’m still liking that more than the other way. My New York Review of Books subscription began yesterday. I figure if I have to live through the death of ink-and-paper journalism I might as well take advantage of the exorbitant discounts on offer. There has been a long string of friends – usually older – trying to get me to read NYRB. I’ve always resisted it. It seems really detached. But now for some reason I’m embracing that. Maybe it’s because the New Yorker isn’t as special as it used to be – although I still adore it. I wouldn’t rule out that it’s because NYRB is still all about a big, bold print edition and most other magazines and newspapers keep shrinking. I really admire a publication that doesn’t get all agitated about it’s business model. Maybe that’s naive, ultimately, but it gives me comfort as a reader. They’re using a model that’s been perfected over at least a century, so I just trust their product a bit more. Having had a little peek behind the curtain of long-form journals courting online trends, I have to say somewhere in my gut I feel like there’s a lot more adjusting to do. If nothing else, there’s a terror that goes with producing a print product that you just don’t get with the Web — and which working with Web journalism can weaken in the print culture. I guess that’s not exactly the best way to kick off a new blog. I sometimes wonder how much of what I do comes from contrarianism. I’d say at least half if not most. But you have to get by somehow.
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