In an issue of Harper's, an erratic blogger by the name of Matthew Specktor described blogging's fundamental paradoxes--" the split between publicity and privacy, between Whitmanesque openness and Yeatsian retreat... "

I am more an erratic than a prolific blogger, though I am a prolific emailer and I used to be a prolific letter writer. I still love envelopes with stamps, writing addresses out longhand, taking time to write a long thoughtful letter to a friend. But that happens less and less.

But I digress.

But isn't that the nature of blogging?

There is such a swirl of events racing around me, around you, around all of us. This week saw historic health reform finally pass the House and head on its way to the Senate. I remember Paul Krugman at ALOUD, exactly 18 months ago, predicting that if we got a Dem in the White House, in 18 months we'd have some kind of health care reform. It's been a long slog (rhymes with blog), but I'm grateful for the changes on the way. At ALOUD last week, we hosted writer Tim O'Brien whose commentary on the line between fiction and nonfiction itself deserves a long blog. Misery in Haiti. the explosion of spring in my yard.

But today I will engage in a Yeatsian retreat.
I am primarily devoting the hours I have for writing mind into editing/revising my book THE CROOKED MIRROR.

But to anyone out there who actually reads this... I salute the effort it takes to capture, distill, ponder the swirl of life around us. Happy spring

Comments

March 24, 2010 3:52 PM EDT

Hear, hear, or is it in blogging terms, here, here. good post about a subject dear to my heart.

- Charlotte
March 25, 2010 6:02 PM EDT

Ah, the nature of blogging. My 16 year old & I were just discussing the broad, dabbling knowledge-gathering of the internet versus sustained, in-depth study of a single subject. I am finding myself interested in so many subjects that I skitter from one book to the next without finishing any. They all cohere around a theme - and it's the theme of my blog -- but still... it's a problem!
On another subject, said 16 year old just read & loved O'Brien's The Things They Carried. Is there a podcast of his talk? If not, will you give it that "long blog" you say it deserves? We wd love to know what he said.

- Melissa
March 27, 2010 12:01 AM EDT

hi there... thanks for comment! we're about 1 month behind on posting the podcasts, but stay tuned... Tim really opened up at the talk... quite beautiful.
love, L

- Louise Steinman
March 29, 2010 6:14 PM EDT

Hi Louise,

I'm glad to know I'm not the only one who still writes real letters. I was the kid who had pen pals worldwide, saved the stamps, and tried to learn their languages.

I have a suggestion for an ALOUD speaker. How do I get the info to you?

- Jane Neff Rollins, Reed '73

Louise Steinman

Interviews, Essays, Podcasts, Video

BLOG: SWANS LAST DIVE (inactive) Please see my Crooked Mirror blog www.crookedmirror.wordpress.com

to blog or not to blog

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