Month: March 2005

There’s an interesting discussion going on over at Burningbird about the wisdom of blogrolls. I have to admit I’ve often had doubts about the need for, and wisdom of having, blogrolls.

When I first started blogging, I used my blogroll to list sites in the order I was most likely to visit them, with the ones I visited the most at the top of the list. I seldom use my blogroll that way anymore. I’ve switched to NetNewsWire to tell me when sites have updated. For sites that still don’t provide RSS feeds, some of my favorite sites, I use URL Manager Pro.

Still, as Euan noted at Shelly’s site, “However I would find it hard to delete my blogroll – they feel like a statement about me as much as about them. I once described them as my village.” I feel like my blogroll is also a history of my “village,” with the sites at the top of blogroll generally the ones I’ve linked to, and been linked to, the longest. My “oldest virtual friends” as it were.

I once almost automatically linked to sites that linked to me because it felt like the courteous think to do. I changed that policy recently when I began to feel some sites were simply linking to mine in order to draw readers to their site because there was no indication that they had ever actually visited my site. Recently, I’ve only added links when someone actually drops in and leaves a comment, a sure indication that they at least occasionally read what I have to say.

I used to visit the sites on my blogroll daily. I don’t do that anymore, but I do visit all of them semi-regularly. Unfortunately the ones without RSS feeds sometimes get neglected because I’m sure a creature of habit, and technology. Still, if I quit visiting them, I eventually take them off my blogroll.

Of course, what I’m saying here is in some ways irrelevant to Shelley’s main argument. You’ll notice that I don’t have any links to “A-listers” and that’s because I generally don’t read them and am pretty sure they don’t read me. For me, bloggers are “virtual” friends, not authority figures making pronouncements on high. I’ve always enjoyed discussing ideas with friends, but I’ve never relied solely on them to provide the information I need to make important decisions, which is not to say that friends’ ideas aren’t sometimes better than those proposed by “experts.”

I guess this is just a very wordy way of letting Shelley know that I won’t be dropping my blogroll soon, even if she does help me port my site over to WordPress.

If you’re as opposed as I am to drilling in the Artic Refuge, you might want to consider signing John Kerry’s petition at John Kerry.com

I did, but I’m not sure how much my vote will count since both of my senators already have expressed opposition to the bill.

Halfway through Postmodern American Poetry, I still haven’t found a “radical” new poet that I’m particularly fond of, but I have found several poets with “spiritual” overtones that I like.

One of my favorites is Anselm Hollo, an instructor at the Naropa Institute. Hollo manages to combine a sense of spirit with a sense of humor, a delightful combination. Amazingly, I liked four of the six poems included. Here’s an example of his serious side:

SHED THE FEAR

Who has a face sees

the world,
but the world
is not

to be borne
or only
when seen as
another:

how did this
come together? How
did I find you?
So many turns

in the road
so few of them
possible!
How not to spin out

in hairpin turns
of disbelief
The Sufi martyrs
insisted

“The world
is a wedding.”
Why not
go with them.

in the face of
present carnage,
centuries
later.

I like that line “The world/ is a wedding” particularly when contrasted with the “present carnage;” it seems to capture the duality that is our world. I probably prefer this one, though:

GODLIKE

when you suddenly
feel like talking

about the times
in your life when you were

a total idiot asshole you resist
the impulse

& just sit there
at the head of the table

beaming.

Remind you of anyone you know? Hopefully the portrayal is nearly universal, if not, perhaps I should be more embarrassed than I was when I first read it.

As you can probably tell from the photos below, I’ve been spacing out on Photoshop
lately.

This photo was created by exactly following the directions in New Riders’ Photoshop 6 Effects: Magic:

Of course, you really don’t learn much if all you do is follow the directions and create a picture. On the other hand, I don’t learn at all if I just read a Photoshop book.

So, I spent some extra time trying to create my own space shot. It’s probably not as good as the one from the book, but I like it better because it’s my own little corner of space:

and I don’t have to share it with anyone at all, except you, of course.