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Tag: bloggage
Bloggings about blogging.
Without These Guys, We’d All Be In Our Rooms For No Reason
HAPPY SYSTEM ADMINISTRATOR APPRECIATION DAY! In our case, that would be those wonderful folks at sonic.net, whose founders we’ve known since they built Santa Rosa Junior College’s first dialup Internet host as a class project in 1993ish and without whom there’d be no The Metaphorager (among others). O Gallant Knights of the Cables Etheric, Slayers of Spam and Kibitzers of Kludge; Nobly-born Fighters Against Tedium, Keepers of the Causeways Electronic and Guardians of the Never-Ending Taskmasters. (szhhhhwip) I salute you. Keep the toasters flying!
The Color Of Metaphor
WHAT YOU ARE LOOKING AT (in addition to these words) is, according to thecolorof.com‘s rendering engine (still in beta!), the color of “metaphor.” (The color of “metaphorager” is, alas, invisible to normal eyes.) The website evidently layers keyworded images into a fuzzy pixel foam, but that description doesn’t do justice to the finished product (which can be purchased as a print). 
Some are surprisingly “truthy,” while others — like these two — seem cut from similar weave. (Or is it a comment on the weaver, or on the woven web?) We at The Metaphorager welcome this latest effort to concretize abstractions, and tip the Metaphorager Propeller-Beanie to Anthony A. for hipping us to it.)
Ol’ Thinkypants’ Question For The Producers
“WHEN DID ART BEGIN TO be about purging one’s personal demons instead of making people smile, wonder or otherwise get over themselves?”
Am “I” The Only One?
IN THIS ELECTRONIC ME-FIRST age, it is both rare and a point of honor never to begin a blog post with “I.” (Nitpickery note: I mean the word and concept, not the letter. Yeesh.) Not that I’m not tempted — but it’s too easy, too prevalent (for my tastes) and symptomatic of what I find least attractive about Lower North American pop culture.
There is a blogger who epitomizes what I’m talking about, and whose (apparently non-ironic) advice for Internet success is “Tap into narcissism.” She makes an interesting point, but I think that only produces a pile of people shouting “Lookit me! Lookit! Lookit!” instead of offering something interesting.
I don’t want my art to be narcissistic; I’d rather have it said about me “Who is this guy?” than “Who does this guy think he is?” Better still would be, “What a great story! Who wrote it? And are there more?”
Howling at Faire
YESTERDAY, I POSTED A COMMENT to BoingBoing asking people to “Google ‘deconstructionist face-bullhorn’ (for) … where I stand on the whole horned-rim/hornrimmed/modern-equivalent-of-John-Lennon’s frames issue.” So far, 22 people have. Whee! (This post’s title is taken from a phenomenon well-known to after-hours Renaissance Pleasure Faire folk, whereby those standing at the bottom of the little valley need only howl once to provoke a full-throated choral reply from a horde of unseen collegial up-valleyites. And it never failed.)
Despite The Profanity, He Makes A Good Point
IT’S SO TEMPTING TO SAY “I wish I’d written this” when you find something which crystallizes inchoate feelings into verbal fistpump and hellyeah.
I fully recognize the irony in blogging about a piece which calls blogs into question. But reading http://www.internetisshit.org helped me understand some of the misgivings I have over the increasing trend to live our lives on line.
(Granted, I may read more of the sources he or she’s critiquing than you do. And I may be the only person who dislikes using the grocer’s debit-card terminal because it distracts from face-to-face conversations. But the point remains: THE INTERNET IS NOT, nor should be confused for, REAL LIFE.)
21st Century Magritte
How To Make Your Blog Sound Important
1. BEGIN EVERY PARAGRAPH WITH “I.”
2. Repost the same story as other blogs within your target demographic.
3. When commenting in other blogs, slip in the phrase “as I wrote” and flash your URL.
4. Call everyone by their first name whether celebrity, criminal or politician.
5. Make gratuitous jokes equating celebrities, criminals and politicians. Continue reading “How To Make Your Blog Sound Important”
Harlan’s Secret
“People on the outside think there’s something magical about writing, that you go up in the attic at midnight and cast the bones and come down in the morning with a story, but it isn’t like that. You sit in back of the typewriter and you work, and that’s all there is to it.”
— Author and critic HARLAN ELLISON, my first inspiration and sometime/longtime influence, as quoted on http://www.advicetowriters.com, a website worth visiting
Our Motto
“ALL THAT’S NEWS TO ME, I print.”
Why 365 Names of God?
Why not? Well, the folks at Make Something Every Day And Change Your Life (http://makesomething365.blogspot.com/) crossed my path, and where the whim goeth, goeth I. Names are sourced from:
1. Traditional religions
2. Science fiction, fantasy, autobiography or other literature
3. The author’s brain and/or territories thereof
4. Reader submissions (send with attribution to scoop@sonic.net, subject “365 Names”)
Among other things, I hope to show the universality of the God-concept: an individual or cultural belief in or knowledge of Something or Someone transcendent, creative, monistic, final and above all Mysterious. Partly, I hope to dissolve walls by making them more distinct; also, as Lower North America seems to be calling for a new Dark Age, I want to show that no one has a monopoly on “God.” (Better still: that everyone’s an expert.)
Follow this project at https://metaphorager.net/tag/365-names-of-god/.