Autoblogography, or: It must have been too cold for him his heart gave way

Obvious answer to a stupid question:

Today, Mrs. Nichols speaks about her blog as if it were a diet or half-finished novel. “I’m going to get back to it,” she swears. Her last entry, in December of last year, was curt and none too profound. “Books make great gifts,” she began, breaking a silence of nearly a month.

Like Mrs. Nichols, many people start blogs with lofty aspirations — to build an audience and leave their day job, to land a book deal, or simply to share their genius with the world. Getting started is easy, since all it takes to maintain a blog is a little time and inspiration. So why do blogs have a higher failure rate than restaurants?

Because most aren't so roobish to invest kidneys of self-esteem in such roobish self-aggrandizement without profit, my self-esteem fweeing like tea kettles, the scream of living with my genius unrecognized driving me to typing....

Richard Jalichandra, chief executive of Technorati, said that at any given time there are 7 million to 10 million active blogs on the Internet, but “it’s probably between 50,000 and 100,000 blogs that are generating most of the page views.” He added, “There’s a joke within the blogging community that most blogs have an audience of one.”

And the money shot:

That’s a serious letdown from the hype that greeted blogs when they first became popular. No longer would writers toil in anonymity or suffer the indignities of the publishing industry, we were told. Finally the world of ideas would be democratized! This was the catnip that intoxicated Mrs. Nichols.

Here's where the article goes errant: Democratized?

I link to people like me I like, I like them to like me too. I bleg to tell you what is is, then drink of your marveling at my wisdom.

UPDATE! Culture Ghost read the same article.

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• Was going to write this, but beaten to it.
  
• On pseudonymity. The word you're looking for is pussy.
  
• On academic identity politics.
• Prison problems.
• What was on the other teleprompter.
• UPDATE! Read this.
• UPDATE! Read this and this.
  
• The hand of history.
• You're one microscopic cog.
• !wOOt! Pagans 'R Us!
• So I don't have to.
• UPDATE! Future vomit.
• Nut Sac?
• 09-10 home Chelsea shirts come with franklampardian bra. Fuck Chelsea.
• Lookee what I just bought:

• DeLillo's The Names and the death of meaning.
  
• On canonisation.
• Read this: infra-interesting. (I can't speak to the movies - o! - but the concept is trans-o!)
• Another Seidel review.
• Dan's got a bunch of good lit links.
• So does The Millions.
• So does Silliman.
• RIP Jeff Hanson. Songs.
• Lotsa good MP3s.
• Here too. (Bardo Pond? I thought I was the only person who remembered Bardo Pond.)

UPDATE! Seb's comment re: Bardo Pond referenced Pelt and triggered a cascade of band associations in my head, including, as I commented, Long Fin Killie (Lamberton Lamplighter!), so:

• Here too.
• UPDATE! Lotsa MP3 here too!
• This was the second song this past Friday night.
• Today's Listening Assignment.
• Today's Listening Assignment.
• UPDATE! Sweetness, new YACHT!
• Today's Listening Assignment.
• Today's Listening Assignment.
• One more time, my favorite CD of the year so far.
  

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Not Waving but Drowning

Stevie Smith

Nobody heard him, the dead man,
But still he lay moaning:
I was much further out than you thought
And not waving but drowning.

Poor chap, he always loved larking
And now he's dead
It must have been too cold for him his heart gave way,
They said.

Oh, no no no, it was too cold always
(Still the dead one lay moaning)
I was much too far out all my life
And not waving but drowning.

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