I have only met a few bloggers off-line, in person. These encounters have been interesting and exciting. You know: You visit somebody’s blog, and you learn about them, and you learn from them. You see their ideas and their histories and their creative endeavors. But then, if you meet them in person, and you take in appearances and voices, accents and manner and so on -the externals- you’re meeting the person in reverse, really. Meeting somebody after having read their blog for...say...five years or more...it’s kind of a mind-blower to see them in person.
When you read somebody’s blog long enough, their thoughts and character and intellect start to take space and shape in your own thoughtscape. They have a very firm and real identity to you even though you have never met them. If this blogger has accomplished the writers’ goal: portraying experience in such a way that it is universal, so that the you, the reader, can totally relate - then this blogger’s written pieces and essence exist in your thinking.
And then one day, you actually meet them.
They come walking out of their hotel, or they walk into the book store, or they walk into the museum. They’ve described them self to you over the phone maybe, or maybe you’ve seen a picture of them online. And then there they are: standing in front of you smiling.
What do you talk about? Everything? How much can you cover in a short visit? You have roamed the ranges of their thinking - in their blogs - you have so much to cover! So much has already been covered out in the blogs though...What will this ‘live appearance’ add to your understanding of this person?
I met
True Friday. But it seems like what I really did was put on a performance. I blew it, I think. I was so excited about meeting her, I babbled my face off. That’s what I do to people in real life - and that’s why I’m such a social media addict: because I lack social skills -- like in person. Ha. I’m a loner. I’m better in print, really. This particular meeting with this particular blogger is a perfect example or illustration to lead off with -- in a blog post (a really long blog post) about the blogger versus the actual person and meeting the person behind all the blogging.
I’m in awe of True. It would be impossible for somebody like me to ‘review’ her writings. And her blog has undergone a few phases of existence (mine too), and she’s written so much, it’d be impossible to try to describe it all. But True has the Internet Writing thing down. Writing for the internet holds many opportunities that writing hard copy does not. There are opportunities that pose as challenges, and the flip. Obviously, in writing for the internet, on blogs, you are writing with the expectation that there will be interaction soon, comments - continued interaction, on this thing that you have written. In the comments window the notes accumulate: the reactions to your writing, the perceptions of it.
When you’re reading anything on the internet, A Big Question nags at you (or it should) -- This Big Question doesn’t nag you as much when you’re reading a hard copy magazine or a book...The Big Question:
IS THIS STUFF TRUE? We all know that we can’t believe everything we read on the internet. But we want to believe anyway. And indeed, suspending disbelief is mandatory in reading certain types of writing - in order for the story to hold up. If you don’t believe, the ‘story-reading process’ is ruined for you.
Out in the blogs or anywhere on the internet, the fact versus fiction query yields blurry results. Really, there are no rules on the internet, it’s wide open. A skilled writer with an understanding of the rules of the game - or an understanding that there are no rules - can have serious impact. True’s choice of name, ‘True,’ the levels of meaning there, it’s irony on this level, on the next level it is not irony, go out another level - it is irony, out another: no...etc etc, repeat as necessary - - it really depends on how many levels out you want to look at it.
WHAT IS TRUTH? ...it that we proclaim to be truth - is it real truth? Ask that question for a while, why don’t you... What sorts of truths really exist? What is truth on the internet? What are the rules or ‘nonrules’ for truth on the internet? The internet is obviously changing how we think. Is it changing the way we vet truths? Shouldn’t it? It certainly is changing the way information spreads...shouldn’t it change the way truth is vetted? Truth or so called truth needs to be challenged.
True’s blog pulled off a kind of hoax, an art project, appearing to be written by three characters, the blog was actually actually only written by one person. You can learn a lot about a person by what untruths they chose to present. (Or do you?) I’m not sure why there were the three characters. It was part of her design. When I learned that it was, in fact, only one person - not three - it was one of those moments where I reassessed my beliefs about the internet and more, and I even got a little pissy (even sending a mean, unfair email to True, and leaving drive-by crazy comments on her blog etc etc).
But really what she did was create a piece of Internet Writing. Has a new form of writing emerged with the advent of blogs? Fuck yeah, of course, you better believe it, yes sir. This is a new thing, my friend. Some of the old rules of established forms certainly do apply - rules from essay, poetry, short story, journalism, new journalism. But Internet Writing has a whole new set of parts - AND THEY’RE MOVING PARTS. True’s blog is great not only because of the beauty and fluidity and styling of each line, but she totally gets it about the Internet. She doesn’t just get it, she can take you to school on it. Internet Writing has new rules and goals, I don’t know if they’re Brave New Rules and Goals, but it’s all new.
When I was sitting there Friday with True trying to explain to her what it was about her writing that GOT me, I would just say, “You’re writing. . . ” and I’d trail off and babble and stutter a while . . . I’d have trouble putting it into words, into cogent, coherent and clear sentences. Her writing really planted hooks in me. I’m not always sure that I understood what she was saying. I’m not always sure that I played by her ‘nonrules’ rules for blogging. I visited her blog, I read, and I left comments. I think I took more away from it than I expected or she expected.
I should just brainstorm to describe her writing, just stream some words: reality, art, philosophy, fashion, rap star, dj, gritty, graffiti, big crazy wigs, costumes, fetish, sexy, lusty, styley, high times, street level, freak photos, all of the best movies, blood and guts and stains, gender, fighting, a need for You to control Me, New York City, 9/11, Europe, party people, reasoning. Profound. Clear place and animated times and stories - specific stories - observations of synergy, disturbance on the pond and the ripples, butterfly wing, friendship, conflict between friends, shared experience, love, epiphany, epiphany shared. Very compelling. And interactive. She unleashes these thoughts and images that you immediately want to revel in. Her energy seems endless, she’s everywhere.
In short, she’s a comprehensive thinker, well versed in many subjects - and in the most profound of which, philosophy, she could take you to school. I confessed that I’d only gotten to page 20 (of 800) of Being and Nothingness, The Big Book of existentialism (or one of the big books of existentialism...True might steer you to Heidegger). I asked her what the hell was going on in that book, and in philosophy in general - like today. I have no idea what’s going on in the field of Philosophy in the year 2008. Apparently philosophy isn’t exactly moving forward. It’s looking back, I guess they are trying to determine whether philosophy books up to this point are all full-o-shit or something, and what direction to go in now... But the conversation on existentialism really fit the occasion.
What’s going on with True’s writing in the year 2008? You’ll have to go check it out at the magazine she writes for,
Reality Sandwich.
Off on a tangent here because this is my goddam blog: Is the person’s art separate from the person? (of course trillions of words have been written on this, but how does the internet and all of the mediums of expression available to everybody change the consideration of this separation?) When you’re writing a blog, or you’re on twitter or flickr or buzznet or whatever, you can constantly produce! You can constantly add and post and revise. How much of a separation is there if you are constantly neck deep in the workings of it? Do you ever really separate from your art? ...maybe so. So your art separates from you . . . but how quickly? How completely? . . . if you’re constantly outputting to your body of art, you’re constantly a part of your body of art. Right? Or no? We can revise. We can repost. We can delete one blog and start up another - or we can ‘start a new thing’ on the same blog. We can mature. We can look back at our archives and cringe. Each of us is a constantly changing person in a constantly changing world with the ability to govern and change our identities online. My goals for my blog have changed, as I’ve said.
Here’s another tangent: We are forced to go with what we got in treading the internet. Wikipedia, blogs, whatever - we gotta take the information we have at hand, and use it for whatever. And afterwards, we have to deal with the consequences. Even though we have well more data available to us via the world wide web, we still can only fit so much of it into our thinking as we act. And even though it’s pretty easy to delete a blog, the memories of the interactions that have occurred - those will surface in our thinking - memories always fight to get to the surface - it’s part of their coding.
Anyway.
I met Mott Cromby recently too. He blogs
here,
here, and
here, but mainly lately he is on Myspace
here. We had spoken on the phone many times before we met. We would talk for hours. We had been following each other’s blogs and emailing for quite a while. When he showed up, it was like a continuation of our phone conversations. We got right into it. I tried to drag him to some poetry readings...but that didn't really happen.
He is a great poet. He has the craft down, and he has heart and soul. His poems evoke strong emotions...there’s a heavy sadness or desolation or desperation, a past chasing you in the present. There were missed opportunities in the past. There is a defiance against the present. There are super dreams for the future. There’s The Blues. Lost love, failed love. There’s release and glory and power...these are some of the things you take in when you read his poetry and this is what real poetry should be like...is what I think...as I read his poems....in order to try to write some poems of my own. In his poems, there are demons that chase you even when you seem safe in your cubicle. You lose in life, but you don’t have to take it - even if you sit there and take it. There are epic proportions, scope - to his poems. There is the face-off with doom, and the middle finger slowly comes up. There are towering big dreams in his poems that do not die but grow and grow, and there’s a dark counterforce and an impending climax. Booze in his poems. Uncomfortable breezes hit you as you stand alone at the pay phone. There is self-destruct mode. There is a combination other world/this world. He can charge ahead, full-speed Ginsberg-style Whitman-style and/or he can build these great landscapes, these great detailings.
He’s got a few novels in him too, I think. His poetry shows his abilities with sound and beat and rhythm - he’s also big into music. He doesn’t go into anything lightly, he gets into the craft of it and learns all the nuts and bolts. He’s a singer/songwriter/guitarist. Lately he’s doing more with his music than his bloggin. He posts songs to his myspace.
Anyway, that night that we met up, instead of going to the poetry readings, we ended up just getting something to eat and talking like crazy. Just like we do on the phone. We talk about everything: writing, books, politics...I started supporting Obama after I found out he supported Obama. I had just donated to dopey Edwards. I had other reasons for changing to Obama, but a big reason was Mott Cromby. We talk about the hypocrisy in America and the world. We talk up some big talk. You have to have somebody to talk to like this, about things like these. Somebody you can just open a line to and start rapping.
I was hoping he’d make it down here again some time soon.
What other bloggers would I like to meet? All of them! You and you and you.
How do I end this post. I had trouble deciding whether I’d post this at all. I'm kind of putting people on the spot here. And I don't know if I'm getting them right or doing them justice. But I worked like a mufucker on this post...so here it is. (Nobody reads long ass posts like these anyway...ha) I’m pretty full of shit, I guess, slinging words from long range, hoping I hit on something. But take away this if you take away anything: You can indeed have impact with your blog writings. Keep at it! And post regularly. Don’t be a slacker like me.
