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Sunday, July 31, 2005
“Bring Back the Boston Rag…”
[We preempt Jonathan’s indirect nudge & wink in the direction of Teilhard de Chardin and obsolete computer jokes, or whatever they are, to bring you a direct message. The link below goes to an article about the Valve in the Boston Globe. You might want to read it and comment on it. - the editor]
It ain’t no drag [not to mention, “any news is good news” - the editor]:
Poet and BU professor Rosanna Warren, the ALSC’s current president, is excited about the possibilities. “I think it’s great,” she said. “It’s expanding the reach of the ALSC.” Does she blog? “I personally do not read blogs. It’s not my medium."
Having POKE’d and PEEK’d on the C64 at a fairly early age, I suppose I can’t, according to the Pazuzine hypothesis, quite get this. I mean, yes, obviously, not reading blogs makes perfect sense, but not because of the medium.
Comments
I think it’s reasonable to take the ‘it’s’ as anaphoric on computers. Lots of people, particularly non-youngsters, just aren’t in the habit of reading on-screen. (My department head prefers to print everything out - even long email, I think. If I printed every blog post I read, my office would be a bit messy.) If you don’t buy that, I think it is reasonable to take ‘medium’ as a conversationally loose synonym for form.
First, Jonathan, don’t try to house me on geekdom. I can muddle through Fortan 77 and program a mean FORTAN 90. Sure, like any self-respecting geek I cut my teeth on Winter Games; but I didn’t know any better, what with being seven or eight years old in ‘84. Don’t make me confess that I once wrote code on a Leading Edge Word Processor and compiled it on a...don’t you make me say anything of the sort!
Anyway, doesn’t matter if the sponsor actually reads what we write, only that she knows that we write it and doesn’t object...and, of course, is aware that Jonathan is not a member of the ALSC. She totally needs to know that.
Also, maybe we should have a blurb about this article that’s, well, about the article? I love a little legerdemain as much as the next guy, but if I’m the run-of-the-mill blog reader making my rounds, I could very well read this entry without realizing that the Valve’s been blurbed in The Boston Globe. (In other words, I don’t see the point of clever misdirection in this particular circumstance.)
You’re right, Scott. Jonathan is not temperamentally suited to be our press officer. I’ll get on it.
I have seen enormous irrational resistance to reading blogs. One ex-colleague I’ve known for years (who was being quite friendly otherwise) immediately told me “I don’trust the internet” when I told her I self-published on the internet—and she herself self-publishes at a copy center. It was as if whe worried that the boogie man would get her if she logged on to read my writing.
Another professor, also quite friendly, refused to go to the internet to read the e-version of a published article; she insisted on getting a hard copy, even though our library didn’t have it and she’d have to wait for ILL.
It really goes beyong not wanting to read off a screen. There seems to be a superstitious fear (rooted, however, on an accurate intuition that the gatekeeping functions are being reassigned and that no one knows what will end up happening.)
Those of us who are English department people might PRINT OUT some things on Hugh Kenner, cyber-geek, and pass them around. (Of course, they can all say “Well, I’m not deaf, so I don’t need that”. And I suppose Kenner is in disgrace now anyway, for one reason or another.)
I wish the article had talked more about the blog’s content rather than give what seems to me a slightly misleading description of its purpose ("insurgency?") Yes, the Boston Globe is a fancy newspaper. But people do run web servers on Commodore 64s to this day, however.
Though John is likely right about prosaic rather than metaphysical preference being at the heart of the “it’s not my medium” comment, there are two things: 1) I find considering blogs as a medium to be interesting theoretically and 2) technophobia does exist, and it is, I’d argue, disproportionately found among those of the traditionalist temper, regardless of age. Though I might be wrong about this, it’s interesting to consider.
There’s also the question of it, as framed in the section, being a “Boston"-based phenomenon.
Isn’t her hitcount statistic low?
To the Readers of The Valve:
To clear up any misunderstandings, I should like to set the record straight about my conversation with Wen Stephenson, the journalist from The Boston Globe and author of the story “A Literary Insurgency,” which ran on July 31. In the course of quite a lengthy talk, I stressed, over and over again, how pleased I am personally, and how pleased the ALSC officers are, to see the success of The Valve. I spoke of The Valve as a combination of little magazine and Parisian café, allowing the rapid swirl of conversation in which many significant ideas are born. I also said: I do not read blogs generally. But I read The Valve, because I am loyal.
Here’s to your flourishing.
Warm regards,
Rosanna Warren.