Tuesday, November 19, 2002|
BLAH BLAH BLAH There's been a bit of "inner-community" chat at Salon Blogs today, several of the Salon Blogs mentioning each other in both flattering and not-so-flattering ways. It seems, however, that a good number (if not most) of my precious readers come to SRO via other routes than Salon Blogs so I won't bore you with the details. My blog came came to be housed here mainly because it was easy and available. Once I got the jist of what Blogging is and decided to jump in, Salon Blogs was the first outlet I came across. For the most part, Salon:The Webzine seems rather uninterested in Salon:The Blogs. Apparently someone at Salon got wind of this Hot Internet Trend and afraid to seem "out of the loop" decided to stick the blogging feature in so as not to be left behind. Most of the Blogs at SB are, to no one's surprise, like the kind of blogs you would expect from Salon - that is to say a bit boring, grandstand-y, and often pompous. My impression is Salon likes to think of itself as "ahead of the curve" and urbane and savvy. That idea would be wrong. I find the articles lack the essential ingredient of urbanity which is wit. Great style makers from Diana Vreeland to Noel Coward would agree and there's nothing more dull than a Preachy Know-It-All. If you're looking for "What's Next", Salon is definately not the place to go. If you're looking for "Old School Reporting Written by Snarky Youngsters", you will probably have better luck. For a forum published in the Immediate Arena of the Internet, they strangely always seem one step behind. Whatever. Not our problem. Salon Blogs are unfettered by this TextBook thinking and, with SRO as evidence, cover a much broader range of ideas. Rather than push you into the Pool and let you fend for yourself, here are my personal Five Best Reasons For Salon Blogs and Five Reasons to Run Like The Wind. Five Best Reasons For Salon Blogs The RCG is the embodiment of blogging's potential - clever, well written in a Strong Voice, funny and often beautiful. She's managed to tackle a Big Subject, sex, and give it a Sexy Independant Woman's Viewpoint which is both toungue-in-cheek and wryly intelligent. This filter isn't (thank god) thrust on you like Words From God and if you can't find something on the RCGB that interests you, you really need to, uh, breath. Like myself, she avoids discussing politics on her Blog since, like myself, she realizes that if you want to hear More Of The Same Political High-Horsing there are more than enough places to go (see Five Reasons to Run below). Naturally she's been extremely complimentary to both myself and SRO and remains SRO's kindred Soul Sister. FGAQ is written by a man named Mark Hoback who has until recently been writing a "cyber-novel" in his blog entitled Green. Frankly, I wasn't very interested only because reading a novel on-line is not very convenient for me and I also prefer the physical book. Now that his novel is complete, he's turned to FGAQ and his posts are funny, well-written and cover a wide range of ideas. He's thankfully avoided the Soapbox Route and instead retained a sense of brevity about the whole thing. He has also, for disclosure purposes, been very supportive of SRO but in my experience Mark is supportive of writing in general and his comments have been open and welcome. RFB is a direct, useful blog mostly concerning Computor Stuff but also seems to be the most accessable source for info about the software SalonBlogs use called Radio Userland. He has the corner on Odd Names, his real name being Christian Crumlish which is about as close as you can get to being a Harry Potter character without riding a broom. His writing is concise, down to earth and always (if not to me) helpful. This Blog is the Dark Horse on my list. The writer is a 25 year-old woman living in San Francisco going through a difficult time (being a recently divorced mother) and has apparently decided to use her blog as a method of moving through the process. I don't know what her writing experience is, if any, but she's so direct, willing to talk about her shit and un-stuffy that I've been drawn to her posts. What can I tell you? Sometimes Macaroni and Cheese is just Macaroni and Cheese and that's why we love it. 5.STANDING ROOM ONLY
If I didn't put this it might appear I'm fishing and putting it will probably be perceived as vain. Too bad. It's my blog and I'll put whatever the fuck I want.
There should be no need to explain why I'm not linking to these but frankly, it just seemed too cruel. 1. SCOTT ROSENBERG'S BLOG SR's Blog is the one physical link to Salon's Cover Page and acts as the conduit for Salon Readers to the SBlogs. God help us all. Exciting articles like "How I've Been Working on an Important Political Thing All Day But I'll Tell You More Later" and "Why Extremely Technical Stuff May (or May Not) Matter To Me". Mmm. All snooze, all the time. 2. ROBERT'S VIRTUAL SOAPBOX I received a comment on a post awhile back from "Robert" regarding some remark I'd written about Ralph Nader and the Green Party. Basically it was exactly the kind of rant one expects from someone standing on a soapbox and my reaction was similar to what one might do if confronted by same: Slowly Back Away from the Crazy Man. His posts careen between dubbing Politicos "ASSHOLE OF THE WEEK" and "HERO OF THE WEEK" in huge unattractive letters. Top of the Creep Heap goes to his quasi-stalking techniques which include posting repeated pictures of Male Politicians he has a crush on and trying to engage their wives in conversation. Can you hear the lambs, Clarice? 3. TOBY'S POLITICAL DIARY: LET IT BEGIN HERE Although I'm not quite sure what "it" is, let's just let it End here. Anyone other than a Politician or a Highly Respected Expert who even has a Political Diary is not someone you want to sit down at a dinner party with. Nuff said. 4. HOOTENANY! Need I say more? 5. THE UBIQUITOUS MR. GEORGE
The only people who call themselves "Mr. Anything" are elder hair dressers. While this blog gets a High Number of hits, they all seem self-induced if you look at the Referrers. Not a good sign.
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Last update: 10/18/05; 10:04:07 AM .
