Comments on: Predicting the blog clog: Kundera saw it all

By: David Quin

David Quin — Sat, 01 Oct 2011 19:52:58 +0000

Nice quote!

Re. ‘instant content creation’, I came across the following boast on Linked In:

“I am a professional writer with thousands of books in circulation …”

Poor old James Joyce wrote only three or four!

By: vegas art guy

vegas art guy — Wed, 15 Aug 2007 21:38:09 +0000

Blogs are as varied as the people who have them. It’s true that most of them (and many would lump mine into this category) are junk. There are enough interesting ones to more than make up for blogs like mine.

The idea that you can express your opinion to potentially millions of people is a catchy one, but few realize how much work it is to keep even a halfway decent blog.

By: neo-neocon

neo-neocon — Sun, 12 Aug 2007 16:36:16 +0000

Iglude: speaking of Cronkite and how he altered perceptions of the Vietnam war, I don’t know whether you’ve read these two posts, my efforts at discussing that very topic:

http://neoneocon.com/2006/12/18/tet-cronkite-opinion-journalism-and/

http://neoneocon.com/2006/12/20/tet-cronkite-opinion-journalism-and_21/

By: lgude

lgude — Sun, 12 Aug 2007 16:03:09 +0000

I like Neo’s writing too particularly because I have a lot in common – therapist, New England New York background, and I dwell among lefties who have tried to shut me up, but in Australia. The resulting inner pressure, perhaps like Neo, caused me to blog at yankeewombat.com. It has really helped me develop my political understanding and been good discipline and therapy too. That said, Kundera seems to have predicted the chaos of the blogosphere, but as McLuhan predicted new media create totally unanticipated phenomena. For example, TV gave one man – Walter Cronkite – the power to significantly alter the public perception of the Vietnam war. An Army of Davids in the Blogosphere has significantly altered the ability of TV to control public perception of the Iraq war. All in all, it is a great privilege to be part of it.

By: Jephnol

Jephnol — Sat, 11 Aug 2007 15:11:31 +0000

The act of writing is unloved by readers who see finished works and are tricked into thinking how easy it is to be a writer–to write. Few would look at sculptures and imagine their hands at the task. No, no, no. That’s for masters of an art. But writing! Writing is democratic. It’s available. It’s easy. But of course that’s nonsense. Writing is a pain in the ass, and too few have given themselves fully enough to the task to understand.

My wife is a published writer; she makes her living writing. I’ve watched her emerge from her office, reading glasses at the end of her nose, stray hairs hanging across her face. She makes a cup of coffee, grumbles about her work and fades back into her writing. When she’s not at her desk she’s in school refining her craft. This is her vocation and her lifestyle. It’s not a diversion. It’s not romantic. Perhaps this is the state Kundera was in when he scribbled his pessimism into his text. He left his desk, rumpled and distracted, to get a sandwich and was waylaid by his plumber who proudly announced he was a writer, too. Almost anyone can put words on a page, but very few are writers.

By: benning

benning — Sat, 11 Aug 2007 11:45:49 +0000

Agent (trying to sell a mediocre manuscript): Well, you know what they say: ‘Everybody’s got a story to tell.’

Publisher: Yes, but I don’t have to publish them!

And that’s the way it is. There’s a lot of dreck out there, whether blogs or books, magazines or ‘news’papers. Adults learn to figure out what’s worth reading and what’s worth ignoring.

Neo, you’re worth reading! 😀

By: neo-neocon

neo-neocon — Sat, 11 Aug 2007 04:27:03 +0000

Fontana: funny you should write about Kundera feeling threatened by the idea of so many writers. The paragraph directly before the ones I quoted goes like this: "Someone who writes books is either everything (a unique universe in himself and to all others) or nothing. And because it will never be given to anyone to be everything, all of us who write books are nothing.We are unrecognized, jealous, embittered, and we wish the others dead." He seems to get it---although the passage is somewhat tongue-in-cheek.

By: Tom

Tom — Sat, 11 Aug 2007 03:01:01 +0000

Well… whatever.
I like what you write. I check your page all the time. Don’t stop.

By: Mark

Mark — Sat, 11 Aug 2007 02:43:44 +0000

Bloggers are to the average person as T9 text messaging is to Grandpa. Imagine the world of information flow when the T9 user is a Grandpa. That technology, whatever it is, will bring a blessing (or a plague) of ideophoria.

And Neo, how did you get linked to Opera Houses–I thought you were tone deaf.

By: Fontana

Fontana — Sat, 11 Aug 2007 02:26:43 +0000

I can understand why Kundera would feel threatened by the idea of “everyone is a writer.” His sense of specialness, to say nothing of his very livelihood, are at stake.

Bookstores and libraries are full of junk, as well as treasure. Most “scholarship” from academia and think tanks are trash, but the gems are there to be found. Likewise blogs have their share of refuse and some golden riches.

The internet is the larger world of ideas that must be filtered and sifted for treasure. It requires work, but it has always required work. Specialists can still achieve their goals, but generalists are hopelessly buried underneath all of the words, images, sounds, and video clips.

The software tools for keeping up with what is worthwhile are still being developed.

Concepts of how to salvage more time in a day are at a more inchoate stage.