Tag Archives: Blogging

The Best of the Toads

The gravity of social media at times it seems profoundly influences our every move. By gravity I mean that mutual attraction force that pulls us under and down, down rabbit holes, sink holes, the vortex created by following. By social media I mean to refer here to the sites that are for the most part vertically inclined, up and down, the newest appearing at the top, the oldest nudged down to an endless bottom where they are forgotten relics or remaindered in the fossil record. These social media sites are not formatted as mosaics, like newspapers, but like scrolls – though scrolls, even the most ancient, were often formatted horizontally as well as vertically. And the newspaper could be taken apart and shared: “Who has the funnies?” By profoundly I mean the unlimited hours an addiction to social media at any site soaks up the dark energy of our otherwise beachcombing days.

There are the followers and the following, not always the same, and often as not unknown to one another. How many and how often seen or read? And there’s the rub. I’ve been working on a formula. What number of followers or following beyond which to say one is actually following in any meaningful sense of seeing and responding to even if only to think about without comment or response – beyond which any significant number of posts, tweets, pics, etc., is no longer possible?

In other words, for example, the Instagramer I might follow who posts daily several pics multiplied by 100 other Instagramers I also follow equals hours of staring at Instagram until I can no longer honestly say I’m following all the number of individuals my account accounts for. Something like that. I could say, attending a live football game in the huge arena where sit 80,000 fans, that I’m following them all. Likewise, the social media follower who says they are following me back but who also follows say 5,000 others can’t possibly be paying much attention to me. Thus Instagram, recognizing we’ve a problem here, initiates a feature like close friends. Close friends, good neighbors, faithful followers, on the same team, family (though of course this latter often may come fraught with unfollowing in biblical proportions).

What has all this to do with “The Best of the Toads”? Just this: Here too the posts have been falling, a long way down, since my first post in December of 2007, and at least monthly since. There are now 1,463 posts. Where did they all go? And which ones might a reader most enjoy, find interesting, not to mention well written? The latest post is not necessarily the best.

So, I’ve made a Best of the Toads page, that visitors to the blog might be able at a glance to view the most successful posts since the beginning of the blog in 2007, successful as defined by number of views, but also including some posts that are my favorites no matter the number of views. You can view the new page here, or click on it in the blog menu. Happy falling!

Another Year from Monday

Sometimes it seems a step backward is the way to go, but I’m not sure painting over yesterday’s canvas is movement forward or reverse. But why think in these lineal terms to begin with? In spite of tidal waves of news pouring in from every mode, it seems keeping informed about what’s going on is ongoingly increasingly difficult. At the same time, as John Cage said in his essay on Jasper Johns, “Why does the information that someone has done something affect the judgment of another? Why cannot someone who is looking at something do his own work of looking?”

Today, later this evening, to be more precise, is the solstice. If all goes as planned, the days will begin to grow longer again. There’s no keeping still, even if forward and backward amount to the same thing. In fact, I read just last night, the sun has already been going down later in the day in these environs, but the sun has still been coming up a bit later each day, and will continue to do so for some time yet, despite the solstice. So the moment, the epiphanic slice, the exact time of the solstice, when you feel the bump at the top of the amusement ride just before the reverse tilt comes true, you probably won’t feel.

Nevertheless, we celebrate the solstice, for reasons old and new, and take the opportunity to consider what new lectures and writings, poems and songs, essays and cartoons we might make up between now and the coming spring equinox, which is planned for Tuesday, March 19th (Saint Joseph’s Day, if you’re keeping track of that too). New ways of measuring time are always being considered. But if you adopt a new calendar, you’ll have to then come up with a proleptic view. So we might anticipate objections before they’re even brought up. Remarks.

The proportion of ideas might be considered important. If an idea is too big, or too small. To warrant further development. I thought I might try some reconnections, might even write a few letters, though my initial attempts at this, very much no doubt excited by the solstice, have met with instant failures to communicate. The art of the steel sculpture. Then again, I’ve never been much of a letter writer, not like the folks in the old days who might spend half the day reading mail and the other half answering mail. Pastime. Mail which had taken days or even weeks to arrive during which time rendered moot much of its news, feelings, ideas.

Speaking of letter mail, the kind written on paper and requiring a postage stamp, we get very little here these days. Even junk mail seems to have diminished. We’ve received two Christmas cards, both kept on prominent display. Of course, one must send mail to receive mail; not always, but usually. As for blog exchange, comments are problematic. They aren’t really letters in reply, and often say more about the commenter than what’s being commented on. The art of the quip, the comeback, the rejoinder, retort, riposte. But that’s the cynic in me coming out. Get back! Get back! The blog, “The Coming of the Toads,” turns 16 this month. I’m not even sure what a blog is anymore.

The most effective blogs (or whatever they might be called) seem those dedicated to a single purpose: photography (and photos about something specific – e.g. birds, architecture, surfing), politics, poetry, how to, music, art, opinion, travel. But the personal essay seems the most resilient form of writing (personal essay as illustrated, for example, in Philip Lopate’s anthology “The Art of the Personal Essay.”) I’m not sure where the idea of a pic necessary to accompany every piece of blog post writing ever came from. The Header, I guess. In case you’ve not noticed, The Toads has for some time now sported a minimalist attitude illustrated by a mostly blank white page dotted with black text – might be one way to describe the setup. This allows for the least distraction for both reader and writer. Indeed, blog posts past, I spent more time coming up with an appropriate pic than I did on the writing. Back when the blog began, most readers read on a computer screen. The display of any post is now changed by format depending on what kind of device the reader’s using: phone, tablet, computer – so what you see is not always what the reader gets or what the writer might have intended (a problem which of course is not new to any kind of writing).

Anyway, I’d like to take this opportunity to restate a few of the underlying interests of the writing here. It’s original, without recourse, it must now apparently be officially stated, to any borrowing from an Artificial Intelligence (AI). That includes all the essays and pics, cartoons and poems, songs, unless of course specifically quoted and cited yada yada yada. That’s not to say influences won’t be discerned: John Cage, Marshall McLuhan, Buckminster Fuller, James Joyce, Samuel Beckett, the Beats, Guitar and Music in all its forms but increasingly Gypsy Jazz guitar – to name a few.

But back to the solstice! Happy Solstice to all of you writers and readers. Please feel free to leave a comment if you still have time.

Reassessments

According to Google Ngram, use of the word reassessment peaks around 1990, a climb beginning in the 20s, rarely used prior to 1900. We suspect what’s driving that curve are real estate markets. But to reassess is still relevant to publications, which is to say, books will go out of print, magazines fold, newspapers disappear – and folks will leave Twitter or abandon once again their high school acquaintances or second cousins found on Facebook. Clicking on a blog one has not visited for some time may turn up: This account does not exist: try another search.

So too, does one reassess one’s involvement in both writing and reading: annually, quarterly, monthly, daily, or with each post or page. What am I doing here? Who is reading this? Will anyone like? Do I like? Who, what, when, why, where, and how – how to write, and why? How to read, and why?

When we read a book, we turn the page, back and forth, if you read like me, up and down. So called social media sites generally all work upward: we page up, but as we page up, what’s down continues falling and disappears through some virtual cutting room floor. Usually, only the most recent posts, comments, tweets, pics – whatever – get any attention. Form is in the driver’s seat. And the form of social media sites requires constant replenishment (Google Ngram shows constant and regular use of the word replenish from 1800 past 2000). But the social media publications get replenished even though the stock is still full, even if nothing has been depleted.

The social media cup is neither half empty nor half full; it’s always full, as this post no doubt attests. Full of what, might make material for a different post.

Photo: The Teacups ride at Disneyland, exiting the park at closing time, Joe Linker, around mid-90s.

Advertisement

All advertisement is argument.

We start arguments when we say something and we know someone will disagree. Happens all the time. We are never safe from disagreement. If you say, “The sun rises in the east,” you might think you’d be safe from argument. But an astrophysicist listening in might say the sun does not actually rise. The earth spins in orbit around the sun, and so on and so forth. A rebuttal around what you said about where the sun rises might productively explain the importance of point of view and perspective, presuppositions and assumptions, audience and expectations, proof and fallacy. Or it might be met with an eclipse of the eyes.

Most of the above, in one form or another, you can find in books on rhetoric, and most of those have as their ultimate source of reference, Aristotle. When “The Coming of the Toads” started out, on December 27, 2007, the first post was about argument. Since then, the Toads has posted 866 arguments. Not that frequency or redundancy leads to persuasiveness. Some readers will no doubt argue that’s 866 arguments too many.

Artists enjoy argument. A poet might say, for example, “Wouldn’t it be nice if the sun rose in the west for a change?” Buckminster Fuller suggested we replace the words “sunrise” and “sunset” with sunsight and sunclipse. Fuller, a scientist and inventor, was arguing that language both informs and betrays how we see and understand things. Both physicists and philosophers might ask, “Why does the sun rise?” Their answers will be arguments. Advertisers can’t afford arguments, so they cleverly disguise saying anything someone might disagree with. An advertiser might suggest sunopen and sunclosed.

Silence, too, is often met with disagreement. “You should speak up,” someone says. “Say something.” Or your silence alone might be understood as disagreement, particularly if your arms are folded tightly across your chest. Advertisers never fold their arms or cross their legs.

Aristotle saw that arguments happen everywhere and all the time. But listening closely, he also saw that some people were better at argument than others. Some people always seemed to be right, no matter what they said. And Aristotle thought that if he studied how those people argued, he might be able to explain the tools of argument.

The proper use of those tools is the subject of another argument.

Diary

A diarist keeps a daily record of everyday experience, regardless of relevance or importance to the outside world. The prototype might be Pepys. One of the characteristics of a diary is that it is usually meant to be private, and it might become more interesting the farther it gets from its time of origin. In that sense, a diary might be that letter to the world that never wrote to you, because it was unable, that world being a future after your time. A diary is not a blog.

“Diary: How to Improve the World (You Will Only Make Matters Worse)” was a John Cage project that went on for 16 years. And Cage made it a public project. A diary need not have rules. It doesn’t even need to be written. It might make use of photographs, or drawings, or quilting or needlepoint. A diary might be impressionistic, or some other artistic or technical expression. Or it might be cut and dry and matter of fact and as unambiguous as possible. But of course what readers can’t know is what the diary has left out.

Out, for a morning walk up to the park, my thoughts distracted by a sign at the outset: “Drive Like Your Kids Live Here.” I thought of the days I was busy with rhetoric, argument. That sign was an argument of proposal. The appeal is logical but also of pathos, for it causes us to think of our own kids. But what if we have no kids? Or, we do, but we are not particularly safe with them, either? Another assumption the sign makes is that children are in harm’s way. No doubt. But if you care about your children, shouldn’t you keep them out of harm’s way? And what of old people? Should we not also drive as if our grandparents live here? Maybe a more effective sign would read: Drive as if you love your neighbor like yourself. But note that assumes one love’s oneself. I’ve never quite understood that biblical proposal, having known so many people whose behavior, full of bad habits, suggested they did not love themselves. Maybe an even more effective sign might read: Drive Like You Are The Child.

By the time I got up to the park, my thoughts had cleared of argument, and I was in among the trees, and I continued as if they were my trees.

Bells, part 3, Relax

We should probably be wary of statements beginning with the pronouncement, “Never before, in the history of the world….”

Nevertheless, given our current world predicament, we might find ourselves in need of some relaxation – seemingly, like never before.

In his little book titled “How to Relax,” the monk Thich Nhat Hanh begins:

“You don’t need to set aside special time for resting and relaxing. You don’t need a special pillow or any fancy equipment. You don’t need a whole hour. In fact, now is a very good time to relax” (page 6, “How to Relax,” Parallax Press, 2015).

The same might be said for writing. You don’t need a fancy machine, a special desk or pen, or even a purpose. What you need – is a bell.

“There is tranquility, peace, and joy within us, but we have to call them forth so they can manifest. Inviting a bell to sound is one way to call forth the joy and tranquility within” (page 100).

Thich Nhat Hanh gives us a poem to remind us of the bell we want to listen for, to hear, to send out to others:

“Body, speech, and mind in perfect oneness,
I send my heart along with the sound of this bell.
May all the hearers awaken from forgetfulness,
and transcend the path of anxiety and sorrow” (page 100).

And we don’t need a fancy blog template or website to write. Again, nevertheless, here at The Coming of the Toads, I’ve experimented with a few of the WordPress templates over time. But what did I want, if not simply to write? This isn’t the only place, the only way, I write. I keep a pocket notebook in the left rear pocket of my pants (detail for readers in need), unlined because I like to doodle and wander. I keep a spiral notebook in a desk drawer. I started The Coming of the Toads, after a few hesitant starts, in December of 2007, and have posted something at least monthly since. Why then, lately, have I been having thoughts of ending it?

I wasn’t “inviting the bell.” Not Poe’s “the tintinabulation of the bells,” nor his “anger of the bells,” nor his “moaning and the groaning of the bells.” But the bell of the muse. I like this etymological note from Oxford: “Middle English: from Old French muser ‘meditate, waste time’, perhaps from medieval Latin musum ‘muzzle’.” Writing involves a good amount of self-muzzle, or should. First, we might want to relax. Invite the bell. Then take up the pen and notebook, or open the blog.

This is the third piece in a series on bells at The Coming of the Toads.

Coast Road Trip: Sans Pics

A perspicacious reader asked why I haven’t posted any pics from the road trip. I’m working on moving toward a new kind of blog, more like the one I started, back in December of 2007, which contained no pics, just short bursts of writing pleasure. I had in mind the kind of posts the venerable E. B. White wrote in the early New Yorker.

“From 1925 to 1976 he crafted more than eighteen hundred pieces for the magazine and established, in the words of editor William Shawn, “a new literary form.” That form was the magazine’s Comment essay—a personal essay that was, in White’s hands, light in style yet often weighty in substance. As White noted in a 1969 Paris Review interview, > I do feel a responsibility to society because of going into print: a writer has the duty to be good, not lousy; true, not false; lively, not dull; accurate, not full of error. He should tend to lift people up, not lower them down. Writers do not merely reflect and interpret life, they inform and shape life.

“Eighty-Five from the Archive: E. B. White,” by Erin Overbey, The New Yorker, June 7, 2010.

Not that I ever achieved anything everyone might call, “not lousy.” In any case, I drifted away, or off, and into a kind of academic stream, where I imagined I might augment my adjunct work at the time. And I tried to bring some attention to the books I was working on, both reading and writing. Then I began to work-in more slant, though never totally “false,” and found the proverbial bottom of the barrel when I started putting up some poetry. And I recently considered retiring The Coming of the Toads, leaving it to sink to the bottom of the archive abyss of the Internet, where some future crab scuttling along might find a few morsels to criticize.

E. B. White’s idea of the short, personal essay (note the importance of that comma) has been replaced in many blogs by the personal pic essay, with and without words, the latter like Beckett’s short play, “Act Without Words.” And I suspect more reading is done on phones these days than when I started The Coming of the Toads on a desktop computer back in ’07, and the phone and other smaller size formats encourage changes in aspect ratios of screen, pics, and writing. And thinking about that, I decided to remove this blog’s header pic, begin writing with a minimum of pics altogether, returning to the short, personal note or comment type essay. I even thought of a new tagline for the title space: The Coming of the Toads: No links, No likes, No comments. I know that sounds a bit anti-social, but what I’m aiming for is clarity, simplicity – a clean, well-lighted blog.

Besides, I don’t get many comments or likes, and many that I do get appear to be from spam and bots, and I lost all the pics I took on our recent trip, mistakenly thinking I had backed up my phone photos to Google Photos when I had not, in the meantime deleting all the photos from my phone, then crashing my Instagram account trying to retrieve what I had at least saved there. Seems poetic justice for an anti-social attitude.

Having at this point already exceeded my target word limit, not to mention having probably lost my target audience, those interested in hearing more about the Road Trip, I give you this portfolio of road trip pics, all taken by my sister Barbara and Susan as I was trying on the lighthouse keeper’s uniform jacket at the Yaquina Head Lighthouse, north of Newport, trying to strike poses I imagined a lighthouse keeper might have aimed at were he the subject of a live, on the job photo shoot:

Note: Comments On for this post. Have fun!

A Loss of Intimacy

The Encagement of Typographical ManHow does one create a sense of intimacy with a blog? The very word, blog, heavy and lugubrious, suggests something one may not want to get too close to. Does intimacy imply a kind of secrecy, like the sharing of handwritten letters over time between two persons who have never met in propria persona? The Latin mass seemed intimate, and when, following Vatican II, local masses were said in the vernacular, I felt a loss of intimacy. The words in English had lost their secrecy. The mystery of the mass was no longer much of a mystery, no longer a magic show. The priest talked just like everybody else. This should have led to a greater degree of intimacy, but it did not.

One characteristic of the Internet is its ubiquitous presence, McLuhan’s “global village” realized, but for anyone who’s ever lived in a small town, the Internet might seem its opposite, an absurdly large, strange village, more like something Kafka might have dreamed rather than Sherwood Anderson’s “Winesburg, Ohio.” But the paradox of “Winesburg” is found in the irony that one feels intimacy most when one feels most lonely. It is the loss of intimacy when one feels the value of the familiar, of something made known especially for you. But “over the Internet” intimacy is spread as thin as Emily’s gossamer gown.

One blog I follow that seems to have created a sense of intimacy for or with its readers is Spitafields Life. Does follow suggest intimacy? But what if one is followed by a multitude? That would seem hardly the suggestion of intimacy. Yet the Spitafields blog is written by “The Gentle Author,” whose actual name we don’t know. Note the note of secrecy that seems to draw the normally distant intimacy near. The Gentle Author offers a course on how to write a blog. The next one is advertised at Spitafields for May. Maybe I should cross the pond and attend, buy a copy of one of The Gentle Author’s signed books, find out if The Gentle Author is male or female, not that it matters – would that knowledge increase or diminish a sense of intimacy?

Blogs come in many disguises and intents, purposes vary. The lifespan of the average blog is probably not very long, could be as short as a day or two, indeed, an hour or two. One might quickly discover the blogger’s life contains the secret of a crushing intimacy, more sad and forlorn than a single tweet could ever hope for. The sound of the whippoorwill.

So it came as some surprise to see the comment of one distant but familiar reader who found the new format I’m working on for The Coming of the Toads, “less intimate.” The folks who started the Internet, huddled over their code, as anonymous as a telephone pole on a country road, surely must have been among the least intimate of the ones to whom one might want to write. Or I just might have that backwards. IDK. The bloggers among us who prefer writing with words rather than with CSM must rely on canned templates to fulfill our visions! Admittedly though, I’m not even sure what CSM is, but I think it has something to do with the difference between visual and HTML. And so I leave you, no doubt, gentle reader, about as far from intimacy as I can get in this particular post.

Child with Blue Cat on Concrete

Sidewalk Chalk Drawing

Past posts drop farther and farther down the vertical ramp of the blog, disappearing like sidewalk chalk drawings. One critic walks around the drawing, viewing it carefully, as if visiting a gallery or museum, another walks over it, disgusted with art. The sidewalk artist moves up to a clear space of concrete, or draws over yesterday’s washed out drawing, unconcerned that masterpiece is today jettisoned artwork.

During the Day

During the day, the drawing grows hot, an illuminated manuscript. The artist takes a break, asks for an ice-cycle stick, kicks back on the grass, considers the remaining supply of chalk, eyes the blank concrete spaces up the block.

Night Coolness

At night, the drawing cools off. The artist tells a story of a child with a blue cat on concrete.

Psychosomatic foghorn earborn earworms!

Reading Lists“I see you and Joe finished that book on mistakes. Was it good?”
“Joe posted some notes to his blog.”
“Did anyone read that post? I noticed he got no likes or comments.”
“To be a blogger is to go unread as no author dare go unread.”
“What?”
“Never mind.”
“So what are you reading now?”
“I’m thinking of picking up The Sorrows of Young Werther.”
“Sounds like an unnecessary error. I just read for fun.”
“What is fun?”
“Psychosomatic foghorn earborn earworms!”
“Please don’t say that again.”
“So did you help Joe with that post?”
“I put forth a few views.”
“Phew! Thinko agin!”
“Agenbite of widget.”
“Let’s go outside and have some fun!”
“I recall a moment, long ago, that may have been fun.”
“That’s the spirit! Let’s go!”

Related Posts: Common Earworm Remedies and the Mutant Earworm
A Cat’s Memoir
Notes On Reading Caleb Crain’s “Necessary Errors”