So, the travel blog

Today, somewhere in the world, someone googled the phrase "otter, river tiber, rome" and ended up finding this post, which I wrote a year and a half ago. Nine other people also searched for other assorted phrases and words, mostly city names, and found my Tripping Over the World Blog. It continues to amaze me that it randomly shows up in search results while I do nothing on it.

Writing

Each time I write a new post on my other Provo blog, (pro(vo)cation), Wordpress updates me on how I'm doing with my blogging "goals." That's funny, because I have no specific blogging goals and indeed don't really like the whole concept of goals in general. Today, for example, I was informed that I just met my goal of 105 posts. Huzzah... I guess.

Anyway, one thing I actually enjoy about these computer generated goals is that they also come with quotes about writing from famous writers. Here was today's:

The art of writing is the art of discovering what you believe — Gustave Flaubert

While I know this quote was made specifically for me to the same extent that a fortune cookie fortune is made for me (so not at all), it is nevertheless serendipitous because that is how I feel. When I started blogging years ago I had a series of objectives (not goals!) some of which were met and others which weren't. In the time since, however, I've continued to blog even as my objectives, interests and circumstances have changed.

The point I think is the one that Flaubert makes: that writing itself is the point.

New Blog: (pro(vo)cation)

Lately, a lot of my posts have been about Provo. But sometimes, I just feel like posting something unrelated to the city in which I live (or even, something unrelated to anything at all).

As a result, I've decided to start a new blog: (pro(vo)cation). The new blog will only be about Provo. This blog, however, will now be where I post other things, including thoughts on culture, politics, media, or whatever else happens to cross my mind. Enjoy.

Beehive Bazaar

This weekend one of the best things in Provo is taking place. It's the Beehive Bazaar! Basically the bazaar is a craft, art, and cool-stuff fair held in the Provo Women's Center. Except for the one held in American Fork, I've attended all of these for the last few years. There is always a lot of cool things for sale by local artisans. In fact this is sort of the physical manifestation of what Salon was talking about in the article "Mormon Housewife Blogs."

However, as a male with no kids, I can also say that the bazaar has a wider appeal. I will definitely be attending, and so should you.

My New Travel Blog: Tripping Over The World

Originally, I had planned to blog here about mine and Laura's trip. However, over time I decided that I wanted a blog dedicated specifically to traveling, that wouldn't be muddied with my rants, raves, recommendations, etc. about non-travel things. Also, blogger isn't super easy to use on an iPod Touch, which is what primarily I'll be using to connect to the internet for the next two months.

Thus, I have started a new wordpress blog that will focus exclusively on mine and Laura's trip. I've posted a couple of things there, but hopefully it'll have more interesting and exciting details about what we're up to as soon as our trip begins. Here it is:

Tripping Over The World

Text-To-Speech Websites

For some reason, I can't see my own typos. I can read the same thing ten times, and each time miss the same mistake. This was probably a problem throughout my life, but has become particularly problematic recently as I've been writing for the Daily Herald. Sometimes I'll finish a story and read over it again and again trying to catch everything, but inevitably when I turn it in to my editor, he'll see things I missed.

If you ever suffer from a similar problem, you might be interested in these awesome Text-To-Speech websites. Using them you can get your stuff proof read. Or, if you're like one of my friends, you can put R. Kelly lyrics into them and enjoy hours of entertainment! (Seriously, it is cool.) Either way, text-to-speech websites are an underappreciated corner of the world wide web.

The best site I found was this one. Its strengths are that it works quickly, and it doesn't take you to a different page to listen to the speech. Visually, the page is kind of cluttered, but the voice was also one of the best/most natural sounding that I found, so I overlooked its weaknesses. Also, I used it yesterday to proof read some stuff I wrote for the Daily Herald and was impressed at just how advanced it was. When it read over addresses, for example, that were written out as "300 N 400 West" it actually said "north" instead of just "n." Also, when it read "$20" it said "twenty dollars," as opposed to "dollars twenty." That suprised me because it meant it was scanning ahead at least a little bit.

I also found this AT&T site. It has the advantage of being less cluttered, and it's run by a company with name recognition, but it also navigates away from the home page to read the text out loud (and uses a quicktime format for the audio).

There are many text-to-speech sites out there, but so far I haven't found any that are better than that first one. So, if you're like me and you enjoy catching writing problems and listening to funny voices read stuff, check them out.

(note: I didn't use one of these sites for this post, so it probably still has problems)

New Layout/Thoughts on Good Blog Aesthetics

If you've visited this blog before this week, you probably noticed that it suddenly looks different. Rest assured that it is still the same Jim/Blog as always (sometimes when blogs I enjoy change their layouts I'm temporarily unsure if I've visited the wrong site.)

Anyway, I've know since I began blogging that I needed a better layout. Up until this most recent change I had been using one of the basic layouts that blogger offers. It wasn't particularly professional looking, interesting, or even easy to read. Unfortunately, I also haven't had the time to change it. Until now.

As I considered what I wanted, I came up with this informal list of things I look for in a successful blog layout:

1. It shouldn't be overly generic looking. In my case, I wanted something that was unique and customizable enough to be distinctive.

2. It shouldn't look like a boring web magazine or tech support site.

3. It shouldn't have white text on a black background. I know many of my friends blogs have black backgrounds and white fonts — and that has kind of a cool, edgy look — but it's also really hard to read. Every time I read those blogs (especially in low lighting) my retinas feel burned.

4. It should still look professional. Again, in my case, just because I wanted to it be exciting doesn't mean I wanted it to look like a 14 year-old's myspace page.

As is probably apparent, I am still using a generic blogger template for this site. I briefly used a different template I found on a third party website (it was up for about a day), but Laura told me it looked like a blog about heavy metal, so I changed it. I disagreed, but it was nevertheless still someone else's template and I wanted something that wasn't masquerading as unique.

Instead, I've decided to try to keep the layout simple and slowly make it more distinctive over time. I made the banner at the top of the page, for example, the other night. (I'm still working on making the banner more legible). Also, I'm using a fairly ugly gray as the background. That should change as I find a good background color that is neither white nor black. Ultimately, however, I decided that I was just going to have to learn HTML to come up with exactly what I wanted. In the meantime, however, I've gone with this one.

News

Well, I'm doing a terrible job with this blog this month. By Jan. 11 I had three jobs which has subsequently prevented me from writing anything new here. However, I am writing now for the Daily Herald, which means that my life has become a simulacrum of that of a journalist. And lest that sound like a condemnation of anything, I am thoroughly enjoying being a simulated journalist. (This post is related to these observations).

A More Poetic Style

Tonight I've been writing a list of new Provo businesses of 2009 for Rhombus Magazine. In my opening paragraph I had originally written "...surprisingly managed to bring new life to our struggling downtown." However, I felt like that wasn't really very interesting to read because "bring new life" was boring and clunky. After considering for a minute the image of someone using a defibrillator kept coming to mind. Thus I changed the phrase to "...surprisingly managed to defibrillate our struggling downtown." It's shorter and easier to read, and, I think, more interesting.

If I were writing a poem such realizations would be necessary and one as simple as this wouldn't warrant any particular rejoicing. However, since I was writing an article I think it is an occasion worth taking note of. The first phrase was adequate and would be sufficient. In my own writing I'll actually usually go with whatever is adequate eight or nine times out of ten simply because I have to move on. Though different writers have different skill levels, I'd bet that most professional writers work similarly simply due to time constraints (though "adequate" from great writers is obviously better than "inspiring" from mediocre writers).

This all raises some questions: does it matter? Does an audience really care if a magazine author or journalist uses more interesting diction? Do they notice? (Am I even correct in assuming that my second choice was more interesting?) I'm not sure. Most writing I read isn't remarkably well written, nor is it terrible. It does, however, seem to place a premium on content. Language, most popular writing apparently assumes, isn't something that is supposed to call attention to itself or be anything but the background for the ideas it conveys.

However, a more poetic style (which I hope I was inching closer to when I happened to think of the word "defibrillate") is more exact. I think the verb I decided to use is more violent and vivid than the bland phrase I started out with. If it really is better my conclusion is then that I hope to continue to work toward a more poetic style in my future popular writing. By extension I'd argue that writers generally should do the same.

Of course, probably no writer would argue that he or she shouldn't try to find better words to use. However, I think that my argument is also that, by extension, "adequate" is actually less adequate than it seems. Though the basic idea gets across when writers settle for the first thing that comes to mind, the complexity of a concept is lost. In other words, ideas and language are closely integrated with one another and using inexact words conveys ideas inexactly.

Ultimately I think that popular writing shouldn't strive for transparency. It should strive for poetry. Though poetry itself is all but a dead art (which, as a writer and reader of poetry, I lament), the power of language is significant. Obviously few writers have the luxury to treat everything they write like a poem. Yet I know that in my case when I simply adopt the belief that writing should be poetic my work is profoundly changed. This, coupled with reading more poetic works (such as actual poetry) could substantially improve writing in many venues. Theoretically it could also inspire readers to become more passionate about what they're consuming, which in turn could (in some small way) help to reinvigorate the struggling writing industry.

Writing Negative Reviews

This week I went back and read Electron Deception’s negative show review from April (sorry, I'm not linking to that). I was really trying to see if any of our efforts to drive it down in the Google search results had worked (they hadn’t), but it got me thinking about the purpose of reviewing things, especially local things.

 

Ultimately, as I’ve considered this topic, I believe that writers who decide to cover local events should actually avoid giving negative reviews, at least initially. If communities are going to thrive and produce things (arts, restaurants, etc.) people have to actually go out and support those things; negative reviews, on the other hand, prompt people to avoid local activities and can contribute to increased isolation. Taken to their extreme, they also eventually kill off local endeavors and leave people with few options other than chain restaurants, generic music, and mediocre art.

 

I’m not suggesting here that writers simply lie and say that everything local is good. Instead, I would hope that when covering a community, they focus on the positive. If a restaurant, musician, etc. isn’t great, simply chose to cover something else. If at some point something becomes so big and so ubiquitous that members of the community have begun weighing on it with various opinions, then it might be time to start writing honest, hard-hitting reviews. I know that’s a nebulous distinction to make, but the vast majority of local entrepreneurs and artists aren’t becoming rich, famous, and powerful. Instead, they’re struggling to make ends meet and a single negative review can sometimes force them out of business.

 

Of course, negative reviews may prompt people to improve whatever it is they’re trying to sell. When Electron Deception got our scathing review we genuinely tried to address some of it’s more legitimate points. On the other hand, most of our efforts have never been heard by anyone; our shows often don’t have huge attendance and the review has certainly not done anything to improve that. In fact, despite our efforts, we think the negative review may have caused some people to not come see us, even after we’ve changed our sound considerably. If the people who wrote the review had wanted to improve the music scene they could simply given their suggestions to us privately, let us work on them, and waited to see what had happened. If they had done that we would have been happier of course, but local venues might have made more money when we played there (because more people would have wanted to come out) and parties would have been livelier (for the same reason). However, as it was, the negative review only dampened the music scene across the board.

 

Electron Deception is just one small band and few people will probably remember us, but I think this incident is illustrative of the anti-community effects of negative reviews generally. If a writer, blogger, or journalist decides to condemn a local theater production or restaurant, for example, people will go elsewhere. If you live in New York where there are hundreds (or thousands) of local performances and food establishments all the time this probably isn’t as big a deal. However, if you live in a mid-sized town (like Provo, Utah, for example) people don’t necessarily have other options. A scathing review of a single local theater production can thusly put an end to all or most of local theater generally. A bad review of a local restaurant can drive people to chains (which typically serve terrible food). In both situations innovation is stifled, local economies suffer, and people interact less with each other.

 

Journalists certainly don’t have the responsibility to advertise for local businesses and events. Journalistic integrity is important and should be defended. (I would argue, however, that that doesn’t apply to the blogosphere, where many local reviews take place. A negative review on a blog seems closer to cyberbulling than journalistic honesty to me.) Still, if we want to live in vibrant places where diversity and creativity abound, it’s important to ask ourselves if what we’re writing is going to bolster that community, or stifle it. 

Blogging Part 2

If my last post was based on my impressions about the post before it, this one is kind of “State of the Blog” address. 

 

Besides having to take time to think about the nature of blogging, I’ve also been posting less for other reasons as well.  First, I’ve been working every day as a video editor, which has occupied my time.  Second, I am now submitting articles once or twice a week to the new online magazine Rhombus.  If you haven’t read Rhombus yet, you should.  In my case, I’m basically submitting stuff that would be on this blog, but usually with more immediate relevancy to the larger world.  (In other words, I might not submit film reviews of old movies, fashion tips, or criticisms of LDS church magazines.)  Though I won’t have an article in Rhombus everyday, I will have one in it frequently and many of the other writers are also quite engaging as well.   

 

What this means for this blog is that posts will probably continue to be less frequent.  (I’m hoping for once or twice a week.)  Also, the topics will probably tend to be those things I mentioned above as not being appropriate or timely for a magazine.  Obviously I will try to continue to bring a critical eye to everything that I write about, however, so hopefully this blog will be as engaging (or offensive) with each post.  Because I’ll be sending some of my more decorous writing to Rhombus, the blog may become even more engaging (and offensive) as I try to take it in a less “journalistic” (or perhaps “column-istic”) direction.  (Unfortunately posts may also become even less polished as I have less time to proof read and edit them.) 

 

While the primary purpose of this blog was hopefully to start discussions, I also began doing it as a way to practice writing quickly and for a more popular/broader audience that I’m used to in school.  I also saw it as a way to think critically about popular cultural (which I believe is infinitely more important than anything I’ve written about or discussed in school.)  When I started writing for Rhombus about a week ago I understood that doing so would take away from these pursuits.  After all, I only have so much time and energy for writing.  However, I also saw it as a way to engage with more people and to have an editor telling me what should and shouldn’t be out there for people to read. 

 

(You can read my first two Rhombus articles here and here.  Also check back frequently because I should have stuff in there often.)

Blogging

I’ve done terribly with posting these last few weeks and a big part of that was that the comments on my last post surprised me in a few ways.  First, I was surprised that anyone commented at all because I didn’t send a facebook update telling people to take a look at the post.  Second, however (and more importantly), I was surprised that my impression about the purpose of blogging is (or at least was) very different that most people’s. 

 

I think that what surprised me most about the comments on my last post was that many people apparently assume an underlying hierarchy when they read something online.  In other words, the author or blogger’s post takes precedence and no one else’s voice can be as authoritative or as dominant.  Obviously this is true with online news or literature or whatever.  However, I was surprised to see that it is also true for blogging as well.  Of course, other people can comment, but those comments are entirely secondary in some people’s opinions.  (Obviously not everyone who commented felt this way, and my impressions are based as much on conversations I had outside of the blog as they are by the comments.)

 

As I’ve thought about this idea I think everyone who indicated that a hierarchy exists in blogging is right, though unfortunately so.  Because the Internet is (theoretically) universally accessible, and because most blog hosting companies (google, wordpress, etc.) allow for comments, I initially felt that the medium could be like one big classroom.  Significantly, however, my impression was that it would be more like a classroom without a teacher; everyone’s voice would be different but equal and the author of the posts would merely be a kind of moderator who brought up topics. 

 

What I’ve learned is that though blogging may be like a classroom, but there is definitely a “teacher” present who controls that space.  A reader may not like the teacher, or respect him or her, but there is still a person who dominates.  This happens symbolically as people choose to enter someone else’s site, but it also happens literally as comments are placed beneath the original post and visible only someone clicks on the actual entry. 

 

I have no conclusions for this post.  What I hoped to have happen can not, because as much as I want it to, people (you perhaps, if you’re reading this) usually interpret blogs differently than I imagined.  I am now left to wonder if there can be an online venue for discussion that is more democratic.

Anonymous Blogging

For the most part, anonymous blogging is a really bad idea.  This point is illustrated by a recent case in Pittsburg, where a woman lost her job when her anonymous blog was outed. 

 

Obviously that doesn’t happen to everyone, but as soon as someone begins publishing nameless material others will start trying to guess who is really behind it.  Because people will interpret differently, imposing their own values and preconceptions onto the blogs, the revelation of the real author will almost always come as a disappointment.  The person behind the persona won’t live up to expectations, and in the end everyone will be more disappointed than if the blogger’s name had been available from the beginning.  What’s more, remaining a nameless author in today’s world is simply an unrealistic goal.  Though it may historically have worked well for political figures, philosophers, etc. who managed to assume a kind of “everyman” role, similar results are increasingly impossible in a digital world where an author’s identity is only a mouse click and subpoena away. (This article discusses both the case mentioned above as well as some others.)

 

Besides the practical problems of remaining nameless in a digital world, anonymity reeks of cowardice.  By it’s very nature the internet isolates people somewhat, at least physically, and that perceived isolation can lead to perceived freedoms; if someone is simply on their computer they may feel at liberty to say whatever they want, no matter how questionable.  (I know that I’ve fallen into this trap many times before and some extreme cases might be called cyber bullying.)  Anonymity lets someone have all that freedom, without any consequences or repercussions. In other words, anonymous bloggers disregard accountability for their writing.

 

Ultimately, there may always be a need for conscientious but nameless observers to decry problems in society.  However there will always be an even greater need for people who are willing to put their names on the line for progress.  Hopefully the blogosphere will get a few more people with the guts to take that risk.

More Coming Soon

No new post today, but check back soon for a review of Electron Deception's recent show in Salt Lake City, an exploration of the pros and cons of commuting, and other entries.  Also, if you can't stand a day or two without some Jim/Blog, checkout the blog for Slowtrain Records.  The review of Nico Vega's album is up there.