Whither the blog?

NOTE: A much-sniffed lamp-post. Yet still I sniff.

This post has been deleted by the author. One of its several defects was its argument was far too casually advanced, and could be construed as offensive. This was not my intention and I apologise wholeheartedly

Rhymes with clog, smog, bog

What was I doing on December 1, 2011, 999 posts ago?

Wiping egg from my face.

Blogo-named Barrett Bonden, I had just announced I was closing down my 550-post blog, Works Well. The thirty-five comments I received (now, as then, a record) voiced regret, anger but mostly confusion.

In erasing WW I was punishing myself for “lack of judgment”. I’d irritated a commenter (not for the first time nor, I fear, for the last) and was vaguely depressed. When this blog, Tone Deaf, was inexplicably launched two days later the headline read: Possible Cure for Depression.

It looked like a stunt. Perhaps it was. I can’t be sure.

In switching to Tone Deaf I heaved Barrett Bonden overboard and became LdP (Lorenzo da Ponte – Mozart’s librettist). My first TD post starts: “The readers were the best thing about my previous blog. I’m proud of that.” It continues: “Mrs LdP says people liked my previous blog because it was eclectic (aka misguided, scatter-gun, indulgent). Thinks this one won’t work.”

To some extent Mrs LdP was right. TD has never achieved the same kind of rapport Works Well did. Readers fell away; blog friends died.

Still I wonder. My first “real” novel, Gorgon Times, appeared a year later. Did I discard WW to devote myself – monastically – to novels? If so I hadn’t thought things through. Novel writing is a lonely sport. Throughout most of my life I’ve done without friends. Works Well had changed this; it seemed I had friends though it’s not for me to say. Whatever, I’d hardly served them well.

Destructive acts are exhilarating but not for long. Writing fiction can be exhilarating but it’s mostly sweat and tears. Now, with age, fiction is ten times harder. Blogging, strangely, gets easier. Answers to questions, however, become more remote.

It's received but is it a gift?

Old age does have its benefits. It drives out vanity.

Beyond eighty you don't give a toss how you look. I'm scheduled for a hair appointment with Shara at 12.30 and I'm easily a month late. In fact I'm more concerned at my overgrown eyebrows which madly tickle my eyelids. The great thing about Shara is I may sit down and she needs no instruction; we chat about her daughter and she gets on with the hacking. The fee is so small I am able to tip her munificently and feel great for at least half an hour.

Most of which is a nonsense. A biggish fib. In parts I lie.

Here and there are shards of truth but the over-arching concept - that I am unvain - is simply untrue. Why be only a month late at the salon? Why not half a year? Wasn't I rhapsodising about wearing black earlier this year? I am horribly vain about singing. That my written sentences should parse. That some of my posts should surprise.

That second para is received wisdom. It could pass for truth in cocktail party chat. Received wisdom usually goes unchallenged, often because people don't care. Received wisdom is a shaky wall built from cliché bricks.

My hair is long, true. But it may quickly be made to look unexceptional.  It’s long because of my growing reluctance - with age - to phone for an appointment. A strange form of decay. As a journalist I used a phone all the time; now I approach it with timidity. Confessing this makes me mildly uncomfortable. Which is perhaps good for my soul.

Except I'm not in favour of hair-shirtism. And I have powerful doubts about my soul.

See how received wisdom can creep up.

Brotherly love?

My mind's restless, I search other diversions.

Here's one: bumping up to a hundred the total number of comments to one of the posts in my brother's blog, Conrad Walks. Where the idea came from I'm not sure but I found a kindred spirit and we'd reached 79 by this morning. I'd like to claim, as Seinfeld did for his phenomenally successful TV series in the USA, that my comments are about nothing. ("More TV should be about nothing," Seinfeld said slily.) But they aren't. Mine are of course mainly facetious (You'd expect nothing else, surely?), the associations are entirely random, but the subjects are often mega. Cooking, for instance. Always a winner.

Am I losing my marbles. Why not, you will ask, spend more time on the declining fortunes of Tone Deaf? Why not indeed?

I think the main attraction is a sense of irresponsibility. Slightly less lunatic is a desire to prove I can write about anything. That each sentence should carry the expectation of discovery.

The project has suicidal overtones. Sir Hugh's original post, called Holme, appeared on August 24. Given that more recent posts will eventually archive Holme under Older Posts there will soon be no immediately visible temptation for new readers to explore the long, lonq sequence of Holme comments. But my kindred spirit says this doesn't faze him and he remains entertained. I am thus unrestrained.

Could I combine this foolishness with a musical accompaniment? Who knows? Kindred Spirit may be disinclined to stop at a hundred.

Please understand, I am not proselytising.

Comment conundrum

I calculate the optimum length for a blog comment is just under a hundred words. Alas...

For months I've written long comments, fondly imagining these monsters would demonstrate my interest, would prove I took the recipient’s post seriously. Vain hope. Length risks being misunderstood. It may embarrass those less grandiloquent. The final paras may remain unread.

Not that I favour cyber-short-form. For twenty minutes I had a Facebook account. Terrifying! Like inspecting my own tombstone - faces of the damned inching their way across my screen. While Tweeting is surely for those who would prefer to bark, cheep, howl, miaow, hiss or otherwise imitate animals.

There are people out there who write well and interestingly and I want more from them. Most are polite and have indulged me. But over-stuffing is for turkeys not humans. I devised a formula for an optimum comment:

Lapel-gripping start. Obsequious compliment. Not forgetting the comment author. Changing to a more profitable subject. Ending with self-promotion.

Constructed an example but, dissatisfied, deleted it. Pondered the essence of a comment which is – surely – to respond. But more than: Great post! Your recipe for cupcakes really touched me. I didn’t get past page four of that book. Happy Birthday.

One may always fib but after 1441 posts I’ve forgotten most of them; I could be revealed as a fibber. Fantasy becomes wearing. Ignore the original post and write any old stuff but that’s kind of Olympian. Correct the grammar and “improve” the syntax; hmmm; ask brother Sir Hugh about his reaction to that.

Asking for help is often productive but may be inappropriate; cupcakes, for instance, don’t figure in my life. Quote a poem (and risk being a show-off). TV programmes? Nah!

Stick to long comments? Pro tem? Avoid Latin tags?

Could this be Brexit?

Yeah, yeah, pontoons and suits are things. The vacancy is in his head

Some cease to blog because they believe they're all written out. For shame. Subjects abound. How about the present intake of breath and the one that (we hope!) follows? The act of reading these words? The strange and rarely examined phenomenon of being alive? Or for that matter being dead? Momentous topics discarded in favour of mulching flower beds or chasing down bargains at Tesco.

Or we can write about nothing. Split that word and we get no thing, a biblical-sounding phrase intended to invoke a void. But there are more than things out there. Breathing in and breathing out are not things, they're events. Reading is a process as is living. Being dead? Hardly a thing.

And before you dispute the definition of thing - arguing that its very vagueness allows it to cover all experienciable and imaginable phenomena - try Googling "Thing, meaning". Never have I been so ashamed of dictionary compilers as a tribe. Most are overpowered by the difficulty and resort to puerile examples.

Were I still a versifier (I resigned the day before yesterday) I'd relish standing on an eminence and viewing nothing. Not a Rich Tea biscuit, nor a Rembrandt nor a TV remote in sight.

Not-I wandered, lonely as an un-thing
That floats - oh, somewhere - over various non-existing geographical features.

The Bard of Rydal could do better.

Mind you the view from that hill, tump or excrescence might be surprising. War might be ensuing (for war is an event) but the good news would be that nobody would be armed, for weapons are things. Nor would anyone care about the war since none of us would have smartphones on which to goggle at it.

Meanwhile I’ll continue to wrestle with the idea that nothing is something to write about. 

Nothing (partly rewritten)

Bloggers who are in it for the long haul must learn how to write a post about nothing. The need crops up regularly: I've been silent too long, you say to yourself, readers will imagine I've cut my throat. They'll reckon they've seen the signs.

Writing about nothing means just that. No fancy verbs, no words with capital letters, no grand abstractions, no nouns outside the basic 700-word vocabulary. Damn! See that! The v-noun breaks the rule. And I'm not too sure about the r-word.

OK, I'm ready to go.

I am. Yes, that's OK. My am-ness was yesterday but is not yet tomorrow. I know my am-ness because it is not your am-ness. For me there is nothing more than my am-ness; more would be other-ness and other-ness could be you. I am and you are are the am-nesses of each of us. Neither is the other. I see you and say: he is. He is because he has his is-ness; I have my is-ness.

You get the idea. Suddenly, you say, who's the smartyboots? Obviously the guy who decided, more than a thousand posts ago, in 2008, that he would limit his posts to 300 words. And that's me, blowing my own trumpet.

It makes sense. A 300-word post about nothing is kinder to readers than one of 1000 words.

And there's more. A post about nothing can be improved. An earlier version of this post actually said something; parts of it were almost literature. Clearly that was cheating - the thought came to me (as bad thoughts always do) at 3 am today. Quickly I re-wrote the final third. I'm sure if you read the first version you'll agree this one is much more nothing-y.

Final question. Can a post about nothing be anything other than dull? But it's the wrong question: the aim is to do one's duty, to fill space.

Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair

Hobbledehoy, pt two

There are three codas to my previous post about DRESS Smart casual.

As I mention in one of my re-comments, VR volunteered to take me to M&S and equip me - at her expense - in a manner that will meet this vague criterion. I noted this would be expensive but she said she didn't care. Since she will see more of me at this canapé/drinks occasion (I’ve accepted the invitation) than I will see of myself I gave in graciously. Only heavy rain yesterday kept us out of M&S.

Second, what I said about my wardrobe wasn't entirely complete. I do have a soft, rather luxurious tweed jacket, acquired fairly recently, that I had in mind as a fall-back in extremis. Good thing I didn't mention it. It turns out this delicious garment has been the most tragic victim of the 5/2 diet. See the photo for proof.

Third, Natalie recommended I visit M&S and spend on my own behalf, justifying it on the basis that canapé/drinks may provide raw material for a Tone Deaf post. This could happen but, more immediately, it set me thinking about a visit I made very recently to the dentist to have a broken tooth repaired. Although we pay a regular monthly premium for dental work, I was warned repeatedly that there would be an extra charge on this occasion, attributable to "lab work".

Goaded by the thought of this extra expenditure, I glanced round the surgery and felt there had to be some literary potential somewhere. I asked a couple of questions and lo! in the mysterious way these things happen, the idea for a short story dropped into my noggin: involving cops, a suspected murder and tax-fraud – all firsts. Now written and awaiting VR’s approval. See you there.

Perhaps I should bellow louder

A moment of gloom? A time to be philosophical? Goodbyes in the air?

Beth (Cassandra Pages) and Lucy (Box Elder), two bloggers whose stuff I read assiduously, have within the week referred to a  falling-away of blog comments. Lucy hints at the withering away of blogging itself, swamped by Facebook and tweeting.

And I thought it was just me! A month or so ago I posted on a somewhat personal topic and got zero response. Something of a first.

The paradox with Tone Deaf  is that I have disabled the hickie which includes my own visits to the blog and pageview stats are going up and up. The five short stories posted over the last two months scored especially well.

Neither Facebook nor tweeting appeal. I support brevity, hence the 300-word limit, but I'm not into Post-Its. For me blogging is writing or nothing, although writing which no one reads can be uphill.

For what it's worth I'll keep doing what I have been doing, bellowing down the well until the absence of echo confirms that there's no one out there. Then probably write some more.

WIP Second Hand (46,359 words)
In Merton Park, just off Erridge Road, amid vistas of thirties semis as economically remote to Francine as Eaton Square, Fairholt Road mouldered like a graveyard of late Victorian architecture. Three structures – semis but too massive, grey and mournful to be recognised as such – awaited time’s equivalent of the abattoir’s fixed-bolt. Kindly destruction and crass re-development.  Houses that had passed the point at which dilapidation ceases to be passive and becomes pell-mell. In three frontages embracing a total of twelve bow-fronted windows, four gravestone window ledges had given way to subsidence and broken in the middle – like permanently dribbling eyes of the very old.

Proof of my affection

Abruptly Blogger bit back. Overnight this passive software thingie, a steady acquantance over the last five years, denied me access to Stats. But who cares about these dubiously flattering figures? Well I do, for one. Surely I may live in the land of make-believe, imagining forty strangers out in cyberspace intentionally gobbling up my most recent post? Notably, Husbandry (about the French documentary Etre et Avoir) at 270 pageviews and still climbing.

More significantly this same glitch prevented me from posting. RR mute! I needed to stir my stumps.

When I Googled Can't get Stats I found I wasn't alone. First recommendation: clear all caches and (if you've got the guts) all cookies. That latter's a killer ensuring loads of tedious future work filling in cyber-requests. But because I love you all (and the sound of my own voice) I did the deed. No good.

Next my advisers averred that Internet Explorer might be the culprit. Now there's a surprise. Google carping at Microsoft! Inevitably Google said stop browsing with IE and use Chrome. Don't like Chrome but, greater love hath no man, etc, etc. It didn't work.

But Firefox did. Don't like Firefox either but I can't quibble. Now I'm using Firefox for Blogger and IE for other things. A bit like riding a two-part circus pony. I hope you all recognise the sacrifice. 

WIP Second Hand (33,738 words)

“MISS EMBERY, I am Sadhu. I drive the executive taxi ordered by Mr Balogun.” On the street outside, scorning the double yellow lines, a large black car seemingly polished for the occasion. On the top step an Asian driver ecstatic to be wearing a white blazer with Status Cars embroidered on the breast pocket.

“I’ll get my coat,” said Francine, “it’s on the newel post.”

Too big a calling card?

Lincoln, directed by Steven Spielberg, proved to be an absorbing movie, admirably conveying the cramped, unhygienic way people lived and worked in the mid-nineteenth century. Not least in the House of Representatives which looked like an East End pub on Christmas Eve. And while Daniel Day-Lewis was as good as anybody you'll ever see in the cinema he was well supported by actors with lesser names.

Lincoln often manipulated people via anecdote, one of them especially telling, I thought. Some politician apologised for producing a lengthy tract. In his defence, he said, "I was too lazy to make it shorter."

I reflected on my self-imposed 300-word limit and felt briefly smug. Alas the moment was only too brief. My posts may be  kept to 300 words but my comments on others' blogs often run on and on. Is there a parallel here reflecting the laws of hospitality? Am I risking outstaying my welcome with this grandiloquence? Is it the equivalent of cutting myself a huge slice of cake at someone else's afternoon tea?

I could say my Linkspeople are good listeners. Put perhaps I'm not giving them any alternative. One of those matters I ponder at at 3 am under the wing-beat of the Angel of Death. The conclusions are  pessimistic but at least dawn is always welcome.
  
WIP Second Hand (30,694 words)
(In the customer services section) there were even gentle hints about make-up and a tidier hair-style. Plus a new level of formality from the women who’d worked alongside her at the tills - no longer Frankie she was now Miss Embery. Lorne warned her not to lose her temper with customers who came in to complain but Francine enjoyed these encounters most of all. Restraint, like revenge, was a response best practised cold.

Minor attack of conscience

What are a blogger's responsibilities, if any?

I've been at it since May 4 2008 - say, 750 posts. Over the years I've received about half a dozen comments where the writer said he/she intended to take up something (a book, music) I'd mentioned or recommended. Very gratifying. Of course they may have been fibbing.

Recently I slagged off Quartet seen at our local film festival. Returning to the main festival cinema I found a board carrying forty post-its, mostly one word, all ecstatic about Quartet. My opinion hasn't changed about this piece of stodge but I feel I must allow mention of these views.

I was limited to two or three lines. After writing them I checked with my cinema reference, Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian. Here's his view of Quartet.

Movies we saw at Borderlines festival
Moonrise Kingdom Silly title. Two troubled twelve-year-olds, a boy and a girl, leave society behind to embrace la vie sauvage in an island off the New England coast. The first half is inventive and has its charms, but the exigencies of the plot and certain American beliefs in what is "proper" render the second half mechanistic. The director Wes Anderson, famed for his quirkiness, (eg, The Royal Tenenbaums), attracts a stellar cast, all of whom make the best of their cameos.

Amarcord Italian director Fellini (La Dolce Vita, 8½) lays aside obscurity and re-creates his childhood in the port of Rimini during Mussolini's rise to power. A vividly realised scrapbook, alternately uproarious and touching. terribly noisy and featuring a class of male teenagers capable of breaking any teacher (or parent) on God's earth. Released 1973, hasn't aged a bit.

Oil change and a new filter

Tone Deaf’s fiftieth post but it’s no time for celebration, rather for an MoT.

● LdP wears a suit as befits his trade whereas sometimes likeable, often detestable BB wore an open-necked plaid shirt. LdP smells of midnight oil whereas BB's after-shave was called Persiflage.

● Theoretically music is a leisure-time activity but at TD it's more Eton Wall Game than synchronised swimming. In fact differential calculus is funnier.

● Should TD go with the flow and ride Brahmsian and Mozartian war-horses…

● … or consider Grant’s gazelle, the quagga, the percheron and other more exotic transportation (Elliott Carter. Morton Feldman and the rest of the gang).

● Is asking questions a non-adult way of creating a post?

● There are lightning-flash rewards when anyone accepts a TD recommendation. But, oh, the responsibility. Never recommend casually.

● Over-familiarity with forms, styles, history and technicalities can be a turn-off for others. I’m presently listening to Bach unaccompanied cello. Might the sound alone disturb a novice?

● So far modern-day pop has rarely touched me. Age may be the reason. I’ll continue the analytical approach until someone suggests something better.

● Opera is – perhaps – posh music’s best expression. But many posh enthusiasts don’t care for opera. Never forget the judgment of Richard (otherwise a great opera fan) on La Clemenza di Tito: “Hard going”.

● Must do memo. Confessions of personal ignorance – especially as a result of snobbism – create a rapport. In fact…

● … various aspects of music are prescriptions for embarrassment. Be prepared to embarrass oneself.

● Finally, continue to peg away at music’s effect on the listener. Remember being irritated at Symphony Hall, Birmingham, by a flood-tide of elderlies shuffling into their seats. Remember how the Brahms harmonised them all.

MUSIC IS, ON THE WHOLE, A UNIFIER