Wednesday, February 19, 2003

Pink Flamingos

Lots of angst and self-flagellation about blogs going on at Brian Kim Stefans' Free Space Comix and David Hess' marvelously entertaining Heathens in Heat. Come on, guys. I'm totally with Heriberto Yepez on this one (read The Tijuana Bible of Poetics every day and twice on Sundays): the proliferation of venues for publication—and more importantly, for distribution (Barnes & Noble's got nothing on the Internet)—can only be a good thing. Listservs are far more clubby than blogs, and I vastly prefer the notes that have been slipped under my door to the offensive inanity coming through my window every time I open Outlook Express. Which is not to say that listservs don't serve a function that blogs cannot, and it's an important one: in spite of how irritating it can be I stay subscribed to the Buffalo List because that's how I get the news about Poets Against the War, etc. It is difficult to get the news from blogs, but I don't go to blogs for news: I go for an experience of subjectivity that each blogger contextualizes (i.e., is self-conscious about) in his or her own way. And I write my blog (and respond to what other people say on theirs) for a sense of community. Jim Behrle can diss blogs if he pleases (most of Jim's disses please, but not this one), but I notice he was giving his speech in San Francisco. Some of us don't live in San Francisco or New York. This blog is IT. This is my Batphone to the (plural) scenes out there, and every now and then it rings with a reader's e-mail, or just my desire to instantly respond to something I've read. Yeah, it's my yard, so what? You kids can come play in it any time you want.

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