Blog readers can be so picky.
For my last post, I got up at the crack of dawn to take some photos of the crack of dawn.
Then, I came up with this brilliant extended metaphor comparing the mood on the docks at dawn with being in a cathedral - the first time such an analogy has been drawn in the history of Western literature.
Some readers liked the photos, but the big noise in the comments page was about absolutely nothing. It wasn't about anything I'd written or photographed. It was about the empty line I'd left at the beginning of the post. I've been doing this at the beginning of every post I've written since I started this blog a month ago.
Some were concerned about the mechanics of how I'd even managed this in blogging software that tries to thwart every attempt to leave unused blankness.
Others wondered about the mysterious implications of such a subtle subterfuge - much like the pimply faced cohorts of my adolescence wondered about the significance of those little stars on the cover of Playboy magazine. Did each empty line denote some sort of nautical conquest for O Docker?
Hmm, maybe I'll let the mystery linger on.
Tillerman, whose recent blank post caused quite a stir, seemed especially intrigued by the groundbreaking work I'm doing in recurring nothingness.
Before I started this blog, I was getting some notoriety for what I wasn't doing - namely writing a blog. In fact, I thought I was damned good at not writing a blog. Some of those posts I never wrote have stood the test of time very well. To this day, no one reads them.
Maybe there's a message here for me. Maybe the less I write, the better this blog will be. I've been thinking of writing a post composed entirely of punctuation marks, with no words at all.
Who knows where this might lead? Once established as a minimalist blogger, I could probably land a book deal - a substantial advance from a major publisher for promising never to write any short stories or novels. And the empty sky's the limit.
I'm getting a great idea for a TV sitcom.
.
ReplyDeleteYou are the master of your domain.
Or a Soap Opera
ReplyDelete
ReplyDeleteI think the soap opera field may be saturated, Zen. Most that I've seen already seem to be about absolutely nothing.
ReplyDeleteAccording to wikipedia, the distinctive feature of a soap opera is that it "works with a continuous open narrative. Each episode ends with a promise that the storyline is to be continued in another episode".
Hmmm. Sounds like a blog to me.
He centered the picture. I'm in favor of righting or lefting, but not centering. It's so 'hey, everybody look at me!' to dress center.
ReplyDeleteGreg, we live in such polarizing times. Everyone is trying to label us either 'right' or 'left'.
ReplyDeleteI'm trying to effect change in this blog. I'm trying to pull us all together. I do not see left bloggers and right bloggers. I see only sailing bloggers. Now, if only I could get some sailing content into this blog instead of blogging about absolutely nothing.
Surely the world has tolerated the implicit bigotry of centered images for far too long. We all know what they symbolize and it's time to put a stop to that outmoded way of thinking about images. Images have feelings too and if they want to come out of the closet and declare their leftness of rightness then we should embrace their sidedness with open hearts. Leftness and rightness are not wrong; they are just different ways in which God has created images in his own image. "I am the Left and the Right, the First and the Last."
ReplyDeleteMaybe you're right.
ReplyDeleteIn my closet, I keep the shirts on the left and the pants on the right. I've never really bothered asking the pants and the shirts if that's the way they want it. I've always just imposed my order on them. How thoughtless I've been.
One of the reasons I started this blog was to encourage the opinions of others, and, already, that's opening my mind in ways I hadn't imagined.
There's one thing that won't change, though. I shall continue to wear my pants on the left.
odocker . . hear me out. since entering the universe of bloggers, you surely have added nothing. and your nothingness . . has made all the difference. oh sweet nothingness . . . nothing er er something? can be compared to three . . .
ReplyDeleteIn music, the rests are just as important as the notes.
ReplyDeleteword verification definition - pomouse: a small rodent with no money.
O Docker has cornered the niche of "writing nothing about sailing on a sailing blog." I look forward to reading more and more about less and less until he reaches his ultimate goal of writing nothing about anything.
ReplyDeletePanda, I tried playing music for a few years as a kid. My rests were much better than my notes.
ReplyDeleteI've got nothing.
ReplyDelete