After Susan checked out Maiden Voyage, she wanted to know why this blog, was different than any other regular old web site. Although I felt instinctively that blogs in general are a subset of web sites, with specific differences, I couldn't articulate to her why that was or what was specifically different about them. After all, we all know what a web site is, yeah? Code, words, and pictures, is what I always tell my students. That simple explanation, I owe to Jeff Veen and his wonderful book, The Art and Science of Web Design. Yet when I just went back to check on his web site, lo and behold!, it looks like a blog! http://www.veen.com/jeff/ So what is this all about? Rather than try to reinvent the wheel, I'll direct you to Dave Winer's thorough answer to the question
What Makes a Weblog a Weblog? Yet none of these helpful explanations get to the heart of why do I blog?
The simplest answer is because it's there. I hate being left out. I have always aspired to being a journal-er, deluded by the notion, that someday, someone might care about the mundane details of life in general in the early twenty-first centruy, of my life in particular. I always imaginged my life as an artist elucidated by my writings. However my hard bound journal sits on my desk and gathers dust. I loved the notion that someone else has done all the work of setting this up and linking my entries to an interactive calendar and sorting them in categories and allowing my friends to comment on my meanderings. Thank you Movable Type!
I naturally like to share.Contrary to what many of those closest to me seem to experience, I do like to share the boring, silly, unbelievable, absurd and frightenly common things that occur on a regular basis. This impulse conflicts, however, with a strong urge to retreat, and a tendency towards the reclusive. Blogging mediates between the two impulses, allowing me to lick my wounds in private and complain about how much they hurt to the world. In my fantasy life, this blog will allow me to create that proverbial "circle of friends" drawing those of you from far away and long ago into the humdrum of my daily dailies. Kinda like dropping by for tea! No need to call and book a date weeks in advance cause your Palm and my Visor are both maxed out. Just come on over and set a spell!
Blog for the Brain. Lastly, as I embark on my doctoral study of Visual Culture, I would love to use this as an opportunity to articulate my understandings of my readings, to test out my ideas, to ask questions, to post drafts of my work. I am hoping that my more knowledgeable friends and long time academicians can help to spark deeper understandings in this bon-bon eating, dilettante's pea-sized brain.