Why bother blogging? And other personal updates

Why?

Why do I continue to keep this blog?

I’ve been doing this a long time, since Sept. 2007, save for a long break circa 2013-2019 to write Flame and Crimson and tend to other matters in my life.

What is its purpose? What is my purpose, continuing to post after all these years?

Occasionally I ask myself, why bother? But such feelings always pass, and I continue my scribblings into the electronic ether. 

I don’t know why I’ve continued. But let’s see what I can come up with.

I love old authors and old bits of popular culture that are slipping away, and I want to preserve them. Jack Vance, Poul Anderson, Fritz Leiber, etc. are grandmasters of fantasy and SF, towering talents better than most authors you will read yesterday, today, or tomorrow, but I’d be surprised if their combined annual sales are 1% of Brandon Sanderson. And then you’ve got dudes like Karl Edward Wagner, Charles Saunders, Gardner Fox, C.L. Moore and others who, outside of some diehard horror and S&S circles, are rapidly fading into yesteryear. I like talking about their stuff and keeping it alive, because it’s damned good, and they need champions.

I am pushing back against Twitter and the dying of the light of (semi) intelligent conversation. Not fighting Twitter in a literal sense (I have no more or less disdain for that platform than any other), but the notion that our thoughts can be compressed into 280 characters, and that history is meaningless. I’m not exactly a purveyor of profundity here, but I try to write the stuff I like to read, that has some amount of context and substance. You can see every post I ever wrote here on this site if you choose to do so, no account necessary. Does anyone read old social media posts? They are vaporware, spoon fed by algorithms over which you have no control. I don’t think they can even be searched in any meaningful way. I like that this page is static AF, boring even. Just read it and leave. But here it remains.

I am fighting the trend of “hot takes.” By which I mean, unqualified gushing praise, or unwarranted criticism, of new and hot properties, for clicks, followers, and ad revenue. My takes are about as hot as reruns of the Golden Girls. I’m OK with not having 500,000 followers as a result.

I’m stubborn. I am aware that blogs are so like, 2008 man. This platform has been supplanted not by Facebook, but by MySpace … and then Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok. It’s a dinosaur way to do “this thing,” whatever that may be. I sometimes wonder if Google will just up and delete the Blogger platform. But I despise the need to obsessively create accounts on the latest and greatest platform, again and again. Why? Where does it end? Maintaining 26 social media accounts, and pouring your entire existence into a digital vortex of bullshit? I think most people would be best served picking one or two platforms and settling in. But I’m aware that patience and attention span are in short supply.

So in summary, I’m an old fart who likes old things, including evidently a fondness for outdated blogging platforms. I guess that means I’m here to stay, at least until Google says otherwise.

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A few other matters less contemplative.

I am reading Larry McMurtry’s Lonesome Dove. I’m not much of a western reader, at all. Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian, a Zane Gray novel or two. Some Breckenridge Elkins… that’s about it. But this one had caught my eye (reviews exclaiming, “if you only ever read one western, make it this one,” Pulitzer Prize winner, etc.) and I needed a sword-and-sorcery break, so I pulled this one off the shelf. It was a slow slog at first, 200 pages of OK slow build, but I’m really enjoying it at the moment. Incredible character studies, outstanding portrayal of frontier life in the waning days of the frontier, some shocking violence. McMurtry skillfully puts you into what a long distance cattle drive in the 1870s/1880s must have been like. Some absolutely beautiful passages. I’m glad I’ve made the effort as the damned book is a monster (858 pages).

Simultaneous with this western foray I’m also in full-blown Halloween mode. I wrote a piece on Algernon Blackwood’s “The Willows” for Tales from the Magician’s Skull. Last night I re-watched The Lair of the White Worm (1988). Campy as hell, fun. Recommended. Prior to that watched “The Vampire Lovers” (1970, Hammer). Also campy and fun, and recommended. Both films star absolutely gorgeous female leads, too.

If you sign up for the mailing list (free) for New Edge Sword and Sorcery magazine you will be entered for a drawing to win a free hard copy of Flame and Crimson. I will mail the book myself, how about that? And make my mark on it, should you want that.

I am committed to going to Howard Days next year. You read it here. More to come on that later. 

I’m on Day 4 of COVID and feeling much better this AM. In another day or two at most I should be back to regular form. Note to self: Get the booster. Dealing with this is a pain in the ass. I’ve had worse cases of the flu, but COVID places your life on hold as you isolate. Not cool to miss your daughter’s senior day cross country meet.