Is it just me? Or did our resident grammar and spelling expert Dean just confirm that his esteemed community of “elite bloggers” simply take their cue from Big Media:
Lighten up Benigz,
The topic of blogging was on Media in Focus and for those who follow this media program on ABSCBN that focusses on the minutiae of media, we know that blogging has been coming up in practically every episode [my boldface].
Maybe’ it is just me. Whateva.
I’ve got a bigger point to make in this article.
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But before I get to that bigger point, I might first digress a bit and highlight this passage [Y'all have to excuse me. Brilliant writers tend to have multiple-layered concepts embedded in their pieces]:
I happened to know all the guests and was actually with Noemi just last Friday. Cheche Lazaro the host of the show is a friend. Ding and I had been on it. But on such minutiae are friendships and collaborations built, and blog posts inspired, so excuse me. [my boldface]
There’s a point being made by Dean somewhere here in his pointing out these “friendships”. But I’ll leave exploration of the nature of that point and the nature of Dean’s motivation in highlighting it to the imaginations of others as it is not the point I am making in this blog.
Rather (excuse again the above digression from the first digression — multiple layers, you know…), the otherwise benign concept at work here is in his use of the word “collaborations”. I might incite a bit of Pinoy-style speculative discussion here and ask a child-like question:
What kind of ends did you have in mind in forming these “collaborative” relationships, Dean?
I’ll leave it at that for now. Nothing like an open-ended question to spice things up a bit in a forum infested by Shawarma Topics. ;)
————–
Coming back to the less droll and unintelligent aspect of this post (thereby closing off the above Layers 1 and 2 digressions) is what I read into in this little snippet of our resident spelling expert’s wisdom:
[...] But blogging about the blogging phenomenon is like writing about some new genre of writing [...]
Yes sir, Dean.
Just like ocho-ocho “revolutions” were the new New Thing back in 1986 — the new “genre” of democratic exercise that was to supplant the power of traditional politics dominated by the economically-entrenched oligarchy that was a legacy of our colonial domination by European imperialists.
Yadda Yadda Yadda
We now know in hindsight where that back-patting and the succumbing to self-important introspection of the “pioneers” and self-described architects of street circuses got us, don’t we? Look no further than today’s ha-ha attempts to “institutionalise” ocho-ocho “revolutions”, the least of which was Abe‘s excruciating attempt to model it using the trademark pompous verbosity of the “expert“:
[Pardon my being so self-referential as I tend to use only reliable insight as reference. ;) ]
[…] if the government abuses its powers or ignores the limitations the people impose on those powers, and existing curative or rectifying process is unavailing owing to the very same abuse of power or misuse of privileges, then the collectivity can empower itself to remove the abusive and unjust government and enter into a new arrangement [...]
[bla bla bla]
[...] Once a successful People Power is acquiesced in by the people, a new covenant is thereby established which sets into motion the democratic cycle anew.
Z z z z z z z z z….
One could say that this whole DeLaPaz-vs-Padacamaman (whatever the hell the the spelling of the latter’s name is — Dean help me out here…) business is to “blogging” what the 1986 Circus was to ocho-ocho “revolutions” as Abe attempts to describe them today.
If you love someone, set them free, as the venerable poet Sting once wailed through his golden throat. Don’t put them in a cage to be regarded as one would a flaccid [two C's, professor] specimen of the King of Beasts staring back at you from behind bars in a zoo.
The rock band KISS (fundamentally lipstick on pigs) routinely got its rocks off in the instant validation provided by live concerts (the way blogs and the less-brain-engaging “new” technologies of microblogging do writers). But ultimately what separates the men from the boys is timelessness — something that can be achieved ONLY when one understands that (as I wrote in my book):
True artistic beauty is a product of depth in structure and meaning and not just of chaotic expression.
So, Dean, get over your being a “blogger” [wank wank] and just get on with the business of expressing stuff that matters.
You never quite know when the next new New Thing will come along and yank that precious killer app out from under your flat feet and render it but a mere quaint relic of turn-of-the-century publishing technology.
So to all here in our humble forum:
When you write, do it right™.
Don’t apply pwede na yan to your style — even if the technology encourages it.
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Now what the hell was that all about, benny? Far be it from you to try to impose — mother of pearl! — standards on other people.
True artistic beauty is a product of depth in structure and meaning and not just of chaotic expression.
Sweet mother of pearl! You want blogging to be art? Good gravy!
If it is not an art, Jeg, what is it then? A science?
Blogging is blogging, benny. To paraphrase Mr Stephen Fry: There is blogging, and there is this-or-that particular blog. Blogging, like language, is a wonderful chaotic mess. This blog is art. That blog is science. That other one there is drivel. Your arguing for the imposition of some sort of ‘artistic standard’ on blogging is pedantry at best; something I thought you were against.
(And what’s with the false dichotomy, benny? Dont worry. I’ll credit that one to rhetoric, and not to some logical flaw.)
Begging your pardon, Jeg but a piece of writing being “chaotic” or “drivel” is a quality of writing.
But writing is still an art, don’t you think?
Begging your pardon, Jeg but a piece of writing being “chaotic” or “drivel” is a quality of writing.
Yes it is. It is not a quality of ‘blogging,’ but a quality of the writing in this-or-that particular blog. The only quality of blogging is anarchic, and how one feels about anarchy is informed by whether or not one is inclined to more government or less government or no government at all.
But writing is still an art, don’t you think?
Some of it is. I certainly wouldnt consider the user’s manual that came with my cellular phone art but it did tell me quite effectively about the features in it and how to make them work.
Recall what I said, Jeg:
When you write, do it right.
I’m being platform-agnostic here. Writing is writing whether it’s on a blog or on sheet of legal yellow pad.
So it doesn’t follow that a piece of writing rendered on a blog is necessarily anarchic.
By the way, this is the Stephen Fry bit that I was paraphrasing from:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hHQ2756cyD8
From A Bit of Fry & Laurie.
So it doesn’t follow that a piece of writing rendered on a blog is necessarily anarchic.
Good gravy, man, try to keep up. Blogging is anarchic. A piece of writing in a blog is, yes, not necessarily anarchic, could be art, could be drivel. You missed the distinction I made. You cannot impose standards on blogging. Or at least youre not supposed to.
I’d argue that it is, Jeg.
That art there is in how to communicate to the user the finer points of using the excellent mobile device he has purchased.
There is such a thing as a badly-written user manual and a well-written user manual. What makes one bad and the other good? It’s subject to taste (i.e. the degree of badness or goodness of said writing varies from one individual to another). In other words, the quality of the writing even in a user manual is subjective.
It is art too, Jeg.
One man’s art could be another man’s drivel, Jeg.
Subjective.
ergo
Art.
One man’s art could be another man’s drivel, Jeg.
Yes. Hence the utter uselessness of standards, whether they be artistic or otherwise.
Apir!
So do you agree then that writing, whether on a blog or not is art?
So do you agree then that writing, whether on a blog or not is art?
Well, no. But that’s because I have my own subjective idea of what can and cannot be called art, you see. There is ‘Writing,’ and there is this-or-that piece of writing. IMO, Writing is art-neutral, but a piece of writing can be art.
Fair enough, Jeg.
By the way, I merely express and even advocate my artistic standards here. But impose it? I don’t think anybody can. Not even Nick.
Too subjective. ;)
By the way, I merely express and even advocate my artistic standards here.
I was aware of that, yes. Forgive my rhetorical flourish by writing ‘impose’.
Insightful piece Ben.
Just one input which I think you share: writing is a continuing process in itself and we learn from the writing of other entities, and the thought processes that are “embedded” as you correctly point out.
Hehe, what a charming, charming post, Benigno. But you succumbed to what you have been exactly railing about — writing about something that is essentially self-referential (although, in your case, you hid behind what you have been trying to express: your “standards”). Don’t we all in this period of human history?
“True artistic beauty is a product of depth in structure and meaning and not just of chaotic expression.”
[Clap, clap.] I never reckon I would hear/read such earnest declaration from the perennially mocking and ironic Benigno.
Ok lang Benigs, we live in perilous times, where setting standards is not just enough. It would seem like most words we utter sound so kitschy (as your rightly point out always — e.g., the pathetic effort to “institutionalize” people power) when compared to how things really are: all hallmark of the postmodern age — an age of cultural chaos, splintered ideology, fractured forms, only held together/anchored by unbridled individualism and self-consciousness.
I think blogs as a collective phenomenon are there to battle this chaos and fracture, and to go against the kitschy reality that mass media portrays. Maybe we are already upon a new age (postpostmodernism): the return of earnestness but deeply anchored in reality. LOL, I sure hope so.
Benigz,
I’m disappointed in you. The word play was on “minutiae” — it went over your head. Also the record will show, I almost never write about blogging per se. Too busy blogging.
Hey but that “bigger idea” you have about the true nature of artistic beauty, wow, that is really precioussssss. You are not all carapace and misanthropism after all, even if you accidently defined engineering, not art.
Oh could you ditch the jumpy gifs pretty please? They are so..kitschy … legible ocho-ocho. : ))
Ding, absolutely agree. Just hope we understand that cliques form in the blogging community just like any other human community, which brings us to your comment, Dean. I wasn’t looking for some kind of wordplay. I zeroed in on “collaboration” because I wanted to highlight that there is a fine line between collaboration and collusion — which results in inbred thinking.
Not that I am anti-social, but you gotta admit that you sacrifice a bit of objectivity when you get too comfy with other pundits and become less inclined to challenge their ideas in the event that you disagree (I’m a softy in person ;) ).
Btw, I refer to art, not engineering, Dean. Check out my book to understand the context surrounding that quote.
My art is in my writing and my brilliant animated gif’s. :D