Thursday, March 01, 2007
Madman of a Diary
Some thoughts from a walk with Ratt:
Dogs are the original bloggers. Every day, they mark the same territory with their latest output, while sniffing around at what other dogs leave behind. And then, when two dogs meet, the first thing they do is inspect each other's equipment.
Speaking of dogs talking to one another on their daily walks, I wonder how Gogol's Diary of a Madman
would come across as a blog.
As a blog, the first entry would be the last one from the book:
When I got home, I checked to see if Diary of a Madman was available in translation through Project Gutenberg or other e-text providers. It's not, but I did find someone else looking for it on one of the forums at The Literature Network (online-literature.com), which has an index to e-books and a fairly active community. "Wow," I thought. "What a great idea, just like Shelfari."
Then I saw the site navigation:
... Authors - Shakespeare - Bible ...
That tells you all you need to know about what the average person wants when searching the Web for literature. Sure enough, one of the most popular threads in the forums was the Evolution vs. Creation debate, with 1,440 replies. In the poll, Evolution scored a solid win over Creation by a score of 167-134. However, at 49.85% of the vote, Evolution failed to earn a majority. We're still not sure how it would have turned out in the Electoral College.
Dogs are the original bloggers. Every day, they mark the same territory with their latest output, while sniffing around at what other dogs leave behind. And then, when two dogs meet, the first thing they do is inspect each other's equipment.
Speaking of dogs talking to one another on their daily walks, I wonder how Gogol's Diary of a Madman
would come across as a blog.As a blog, the first entry would be the last one from the book:
As a short story, it starts off on October 3rd:
No, I haven't the strength to endure it any longer! Good God, what are they doing to me? They're pouring cold water over my head!
October 3rdBecause of reverse-chronological posting and the long tail of blog entries through search engines, writers no longer control the order in which their writings are received by readers. This has profound implications for how to write, since any single entry has to be prepared to provide the "It was a dark and stormy night" hook at any time.
Something very peculiar happened today. I got up rather late, and when Mavra brought my clean shoes in I asked her what the time was. When she told me it was long past ten I rushed to get dressed. [...]
When I got home, I checked to see if Diary of a Madman
was available in translation through Project Gutenberg or other e-text providers. It's not, but I did find someone else looking for it on one of the forums at The Literature Network (online-literature.com), which has an index to e-books and a fairly active community. "Wow," I thought. "What a great idea, just like Shelfari."Then I saw the site navigation:
... Authors - Shakespeare - Bible ...
That tells you all you need to know about what the average person wants when searching the Web for literature. Sure enough, one of the most popular threads in the forums was the Evolution vs. Creation debate, with 1,440 replies. In the poll, Evolution scored a solid win over Creation by a score of 167-134. However, at 49.85% of the vote, Evolution failed to earn a majority. We're still not sure how it would have turned out in the Electoral College.
Choose Your Reading Circles Carefully
★★☆☆☆ Good index to e-books, but nothing you can't find elsewhere. Active forums but it's not exactly a literary salon.
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Labels: literature, religion, talking dogs, Web 2.0
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