April 21, 2003

Perhaps my most recursive metablog post to date

Via the Movable Type support board, I learned of the blogideas site. “When you don’t know what to Blog about.”

Now, there are lots of different forms that blogs can take, and they’re all valid, I suppose, but if I don’t have anything to write about in my blog, I don’t write anything. I don’t feel some obligation to tap away, uninspired, for the dubious benefit of my adoring public. Some suggested topics from the site: “Experiment: how many fishsticks fit in your mouth?”; “An ode to your couch”; “Why do dogs sniff each other in the ass?”

If you’re reduced to writing about that, better take a day off.

Also, in the interest of completeness, that discussion exposed me to the memes list–which is really more a themes list (organizational conceits like “Friday Five”).

Global Nomads

On Saturday night, a friend, Cinque, staged a sort of new-media art installation event thingum at Republic Square Park called We Are All Global Nomads. For the past month, people around the world have been uploading their pictures to the site, along with brief observations of “what’s outside my window.” At the event, these pictures and observations were projected on half a dozen or so improvised screens in the park, rotating at random.

To be honest, I was afraid this was going to be a total wankfest. Weather that threatened rain didn’t help. But the weather cooperated in the end, and it actually turned out to be a nice event. I’m sure that artists cringe at the thought of their work being considered “nice,” but it was, and there’s nothing wrong with that. No surprise that a disproportionate number of uploads were from people in Austin, but there was one by a woman in Tuvalu, another by a woman on an oil rig in the North Sea.