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[jfb]

From today's New York Times:

Blogs! An article in the style section about shifting boundaries of public and private contains this:

While blogging journalists like Andrew Sullivan, Mickey Kaus and Eric Alterman get a lot of attention, a vast majority of bloggers are average citizens like Mr. Bruner, who draw from their personal experiences - and often the personal experiences of relatives, friends and colleagues - to create a kind of memoir in motion that details breakups and work and family issues with sometimes startling candor.

Of course, really, blogging journalists get all that attention from other journalists. Journalists are an important section of the blog world, but it's rare that a major media piece notices that they aren't central to it. A companion piece describes a "New York School of bloggers," which I suspect means "blogs run by friends of friends of this reporter".

A dumbish article by Jon Pareles on 70's-influenced male singer-songwriters like John Mayer, Jack Johnson, and Jason Mraz ("Sweet Baby Jameses," says the blurb on the cover). Pareles, a music critic, asks, "Shouldn't they be shouting rather than whispering?" (No; they should be making the music they want to make, and then we can decide whether it's the music we want to hear.) "Collectively, as a movement, all those edgeless tenor voices and all that deference, self-consciousness, sublimated anger and self-pity just might get on your nerves." (Here's a tip: They're not a "movement".) When songwriters sing "I'm sorry," "They're atoning not only for their own romantic mishaps but also, in a way, for the surge of machismo in 1990's rock." (Wow.)


A musicological take on American Idol: Contestants have learned the technical feat of gospel-style melisma, but not the emotional vocabulary that makes it effective.

Daniel Lanois and his new album.

Frank Rich on William Bennett and Tupac Shakur.

Cornel West takes The Matrix too seriously.

Claire Peploe's The Triumph of Love, a stage play filmed with French New Wave style.

And from the op-ed section, Israel's tourism minister and "the strengthening alliance between those Jews who favor a Greater Israel and conservative Christians in the United States who are moved by the same ancient dream, based on what evangelicals call the 'Abrahamic covenant.'"

Benyamin Elon, a minister in the Israeli government of Ariel Sharon, agrees [with the need for a Palestinian state]. But, reviving a vision long cherished by Israel's religious and secular hawks, he argues that the new Palestinian state must be Jordan.

The argument seems to be that Israel should get the West Bank and the Gaza Strip (a) because God promised them to Abraham, and (b) for the Christians, because that will usher in the Second Coming. Help.

Comments

[jfb.livejournal.com]

I have to admit, my main reaction to the blogging article was a persistent refrain of "Duh." Blogged about your boyfriend because your boyfriend doesn't read blogs, and then he started reading? Duh!

OTOH I also found myself thinking, hm, maybe I should make up a lot of gossipy sex stuff to get more readers.

[bnewmark.livejournal.com]

so, would this "gossipy sex stuff" be from experience.... ?

[greyaenigma.livejournal.com]

I occasionally have a lot of trouble trying to figure out what content about people to put in, what stuff to discuss, and what security level to put on a post, just because someone might eventually be reading. For instance, an ex of mine might start an account, and I'll probably add her to my friends list, so now I'm wondering what I've said in the past in various posts. (Not much.)