log

Didn't mean to take so much time out from the blog. Unlike half of Melbourne and most of this suburb, I am not at the beach or in some exotic location. Just puddinged-out in the long string of Boxing days leading up to new year's eve.
At Xmas up at X, I caught up with books. There was no computer.
To cope with cold turkey I surfed the library. I took six volumes down at once, balanced them precariously on the arm of a chair, and skimmed at whim through my random and eclectic selection of history, biography and curio. A whim is a virtual hyperlink. Alas I could not steal The Boys Own Conjuring Book with its wonderful pictures of sleight of hand to scan. Legerdemain.
I watched the cricket but was a bit distracted by the regional TV ads for windscreens, and was never in the room for a wicket.
Had a slight moment of existential-crisis, when a cynical fellow delivered the what's the point of blogging? question, and off-line it can knock you for six. Slowly easing back into the game. Arriving back late at night I found I could handle the chronicle post but could not follow up the links as normal. It's the time for lightweight papers with puzzles and quizzes and years in review.

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Comments: log

I hope you biffed this cynical fellow on the side of the head with The Boys Own Conjuring Book.

Seriously though, I get it too. I am supposed to be doing other things. People rely on me.
All I can say is that we are participating in the evolution of an art and cultural form which is growing and transforming before our very eyes.

And that's a magic opportunity. Oh, and I love reading your blog. You give other people pleasure.

Thedge, we need a joke, right NOW.
Posted by david at December 28, 2003 02:13 PM

Six volumes at once? Yeah? So? I always do that...sometimes 7 or 8. Skim through the pile...okay sometimes I start snoozing by about number 3 or 4. A typical collection might include: an old 'James Herriot', a Barry Humphries autobiography, Peanuts circa 1970, 'Joyous Season' by Patrick Dennis (Aunty Mame)etc. I didn't say it was high brow literature!
Posted by Nora at December 28, 2003 03:01 PM

alas - couldn't biff nor conjure an adequate response. Wish I had had your phrase tucked up my sleeve - must commit "we are participating in the evolution of an art and cultural form which is growing and transforming before our very eyes" to memory. Suddenly it seemed like I was defending a ham radio/chatroom/pen-pal enterprise with the same audience figures as any old message-in-a-bottle might expect. Funny - it seems much the same impulse to publish here, as to write for another medium. In that seizure of doubt, I forgot all the other reasons, namely the good bloggers. You get back and check into Wood S Lot, for example, and pause for breath. Barista is blogging up a storm too, I notice.

Nora - it's slightly reassuring to hear that the non-blogger indulges in this habit too.
btw my books included: an autobiog by an obscure melb writer circa 1960 that covered a bit of Melb history of the 30's, biog of The Boyds, 100 years of AFL football, Dunderdale's Book of The Bush, a good history of Victorian homesteads/houses and the book of conjuring.
As I said to the librarian: I could easily have a reading holiday up here.

Posted by boynton at December 28, 2003 03:38 PM

I've asked myself that "what's the point of blogging" question rather a lot lately...
Posted by James Russell at December 28, 2003 04:55 PM

maybe every blogger should be forced to have a hiatus every so often - maybe that's the point of Blogger.
There's certainly a sense of happy delusion when one is ensconced in the community, the enchantment, that can be broken with a simple query from a non-blogger.
So perhaps such questioning - or reflection - is healthy, James?
As long as good blogs like Hot Buttered Death keep going, we're happy.
Posted by boynton at December 28, 2003 05:40 PM

"Thedge, we need a joke, right NOW."

O.K. Be it on your own head.

http://volcano.photobucket.com/albums/v11/wombat3041/pms.JPG

(I apologise ... I'm still on a stomach pump and an aggressive colonic irrigation regime after my mother's mother of all 89 course Xmas dinners. (The last plate of lark's tongues did me in.)
Posted by Sedgwick at December 28, 2003 05:43 PM

... O.K. you do deserve much better. Here's one from a cartooning Brit mate of mine.

http://volcano.photobucket.com/albums/v11/wombat3041/gary.jpg

He virtually lives here http://www.btinternet.com/~scragends/
Posted by Sedgwick at December 28, 2003 05:55 PM

your first joke had me all tense and weepy and on edge, Sedge, about my inability to think up a reply. Your second offering is so analogous to the blogosphere (by bathyspehere)that any floundering blogger indulging a bit of stilted reflection or self-doubt might be inclined to simply pike NOW.

ps My brother made an impressive 'last-minute Christmas Cake' that almost did me in. Is there a last-minute lark's tongues?
Posted by boynton at December 28, 2003 07:36 PM