There’s a reason I don’t make many posts on my blog: It’s because I have, and know how to maintain… a web site.
A blog is really just a web page driven by on-line software that allows non-web-designers to add new material and keep a (reasonably) well-organized site without having to know any of that technical coding stuff. This is, in general, good. If no one were allowed to have anything published without knowing the technical aspects of manufacturing books, most of the world’s good writers would never see print. Lord knows what they’d do instead — read their stuff on Public Radio, I suppose. Can you imagine a world full of Garrison Keillors? The horror! The horror! His daily Writer’s Almanac spot lasts about 5 minutes and feels like an hour (two if you actually listen to it) — think what it would be like if it were really an hour long!
For those few of us who like to write and also know how to code HTML, a blog is like having an extra finger on one hand: Possibly useful in some situations (like playing particularly gnarly chords on piano or guitar) but in the way, of at a bit superfluous, most of the time.
Quite frequently I’ll get a good idea and start off with the intention of composing a nifty entry for the blog. And by the time I’m done I’ll find I have a long, detailed piece, complete with photographs and links to other pertinent sites, on a topic that fits into one of the existing sections of my web site. At which point it only makes sense to make it a regular page on the site instead of putting it in my blog.
Case in point: The PDML Quotations List. I’m on a photography mailing list called the PDML (Pentax Discuss Mailing List) and for the past few years have made a habit of saving the pithiest, funniest, wisest and most bizarre snippets of various posts each year and then re-posting the resulting collection as the Annual PDML Quotation List. Why? Because I was raised by an English teacher, took journalism classes and was taught never to use the word “quote†as a noun. Oh, you mean why do it? Because it’s the best mailing list I’ve ever been on and has a lot of bright, funny people, many of whom are great photographers or intelligent writers. Or both. Great material for a blog entry, but by the time I finished with all four years for which I’ve been collection quotations I had four very full web pages, which I dutifully added to my site: 2003, 2004, 2005 and 2006. (2007 now on line here.)
Ah, but a blog topic presented itself anyway. No, not this blog-about-the-blog “meta topic†you’ve been reading so far. PDML member Mike Wilson has decided to put together a book of the Annual Quotations Lists, using various photographs from other PDML members as illustrations. I’ll try to track the progress of this endeavor as Mike takes it from concept to reality. If nothing else, it should give me an opportunity to quote many of the bon mots from the lists themselves in future updates. And on that note I’ll leave you with a few of them:
“90% of everything is off-topic.”
— Cotty
“Some of us pride ourselves in not saying much of relevance.”
— Marnie
“A bit unsettling at first, but pretty cool!”
— Frank Theriault
“We’re really quite amusing when you crush an entire year’s waste into a single dumpster like that.”
— Bob Walkden
“Photography is about going from something we can only see to something we can hold in our hands.”
— William Robb
