They Didn’t React As Expected

In this fascinating piece titled Pearls Before Breakfast is discussed an experiment conducted by the Washington post regarding how people perceive music in public spaces. What happens when one of the best classical musicians in America puts on a baseball cap and goes busking in Washington, D.C.?

The article raises some really interesting questions about American culture, about art, about contexts for art. It brings to mind a question that’s been bugging me: is the blog a good context for writing to be presented? I’m beginning to think it isn’t.

5 thoughts on “They Didn’t React As Expected

  1. Yes, true. I’m moving away from posting essay-length discussions of things here, and towards saving my energy either for writing them for real (for submission somewhere, or inclusion in a longer work of nonfiction), or saving my energy for fiction-writing.

    I get the vague feeling that blogging is a bit like TV for writers: you can write about anything, and topic-surf, without necessarily getting too deep into anything. I’m not sure it’s a habit I want to cultivate. So, anyway… yeah.

    Certainly my blog isn’t where I should be publishing things I want read by many people, in any case…

  2. I don’t think a really thoughtful blogger and writer goes without addressing this question at least once. What DOES blogging contribute, or take away, from the art of writing?

  3. Or perhaps more to the point, your art of writing.

    If I ever decided to use a domain named after me, I don’t know if I’d blog. I like the Tom Perrotta model (in which there is no blogging whatsoever), but I’ve also enjoyed the John August model (all blogging, with some extra stuff thrown in). I’m not a fan of the David James Duncan model, in which there is nothing at all.

    For now, I like my model. I have different reasons for blogging, depending on where I’m doing it. It’s easy for me to pick it up or drop it. Sometimes I need it, and sometimes I don’t.

    Your pre-Clarion and post-Clarion blogging differs. I miss the pre-Clarion blogging, but you’ve clearly already diverted your energies elsewhere, and that appears to have been a good thing.

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