No More Google Reader!

You chose a dozen or so 'favorite' blogs, the ones you think you want to revisit, the one's you don't want to miss when they add posts or links.

Big mistake.

A year later you look at your blog roll and realize the only one's you've checked are the dozen or so on the Reader. Used to go here and there at random. "Oh, haven't looked at Blackguard for a while, wonder what's up?" That's how you found the Big Dozen in the first place, remember?

Serendipity!

Choosing at random, discovering new places to visit.

When rewards for visiting one site were slim, you didn't go back for a while... until curiosity renewed your interest. Some dropped out of sight; new blogs came into view, favorites were never given permanent status: they had to keep on earning it.

No more Readers, Google or otherwise.

I unsubscribed.

The lot of 'em. Even ones I love and wouldn't think of abandoning: Cosmic Variance, Larval Subjects... but I don't need a Reader to tell me I want to go there! Left 3, because they give vital information about local poetry events and poets--and because the information is timely. Three out of... more than a dozen--more like 20 on my list. Only three where it actually matters to make regular visits.

The blogisphere is.. or used to be, a place where you'd find stuff that establishment media left out. What's the point if you set yourself up as your own Editorial censor, winnowing and excluding like any print source, like the goddamned Norton anthologies--pretending to include everything worthy of your time--fergedabout the rest!

I'd gotten to thinking, maybe it's time to follow Dan Green's lead. Set up another site to organize and archive all my Best Barks, and leave the Dog for discussion or whatever... but the more I thought about this idea the worse it sounded. I didn't start the Dog to make another fucking magazine! It was a place to play, to explore, to experiment, to lose stuff along the way and replace it with whatever is grabbing my fancy at the moment. I seriously doubt there'll be human life left on this planet in another 100 years--what's the point of pretending to live for 'posterity' when there ain't no such thing?