David Thayer

Wellington Leg: One aspect of blogging I never think about is the archive. Because what has been said gives way to what’s being said I assumed that these snippets would go somewhere far away and eventually degrade into bandwidth marginalia. Perhaps they would be barged to sea and dumped with unceremonious industrial indifference, their demise witnessed by a bored sailor smoking a cigarette by the rail. Yes, it’s okay to smoke in international waters when dumping high grade toxins into the sea.
I was wrong about the archive. In between spam attacks and robot visits faithful readers visit the archives, wandering freely down the aisles to read old posts. Some of the most popular involve my attempts to explain the nature and purpose of this blog, this pointy bit of text, this realm, this ad hoc wheezing beast. The nature and purpose of this blog has changed over the years, all two of them, from literary blog to soap opera back to lit blog and finally to tell the story of the people of Wellington Leg, a towne without pity when it comes to literature. There have been low points to be sure: Herman’s Hermits, L.Ron Flotilla’s desperate attempts to monetize the blog, Marty the Mogul’s thoughtless destruction of the US publishing biz, the earl frightening Ian Rankin before being dragged across the floor at the feet of a fleeing literary agent. It was completely irresponsible to swing from a chandelier at a writer’s conference, mock the literary efforts of various celebs, question the value of cheesy memoirs, or doubt the intentions of the Federal Reserve. Captured in the archives these gaffes remain as lustrous today as when first committed, a kind of renewable source of embarrassment early mankind could only dream of.

Remember when visiting the archives there is a strict “no candy from outside” rule. I know it’s harsh, but it explains the precept that scarcity equals value. Hence the five dollar Snickers Bar.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 12th, 2007 at 9:41 am and is filed under Biting the Apple. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.