September 28, 2020 Issue

Dan Chiasson makes an interesting observation in his “Critical Distances,” in this week’s issue. He says, “Reduced to its bluntest purpose, all writing is a form of graffiti, an assertion that we exist in this time and place.” Is this true? I recall Ian Frazier saying something similar a few years ago. In his “Carving Your Name on the Rock” [included in The Art and Craft of Travel Writing (1991), edited by William Zinsser], he writes, “What the travel writer is doing, in essence, is carving his name on the rock. He is saying, ‘I passed this way, too.’ ” Is that what I’m doing when I write this blog – asserting my existence? Blogito, ergo sum. I blog, therefore I am. No, I don’t think so. Blogging is too ephemeral and insubstantial for that.

Roger Angell, in his “This Old Man” (The New Yorker, February 17 & 24, 2014), writes, “I’ve also become a blogger, and enjoy the ease and freedom of the form: it’s a bit like making a paper airplane and then watching it take wing below your window.” That’s a perfect metaphor for blogging, conveying both its freedom and its ephemerality.

These last few days, I’ve been thinking a lot about my motive for blogging. Last week, I was close to winding things up. Then along came the September 7th New Yorker containing Jay Ruttenberg’s wonderful “Goings On About Town” note on Bettye LaVette, and I felt rejuvenated. I listened to LaVette’s raw, croaky rendition of “Blackbird,” and I loved it, and wanted to say why. Right there, I think, is at least one reason I blog – to figure out why I’m drawn to a particular writing or artwork.