Okay.
So.
This is awkward.
I just drafted a post saying that I was going to resign from the internet because Isaac + J. Holtham in one blog is just too cool for me to handle.
And I wanted to reference my own post from two weeks ago about my own striving to face-lift my blog. The only problem? I never hit publish on that post!
So, I'm going to publish the post about my planned changes for this blog, knowing that in comparison with Isaac + J. Holtham in one blog this manifesto-let is probably going to look like the longest suicide note in history.
(Here was the original post.)
So, over the weekend [that was two weekends ago,-e.d.], my brother got married, and for some reason that gave me time to sit and think about where I'm headed in a lot of things. As a result, I'm going to try and restructure the way I go about this blog.
Here's what I think will change:
- Aesthetics - reflecting on my blog currently, in the context of working on my Honors Thesis (which is basically a document on my personal aesthetics), I realize that I write a lot about the systems within which culture is being made (the form of culture; internships, diversity, the creative economy) rather than the culture itself, art and how to make it -- how I like making it. I'm spilling a lot of ink on how to make an ideal theater company, and not a lot of ink on how to make an ideal play. Granted, I want to make a great theater company, but the reason is to support my work and the work of others. My thesis advisor has called me on avoiding making categorical assertions and personal opinion-making, and she's done a lot to help me figure out how to approach talking about how to make work. Specifically, I have been lead over the last few years to slowly hash out a theory of art that is based on my heroes William James and Harry Frankfurt of the Pragmatism school of philosophy, and I want to use this blog to crystallize that thinking more. This leads to point two:
- Structure - I'm going to be looking at ways to structure my posts a little bit more regularly, cleanly, and more interestingly -- in other words, pay attention to the aesthetics of the blog posts, not just the aesthetics of my work. I currently follow 202 blogs (I am not making that number up), and I read through them at a breeze. Blogs that work the best for me often have structure that make it clear before I even read a word what content there is going to be in the article. The example of a blog that leverages this excellently is Createquity: there's Around the Horn for a collection of small but important links, New Blogs for plugging links you should be reading, the new Bullet-Point Manifesto for laying out a point-by-point argument, and the Arts Policy Library to examine a key report or book at length.
- Creative Works - I am going to put up more creative works of mine on this blog, in the spirit of others.
Things that will not be changing:
- The RSS Feed - Seriously, how many times am I going to have to click subscribe to get Scott Walters' thoughts in my Google Reader?
I jest, I jest.
