Looking around at various websites, I see lots of articles with best/worst lists and other summing up of the year. I seem to remember reading that the reason these things exist is that they can be prepared in advance thus allowing writers to take the week off between Christmas and New Year's. I never do that. I get up every single morning and write on this blog as I have since January 2004. The posts are never prepared in advance and are always based on material I'm reading as I'm blogging (or thoughts and events that have just occurred in my real life). But reading those other things, I do think maybe I should have a year-end feature or 2.
In the first few years of the blog, I had 2 things that I did. One was quotes of the year — all quotes from blog posts I'd done. For example, here are the quotes of the year from 2005. One of them is: "He's crushing his testicles in tight trousers for world peace." (John Lydon insulting Bono.) And here's one from Hillary: "They will do what they think is in their interest, however they define it." (She was a Senator, predicting how her Democratic Party colleagues would vote on the nomination of John Roberts.) And one of my all-time favorite quotes: "I believe the common character of the universe is not harmony, but hostility, chaos and murder." (Werner Herzog in "Grizzly Man.")
The other thing was "A year in the life of the blog," which picked one post from each month of the blog. Here's the one from 2005, which began with "January: I just wrecked my car." (Comments were off back then, if you're wondering why that didn't get more of a reaction.) That year also had "July: Tattoos remind you of death," which for a long time, I viewed as my template for what I thought a blog post should be. (Comments were on by then, and there's Meade in the comments — Meade, whom I met and married 4 years later.) And here's the year-in-the-life post for 2006: "Live-blogging the Bloggership conference!" (at Harvard Law School, back when lawprofs were excited about Bloggership) and "Arches" (with lots of photographs of the national park including one where you can see the car that replaced the one that I'd wrecked the year before — the car I still have).
I'm not sure when I stopped. It's a big undertaking going through all the post of the year to pick something from each month or give all the quotes a chance at immortality. There tend to be about 4,000 posts a year. I must have felt it was some kind of duty or ritual that only I cared about and no one would notice if it stopped, the way nobody noticed when my "History of" project topped out at Guinea-Bissau.
But I'm inviting suggestions — do another year-of-quotes post, another year-in-the-life post, return to "the History of," or something else methodical... but what?
December 29, 2015
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32 comments:
How about a question day? You have to answer all questions asked in good faith. Putin does something like that.
No need to do something formal...maybe a post about blogging itself for you, or how you feel about the comments compared to years past. How about a forward looking post about what you are looking forward to in the next year, either on the blog or IRL. Maybe a video post! In an evening gown! (That'll mess people up!) Less Prof-y, more Nerdlichkeit!
I think I've been here since '04 commenting away...I've talked with so many people that I met through this blog....When I was in the hospital for 3 weeks in '09, it was people I met through this blog who would call to cheer me up (you know who you are), not people I lived near.
Yer 'umble 'n ob'dient,
Ron
I like the links to the old posts.
Maxine Weiss! Elizabeth! (I'll be in NO next month!)
People come and go so quickly around here.
I always think of the year end as looking forward as much as looking back. In that spirit I think it would be cool to use the events and trends of the last year as a template for imagining or predicting the events of the year ahead. Then, at the end of the year one could analyze where and how and to what degree the predictions and actual events diverged, and why any predictions were ultimately wrong. Some unknown future event knocked things off course? A personal bias or misreading? Underestimated influence of some other thing? The hidden randomness in the nature of things? What was the most unexpected event or trend? Etc.
You've finished 11 years of blogging.
I'd love to see a retrospective of that. How has your blogging philosophy changed each year? What lessons have you learned? What are your tips for consistent blogging that is thoughtful and engaged (rather than repetitious and click-baity)?
What's the best post of your blog-life? Any regrets? What would you tell the Althouse of 2004 if you could send a blog post back in time?
Any reflections on how blogging has changed you over the last decade? How do you see politics differently in this upcoming presidential cycle in contrast to your beginning?
Those are just ideas for what it might look like. Anything like that which would bring together the whole of your blogging past, not just the last year.
Once in a while I go back through my own blog to see what I thought in 2008, for example. One year may not be enough. What did you blog about Obama in 2008 ?
Since I've been around here since 2004 and read the blog almost every day, I tend to think the fresher your posts and subsequent comments, the better. So months later its not the same. Many posts and comments are connected in some way to the general mood of the day(s) around it, so context matters. Not that there aren't some notable exceptions.
If you weren't around for those few weeks when noted pop music critic Steve Simels was impressing us with his wisdom, or Mortimer Brezney was awake and warning us about Cecil Rhoades, it just wouldn't be the same.
Something you can do with little effort is go to your stats page and just let us know what post had the most: Hits and comments.
Almost 1/10 of my visits are to a post I did years ago about a swing set I built. It is not much of a post or swing set, but it got onto pinterest and all the hits come from there. I'll bet your highly trafficked posts correlate with links by the NYT, Best of the Web Today and Instapundit--in that order.
I agree with Paddy O.
Select (or ask someone to select randomly) a few Tags. Reflect on how the posts with those Tags connect (or don't).
Keep doin' what you're doin'. That's enough.
I hate year-in-review stuff.
"Select (or ask someone to select randomly) a few Tags. Reflect on how the posts with those Tags connect (or don't)."
I like the idea of selecting tags, because it would reduce the set of things to review. I have some pet tags, tags that are special for me, but suggestions about tags are appreciated.
I'm surprised people want essays on the general topic of what blogging really meNs to me and to the world. I wonder why you think that would produce something readable. It's pervesely unbloggy.
dbp said...
Something you can do with little effort is go to your stats page and just let us know what post had the most: Hits and comments.
Posts with most comments gonna be un-moderated arguing amongst some of the regulars. I guarantee it.
Many commenters here have blogs of their own, accessible by clicking their name. Most of those gave it up years ago.
I am certain I am not alone in checking Drudge first to see if the entire world is still intact, then AA for something interesting. Before Instapundit, Hot air, Ace,LI Daily caller....
While other comment sections are too predictable and become boring, most AA's fans and antagonists remain interesting.
And, many times very knowledgeble people comment here. Most sane, a few less so
You've already (sort of) blogged about the "Insect Politics" tag, and although it's likely a pet Tag, I therefore would not suggest it. Choose some tags that might show readers--or critics--how you reach into certain topics or otherwise form your narrative. The "I'm skeptical" Tag comes to mind.
I agree with those who encourage you to ignore retrospectives and to continue being in the day and forward looking. The world changes so much that retrospective without enough time passing to make it "history" is like marching in place. The value of your blog to me is it's emphasis on the current.
The Professor is a unique mind with the ability to mix a panoply of intellectual word metaphors, headline News, fashion trends and Con Law analysis while continuing with her real life of rides and walks conversing with The Meadester.
FWIW, I vote against the "what blogging means to me" type of thing and I'm glad you seem a bit averse to it. I don't care to gaze at your navel, thanks.
FWIW, I vote against the "what blogging means to me" type of thing and I'm glad you seem a bit averse to it. I don't care to gaze at your navel, thanks.
The "I'm skeptical" Tag comes to mind.
Lawsuits I hope will fail is a tag I like. Always do wonder what happened/will happen to the suit cited.
"I'm surprised people want essays on the general topic of what blogging really meNs to me and to the world."
Who wants that?
I thought it would be interesting to have a restrospective on the last decade rather than the last year. Lots of ways to do that. VH1 made some hits from a similar idea. Decades in review aren't exactly a new idea and the world really doesn't care about blogging.
I don't it was a particularly interesting year of blogging, I suppose.
" or something else methodical ... but what?"
So, how much of a Methodist are you these days? Anyway, Methodical is perversely unbloggy too, I would think.
Sometimes you have posted a sample of your drawings, often from old notebooks recording scenes or impressions from travels in years gone by. Perhaps a visual image, created for the purpose, rather than a verbal icon would work. After all a picture is worth .... Besides, you have a flair for it, and it is what you did before you starting doing the law prof bit. A touch of the Eternal Return at year's end and time's beginning would be just the thing.
As David Aitken says above, "Keep doin' what you're doin'." Even pausing to reflect on the past year like this post is doing is "annual nonsense", and I don't have expectations of this sort. You keep things in a good mix and there are always things to learn and know more about.
Just keep doing what you are doing. It works.
If I may ask, why not for auld lang syne invite commenters past to stop by for a cheer?
Live freely through writing: Wasn't, and isn't, that the goal? Inspired by marginalia in practice, long before the age of blogging & etc.?
I don't see any point in your asking for advice about what or how to blog at this point. What point is there in your asking about that? (Hey, yeah, I know: I've been around this blog enough to know to never expect answers, including to such questions as: "What point is there in your asking about that?")
So, anyway.
Onward ho.
Of course.
It's been a long time since a long time ago, Althouse, and as it has turned out, you are a whole lot less curious than I am about how things turn out.
Also, you care less.
"I thought it would be interesting to have a restrospective on the last decade rather than the last year. Lots of ways to do that. VH1 made some hits from a similar idea. Decades in review aren't exactly a new idea and the world really doesn't care about blogging."
You're talking about looking back on over 40,000 posts. The task would take a decade, especially if I continued to move forward in the normal way. VH1 hires a staff to put together programs which are needed to fill its schedule and sells ads for it. They didn't do it out of sheer intellectual curiosity.
If I were to do something like this, it would be because I'd taken a mental turn, away from normal blogging and toward pulling things together. I'd work on a book, chapter by chapter, and I'd rely on tags (and searches within the blog). I'd do something creative, going in through tags that I believe hold potential for discovering new connections and associations, things like "seen and unseen," "big and small," and "light and shade." It would have to be an intrinsically valuable day-to-day journey. If I did the project as a day-to-day set of posts, drafting by day, I doubt if readers would care.
But that comment I just responded to... it wasn't really pointing in the direction I went. It was thinking about me as explaining the decade -- the culture, the history. What was special about it? The development of social media... all the various military things... a bunch of elections... all the race-and-sex stuff... gay marriage....
A project like that, going backward instead of forward... as Bob Dylan said: Don't look back. I'm an in-the-present kind of person. It's my overwhelming orientation.
A project like that, going backward instead of forward... as Bob Dylan said: Don't look back. I'm an in-the-present kind of person. It's my overwhelming orientation.
Isn't that what I just said, Althouse? Not just once, but twice?
1. Live freely through writing: Wasn't, and isn't, that the goal? Inspired by marginalia in practice, long before the age of blogging & etc.?
I don't see any point in your asking for advice about what or how to blog at this point. What point is there in your asking about that? (Hey, yeah, I know: I've been around this blog enough to know to never expect answers, including to such questions as: "What point is there in your asking about that?")
So, anyway.
Onward ho.
Of course.
and
2. It's been a long time since a long time ago, Althouse, and as it has turned out, you are a whole lot less curious than I am about how things turn out.
Also, you care less.
All of that said: You only choose to be overwhelmed when you want to be, and you, historically, have had no use, at all, at all, at all, for those who are overwhelmed.
Color me skeptical.
Do one open thread per year and limit it to "tell us who you are." Volokh Conspiracy used to do that and it was fascinating. It allows your readers to identify as much as they want about themselves to your other readers. Just a thought.
Describe how your understanding and support of Hillary's presidential candidacy has changed over the year 2015, and why you will decide in 2019 that your vote for her in 2016 was wrong, leaving you only one year to decide to vote for her again despite that realization.
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