Just as an exercise, I am trying to write a blog entry knowing that I sit alone in my dining room in front of my computer. I am not somehow in cyberspace, swirling around touching other cyber-people, communicating with other intellects out there, maybe feeling the warmth of their souls; I am just sitting here in my dining room, typing.
Well, and my cat.
We humans are so easy. Any reality will do. It's become a kind of theme for me. The easiest, most obvious one is the one where we construct the knowledge of a world around us using sensory input. I hear a voice. A fire truck just went by. Bam, there must be a wall right here. OK I see it now.
There are the alternate realities that very closely resemble the one based on sensory input. The one where your nose is too big, or where your friends are witty, or where the aliens are broadcasting mind-control rays down upon the continent.
Of course there is Cyberspace and all the alternate variations you could possibly dream of.
Reality check: yep. Still sitting here in the dining room. The cat has jumped down, though, and has stationed herself on the hallway desk where she may keep an eye on the kitchen. Beyond the kitchen is the back porch and the stairwell that provides passage from all the back doors to the parking area behind the building. In the other direction, beyond my livingroom, is the front of the building that sits in a row of other buildings, across the street from the new apartment building that is currently under construction. I've been here since December, so I watched it go up, so far. The workers just built the third floor. I hope they stop, as the whole thing has begun to impinge upon my view of the morning sky.
This post is quite publishable in one of the many lit mags out there today. In fact, it's a lot better than a lot of the crap that's getting published. Unfortunately, if you're honest, you could only submit it to mags that accept reprints because, being here, it's considered published therefore your options are extremely limited. It''s ridiculous.
ReplyDeleteWell thank you! I wonder if it's like the tree-falling-in-the-forest problem. If I write a blog entry and no one reads it, is it published?
ReplyDeleteYeah, it's kind ridiculous. Blogging is more like talking than writing, I think. I mean, legally. What do I know.
Ok, I can see the point up to a point. Beyond that, it's bullshit.
ReplyDeleteWell, just to be clear, I think writing something on a blog is not the same thing as "publishing" it in the legal sense. Just because Microsoft or Google or whoever used the word "publish" instead of "send" on their little buttons doesn't make it so.
ReplyDeleteI also think that even if you make some sort of case that it could be as in the case of the big blogs that want to be like newspapers or news magazines, the reasoning behind these literary zines' publishing policies is kind of silly.
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ReplyDeleteTell them about it. Anyway, I know I could lie and submit poetry from my blod but, so far anyway, I haven't been inclined to do so. They lose.
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