I’ve been doing this blog since 2005 — 15 years. Over 5½ million page views. Over 4 million unique visits. I was most active in 2012-13, when I was getting about 3,500 page views a day.
But as the years went by, I posted less and less. I started putting up photos on Instagram a few years ago; it’s a photographer’s dream, except for the Facebook factor (like the increasing ads). I put in a lot less time blogging world these days, partly due to Instagramming, partly due to the fact that I have to concentrate on books to keep us afloat.
The best way for you to keep up with what’s going on around here these days, and with me, is to get on my GIMME SHELTER newsletter list. At this stage, with the social media blizzard, email is a form of communication out of the past that suddenly seems to have a new relevance.* I’m writing for a select group of people (latest count about 2,000), not winging it out into the socialnetworkosphere.
If you want to get on the list, subscribe with your email address here. I send one out maybe every 4-6 weeks these days.
*It’s not that “The old is new again.” It’s rather that the old is being looked at in a new light in this digital age, and being rediscovered for its relevance, its soulfulness, its imperfections.
Música del Día: Iko Iko, Dr. John: (Listen to his piano notes at very end of song.)
“*It’s not that “The old is new again.” It’s rather that the old is being looked at in a new light in this digital age, and being rediscovered for its relevance, its soulfulness, its imperfections.”
yuppers….
in a ever techie available age, it seems to (techie stuff) create more work/more time consuming/more hassle than before. Viruses/Hacks/etc etc..
I don’t do online banking, I don’t do banking on my phone. I have no smart phone. I have a cell, but it is pretty basic. I do not read books on a gadget….I LOVE picking a book out, holding it, meandering back and forth and savoring it. People shudder at my “lack of tech”, but then again, every time I hear of an online bank hack or Facebook Hack, or some such, I shudder. There is something satisfying about pen and paper. There is something satisfying (dare I say “old fashioned” about receiving a newsletter…More like neighbors over the back fence, or front porch.
Every time another story comes out about FB/Twitter/etc selling and abusing our data and privacy, I remember that blogs don’t have that problem. I miss the days of Livejournal and blogger and blogging as social media. Hope you’ll continue to find time for a blog post now and then.
Think about how many books from the time of Gutenberg’s mass produced books are still around from the 1450s, and those documents from prior to this time, hand-written prior to western mass printing (China had been mass-producing movable type books since 800 AD), and think about how they have survived. Often printed on linen, I’ve read. It was books from Rome and Greece, via the Arab world, that helped spark the Renaissance.
The electronic world can disappear by accident or on purpose. Think about the hidden Dead Sea scrolls. You can’t really hide much on the web, which can be scoured. Not to mention, easily altered.
This isn’t to say that books and other documents cannot still perish. I still shudder when I think of the accidentally set fire that destroyed most of the library of Alexandria (when Cleopatra had the docked Roman fleet set ablaze). What treasures of the past were lost? Then there was the deliberate destruction of Amerindian texts by priests and others……
Books have been my refuge, my teacher and my dream machine. I hold them without even reading them, sometimes.
The newly opened University of South Florida medical college campus in downtown Tampa states their medical library has twenty (20) hardbound books, everything else being electronic. It is, the article stated, because medical knowledge is doubling every 10 to 14 days…..a good reason, I suppose. Are there really no foundational texts?
I go to FB and other such things less and less, especially these days.
If you love someone, give them a good book.
I’m glad everything is okay, Lloyd, I was getting worried. 🙂 I love your blog, and new posts always make my day, but I want you to focus your time where you need to. More books, YAY! And I love BOOKS, real ones you can hold in your hand. I will always buy them. I am getting more Luddite-like as I age! Sending all my prayers that you and your family are happy, healthy and prosperous!
Shortly after William of Normandy invaded England in 1066, he had a complete survey done of his newly-conquered territories for tax purposes. The results of this survey were recorded in the Domesday Book. A copy of this is now held in the British National Archives and is available to anyone who can read Medieval Latin. On the other hand, if the only copy of your PhD thesis is on a 5 1/4 floppy disk from 25 years ago, good luck with finding a way of reading that!
so LLoyd, from the comments, there are many of us who might much appreciate a less tech approach, such as a newletter. All Good.
ran across this, and thought it might tickle your fancy. Seems like a place you should visit and photograph. Hey, maybe an entire new book. Looks interesting.
Sydney’s secret huts that are one of the harbour’s hidden treasures
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-02-27/sydney-harbours-secret-abandoned-huts-at-risk/11994048
Perched on the cliffs above the harbour and surrounded by thick bush is a cluster of empty huts few know about.
Originally built as basic fishing shacks in the 1920s but transformed into homes during the Great Depression and again in the 1960s, the huts embody what it means to escape.
The squatters who moved in during the ’60s enjoyed an idyllic unregulated existence among nature but in 1984 were evicted when the NSW Government declared the land national park, a decision upheld by the courts.
Here’s some more on those Secret Australia Huts (just in case you need the info to visit, grin)
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8048801/The-secret-huts-overlooking-Sydney-Harbour-never-knew-existed.html
I hope that you will continue to do some posting, because I think it’s a great blog, and also to keep people coming back to it.
At least, if you do get to more regular posting again, it would probably be good to announce that on Instagram and in the Gimme Shelter newsletter.
The good doctor had one of the best left hands in the business, may he lead the Second Line in the Celestial Madrid Gras. Saw him many times in the 10 years I lived in The Big Sleazy…