Sunday, June 17, 2007
I've been a fan of Ron Rosenbaum since approximately forever, but I think the blogging format is not the genre he should be mining. Actually, he doesn't seem to be at his best working on-line in general: his Slate things have been pretty weak, too-- not at all up to the work he generally produced for the New York Observer.
Back when blogging was still new-ish, people made fun of sites that droned on about the mundane details of everyday life. "I got up, I ate an egg". Rosenbaum, however, finds the fact that he can record this sort of minutia as one of the form's great strengths. For the past few posts he has been whining about 2% milk at his neighborhood Starbucks, and I am afraid that if this keeps up he is liable to set blogging back five years.
In a way, it is not surprising. He has devoted column space that could have been usefully expended on Dylanology or Shakespeare to his cat, and in that sense one could say that he has always been inclined towards the worst tropisms of the blogging world. Still, I had hoped for something better.
Back when blogging was still new-ish, people made fun of sites that droned on about the mundane details of everyday life. "I got up, I ate an egg". Rosenbaum, however, finds the fact that he can record this sort of minutia as one of the form's great strengths. For the past few posts he has been whining about 2% milk at his neighborhood Starbucks, and I am afraid that if this keeps up he is liable to set blogging back five years.
In a way, it is not surprising. He has devoted column space that could have been usefully expended on Dylanology or Shakespeare to his cat, and in that sense one could say that he has always been inclined towards the worst tropisms of the blogging world. Still, I had hoped for something better.
// posted by Bill @ 11:33 AM 
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