Thinking About . . . Thinking; Or How Self-Referential Can I Make One Blog Entry?

Stan Hieronymus commented on my previous post and I began writing a response to his comment and next thing I knew my comment had morphed into a lengthy and probably useless rumination on other things. And had therefore become more of a blog entry than a comment, and hey! Who am I to waste a possible blog entry?

Particularly when the entry is about blogging and therefore self-referential and therefore . . . Anyway, in that previous entry I wrote:

But there wouldn’t be much point to the blog if I weren’t writing the book.

I was referring to the meat book, my work-in-progress. And Stan commented "Not sure what you mean by "the point." And then he asked:

So you are blogging to support the meat book or the beer book?

And hmmm, I thought. Good question.

I think what I originally meant was "I blog because I'm hoping when the next book comes out, more than one person will know about me and therefore it." (*1)

Or . . . maybe not. Because if I weren't planning to write another book, would I want be writing anything? And if I were writing another book, then I'd probably be, ya know, writing, and so I'd probably be blogging.

Anyway, while I was pondering that circularity (because, really, this is just an exercise to see how far I can push the circularity and self-referentiality --- which probably isn't a real word --- of a single blog entry), I started thinking about the process of blogging (especially in light of the fact that I've just experienced about a ten-day period of not much blogging.

And I realized again just how much I enjoy blogging, far more than I expected to. So, why, I wondered, was that? Answer: Because it's intellectually challenging. More so than I expected it to be.

This short format provides more freedom of structure and content than does a 115,000-word book, weirdly enough. The content of a book is confined by a whole lotta parameters (ones that many writers are tinkering with and pushing to the max).

That's especially true of non-fiction: A book can't start out being about beer, and midway through turn into a discourse on nuclear power or the mating habits of prairie dogs. Well, okay, it COULD be -- but no one would read it. A blog entry, however, can be about anything I want it to be about.

Better still, I can use the blog to explore and think about all manners of ideas/subjects that I might not otherwise ponder at any length. Because it's one thing to think about something --- for example, are we living in a truly new age or is there nothing new under the sun , or where is the American economy going? --- but it's another thing to think thoroughly about that something.

That's the point of writing, isn't it? Presumably human beings have been thinking about complex issues since, well, since they stood upright and became "human." And the motive for creating systems of writing was so that humans could organize and disseminate those complex ideas.

Yes, for millennia people relied on an oral tradition as a way to share knowledge. But the act of writing makes it easier to do that.

So, to wrap up what has now become an absurdly long-winded thought about probably not much of anything: I think the blog is less about supporting the beer book or supporting the meat book than it is about supporting my thinking habit. Because I am an idea junkie. Low-rent, to be sure, but a junkie nonetheless.

And aside from talking, writing is the best way I know to assess, analyze, and ponder ideas. Or, to paraphrase someone a lot smarter than me: I think; therefore I blog.

__________________

*1: Because the brutal reality of writing for money is that the money only comes in if someone buys the writing. And therefore writers have no choice but to expend huge amounts of energy promoting their work. Until they hit the Bigtime, at which point promotion is optional.

The Statistics of Blogging

Today's foray into the wierd world of the New York Times Styles section produced an informative and interesting article on blogging statistics. (*1) The short version is as follows:

• Many people decide to blog.
• The vast majority soon abandon the effort (95% of the blogs clogging the web have been abandoned by their owners).

What the article does not tell us is the average life span of a blog. Six months? A year? Three years?

I posted my first entry on June 29, 2006, and hey, I'd like to know where that puts me, statistically speaking.

I gather from the article that many people go into blogging the way they go into, say, tryouts for "Survivor" or "American Idol": They wanna get rich, famous, or both.

If so, no wonder the failure rate is so high. This ain't easy, folks. It requires a huge investment of time and an even larger investment in intellectual energy.

Indeed, I think that's why I collapsed into a heap last week. On any given day, I'm essentially putting out the brain power necessary to create and sustain two completely different intellectual and creative endeavours: a book and a blog.

And yes, they are different animals, and yes, blogging is a serious brain-energy hog. If my intellectual life is a house, then the book is the refrigerator (which, in a typical house, consumes the most energy), but the blog is all those electronic gadgets with their little red and green lights (computer monitor, DVR, flat screen TV, chargers, etc.), which, if left plugged in and even if not turned "on," consume an inordinate amount of energy.

(We're working up to do a major remodeling project, and houses are much on my mind at the moment. Another energy sink.)

(The remodeling project, I mean.)

Anyway --- I can't decide if I'm glad I'm in the five percent of bloggers who manage to keep the motor running. Certainly it would be easier to write the book without the blog, and vice versa. But there wouldn't be much point to the blog if I weren't writing the book.

So, there you go. Another of life's conundrums, one I shall, for the moment, leave unresolved.

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*1: For a brief explanation of why I read the Styles section, see the note at the end of this entry.

California Brewpubs From a Fresh Perspective

This report of a brewpub-based road trip through California is weirdly fascinating --- because it mentions none of the usual suspects. Probably because it involved two guys who are (refreshingly) not part of the whole craft beer scene. Nuthin' like a new slant. Kind of like painting a room a new color and moving two pieces of furniture: Voila! Same room; fresh perspective.

Tip o' the mug to @ellinoz, one of the more delightful humans I've encountered at Twitter.

Who Knew?

Well, well, well. What I thought was tiredness turns out to be THE weirdest virus I've ever had in my life. (I swear: the world ain't gonna end with a bang or a whimper, but with us all dying quietly, unwhimperingly, from an assault by a diverse and ugly collection of attacking microbes.)

Anyway --- I've spent most of the past four days in a horizontal position. Not feeling sick, exactly. Just  . . .  unable to move.

Then last night, quite suddenly, my temperature soared, I experienced THE worst case of chills ever, and wondered if the end was near. I crawled under the covers, lots of them, and lay there for what felt like an eternity. (Wondering if maybe I had died, and the afterlife looked like a dark, soft pile of duvet.)

And then wham! My temp returned to normal, the chills evaporated --- and I felt . . . alive. A bit tired, but otherwise normal.

I blame all of this, by the way, on The Baby: during our recent visit, he was sick. Ya know, in that way babies are so delightfully, concretely sick: Constant flow of snot, boogers galore. Baby-sized coughing, wheezing, and hacking. A waterfall of virus-laden drool streaming from his mouth. And of course vomit aplenty.

All of it taking place simultaneously and, more often than not, landing on me (because I had a hard time letting go of the gorgeous creature. I am besotted.)

But I digress. During my down time these past few days, I discovered that Twitter is sweetly suited for the sick. In the ten minutes I could manage being upright, I could scan Tweets, zip off a couple of re-tweets, and lay back down knowing the world was still out there, ticking away without me.

Sooooo..... I may hang low for a few more days, just to make sure this viral beast has in fact split the scene. And then I will return. I hope all of you are well --- because the alternative is soooooooooo not fun.

I Am, Apparently, . . .

I am tired. As in to-the-bone weary. Worn out. Exhausted. Plus the air is saturated with pollen and my sinuses are the current rulers of my cranial roost.

This all by way of explaining why not much blogging action lately. No, I'm not abandoning my rapid-form approach to blogging, and am thinking about a longish series I want to write about the future, ecological matters, and revolution.

But at the moment, I'm . . . tired.

And prefer to conserve what little energy I have for meat-book writing rather than blogging-writing. (Cranked out a thousand words today, about which I am happy.)

Damn. Confession feels goooooood. I feel better already, and, best of all, have expunged some of my not-blogging guilt. (Hey, you can take the girl out of the Catholic fold, but alas, it's tough to take the Catholic out of the girl. Guilt is mine for life.)

To which I add this: Getting old is okay, as far as things go. But one aspect of the process I resent is the loss of stamina. In my heyday, I was the Stamina Queen. Now? Not so much.

The upside is that at least now I'm willing to admit I'm exhausted. Major breakthrough. Major.

Want To Buy A Brewery?

You can! For a small fee (really, it's small). And it's only sort of a brewery. A few days ago, I got an email from Todd Kimmell, who owns what he believes is the oldest brewery structure in the United States, a building that dates from the late 1600s. Here's a chunk of the email he sent me, which includes links to more information, including a real estate listing (the place is for sale). (Yes, think of me as your multiple-listing agent):

In the late 70s and 80s, a New Jersey historian named Dr. Henry Bisbee plotted out the grounds of the first governor of West Jersey's late 1600s mansion, including his various outbuildings and neighbors, near the Delaware River in Burlington, NJ.

He had the help of civil engineers and other historians, and used old photos, drawings, written descriptions, and especially deed surveys from 1745.

The only remaining building from the 1600s was the brew house, which had been doubled in size and turned into a domicile about 1770, and added onto further approximately 1850-1870.

The brew house, known locally as Ivy Cottage is oddly situated and oddly shaped... only if you look at it as a Georgian home. As an outbuilding from the late 1600s, it is neither oddly shaped nor oddly situated. It makes perfect sense.

My wife and I bought the place because it was an oddball Georgian home near the river, and we could watch people along the Promenade and boats on the Delaware River from our second floor bedroom.

When I pulled the ceiling down in the dining room, I found construction techniques and materials that I'd never seen before.

I'd grown up in Squire Cheyney's 1740s house in Cheyney, PA, and had been in and out of renovations and restorations of similar structures my whole life.

This was different. Broad boards hit with an ax and spread apart, then nailed up to sizeable beams with very large, very early nails. Then, the whole thing was mucked with a thick coat of plaster. I knew [builders had] mastered horse-powered or people-powered lath, skinny lath, pretty early, so this had to be WAY early.

He goes on to say that after more demolition, he and his wife discovered that

more of the house clearly showed the drastically different construction methods and materials between the late 1600s brew house and the mid 1700s Georgian home built up, over and around it.

I believe this makes Ivy Cottage the oldest brewery in America. Jamestown might have post holes identified as where the brewery might have been, and our beloved Yuengling will always be the oldest continually brewing brewery, but it is a comparative snot nosed kid next to Ivy Cottage.

More information (including the real estate listing): By the way, I have NO idea if this really is the oldest standing brewhouse in the country, but hey, it sounds good!