*Freudian term intended to reflect my growing conviction that blogging can have a similar function to dreaming.
1) TAUTOLOGY OF THE DAY
'... the ugly side of binge drinking ...'
2) FRIDGE MAGNET OF THE DAY
'WE CHILD-PROOFED THE HOUSE ...
... but they keep getting back in.'
3) THE TRIUMPH OF THE IDEAL OVER THE REAL
Shopping list: margarine, Johnson's facial wash, cat litter, Vegemite
Actual shopping: Elizabeth George's new Thomas Linley novel Careless in Red, Robin Bradley's Australian Wine Vintages 2008, 1 bottle Parker Coonawarra Estate Terra Rossa cab sav, 1 bottle Pike & Joyce pinot, homemade potato gnocchi, panforte from Siena and two chicken micro-roasts (spinach and garlic).
As T.S. Eliot might have said, if he had been a different kind of person: 'Between the Shopping List and the Afternoon / falls the Sunlight.' But what the cats are going to pee in is anybody's guess.
My philosophy of blogging, which I expound briefly here lest my psycho-troll come back to excoriate me once more for writing about my personal daily life, is that the details of one's personal daily life exist along a continuum with big abstract issues in public life (examples from things currently in the news: buying petrol; one's relationship with one's adolescent children), and that one writes about one's daily life in the hope that those who read will see in it fragments of themselves and their own lives, and will recognise their kinship with the rest of humanity in the tiny mirrors of personal experience.
And that's what I value most in other people's blogs. If I want good commentary on public affairs I can get it from experienced, knowledgeable commentators via an assortment of media from all over the world, online or off. But I can't catch the flavour, the immediacy, the Zeitgeist or the rich, dense micro-detail of people's daily lives anywhere but here in the blogosphere.
And even though I tend not to put my daily life in my blog, I recognise that that is why I read many others including yours (which I tend to click first in my google reader when I see a new post).
ReplyDeleteThanks - and I love the shopping list!
"ugly side of binge drinking"
ReplyDeleteI don't see what you're getting at here. De gustibus non est disputandum, said the hoodie kid to the spumante.
Oh c'mon, DD, didn't you see the 'Actual Shopping' list? Whose side do you think I'm really on?
ReplyDeleteNot the cats' side, that's for sure! What about their toilet, PC?!
ReplyDeletemy growing conviction that blogging can have a similar function to dreaming
ReplyDeleteI hope one day you'll get a chance to formally elaborate on and present some of this sort of thinking. (I really liked your and Stephanie Trigg's Heat pieces, btw)
Perhaps the cats could use all those Bill Henson photographs being shredded throughout Sydney's eastern suburbs....
ReplyDeleteHow was the Pike's pinot by the way?
Any blog that enjoys panforte and Coonawarra cab sav is a friend of mine.
ReplyDeleteWell, we're all a bit psycho, aren't we? I'd just like a bit of depth and an engagement with others that isn't sycophantic, treacly cloying and... well, I know you get the drift.
ReplyDeleteWhat I don't get is this: are you inherently small-minded, provincial and non-empathetic or are you deliberately and consciously a dag?
Not sure what you've been reading Anon, maybe you have the wrong blog?
ReplyDeleteI was thinking about your blog in the context of personal content the other day, when I was explaining to my mother that the Wikipedia entry on Helen Garner references your work heavily, but that the blog I read is your personl one. I think I like the snapshots of peoples' lives that you get in a blog.perhaps it's voyeurism, but actually i think it's no different to reading short stories rather than novels. I have a short attention span.
ReplyDeleteAnd now your doorbitch has 8 letters...bugger.
Where's Zoe? Someone needs a hug.
ReplyDeleteA blogger that includes literary commentary and lolcats, public debate and kitty litter, is well rounded, in my opinion.
ReplyDeleteWhich reminds me, I saw a LOLcat translation of the bible and it reminded me of you (and Laura).
Here.
Um, that should be 'a blog that ...' or 'a blogger who ...'
ReplyDeleteI loved that post Dear P.Cat
ReplyDeletethank you
I am housesitting and just put 5 cats to bed
in their little cubbyhouses in the laundry.
It was exhausting.
You've been tagged for a meme.
ReplyDeleteSee my blog.