I was watching Fleischer studios Popeye this morning while doing my floor exercises. Something which I learned was that Popeye is quite often set in Manhattan. In the cartoon King of the Mardi Gras, Bluto makes a reference to Coney meaning Coney Island. Betty Boop has a Brooklyn, New York accent, also produced by the Fleischer brothers, and the early Superman cartoons look like they are set in New York in the 1930s. I find the idea rather interesting.
Last night, I read some more of Say Everything. This time the book was discussing journalism. Are bloggers journalists? Does my conference coverage count as journalism? Or my coverage of library events or visits to bookstores? The very nature of the First Amendment in the United State means anyone has the freedom to publish their thoughts. Blogs are syndicated content. RSS (Really Simple Syndication) is a form of syndication. Most blogs have this. Unlike "real journalists", bloggers don't have to be stuck on todays news. They can beat a dead horse and obsess on any subject they like. I don't pretend to have journalistic aspirations, but I do know that I have a professional knowledge of books.
Maw Books invited me to Book Blogger Appreciation Week on Septembr 14th- September 18th http://bookbloggerappreciationweek.com/ . I signed up as Anon Ymous , another variation which works is Sue Doe Nim.
Thinking back to Spanish language literature, there is also Schoenhof's in the United States. The selection looks quite interesting. http://www.schoenhofs.com/Spanish_Literature_s/1400.htm
I had a chance to finish reading Say Everything by Scott Rosenbrg this afternoon. I especially like a quote from P. 319, "We publish then filter. Say everything first; ask questions later." Scott Rosenberg is referring to an inversion in the publishing process where anyone can practically publish many things over the web. There is often no way to know whether it is good o not until you look at it. This is the opposite of editing first. Now, to filter out the junk you often turn to blogs and social networks to choose what is good. Those blogs with higher ratings get read more. We also turn to services like Twitter to pick out blogs or news stories which are interesting. There are many places exactly like this. I use the Ning Bookblogs group and Blogcatalog for this. On a more professional level, I use American Library Association Connect and Linked In.
This book does a very good job of both providing a history of blogging as well as give a much better understanding of the purpose of blogging. It is not a how to book, there are no tips and tricks. However, it does give many examples of the best and most historied blogs. The notes section has lots of citations from the internet. It is very much a list of some of the best posts on blogs.
