1.2.11

Happy Birthday Dollhouse Hothouse

Another year, and these pages still just about living. To celebrate, I was going to write a long self-important post about what I get out of this blog and what other people might get out of it. But then that would be sickeningly indulgent, wouldn't it? And boring. So I thought I'll write a short post about those things instead!

First, these pages exist because I have a terrible memory, and I want to log thoughts about stuff before I forget them. Second, the act of writing itself helps with spotting patterns, refining arguments and solving problems. Remember the pensieve in Harry Potter? A metaphor for this process, I'm sure of it. Third, there's the thing mentioned here -- Adam Smith's love of system applied to criticism and commentary. Building a logical machine that works is adding another psychological bulwark against the horror of a chaotic cosmos devoid of any inherent meaning.

But enough existentialism! What this should tell you is that I don't put in a lot of thought about audience. Or not anymore, at least. At the beginning I was more keen on trying out voices and getting attention, but both enterprises failed miserably so I've given them up. I suspect my writing has improved as a result. Now a lot of posts look like notes, which is pretty much what they are, tho I still try to tidy them up a bit to make them understandble to someone who isn't me.

What that means is you don't get reviews, but immediate judgements and sometimes more thought-out commentary. Spoilers and obscure references abound. The focus is on ideas, because I'm useless at anything and everything technical. The one virtue of all this is that posts are short. More bloggers should think about word count, tbh. A reader's time is precious in an age of info overload.

So. No pretence. These pages are just little nuggets of my consciousness -- with all the incoherence, contradiction and offensiveness left in. Defences and justifications aside, I do hope they are worth reading.

If you think they are, I invite you to raise a glass.

Long life Dollhouse Hothouse!

Let's see if it survives another year.

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