Buttoning Up The Bartelby Blog

So since blogs are apparently dead, I have decided to shut down “Curious Affairs”.

J/K LOL! It is pretty funny if you fell for that lede, actually, since if you did you do not know me that well or have not been reading “Curious Affairs” that long, obvs. Blogging is one of only four compulsive addictions that I have consistently entertained in my life, and since I have been on the teetotaling wagon for six months now, and since cigarette-smoking and coffee-drinking have pretty much become more “necessities” than “addictions” at this point in my life, there is no way I will be abandoning blogging anytime soon, no matter who claims that the practice is dead.

But I have been thinking rather a lot about this blog, and its content, and its focus (or egregious lack thereof, as the case may be), and of my numerous other blogging endeavors across the internet, and of my online presence in general, over the past several weeks. Perhaps I am overthinking everything due to my imminent move back to New York, and to beginning a new life and job there, again; or to the various articles I have been working on completing before my departure, one of which happens to be a response to the recent media exposure on the alleged death of the traditional blogosphere; or, as one of those articles referenced above suggests, perhaps I, and my blog, are simply “growing up”. Hopefully not growing up so much that there will be a sudden dearth of random “Chuck Bass” images thrown in for gratuitous humor, but maturing, just the same.

BLOGGING BY DESIGN

As my online activity has increased and I have therefore been exposed to numerous other bloggers’ and industry professionals’ online homes throughout the past several weeks, I have been inspired by the online content and design of so many blogs and professional sites. What I have come to appreciate most about these sites is how well their sites’ design and layout complement their content. Since I have been designing a fresh blog layout for the “reboot” of my blog early in the first quarter of 2009, of course this aesthetic inspiration has proved invaluable to me throughout the process. But I also found myself paying closer attention to the content of these various blogs, and to how the content is presented, and to asking myself, “Am I producing the kind of quality content that I should be? What kind of content am I producing? Is it focused? Professional? Am I a writer, a media professional, a designer, an art director, what? What messages do I want to be sending with my blog, and its content?” I do not think that my blog will ever be a “niche” blog, and I am fine with that. I like being the blogger who has twenty-six different interests about which he is passionate and about which he writes on a consistent basis. I just think that my content could be a bit more focused.

One of my favorite blogs I discovered recently is Michael Surtees’ DesignNotes. The blog’s design (clean, fluid, minimalist) is just as focused as is the blog’s content (design, visual art, color theory), and when I compare it to my own blog I frankly become a bit envious, because I wish that my content was as focused and as passionate as is the content of DesignNotes. But I am, have always been, and will always be passionate about a wide variety of things; the challenge for me now is to focus on those primary things that produce the most engaging content. Further sharpening my focus on this blog only, rather than spreading it too thinly across an expansive variety of blogging platforms, as I am currently doing, would also do much to make me even more proud of this space. (I also need to seriously prune my links list to the right, there, since it is far too lengthy and unwieldy and you people never click on those links anyway so clearly they are just acting as blog and status “decorations”, at this point.)

So, there you have it, issue number one: design, focus, and passion.

THE BARTELBY POLITIC

Yesterday, a fellow blogging friend of mine, Brooks Bayne, remarked to me on Twitter that I was being increasingly political in my posting there following the election. As I had just participated in a debate with him and another blogger in his own blog regarding our wildly opposing views on California’s Proposition 8, my initial response to his observation was, “What? Shut up. And stop bringing politics up with me as a discussion point.” But upon further reflection, and upon reviewing my most recent posts to my blog here and to my Twitter stream, I realized that he was right: I am being more political of late.

I have yet to analyze the reasons why I have suddenly and vehemently become more political, of which there are likely enough to comprise a separate post on the topic, but the nutshell version is that I realized that although I have always been political, it is only this particular election that has reawakened this interest in me. I do not know if, as a liberal Democrat, the last twelve years have simply enraged and / or depressed me too much to ever approach politics as a conversation / blog topic, or whether this imminent new era of leadership actually inspires some kind of hope in me, but I frankly am not wont to question this returning passion for politics; regardless of the reason, its return is a good thing, and something that will definitely continue to be a major focus of “Curious Affairs”. (As will The City Of New York itself, which I suspect will become as major of a character in this blog’s narrative as Honolulu was for a long while.)

Issue number two, done: embrace new (and rekindled) passions.

THE END OF OVERSHARING?

Several weeks ago, prompted by a joint exercise in online dalliances on an otherwise boring Thursday, I spent several hours playing with AV Flox in Photoshop, coloring in our respective maps of human sexuality. Following the exercise, and after much laughing over various choices (e.g., “Um. What’s ‘Shibari‘?” “Like rope bondage, but all artful and kinky and Japanese.” “Oh yeah that’s hot. ‘Catheterization’?! Ew no!”), we disseminated both of our maps via Twitter, etc. I was initially dismayed to see, first, how few of our online friends and acquaintances were quick to jump at the chance to participate in it, and, second, how if they did, they shared it only with very select groups of people online. At first I scoffed at the fear and paranoia that such people must harbor, but as time went by and as I continued to think about it, I wondered if I really have reached the point at which I have stopped feeling the need (or, the compulsion) to overshare online, in this blog. Because whereas there was a certain point in my life and in the life of this blog that I would not have thought twice about reiterating my tales of anonymous (and, um, not so anonymous) sex, desires, and encounters in this space, now even the veiled stories I have written of late seem to be a little…well, a little too overshare-y, a little too…unprofessional.

It made me think of a passage from Barthes that is one of my favorites, and I have been ruminating on it ever since, on a daily basis, for the last several weeks.

Is not the most erotic portion of a body where the garment gapes? In perversion (which is the realm of textual pleasure) there are no “erogenous zones” (a foolish expression, besides); it is intermittence, as psychoanalysis has so rightly stated, which is erotic: the intermittence of skin flashing between two articles of clothing (trousers and sweater), between two edges (the open-necked shirt, the glove and the sleeve); it is this flash itself which seduces, or rather: the staging of an appearance-as-disappearance.

— Excerpted from Le plaisir du texte, Roland Barthes (1973, tr. Richard Miller).

Quite frankly, I am beginning to see the value in that space: that small space of flesh over which the garment gapes, that space between the experienced, and the shared, and that “appearance-as-disappearance” that, instead of overwhelming…seduces. I have, over time, come to think that sometimes, it feels nice to keep certain things to yourself, or between yourself and those who shared it with you. It is as if you alone are in charge of, and responsible for, all of these personal secrets. And no one knows them but you. I like that. And I like the wry and knowing smile it inspired as I typed that just now. (So enjoy that epically overshare-y Atherton Bartelby Sex Map posted above, as it is the last bit of its nature that will appear here at “Curious Affairs”, and likely the only place, ever, that will tell you whether or not I am into Shibari.)

So, finally, issue number three is resolved: the end of oversharing.

CURIOUS AFFAIRS 3.0

I am excited about this new incarnation of “Curious Affairs”. As I embark on a new life, in a new job, in a new (yet so, so familiar) city, it seems fitting that my online “home” should also experience a sea change. But a positive one, full of focus, and of growth, and of progress. It seems even more fitting to me that all of this occurs as we enter 2009, which in Chinese astrology is my year: The Year Of The Ox.

The Ox sees overall improvements in his situation during his own year in 2009. The main area of enjoyment will be the interaction with others, either with friends and family or on a more romantic level. A key phrase to bear in mind this year is ‘hold fast’. There may be setbacks and delays in the general run of life, but keep calm and persist and all will be well. There will be an opportunity to study and learn (in common with other signs this year) which should appeal to the Ox and there will be a huge sense of pride with what is achieved.

— Collected from MoonSlipper.com.

And, at least where this blog is concerned, and all of the changes that will come about in it during the first few months of the year and beyond, I cannot help but imagine that I will feel anything less than that huge sense of pride.

So while “Curious Affairs” will metamorphose into something different, it will still, largely, be the same. The old stories will still be here (I can’t even bring myself to change the title of that damned “Small Dicks And Sideways Vaginas” piece that gets like 85,000 hits a day from Google searches), but we are embarking on a new era. And I think “Curious Affairs” should, as well.

But not so new that, well, that there will be a sudden dearth of random “Chuck Bass” images thrown in for gratuitous humor.

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