Search This Blog

Sunday, January 16, 2011

The Value of Blogs


Today I question the value of this blog. Why am I doing this? Who is reading it anyway - and if you are, don't you have anything better to do?

At about the same time I started writing this blog, I received a beautiful moleskin journal. I have always loved blank, lined pages, especially if they are contained between the covers of a sumptuous book. Oh the possibilities! The pleasure of putting actual ink to paper!

And so I began writing (in longhand no less) in this journal every day. It is here that I record my odes of thanksgiving to the universe, my hopes, my dreams, my innermost thoughts. The blog is something else altogether. What I write in my journal is meant for my eyes only.

So why write this blog? Do I have something to contribute? Maybe this will be a more worthwhile endeavour when My next book is published. I don't know.

I hiked with friends today on the Westwood Ridges - the quality of light, penetrating the green canopy of the trees and casting pools of gold on impossibly flourescent moss, was a church-like experience. I am filled with gratitude for the beauty of this planet and for a life that allows me to experience it.

And I can't sign off before I weigh in on the recent banishment of Dire Straits' "Money for Nothing" from the airwaves. My friend and I discussed it on our hike. His view was yes, words matter and we should censor slurs. My view was, leave it be. Listen to the lyrics in context. Also, the song was written a long time ago.

I suppose that, for me, it isn't far off what is going on in the United States, where they have revised Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn to replace the n word with "slave." I disagree. The book has to be read in historical context. Where does it end? Do we go back to Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice and revise?

Got to a library - you'll find hundreds and hundreds of books we can revise and censor (oops - it's called "updating" isn't it?)

And why only the Dire Straits song? What about all the gangsta rap out there? And what about the derogatory terms used for women? Should we edit, revise or censor?

I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts.

1 comment:

  1. You know what? I don't care if the jewish council of who-zits has exonerated the merchant of venice as a play and declared it non-offensive.

    It's an anti-semitic play. It doesn't matter if you get Al Pachino to play the merchant, he's still a minor character who is a villain.

    Well, I'm a big believer in liberty. So I'll say that it's okay for people to say what they want and censorship is not okay.

    But, by that philosophy, it's also okay for Chapters to have a HUGE no list/sell/stock book list. Because that's their business.

    I think, as media is private, it's up to the media to choose what they promote, and they of course won't promote that which hurts them. That's why community media (Shaw channel, CHLY, ect is so important).

    I'm rambling, I go now.

    ReplyDelete