Writer’s blog
How do you actually start a blog? What is worth writing a post about?
Such are the questions your correspondant entertains as he sets off from base camp at the foot of Mount Blog. Sorry I keep going on about this word “blog”. It is 50% internet jargon and at least 50% nerd. And yet it signifies something fresh and vital in the world of letters/ journalism/ publishing: a world where I too can finally syphon off some of the juice inside my head.
The current CucosBlog readership, both real and imagined, runs to the following list of people: Tom (who helped me set this up), Jacob Ø (master libertarian of Copenhagen)*, Stef (current co-pilot of CucosBlog and pioneer, one of the good guys) and that’s about it for now.
I need to think about who will read this because I’m worried about compromising myself and other people with what I write. Should I write about personal relationships? Is it OK to offer my controversial opinion, including criticism of my work and social experiences? Should I write about illegal activities I get up to? Should I bare my soul and reveal things that I would not usually mention? I’m pretty sure that if I don’t, then this blog won’t be worth reading.
I promised Jacob that I wouldn’t write about riding my bike, but Jacob I gotta! Because riding past the old Tate Gallery last night, past Smith Square, then along the river and up to St Paul’s and to the Barbican - that was a high point of my weekend. And riding back again stoned the same way though empty streets, I was chilled by the huge sepulchral might of St Paul’s cathedral. I saw the romantic balustrade which runs along the top of it, I saw the full moon appear through the clouds right on cue as I fizzed alongside it. Just me and this huge thing, which used to make me dizzy just to think of the size of it. It used to scare me because it was so big. Is that normal?
Or maybe it is worth recounting the gig I saw at the Barbican of Cat Power and Icelandic band Mum? I’d never heard Cat Power before and she played songs from her evidently popular covers album. Her voice was great, she stepped the beat gingerly but crazily with both feet - that was feline - and she turned about 12 songs, most of which I probably know, into an unrecogniseable minimal dirge. It was quite cool but a total bummer after 10 minutes of it. She broke out an autoharp at one point, which she pointed a mic at and then played badly. [Memo: check out autoharps again] Anyway, i’m not going to spend a lot of time slagging off talented people. In the interval, I efficiently skinned up in the loos and then we went out and smoked it in the concrete gardens of the Barbican with the filling moon above. Mum were interesting despite basing much of the material on “intelligent drum and bass” sequences, which felt rather dated and I never much like dance fusions of any kind. But at times they were great. At one point they sounded like Sonic Youth jamming out a ringtone in the style of the Cure. Another song late on in the set had some beautiful progressive pop harmonies reminiscent of Brian Wilson.
Is this OK? Am I supposed to be putting in more pictures and links and fun stuff?
*which isn’t a freemason thing by the way. I have got into the habit of giving people titles, heavily influenced by my colleague Kayode, conquistador of pure philosophy. It all started with our logins to the work computer system. I’m Vice-Admiral. The cute girl who sold me a ticket at the Clapham Picturehouse tonight is a Queen. Indeed… Anyway Kay, I don’t think you access the internet very often, but when you read this: welcome on board.
September 23rd, 2005 at 5:31 pm
A warm welcome to the land of blogs, Mihai. Or, as this is actually your own space, and i have no authority on (nor even much familiarity with) the whole blog experience, i should probably rather be saying a simple greeting, and thank you for having me as a visitor on your site. Or, now that i think about it, i ought really to congratulate you on the birth of your first blog. well done… many happy returns :)