This is a weird time of year. Here in Berkeley it's a gorgeous day, sunny, though chilly. The magnolias are already blooming. It's not spring yet, not even winter. The looming New Year makes a guy think about transitions, the passage of time, new stuff—the usual. The numeral 2005 sounds new—shiny and pristine, just out of the box, wheareas 2004 sounds (already), old, scratched, a little battered, like my camera cellphone (which I bought in 2004).
This blog is one of the transitions for the new year. I've started it This is a weird time of year. Here in Berkeley it's a gorgeous day, sunny, though chilly. The magnolias are already blooming. It's not spring yet, not even winter. The looming New Year makes a guy think about transitions, the passage of time, new stuff—the usual. The numeral 2005 sounds new—shiny and pristine, just out of the box, wheareas 2004 sounds (already), old, scratched, a little battered, like my camera cellphone (which I bought in 2004).
This blog is one This is a weird time of year. Here in Berkeley it's a gorgeous day, sunny, though chilly. The magnolias are already blooming. It's not spring yet, not even winter. The looming New Year makes a guy think about transitions, the passage of time, new stuff—the usual. The numeral 2005 sounds new—shiny and pristine, just out of the box, wheareas 2004 sounds (already), old, scratched, a little battered, like my camera This is a weird time of year. Here in Berkeley it's a gorgeous day, sunny, though chilly. The magnolias are already blooming. It's not spring yet, not even winter. The looming New Year makes a guy think about transitions, the passage of time, new stuff—the usual. The numeral 2005 sounds new—shiny and pristine, just out of the box, wheareas 2004
[Write, photograph, draw, paint, film, record, and publish.]
I'm not a journalist, editor, publisher, food writer, art director, art historian, graphic designer, cartoonist, movie critic, historian, television personality, videographer, video editor, software engineer, philosopher, sage, or pundit. I've never been, and I never will be, at least by professional and academic standards. And that's exactly the point. Thanks to the recent explosion of technological innovation, however, I and anyone with a computer or even a high-end cell phone can be any of the above. Sort of. Or pretend to be. Is that a good thing? Yes, according to me. (I am writing that being sort of a pundit, or pretending to be.)
In order to be a journalist, editor, etc., that is, a "real" one, one must be employed as such by a publisher, studio, or religious entity. Or, as a publisher, one must make money. Jonathan's Coffeeblog does not make money, not one red cent. It has a business plan, or more accurately, a non-business plan: 1. It is not about making money, and 2. It is all about not making money.
But why would I say that it is a good thing that amateurs, indeed rank amateurs, might now set themselves up, pretentiously or otherwise, as journalists, editors, etc.? The answer: All of those professions or callings must answer to a higher power, one who shapes, polishes, indeed often or usually dictates their production. The only higher powers I must answer to are my Internet service providers, and one or more gods, should they exist.
Very well, but a skeptic might argue that the plethora of amateurs is overwhelming our media with worthless trash. There are, I assert, two good arguments to refute the skeptics:
The moneymakers are already flooding our media with worthless trash, and have been since long before 1961, when chairman of the US Federal Communications Commission declared television to be a "vast wasteland."
The "angels" who fear to tread into new and uncharted territory, can be, in fact must be countered by the amateur "fools" who can write, photograph, draw, paint, film, record, and publish whatever foolishness they want to (at least in the 21st Çentury version of the "Free World.") The price they pay, assuming that they don't live in Iran, or in the Italy of Ricardo Franco Levi's dreams is that they don't make money doing it. But as I've recently read, even the New York Times is having a hard time making money with their squadrons of journalists, editors, etc. But even more delicious is this blogpost (reprinted as an article in the Sunday magazine) by the New York Times' very own media pundit, Virginia Heffernan, touting YouTube's role in contemporary intellectual discourse.
Every page now has Seesmic/Disqus video commenting. Scroll to the bottom to see or post video comments. There are also Haloscan comments at the end of each separate blogpost article. To read a text-only version of Jonathan's Coffeeblog on your iPhone or other mobile phone, click here. Or to see the graphics with less text, click here.
