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Abouts

If you are a blogger, you may well be subject to the delusion that there is no one more fascinating than yourself, no one more astute or clever, and it’s a mystery why the rest of the blogosphere doesn’t get this. I know I am. Nothing like a good “about” to underscore the point and I’m sorry mine is limited to a few lines. I try to make up for that in bloviation.

Abouts usually are unhelpful, to the extent they fail to provide any information whatsoever, just making brief stabs at humor or bravado. Then there are the ones that in fact do tell you a great deal about the author, not limited to those impressions and bits of information the author is actually attempting to convey.   

Take the sockpuppet’s excessive exercise in self-exaltation, long admired at this site for its shamelessly exhaustive detail. Yet you’re left strangely unsatisfied, as after a sumptuous, if doughy and grease-sodden Chinese takeout repast, only sooner. How come that guy hasn’t ended poverty and developed cold fusion yet, anyway? With so much to offer the world, why is it he is not walking the land, staff in hand, easing the sick and the afflicted, righteously smiting down evil, etc.? Sorry, I could spend all day mocking that guy. In fact, it looks like he might have pared it down a little. Nothing anyone said, I hope. He manages a brief one at his old site, charmingly slugged “About Me.”  For those unclear on the concept.

Ace,* masterfully walking a tightrope between marvel and mockery, admires Lance Wilson’s tour de force of the genre, suggests a coupling with Jacqueline Mackie Paisley Passey. In both of these cases, unlike that of the sockpuppet variously known as Ellers and Ellenburg, you’re left wondering whether these are in fact masterful parodies.

Then, there’s an about I read the other day that is simply a magnificent example of literary autobiography. Pat Dollard defines himself in the moment in which he was blown up, and yet lived.  If you consider than vain or boastful, then you probably have not experienced the transformative power of mortal peril. But this is not overtly about transformation, rather a real life example of one’s life flashing before one’s eyes, which in itself is a brilliant “about” device few have the experience to execute, let alone so well.

*Near as I can tell, Ace himself eschews the form. The nearest he comes to an about are his FAQ: What’s the Deal with the Cowbell and Why is the Ace of Spades Called the Death Card? Incidental, informationally abstract, casually self-referential, yet speaking volumes.

Minimalist Reynolds, recognizing that few words are necessary, limits himself to one blurb:

Making even the dumbest sh** interesting!
– Oxblog

Iowahawk upchucks enough admiring quotes to choke a Roman emperor.  But he’s got the glottis for it, and there is not a tiresome or embarrassing moment, as praise for Iowahawk comes in that sincerest form of flattery, imitation.  At least, I think those blurbs are meant to be parodies.  I’ve never met Iowahawk. He may in fact be …

 6′7″ he is, arms like mighty oak trees, legs like even mightier oak trees: clear grey eyes looking to the far horizon, his lantern jaw set against the approaching storm but yet with a slight hint of a distant smile bourne of many combats won and mortal enemies vanquished. I stood speechless in his presence at a restaurant in Marina del Rey — just speechless, weeping silently at the sheer magnetism and force of personality coming off the man in seismic waves; a transcendental, religious experience that kept me awake for a week, as if I had seen the heavens split open in a blaze of orange and purple glory, and all of God’s Great Plan revealed. And when he finally did speak, it was the sound of distant thunder echoing off ancient mountains, a sound that predates mankind’s puny schreeching — a sound that, indeed, is antecedent to the founding of Life on Earth and comes carried through the ether on the shock wave of ancient dying stars. And though he only spoke twelve words during the four hours I stood in his presence, those words are with me still, a perfect dozen seared into my memory, written in gold across the great hall of my mind. He said, ‘HEY, CAN YOU GET THIS ONE? I LEFT MY WALLET AT HOME’

It may in fact be true that …

… no shit, Iowahawk might get up tomorrow, get baked, grab his beautiful wife and ride his moped backwards to a Hells Angel rally, then drink himself into oblivion and fight about 7 crank dealers from the Racine chapter of the Death Jokers all by himself. Then maybe he’d go home, romance the beautiful wife, build a perfect retro treehouse for his perfect kids, drink a bottle of tequila, prepare a 3-course meal while beating away a push-in home invader and sacrificing him on a makeshift, though historically accurate, Inca altar he built in the woods behind the railroad tracks. Then he’d sit down and knock out a tremedously insulting Leftist parody that pissed off thread after thread of Kos and DU lunatics, romance the bride once again and fall asleep chuckling. It’s like he’s Paul Bunyan and Mark Twain rolled up into one hipster

The Dissident Frogman has one of the more graphically sophisticated abouts, streaming his blurbs at the top of his site.  The whole site is in fact an about, with a charmingly Gallic unabashed crowing and swagger about it, moderated by self-mockery that starts with the eponymity. I’m not ashamed to say I purposefully angled to get my blurb on there, adopting as a challenge the literary feat of meriting a blurb, informing Froggy of the fact, being informed he didn’t give them out lightly, and after being mocked for efforts that were insufficently creative or laudatory, finally succeeding well enough to rank fourth. I’ll add with no little pride that Sister Toldjah’s leadoff blurb was penned at this site, when both Toldjah and Froggy were part of a guestblogging houseparty here last August, and were caught batting eyes and doing the enchante thing. Toldjah herself apparently eschews the form on her redesigned site, which is too bad, because as I recall, she looked cute at her keyboard at the old one. (Froggy actually has a noteworthy formal about that lists his purpose, beliefs and desires. A novelforward-looking approach when most, myself included, seek bore with details of our own wretched pasts and presents. I like the Frogman’s desire for a massive international anniversary party, held in Texas, to celebrate the Battle of Salamis. It’s an Iran-bashing thing that celebrates the fact that we have a Greco-Roman culture and not a Farsical one.)

The magnificently literary Acute Politics describes himself as “Just another star among the growing constellation of milblogs that bring you reports of life in a warzone from the guys in the middle of it,” and because he is one of that exceedingly rare breed, a warrior-poet who is both warrior and poet, adds: 

Before now poetry has taken notice
Of wars, and what are wars but politics
Transformed from chronic to acute and bloody?
from “Build Soil”
Robert Frost

Taylor Marsh’s about has been mocked at this site before, mainly for the prominence a good deal of her right boob plays, though in fact that comes at the end of a lengthy list of cheerleading and pagaent accomplishments that predated her radio career, and all the Marsh art you’ll ever want to see.  While she is no doubt proud of all the deeds and similarly pleased with her appearance, I suspect that there is a pre-emptive quality to this about, getting it out of the way and getting it all out there before someone snidely starts making boob and cheerleader jokes.

My own about just talks about work, with maybe a slightly long string of defining issues reported on. Maritime matters? Come on. Well, there was a time there when that was pretty much all I cared about and managed to get my bosses to let me do a lot of it. Disaster and loss at sea happens with some regularity in New England, and it helps to have someone on staff who at least knows port from starboard. There are also a few critical, life-saving tricks you need to know about mid-winter boardings in the North Atlantic … ranking high on the list of most helpful life advice ever received, never be on more than one boat at a time … but what could be more pleasant than than whale-spotting with enviro-lovelies on a 45-foot ketch on Stellwagen Bank’s glassy swells in July, even if you have to listen to some earnest greybeard rattle on? I remember him looking aghast at my remark that Cape Verdian small-boat sperm-whaling techniques sounded “sporting.” Remind me to tell you someday about scuba diving on the side of Mount Washington in February. A little more about me, by the way. I’m married, with three kids, one English bulldog and two cats. I’d love to continue this examination of abouts, but the wife just leveled an evil eye and made it clear my blogging is done this Saturday morning.

Topics: blogs

  Posted by Jules Crittenden at 9:36 am on Saturday, April 19, 2008

2 Responses to “Abouts”

1. LT Nixon Says:
   April 19th, 2008 at 10:21 am

   My motivation for blogging is to take over the world. Is that pompous?

2. Fatty Bolger Says:
   April 19th, 2008 at 1:18 pm

   I’ve read Iowahawk’s About before, and it cracked me up. One of those happy little moments when you aren’t even looking for something and stumble across a gem.

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