The Big Time

Thanks to Donna, Pixels at an Exhibition now has its own show. Ahab, Generik, and I have images on display at Copy Cop, at 601 Boylston Street in Boston. If you're in the neighborhood, drop in and check it out.

This is hugely exciting for me (and, I think, for Ahab and Generik). Many, many thanks to Donna for setting this up!

More pics below the fold.
More...

Programming Note

I think we'll give the Cocktail Hour open thread a try today, around 2:00-ish Pacific Time (5:00-ish Eastern, 4:00-ish Central, 3:00-ish Mountain, and 3:45 am-ish in Kathmandu). Be there.

Anyone up for Happy Hour?

I've been thinking it would be fun to have a weekly (or so) open thread shoot-the-shit kind of thing like Melissa does every Friday at Shakesville (it's not theft, it's tribute), just talking about whatever we feel like (including politics, as long as it's friendly)¹. Given our much smaller community, of course, it would work only if a) everybody was into the idea, and b) we could come up with a time that is good for most everyone. What do y'all think? Does it sound like a good idea, and if so, what's a good time?

Update: definitely some interest out there--cool. So far, we only have one person expressing any time preference, so I'll give y'all three options: a) Saturday morning, ~8:30 am Pacific/11:30 Eastern; b) some weekday morning (probably Thursday, since we don't have anything else scheduled that day) ~8:00 am Pacific/11:00 am Eastern; or c) some weekday afternoon/evening (again, probably Thursday) ~3:00 pm Pacific/6:00 pm Eastern.


¹And besides, I have a ton of icons like this that I'm dying to use.

It Just Isn't Fun Anymore

When I started doing this I understood that the primary objective was to have fun, and if it ever stopped being fun I would give it up. Given everything that has happened over the last 14 months, it's all the more important that I heed my own advice. I really don't need the aggro.

And now, it isn't fun anymore.

Really, it stopped being fun during the Great Stupidity Pandemic of 2008, which swept through the blogosphere during the primaries. Given the most promising circumstances for Democrats in a generation, liberal bloggers rose as one and attacked...each other. People can disagree about which side was more responsible for the stupid, but surely we can all agree that it was a catastrophic failure of the liberal blogosphere as a whole. The pandemic killed a lot of things, including any illusions about the blogosphere ever being a substantial force for good, and (more importantly) any illusions about people on the same side (in a broad sense) being able to maintain collegial relations in the face of sectarian disagreements.

The election at least kept me interested. The post-election period was the coup de grace. I stupidly believed that the people who should be happiest about electing the strongest, most liberal Democrat since...well, since a lot of candidates who lost...would, in fact, be happy about it. Stupid, stupid, stupid. I should have known that liberals would do exactly what they have always done every single time anyone halfway decent gets elected to anything: band together to tear down the successful member of the tribe. I've seen it over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over in the 36 years I've been following politics, and that's exactly what they're doing yet again. It's reflex; they don't even understand they're doing it.¹

If this is what we have to look forward to for the next eight years, I won't have any part of it. This blog won't have any part of it.

I'm not quitting the blog altogether; I just need to figure out how to make it fun again. In the meantime, there will be a temporary moratorium on political posting here. (I, and I alone, reserve the right to violate my moratorium.) Temporary--until I figure out how, or if, I can enjoy it again. In the meantime, there are plenty of other things to talk about: books, music, movies, TV (another doomed series from Joss! hurray for Fox, graveyard of quality television!), and so on. I hope those of you who have read loyally over the years will stick around in the interim, although I can understand it if you don't.



¹Anyone who disagrees with this analysis is politely disinvited from commenting.

Pixels at an Exhibition

So with the election over, Generik, Ahab, and I have finally had the time to start that photo blog we started talking about several months ago. The naming process was long and arduous, involving hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of branding consultants, who led multiple rounds of focus groups, and in the end we got a name that was less lame than the other candidates. But the pictures are going to be cool, so be sure to drop by and check it out.

Three Years

Yesterday was the third blogiversary of If I Ran the Zoo. I wish I were more excited about the milestone. The last year has been spectacularly horrible for...well, several of our contributors, and it's not one I'm thrilled to commemorate in any form. I've also been doing a piss-poor job of blogging lately--I'm depressed, demotivated, and a little burnt out. I'll get back into it, I know, but right now the very thought of blogging exhausts me. So the timing is sub-optimal.

That said, I am still proud of what we've done here over the last three years. I think we have a great bunch of contributors with a great body of work, and we've built up a great little community here. So, thank you to all of the other contributors, and thank you to the people who come here regularly and give us a reason to keep on going.

Screwed by the Blogger/Site Meter Consortium

Everything is fucked up. We were lucky to be able to post almost immediately after the blog was marked as spam (a lot of people are still locked out), but yesterday afternoon another bug hit: people coming here with IEx wound up getting a 'this site cannot be opened' message. That seems to be a Site Meter problem, so I've temporarily taken the site meter out of the template--a fine short-term fix, if it works, but not workable in the long term. And meanwhile, I'm just hugely pissed off at both Blogger and Site Meter. Fuck them both sideways.

We're Number One!

In the Google search for thomas hilton mass murder.

I wonder what they were looking for.

The Angry Tirade I Never Wrote

For several days I was mentally writing a raging kiss-off to the whole fucking liberal blogosphere, a furious rant about how we could have had the power to make a real positive impact this election but instead we squandered the opportunity, embracing sectarian acrimony over any notion of the larger good, elevating trivial differences above the things that should bring us together. Now god knows I have other good reasons to be in the shittiest of shitty moods, but this--the massive, blind, stupid failure of blogtopia--was really, really pissing me off.

And I still agree with the things I would have written. But...

Yesterday I had occasion (no, not occasion as such; vanity, I suppose, as well as simply wanting some kind of comfort) to go back and read through the things people posted after our father died. So once again I was comforted by the overwhelming kindness and support from all of you. From all the folks who left comments; from Deb, who posted her own message of condolence; from Kathy, who wrote a lovely, moving tribute; from Steve M and Melissa, who invited Kathy to cross-post it; from the commenters there.

And I thought, if all that primary ugliness is the blogosphere at its worst, this is certainly the blogosphere at its best. The people who who expressed their condolences don't always agree with me, and some of those disagreements have been substantial and (occasionally) heated; but when it really mattered, they were there. This is what makes it worthwhile. This is what makes us strong; this is what makes us a community (or, I guess, communities).

So I guess I'm not giving up on blogtopia just yet. But I would ask one favor of anyone who reads this: Whenever you get into an argument with other liberals/progressives/whatever--and it looks like this thing is going on a while longer, so that seems pretty likely--think of them as people who might well try to console you if you lost a loved one, whom you would likely console if they lost someone dear to them.

Blog Review Meme

Amy tagged me with this. It's a nice meme that can get you reading new blogs you may have overlooked.

1. Once tagged, write up short review for 5 blogs that you read regularly, including the blog of the person that tagged you.

2. Leave a comment tagging the blogs you've reviewed, telling them to continue the meme.

3. If someone writes a review of your blog, you must respond by writing a review of their blog (unless you've already written one).

4. After a few days, write a post compiling what all the other bloggers say about you, good or bad, true or untrue.

And my reviews:

First Radioactive Quill, who tagged me. Amy blogs regularly but infrequently, comments on the media, loves Stephen Colbert beyond all reason, is funny and snarky, and I really like reading her. I also love the clean white blog layout, so easy on my old watery eyes. The only thing I don't like about RQ is the lack of comments. I wish she had them. Blogs are at their most fun, in my opinion, when they're interactive.

The Wild Hunt is king of the Pagan blogging hill. Jason Pitzl-Waters does a superb job of combining news about, and of interest to, Pagans, with a strong voice. He's opinionated, but he makes sure each entry reports as well as opines. He has been a gathering place for some interesting controversies, where hundreds of comments slammed a few select posts; most posts have few or no comments.

Pandora's Bazaar is a smaller and more personal Pagan blog. Cosette is thoughtful and serious. She reads and reviews books, wonders about issues of theology, discusses her explorations on the path, personalizes the transcendant, and in general is very readable.

Girls Read Comics (And They're Pissed) is more or less what it sounds like. Author Karen Healy is a feminist comics fan. I don't read a lot of comics, but I'm extremely interested in the interface between feminism and pop culture. Karen is really smart and really funny and there are pictures.

Rich Sommer: The Blog is just so cute. Rich Sommer plays Harry Crane on Mad Men, which is the best show on TV. He's not a star, and he's sweet and he has a new baby and he's kind of geeky, and the blog is mostly, new baby, lovely wife, ohmigodz my show is a hit and I'm going to the SAG Awards, some gaming, look! Baby pictures! And like that. Just sweet and charming and a pleasure to read.

(Cross-posted at Property of a Lady, which I guess at least one person reads.)

Blogging About Blogwhoring

An aside in a comment from Generik:

he said, shamelessly blogwhoring

Ha! You don't know the meaning of the word 'shameless'. I could out-shameless a dozen of you, sir!

Humboldtblue responds to Generik:

Don't sweat it Gen, it seems to be that blogwhoring is the way to go at this joint. I think Tom just likes being a blogpimp. I mean, this site comes with a fifth-wheel caddillac and everything.

This is entirely correct. (As a matter of fact, we do have a virtual fifth-wheel Cadillac here. Don't believe me? Want to see it for yourself? Just close your eyes and imagine it. There it is! It's virtual.) Anybody with a blog to whore is welcome to come here and whore it. Anybody except Atrios, that is.

Nah, I'm just kidding. Atrios can come here and whore his blog anytime he likes.

In comments, feel free to blogwhore anything directly (or, hell, indirectly) related to the topic at hand. In blogwhoring threads, feel free to blogwhore anything at all. I'll check it out; it's possible others will as well, although I can't guarantee it. But with our vast audience in the high two figures, how can you afford not to post your links here?

This, by the way, is a blogwhoring thread.

Blogroll Amnesty Day

It's very simple, really: it's all about what we want the (left) hemiblogosphere to be. It's about what we value here. As I said a year ago,

What's at stake here is the egalitarian and democratic nature of the blogosphere. If traffic and linkage are concentrated among a relatively few extremely popular blogs, then the vast majority are effectively shut out of the conversation.

And what get shut out are diverse and distinctive voices--exactly the thing I consider our strongest asset. There are very few sites I visit because they have information others don't (TPM comes to mind); I read blogs mostly for the individual voices of the bloggers there. I read them for the amused outrage (and the beer talk and river pictures) of Pygalgia, and the thoughtful commentary of Bulworth; the crazed eloquence of Randal Graves, and the analytical snark of Grace Nearing; and of course the inimitable rap stylings of Anthony Cartouche. It's thousands of blogs I haven't discovered yet.

I don't blame anyone for blogospheric consolidation; I think it's pretty much inevitable. Bloggers have the right to link to whichever and however many (or few) blogs they want to. Obviously. Smaller bloggers can't presume to tell the mega-bloggers what to do. What we can do is tend to our own gardens; we can try to make our own little patches of the blogosphere resemble our vision for the blogosphere as a whole.

Which is why I'm celebrating Blogroll Amnesty Day.

(More at Skippy and Jon Swift. If you know of any small bloggers we should be reading but aren't (including your own, of course), post links in comments.)

2,000

Just noticed that I missed a blog milestone: our 2,000th post (which happens to be this one by aimai). I never could have done it myself (being, after all, the laziest SOB in blog business); that number includes posts by Deborah, Nobody in Particular, Kvatch, Shiltone, Kathy, Deb, Ahab, Steve M (guest-posting), and now aimai. Enormous thanks to all of you for your outstanding contributions here, and for generally classing up the joint.

And of course thanks to our readers and (especially) commenters for giving us a reason to keep posting.

Update: Added links to contributors' home blogs.

Don't You Miss It...Don't You Miss It...Some of You People Just About Missed It

Lots of good stuff this morning. Just so none of it gets lost in the shuffle, here's a roundup:

• Ahab on David Brooks' latest


• Edward Hopper goes 3-D


• Steve has more on Brooks and his crumbs-off-the-table 'tax credit'


• Deborah clarifies the New Hampshire result


• My Friday Random 10


• Kathy's lovely and moving tribute to her brother


• I write about Schwarzenegger's budget

My Blogspace (even messier than Tom's)

Apparently, today is Show Us Your Blogspace Day, and even though PSoTD didn't challenge me personally, I thought it looked both fun and humiliating. Plus, I cross-post at If I Ran the Zoo, and PSoTD did challenge IIRtZ. So there.

The blog shown on my monitor is, in fact, Tom's IIRtZ post of his blogspace.



Featured in this hideous mess; my Cow Parade "Udderly Wicked" cow, a Kali figure, my James Bond Movie Poster calendar (still on November, but November is You Only Live Twice, and December is Die Another Day), a fairy, a Lego witch set, Arthur's iPod shuffle case, the camera case, a framed Playbill from The Fantasticks 25th anniversary (I also have the 35th somewhere), my Beanie Baby dogs (I have to keep them separate from the other Beanie Babies; they're troublemakers) and I dunno what all else.

(cross-posted around here somewhere)

Best Posts Ever

A couple of weeks ago I invited y'all to post links to your Best Posts Ever. I expected some great stuff, and that's what we got; here it is:

• Generik on all-American fascism: "Violence against liberals and progressives is talked about with stunning casualness, and is bound to become reality as the winger nation feels more and more frustrated that their percieved utopia is not materializing."


• Deborah on cluelessness about Teh Gay: "Nine women are suing Clay Aiken’s record label for leading them to believe he was straight....Okay, there’s just lots and lots that’s dumb about this, and frankly, my brain cells are popping like bubble wrap just trying to think it through."


• Happiness Is a Warm Gun, from Ahab: "Yet Bush, despite his best efforts to buck himself up and to dominate Iraq through ultra-violent shock and awe, remains just another many-time loser with the country."


• George's eulogy for his mother: "In general, she just wasn't an easy woman to deal with. Maybe it's some Eastern European/Slovak thing, where the glass not only is half empty, but also you can't help but fret how close it is to the edge of the table and who's going to wash the glass later, if it somehow miraculously doesn't fall off the table and break into bits that will be very hard to clean up on the floor I just scrubbed as usual on Wednesday morning?"


• S. W. Anderson on Kennedy and admitting mistakes: "That’s presidential leadership of the highest caliber, quickly and naturally forthcoming when the going is toughest, when it’s clear there will be no happy ending."


• Mr. Gumby2U's tribute to Marla Ruzicka: "Marla proved that one person’s life can make a profound difference in the world. Because of Marla’s example, none of us can complacently avoid engaging the injustices we see."

Check 'em out; they're all good reading. If you have any more to add, post yours in comments.

It Was the Best of Blogs, It Was the Worst of Blogs

One of the things I find most annoying about blogtopia is the pervasive blognesia--the tendency for anything older than a couple of weeks to be completely forgotten. In the blogosphere, the basic attitude is "what have you done for me lately?"

So despite the faint air of grandpa-sitting-on-the-porch-reminiscing-about-the-Civil-War, I am enjoying the trips assorted blogs are taking down memory lane to find the Best and Worst Posts Ever. It's worth checking out Kevin Drum (on the worst), Balloon Juice (best and worst, the latter with a particularly entertaining comment thread), Lawyers, Guns, and Money (mostly best), and probably several others.

That's what the Cool Kids are doing. We, of course, are hopelessly Uncool, so let's do something a little different. I'm inviting all of you to post a link to your own Best Post Ever. One link per customer; no limit ations (size, ideological, or other) on who can post a link. Hell, even TIDOS Yankee, who banned me from his own comment section, is welcome to post a link. Here's your chance to rescue your own best stuff from obscurity...if only for a moment, and only at a Z-list blog with literally several readers.

Don't have a blog? Well, then, just post a link to your Best Comment Ever. Have you been lurking without ever posting a comment anywhere? Then any comment you leave here would become your Best Comment Ever. In other words, everyone is welcome to play. I'm looking forward to some great stuff.

(And, since you as, here are two that I consider among the Top Five Posts Ever: Belle Waring's If Wishes Were Horses, Then Beggars Would Ride...a Pony!; and Kung Fu Monkey's Crazification Factor. Go read.)

Two Years

Two years ago today I revived the blog I had begun and swiftly abandoned more than a year before. My immediate motivation was to score free tickets to a pre-screening of Serenity; in that, at least, I was successful. Of such humble beginnings are humble things born.

Anyway, I kept at it even after writing the review that was the quid pro quo for my free tickets, and swiftly grew addicted to This Business We Call Blog. I managed to wangle more contributors over time, and eventually If I Ran the Zoo became what it is today: the A-team of the Z-list.

Many thanks to anyone who ever linked to us, anyone who ever visited, and anyone who ever left a comment (even the few Republicans). Y'all are what makes this blog a living thing.

Consider this the official blogiversary de-lurking thread; if you've been visiting but have been too shy to comment, now's the perfect time to show yourself. I will also direct your attention to the Frappr link on the sidebar, where you can add yourself to a map showing locations of our readers. Last time I made the Frappr pitch was a year ago, so I'm fairly certain we have some new readers since then.

And if this is your first visit to IIRTZ, take a look around; we have some great stuff here, and I think you'll enjoy it.

Self-Blogdulgent Meta-Whinging

We have our two year blogiversary coming up in a few days; meanwhile, traffic here has dropped drastically in the last month or two. I find that juxtaposition very dispiriting. Yes, it's shallow and vain to worry about hit counts, but let's face it: we write to be read; if people aren't reading...what's the point?

The trend seems to be widespread; other bloggers have mentioned it, and Norbizness appears to be packing it in as a result. Which suggests an even more depressing prospect: the end of the individual/small group blog. As traffic is concentrating in a few super-blogs and blog communities, the highly individual voices who made the blogosphere interesting in the first place are getting frozen out.

Don't get me wrong--I got nothing against community. I love community; it's being part of one I can't stand.

Anyway, I'm very proud of this place; I think we've put out a damn fine body of work over time, and (thanks to the contributions of the other regulars who have come on board) I think it's never been better than it is right now. Which makes the fact of having to claw and scratch and fight and still get fewer hits that much more depressing.

I'm sorry, folks--there's no cheerful ending here. I'm in a crappy mood for a lot of other (meatspace) reasons, and Norbizness' departure certainly colors my view of the state of the blogosphere, so take this current black mood with a grain of salt...but there it is.

But as I said, I do think we have a damn good blog here. If you agree, maybe you could spread the word--tell a friend, e-mail a post, drop a link in a comment thread. And if you have a blog you think deserves more attention, leave a comment and I'll check it out. It's not much, but it's something.

Update: Just so it's clear--despite my lousy mood, I do really appreciate the people who do visit (especially if you comment!) and the very generous people who have linked to us and otherwise helped us out.

Kosamageddon: Year Two

Reading about Kos Academy 2: The Conventioning got me curious enough to go back and take a look at what I wrote last year. The post is a little more dyspeptic than I think is ideal, but it does have a bit I think is still worth consideration:

From my perspective, this is just another wave of grassroots organizing--one more of the dozens I've seen in my 137 years on this planet. All have shared the belief that this time was different, that they were the people who would change everything. A few have been effective (the civil rights movement); the overwhelming majority have not....

The truth is, I'm just not convinced of the inherent superiority of grassroots politics. Yes, it has achieved some tremendous things. So has insider politics (the New Deal; the Great Society). A lot of bloggers are launching very astute critiques of a far too timid Democratic leadership. A lot of bloggers are urging the Democrats to one course or another that in the real world would be catastrophic folly. On some issues the Democratic leadership would do well to listen to the blogosphere, and on others I dearly hope they have the good sense to ignore us. The fact that the political insiders are making a lot of mistakes does not mean that political outsiders are necessarily right.

I think the bloggers are absolutely right about (for example) the FISA bill (seriously, now: who thinks it's okay to grant additional unchecked arbitrary powers to an Attorney General who is himself on the verge of a criminal investigation? Anybody?); on impeachment, my views are more in sympathy with the congressional leadership. People who attain a certain level of power tend to develop a whole set of biases to go along with it. People who have the luxury of not having to govern tend to have a whole different set of biases.

Maybe bloggers will change the world; probably not. In any case, we're a medium like any other, and like any informational medium should be read with maximum skepticism at all times--even when you instinctively agree with what we say. Especially when you instinctively agree.