David Thompson; Real Blogger

Blogging is a compulsive, almost addictive thing. In the same way that for an alcoholic the next drink is always the one that will make the world a perfect place, to a blogger it is the next post that will set the blogosphere alight and provide that sense of having written something that justifies all the work (not to mention the narcisism).

Blogging also becomes highly competitive. You see that other blogs have more traffic, more comments, more backtracks and even get noticed in the real world and you wonder about the cause of the injustice. Then you compare your writing to theirs and you begin to understand, possibly.

David Thompson's blog is what this one wants to be when it grows up. Magnificent images (passim), putting my little snaps to shame. Fine writing, taking apart the ignorant, empty pronouncements of the idiots who run too much of the academic world, as opposed to my meandering rants (try this, this and especially this). Showing up in all its naked pomposity the worthless, infantile, self-absorbed junk vomited out by so many of our supposed artists (try this one, or this one). Denouncing the very real consequences of political ideas still fiercely defended on theoretical grounds by the willfully perverse, stupid or evil, and doing so in a way that might even get him listened to by those responsible for those evils.

So while I work on making this a little better, I shall be reading David Thompson every day, and I suggest you do the same.