Parenthetical.net

I have a love-hate relationship with the New York Times Style section. Their articles seem to come in two forms: “Hey, two of my friends tip cows ironically / wear elaborately carved and shellacked pumpkins on their heads / eat nothing but mangos! It must be a trend!” or “People have been doing x for years/decades/centuries, but a small subsection of rich white New Yorkers just started doing it, so now it’s a trend.”

Haste, Scorned: Blogging at a Snail’s Pace is of the second variety. Check out the first paragraph, which sounds like a parody of Stuff White People Like:

When Barbara Ganley wants to collect her thoughts, she walks in the Vermont countryside, wanders home and blogs about it. In a recent post, she wrote about the icy impressions left in the snow by sleeping deer. In another, she said she wanted to commute by bicycle and do more composting.

Sure, who doesn’t? But mostly there’s the fact that, as my fellow graphic novels panelist Gail put it on her blog Original Content, “haven’t people been maintaining personal blogs under those kinds of conditions [occasional longer posts, rather than frequent quick ones] right along? Is there really any new movement here?”

To which I reply, “since 1999, baby!” Long, rambly posts about my life… limited readership… and I’ve often gone many months without posting anything at all. If that’s not slow, I don’t know what is. Hey, NYTimes! I’m trendy!

(All of which is possibly just a roundabout way of saying that I’m behind on my reviews again. Sigh.)