Blogging: a folk art that ranks “somewhere between scrimshaw and tatting”

A distant second, I'd say...

Patrick Kurp‘s post over at Anecdotal Evidence is so filled with his characteristic charm that we couldn’t resist posting about his post — his 2,021st, he admits.  It’s Anecdotal Evidence‘s fifth anniversary today.

As an anniversary present, Anecdotal Evidence was named one of top 50 blogs for humanities scholars by Online Education Database.

But Patrick is not blogging for fame or glory, and is modest about his occupation:

Among the folk arts, blogging ranks somewhere between scrimshaw and tatting. Practitioners are harmless folk, furtive and deficient in social graces but trainable with patience, understanding and a firm hand. Some are gainfully employed and support families. Others remain editors and minor humorists.

Patrick appears to be a teacher — at least, he refers to teaching in some of his posts.  I actually have never met him face-to-face.  He’s one of a cyberspace network of literary bloggers.  He names a few other fellow travelers in today’s post, including humble moi.

One of the most rewarding ventures of my brief blogging life has been making a cyber-introduction between Patrick and Helen Pinkerton, a poet he has long admired, as proven by a number of his posts about her poems.  It was also an opportunity to introduce Ms. Pinkerton not only to a long fan, but to the joys of the blogosphere.  A fruitful friendship on both sides — and one which  both have thanked me for.

Patrick is one of the few bloggers with the discipline to post daily … actually, with 2,021 posts, it’s more than daily.  As he writes:

Some have been trifling. To most I lent all the seriousness a minor humorist can muster. If a day were to pass without a thought worthy of nurture, I would be a sorry writer. Arranging words in pleasing shapes, like a folk artist snipping tin for a weather vane, is what we do. As one of this blog’s tutelary spirits puts it:

“There is no use in indicting words, they are no shoddier than what they peddle. After the fiasco, the solace, the repose, I began again, to try and live, cause to live, be another, in myself, in another.”

Tags: Anecdotal Evidence, Helen Pinkerton, Patrick Kurp

This entry was posted on Saturday, February 5th, 2011 at 5:11 pm by Cynthia Haven and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.