Reverb

Apparently, it’s common for a blog to go through a “crisis.” Often, it has to do with uncertainty of audience. The art blog Anaba, written by Martin Bromirski, had one last June. Bromirski described his longing for a “motivation transfusion”:

Sometimes I get kind of blah about this blog.... like... what is the point, who cares, nobody comments anyway, artists are not taking control, this is too much effort on my part, i want to focus on PARKOUR now, etc. . . .

Plus, and related, someone mentioning something negative about blogs appearing self-promoting.... aargh, that bothers me. I am ALL FOR artists promoting their work, in whatever way they best know how... whether that means moving to NYC and networking, or putting your shit on a blog.... just hate the hangups and hypocrisy people have about it, acting blase... the stealth shit. SORRY, I am not trying to be confrontational.

A couple of Bromirski’s friends wrote in: “Martin. Screw it. Just do it.” “Think of all the new friends you've made, Martin.” The crisis passed.

My contribution to the crisis genre, which at least provides some comic relief, seems to be my continued perplexity at having readers. It may be that the goals and questions phrased at the outset could have been better pursued in anonymity. Writing to people you know, social obligations hover. To a group at UC Irvine, I’d find it strange never to mention common experiences and problems, institutional issues, people we know, and the like, and stranger still never to use direct address, never to say “you” or “we.” Yet I wouldn’t want to duplicate or intensify here the exchanges I already have—to do that, there’s no need to write. This conflict, if that’s the right word, hasn’t resolved itself; I don’t resolve it, I set it aside. Meanwhile, it rained, the garden got wet, the cultural offerings contracted, my mother got no better, the work got denser, my hard drive expired. A friend with glaucoma and an active but largely invisible inner life identified with the protagonist in The Diving Bell and the Butterfly--“There aren’t many films about people who live out of one eye”--and decided to have a baby with a co-worker. It’s like a post-Symbolist poem, "Spleen" V or VI or VII or "2,000 Light Years From Home." These are the cypress trees in our yard, these pages are from this postmark.