Ambiance

OK, I signed up at WordPress.  You can have 35 users for free -- I think that will amply cover us in terms of people who might actually want to post from time to time.

Ambiance

There's nothing there yet, and the template (ugh) is just a placeholder.  I have a . . . what do you call it?  subtitle?  epigraph?  in mind.

A couple of questions.

Would someone like to be a co-admin and design the damn thing?  You can do custom CSS over there, but I don't have time to learn it.

How do people feel about white-on-black?  It's a no-no, right?  Just looking for that introspective nightime-café, under-a-rock feeling (overexposed to political daylight), but there must be a better way.

You could post, or just comment, or both as the mood strikes.  The only annoying thing is that if you want to post you have to become a WordPress user, but there's nothing to that.  As for those who might consider posting:

• pointer posts will be welcome, including to your own blog
• cross-posts will be fine
• very brief posts, no problem

The idea is just to start something.  Or even just to put an observation out there to contemplate.  A mood will develop, and shift.

A place to meet a little more intimate and with a longer attention span than Twitter, which is like square-dancing in Grand Central Station.  Gimme shelter.

Comments

[Rod]

Hello Amba:

It seemed to me your blogging was in part a response to isolation, and withdrawal would leave you less connected. So, as long as you can't stop scanning these pages, please answer a question for me.

What is the appeal of twitter? I haven't really explored it, but from what I have seen, it looks like a conversation with everyone talking at once - a decay of thoughtful communication. What am I missing?

[amba]

Hi, Rod! :)

I keep coming up with metaphors for Twitter. The current one in my mind is the trading foor at the NYSE or the Chicago commodities pit. A crowd of people, jostling and shouting (or whispering) for attention.

But there are lots of others. It really is like being with a gang of your pals in Grand Central Station, bantering with each other over the din and overhearing bits of other conversations. It's an unshielded space where all the streams of the world may touch, and something you say might get carried to Coromandel on a current. The appeal may be a sort of agora/marketplace/tribal feeling of doing your daily tasks elbow to elbow with a lot of casual company, but it's an unbounded, webby, global agora. It accelerates that feeling that you could meet anyone from anywhere on the globe and anything could happen. It's a lot less bounded than blogs are. I suppose that how far and wide something you say may travel (bringing who-knows-what, or nothing, back to you) depends partly on chance, partly on how "sticky" it is.

So it's partly a casual, public way of staying touch with your friends -- sort of instant postcards -- and at the same time, it's open to the whole world in an unknown but adventurous way.

I think the limit of 140 characters can also be more appealing than frustrating. A large percentage of what there is to say can actually be said in that space, or at least it's a challenge to try!

So it is what it is. It doesn't replace other things and it obviously has severe limitations and annoyances. But I think it's the combination of intimacy and openness -- binding the known closer while being open to the unknown -- that may be the attraction. And like so many things that work for us nowadays, it sort of harks back to tribal life at the same time as it lets the globe in.

[Ron]

I signed up over there Amba! If I could build websites, I'd help you...

[amba]

Oh, goody! So now, it may take me a few days to get it sorted out 'cuz I'm juggling about five lives . . .

[amba]

If you want to be a contributor at will, join WordPress (takes about 30 seconds) as a user and e-mail me what e-mail address you're using. It shall be done.

[amba]

Also: WordPress requires moderation of your first comment only. After that, you can post comments without delay.

[Donna B.]

YAY!!

For me, twitter was like being at a large party where you had the opportunity for only fleeting exchanges with everyone, and nothing in depth with anyone.

Those parties can be fun, but they are also exhausting, best loved as memories of someone falling on the dance floor or wearing an outrageous outfit.

[Rod]

It looks like blogs and email are my preferred mediums (media?) When I go to a large party, I usually end up in extended earnest conversations with a few folks, instead of really mixing. For the rest, it is hard to get by superficiality.

[Ron]

Rod, I actively encourage the spirit of superficiality! It's jolting to be taken out of your comfort zone and forced to wing it!

Steady lifestyle of this? No!

But occasional folly? Absolutely!

[Theo Boehm]

Sounds like a great idea.

I've commented hardly at all here, but read you every day, and have been frequently tempted to say something. Your idea for a group-ish blog where you could post or comment at your fancy is fantastic, and would encourage people like me to jump in more with both.

Sorry to say I'm totally useless when it comes to blog design. HTML is puzzling, and CSS a sublime mystery, but, like Ron, I'd help if I knew anything about it.

Anyway, I'll mosey over there and sign up.

[Ruth Anne]

Why not, in the spirit of ambivalence, shades of gray??

[Ron]

Maybe backgrounds that look like Rothko paintings...

[Donna B.]

I've found that there are limited design options in wordpress hosting - you can choose any of the ready-made designs they offer and change some of the CSS, but you can't touch the html.

If the designer didn't put an element in, there's no CSS to change!

[Callimachus]

I happen to have a Wordpress account. But if you've ever seen any blog I put together, design isn't on my radar.

[karen]

Happy Birthday, amba.

IIRC:0)!!!!!!!!!!!!

[amba]

Yes!! Thank you.

[Ron]

Yow! Happy birthday from myself, also, Amba!! 37, right?

[Theo Boehm]

Happy Birthday!

[amba]

Merci milles fois!

[Danny]

I will read your new site but I'm still mourning this one. And I still have a pathological fear of Twitter, I can't bring myself to go near it. On the other hand, I am a frequent Facebook user and that's getting more like Twitter by the minute. Are blogs really dead? I can't let go of mine. I'm too much of a narcissist and as a writer/editor for hire, I still want to have a place where I can drone on endlessly about subjects of my choice--even if no one reads it!

[Donna B.]

Happy Birthday to you!

[amba]

My new name for Twitter is Blither.

Thank you, Donna!

[Rod]

I have posted at Ambiance, or at least my attempted post has vanished into the maw of a giant wordpress.

[amba]

Yikes! I'll tear myself away from Cenozoic paleontolody and go see.

[RW Rogers]

Oops, late to the party as usual I see. Belated Happy Birthday!

[RW Rogers]

Twitter & micro-blogging is yesterday's fad. Nano-blogging on Flutter is the next big thing.

Flap Flap Flap

[amba]

Here's the link. That's hilarious.

[Melinda]

LOL! You know what that reminds me of?

The SNL sketch on "The Decibet"

"And finally, the so-called "trash letters", or P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, and Z, will be condensed to this easily recognizable dark character."