Dear Reader,
Yes, I agree with ak this is not a private conversation.
The weblog has been going now for nearly three months and both of us, the co-authors (ak) and (mmj), are taking a moment to stand back and take stock. What is the weblog ABOUT?
Meeting places. Try meeting places as an answer to the question; the walking… on foot, the writing… with pen and ink or whatever comes to hand, about who or what we meet, our purpose being to uncover meeting places.
Beginning weblog working; – " as a glimpse of something incognito. Both words are important. Incognito means ‘unrecognised, hidden, unknown’. Something means not nothing. What is incognito hides from us because it has something worth hiding, or so we judge". (Anne Carson, Every Exit is an Entrance [A Praise of Sleep], an Essay in Decreation, Johnathon Cape, 2006). That would describe it perfectly. When we began and as we continue we did not know who or what we were going to meet… accross the table, or on the frontier between two sovereign states.
So we like weblog working, the Open Source aspect, the walking as it were "on the public road". We think it suits our style. Some things to add that I hope give further clarity:
- We are not travelling alone! Weblog publishing is instant so that you, ‘Dear Reader’, are constantly with us.
- We try to recognise and record others who are or have travelled a similar way – (for example, Anne Carson, as quoted above) – and include them in our weblog category ‘Writers and Books to travel with…’ .
- We are not making it up! About who or what we meet – we post photographs when we can – our travel is real. The meeting places happen, are real events.
- We record events as they take place – in Notebooks – as best we can. The weblogs that follow are selections – and selective – a literary process for the purpose of giving focus; stories, essays (slants on things), and poems.
And the pilgrimage word as ak said in his latest post. This October ak and mmj went walkingtalkingwriting by train – don’t always take the walking literally! – from London to Istanbul; stories to tell and several meeting places later, and the crossing of several external and internal frontiers and boundaries on the way; but always an end in view, something incognito – walkingtalkingwriting is not haphazard – in this instance:
Aya Sofya – The Church of Holy Wisdom
‘was one of our meeting places this autumn, ak and mmj travelled there in October, inevitably being drawn, like moths, to Haghia Sophia …
“… Justinian says, running into his just-completed Sophia,
HO SOLOMON, I HAVE SURPASSED THEE.”
“… But Istanbul is more entertaining & Sophia is inexpressibly religious and vast.”
“… at least for me, … Sancta Sophia is more a "Buddhist" temple. More presence in the void. Maybe because of that great empty dome.”
(from various letters by Gary Syder, the Gary Snyder Reader)
… as told by ak in his post dated 17 November 2006.’
mmj