I am whatever beast inhabits me.
–Charles Simic, “Sleep”
Well, as you may have heard, Charles Simic was just selected as the next Poet Laureate of the U.S. I attended a Simic reading two years ago and blogged about it here. (And despite the jesting tone of the piece, I really did enjoy it thoroughly.)
Three blog posts from the last three days (August 1-3) struck me as more than a little Simician, if that’s a word. Each concerns a possible revelation, treated with bermused skepticism. Together, they gave me the push I needed to resume my links blog, Smorgasblog (see topbar link, or sidebar of home page). I’m keeping my fingers crossed that our tenuous DSL connection holds.
Had anyone grown fond of the automatically generated list of post titles from my blogroll feed? I’m wary of letting the sidebar get too long, but I can put that back in if people were using it.
Dave, Because I put your blogroll feed on my Google Reader about a month ago, I don’t mind if you take it off of your site. I do like your broad taste in good blogs, so I hope you’ll have no need to eliminate the feed itself!
Oh no – I’m using it myself, now, in preference to clicking each blog feed separately in Google Reader. Thanks for the feedback. As you know, I used to think about making a regular planet blog for everyone I read, but was stopped because: a) I didn’t have the coding skills; b) it would be a hassle to get permission from everybody included; and c) it would probably arouse bad feelings from those whose blogs weren’t included. So I was happy when I found that Google Reader could generate something similar automatically. Of course, for those wishing to imitate Smorgasblog and include only selected blog posts, GR can do that too; it simply can’t do excerpts.