Tobias Harris does
a supercalifrajilistic job of explaining the ramifications of yesterday's House of Representatives vote on the road construction bill.
Nihon Cassandra drinks of the bitter cup and expounds upon
the TCI/J-Power ruckus and
vermicious Steel Partners extortion play. We mere mortals are properly edified.
Anna Kitanaka wonders how "Japan"
can want stuff.
David Daniel Morales, writing about the short stories of Murakami Haruki over at
Néojaponisme, entirely fails to grasp the concept of "you should get this into print" -- with his on-line readers
reaping the benefits.
Later - M.A.R.X.Y. quite rightly asks in comments me what the hell I am saying.
I don't understand what you are saying about the Murakami piece.
ReplyDeleteM.A.R.X.Y.
M.A.R.X.Y.:
ReplyDeleteThank you for asking. My comment could be interpreted as a slight.
My intention in looking with a cocked eyebrow at the long Morales article is honorable. Over the past few months, I have grown concerned at the number of talented writers who have stopped writing for the Web.
A difficulty some writers have had is finding the necessary balance between the hours spent producing online material and other, more remunerative pursuits.
I solve the dilemma by keeping my writing frivolous and outside the borders of my day job. You solve the dilemma by producing professional quality pieces for clast and J@apan.Inc.--and by being the seeming ringmaster of Néojaponisme (please feel free to smack me down if I am wrong).
The Morales piece represents a considerable amount of academic, dead-tree article level thought work...the kind of work one should, if one does not want to get frustrated about writing for the Web, have lined up for publication in a dead tree version.
To reiterate, my worry is that good people will cease publishing interesting material online--naught else.
Okay, that cleared it up. I thought it was a slight, but an intriguing one. And Neojaponisme needs slights so we can figure out how to improve ourselves.
ReplyDeleteThe secret to Daniel's piece is that... it's basically his senior thesis. That makes all that footnoting easier when they're already sitting around.
Marxy
First of all, Marxy is right - my name is Daniel. David is my brother.
ReplyDeleteSecond of all, Neojaponisme always looks fantastic. They made a great graphic for it, and Marxy and Matt really helped me fix the piece. It was a bit disorganized before.
Personally, I'd rather it go there next to heaps of other interesting stuff about Japan (that also looks really fuggin good) than somewhere else just because it's paper.
I took it as a compliment, though, so no worries. Domodomo.