Crazy Stable

  I can't imagine anyone who self-identifies as a blogger not having a strong reaction to the endless New York Times Magazine ramble by one Emily Gould, who is apparently a Well-Known Blogger (of whom  I've never heard until today, since I've never looked at "Gawker.com").  In a nutshell, Ms. Gould has spent her journalistic youth in a snarky self-created fishbowl, and now regrets her more disastrous Internet overshares (except for this one last time when she'll tell us all about them in gruesome detail). The online readers' comments on the piece are predictable and devastating, of the "Why would the Times give 10 pages to this narcissistic drivel?" variety, with a Paul Lyndian "Kids Today!" harrumph factor.

Ms. Gould and her post-adolescent agonies are of secondary interest to me; what would be a shame would be if her angst were mistaken for "typical blogging." As someone pointed out at the recent Brooklyn Blogfest, the term "blog" has expanded so wildly that it is now no more informative than the word "book." The political screed-howlers and the Who-I-Boinked gossip girls apparently pull in the big numbers (filling, therefore, some demand, even if it's only for cubicle time-sucking, I guess).  But the world of online journaling is as vast as...the world itself. Many of the Times commenters sternly advised Ms. Gould to do something worthwhile with her copious free time, to "get a life" (building latrines in Guatamala was recommended). In doing so, they betrayed an earnest innocence of the staggering amount of work, prayer, art, activism, exploration, learning, and fellowship that already takes place in the blogosphere, once one gets out of the tawdry front window of sex and politics.  One could argue that Ms. Gould could save the world more efficiently by staying in her symbolic pajamas and blogging about Guatamalan latrine-building, thus knitting together through the mystery of Google every latrine-construction wonk and Guatamalan do-gooder on the planet into a force for good.

Of course, the real question raised for those of us who blog is: Why am I doing this, and am I a solipsistic oversharing ninny, too? I've given it plenty of thought, actually. Both my blogs began as ways to write for pleasure, to get back the joy of writing about what I love instead of what I'm paid to promote. (Even if that happens to be New and Effective Pharmacological Options for a Serious Medical Condition; Ask Your Doctor for More Information!) I've set myself some basic limits on how far family and friends are involved or identified, on what kind of language I'll use, on how personal I'll get; occasionally I bend those rules. In choosing topics, I usually opt for personal delight over readership stats, although I recognized Ms. Gould's crackhead-like response to a spike in readers just as Frodo recognized a bit of himself in Gollum, slavering for the Precious.

I've come to the conclusion that "blogging" is at heart about two things: our passions, and our longing to share them (which is to say, our dire craving for human connectedness). If my governing passion is my ego, then a blog about myself will be an extension of that self: vulnerable, narcissistic, and ultimately empty and sad. But so many people are sharing so many other passions--and not just the infinite sexual permutations that define the Internet's mucky bottomlands.  It would be a shame if Ms. Gould were seen, especially by the Times' cautious old-media types, as the Ur-Blogger, wallowing in pointless self-exposure.

In the few years I've been noodling around  the blogosphere, I've been gobsmacked at how many ways passion and connectedness can combine to make a better world. There are bloggers out there (funny, wildly readable, deeply moving) who are creating virtual communities for every rare disease and devastating disability known to man. There are photographers documenting secret gardens and public places in ways no one's ever seen before. Skills that once were esoteric and daunting--from cycling to knitting, from manuscript illumination to coding HTML--are now vast open workshops filled with eager neophytes and seasoned mentors in fluid, endless communication. Weasels are being exposed, flim-flammers outed. There is also endless silliness--I lost count at 50 when I tried to enumerate the Web's pug-dog blogs--but sometimes, silliness is what's needed.

And there are house blogs, where people who struggle with creaky old homes can trade stories, find sympathy, and get tips on grouting. I understand there is even a blog where some gal in Brooklyn brings you along every day to Prospect Park and shows you something marvelous. If in the course of reading my stuff, you find me, myself, and I appalling or fascinating, my Gollum-ego will, I admit, throb with some pixellated satisfaction. At some level, we're all "attention whores." But I can't imagine a blog that was All About Me any more than I would fancy a life that was All About Me.  There are so many more intriguing things to blog about, and to live for.

I will give the last word to George Bernard Shaw, who would have made one mad mother of all bloggers, baby:

This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being a force of nature instead of a feverish, selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy.

I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community, and as long as I live it is my privilege to do for it whatever I can.

I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work the more I live. I rejoice in life for its own sake. Life is no "brief candle" for me. It is a sort of splendid torch which I have got hold of for the moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations.

--Preface, Man and Superman    

Illustration: Edward Gorey 

...that is, if you tune into NBC on Wednesday, May 14, for Law & Order at 10 p.m. (9 o'clock central time). "Our" episode, filmed here a few short weeks ago, will be on; it's called "Personae Non Grata" and in it, "the detectives struggle to solve a case with twists and turns involving an online murder mystery." Our main stairway and kitchen are the ones in which the character "Carl" is interviewed about a victim.  No, we do not keep messy food products and newspapers all over our antique hutch and baker's rack; that was the set dressers' idea.  (We keep dusty cookbooks, baskets, and china stuff on them.) Although the scene is supposed to take place in some upstate exurban location, you, the readers of CrazyStable, can point and say, "Hey! That's Flatbush!" (Well, that's what we'll be doing--perhaps while wearing our cool L&O t-shirts and hats, sent to us by the gracious NBC swagmeisters as extra thanks for our hospitality).

Sneaky Spouse: On the day before Mother's Day, he scored me one of these gorgeous little square ginkgo votive glass thingies at the Bklyn Designs fair in DUMBO. It was just about the one thing amongst their sometimes too-quirky and too-designey offerings that I would have picked out for myself (that and the goody from Jacques Torres chocolate). Happy lucky mom and Stablemistress (who loves ginkgo leaves as one of nature's great designs, as does designer Aviva Stanoff). We lit a candle inside the votive on our kitchen table and it
glowed and glimmered.

 I am glad Spouse was not taken instead by these designey lamps from Site-Specific Design. They reminded me of Bestfriend's  warning: "There's a thin line between an outfit and a get-up." This is the lamp version of that maxim. Besides, it reminds me too much of some things that have emerged in the basement during heat waves and sewer clean-outs. Curiously, these lamps are part of a collection dubbed "Childhood Memories" by designer Rui Docouto.  Good luck with the therapy, fella!

It's spring, really spring, when it's time for my annual Woodstock experience: the members' preview of the Brooklyn Botanic Garden plant sale. Every year, perennial-crazed garden wonks mob the gates before opening, with the well-equipped already toting conveyances and the hapless, like me, struggling to score a red wagon for our purchases. This year was as bad as ever, although the crowds waiting to pour into the Cherry Esplanade were orderly.

Why wouldn't we be, when we had to wait amid the Japanese peonies? This display gets more fantastical every spring; the tree peonies in a rainbow of shocking colors are starting to look more like anime flowers than real ones. 

This year, I was oddly Zen about my purchases; I just wandered around one area and picked some stuff I liked, instead of fretting over plans for "winter interest," "succession of bloom," and other garden-magazine goals that I never achieve anyway. I craved a new variety of non-invasive bamboo, but it was $57 a pot; for that price, it should invade Iraq. I got cheaper bamboo, in the hopes it would invade the "back 40," where nothing grows anyway. Got my tomato and eggplant babies, although I have nowhere to plant them (their bed was annexed by raspberry bushes). In a triumph of hope over experience, I scored two delphiniums. And after years of yearning, I fell off the sustainable-rose wagon and bought another hybrid tea: Fragrant Cloud (oh, it is).

But really, it was all about slogging through the checkout and getting to the lilacs. The Child patiently accompanied me on this religious pilgrimage; I think she may be a convert.  First, we decide which one to sniff first. Then we sniff lots more. We remark on the subtle variations in perfume. We nuzzle the clusters, remark on how edible they seem, like buttercream frosting. We take our glasses off to look at the individual flowerets. And finally, Child looks out for a guard while I lie on the grass underneath a bush and look up at the sky, completely filled with lilacs.  Reassured of the existence of God, we go home, dragging our wagon full of hope.

 But not before greedily sniffing the apple blossoms in the last rays of sun.

The century-long saga of the CrazyStable Electrical Service continued yesterday...but did it conclude?

To recap, here is a quick history of our troubled relationship with Mr. Edison's excellent utility:

1910 or so: CrazyStable is built.  It is piped for both gas and electrical lighting, in case this whole newfangled electricity business doesn't catch on. Inside, the wiring is insulated with cloth and laid alongside the gas pipes to the lighting fixtures; between the house and the street main, it is insulated in lead ("lead sack") and buried in a pipe.

1986: Gullible and delusional young couple buy ruins of CrazyStable. Sensing danger from 70-year-old original wiring, they hire affordable "electricians" to rewire it with updated service. However, "electricians" never have job approved by Con Ed, claiming this is not necessary. 

1990s: Chronically overwhelmed homeowners learn that "electricians"  hooked up new service to original "service" from street main. Otherwise, job was not badly done ( if you don't count swags of exposed BX cable hanging in basement, above, along with butchery of plaster walls in every room). That's why they didn't need an inspection. Lights occasionally flicker, but go for years without event.

February, 2008: Explosion rocks CrazyStable; fire shoots out of manhole cover in front of house. We lose power, are given temporary "jumper service" through a scary wire swagged across the street from a lamp-post, and are told we must abate the chunks of asbestos pipe sleeve near the service box before the gentlemen of Consolidated Edison will enter our basement to "pull through" new service.

April, 2008: After interviewing several raving lunatics, we find a competent asbestos abatement contractor who removes the pipesleeves, HEPA-vac's the floor, and paints over the offending areas with white goo.  We fax air-testing reports back and forth, and Con Ed inspects the job and declares it to be good. Supervisor Guy informs us that we will get,  on Con Ed's tab, "all new service" from the street; hopefully this will not require opening street to replace damaged pipe. Manhole-sucking truck arrives to noisily suck out manholes for the second time.

Yesterday:  Crew arrives. They finish the job with surprising speed and deliver the good news that the pipe was fine, they just hooked up our inside service to the existing wire at both ends. What, I say, to the "lead sack"? Weren't we supposed to get "all new service"? The supervisor guys had implied that the ancient service between house and street was part of the problem.

ALERT: UNCHARACTERISTIC FEMINIST RANT AHEAD

Ah. Now comes the interesting part of my cordial dealings with the friendly Con Ed crew: the part where the woman uses complex sentence structure, logic, and curiosity. I explain perkily that I am not challenging their nice job, no no, but I am interested in the inconsistency between what Supervisor Guy said and what they report just having done.  The Con Ed guys' eyes glaze over and shift uneasily. Somebody makes a cell phone call, whose content is never disclosed. I ask again; I am told the lead sack "could last another hundred years."

And then I realize: The fellows are talking to someone else. 

You see, this is me, in the basement with the Con Ed guys, talking "lead sack."

And this is who the Con Ed guys think they're talking to; why is she down here, and why does she care?  

Will the ancient wires keep our lights on and our computer and fridge running for another hundred years? Stay tuned.