Blogly

Today I got nuttin' - maybe some other extant bloggers have sumtin':




Kn@ppster - King of all Polemic
5th July post on Hillary caught my attention.

Tom Clark Blog
Just scroll down the photographs - always something of interest or delight.

Sentence first - an Irishman's blog about the English language.
Speaks for itself! Lots to pick at, if you enjoy words and stringing 'em together.

DARKBLACK - Steaks from sacred cows, cheap.
More and more fun with The Donald - scrolling down.

Blogging - Astro and Otherwise.

While searching for something else I came across this piece, The Blogosphere 2.0 written in mid-2009, discussing the way the blogosphere has evolved during the last decade or so. The piece refers mainly to blogs several levels of "ooomph" above my own; the basic points put forward should hold good for any blogger at any level though. Updates were added and, along with comments are all interesting and worth investigation.

I've noticed a distinct change in bloggery out in the wider blog-world, but this hasn't affected astrology bloggers quite as much, which is good. As is mentioned in the linked piece or comments, niche areas seem to be where independent blogging survives best. Astrology is nothing if not "niche"! As my own view of astrology isn't always in line with others, I'm a bit of a niche within a niche, I guess.

Learning Curve on the Ecliptic receives many more hits/visits than I'd expect, often just over or under 1000 per day, but a good percentage of these is accounted for by hits on illustrations or archived posts, rather than on what appears on the current page. If anything I've posted in the past assists anybody out there in their studies or interests, then it's all good! I'll continue to write about aspects of astrology as I see it until I run out of steam. In order to conserve what steam there is available, there might well be some slowing down from time to time.

I don't read as many blogs these days, and I guess other people could be following the same pattern. As a break from astrological matters, to "clear the palate" as it were, I do still like to trawl through a scant handful of the type of blogs I think of as "hit-and-runners", where no great concentration is needed - just a quick look, a chuckle or a hmmmm! or ahhhhh!... and away again....these for example. A couple of them are rather clever marketing ploys (I suspect), but as long as they offer interest or humour - fine!

http://catalogliving.net/
Quirky bite-sized fun takes on catalogue photography/home decor. (Thanks to Wisewebwoman for having pointed me towards this one).


http://nerdboyfriend.com/
I don't know why I find this fascinating, but I do. They take an old photgraph of a movie star/celebrity (male) then find current versions of the exact clothing he's wearing, and where to obtain it today, linking to relevant websites.....just in case some bright spark wants to ape that vintage "certain style".

http://www.sexypeople-blog.com/
Another "hit-and-runner" - no long blocks of text to wade through, just pics. In this case photographic portraits from past decades. I enjoy the facility available via links in the sidebar to view the portraits in groups/categories: by nationality, or by relationship, siblings, styles, hair-dos, etc. etc.


http://www.thesartorialist.blogspot.com/
I've mentioned this one before. It's the blog of a professional photographer, who shoots real-life fashion as he comes across it in the streets of various cities, on his travels throughout the world.

http://theoasisofmysoul.com/
More to read on this one. Travel by motorctycle in the USA, gorgeous photographs, beautiful words, and a spot of spirituality,

Sunday Supplement (no astrology): TITLES

Books, blogs, articles and short stories all benefit from titles with the power to attract and draw in readers. Choosing a title is not easy. Authors over many decades, and bloggers for a lesser time, have pitted their wits against the ordinary and predictable to come up with something sparklingly original, yet pertinent to content.

Some authors lean on the work of their predecessors from which to extract a nugget of wisdom applicable to their own piece of work. Somerset Maugham favored this method when he chose titles for "The Painted Veil" and "Of Human Bondage". Both are lifted from old texts - the former from a sonnet by Percy Byshe Shelley, written in 1818:

Lift not the painted veil which those who live
Call Life: though unreal shapes be pictured there,
And it but mimic all we would believe
With colours idly spread, --- behind, lurk Fear
And Hope, twin Destinies; who ever weave
Their shadows, o'er the chasm, sightless and drear. ......

The latter is borrowed from one of the books of the 'Ethica' by 17th century Dutch philosopher, Baruch Spinoza. Translated = "Of Human Bondage, or The Strength of the Emotions".

Those are both apt titles, once one is familiar with the storylines, but they presuppose a certain amount of literary knowledge on the part of the reader....unless like me, in the 21st century, they are able to "do the Google".

Similarly puzzling for anyone unfamiliar with it's source, is Harper Lee's famous title "To Kill a Mocking Bird". The author took that from an old proverb telling that "it's a sin to kill a mocking bird", and used it as a metaphor for the storyline of his novel. It's clever, but without prior knowledge of the old proverb, or subject matter of the book, a potential reader might feel puzzled when confronted with the title on a library shelf. Still, it's intriguing enough to be a draw.

The above titles fall into the category of "deep & meaningful". There's another category worth sampling: "the jaw-droppingly bizarre" - a few of which are discussed by James Bradshaw at the Globe And Mail Arts section. These are mainly non-fiction....I assume!

Nuclear War: What's In It for You?
Old Tractors and the Men Who Love Them
How to Avoid Huge Ships or I Never Met a Ship I Liked
Knitting With Dog Hair
Bombproof Your Horse
How Green Were the Nazis? Nature, Environment and Nation in the Third Reich.

And how's this for a page-turner:



Some more at Cracked.com HERE

BLOGS: I don't remember how I chose the name of this blog. I was wet behind the ears, blog-wise, it was quite likely the first thing I thought of. In retrospect I wish it could've been shorter and simpler. I can think of some much better ones now, but hesitate to make a change - horses, mid-streams and all that!

Blog names at their creative best can be brilliant reflections of their master blogger. A good name always draws me in, even if only for a single visit.

The most successful blogs such as:Gawker, Boing Boing, Crooks & Liars, Freakonomics, have easy names to remember. I enjoy finding catchy blog names among the more "cottage industry" type blogs. From my own sidebar links for instance: Out the Comet's Ass is a favourite from the astrology list. I like the simplicity of my husband's blog name: Thinks Happen. Google doesn't get it though; when I input Thinks Happen, it politely asks me "do you mean things happen?"

A few more nice blog names: The Typing Makes Me Sound Busy; I Probably Don't Like You; Ungirdled Passion; Converstations; nanopolitan; The Invisible Edge; Where Am I Going and Why Am I In This Handbasket? And, simple but effective, Bloggity Blog.

Noblesse Oblige ? Are you kidding?

Fellow-blogger, R.J. Adams of Sparrow Chat, has done me the honor of presenting me with a "Noblesse Oblige" award. It's very gratifying when a guy as talented as RJ considers me worthy of an award which someone has also presented to him! Paul Simon's lyrics spring to mind: "I would not be convicted by a jury of my peers...." -or at least by a jury of one of 'em! RJ and I would probably find it hard to consider ourselves very "noblesse" (i.e. possessors of nobility), socialistic left-wingers that we are. But that's splitting aristocratic hairs.

This genteel award doesn't come free. There's no such thing as a free lunch, or a free award! I am obliged, by the terms of the award, to comply with the following:

1. -Create a Post with a mention and link to the person who presented the Noblesse Oblige Award.

2. -The Award Conditions must be displayed at the Post.

3. -Write a short article about what the Blog has thus far achieved – preferably citing one or more older posts to support.

4. -The Blogger must present the Noblesse Oblige Award in concurrence with the Award conditions.

5. -Blogger must display the Award at any location at the Blog.

The first requirement has been complied with. Second requirement: to show Award conditions (presumably so that readers can see what the award is all about):


Noblesse Oblige award is for the following:

The Blogger who manifests exemplary attitude, respecting the nuances that pervade amongst different cultures and beliefs.

The Blog contents inspire; strive to encourage and offer solutions.

There is a clear purpose to the Blog; one that fosters a better understanding of Social, Political, Economic, Arts, Culture and Sciences and Beliefs.

The Blog is refreshing and creative.

The Blogger promotes friendship and positive thinking.

Well, on a good day, and with a following wind, I might manage to rise to a couple of those challenges - but all at once - a tall order! Let's just say I'm taking this as a carrot to urge me on to do better. Maybe once in a very blue moon I'll have a "Bingo!" moment and manage to check all of the boxes above.

For the award's third requirement, my thinking cap needs to be firmly in place:..."a short article about what the Blog has thus far achieved – preferably citing one or more older posts to support."

I opened this blog in the Fall of 2006. At the back of my mind was a vague notion of writing about astrology, but in a style which might appeal to people who know nothing much about the subject, as well as to some who do know the basics. It was an extension of my girlhood fantasy. I'd wanted to be a journalist, writing articles for magazines.

A bog-standard Blogger template sufficed as a start. Later I learned how to customize it to its current style. Slowly gathering confidence, I registered the blog on a few networking sites; soon some established astrology bloggers kindly lent me their support.

Fantasy turning to reality?

Then came statistics software. "This'll be useful(not)", I told myself, "how difficult is it to count to four?" After a while daily blog statistics began to climb, but painfully slowly. On a very good day the blog would rack up 40 hits. I'm guessing that Google gathered up Learning Curve on the Ecliptic around this time. A sudden spurt of hits hauled numbers above 100, occasionally to 200 some days. I don't, and didn't, pretend that every "hit" equals a reader, but if 5% or 10%of hits represent readers, I'm more than happy within my fantasy, and look upon it as an achievement of sorts.

It's hard to say exactly "what the blog has thus far achieved", other than in statistical terms which, when you get right down to it, is fairly meaningless. In terms of my own satisfaction, I'm satisfied. Some kind commenters have indicated that they've enjoyed what I've written. The blog has achieved that much.

A further surprising statistical spurt came from what has turned out to be my most visited post of all: "Are We Human or are We Dancer". It's a post about a song. There's a stray mention of astrology in it, but it's not really about astrology. That post alone continued to garner upwards of a hundred visits a day for many weeks, and still, even after more than 6 months, brings in over 30 a day and the occasional comment. The post comes up on Google second only to Wikipedia's entry about the song.

A lucky break indeed!

Blog statistics are now on a gently descending curve, as visits to the "Human" post decrease. Numbers remain well-boosted by other Google searches though, which is pleasing.

Two tasks remain: To display the award - it'll remain permanently in the sidebar.

And...finally, I have to award "Noblesse Oblige" to one or more bloggers of my choice.

This is the part I really shy away from. I dislike singling out one or two from a body of people who all do such terrific jobs, and are unpaid at that! With the "unpaid" bit in mind, I'm nominating only non-professionals. I do enjoy reading blogs written by professionals, of any ilk, but for this particular purpose I'm sticking with non-professionals. I like to think that blogs originated to give anybody and everybody their chance to write, and show off a bit; professional astrologers already had that chance.

Without more ado, I'm offering this award to two astrology bloggers whose blogs fit the award requirements. Whether the two bloggers decide to participate fully in the "Noblesse" scheme is entirely up to them. I'm implying no obligation whatsoever, and offer it with sincere admiration.

GEMINI and... Blog
Out the Comet's Ass Blog

PLANETARY AWARDS

The Oscars, with customary razzamatazz, are to be awarded tonight. I'm rolling with the flow, and as much razzamatazz as I can muster. Below are my personal blogland awards, based on ....what else? The Planets! Hugh Jackman offered to come and present these, but then, sadly for me, found he had a prior engagement.




I'll avoid allocating Sun and Moon Awards - too contentious by far. I will say that ELSA deserves a strong nomination for both, for her stirling and on-going efforts on Astro Dispatch, throwing light on all our work.
See widget in sidebar.







My Mercury Award for enabling communication and learning at no cost to us goes to Blogger and Google both of whom we often take for granted. Without their continuing efforts we'd be much the poorer.






My Venus Award for beautiful writing style:

The Other Side of Sixty (Wisewebwoman) Link
Crow's Feet (Michelle) Link

My Mars Award for fighting spirit and unflinching opposition to the wrongs of this world:

Sparrow Chat (R.J. Adams) Link

My Jupiter Award for volume, quality, and quantity of excellent, thought-provoking content:

Beyond the Blog (Anthony North) Link

My Saturn Award for limiting the risk of virus and spyware contamination to our computers goes to all Anti-virus and Anti-spyware software developers.
Without the safeguards they provide, we'd be a mess!





My Uranus Award for reaching out beyond the obvious, putting a new twist on ancient materials goes to:

All those who blog, write, practice or teach astrology in whatever capacity.

From the communal work of these people, I'm confident that Carl Sagan's "something incredible waiting to be discovered" will, one day, emerge. Links to many of these astrologers and bloggers appear in my sidebar; many more are available via the Astro Dispatch widget.



My Neptune Award for imaginative, creative content often linked to photography:
Lost Gallery Link
Thinks Happen Link
(Both are by Anyjazz, who is aka The Husband/Himself )




My Pluto Award for penetrating insight, occasional dips into darkness, a tinge of the mystical:

Robert Phoenix- Astrology For The Now Age Link