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October 06, 2005
Greensboro NC - Day Zero
I'm sitting ate gate C27 in Chicago belching up the last remnants of hotdog and Coke, wondering if I actually have a hotel room. It's not that Ed hasn't been organized, it's just that I don't have my normal emailed itineraries downloaded. I know the hotel is supposed to be cozy and funky, but I don't know the name of the hotel.
I'm a bit scribbleheaded but glad to be out of the ordinary grind. I won't miss that air-conditioned supercomputer center much, but at least I had fallen into a groove. Greensboro is going to be free-form, loose, give and take. I'll speak, I'll listen. It will be good. I'm into the entire improvisational mood of it already; my flight is an hour late and that's OK.
Tomorrow is the journalism part of the conference. Tonight when I get to my room, I'll sit up and blog some more and map out a strategy for my session which I think is an hour. An hour is no time at all, really. I need to come up with a distinguished soundbite and several useful anecdotes. The difficulty in the timing of all this is that I'm doing a complete review of multiculturalism in reading Hanson, Heath and Thornton. It's taking me back to my strong defense of Allan Bloom in the 80s and my original affinity for Bill Bennett. To the extent that Identity is part currency of blogging and some of the subject of my presentation, I'm going to be more provocative than persuasive. Identity and politics mix, but in the abstract they raise conflicts with classic ideas and modernism. In other words, does it matter who you are (vis a vis multiculturally privileged categories) when blogging. Yes and no. But which ways should it matter and which ways shouldn't it?
You can see this may be difficult, considering I have stopped being a black Republican and am only a Republican. There are no existential goodies left, only politics, values, principles and flux.
My seminar is entitled (something to do with branding). I am branding with my face, with my byline and through various devices. But mostly, I beleive that I am read because of the Socratic and analytic nature of my writing. Which is dead spot on with regard to Hanson et al. And yet, in fighting for and defending the Old School, I am doing a bit of identity blogging too. I am very aware of this knife edge, let's see if I get cut. Some of the branding is mechanical as well. Blogrolling, tactical trackbacking, folding in email sources, participation in surveys, blog leagueing, getting into blogstorms, and topics of the day, technorati keywording, typekey registration, RSS feeding... did I forget anything? But if you put me into a naked pyramid, I'd confess that it's all about the writing, and the fundamental relationship forced upon a conscientious person who has readers.
Tonight, I'm going to add a new entry to Cobb's Rules. "Eventually, you get the audience you deserve." Right now, it's time to get on the plane. See you in 3 hours...
Posted by mbowen at October 6, 2005 04:56 PM
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