Renewal

Question to all. We know that Salon is not allowing any new blogs. For those who would like to continue there - Does anyone know whether they plan on allowing people to renew once their subscription runs out? I suspect not, but would like a definitive answer.

Turn this mother out

Testing... testing... is this thing on?

All right. Some paranoid advice.

I don't know about you, but whenever the Salon Blogs go down, as they frequently do, the first thing I wonder is whether or not they'll be turned back on again. So you might just want to pick up one of these free blogs just in case. I've had a Blogger account for about a year, but I've just started to mirror content on it for the last few days. It's a pain in the ass, but I know it's there. And I put a conspicuous clickable banner on my Salon Blog which points to the mirror site. I figure whatever happens to Salon (aside from wiping the web space), if somebody wants to find me, they can.

Of course, wants is the operative word.

A Valentine For Sloggers

Valentine's Day

February has a lot to recommend it. It's short, for one thing.Once it's over we can begin to pretend that Spring is just around the corner. In most parts of the country that pretense is perfectly delusional. What's around the corner, and around the one after that, is melting slush and head colds.

February harbors Presidents' Day, but all it has to recommend it is a day off. Valentine's Day, on the other hand, is rich with the scents of chocolates and passion. Or it is if the chocolates work.

Married guys, except those in the clutches of some secret and unfulfilled sexual obsession, are seldom enthusiastic about the day. It means they will have to go shopping. Men don't like to go shopping. In particular they don't like to go shopping at the last moment, which they almost always do because they have forgotten what day it is.

They didn't know what to buy for Christmas and here it is Valentine's Day already! It makes them gloomy and dispirited. I met a friend sitting slumped on a bench in the mall. He was staring dejectedly at a small gift-wrapped box.

"We've been married twenty-seven years," he said. There was a long pause. "They don't give you that for murder."

Of course some women don't care for the day either. That is because their husbands believe that lingerie is the secret of a fulfilled sex life.

What these women have to look forward to on Saint Valentine's Day is a selection of improbable and uncomfortable undergarments that suggest bondage play rather than loving tenderness. They know with perfect certainty that as the highlight of Valentine's night they will have to strap, buckle and lace themselves into gear that is mostly straps, buckles, and laces, and parade around the house.

They will try to be understanding. But they will think, "We've been married twenty-seven years...they don't give you that for murder."

There are interesting Valentine's Day revenges. Some women have struck back by sending their husbands or sweeties barbershop quartets...to the office. The lunkhead is called to reception where he is met by four geezers in straw hats, who present him with a single perfect red rose.

The victim has to stand there, holding a rose and stupefied with embarrassment, while the old guys sing "Let Me Call You Sweetheart."

Valentine's Day Cards are nice, though. My favorites are the ones children used to send to one another in school. Every child had to bring enough cards so that every other child would get one when deliveries were made from the big heart-decorated box on Miss Pringle's desk. There were duckies and doggies and little plump boys and girls holding hands. They cost a penny.

Those penny Valentines had sincerity going for them. You could believe a duck. You could believe "Be Mine." They didn't promise much. Today's gold-and-red-paper extravaganzas, lavish with lace, and texts that cry out for deconstruction, have all the believable sincerity and depth of feeling of an old con's petition to the board of pardons and paroles.

Clearly, we need to return to this holiday's roots: The ancient Roman festival of Lupercalia, which was held on February 15.

Well found lads lightly costumed as goats ran through the streets whacking pedestrians with strips of goat skin. The Romans viewed the goat as the embodiment of sexuality, although I've never understood the attraction myself.

All this funny business was intended to insure fertility and to fend off evil. It persisted well into the Christian era, after which it was all downhill...

Until the discovery of chocolate.


(All my own work...Originally published in The Desert Leaf)

Leave me a message

And I'll get back with you as soon as I can. Seriously.

Looks like some of the email addresses I have for you Sloggers have changed over the years; you may have been invited to join, but your address is old and I've not gotten a bounceback. Leave your email (be sure to break it up in such a way that spambot spiders don't pick it up out of comments), and I'll get right back with you with a new invitation.

Hope to hear from you soon -- and don't forget to spread the word to your fellow Salon peeps.

Our New Clubhouse

Thanks, Rayne, for setting this up. I think we can have some fun here. If our content and energy reach a really compelling level, maybe Salon will buy us!

Hey, a Radio question: Does any of you know if the text of our posts resides anywhere on the client side, or is it all on the server? All I can find on my client are links. The reason I ask is, I'm feeling like I ought to save at least the posts I like somewhere safe in case the Salon server is suddenly taken offline.

What're you all doing with your Saturday nights? We're headed to a precious little wine bar for a birthday celebration. Then in the morning, I'm headed through Minneapolis to Milwaukee in the morning to work next week.

Invitations to meta-blog

Dave Pollard, Mark Hoback, Paul Hinrichs, I've already sent you invitations to join as members of the meta-blog. Check your email boxes (probably in spam or bulkmail!) and see if you have them.

Art Jacobson, I'll send you an email invite shortly, still checking out the comment problem you had. (Nevermind, looks like it was solved with turning off moderation.)

If you're a past or present Salon blogger and you want to join the meta-blog, leave me a note in comments along with current contact info. (Be sure to use caution posting email addy's so spambots don't pick it up.) I'm also going to rely on other Salon bloggers to spread the word, let others know about this.

Hope to hear from you about this!

UPDATE - 4:34 PM EST -- Woohoo!! Looks like Phil (of Perils of Caffeine) is the first Slogger on board! Let me know if the rest of you didn't get your invites, okay! Welcome aboard, Phil!

UPDATE - 4:36 PM EST -- Way cool, Art (of The Dataport, formerly Ojo Caliente) is on board now, too!! Let's party!!

Welcome Salon Bloggers!

We've been expecting you! Come on in, the water's fine!

This is an experimental meta-blog for the purpose of rebuilding the Salon Bloggers (affectionately referred to as "Sloggers") community.

With Salon announcing an end to its free Userland Radio blogs and hosting, the number of Salon bloggers is expected to dwindle. Traffic to the blogs has been falling off since Salon's site redesign this past year, due in part to a lack of front page linkage back to the blogs. The blogs were also not included in Salon's new "Community" configuration, linked from the front page and including TableTalk and The Well. Fellow Sloggers have been slowly leaving Salon's blog environment, migrating to other software and hosting for various reasons; some were dissatisfied with the client-based software, the stability of hosting and the comments system, while others simply wanted something more streamlined without the expense of annual licensing. It's implied that Salon is working on a new blogging-related format, but there is not published plan or strategy as yet. We simply don't know how long it will be before Salon has a new blogging community -- if ever.

Many of us who started blogging in Salon are fond of the fellowship we found among fellow Sloggers. We found folks who were dynamic thinkers, great writers, willing to offer constructive criticism and heartfelt support. We were pushed to achieve even greater things with our blogs because of the caliber of folks we rubbed shoulders with in the community. And we don't want to lose that synergy simply because it doesn't fit in Salon's business model...

So, dig in. We are going to explore this opportunity together. The guideline at this point is that primary emphasis will be given to those bloggers who've been at Salon. Secondary emphasis will be on those folks whose blogging work Sloggers love and who support Sloggers. This is a collaborative effort, as much of our meta-blog discussions were in Salon's blogs; feel free to pipe up and offer a suggestion or critique as we work out the bugs while keeping our community together.

Best to you, fellow Sloggers! Blog on!!