Thursday, April 22, 2021

Some housekeeping

 





Hi.


Oddly enough I don't much come onto this blog and just... talk. Oh, I theater talk a lot, but that's as part of writing a self-contained piece. I always have an eye towards the wild web, where if anyone wanders down my dark alley and finds one of my blogposts it will all make perfect sense as an independent, free standing essay. That it might all connect up to my other 3,000 posts is just gravy. Step away from clerkmanifesto for a year or two and when you come back there will be no effort required on your part to get back up to speed. Charlie Brown still hasn't kicked the football. Sally is still crushing on her sweet babboo. Pooh still loves honey.

But sometimes I get in my mind an idea to shake things up here at clerkmanifesto. Usually these moments involve a grandiose plot that includes taking over the Internet. I float my schemes here and gauge the response.

There generally isn't a response.

And like my childhood schemes to dig out a massive underground lair behind my house with a small hand shovel, the reality of the effort involved, the nature of my skills, and the suitability of my tools, all quickly wash away 99 percent of my ambitions.

Also, I usually get a blister.

So, you wonder, where are we in this scenario?

We are at the point where I propose wildly ambitious changes on a speculative basis.

But there is an instigation to this revolution that you should know about.

Google Blogger, the free and probably evil system that hosts my blog and allows me to put clerkmanifesto on the Internet for something very close to free, has informed me that the device by which people can sign up to receive my blog posts by email will cease to be supported as of August.

What does this mean?


No, I was asking you, because I sure can't tell. 


Will new people still be able to sign up to receive my blog in email form?

Will those of you out there reading this in your email continue to receive emails?

Will things slowly become more broken and worse and worse and worse?

I don't know.

But it all got me thinking about finding a different home for clerkmanifesto, something that offers me a wider range of options and allows me to spread my wings a bit. Something that might involve the caterpillar that is clerkmanifesto spinning itself into a chrysalis, and only through great effort and miraculous transformation allow it to emerge as, well, probably a slightly different caterpillar.

I am picturing something like an entire improved internet contained within my single blog, an endless source for strange and delightful news, entertainment, revolution and magic. I am picturing digging out an entire enchanted city beneath the backyard of the house I grew up in. Winding streets of old Kyoto, Rome, Imre. Stores selling things you've never seen before for prices you have never paid.

I have a little shovel.

And I am making some plans.


I'll try to keep you appraised. Change may be coming.





 

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