Tonight I decided to join the crowd of curious people that are gathering around blogger king Dave Winer at Harvard’s Berkman Center for the Internet and Society. It was a lot of fun. My former fearless leader Philip Greenspun was there. (Former leader, that is; he appears to be as fearless as ever.) Also present were my former colleague from ArsDigita, Andrew Grumet, and the charming Redhead in Crimson, and a guy who I think was Chris Lydon, and a librarian who was almost certainly Jessica Baumgart - but maybe she wasn’t, because I learned her name by searching for “Harvard news librarian” in Google. (Yes, I met a Harvard librarian and I didn’t even ask her name. I am clearly losing my edge. I guess I was temporarily stunned when I confessed my secret love for libraries and she said I was “sick”.)
Of course, all of these folks have a lot more to say about blogging and the Web than I do, so I spent most of the time trying to say as little as possible so that I could listen. Which is a lot like how my blog has been going, so far. And there you are.
We ate tasty Chinese food afterwards, at a restaurant with a name that I forgot to write down. Maybe one of the others will blog it, and vindicate my faith in technology.
Going to this meeting was a way of encouraging myself to write some more. I get writers’ block easily - not only because I have so many other things to do, like unpacking boxes and trying to read large physiology textbooks, but also because I write very slowly. I am addicted to editing. I only write words because I get a thrill out of deleting them again. I’m getting tired of this habit, so I am going to force myself to post this without any editing. (Okay, without much editing.) (Oops, I had to edit that.)
Comment from Jessica (jkbaumga ~at~ yahoo .dot. com) at 08/26/2003 12:30:03 PM:
Mike, I don’t remember calling you “sick.” I asked you why you liked libraries so much and everyone at the table, apparently including yourself, mistook what I meant by the question. I’m curious about why anyone finds libraries so fascinating, especially people who spend hours and hours a day in such a place. By asking, I’m not intentionally putting any sort of value judgment on the place itself or implying anything negative about the person who is spending so much time there. I’m just fascinated by people who really have an affinity for those institutions, especially when they aren’t librarians. I’m curious about what makes a library valuable and interesting to people and how people use libraries. I’m sorry that you took my comments the wrong way.
The restaurant, by the way, is Changsho.
Comment from Mike B (mike ~at~ castleblack .dot. net) at 08/30/2003 08:10:29 PM:
Oh, I knew what you meant, and I was quite amused!