kid_hideous

So, people's responses to whether or not our presence on sites like this (and MySpace, and Facebook...) makes us exhibitionists were pretty interesting, and tended to revolve around one of two types of answers. One, typified by my friend Val Capone, focused on the utilitarian social value of such sites - the potential for 'networking', making new friends, finding people to help with creative projects, etc - while the other focused on such sites potential for manifesting self in a way that simply isn't possible in the workaday analog world.

In the end I agree with both responses. I've definitely been able to find a wider audience for my writing (though not wide enough!) via such sites, and though I once prided myself on the fact that all of my Myspace friends were actually real-life, flesh-and-blood friends, the reality is that over half of my 'friends' are now people I have never met, bands I love, and indie publishers I have either written for, or will write for. Obviously the internet opens up a much wider social venue than we are normally able to access (for instance, how else would my non-globetrotting ass have friends in Scotland, like Jackwit, or Montreal, like Val?) and it only makes sense to take advantage of that opened world. Especially when you have pretensions to making the world listen to your words.

I also do feel strongly that the state of the world today creates the demand for sites that enable a wider self-representation than is normatively possible in a world where we pass thousands of other lives just walking down the street, all without the slightest interest in the contours or details of their existence. Here, it is much easier for me to define myself as a poet, and post my work on this page, leaving it up for those who wish to read it to do so, and let others gloss over it. Ever tried to convince somebody in the "real" world to take a moment and read your poetry? If not, give it a try, and then tell me these sites are purely exhibitionist.

On the other hand, I can't say those women were all wrong. After all, I've posted a whole set of nude pictures on this site and absolutely loved the compliments I received for it (not that this site created my exhibitionist urges - after all, I used to live in a Florida nudist resort!).

But there's another and more important level on which these sites do make us all some sort of exhibitionist. In our world the once-normative lines between public and private worlds are becoming increasingly blurred. Walk down the street and you can't help but overhear some fairly intimate details of other's lives - people arguing with loved ones, talking about last night's hook-up, discussing personal conflicts with other friends, all on their cellphones - you may not care to hear about these details, but there they are, thrust right into your face. In a world of increasing anonymity, these sorts of sites seem the only natural reaction - we want people to notice us, to care about us, to acknowledge our individuality and value it. And it's a lot easier to do it here, where I can present poems, stories, essays, personal musings, all almost immediately, all without the slow-dance of getting-to-know-you. Certainly there is that progression of getting to know you here, but on the other hand, if you want to know what sorts of books I read, movies I watch, art I like, all you have to do is click on my top ten tab - a feature woefully absent on my body.

So, I think that's it. Would love to hear any further thoughts you have on the subject.

And now, for my poem of the week:

when you in bed

over otherlost flagcloth lie
by blueblack syllable, in snowlashshutter,
come, through thought-
gust
the crane swimming, steel -
you open nest with him

his bonemouth ticked you the hours in every mouth - in every
glockenspiel, in hotred strangle, a silent
thousandyear,
unfree and free
mint eachother to death,
the scars, the sequins
rain hard through the pores,
in
second's gestalt
fly you there and bar
the doors yester and morn, phosphorescent,
like eternityteeth,
blooms your one, your other
breast,
the grasping towards, under
the thrusts -: so dense,
so deep-
strewn
is the sidereal
crane-
seed.