Over the weekend, I updated the blogroll; I haven’t yet added all the links from my current feed subscriptions, but I’ve at least cleared out links to abandoned or retired blogs. It was a sad, nostalgic process, because I hadn’t updated the blogroll here in a few years. Some blogs have moved one or more times since then – the Sciblings who relocated to Scientopia, for example, or Paleofuture. Many blogger friends surprisingly weren’t on my blogroll at all, since I met them after I moved to Scienceblogs! But I was most surprised at the number of blogs that were active back when I started blogging (or shortly thereafter) which have since given up the ghost — some with, but some without, explanation.
Cleaning out a blogroll underscores the ephemerality of blogs. Many prolific, creative bloggers burn out after 3-5 years — or, at least, choose to do other things with their time. I’ve been at this since 2006, so I’m hitting the five year mark now, give or take a bit (I’ve had to put the blog on hiatus a few times). A lot has changed. I miss many of the people who were blogging when I started, or started shortly after I did. Blogging used to be more like leisurely correspondence with like-minded folks, and less like time-sensitive, social-media-integrated broadcast journalism. I’m sure it still can be, but it’s work to keep it that way (being at a relative backwater, as opposed to a high-traffic hub, certainly helps)!
Anyway, I leave you with the Chromatic Typewriter by Tyree Callahan, courtesy of Colossal. (Note the different colors for each key with/without Shift). Callahan says,
Nature is the best instructor an artist can have. I’m constantly amazed at the play of light over the landscape of the Northwest. I especially enjoy early light—that short interval of time just before the last of the fog burns off—and evening light, when the atmosphere itself is aglow with evening’s hues.
If only my laptop keyboard were like the Chromatic Typewriter. . . and perhaps for some synaesthetes, it is? Oh, to blog in Technicolor. . .