This blog does tend to wander about. I know that some errant fools have decided to follow it because they saw the Louis N Carreras, Woodcarver tag and figured I’d reveal the secrets of carving; only to find that I was on a rant about overpriced bottled water the next day. I do tend to drift. But you see, drifting is fun, and writing about carving every day would eventually get boring…today I removed seven cuts, snick-snick, from the transom of the Ruth P Tarbox. Aside from the occasional bits of onomatopoeia, writing that would be boring. And if it bored me, it would bore the readers.
I prefer to be in cahoots with the inner me who has always loved telling tales and is finally getting to inflict his sense of an absurd world on others. To me, the absurd is not about the meaningless toil of the world but the twists and turns people take, creating meaning where none existed before. The essence of my blog is telling little stories that follow their internal logic, sometimes true.
One of my posts was about a friend who married a mermaid. I had a friend, Mahan, who was the drunkest bosuns mate in the entire Navy. His life found new meaning when he met and married Stella. When asked to describe Stella, he always mentioned that she was a mermaid. To sailors, mermaids can represent a host of things: femininity, beauty, transformance, and magic.
Many people took the description as an inside joke. Still, those of us who had known Mahan as a terrible, if amusing, drunk took his description as literal truth because we saw the effect of his relationship with Stella. Stella was a mermaid. And an essence of their relationship was how that relationship helped transform Mahan.
So, if my blog is about anything in particular, it’s about finding meaning in an absurd world and trying to have fun doing it.
Something different every day–I enjoy it. And, of course, Max.
I remember when Worddpress had these groups you could join- one of course was the original daily prompt- which they moderated and if one of the moderators didn’t think your post was tied to the word, they went on line and told you so. Then they had a be a better blogger group and some of the advice was good and of the bloggers handing out advice shouldn’t have been. My blog is like yours, I write about whatever comes into my head – so the advice I got from one person said that my blog lacked focus and the title didn’t give good info about what the content was stuff like that. So I ignored it because I know how to handle people who want attention. I did check out her blog like five months later and it was gone. Ive been on wordpress since 2006 and blogging daily almost the entire time. So keep doing what you are doing Lou, you tell great stories and that’s why we are here!
What makes WP interesting is the diversity. I think that many of your posts take us places we wouldn’t normally think of going, and that’s just the way it should be. We are not just a group of people with endless posts on fancy food or places we’ve visited. Like you said you visit their sited six months later and there is nothing there.
Your posts always are interesting, though, and I know I’ll most likely learn about wood carving and more if I open the links!
And you do it so well, Lou.
Thanks, VJ.
my pleasure
I enjoyed stopping by to watch “Xenia leads the way” around your pond and other videos! There are so many things to explore on beyond you blog of the day and I try to remember to take a look at the links to more Louis Carreras outputs.
Thanks Doug. I also appreciate Andy’s ability to supervise your life…as a person who has had cat supervisors…and understands that a cat sacrifices much for our sake. sigh.