Momus's livejournal: classic or dud?

I love it because people are so nice and polite over there, and yet also leave incredibly intelligent comments (like the guy who told me all about Foucault's model of how power produces sexuality yesterday).

I like your livejournal by the way.

Are you *sure* you're taking about Livejournal? ;-)

Learning German is the most difficult think i have ever done.. the grammar just does me in!

EMPIRE by michael hardt and antonio negri

Are you *sure* you're taking about Livejournal? ;-)

This is what's so amazing about LiveJournal. Over time you gather a tribe of people who fit your contours. They have their own journals too, of course, so it's like a complex pattern of interlocking starfish. X comes to your journal daily and leaves comments. X visits because s/he likes the way you think, but knows some things you don't, etc. There are elective affinities, completions and compensations. Y has read a book that relates to what I'm talking about. Z is amazed that you expressed something he was thinking just this morning. Soon a kind of club is happening.

Go to other people's pages and you see how totally different ecosystems have developed. I'm a daily visitor to the site of Rhodri Marsden of The Free French (he also appears regularly on Resonance FM). He's a good writer and has built up a huge and very supportive fan base. I'm sure more people read his LJ than listen to his records. Now, what fascinates me is that the culture of Rhodri's LJ is almost the diametrical opposite of mine in every way. If I tend to rave and gush about my cultural enthusiams, Rhodri grumbles in an entertainingy glum way about his life. Whereas I'm globetrotting, Rhodri is stuck in London. Whereas I seem to exist without visible means of support, Rhodri is always telling us about his bank account, his mortgage. Whereas I would assume an entry about London's arcane telephone number system would be so incredibly pendantic and boring that nobody would respond, Rhodri manages to do a grumpy blog about it that gets something like 80 comments. I've come to see Rhodri as the anti-Momus in every way, and as a result I can't keep away from his blog.

A guy called Channing just published a comparison of my blog with Cex's. Channing says:

'At first glance, doesn’t Momus seem a bit exclusivist? An extremely literate dude giggling to a choir of fellow pervy scholars, talking about his marvelous world travels and ideas but never sparing the time to open up about his own feelings. Not in his music, not in his Livejournal. Cex forges his superior approachability through making himself vulnerable, while Momus hides behinds wit and wisdom, never making clear the man behind the eyepatch.'

I really don't think 'opening up about my feelings' would be that interesting. My stereotype of LiveJournal is that it's a kind of emotional toilet where people post self-indulgent ramblings, and I knew from the start that I wasn't going to do that. But Cex's journal sounds interesting -- Channing says he used to post his bank account in real time, and put every tantrum up there. I like the dedication, the vulnerability. (Although apparently he disabled comments.) Cex couldn't keep that up, that pace of reckless self-exhibition. His blog has stopped now. Surprise surprise.

He should call it iPatch.

Wearing a bright blue tracksuit and dark sunglasses, the star shouted expletives as he was mobbed by posters and TV crew.

"Rude, vile pigs!" he shouted at trolls on the 'Momus's livejournal: classic or dud?' thread after he arrived shortly after 7pm.

"Do you know what that means? Rude, vile pigs. That's what all of you are."

One of the posters shouted back: "Why don't you get out of ILX, Patchy?"

Momus replied: "We'd love to get out of ILX if it's full of people like you. Pig! Pig!"