A Loafer's Discourse

Generally pretty good. It has me wondering at times, though ...

You know I like it.

I like it a lot, I think it's a wee bit better than Blue Lines.

I like it a lot better than Blue Lines, but then, I would, considering all the Brit-centric links of the latter. It feels much more vital, which is not always a good thing but thus far in this case is, and the Daphne & Celeste entry was the most spot-on thing I've read, from you or anyone, since the section at the end of your Fight Club piece on individuals and the masses. Bottoms up, cheers, so on and so forth.

The font (Palatino?) does weird things on my monitor (a Mac, running IE5). I'll email you a screenshot. That aside, I do like A Loafer's Discourse, though I hadn't noticed it till you pointed it out. I'll be going back again.

Nice. I'm too sleepy to say more at present.

I don't understand. Why is the shoe talking?

Still torn by it Tom, its not as cold (and I agreed that coldness is not in itself a bad thing) but its very reason for existence seems flawed to me. A Loafer's Discourse is still a form of link sluttery, it is still your response to what you come across in the outside world - its just that you are now not really using the internet to provide much of the impetus. It does not make the writing any better that the source material is books, or half forgotten pub conversations (which we used to get in Blue Lines). At least with link whoredom the reader can also have a response to your source, on an instant basis which helps engage them with you argument.

I like it, I like all of your writing, but there seems to be more of a solid philosophy behind it - an internal set of rules which I don't quite sympathise with. Your resolution this year was to do some "proper writing". I think you would agree that you are not quite sure what you meant by that. I think Blue Lines achieved that: I think A Loafer's Discourse does too. The feeling is that you don't believe that Blue Lines was proper writing, and by imposing a set of rules on yourself in ALD you come closer to it. This is no different to imposing a set of rules such as a novel might compell you to do, and I know you have little desire to go down that road.

So yes, I like A Loafers Discourse, but I think Blue Lines was more of a pub conversation - and we know that is the highest form of linguistic use.

I really like "A Loafer's Discourse." But I think it's probably harder for people who have known you for a while to read than Blue Lines was, since the variation in your tone, viewpoint and narrative persona is greater: so anyone reading looking for 'Tom' will have more trouble than they did with Blue Lines, where it was fairly easy to keep 'WebTom' distinct from 'Tom.'

ALD slowly and steadily gets better.