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barton cole :: veni, vedi, vero scripsi
 Tuesday, January 13, 2009
Once upon a time, we had two ways to be found: our telephone number, and our address. If you wanted, you could have an unlisted number and a PO box; you could keep a pretty low profile.
Now we have email addresses, too, and often, more than one.
And a business line, and maybe also a fax, and of course, a cell phone number - I think about Tony Robert's character in Woody Allen's film, Play it Again, Sam - constantly leaving numbers with his secretary so she'd know how to reach him - but now, we have many addresses that hook us into the web.
Many now have a presence on the web - a MySpace page, or the Book of Faces, or a blog, or maybe they're real mavericks and have their own website.
Here I am, for example, writing in this blog - which I'd rather not think of as a blog, but as a venue for essays - since that's what I like - and intend - to write. I mean no disservice to the devoted "bloggers" out there, but I just don't want to think of myself as one. An essayist, but not a blogger -
I have other sites, too:
A personal favorite is geniusweirdo.org - I've realized that many of the items which might appear here would also be good to have on that site (visit it and you'll see what I mean), and no doubt, some of the stuff on there might show up, in some form, here.
Another web concept I'm working with is Argyle9. Check it out. I wouldn't know how to begin describing it, anyway.
Sue Frause, a friend of mine, writes a blog; mostly about her travels, she also writes about life here on our island. Once upon a time, Sue, who has been around in the publication business for some time, wrote for the local paper. Each week, she'd have a little sidebar featuring her Best Bets. I was headlining a poetry reading, and Sue wrote it up (the favorable attention definitely contributed to the size of the crowd - thanks, Sue). However, my name was spelled "Baron," without the "t" that makes it "barton."
I wrote a reply:
"While I am flattered to have been mentioned in your "Best Bets," Mrs. Frause, I must point out a slight error: You refer to me as a Baron, but I am actually a Viscount (a mere notch above a baron in the peerage), a title conferred upon me by Rex Incognito,the Very King of Langley Himself.
Protocol dictates that use of my title is optional at all times."
Often, if a local is engaged in something she finds noteworthy, she'll interview them and feature them on her blog.
Apparently, I'm the noteworthy one this time around.
The local arts center is having a fundraiser show called "Something to Crow About," and I learned, via the invitation in the mail, that I was to be the entertainment. That's appropriate, I suppose, and appropriate, considering that it's a show invoking Crow Energy, that I found out in a weird way -
Sue had mentioned something about it some months ago, last year, but then it was rescheduled, and I hadn't heard much about it.
"This show has had more glitches," Sue said when I brought the curious disposition of my recruitment to her attention. "You know? I think it's the Crow Thing."
"Gee, Sue - do you think?"
So she interviewed me for her blog today; we met at the Useless Bay Coffeehouse, here in Langley, on Whidbey Island, off the northwest coast of America. As befits an interview, I was actually interviewing her for my blog -
 I did learn much about Sue during our hour-and-a-half together, but it's personal stuff, so I'll leave it for now.
One thing that was a bit comical - she wanted to take my picture, as she does, but pointed out that Gary, who owns Mukilteo Coffee Company, out in the woods, chided Sue for conducting her meetings and interviews at Useless Bay Coffee Company here in Langley. "I don't even want to mention where I met them any more," she said, "but people will be able to tell from the picture," sweeping in the surroundings as if washing them off glass.
"I know - "I told her, "I have a picture of myself in just about the position you find me here, but at a table outside a coffee bar on the Boulevard du Montparnasse in Paris in the summer."
I went on to suggest that we met there, so she could use the photo and claim it as her own.
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