From printing press to blogthink

It’s hard to shake off a way of thinking that goes back to the late middle ages and a Bible printed by a guy named Gutenberg. My work was not about Bibles, but for something like 30 years, it was about newspapers. Come to think of it, there is a kind of religion to journalism, but I’ll save that for another episode in this hopefully often-recurring session I’m calling Bloggery in honor of the new form of communication I’ve adopted. Post printing press. After Gutenberg.Two weeks into blogging, I’m beginning to realize how encased (should I say “trapped”?) my thinking has been within the form of the printed medium. When I say “form,” by the way, I have a very real image in my mind of those steel forms we used to literally wrap or encase the slugs of lead that were spat out by the Linotype machine at the Lowell Ledger, the weekly paper where I worked for a summer in 1961 as a backshop printer’s helper. Not many of us hot metal old fogies left, but when I say I’m finding my thoughts stuck in the Oldthink of newsprint, it should be clear that my memories go back to the REAL newspaper days when we got to breathe the fumes of melted lead. When I approached this blog project, I was consciously thinking of it as a replacement for my newspaper columns. A newspaper story can jump inside and, I thought, so can a blog story. Well, sort of. Except there’s really no inside for a blog story to jump to. I’ve been frustrated, you see, by what seem to be the limitations of the blog form. I’m accustomed to having my writings live on a broadsheet stretch of paper, with several stories kind of playing off each other. Pages anchored by photos. Can’t do that much with the blog.And then, I get diplomatic goadings from my sons: Abe, computer science major at the University of Michigan, tells me very diplomatically that most bloggers write short pieces. My pieces are LOOOOONG! Well, yeah, of course, because my blog is a NEWSPAPER! Then Adam, my urban planner son out in Los Angeles, calls and offers to copy edit my column. He’s noticed some typos and other goofs that he’d like to fix. Okay, buddy, have at it. I never said I don’t need a copy editor. Just can’t afford to pay you.Watch for changes in the way I think about this blog. Such as shorter pieces. Oops, Abe may be on my case — this has gone on a bit long! How do I know? The editing software seems to have chopped off a section. Don’t worry, I’ll wedge it in later.Adam, your turn — clean up those typos! Contact Joel Thurtell at joelthurtell(a)gmail.com