Many of the blogs I’ve read have a tendency to focus on the hyper-recent, fifteen minutes of fame kind of topics. A more cynical writer might claim that it’s a ploy to optimize those blogs’ search result placement and page hits. I prefer to think it’s a sincere desire to take part in the larger conversation going on in a dispersed community.

Don’t get me wrong–I see a definite a place for that kind of blog. There are a lot of great conversations going on out there, conversations we couldn’t have had a generation ago, conversations enabled by technology.

But there’s also value in another approach, one that doesn’t get quite so caught up in the noise of minute-by-minute blogging. The approach that seems right to me–for me–is one that lets those seemingly interesting ideas hang around a while. Like a poem that you write that you think might be good; if it’s really worth reading, it’ll still be worth reading six months later.

Asa Christiana is on the defensive.

Editor of Fine Woodworking, Christiana posted this piece in the FWW editorial blog in response to a recent interview with Tom Loeser in American Craft.

Loeser is the head of the Woodworking department at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.  His series, Flotilla, was featured recently in Woodwork.

While Christiana quotes only a snippet (in bold, below), I think we get a better understanding of Loeser’s argument by understanding the context in which the offending statement was leveled:

Loeser has been taking full advantage of this creative license. As an academic, he recognizes himself as a subversive in the field. “I think the woodworking world is too small, too limited and too defined by Fine Woodworking magazine. There is a slightly anti-intellectual slant to it. I am more interested in the ideas behind it and opening things up. I am interested in where we overlap with design and where we overlap with art.” Loeser has always worked from historical objects and sources, but he plays with ideas of function by deposing the users’ operational expectations. These days he welcomes escapes from his studio furniture oeuvre to explore other systems of generating form.

What is troublesome is that Christiana’s rebuttal sets Loeser up as a straw man, showing pictures of his most challenging work with no context, making him out to be some ridiculous figure, rather than a daring and courageous individual.  As with all straw man attacks, Christiana sidesteps the earnest (and earned) criticism Loeser offers to FWW, that it is parochial (my word choice) and anti-intellectual, serving a focus-group audience.

Not surprisingly, Christiana’s followers, who like FWW just as it is, rally round the flag and take pot-shots at Loeser’s more challenging work.

This parochial and anti-intellectual stance within woodworking has made American furniture stagnant.  We get really good at mimicking Stickley or the Shakers, and maybe we stretch a little to make these styles serve our 60″ widescreen displays.

Not enough of us are concerned about the direction of American furniture.

Studio furniture makers play an important role within the larger ecosystem that includes the magazines, the designer-craftsmen, tool-makers, amateur woodworkers, reproduction craftsmen, educators, and much more.  Loeser and other studio makers challenge us to see beyond period styles, to remove our self-imposed constraints, to shake up our notions of how furniture should look and what it means.  They challenge us to grow.

Notice, too, that I consider it an ecosystem, not an economy.  This is an important distinction.  If we reduce our craft to an economy, then we are merely consumers whose only role is to buy new machines with granite tops.  By seeing woodworking as a larger, more varied endeavor, with broader (and maybe even loftier) goals, we can stimulate a creative renaissance.

It is Christiana’s loss, and ultimately a loss to FWW’s readers, if he fails to make room in the tent for studio furniture.

As an intellectual and a maker, I would hope Christiana might see an opportunity to bring Fine Woodworking out of stagnation.  He has given us a taste of the intersection between design and woodworking with some great contributions by Michael Fortune.  If only it were enough.  Clearly we miss entirely the intersection between woodworking and art, the intersection at which Woodwork, by comparison, has done its best work.

While I hold out hope for a bigger tent for woodworking, it feels as if Christiana has come down on the side of the focus groups and the advertisers.  I expect more tool reviews and a continuing disregard for daring, challenging, and thought-provoking work.

Meanwhile, I’ll cross my fingers that Tom Caspar won’t turn Woodwork into another American Woodworker.  Maybe I should be reading American Craft…

I have never been more proud of my country than I am tonight.  The overwhelming commitment of its citizens, the tireless work of its volunteers, the will of a nation to overcome its divisions and embrace a more hopeful future–these are the riches of our country, and the tools we will have to lean heavily on in the coming years.

The crowds in Grant Park, in Ebenezer Baptist Church, in Times Square, outside the White House, they all speak to the enormous energy, the pride, the hope and excitement we feel as a nation. 

Let the world know that we have rejected fear, that we have come together out of optimism and vision, out of an earnest dedication to change.

The Fall issue of BlazeVOX 2008 is out today, and it features several of my poems.

Happy reading!

I’d been using a Circa notebook from Levenger for about a year and a half, and raving about it.  It was really great for writing and organizing, because I could rearrange infinitely, and the fact that I could rearrange was liberating, because it meant I never had to be afraid to write in it.  Lately, though, I’d found that my system of organization failed me when I tried to go back and look at the evolution of a poem, and maybe backtrack and take a different approach in revision. 

So last week, on impulse, I bought a Moleskine notebook.  (Who could resist? I mean, it is the notebook of Hemingway, right?)  Over the next few days I fell in love with it, taking notes from what I saw around me and composing two new poems.  It offered the romance that my Circa notebook lacked, and it was infinitely more portable.  Plus, as a southpaw, I liked not having the disks under my hand as I write (They’re not quite as bad as a spiral bound notebook, admittedly).

The Moleskine introduced me to a new way to work, especially on poetry: once I’ve inked up a version of a poem enough with editing, I simply rewrite it on the next page (you can kinda see the two versions of a poem here).  I can see the evolution better now, and I’ll always be able to go back and see where things went right or wrong.  I found that a year and a half with the Circa notebook had allowed me to work through any fear of “messing up” a notebook.  I can record thoughts and ideas in a stream-of-consciousness style, and follow up with those ideas at will.

I had to admire the caption: “Underestimating Gov. Palin comes at some risk.”  Even better was the observation, shared by many, that “Palin is to women as Clarence Thomas is to African-Americans”.

Thanks Ron, for a bit of cheerful ingroup loyalty.  I feel better now.

Just wanted to toss out a plug for Present Magazine, covering cool stuff in Kansas City. They’re celebrating their 3rd anniversary tonight with live local music at Crosstown Station, 1522 McGee.

Sonic Spectrum’s Robert Moore calls Present Magazine “The best source for Kansas City culture.” Moore is creating his own legacy as a Kansas City institution. His radio show and podcast, Sonic Spectrum, is an education in great indie music, and often highlights local musicians. His indie music label, Oxblood Records, promotes the work of Kansas City-area musicians.

Present is wrapping up a redesign of the website, but this link takes you to the archive of five of my poems published there last month.

Art Westport 2008 begins today. I’m planning to head out there after work.

Unlike the Brookside Art Annual (held in May) and the upcoming Plaza Art Fair, Art Westport distinguishes itself by consisting solely of Kansas City-area artists. Come out and get a taste of KC this weekend!

Present Magazine of Kansas City has published five of my poems.

If you haven’t checked out Present yet, you should.  Featuring art, culture, and music, it’s a great place to keep up on what’s going on in Kansas City.  It’s also the home of the Sonic Spectrum podcast.  Present is co-published by Pete Dulin and Pam Taylor.

Happy reading.