The Best Job

Long ago I came to the conclusion that John McPhee has the best job in the world.

He gets paid to go out into the woods, take a walk around, find somebody who knows those woods like the back of their hand, ask them some questions, and come home and write about it.  Sometimes the woods aren’t actual woods.  They’re basketball courts or art museums or laboratories or the cargo holds and bridges of freighters or the cabs of eighteen-wheel trucks.  But often, they’re woods.

I was never able to get that job for myself, not as a full-time career at any rate.  But from time to time I have managed to get paid to do it, take a walk in the woods and come home and write about it.  My woods have been the backstages of theaters, the broadcast booth of a baseball stadium, a recording studio, a zoo, a guitar maker’s studio.  Most of the time they’ve been the inside of a lot of smart people’s heads.

One of the best things about having this blog is that I’ve been able to do it again, take a walk in the woods and come home and write about it.  Again, the woods aren’t always actual woods. Sometimes they’ve been the cafe at Barnes and Noble or the counter at the hardware store or the line at the post office or the hallways of my kids’ schools.  Sometimes they’re the contents of a book I’ve just read or they’re what I saw up on a screen or on a stage.  Sometimes they’re actual woods.  And sometimes I find the woods close to home.  Sometimes they’re on Cape Cod or in New York City.

I haven’t been able to make a living at it, but still, I’m grateful I get to do it at all, take a walk in the woods and come home and write about.

Wait. I forgot to mention the most important part of the job.

I get to take a walk in the woods, come home and write about it, and people waiting who want to read what I write.

I’ve been thinking about this the last couple of days because of what’s happened to Jonah Lehrer.

Lehrer is a brilliant young science writer who’s gotten caught plagiarizing himself for his blog at the New Yorker.  He’s been cutting and pasting passages from work he’s published and posted elsewhere into his posts at the New Yorker without telling his readers---or his editors---when he does it.

Not what the New Yorker is paying him for.

It’s not Lehrer himself or the self-plagiarism that’s had me thinking.  I routinely quote myself but I make it clear that I’m quoting and include a link to the post I’m quoting from.  And of course I’ve revisited and rehashed ideas I’ve written about before. And I regularly re-post old posts, either because they’ve become relevant again or I’m feeling lazy, but I always make it clear that’s what I’m doing.  But mainly every time I sit down to write a post, I sit down to write something new or at least to say something old in a new way.  That’s the challenge.  That’s the fun of it.  That’s the point.

At least, I thought it was the point.

But according to Felix Salmon, an economics blogger of note, and deservedly so, writing, writing anything new or old, is not the point.  Blogging, says Salmon, is not writing and Lehrer got himself into trouble by making the mistake of thinking that it is.

Blogging, according to Salmon, is linking.  Linking to things other people have written.

There’s something like writing involved.  You’re out to make your readers interested in reading what you’re linking to. This means you’ve got to give them the gist in an entertaining and lively fashion and that means you have to write.  But it strikes me as a particular form of writing.

Copywriting.

Now lots of bloggers---and this includes most of the best or most popular bloggers---do this.  And it’s a good thing.

It’s useful.

But maybe Salmon didn’t intend it, but I get the feeling he thinks that anything else is a waste of the blogger’s and the reader’s time.

And that’s what I’ve been thinking about.

I don’t do this to be useful.

I don’t write to be useful.

But should I?

Is that what I should be doing?

Like I said, the best thing about being Lance Mannion is that he gets to go out into to the woods, take a look around, ask some questions, and come home and write about it.

He’s only able to do it though because all of you are willing to read what he writes.

For which he’s very grateful.

Thank you all.

We’re off to visit Old Mother and Father Blonde today.  We have a wedding to go to tomorrow but I’m sure that at some point over the weekend we’ll be able to get over to Valley Forge.

There are woods there, you know.

I’ll take a walk around and report back.

___________________________

The Essential John McPhee:

Pieces of the Frame.

Table of Contents.

The Pine Barrens.

Coming into the Country.

Encounters with the Archdruid.

A Sense of Where You Are.

Hat tip to Jennifer Ouelette, who blogs---writes---about science at Cocktail Party Physics.

Comments

[J. Dvorak]

I consider some blogs beneficially informational in the sense that Salmon intends and patronize them for that purpose. However, the blogs I go back to repeatedly aren't just reference libraries, they offer the writer's ongoing take on life in general and his or her life in particular. Or on a particular subject, like Self-Styled Siren, whose stuff is art about movies.

You're not wasting your time, Lance. Keep writing. (And I've always wanted to be a version of John McPhee too.)

[Sherri]

I read Salmon. He makes Big Statements about The Way Things Are sometimes that tell me more about Salmon than about the way things are. I read Salmon because he's a good economics blogger and I learn things from him, but he doesn't always have the most nuanced view of the world.

I harbor no hard feelings towards Lehrer, but I wish the New Yorker had hired someone different, like Carl Zimmer, simply because I find Lehrer frustrating. I like reading about science, and Lehrer is often too superficial to be satisfying.

I don't think anyone could ever say John McPhee was superficial. I'm glad John McPhee had the best job in the world, because he made my world better by doing it.

[Katherine]

i read blogs that are interesting, illuminating, entertaining, and useful / this describes your blog / FWIW i am listening to Jonah Lehrer's book ~Imagine~ about creativity / it is interesting, illuminating, entertaining and useful / furthermore the author is reading the book and doing a good job of it / most of the time authors who read their own work for audio should have had someone else do it

[Steven Hart]

Felix Salmon writes from a position of privilege -- a perch at the Wall Street Journal -- and is full of shit in his pronouncements on the nature of blogging. Sometimes I link, but more often I write. That's because unlike Salmon, I don't have a high-profile media gig that sells my work. I blog mainly because I want people to see my writing and think that one of my books might be worth getting because I've been so awesomely entertaining and insightful on my website. I also use blog pieces to warm up for my regular daily dose of professional writing. My daily blog intake includes some linkmeisters, but mostly I read other writerly blogs (including yours) because I appreciate essays and good opinion pieces. I used to relish the op-ed sections of newspapers, which I thought of as the brains of the papers. Now that they've self-lobotomized, I get what I want from bloggers, a great many of whom have considerably more interesting things to say about the world than Felix Salmon, credentials be damned, has ever managed.

[KLG]

This blog is that of a writer, who also links. Keep up the good work! And that is a much better picture at the top right.

You forgot "The Founding Fish."

[KC45s]

Sometimes me and my lit nerd friends discuss who should be the next American to win the Nobel in literature. I always say McPhee.

At this point Salmon--and anyone else interested in the form--should know blogging has diversified way beyond any sort of "Blogging is [blank]" description. That he tries to say such a thing undercuts any authority he has on the subject.

You're a writer, LM. Know how I know? Because I don't come here for the links.

[Batocchio]

Hmm, the key aspect in Lehrer's case for me is that multiple people paid him for original content. If it's your own stuff, on your own blog, obviously you should link and/or quote an extended passage, but if you're repeating an observation or a single line - the equivalent of a callback - some sort of indication that you've said it before and a link is sufficient without quotation marks (more so if it's a paraphrase). Some writers/bloggers have a core thesis or set of observations they keep coming back to, and so certain phrases and ideas will reappear, although they still provide original content and analysis in those pieces. Rerunning an old piece without indicating that or re-selling a piece you've sold already, well, that's different.

As for "aggregators," the best ones have their place, but I can't stand bloggers who post nothing but cut-and-paste jobs (link and quote someone else, maybe add a line of commentary). It's fine once in a while, especially if the commentary is witty or goes a little more in depth, but I'm fond of original content and long form blogging.

[Lance Mannion]

Thank you, folks. I'm glad you're enjoying the blog.

KLG, The Founding Fish is a good one. Also The Curve of Binding Energy. I'll tell Oliver Mannion you like the new avatar. He made me change it.

KC45s, but you follow the links sometimes, I hope. I try to pick good ones.