Woot! Woot! Woot!
Bookworm on Jun 14 2009 at 9:43 pm | Filed under: Uncategorized
At some point today, I passed the 1,000,000 reader mark! That’s very cool. I know, though, that most of those hits are of the hit-and-run variety, from people who check something out and never return. They’re good for the numbers, but not good for my soul.
What’s good for my soul is my regular readers (and you know who you are), all of whom have helped me achieve a lifelong dream. (And, funnily enough. I only realized that fact this very second.) Let me explain:
When I was young, I read about Madame de Stael and her famous salon. Madame de Stael was renowned, not for her beauty, but for hosting a salon which was a meeting place for the brightest intellectual lights in Europe. She was a magnet for fascinating, intelligent, witty people. I thought that was a wonderful thing, and dreamed of hosting parties like that in my house.
Over the years, if I ever thought about that career aspiration, I would have told you that it hadn’t come true. Between the fact that my husband is too tired to socialize and I’m too mediocre a cook to want to inflict my food on my friends, my home is a mecca only for children. There are no scintillating conversations here (unless you consider going over carpool schedules the height of intellectual sophistication).
What I suddenly figured out this very minute, though, as I was considering those of you who come and comment here on a regular basis, is that I did in fact fulfill my childhood dream. The only difference is that I didn’t do it in my home. Instead, I did it in cyberspace. This blog is my salon and you, my regular readers, are the fascinating, intelligent, witty people who come here and bring it alive.
Thank you so much!
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22 Responses to “Woot! Woot! Woot!”
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Let me be the first to cyber-congratulate you, Book. It’s a wonderfully creative outlet to be part of your salon.
Then I will be the second and say…MAZEL TOV.
The best part about being a cyber hostess:
1. no need to prepare a meal.
2. no need to clean up after we leave.
3. no loud noises.
4. you don’t have to shave your legs for guests.
5. you can leave the room and go to sleep and we’ll never know.
And thank you, Bookworm, for providing such a wonderful forum!
Sadie – I love your list.
Deana
It’s been a pleasure reading you since Neo-Neocon linked to you.
Guess I should participate more in the conversation and not just read.
Many congrats, Book!
So I am participating in an intellectual salon. I am reminded of the well- known Groucho Marx line:
“I don’t care to belong to a club that accepts people like me as members.”
BW,
Glad to be a reader/commenter in the salon; it is a good place to speak freely and clearly.
Thank you for hosting – and for dealing with the occasional rant.
SSG Dave
“The world is neither good nor evil; the world is. There is no such thing as mankind, only individuals and mobs. The former can be good or evil; the latter are mindless masses directed by the good or the evil to achieve an end. When you are an individual and a light for good, then your work shall multiply a thousandfold – even a single smile may change the world.”
You all are *intellectuals*?
Shakes head, backs slowly away muttering, “I didn’t know man, I didn’t know . . .”
Congratulations, Book. I am honored to be a frequent visitor to your salon. If it were not a cyber salon, I would be happy to wash up the wine glasses just for the chance to eavesdrop on you and your great guests.
Ever since I’ve begun visiting this room, my liberal friends have noticed a change in me. Now, whenever I get into an earnest political discussion with one of them, the encounter often goes like this:
Me: “So you can see that Hayek anticipated the Obamist road to serfdom fully 65 years before the U.S. began traveling down it in earnest.”
Liberal Friend [rises from the table, takes and unfolds a carefully preserved "Si Se Puede!" Obama poster from his wallet and waves it in my face, like a crucifix in front of a vampire]:
“Put
the
brain
down.
Back
away
from
the
brain.
Don’t even think about thinking. If I see the slightest indication that you are about to think, I will loudly call you a fascist!”
Thanks for wrecking my social life, Book.
I love you to bits.
Should I have garlic in my pocket when I talk to you, Charles?
BW,
Congratulations on the platinum plateau in cyberville.
No intellectual here though, just another of the “Joes” inhabiting midville (or mudville), worried about what little future we are leaving our children. Assuming that most of the Z generation (or whatever they’re called now) voted for Obama, I make a point of thanking them for the benefits I may still get to enjoy, though I do point out the only thing left for them will be the bill.
I enjoy your topics, and appreciate the civil tone here, though what did happen to Oz?
>>You all are *intellectuals*?>>
Book is very generous.
On the other hand, the ability to string together some multiple of sentences, none of which contain the usual four letter words or hissed “…ist!” just _may_ qualify many of us as intellectuals. That does lower the bar a bit though, doesn’t it!
In truth, it seems that the level of discourse required to qualify as intellectual may have dropped somewhat.
>>Shakes head, backs slowly away muttering>>
Come on back! (Fake it…no one will know!)
Should I have garlic in my pocket when I talk to you, Charles?
Try a pocket nuke, Book. I assure you, it works better.
I think I’ve been here for years. And that is kind of long… come to think of it. Which I don’t.
Oh well, back to sleep.
suek…
Are you kidding, it’s been the ultimate intellectual challenge for me to think before I write and edit out what usually litters my personal emails.
I enjoy your topics, and appreciate the civil tone here, though what did happen to Oz?
There’s No Place like Home.
I apologize for almost never commenting but yours is a site I visit at least thrice daily.
Council speak 06/16/09…
The council has spoken. For the second week in a row the winning council entry was by Mere Rhetoric, The WH’s Eight-Step Plan For Detonating The US-Israel Relationship, which lists the different ways the White House might play hardball with Israel. Th…
Suek, I spent most of my young adulthood pretending I liked reading Camus. It’s been a long haul back to normalcy for me, and I’m scared of anything that threatens it–such as associating with people who talk about politics and culture without using the words “narrative” and “authenticity” and “inclusive”
You know…I don’t think of myself as an “intellectual”. However many things in life _are_ relative, and I suspect that Book – and you – are both at least a generation behind many of us who comment here. To be honest, I think that the thoughtfulness of the population in general has diminished alarmingly over the last 40 – 50 years, and I can see that it’s entirely possible that those of us who were merely average 50 years ago might _seem_ “intellectual”. The bad news is that in all probability it’s due to the lowering of the level of intellectual pursuits among the general public, not to individual accomplishment.
The other possibility is that as we get older we accumulate a lot of “stuff” in our brains – and several of us, at least, are old enough to have accumulated “stuff” in our memories that younger people have to learn in a disconnected way. To you it’s history…to some of us it’s memories or experience. Personally, as I’ve gotten older I’ve learned a lot of miscellaneous information, and the amazing thing is that as much as I’ve learned, I’ve also learned that the amount I don’t know just keeps getting bigger and bigger.
Life is good!
suek, i believe the saying is, “the more you know, the more you realize you don’t know.”
(That doesn’t look quite grammatically correct, but that’s as close as I can get to the actual saying.)
Yes – I’ve heard that. And of course, the older you get, with any luck, the more you’ll learn and the more you’ll realize how much you don’t know.
Which explains why only teenagers know everything!