August and "Perfect Sand"

All this week, I've tried to practice what I preached during the class I taught at Portland State last winter -- namely, to spend some time surfing the Web, exploring the blogosphere and becoming part of the universe made up of tens of millions of blogs.

These past few days I've mentioned blogs by my co-worker Mike Francis, new media professor Pam Cytrynbaum and news reporter-turned-food writer Heather Lalley (all of whom, now that I think about it, are graduates of Northwestern's Medill School of Journalism).

Today, I recommend to you "Perfect Sand," written by August. (That's her screen name; in real life, she is Rachel, living in Cincinnati).

But, first, some more background. When I began the class, I cited a few statistics, which even now boggle the mind.

According to eMarketer (May 2008), there were:
-- 94.1 million blog readers in the U.S. in 2007 (representing 50% of Internet users)
-- 22.6 million bloggers in the U.S. in 2007 (representing 12% of Internet users)

According to Universal McCann (March 2008), there were:
-- 184 million people worldwide who had started a blog, including 26.4 million in the U.S.
-- 346 million people worldwide who read blogs, including 60.3 million in the U.S.

According to Technorati.com:
-- 77% of active Internet users read blogs.

Summing up, Discover Magazine in 2007 said:

"The blogosphere is the most explosive social network you'll never see. Recent studies suggest that nearly 60 million blogs exist online, and about 175,000 more crop up daily (that's about 2 every second). Even though the vast majority of blogs are either abandoned or isolated, many bloggers like to link to other Web sites."

Given the explosive growth in this experimental medium, and allowing for extremes in quality, is it any wonder you can purposefully search for a blog on a specific topic and find treasure as well as trash? Likewise, is it any surprise you can stumble across something that disgusts or delights you?

It was the latter method that led me, about a month ago, to a blog that instantly appealed to me. It had all the qualities that I touted to my class: Well organized, clearly written with a distinctive voice, and thought-provoking content. A closer look revealed the writer's intelligence and tendency toward introspection.

What stood out to me? References to writers and topics that I care about, such as stories, teaching, writing, language, education. One post, "In the news," referenced David Brooks, the New York Times columnist, writing about a successful charter school in Harlem. Another, "Dishonor descended," discussed the words we use in everyday speech to either muddle or convey real meaning, citing the terms "waterboarding" and "water torture" as one example.

"Language," August wrote, "has the power to connect, to reveal truths, but it also can disguise or obfuscate...the truth."

As an editor, I'm all about clarity and specificity.

Anyway, I think August is a terrific writer. We've become followers of each other's blogs and I invite you to check hers out. http://perfectsand.blogspot.com/

And I hope you, readers, will expand this conversation by offering links to other blogs or Web sites that you recommend.