The Difference Between a Book and a Blog

 I have been thinking about this a lot, for a few reasons. When I was a kid, it was pretty common to find a collection of newspaper posts published as a book… beside someone’s toilet somewhere. It used to seem that books were a common place to stuff things. It seemed like length was often the distinguishing factor.

However, in this Computer Age, specialization is the name of the game. An anthology has to be _about_ something. The posts should have things in common, and they should introduce and dissect new ideas.

A book used to imply a page count, but it now implies a variety of properties, like:

- Page count

- Subject cohesion (coherence?)

- Voice

- Known characters

There are others, but this is a start.

When I was young, I read a lot as part of a school contest and for pizza. I read lots of Encyclopedia Brown and would ride my bike to garage sales to find copies. One of the memorable properties of Encyclopedia Brown was the predictable form: at the end of each caper, there was a puzzle solved with clues in the story. A particularly tough one that comes to mind was a man who said he just got back from a long drive, but Encyclopedia’s (Leroy?) Dad, a policeman(?), knew this was a lie because if he had been driving all day, the car would be much too hot for a human to touch, yet his toddler sat comfortably on the hood. Needless to say, I only got that by reading the answer.

Anyway, I suspect there’s something like Encyclopedia Brown today, but everything about it is probably more literal. Authors used to have to have some art in what they’re doing, but everything is very literal now. If you plan to make me think, you’d better tell me!

On one hand, I appreciate my expectations being set in advance. On the other, this definitely marks the end of the jazz era (yet we have no flying cars!).

And so this reminds me of what I was originally saying.

When you write a book, you have to know your audience and keep them happy. People are reading your book because they want it to help them somehow, not because they care about your sandwich.

Additionally, I once had a boss who said would people wonder: WIIFM? This stands for What’s In It For Me.

Although he kinda drove me nuts, I think he got this right. People want everything they want and nothing they don’t. Moreover, most people want small ball stuff:  personal success and glory for as long as they live.

And so I have no answers here. I will say it seems like there’s a lot left to do. I will also add that I think about Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey often, in the context of religion. I grew up going to church ALL the time (a place for my dad to play piano!), and it seems like a lot of their content was super pertinent in the roman empire. Nowadays, a lot of the content seems markedly less relevant. Moreover, I’m not even sure a lot of religious people know much about their own history. And like Bill Hicks said, isn’t wearing a cross like paying homage to Jackie O with a rifle around your neck?

I think many people are religious because avoiding an eternity of punishment is a powerful motivator, but I find it hard to believe faith is the end. It’s more likely the romans were lazy or disagreed with each other.

We would be remiss to think we’re done. STATION!