Happy Anniversary!

Happy Anniversary! Today marks the day Power of Babel turns ten years and one week old. Why such an odd number, you ask? Because I totally didn't notice it until a couple of days ago. I looked it up and found out that the average lifespan of a blog is only three months, so, taking Google's word for the length of an average human life, that makes Power of Babel the equivalent of a 316 year old.

Here is the mission statement I started with:

January 27, 2008: From Mego Planet of the Apes action figures to the first Star Wars to the latest McFarlane release, I have always loved and been fascinated with these sculpted plastic pals. To hold a solid three-dimensional piece of a dream is an indescribable thrill. This blog will be about my action figures--a collection that numbers in the thousands. I want to have a listing of every one, with special attention to new figures as I get them. I want to discuss the strange mania of action figures, their purpose, lore, and future. I am just an enthusiastic amateur, but I hope in this posting to grow in knowledge and expertise, with the help of anyone who can expand my understanding of the field. I hope to post my first entry and image soon!

A mere five months later I added other things to my mission statement:

May 31 2008: What other things? My fads, freaks, and fallacies, my memories, dreams, anectodage, books, movies, TV shows, favorite poems, pictures, fugitive writings--in effect, my blathering opinions on life, the universe, and everything. This will probably interest only my four readers (and not always all of them), but there it is.

And so it went, becoming my online common-place book and cork board. It was never been monetized, never meant to grow a product or gather an enormous following, though I am grateful for anyone who still looks in on me. I don't claim to own content, but I don't always give credit where it's due, and for that I apologize. In ten years, I've gathered forty followers, which averages out to four a year. I'm happy when anyone new pops in and thanks me for some obscure niche I've been able help them with. It's usually some post that I wrote years ago.

That's because lately my writing on the blog has slowed down, and been replaced largely with image dumps that would more properly be placed on a Tumblr page. That started after my TIA (or "ministroke") a couple of years back, when it was harder to find the time or energy to write. Then for a while all my writing 'juice' was absorbed in writing a new book, with only the leftover drops going to the blog when I was particularly outraged or enthused. Now I realize I have fallen into lazy habits, and hope to get back into more original content. After all, I have a never-ending fountain of blather and opinions. Why not use it?

One thing that makes it hard is that I no longer have great resources to bring myself new grist for the mill, and I don't particularly like to thresh old straw (to mix a metaphor). For me, new books (even new old books) are few and far between, action figures are almost right out, and, far-ranging as the internet is, there are diminishing returns for simply repeating what someone has already said, probably far better than you can.

But Brer, you say, what about your local library? Can't you read books from there? Our little library, valiant as its efforts are, is very limited, Even with inter-library loan, most of the books I want to read are not available, and when they are available, have taken three months to arrive. I got a new library card just a while ago, and have already depleted the resources of what I want to read. They do not even have copies of many of the classics. My niches are not major sells. Thus endeth my blather and excuses.

But Power of Babel proceeds gamely along, as I do, leaning on the cane of picture galleries, in low-power mode. I hope to soon bring it more up to speed again. As the doctors are so fond of saying, "Use it or lose it," and that includes your mind.