hal tweets ·4:39 PM
Camera two installed in kitchen kitchcam!
2009,
20:33 GMT
Anonymity Project: The PostSecret Effect
Posted by: Hal
Here’s an interesting 5 minute video about why people send their secrets to PostSecret and read their embarrassing pubescent diaries out loud on stage at events like Mortified. It doesn’t break any new ground, but it’s well done and I like the focus on the “need for authenticity” and the idea that “new media create new ways of knowing ourselves.” It reminded me of the conversation I had with Frank Warren (creator of PostSecret) and how he told me that it really didn’t matter if all the secrets he gets in the mail are true or not, what matters is that we, the readers of the secrets, feel they are true.
2009,
0:30 GMT
Do Writers Make Bad Bloggers?
Posted by: Hal
The writer McKinley M. Hellenes is someone I’ve corresponded with in the past about my work and writing in general. She posted these thoughtful comments on my Facebook page and her blog. I’m reprinting them below with her permission. I think they are very astute in their observations about why writers make poor (personal) bloggers. Self censorship, self reflection, ongoing editing — all of those things are negatives. They take you out of yourself and keep you from being totally immediate and in the moment in your blog. At least, they do that to me. It’s like everything I’ve taught myself to do as a writer is now an imposition. Tomorrow, I’ll be entering the second phase of making the documentary and trying to get to the core of peep by peeping myself. I’ll be blogging several times a day, plus twitters, pics, videos and everything else I can think of. I’ll try to break through my inclinations to edit and hold back — will I be able to? We’ll see what happens.
Comments by McKinley M. Hellenes:
I’ve been thinking about the tenor of your blog voice, and your attempts to break down privacy barriers and truly write as *you* stripped bare and real and all of that. And I’ve been thinking about what it means to write in a truly intimate manner. And I was thinking that when you write your novels and stories, the voice you write in is infinitely more intimate than the voice you write in as yourself (emails, articles from your own POV, your blog). While I find those pieces interesting and intriguing, they do not move me. Why is that? I feel like they should. Like if I am getting a true glimpse of your actual, human life, I should be inordinately moved, somehow. But I’m not. And I think it’s because you hide behind your ideas emotionally-speaking. You don’t really emote in your blog. I feel like I want you to emote, like I should feel like there is this intense intimacy between me as a reader and your voice as a writer. I’m running out of space—will continue below…
Please excuse any typos—I’m staying up way too late to obsess about this. I’m going to keep talking in the comments section. Is this annoying? I thought it would be appropriate to make these messages public rather than sending a private message. Anyway, as I was saying…
Why can we as writers create such poignancy and intimacy in our fiction but not in our blogs? And people who are not writers are so capable of expressing themselves in a truly intimate way through their blogs? I’ve noticed this. I am way more squeamish in writing in my blog than so many of the blogs I read. I am trying to figure that out. And I keep reading your blog trying to find similarities. I feel like you are squeamish too. Why are we squeamish? We are writers. We’re supposed to be fearless. But I feel like I am learning that I want to write fearless things, but it doesn’t actually make me that way at all. I’m a liar and a thief by trade. How do I tell the truth about myself the way other people do?Maybe I can’t and never will. Maybe I traded that ability in for the gift of being able to write about other people’s truths and intimacies. Maybe I will never be able to tell the truth about myself. Do you think you are telling the truth about yourself? Sometimes I think I tell the truth about myself when I am not even talking about myself. When I am writing about someone who is nothing like me. Maybe a writer can’t do what you are trying to do, because we are too busy self-editing. I don’t think other people are compelled to do that. And that is why I love writing about them, love reading about them. They are so unselfconscious. Maybe you can’t do what you want to do with your blog consciously. It has to be reflexive. What do you think? Am I just tired and crazy at 1:00 AM, or am I managing to say something here? Tomorrow I will read this and be embarrassed, but in the interests of peep culture, I am going to stand by it. Anyways. All I was really trying to say when I started yapping was that I think you write so much about ideas that the messy truth of your life is sort of contained. You talk *about* full-disclosure but perhaps you don’t actually do it. Because you are too self-aware, and you are sort of dress-rehearsing, like “pretending” to watch TV and buy a phone. Is that at all accurate, I wonder? I don’t know. But I like this. It’s interesting. I wonder what will be the end result of it all. I am going to stop talking now. I feel oddly…exposed! There, that’s something. But I didn’t do anything but express an idea. I should have made some sort of deep dark confession. But I am far too squeamish. I can’t even do the 25 things about me thing. Ugh. Perish the thought! Good night. I’ll be reading the blog, lurking about. You might see me from the corner of your eye. These are not criticisms, just thoughts. Friendly observations out of true interest and wondering. Also, I apologize for the several glaring typos! I am even too squeamish to seem like a faulty grammarian in public! Ha
2009,
16:23 GMT
How’s My Blogging?
Posted by: Hal
Hi everyone, how’s my blogging? Sally and the factotums of Choco Box have sent down a communique. They want to do a bit of a customer satisfaction survey. They want to know how you like my blogging so far. They’re particularly interested in any personal details you might be gleaning from my musings. Actually, you have to go way back to the beginning of this blog to find the personal stuff, but that’s about to change as next week I’ll be shifting gears and writing daily about the life and times of Hal. Anyway, if you have anything to say about my blogging, what you’d like to see me do, say, show, reveal, now’s your chance. Here’s the official customer survey as sent down from head office. Let’s hear what you’ve got to say as we head into the hot summer of Hal.
Hi everyone, We want to get Hal some feedback on his blogging so far. Has he been doing a good job of 'sharing'? Of revealing his personal side? What about his Facebook account? Do you feel you know him any better now than you did before? Or does he keep it too professional, too 'managed'? We're looking for your feedback and you don't have to be kind! Just send a comment to this blog and tell us everything that's on your mind. And stay tuned…full documentary production starts next week and we're looking for people to get involved!
2009,
16:34 GMT
The King of Peep
Posted by: Hal
He went the way he lived, veiled in bizarre secrecy even as the entire world wanted to know everything. Michael Jackson, king of pop, who thrilled me and my teenage cohorts with the audacious creation of a half-million dollar 14 minute music video complete with choreographed zombie dancing, is dead at 50.
He will be remembered as much for Billie Jean and ABC as for dangling his infant son over a balcony for the benefit of reporters and a clamoring public. The image of his moon walk (a move I’ve attempted and failed repeatedly over the last 20 years) competes with the legend of the bizarre ranch/amusement park he built and maintained, a playground so expensive he had to borrow hundreds of millions of dollars to keep it going. And just what went on in the popmeister’s Pee Wee’s playhouse? Interest in Wacko Jacko has never diminished. Jackson fed the fire of our fascination with the private lives of celebrities by being at once completely and utterly exposed as a freak, and completely and utterly absent from the public view.
The legacy of Michael Jackson will be more peep than pop. His music will be remembered, but his effect on the culture has been nothing short of seismic. By living the way he did, he actually reshaped how mass media reported on the private lives of people in the spotlight. He was one of the first — if not the first — to get caught in the trap of peep culture. His life itself became spectacle and entertainment. Whether he liked it or not, his every move proved wildly entertaining. Jackson shaped peep culture like no one else. His personal travails showed, beyond anything else, just how entertaining and marketable other people’s lives could be.
Since Jackson, a long line of entertainers and regular people – from OJ Simpson to Britney Spears to Susan Boyle – have been submitted to the Jackson treatment. But it was Michael Jackson, whose every plastic surgery, rumored child fondling and real estate deal, spawned headlines across the world. It was Jackson who inspired the formula we now know and live with: paparazzi stake outs, tabloid celebrity “entertainment” shows focussed on peeping the lives of celebrities, 24 hour news cycles ever attuned to the doings of pop stars — these things were, literally, brought into being by our worldwide fascination with the doings of Michael Jackson.
In 2002, the BBC ran an online poll on their site for teens: “Is Michael Jackson a complete nutter or just misunderstood?” This crass, anything-goes way of using other people’s lives to entertain ourselves, that’s Jackson’s true legacy.
Rest in peace, Michael Jackson, king of peep.
2009,
20:19 GMT
The Pain and the Pleasure: Hal Tour Video Peep
Posted by: Hal
Okay here’s a cute little video Sally did of parts of my book tour. See me cracking up on the Joey Reynolds late night talk radio show (everyone go to Sally’s blog and demand that she give us another video JUST on that, it’s so bizarre and hysterical).
Also: Hal doesn’t want to talk about Chicago (where the listings in all the papers said the reading would be the NEXT night) and the great reveal in LA. (I won’t spoil it for ya, but what Sally doesn’t show you is her chasing down a horrified Timothy Dalton and knocking a stack of books over in the process. Sally: Can I take my picture with you? Timothy Dalton: Ah no, I’d rather not, actually). Here’s a signed pic of him Sally, to take away the pain…
I’m a stuck up asshole…
Anyway, great video and I suppose I better get used to it…Peep culture baby. My pain is your gain.
The Bloggist
Hey, I’m Hal Niedzviecki. I’m a writer/thinker who lives in Toronto, Ontario, Canada with my wife and daughter. Up till now I’ve always considered myself a private person. But at the same time I’m fascinated by people who effortlessly open themselves up to the whole world. So I’ve… more...
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