The secret life of blogging?

A friend and successful blogger told me this weekend that a blog is not a diary: it is not where you share your most personal experiences with everyone, his brother and his dog (if his dog happens to be online). In a blog you have something to offer, something to teach, the reader can walk away enriched in some way by your words.

I'm not so sure.

This morning I was confronted with an ad for [another!] reality show. Bret Michaels, Life As I Know It. You know, the guy from Poison? So I moused over the ad to see the preview and thought, Why?? Who cares about this guy and his life? Because he was famous, I assume. We see people in the news, on TV, on stage and we want to know more! But at some point we lose interest in their faces, bodies or voices, and they (hopefully for them) realize this and either get out or do something new. Maybe they recognize the demand from our voyeurism and start a reality show!

Fair enough.

But what about Big Brother? Or The Biggest Loser? Or The Hills (etc.)? (I don't know if this last is considered a reality show but it looks like one and has had the same effect.) Some Nobody exposes their personal life on television and gets famous.

Now I'm not prepared to do an analysis of the sociopolitical effects of reality shows in the second decade of the new millennium. But I'd like to know: is this what we want? To root into people's personal lives, know their secrets and their failures? Why? To feel better about ourselves? Or is it just curiosity? The insatiable desire to know things just because they're on the internet or television?

I do not know. But with this I come back to my friend's statement. Are blogs the proper venue for discussion of our personal lives?

Why not? It seems to be where the audience's interest lies. Sure, they should be well written, since reading is so more work than watching (therefore we are more willing to watch crap than read it). And it can't hurt to have a moral or informative aspect so that readers can apply this intimate knowledge to their own lives.

But I think that in the end, we just want to know about other people's lives. Hopefully not just out of Schadenfreude, but so that we can learn more about our own.

And besides, we bloggers love to write - and our own lives are our best source of material.

Fall festivity

It was kids' day yesterday (but isn't every day?). We went to another Fest, this time the Jugendfarm Kastanienfest. They did it all: pony riding, paint spinning, bread baking (over an open fire), climbing of insubstantial constructions, the ever-present Wurst, and lighting something on fire so that they could put the fire out.
It was fun.

There was a tiny spider on the back of the saddle. I barely got her off the horse.

International Velvet.

Looking down from one of those insubstantial constructions. I don't know if there were nails and garbage up top, I never went up there. But there was plenty underneath.

Fire! Fire! First we got smoked by all the manure and garbage they put in, then we were nearly charred by the flames. Finally a light shower, just in case we were also alight.

All in all a fun day. Fun with friends, fun with food, fun with fire. What more could we ask for?

Falling

This is the park near our house. There are still flowers blooming amidst the changing leaves. So we have green grass, yellow tree, red bush, purple and yellow flowers. I love when it's colorful.

Chloé in the park. Not colorful, but the falling leaves mark the season.

The dying leaves have taken up residence on the steps.

The church next door. With lamppost, Chloé and dying leaves.

Downtown Kornwestheim, metropolis that it is. But that doesn't matter since they have chosen such fantastic fall trees for this walking street.

I loved this picture in the camera, and I love it even more on the screen. A park bench, a brilliant yellow tree, a lamp on a path in the park. Such beauty surrounds me.