Saturday, February 28, 2015

Readership

Reposted from 2009.  Not much has changed.  FB has helped a bit because I can point people here --  ☞ This way to the Egress.    But if you look for comments, you still won't find them.  It remains true that most of my visitors are accidentals: they Googled "What is Dead Wabbit," and were offered this.


I: But people not named Epstein do too read here, at least occasionally.


Other: They don't, you know. Well, there are a couple regular nutters, I admit that, but only a very few, and they're all elderly shut-ins who talk  energetically to their cats and their hand-tinted portraits of the Queen Mum.

I: There are others, I'm almost certain. You can tell by looking at the map of the most recent "visitors."

Other: Oh, yes--you mean the folks who arrive here by Googling "poems about friction," "poems about recently deceased grandfather," "manifest destiny poem," "short blank verse poem," and "what does elegy in country churchyard mean." They are accidentals; they don't mean to be here, and they don't stay. Have you noticed that when Katy and Rebecca and Trish put up posts, they are pounded by replies? And where are your equivalents then?

I: But they're all...well, they aren't like me in some critical respects.

Other: You were going to say, "They're girls," weren't you?

I: No. Not me. Not ever. They're bright and talented and interesting writers.

Other: Oh, so that's how they differ from you.

I: Never mind. You win. I lose. It's all true. This is the blogging equivalent of vanity pressing your books, the Blogspot version of the Vantage Press. But it's a harmless outlet for my excess energies. Who knows what I might be doing, were it not for this.

Other: Spraying funereal distiches on the underpass, standing on the corner with a hand-lettered sign, "Villanelles for food. God Bless." That sort of thing?

I: No doubt. No doubt at all.

Other: And the last time you had any "excess energies," The Temptations and The Four Tops were in the Top 10.

I: Dayenu. I concede. Let me get back to being obscure.

Other: Who?