I quite enjoy blogging.

Blogging is a great way for me to practice my writing and share my thoughts and ideas with others. I also enjoy the feedback, especially when a particular post resonates with a large number of people.

In one form or another, I have been blogging since 1999. As regular readers will know, there isn’t a single focus for The Grapevine but certain themes do appear regularly such as architecture, photography, science, the media, arts and even politics. That’s the joy of the personal blog: It can be as broad or narrow as the owner desires.

For some people, audience numbers are important. Genre blogs tend to have an easier time in attracting large audiences because their subject matter is defined and, therefore, so are the interests of their audience. For others, audience is of absolutely no concern. Indeed, there are plenty of bloggers who want (or even need) to remain anonymous.

For me, I take a middle road. Audience numbers aren’t the primary concern, but of course I want as many people to enjoy my work as possible.

I tend to write about matters of concern to me at a moment in time. Sometimes, if there is a dearth of information about a particular subject matter on the internet, I will write a piece to fill the gap. This strategy can sometimes have a tremendous (and unexpected) impact, such when I wrote about declining ratings at Triple J, which ultimately led to a published magazine article challenging the station director.

Different people write blogs differently. Personally, I like to research my topics in detail, and this can result in hours of time spent trawling the internet for supporting documentation or evidence, or just in conducting research on a topic. For instance, my piece questioning the State Government’s easing of Stage 3A water restrictions took 5 hours to research and compose.

Social media has become very big in the last few years and whilst I still have personal doubts about the merits of Facebook, I cannot deny its popularity or impact.  Yet Facebook (and to a lesser-extent, Twitter) seem to emphasise the trivial and mundane over the substantive and important. On so many levels, this is a tragedy for society and for the quality of public discourse as a whole.

Whilst there are many blogs which, like social media, focus on the superficial, most still tend to be thoughtful in their composition. Thankfully, and in contrast to some social media, the tendency for the use of full sentences and grammatically-correct English (with all the usual personal idiosyncrasies) makes even these sites a reasonable read.

For me, writing is one of the great joys of blogging: It continually trains me to consider carefully what I write, how I structure my argument and how it will be expressed. Because bloggers each write differently and come from many varied backgrounds (Australia is merely a suburb in the global village these days), I actually gain benefit from reading other people’s work, in understanding other peoples’ ways of thinking, their lives, their cultures, their experiences and their writing. Most enjoyable of all, their personality is expressed in their writing.

Blogs are also inherently democratic. Whilst Facebook statuses are hidden behind privacy walls and tweets are too small to have any real meaning in themselves, blogs are open to all and provide genuine insight.

These days, blogging is very easy. If one has his or her own website, one of the open-source applications like Moveable Type or WordPress can be installed and activated in minutes, with plenty of free design templates available. (The Grapevine is powered by WordPress, with my own custom theme). Alternatively, providers such as WordPress.com, LiveJournal or Blogger provide a hosted blogging platform for free, so people just need to set-up an account and start writing. Naturally, this is the most popular option.

Better still, there are so many applets and plug-ins now available that one’s blog can be linked to a Facebook, Twitter or other social media account. So whilst I condemn Facebook for being shallow and pointless, I still use it to generate an audience for my other creative pursuits, including this blog.

So here I am at the end of the article, and I am not sure I have said very much at all, really. At the end of the day it doesn’t really matter because there’s no editor to work for, no advertising to satisfy and no publication deadline to meet.

And that’s the best bit of all.

Late last week, I submitted a photograph to ABC Television here in Melbourne for consideration as the “weather photo” on ABC News Victoria.

Yesterday, I was watching the weather segment when I realised that my image of a cold morning on the Yarra River had been selected!

The ABC uses the same image for several nights in a row, so I was able to record the broadcast this evening. You can watch the segment below (or on YouTube):

If you’d like to have a photo considered for broadcast, you can upload your image to ABV2 via their “weather photo” website at http://www.abc.net.au/victoria/tvweather/upload.htm

About six months ago, I  became a late convert to Facebook. I had long resisted the call to join, but eventually I decided that I should try it and see what it’s like. I reasoned that perhaps I might be surprised and my preconceptions would be proven false. So I joined.

Now I wonder if it was worth the bother? The sad truth is that Facebook is a very shallow pool in which to wade.

When I first joined, Facebook was mildly interesting. I bumped into a few people that I’d not seen for a while, so it was good to see what they were up to. I was also able to enjoy the photos, personal observations, and other contributions of my work colleagues, friends and family that I’d previously been excluded from. Those were also good.

But there was a lot about Facebook that wasn’t good.

Signing up on Day 1 was easy, but adjusting all the default privacy settings to a level that actually respected my privacy was very time-consuming.

In terms of coding and functionality, there’s no way to embed image thumbnails nor hyperlinks on Facebook within comments. More incredibly, there’s no way of editing posts. In cases where typographic mistakes are identified or errors-of-fact emerge, the only choice is to delete and re-post a comment. If that is done after someone has commented, their contribution is deleted too.

What surprised me more was the very shallow nature of the enterprise (more than I expected). People who would never talk to me in real life suddenly and inexplicably wanted to become a “friend” on Facebook.

I have run my own website since 1998, so I probably come from the “old school” of the internet where people hosted personal websites and interacted via forums and blogs. Blogs have really taken off in the “Web 2.0” era, and this has been a blessing. There’s nothing I like more on the internet than to read informed, thoughtful and heartfelt opinion on topics, even those for which I have opposing views. I also enjoy the discussion that follows.

Likewise, I thoroughly enjoy writing blog articles and interacting with my readers. The comments following my recent article about the Bacchus Marsh “Avenue of Honour” provide a good example of this, as does my famous post about Triple J.

Sadly, Facebook seems geared entirely to discourage this sort of depth and texture. Actual discussion is rare. Instead, it favours triviality and superficiality. The online quiz results, spam advertising (in the form of “liking” something), “gifts” or stupid status updates just become tiring after a while. The pointless bra colour meme was especially notable in this regard.

I won’t suspend my account just yet, although as the New York Times reports, this is an increasing trend. But I will definitely pull-back on the posts and see how it pans out. Basically, I am just losing interest.

Facebook always did seem over-hyped. As it turns out, it is.

To readers of The Grapevine, friends and colleagues:

I sincerely wish everyone a safe and Merry Christmas, and all the best for the year ahead!

Christmas is not only a time to celebrate our Christian faith with friends and family, but a time to relax and enjoy all that the season has to offer.

Whatever Christmas means for you, may the season be filled with joy and peace. I wish you an enjoyable and rewarding year ahead!

Regards,

 
_{Image: Madonna and Child with Cherubs (c. 1650) by Giovanni Battista Salvi (Il Sassoferrato).}

I was browsing through my photo album today when I discovered an old photo that I’d shot on film back in 1999.

The photograph was of a topiarised specimen of Chamaecyparis lawsoniana, which I Christened the “Happy Conifer“.

The shrub grew in the the front garden of a house in Vermont South. Seeing it again, a smile immediately came to my face, not just because of its appearance, but because of the story that lay behind the Happy Conifer’s creation.

^{The Happy Conifer in Danielle Court, Vermont South. Photographed by the author in 1999.}

As you can see from the photograph, the conifer had been clipped into a lovely big face, complete with bristling big eyebrows. Standing on the corner of two streets, it almost appeared to have a personality of its own.

Despite its jovial appearance, it is the story behind this topiary’s creation that I find most interesting. For the Happy Conifer was in fact a happy accident of sorts.

The owner of this property (whom I don’t know personally) appeared to be very keen on growing conifers. In fact, his entire garden consisted of hundreds of different species, all beautifully trimmed into neat shapes. Sometimes I would see the owner trimming his plants, standing atop a trestle that he’d especially erected for the purpose.

Clearly, I was not the only person who’d noticed his dedication to horticultural art, because someone with a more devious motive made a decision to do some topiary of their own.

The Happy Conifer is Born.

One Sunday morning when I was passing by, I noticed there’d been a sudden change in the landscape.

Maybe it was drunken Saturday-night prank? Maybe it was just a dare or an act of coniferous jealousy? Whatever it was, I quickly noticed that someone had passed-by under the cover of darkness and hacked a giant face into the conifer. Appreciating the effort that went into this garden, I felt somewhat sorry for that poor man who spent all the time clipping his plants. Yet at the same time, I have to admit to being somewhat amused because it really did look funny.

I was expecting that the gardener would probably let the face ‘grow out’ and write it off as a nasty act of vandalism. But instead, it seems he may have been amused too because rather than disappearing, the face underwent some ‘plastic surgery’ over the next few years. Slowly it was transformed from a few crude shapes into a piece of sculpture!

Obviously, I was not the only resident curious to watch the transformation. Another local resident went to the trouble of submitting a photo to the Burke’s Backyard magazine in 1998. Norma Shaw’s image, reproduced below, clearly shows the Happy Conifer during its transitive years.

^{A photograph of the Happy Conifer by Norma Shaw,which appeared in Burke’s Backyard magazine in 1998.}

After many many years of amusing Vermont South residents, the Happy Conifer met its demise not too long ago, in a storm. It has since been removed. Having myself moved away from the area, I have no idea whether the same people still live in that house in Danielle Court,  Vermont South.

Nevertheless, having brought a smile to my face, I thought it only reasonable to spread the joy to others; the sort of joy that only a shrub with a face can provide.