About this blog
Welcome to what i saw today, a blog that tries to make sense of random scenes. I'm a Vermont-based freelance writer (and copywriter by day; click here for more on my background). And this blog grew out of my website, where I archive my various articles, essays, book reviews and radio commentaries.
Initially I saw the blog as just another tool to keep my website dynamic and fresh, but quickly came to embrace the loose, straight-from-the-container format and the anything-goes subject matter in a public domain – a refreshing change for someone raised on inches and word counts, demands for objectivity and dispassionate prose, and editors of varying degrees of rigidity and caution.
I can’t say there’s a particular bent to what i saw today; it’s not political, or a niche discussion corner. It’s more of a reaction. The world has changed in unsettling ways. On one level, I feel such shifts are simply part of being alive and growing older – change and upheaval, progress and war. Life. But for some time now, it’s felt like the changes have been occuring at a molecular level, a fundamental altering of our cultural brain chemistry. The shallow and surface-level are embraced and championed. Abuse of power tolerated. Greed and entitlement abundant. So much taken for granted. The truly meaningful and uplifting seem to dwell in dimmer and harder-to-reach places.
Perhaps this blog is my protest against the superficial and empty, an attempt to find meaning in the random, half-noticed and common, and if I’m lucky, uncover what might be called beauty, or at least poignancy. In a way, I suppose the spirit of what i saw today is similar to the inspiration behind found art. Random scenes picked out and reworked into something different. I can’t promise it’ll always work. But I’ll always try (well, at least two or three times a week). So thanks for reading. And come back often -- as often as you like.
P.S. Here's a recent public radio commentary I wrote about this bloggy life:
I blog therefore I am
Like a growing number of Vermonters, commentator Caleb Daniloff has launched a blog. But what started as a curious pastime is now verging dangerously close on an obsession. Jan. 8, 2007 (VPR)
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