{"id":3026,"date":"2009-01-29T15:20:48","date_gmt":"2009-01-29T20:20:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/?p=3026"},"modified":"2009-01-30T13:00:29","modified_gmt":"2009-01-30T18:00:29","slug":"shucks-folks-im-speechless","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/2009\/01\/shucks-folks-im-speechless\/","title":{"rendered":"Shucks, Folks. I’m Speechless."},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"I’m a godawful blogger in at least one sense: I don’t do much to promote RAMH<\/em>, other than to visit sites I like — visit them regularly, for the most part — and just let this site be discovered, if the reader should choose, by (a) following the link to it from the “JES” in comments elsewhere, or (b) wandering in, all unawares, probably as the result of a misguided left turn in the halls of Google.<\/p>\n

(When I do<\/em> provide an explicit link to a post here, it’s always with a cringe and a hurried look away, in the other direction — almost hoping no one catches me in the act.)<\/p>\n

Like, what’s wrong with me? Don’t I know how important it is that I suck in not only the intentional but also the accidental audience? Don’t I want to [insert gigundo-scaled objective here]<\/em> sooner rather than later?<\/p>\n

Apparently not.<\/p>\n

Thus, positive attention from any quarter at all feels wondrous to me. It’s like waking up on a sunny morning to find a rainbow arching through the sliding-glass patio door and terminating mid-forehead.<\/p>\n

So anyhow, generous Kate over at What Kate Did Next<\/em> has seen fit<\/a> to pass to me and four others this… this… “baton,” is it, Kate? This emblem, in any case, of something called the Superior Scribbler Award, first begun by The Scholastic Scribe<\/em> in a post back in October. Here’s the driving motivation for the award, per the Scribe<\/em>:<\/p>\n

Diverting the internal traffic between the Writer as Angel of Light and the Writer as Hustler is the scribbling child in a grown-up body, wondering if anyone is listening.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(by Herbert Gold<\/a>, elder statesman of The Beat Generation)<\/p>\n

“Scribbling child in a grown-up body”: I can’t think of a nicer compliment, irrespective of anyone’s listening or not.<\/p>\n

When Miss America dons her tiara, she dons with it the weight of responsibility for visiting the elderly and homeless and generally downtrodden, throwing out the first ball of the Little League season, promoting whirled peas, and offering that weird rotating-the-wrist beauty-queen wave to everyone she passes. Those who’ve earned the Superior Scribbler Award bear a similar burden, to wit:<\/p>\n