Chitra Ganesh, Over the City (detail), 2018, linocut on tan BFK Rives. Courtesy of the artist and Durham Press.
Bringing the “Web” Back to Weblog
When we told some of our former contributors that we were starting a blog, one of them noted that “blog” is a pretty ugly word. And it is a pretty ugly word; it suggests, maybe, a gelatinous creature that comes down from outer space to smother us in cat gifs, lolz, and rambling meditations on that day’s breakfast.
You know, I think something significant got lost when, way back in the 20th century, the word “weblog” dropped its clear reference to “web.” Because the web part of the weblog is often more interesting than the log part. It reminds us that the internet is supposed to be about more than just self-expression; it’s also supposed to be about interconnections.
For sure that’s how we’re thinking about this blog here at AGNI, where we’re very interested in bringing things together. We’re envisioning this as a space where connections can be made between seemingly disparate happenings in the world of writing and art; between a person’s creative work and that person’s life and ideas; between our authors and readers; between the conversations happening in our magazine and the conversations happening outside it; between apparently contradictory ideas; between one art form and another; between different pieces that we’ve published; between the ugly and the beautiful; between writers and other writers.
And so: Sit back in the web and make yourself comfortable. Or make yourself uncomfortable. Or both. Welcome, in other words, to the between space.
David Ebenbach is the author of eight books of fiction, poetry, and nonfiction, including, most recently, the novel How to Mars (Tachyon Publications, 2021) and the poetry collection Some Unimaginable Animal (Orison Books, 2019). He teaches at Georgetown University. Visit him at www.davidebenbach.com. (updated 6/2021)
Ebenbach founded the AGNI blog in 2015 and edited it until 2019.
In “My Father’s Last Story,” reprinted from Litragger, Mike Anderson Campbell reflects on Ebenbach’s AGNI Online story “We’ll Finish When We’re Done.”