I field a lot of questions from a lot of people. In my younger (much younger) days (years), I fielded with the best of them – Brooks Robinson, Cletis Boyer, and that lovely person working at the 92nd Street Y who folds the audience queries just so. What a fine service they provide, depriving the prognosticators, the pontificators, the soap box heroes, a public forum from which to spout. Not to make a point, but to meander to one, sideswiping it ever so slightly. But like the hit and run specialist Billy Martin, they leave the scene before a response can be made.
But not anymore. I botch questions. I boot them. I drop them. I bungle and ignore them. Often on purpose, but always with aplomb. My goal is to change the subject, redirect things a little from our current, broken discourse. Let’s discuss not what’s important, but what isn’t. And it’s not a discussion either, because I can turn the comments off at any time.
What’s the point? What a great question, rhetorically answers the nihilist. Why isn’t the URL for this blog, “missingthepoint?” That should, exactly like our dearly beloved national truths, be self-evident. That name was already taken, of course. It wasn’t stolen, but it wasn’t mine. So I went with something a bit better, a bit snappier, a bit frencher.
“Pwoanh” is point, only classier, easier on the ears, if not also the eyes. From afar, it may appear to be a government acronym or the Hawaiian word for, “you’re starting a blog in 2020? Really? What, couldn’t figure out TikTok, pally boy?”
But the question I get the most, the one I simply can’t avoid, is “why now?” It’s crazy that I even have to address it, but I feel obliged to do so. This is both the time and the place to set the record straight, once and for all. Would you ask Napoleon that? I bet you’d trust his judgment. Now I’m asking you to trust mine. But this isn’t Austerlitz and this isn’t Waterloo. This is Corsica. If you’re not confused yet, try starting again from the top.
This is where I belong, behind the pallid backdrop of a medium that’s barely outrunning its own obsolescence. I’m committing to this blog for as long as takes, writing a new post Monday through Friday. Or until I too, am mercifully automated. There’s a lot I could say, but I won’t. I need to save my strength. This is a massive undertaking and if I’m lucky, a pointless one.
Keep reading.
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