In Praise of Dave Noon and His Blog

I am going to start listing some of my favorite blogs here. Eventually I’ll get around to updating the blogroll, but for now this will have to do.

Some preliminary facts:

I pretty much only read blogs authored by friends. There are a couple exceptions, and I’ll always happily click a link. But I’m the opposite of the person who reads blogs for news or for some kind of alternative, free range culture. I read them because I find real people so much more interesting than fictional characters, even though everyone knows this blogging thing is at least 50% an act anyway — even (or especially) in its most confessional moments. So basically, I’m going to start introducing you to my friends who blog.

Exhibit A is Dave Noon, assistant professor of History at U of Alaska Fairbanks and all around supergenius. I met Dave online in like 1994 or something when he showed up on the now-defunct Bad Subjects listserv. He’d started grad school at the U of Minnesota right after I left for Illinois and we had friends in common. Next time I visited Minneapolis, we got together and that was that. Dave has a twisted sense of humor and a keep political sensibility. He is also one of the most unique writers I have ever encountered. You will notice his self-deprecating comments about drive and determination in his comments on my last post below. Do not be fooled. His blog is a work of great elegance and copiousness. And he’s had it in him for a long time. At one point, I requested and received the “Dave Noon collection” of bizarre email correspondences he’d had over the years. It was a literary masterpiece and I am hopeful he will post them one day on his blog.

Visit Axis of Evil Knievel at http://axisofevelknievel.blogspot.com/.

On deck for praise: Gone Feral.