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I write articles on science, medicine, nature, culture and other matters for the New York Times Magazine, The Atlantic, Slate, National Geographic, Scientific American Mind, and other publications, and am working on my fourth book, The Orchid and the Dandelion, which expands on my recent December 2009 Atlantic article. My previous books include Reef Madness: Charles Darwin, Alexander Agassiz, and the Meaning of Coral, which traces the strangest but most forgotten controversy in Darwin's career — an elemental dispute running some 75 years.

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The old print roots of blogging. Mostly SFW

Posted on: March 24, 2010 9:17 AM, by David Dobbs

How new, then, is bloggery? Should we think of it as a by-product of the modern means of communication and a sign of a time when newspapers seem doomed to obsolescence? It makes the most of technical innovations—the possibility of constant contact with virtual communities by means of web sites and the premium placed on brevity by platforms such as Twitter with its limit of 140 characters per message. Yet blog-like messaging can be found in many times and places long before the Internet.

Here, for example, is a recent post on The Superficial:

RadarOnline reports “traditional marriage” crusader and former Miss California Carrie Prejean is living in sin with her fiancé Kyle Boller of the St. Louis Rams where they’re no doubt eating shellfish. BURN THEM!

And here is a typical entry from Le Gazetier cuirassé ou anecdotes scandaleuses de la cour de France (1771):

Mlle. Romans is soon to marry M. de Croismare, Governor of the Ecole Militaire, who will use six aides de camp to take his place in performing the conjugal service.

via blogs.nybooks.com

Posted via web from David Dobbs's Somatic Marker

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Comments

Oh dear. I wonder where one might find six aides de camp these days. While is it apparent that blogging is a phenomenon that has developed through the centuries, good aides de camp have gotten very hard to come by.

Posted by: Isis the Scentist | March 24, 2010 9:28 AM

6 aides de camp and I bet they still couldn't find the clit, let alone a g-spot.

Posted by: Pascale | March 24, 2010 10:11 AM

Whaaaaaat

Posted by: WIll | March 24, 2010 10:40 AM

Yikes.

Posted by: Jason | March 24, 2010 12:37 PM