Words and Guitar

Let us speak now of blogging from mobile devices, of actual writing and editing on a 2–3 inch screen, of the need for a clean view with a minimalist interface.

That’s why I’m trying this on Medium today, starting this from a stepstool in my kitchen while I drink my morning tea. I’m trying some looseleaf black tea (nothing too fancy) in the hopes of building up a little more of a morning ritual than dropping a teabag in a mug.

Yes, the mug, which has a little ceramic sieve thingie that you put the tea in, is a souvenir from one of an in-law’s trips to the Canary Islands, but the thing I enjoy most is that it (almost) says La Isla Bonita right there on it.

It would be a lie and a pose to say writing this way is part of “getting back to my punk rock roots” because let’s face it; I was listening to Pearl Jam in high school, and my Minor Threat cassette was borrowed. And in Sleater-Kinney’s first ascension, I was in college and listening to a lot of hip-hop, reggae, and my own personally meaningful corner of the indie rock world, where there are still bands and records that I like and you probably have never heard of them, honestly. And I’ll stop that line of thought right there.

But I like Words and Guitar, and I like the truth, that it is just not that hard to write something on this here good ol’ web and publish the everloving heck out of it. A keyboard, maybe. A domain, superfluous. Megaphones are everywhere. The authors don’t necessarily own the most powerful means of publication, but it shouldn’t matter. They didn’t own printing presses, either.

That’s a simplification, and naive, but, still. Press publish. See what happens. Like the old days.

Update: What happens is that you can’t edit a Medium post from their iPhone app or mobile web, so I’ve just cleaned up a little formatting in a desktop browser. And it took three tries to get the YouTube embed right.