The Fork, The Divining Rod

First, an announcement. Beginning shortly after the election, I will be dividing my blogging efforts between this site and Snarkmarket, longtime home of the brainiest and most earnest guys I know, Matt Thompson and Robin Sloan.

Snarkmarket can truthfully be said to be the parent of Short Schrift, as it was through Matt and Robin's efforts on that site that I became acquainted with the world of blogging and a good chunk of the technological, pop-cultural, and political concerns about print and digital media that evolved into common point of departure of both that site and this one. My way-too-long, way-too-engaged comments on Snarkmarket were the seeds from which Short Schrift was born, and links from Snarkmarket and readers of Snarkmarket created, along with my mom, the core audience of Short Schrift, now some thousand strong.


But Snarkmarket grew too, bigger and faster; Robin brought the parousia, Matt the skepsis, and in the comments or here on Short Schrift, I was the guy who used words like parousia and skepsis. And apparently, they decided that that was just what they needed.


I am excited, because frankly, I want to be the coolest assistant professor in the country, and there's no way to be cooler than to have a widely read blog that is not, largely, about being an assistant professor or the work that an assistant professor does. (I could be wrong, but I think I'll be the only one.)

I'm not going to check my brain, my library, or my experience at the door, but I need and want to remain rooted in the kind of writing and engagement that we find here -- a world filled neither with canny activists nor ironic professionals but with people who are interested in what is best and most important about what's happening now, and who really love to talk about it.

Short Schrift is going nowhere. I finally got my mom to learn one URL, and I'm not asking her to learn another. But it will be part of the greater Snarkmatrix, and will probably be more personal and academic-y. You might see the frequency of posts slow down a bit, but if anything, the total Tim-output will tick up a notch.

So, come on. I know a cool place where we can talk.