It’s hard not to snap a photo of a bird that’s sitting pretty and all but posing for you.
I find it fittingly ironic that mere days after arguing the utter artlessness of the photos I post here, Hoarded Ordinaries took home two Blogisattva Awards, both of them for visual rather than literary merit. According to the folks responsible for this year’s Blogisattvas, which recognize “excellence in English-language Buddhist blogging,” Hoarded Ordinaries is noteworthy for its “Clean, Straightforward, Unaffected Design” and “Creation or Use of Graphics in a Blog.”
I should promptly point out that the presumably clean, straightforward, and unaffected design of this blog has nothing in particular to do with me: Hoarded Ordinaries looks the way it does because when I moved my site to WordPress last year, I picked an off-the-rack template designed by Vanilla Mist (a.k.a. Patricia Muller). I don’t know if Muller is a Buddhist, but I think she deserves more design credit than I do for any presumed “Buddhist” virtues underlying the look of my blog.
I also find it amusing that my “creation or use of graphics” here on Hoarded Ordinaries should be deemed somehow inherently Buddhist: two years ago, when I was creating and using graphics exactly as I do today, one of the folks behind the Blogisattvas pointed out that Hoarded Ordinaries didn’t actually qualify as either a “Zen” or “Buddhist” blog. I wonder what has changed between now and then to make the “look and feel” of Hoarded Ordinaries seem suddenly (and award-winningly) Buddhist? Have the pictures I post suddenly become more intrinsically Zen-like, or does the fact that I now have a category tag pointing to Zen posts make my site more overtly Buddhist? Perhaps I should ruin the presumably clean, straightforward, and unaffected design of Hoarded Ordinaries by tacking a label at the top proclaiming that it now boasts “New and Improved Zen Flavor,” given how the word “Zen” makes even household cleansers seem cool.
I never was one of the popular girls, I’ve never understood the politics behind awards ceremonies, and I certainly have never entered much less won a beauty contest, so this year’s Blogisattva Awards and the suggestion that the look of Hoarded Ordinaries is downright pretty has left me a bit flummoxed. I guess the appropriate response is to smile and thank the Academy, Buddha, and all the little people who stood beside me on my way to the top. For good or ill, it seems that as a Buddhist blogger I’m more effective (or at least more award-worthy) when I’m choosing blog templates and posting pictures than when I’m actually talking about Buddhism. If nothing else, I guess these two awards go to show that when it comes to the Zen of Buddhist blogging, silence is better than holiness, especially if you’re lucky enough to sit pretty.
Hoarded Ordinaries 
Feb 25, 2008 at 8:13 pm
II think what changed was that the judging panel broadened a bit beyond just the lone individual who started it (and who made those earlier comments about HO, as I recall), though it’s hard to tell since their process isn’t transparent and the identity of their judges is kept secret. Still, it’s better than winning one of those stupid popularity contests that pass for awards in most of the blogosphere, I guess. I think it’s more akin to getting tagged with a “Thinking Blogger” award-meme by three or four different people.
Re: the misuse of “zen,” you saw this rant, I suppose.
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Feb 25, 2008 at 8:16 pm
Oh, and I should add that in addition to having a good photgraphic eye, your ability to balance photos and text is in fact rare in the blogosphere, so perhaps the recognition isn’t as strange as it seems.
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Feb 25, 2008 at 9:20 pm
I hadn’t seen that rant about Zen, but I did just see this bit about Disney World’s Zen spa. If you’ve ever sat a real Zen retreat, you have to laugh at the thought of “Zen” and “luxury and comfort” being mentioned together.
I think you’re exactly right in pointing to the change in how the Blogisattva Awards are chosen: I suspect there are one or two “pro-HO” secret panelists who pushed for my recognition. It’s always nice to know you have fans (even invisible ones) in the blogosphere…but part of my befuddlement stems from the sheer number (and specificity) of categories. It feels a bit like the dorm awards my Resident Advisor in college gave our floor each year, where the categories were designed so that every girl received an award for something. (For the record, during my freshman year I was awarded the “Always with Boyfriend” prize, which I suppose says as much about my then-boyfriend as it does about me. Sophomore year, I received the “Cutest Walk” award, which at least praised something I did a lot of, cutely or otherwise.)
I can respect what you say about balancing text & photos: that is a skill I admire immensely when I see it online or off-. But again, what puzzles me is the suggestion that this is somehow a Buddhist trait. If I know anything about balancing text and image, that’s thanks to the informal training in page layout I had when I worked on the yearbook staff in high school. I didn’t practice Zen then; those were the days when I was a good little Catholic girl. So perhaps I should win an award for Best Use of Graphics By a Buddhist Blogger Formerly Categorized As Catholic.
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Feb 26, 2008 at 3:17 am
Yay! Congratulations 🙂 Who needs the Oscars when you have the Buddahs eh?
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Feb 26, 2008 at 6:39 am
Congratulations, Lorianne!
It is an award well-deserved.
I have been stopping by here regularly for my dose of eye- and word-candy for many years. And it is always on the chance that I will catch a post like today’s, headed by an image that is just an exquisitely lovely composition.
BTW, I just remembered that is what my teacher called it in elementary school when she said, “get out your tablets and pencils.” That takes me back a “far piece.”
Terrific, Lorianne.
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Feb 26, 2008 at 6:34 pm
Lorianne,
I am the fellow who amuses you with respect to the assessment of your blog being Buddhist, or not. I have to say that it is as much of a quandary, and an amusement, as to whether you, yourself, assess your blog as being Buddhist, or not. Please tell us.
A few years ago, when I was doing my Buddhist meta-blog thing, I didn’t think that Buddhism was a central component of your blog, so HO wasn’t a place I would visit to feed the meta-blog, though HO did get mention there a couple times including one time with fanfare having to do with trees.
There were statistical bases I would use to try to ascertain Buddhist goodness, and HO didn’t cut the curry – I mean, mustard. One means was the tag words at technorati to describe the blog. Unless a blog’s tag words were >50% loosely Buddhist it didn’t meet that standard for qualifying. There was also a stat on use of the word Buddhism or Buddhist in a search of the blog, and presence on core Buddhism blogs’ blogrolls — that sort of anal retentive yet objectifying sort of thing. Also, it seemed to me then that you had an overriding interest in writing and trees and New England and not so much Buddhism.
As for Dave’s response #2, I would guess that that is wholly right. YES. But I can’t speak for the judging. Like the Oscars, no explanation of the outcome is a product of the vote.
As for the middle paragraph in your response [#3], I would guess the overwhelming probability is NO, it wasn’t because panelists who love you pushed for your recognition. The persons selecting the nominees and winners were sworn to disregard fealty [if that’s the right word] and use ‘excellence only’ as their criterion. Thus, you should not suppose that the award signifies that you/ your blog is popular.
As to the issue of multiplicity of categories, it had nothing to do with “dorm awards,” to see to it that everybody gets one. With me, and with those who failed to stop me, is where the responsibility lies for the vast array. It comes from the observation that you can best assess items in a group when they are all intending to achieve something somewhat similar. Thus, parsing things into fine categories allows us to hope to ‘get at’ valid components of the effort a blogger makes to achieve something excellent, overall. Besides, what’s wrong with making it all fun?
As to the idea in your post that “it seems that as a Buddhist blogger I’m more effective (or at least more award-worthy) when I’m choosing blog templates and posting pictures than when I’m actually talking about Buddhism”, I don’t think you have a basis for writing that, based on Blogisattva results. For starters, the design award is ‘for your blog’ — we didn’t try to determine what component the blogger played in the design as opposed to what might have come ‘out of the box’ from a wordpress subscription or use of a theme found on the internet. Judgment was based on what was brought to the readers’/viewers’ eyes. Also, I would protest that is a mistake to suppose that you were dissed with respect to your Buddhist wordslinging because awards there weren’t forthcoming. Not getting an award doesn’t mean you’re deficient just because being recognized by an award DOES mean that excellence is observed. And, as noted earlier, “picture posting” isn’t trivial. While, again, how the judges made there determinations isn’t explained, talent in creation and display of graphics was what was honored.
And, finally, as to the idea of secretiveness in Dave’s response #1, several involved in making the B’sattva determinations have outed themselves:
http://justininengland.blogspot.com/2008/02/blogisattvas-bristol-and-more.html
http://chaplaindanny.blogspot.com/2008/02/2008-blogisattva-award-winners.html
and here’s a place where a Sherlock might figure out some others (the info there isn’t complete as it was just a few days ago):
http://www.blogger.com/profile/14246929532585980356
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Feb 26, 2008 at 6:53 pm
Yay! Congratulation, whether you like it or not. 😉 We must celebrate with a Zen-flavored martini.
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Feb 27, 2008 at 1:20 am
Thanks, Annette, Carol, and Leslee, for the congratulations. I’ll gladly take advantage of any excuse for celebratory martinis, Zen-flavored or otherwise. I’m trying to imagine what the statuette for the “Buddhas” would look like: a bald guy like Oscar, but sitting?
I have a very simple answer to the question of whether HO is a “Buddhist” blog, Tom: blogs can’t be Buddhist, only people can. So there are blogs by Buddhists, and there are blogs by people who aren’t Buddhist. In my Zen-flavored opinion, anything & everything in a Buddhist’s life qualifies as “practice,” so anything is fair game in a “blog by a Buddhist.”
In other words, my blog isn’t “more Buddhist” when I’m talking about Zen and “less Buddhist” when I’m talking about writing, trees, and New England. These things are all of one piece whether you assign the label “Buddhist” to them or not.
Right now, my favorite “blog by a Buddhist” is Karen Maezen Miller’s Cheerio Road. Karen talks about motherhood, writing, marriage, and laundry. Occasionally, she talks about Zen practice, too…although I’d argue her posts about motherhood, writing, marriage, and laundry are just as much about Zen practice as are her posts that talk explicitly about sitting on a meditation cushion doing formal Zen meditation.
Is Cheerio Road a “Buddhist blog,” or is it a “personal/mommy blog” by a woman who happens to be Buddhist? I guess you’d have to run it past your criteria to decide. As for me, I think it’s the one of the best, clearest, and most compelling descriptions of “ordinary Zen” you can find in the blogosphere, regardless of how/whether you label it.
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Feb 28, 2008 at 9:27 am
Ah! There you have it. If only the Buddhists could let go of the ist! With love to you.
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Feb 28, 2008 at 12:52 pm
Well, if there’s a cranky blog award I think you and your HO would be very competitive, Lorianne.
Your logic reminds of when I was in 12th grade, an editor on the school paper, and the candidates for student-body president submitted their 1000-word essays meant to state their positions and plea for votes. The most popular kid in the school submitted just this as the whole of his essay: “People are more important than words.”
Everyone saw through the thin veneer of populist appeal to the mental laxity and his high-school political career was dashed — on the rocks with a twist of lemon.
By your pureed and putrified logic, Vanity Fair is as much about NASCAR as Car and Driver. The newsletter of the Klan’s Grand Dragon is as Buddhist as Thich Nhat Hanh’s Peace Is Every Step. But then you turn on a dime, from saying everything is Buddhist — including some damn tree — to tauting one of your fawning friend’s blogs.
I reject the self-serving flatland you live in. I see mountains where there are mountains and seek to climb them.
I suppose in the way you assess blogs, to know which are Buddhist, we would have to first assess the Buddhistness of the blogger — even though you earlier said that there is no such thing as Buddhist blogs, just Buddhist people.
Your statues will come to you Fed Ex. They will depict a golden guy pounding the ground in grief and frustration.
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Feb 28, 2008 at 1:20 pm
Ooooo. Cheerio Road is very very good — dedicated to the early-morning culunary enso. Certainly, it’s a Buddhist blog, a mountain high. But Karen could well be a Nazi faker — one can’t assess THAT except THRU her/his blog, unless of course one knows Karen in meatspace/meetspace.
But the Blogisattvas, like most of us to each other in this monitor-view medium, is an online phenomenon. Thus Buddhistness isn’t found “in people,” here, but THRU — always THRU — the play of elements that evoke Buddhisty goodness.
If you [or Karen] reject “the play of Buddhisty goodness” that the Blogisattvas chase after, then what the hell are you blogging for? and why does Karen bother to write a texty, flesh-and-boneless book!? Buddhistness isn’t found only in people. And online — where there aren’t people — Buddhistness is only found outside of people.
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Feb 28, 2008 at 3:12 pm
tauting [sic] one of your fawning friend’s blogs.
I reject the self-serving flatland you live in.
Hmm. Better not feed the Tom-troll any more, I’d say.
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Feb 28, 2008 at 3:32 pm
Thanks, Dave, for the advice. In my Zen school, when a round of Dharma combat has gone far enough, it’s appropriate to say “You eat your rice; I’ll eat mine.” Agreeing to disagree is as Buddhist as a tree.
Tom, as soon as the Blogisattvas give an award for cranky blogging, I will happily nominate myself.
It’s a pleasure to “see” you here, Karen.
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Feb 29, 2008 at 7:11 pm
Ha! Wow. Well, I can see where your reaction to this award comes from! (chuckling)
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Feb 29, 2008 at 8:38 pm
😉
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Mar 1, 2008 at 1:53 pm
Dave always ridicules my spelling errors — petard, tout. Dave: a spelling taskmaster, he.
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