September 20, 2005

 

The Splendor of Pets That Blog


I CELEBRATE myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me, as good belongs to you.

-- Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass

Not so long ago, I thought I was by myself, a lone Labrador in an Internet galaxy populated only by human beings, numerous as stars in the sky. In retrospect I realize I was being parochial, even Hankocentric. Where there is one, there are likely to be others. How often do we see a lone leaf of grass?

What Mike calls my SETI moment stemmed from a comment on my blog from someone named "simba and zoe." This sounded suspiciously nonhuman to me, and sure enough their comment led me to a blog called The Weekly Hairball, where two felines narrate their exploits. Extraordinary! Other nonhumans in the blogosphere!

But, of course, not so extraordinary. Their site led to others, mostly of the feline persuasion, and then sierracat provided a link to something called blogrings. Blogrings? Again, utterly new to the untutored Labrador. It was as surprising as the first time I saw that strange but strangely familiar dog in the bedroom mirror. I didn't know how to feel. I stood at attention, tail vertical, fur rising slightly, poised between fight and flight.

It slowly came to me that this was a mirror, too: a brave new world of blogging pets, arranged in a row like an electric totem pole made up cherished relations and animal spirits: outlandish, exotic, and achingly cuddly.

So peculiar, you think! So sappy and sad, endearing and mad. An expanding colony of blogging dogs and cats, along with a parrot or two. It made me question my self. What am I? What are we? Neither wholly fact nor flimsy fiction. Neither self nor, exactly, alter ego. We are the post-modern pets of tomorrow today. And we all roll shamelessly and gleefully in the verdant, virtual grass of our newly discovered homeland.


Comments:
Wow Hank, you're deep. And cute too =)
 
Hank, you are quite the observant puppy. Am enjoying your posts.
 
Wow! We were mentioned on the oh-so-popular (amongst our human friends at least) Hankthedog Blog!!

-Simba (brother to Zoe)
 
Shakespeare,

I haven't met any other blogging pets in petson, only online. But all the ones I see online make my ears rise in interest.

By the way, best of luck on your blog's Q&A format.

Speaking of other pets online, welcome Simba!

And thank you lorrie and daisy ditzy for your nice comments. Dogs love to get their strokes.
 
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