{"id":26865,"date":"2015-05-26T07:41:11","date_gmt":"2015-05-26T12:41:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/?p=26865"},"modified":"2015-05-27T10:08:28","modified_gmt":"2015-05-27T15:08:28","slug":"also-by-the-author","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/?p=26865","title":{"rendered":"Also By The Author"},"content":{"rendered":"

Here is something I’ve been thinking about: Readers come and go. There was a time when I refreshed Lileks.com<\/a> obsessively. I’m a sucker for nostalgia and ruminations on the first half of the 20th century, and if you want to cruelly mock while also secretly appreciating the quaint, kitschy, corny styles of middle America then he’s the best in the business. I’d read everything the guy wrote, and when he didn’t post new content I’d go back and re-read some of my favoritesThis retrospective on the 70s<\/a> is pretty cathartic, for my money. I think that was my introduction to his work, actually.<\/span>. His blog was pretty influential on my own writing and is probably why I drop into autobiographical mode<\/a> once in a while.<\/p>\n

Then one day I just… stopped. I have no idea why. James Lileks didn’t lose his mojo, sell out, offend me, or or anything else that usually causes a rift between fan and artist. I just finally got enough of whatever I was looking for, and I stopped going. I know the same thing happens to people who read this site. They eventually get enough of my crap and move on. It happens. <\/p>\n

So part of this job is entertaining the existing audience, and part of the job is replacing people who wander off. This was really easy in 2012 when I was spamming The Escapist<\/a> with content three or four times a week. I was putting up a lot of media-richThe polite way of saying “has lots of pictures”.<\/span> content and all those bylines led people back here. But those days are gone. <\/p>\n

In its day, this site was a shining Texaco station on a major highway. But now there’s an an interstate and an expressway and people don’t come this way anymore. And when we do get a visitor, they usually blow through without stopping to take in the sights. They binge on the comic<\/a> or read one of my ill-advised tirades<\/a> and then their taillights vanish in the distance. So it’s important to make the site interesting and eye-grabbing for new people, or I’ll eventually return to the days of obscurity. <\/p>\n

Here is a re-used image of videogame screenshots to add to the sense of media rich-ness of this article.<\/a><\/td><\/tr><\/table><\/p>\n

On a positive note, I’ve got about a decade of archivesThis site turns 10 in September.<\/span>. And even under the harsh light of self-criticism, I can admit that some of that stuff turned out really well. I just need a way to let passers-by know that stuff is there, and hope a few of them will stick around.<\/p>\n

If you’ve ever been on a networked site then you’ll notice that when you get to the bottom of an article it has a grid of clickbait-ish little images and captions. “Five movies that ran out of money”. “Top five wardrobe malfunctions by sitting US senators”. “Seven people that worked as rodeo clowns before becoming pediatric opthamologists”. And so on.<\/p>\n

Yes, that content is usually trash. And even when it isn’t trash, it’s tortuously divided into tiny little snippets so you have to hit the next button and reload ads hundreds of times just to get through it. But I love the idea of getting to the bottom of an article and having the site point me in the direction of some fluffy, easily-digestible content without needing to dig for it myself. <\/p>\n

So on Sunday I took a crack at making the same thing for this site. As of right now, now at the bottom of the page you’ll see a link to 6 different posts from the archives. I’m still fiddling with this feature. The six entries are chosen randomly from a “best of” list I’ve curated myself. If you’re curious, you can see the full list here<\/a>. If there’s something you really love that isn’t on that list, let me know.<\/p>\n

EDIT: Now there’s five, and they’re listed between the post and the comments. Seems to be working out pretty well so far.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Here is something I’ve been thinking about: Readers come and go. There was a time when I refreshed Lileks.com obsessively. I’m a sucker for nostalgia and ruminations on the first half of the 20th century, and if you want to cruelly mock while also secretly appreciating the quaint, kitschy, corny styles of middle America then […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[111],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26865","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-notices"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26865","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=26865"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26865\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=26865"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=26865"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=26865"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}