One of my favorite parts of this book is its epigraph, by physicist Michael Faraday: “Nothing is too wonderful to be true.”
A few more bits and pieces from Lawrence Weschler, before we dig into the weirdness that is this book:
First, in this interview, Weschler says (near the end),
“I write books, but what really turns me on, what really captivates my thinking, is magazine culture. That’s a difficult thing, because magazine culture is in big trouble. If I write a book, it gets read by ten thousand people, if I write a magazine article it gets exposed to a hundred thousand people who are reading about something they didn’t know they had any interest in. The kind of writing I love comes at things from the side, and it relishes narrative itself. You find yourself reading, and about halfway along, you realize that what you’re reading is the most important thing in the world.”
original (and better?) hardcover image
In this ‘manifesto’ and subsequent conversation with readers of Transom, you can learn more about Weschler’s ideas, one of which is:
“If it is at least in part true that everything is random chaos, it is also true that the writer’s task is to discern, to discover–or, perhaps, to impose–order on all that chaos: a form, in other words, that in turn rings true. To what extent is that necessarily a fictive enterprise?”
Perhaps you’ve just finished reading the first part of Cabinet, and you’re thinking to yourself, what does this have to do with blogs? Well, these two comments should get us thinking about how blogs organize the ‘random chaos’ that is the internet, and the arguments, fictive or otherwise, that they make. The Museum of Jurassic Technology is at one end of this spectrum. My questions, therefore, are first, what is the different between the authority of a museum exhibit and the authority of a blog post, if any? And second, what do you think of the epigraph in relation to the internet?
Lawrence Weschler
The Rhetoric of Blogging 
September 15, 2009 at 9:30 am
ABC: Moran “prematurely tweeted” Obama’s off-the-record comment about Kanye
Still reading this week’s assignment but I thought all of would find this blurb interesting given Monday’s class discussion on the Andrew Sullivan article. The need to publish and be first and the power and potential that goes along with that…this happened on twitter last night re: Obama and Kanye West. A friend from ABC emailed me and said that the President of ABC has now decided Obama’s statement abt Kanye was OFF THE RECORD and thus issued an apology over this. ABC will not report. It’s also, for me, raises some questions about this idea of off the record when there is obviously a mic on the President and cameras are rolling. I encountered a similar situation in 2000 when then candidate George Bush and Dick Cheney got caught with the mics on just before an event began calling a reporter an ‘asshole’…bloggers and thus all of us picked up on it and reported it.
See everyone in class on Wednesday.
Politico.com
ABC News says Terry Moran’s tweet — “Pres. Obama just called Kanye West a “jackass” for his outburst at VMAs when Taylor Swift won. Now THAT’S presidential” — was removed because the president’s remark “turned out to be from an off-the-record portion of the interview.” ABC adds: “This was done before our editorial process had been completed. That was wrong.”
Posted at 8:06 AM on Sep. 15, 2009
September 16, 2009 at 11:12 am
mr.wilson’s cabinet of wonder was a confusing start for me. found myself re-reading sections to make sure i was grasping concept. i am fascinated by this idea that in perpetuating a hoax there must always be an element of truth involved to make the ‘story’ or ‘fact’ believable. i believe this is part of weschler’s goal with this book and storytelling of this bizarre museum…anything can become believable if you present it with enough authority. it’s the danger of democracy and freedom of the internet because one must self-fact check as you read information online
September 16, 2009 at 11:14 am
I think in society we’ve just accepted the fact that museums have a certain authority and authenticity to them that we accept to be truth. They are supposed to represent places of learning, places of history, a place that you can go to in search of artifacts and truth. If blogs have any stigma or reputation, it’s basically the exact opposite of that. Do I believe in that stereotype for blogs? No. But the general population would say that 99% of all blogs have no authority whatsoever. I would suggest that this is backwards thinking and entirely untrue. I’ve read plenty of blogs that I would give serious authority to and would trust over certain publications or news organizations. As for the epigraph, the internet basically backs up that statement as it is filled with many wonderful things (a majority of which are probably untrue).
September 16, 2009 at 11:14 am
While reading to first few pages of this book I was completely lost. From the tragic story of Madalena Delani to the gross detail about the fungus growing out of the ants head, I didn’t know what was going on. Before coming to class I didn’t even question the author because I just assumed it was all true. I gave him full authority just because it said on the book cover “non-fiction”. I’m curious to see what the rest of the book entails and now I’ll be thinking more in depth to try to understand what the author is trying to portray.
September 16, 2009 at 11:15 am
I found it interesting how I didn’t trust any of the stories in Weschler’s book, I had a guard up that wouldn’t allow me to believe the ant, bat or memory story. All of these stories seemed off the wall and fiction, but to my surprise, being non-fiction. Even though the book is ‘non-fiction’, whose to say all of these stories and exhibits at the museum are true? Weschler writes a whimsical story on the museum of Jurassic Technology, all of the information may be true according to the museum, making the book true, but whose to say that the museum of Jurassic Technology is in fact a solid source for information? This book has made me question the internet as well, I think I’ll be more aware of the information that I can trust. In today’s technology world, anyone can update information on the internet, we must be careful with what sources actually provide true ‘information’.
September 16, 2009 at 11:15 am
I think the authority of a museum and the authority of a blog go hand in hand. Ultimately, Mr. Wilson (in this case) and the blogger decide what goes in the museum or blog. They basically run the show. They have the ultimate say in authority and what is real or fiction. I think it is up to us as an audience to decipher through and decide what we believe is real and what kind of relationship we have with this source. If we don’t know this person at all how can we really trust what they are saying is true. Are you the kind of person that believes anything until you have a reason not to. For me sometimes I doubt ridiculous things right away. I have to admit I didn’t believe the ant story right away at all, but I was proven wrong. I am still not convinced of the bat flying into the lead. It is crazy how the first part of the book resonates so much with blogs and the authority issue.
I really like the epigraph also and I think it goes along great with the internet. Whether you like it or not, there are some fantastic things on the internet and some of them are very true. Although sometime I can be a sceptic, I appreciate truly wonderful and magnificent things – and when you find out they are actually true (like the ant) you appreciate them even more.
September 16, 2009 at 11:16 am
Well, both a blog post and a museum exhibit are created, or “curated” by people. But the people at the museum make it their life’s work to accurately collect data, whereas most bloggers say whatever they feel. Both can be flawed, but a museum exhibit is less likely to be.
The epigraph explains the premise behind popular nonfiction and fiction: people want to believe in something out of the ordinary. They want to feel like their world is amazing and still filled with surprises. Blogging allows more people to share interesting things that they find with a wider audience. The internet is filled with odd facts and groups, and people are attracted to that because it is out of the ordinary. The internet has fulfilled our need to be surprised and has kept us from feeling bored.
September 16, 2009 at 11:16 am
“Nothing is too wonderful to be true”- interesting to think of this in terms of nytimes-se.com.
With the authority of a museum exhibit v authority of a blog post: to put together a museum costs a lot more money than posting a blog entry, which often leads me to believe it is true or matters enough to invest money and time as opposed to just time. Museums have a level of respect that most blogs do not.
September 16, 2009 at 11:18 am
While I was listening to Lawrence Weschler yesterday, I tried to connect his speech to the subject of blogging. The main theme of his speech (and of Mr. Wilson’s Cabinet of Wonder) is the feeling of wonder and amazement. I felt in awe of the stories in the first part of the book and found myself wondering about their validity. As we discussed in class, sometimes validity is not the important thing in a museum. I think this idea is relevant to blogging as well. In addition, Mr. Weschler spoke of the importance of being open to new ideas and opportunities. I believe it is crucial as a blogger to be open to writing about new and interesting ideas that may not be initially related to your predetermined topic.
September 16, 2009 at 11:18 am
Whereas museums are seen as cultural institutions with the forces of history and science behind them, blogs instead rely on the force of personality (and maybe some logic). Museums, having been a part of our culture for generation, can be relatively static and still maintain their authority. Blogs require constant updates to impart a sense of expertise or truth, or else they risk being seen as irrelevant and defunct.
And regarding truth, Faraday’s quote can or cannot describe the internet depending on how you interpret truth. If the internet is a projection of objective reality, then he’s wrong. If the internet is instead a medium and forms such as literature, art, humor and so on are “true” (in the sense that you can get some nugget of truth out of their themes or lessons), then he’s right.
September 16, 2009 at 11:20 am
I think that blogs and Twitter posts can have more authority at times than news articles because they are not censored in the same way. The random chaos online can be more beneficial because we are receiving more opinions; therefore giving a specific topic more credibility if there are similar stories, blogs, or tweets.
Museums, like news organizations,are perceived to be reliable and true. This puts into question that we should be skeptical of everything even if we believe it to be credible.
September 16, 2009 at 11:20 am
Prior to today’s class I used to look down on the authority of the internet and really only trusted research that I found in books or newspapers, and occasionally magazines, but only the ones that came with fancy titles like “The New Yorker” or “Time”. But I think that in today’s culture, the internet has just as much of an authority as any other kind of written word, sometimes even more. In today’s culture, the meaning of authority is not the same as it used to be. When I see a painting in a museum, and it says that the artist’s inspiration was this or that, I believe it, but I have to ‘take it with a grain of salt’. Who really knows? And can I interpret it differently? Maybe in the past other opinions would not have been as accepted, but in today’s society not everything is so black and white because we have access to so much more information, and that is the internet. In my poetry classes, when interpreting a poem I often look up what others have to say about it on the internet and there are literally hundreds of ways to interpret it. Some of them may be what the author was thinking, others may not, but the authority of all of them is equal. I do not think that just because something comes from a more “authoritative” name that it necessarily is more true or more trustworthy, because today, there are so many different ways to look at different sources of information. I thought that the epigraph was really interesting, especially in relation to the internet. Today in class we talked about how we can start at one website and an hour and a half later end up somewhere completely different. I could read an article and when looking up a word come to a totally different article and find myself totally engrossed in something I never had any interest in. But suddenly, I do. The internet gives us access to such a wide breadth of information, even moreso than a magazine, simply because there is so much more stuff on the internet and it’s so much easier to get to. I no longer have to turn the page, I just have to click with my mouse a few times and I have access to a whole world of information I never knew existed. I think that this aspect of the internet is basically what Weschler was talking about in his epigraph, just multiplied.
September 16, 2009 at 11:21 am
I think part of the challenge here is creating a blog that cuts through the clutter. While some ideas exhibited at the Museum of Jurassic Tech are evidently true and offer some insight into the natural world (eg. the ant-attacking fungus) others may be fictitious. While the fabrications might be entertaining to some, they would be a waste of time to others who are hoping to learn something. One trick in a blog is conveying a sense of what it’s about and what people can expect.
September 16, 2009 at 11:21 am
I guess I never thought about the difference between the authority of a museum and the authority of a blog post. Hindsight, of course, is nowhere near as accurate as, um, present sight, but I imagine that before reading this book I would have said that museums are far more credible and authoritative than blog posts. Of course, this book has showed me that any actual reasons I would have come up with would be false – in reality, anyone can create a museum, just like anyone can create a blog post, and anyone can try to pass things off as truth and someone will be gullible enough to believe it. The only thing museums really have going for them is that they are thought so highly of, that is, they are considered “high” culture, whereas the internet is not. Thus, I would submit that most people would say museums have a higher authority, based merely on this conception of “high” and “low” culture.
The second question you offer is difficult for me. It’s a nice sentiment and everything, but in relation to the internet I find it hard to think about anything except April Fool’s Day, the day where every single blog posts “fake” posts that get me every year (I never know what day of the month it is). Perhaps it’s the nature of the blogs that I read (tech, how-to kind of stuff) but every year the blogs post things that are, in fact, too good to be true. They post things that people want to hear so badly (“the iPhone’s coming to Verizon!” Or something of the sort, often of smaller magnitude (“here’s a hack to sync Mail’s RSS feeds with Google Reader!”, but you get the idea) but are just made up. Perhaps that’s why people like me fall for them – we read these blogs day in and day out, looking to hear the latest news and such, but also waiting and waiting to hear that one “event” that we want to happen. I guess the bottom line is that the epigraph seems to have different meaning on the internet, where the sense of “wonder” (at least the way I see it) is much less present than in the real world. The internet just seems geared toward practicality at this point in time.
September 16, 2009 at 11:21 am
I think the difference between the authority of a museum exhibit and the authority of a blog post is that the former is more trusted. Despite the fact that people use the internet for almost everything, it is known that much of what is out there cant be trusted. People go to museums, however, to find out new information, information they are trusting to be true. I guess what I am trying to say is that museums are more trustworthy than a blog. Despite the insightfulness of the epigraph, I have to disagree with it in relation to the internet. After watching the video of planet earth, I can believe that nothing is too wonderful to be true. However, the internet has the ability to fabricate many things. A perfect example is the special edition of the New York Times that showcases what a perfect newspaper where education is free, health care problems are taken care of and the war in Iraq is over. This website unfortunately, is too wonderful to be true.
September 16, 2009 at 11:24 am
We all assume that Museums are authoritative sources of information. relaxing this assumption raises the question of why go in the first place? The thought of walking through an exhibit that may or may not be telling me the “truth” seems futile. Museums have an institutional authority. Exhibits are probably filtered through some boards and committees that are somehow priviliged to decide what is real and important to disseminate (maybe with the exception of private Museums which too must receive some source of funding; in other words, somebody must care enough to think that this knowledge is somehow real or worthwhile). If somebody went through so much trouble to make us believe that something is true then why no believe it? Blogs,by contrast, bypass this bureaucratic process. In the blogosphere, one need not be privileged enough to write about his/her life, ideas, rambles. Thus, I am more inclined to question a blogs’ authority.
September 16, 2009 at 11:25 am
The authority of a museum is more implicit, because we have been socialized to see museums as a collection of history, science, art, etc. that is culturally significant. The concept of a museum is well established, and the basic assumption is that the creators and curators are qualified to put together the information, and have an earnest interest in spreading knowledge. This contrasts with a blog because anyone with an internet connection can start one, no money, power, or education is necessarily required. While some blogs are distinguished as more legitimate based on the credentials of the author or the acclaim it garners, people do not automatically trust any blog they read, in the way that they would trust a museum exhibit.
The epigraph, “nothing is too wonderful to be true” is interesting to apply to the internet because the internet holds so many different things. You can find sites that you would have never imagined existing.
September 16, 2009 at 11:26 am
The difference between the authority of a museum exhibit and the authority of a blog post is sheer legitimacy. A “typical” museum possesses a sense of establishment. A museum’s entire purpose is to enlighten people about facts that they may or may not already know about. Whether it is a museum of science or a museum of art, everything found within it is based upon truth. Visitors who enter these museums value the fact that nothing in the museum must be questioned for it’s legitimacy—it is understood that everything we read or see in a museum is to teach about facts of truth. However, a blog post is not (yet) as well established. With so much phony information on the Internet, we are skeptical of the fact that a blog post is there for the same reason a museum exhibit is. It’s purpose may not be to teach us facts of truth, but instead to make us laugh with a parody of an article.
In terms of the epigraph in relation to the Internet, it seems that these two are almost opposites. While much of the Internet is absolutely awing- (skype, google, facebook even!), there is almost as much fraud on the Internet as there is legitimacy. Whenever a research paper is assigned, the teacher will immediately state: “Do NOT use Wikipedia as one of your research sources!” I think this exemplifies the fact that we can not so easily trust what we read on the internet to be truthful or factual.