It’s
been a few years since I first heard the term “credentialed” used infelicitously to describe a person having “official” status
and specific rights and privileges at staged events such as university symposia, professional
performances or politicians'/ public officials’ press conferences.
The
term later devolved (as inelegant
but forceful-sounding neologisms tend to) into something more informal, e.g., a person might be
considered and described as a “credentialed”
intellectual because they had acquired a "reputation penumbra" on the internet following a certain
number of meaningless appearances in cyberspace. (See “meme,” “trope,” & c.)
Persistent blogging makes
one a “credentialed blogger,” I believe, in both of the senses described above. I don’t think believe it is the
highest form of approbation.
The
very best “credentialed blogger” I know is also one of the finest poets I have ever read. His work has enlarged and enlightened me most
of my life, i.e., since I was 16. Lately, however, his remarkable ekphrasis-driven blog has soared to new heights of affecting, heart-rending verbal and visual
expression by presenting consistently unfair, unthoughtfully biased views
of the unspeakably tragic
events in Israel and Gaza. Although this blogger/poet can never be accused of unclear, inelegant or
inarticulate expression, he
should leave Ezra Pound out of it unless he wishes to be
thoroughly and permanently misunderstood. Perhaps he
considers such things to be an “occupational
hazard.”
Quicksilver Messenger Service: Who Do You Love? (Part
1)
Photographs by Alvin Langdon Coburn.
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