Cafe society comes out to meet people behind the blogs

By CLAIRE TREVETT

Take a latte and a laptop and you have the modern equivalent of cafe tables, where revolutions were born, issues debated and gossip shared.

This is the world of blogs - internet diaries.

A year ago, Chuck set up his own blog. He was fascinated at being able to put his own slices of Wellington life out there for worldwide consumption.

Pettifogspot.com began with cultural events, art shows, movies, impressions of the seabed and foreshore hikoi.

It gradually degenerated into less frequent and less cerebral but often charming anecdotes - about old books he found in his mother's basement, how to make the perfect sardine sandwich, and the woes of hanging a sheet on the washing line in Wellington's wind.

Finally last month, the words "Sorry, but this is the end of the line for the Pettifog train".

But in the meantime, other equally small bloggers hooked on to his offerings. Harvest Bird, Smacked Face and ChiliParlourBar became regular followers, adding their views to his views on all manner of things large and small.

Chuck's site was a table to which all his friends and a few foes were invited.

Not all bloggers' cafes end that way. So on Sunday, at the Grey Lynn Bowling Club, followers of the Public Address blogs got a behind-the-keyboards peek at the bloggers - Russell Brown, Damian Christie, Jolisha Gracewood, David Slack, Fiona Rae, Graham Reid, Che Tibby and Rob O'Neill.

It was an example of the "cafe society" that Public Address, a website featuring weblogs of eight commentators, is now pitching itself as.

A cynic could say the two-year-old Public Address chose this pitch because of advertising from a coffee company.

But Brown said that since blogging had replaced cafes as a debating venue, a partnership between the two seemed a tidy fit.

"Cafes used to be where people debated politics and argued the toss. There is a very long and strong tradition of that. Now weblogs are one big talking shop."

Public Address is probably the most successful example of blogging in New Zealand. Founder and media commentator Brown said the site attracted 2300-3000 visits each day.

Christie's reputation as a blogger earned him an alternative job as a columnist in the Herald on Sunday, and it was on the strength of David Slack's blog that Penguin Books asked him to write Bullshit Backlash and Bleeding Hearts.

Given the site's growth, Brown decided to bring the debate out of the virtual world for a while and fill the dead hours of a Sunday afternoon with a bit of culture - music, poetry readings by Nat Curnow (grandson of Alan Curnow) and, of course, robust debate.

In rolled enough glitterati to please the organisers: Carol Hirschfeld and husband Finlay Macdonald, Chris Knox, Judith Tizard and Shortland Street actor Li-Ming Hu, there to perform with her band.

In also came about 100 blog readers, from members of community boards to political and philosophy students at university.

Brown was unabashed about wooing the sponsorship dollar.

"I put so much time into it that it would be nice to get some sort of return on it and to pay Cactus Lab, who set up the site."

The Public Address philosophy of a one-stop blogspot, a cafe of opinion, has since been echoed by others in New Zealand - the young, idealistic and somewhat earnest grouping on FightingTalk, and the DogBitingMen.

Brown said two things motivated his almost-daily, often lengthy, rants.

"One is a passionate need to editorialise. The second is a genuine desire to be a useful citizen."

He said he now felt it was his duty to do the blog, despite extensive commitments, including a weekly show on bFM, National Radio's Media Watch and Wide Area News, and a column in Unlimited magazine.

He hoped to have at least three more events like the Great Blend.

Public Address