Mike Crowl's Random Notes: Buechner

Showing posts with label Buechner. Show all posts

Sunday, March 09, 2014

And while we're on lists...

What you see below is a copy of the Popular Posts from this blog, as at the 9th March, 2014. Yet there's something rather strange about this. These posts show up almost all the time, as though they were continually being viewed. The reality is somewhat different. When I look at the stats for yesterday, which should give us some indication as to popularity, only one of these posts appears, and that's the first. Buechner on Marriage is also there, but well down the list. It seems to me that these 'popular posts' get up on the list at some point and then just stay there. Here's yesterday's list of top five posts, all but the first being quite recent arrivals.

Commonplace post 13 Feb 2011,	62
Wimpy keyboards 8 Mar 2014,	34
Irritation in #gigatowndunedin 8 Mar 2014,	31
Making mugs of us all 8 Mar 2014,	17
The Best Offer 7 Mar 2014,	17

Thursday, September 20, 2012

Top ten and coincidences

I haven't caught up with my HitTail results for a while, so, having had a reminder from them yesterday, I thought I'd check out what's hot in regard to the top ten keywords. These top ten words are apparently 15.6% of all my search traffic.

HitTail suggests only one phrase as a keyword this week: random film free, a rather odd phrase, you'd think. But apparently people have picked this blog up as a result. I tried it, and this blog didn't get listed until the third page - admittedly there were only ten results per page, so that's probably not bad.

Apart from that, and the fact that putting in random film free might not have helped the searcher a great deal when he or she came across my blog, here are the top ten results. Nine of them are old favourites; only one is a bit out of left field, and that's number four on the list, which comes up as googleads.g.doubleclick.net. Now I can't imagine anyone putting that in as a search, so it's plainly something a machine has done. Good luck to it; when I put it in as a search I get the brush-off from Google.

Zirka Circus review tops the list this time around, with Zirka Circus coming second. I must be one of the few people to have written about the Zirka Circus, which is why I'm so popular!

Athlete's hand comes third, and bingo! Mike Crowl comes fifth. The Great Divorce notes comes sixth - people still picking up something I wrote about C S Lewis' Great Divorce at some point and Google matching it up with the title of my blog. Chrissy Popadics is, as always, on the list, followed by Frederick Buechner marriage. Penultimately there's James Berardinelli, whom I haven't written about for more months than there are in a year, and probably longer; in fact, I haven't even read much of Berardinelli in the same time. And finally there's another old favourite: skinny tie (skinny ties is thirteenth on the list.) It's interesting that the image for the skinny ties post and a photo of Berardinelli appear in the 'Popular Posts' list down the right hand column. Zirka Circus is there too, and Buechner, so I guess these are there because there are so many searches for them. Chrissy Popadics appears under her married name of Johnson in this list. It's kind of a circle really, isn't it? People search for the thing so the posts become popular, and the popular posts get searched. Hmm.

That's just my top ten list, of course. The list goes on forever, whittling its way down from nearly 300 hits for each search item to just one. HitTail's reason for existing is to point out the little words that people search for so that you can make more of these; it's the counter approach to the way most SOEs work. I could look up all these little words, but I thought I'd stick to a simpler task and check out what words or phrases have been searched for today that brought the searcher in touch with my blog. There are four: betty boop on stage, oscar wilde on art, into the open air sheet music, charles horton cooley. Charles Horton Who?

I didn't think I'd ever written about this bloke, but I have. Considering that I don't appear anywhere near the top on the search results it's surprising anyone found this site, and it's surprising that HitTail says they did. But there you go. I remember writing about Betty Boop, but again she doesn't appear in the search results unless I put some connector, like mike crowl.

The Oscar Wilde reference is there, again requiring some additional input, but into the open air sheet music turns up easily without additional words; fourth on the list, in fact. And here's a nice coincidence. Years ago I wrote a post on Boise, which happened to mention Chrissy Popadics. Boise doesn't turn up in my HitTail results very readily, but Chrissy does all the time. The coincidence is that my daughter-in-law comes from Boise, and now lives in Minneapolis with my son. The post that turns up in relation to open air sheet music tells me that the sheet music in question - painted onto a building - is in Minneapolis.

Tuesday, October 11, 2011

As anyone who's read this blog more than once will note, I'm always intrigued by the ways in which people discover the blog. I've just been looking at the stats helpfully provided by Blogger/Google, and one site that's got me beat as to what it's got to do with me is something called pu.gg. When you go to this you find it's called Torrent Tracker.   I have sort of an idea what a Torrent is in internet terms - something along the lines of being able to download very large files (movies, for instance) in tiny bits, so that the bandwidth doesn't get overloaded. At least that's what I gather it is.   So I'm not sure why this particular site would be sending anyone my way, but apparently they did, 34 times, over the last week or so.

More interesting than that little mystery, for me, are the search words that bring people on board.   According to the Blogger/Google stats, this is the list of top ten word searches over the last week that have hooked people up with this blog:

skinny tie
james berardinelli
frederick buechner marriage
graveyard
athlete's hand pictures
chrissy popadics
edgar jepson
how to wear a skinny tie
steve jobs quote about not settling
tui advert

An odd mix, to be sure.   And it's interesting that the skinny tie thing comes up twice.   It may be that when you put skinny tie into Google, a picture of a bloke wearing such a tie comes up in the images; click on him and you'll come to me. I don't even remember where I found the picture...!

The 'graveyard' post relates to Neil Gaiman's book, The Graveyard Book.   Curiously, I'm about tenth on Google's search list for this, so it's interesting that people find me.   The mysteries of search engines are wondrous to behold.    However, I'm first on the list (as of today) when you put in Frederick Buechner marriage which is something of a surprise.   The Buechner piece is great, and perhaps a lot of people are using it at their weddings these days.   Well, it's all there on my post!

Just remembered that in the script of The Mousetrap, the irritating old lady, Mrs Boyle, talks about the young architect's ties, calling them skinny...or narrow...or something that equally implies disdain for his lack of style. Actually, now I think about it, I think she just says, 'And his ties' - Agatha Christie has already told us in the script directions that his tie needs to be skinny.

Friday, September 09, 2011

Catching up on HitTail after a spell

It's quite a while since I checked out HitTail's results for this blog - I used to do it regularly (partly for something to write about), but I notice that they've got results going back to March this year which I've never looked at.

That's okay, we'll sort that in due course.

Meantime, I also checked the search words that people have used that bring them to my site.   Amazingly athlete's hand continues to do well - it's at the top.   One little post from I don't when - and a joke post at that - and this is the result.   Crazy.

The second in line is a bit of a newbie to me: googleads.g.doubleclick.net. I looked at that and wondered what the heck it was, since it seems an odd thing for someone to enter in Google's search box.   Anyway, doing exactly that, I find that it comes up with an explanation from Google's help desk itself.   I began to read the explanation, got bogged down a couple of sentences in, and let my brain say, Pooh, don't get that - too difficult to understand without concentration.

Another curiosity keeps coming up on the list - it's currently third in line: Zirka circus.   The post I did on this in 2010, has obviously drawn some people over and over. Zirka circus is a NZ-based group, with mostly an Asian cast.   Some very good stuff in it too.

Surprise, surprise, my own name comes up fourth on the list.   Wow, I must look for myself an awful lot, or else there are a lot of other Mike Crowl's out there doing the same thing.   (One was a headmaster at a high school in the States who got himself into strife, being accused of harrassing his staff. He resigned, and I haven't caught up with what happened subsequently.)   In Google.co.nz, by the way, this blog comes up first if you enter Mike Crowl as a search term.

Zirka Circus review gets fifth place, and The Great Divorce notes sixth.   This latter search term has been one of the tops for a long time, although you won't ever find any 'notes' on C S Lewis' The Great Divorce on my blog.   It's just the fact that the blog title has 'notes' in it that makes the difference!

Nintendo jewellery and Brent Stavig make seventh and eighth - again two items that have earned pride of place on this blog for their regular appearances (mostly because I keep writing about them because they keep turning up on HitTail - it's a bit of a Catch 22).

James Berardinelli and Frederick Buechner marriage are the last two in the top ten.   I haven't mentioned Berardinelli for a long time: he's the film reviewer who has hundreds of reviews on imdb.com - not ibdm.com as I first typed: they have a site too, and it's also about movies. Cunning!

People must look for the quote on marriage by Buechner and find it on my site.   Guess it's a helpful thing to use at your wedding...

The hundreds of other search terms that make it onto my list are often repeats of the above ones in some form or other, and all the old favourites are still there.   Before I go I just need to mention some of the 'keywords' that have sent people to the blog; some quite intriguing ones...top heavy body builder, armwrestling my wife, [like that one] skinny ties versus normal ties, where to buy cigars in Dunedin, drugs corner cut off of credit card [what?].

It has to be said that if you went looking for any of these in an Encyclopedia it's doubtful you'd find them.   Good old Google!

Wednesday, August 31, 2011

Blog stats

Every so often it's worth checking out one of the systems that keeps track of the stats relating to this blog. Here are the top pages with the number of times they've been accessed over the last short period of time....notice the dates the posts were published; the third top one goes back to 2007...Boise also happens to be the place my future daughter-in-law comes from. Wonder if there's a connection?
I'm glad to see that Grimhilda! has made it well up the list, though I'm not sure why she should be behind 'skinny ties' or Frederick Buechner on marriage.
The meaning of Winnie the Pooh is just behind Grimhilda! - curiously enough, the beginning of the Pooh post is a spoof on literary criticism, rather than something serious.
The other item that intrigues me here is the one on the Zirka circus: this has been a popular post since the time it first appeared. Don't ask me why!

	108	mikecrowlsscribblepad.blogspot.com/
	53	mikecrowlsscribblepad.blogspot.com/2011/08/graveyard-book.html
	43	mikecrowlsscribblepad.blogspot.com/2007/01/more-on-boise.html
	22	mikecrowlsscribblepad.blogspot.com/2010/02/buechner-on-marriage.html
	14	mikecrowlsscribblepad.blogspot.com/2011/03/skinny-ties.html
	10	mikecrowlsscribblepad.blogspot.com/2011/08/concerts-grimhilda.html
	10	mikecrowlsscribblepad.blogspot.com/2010/02/meaning-of-winnie-pooh.html
	9	mikecrowlsscribblepad.blogspot.com/2011/08/within-landscape.html
	7	mikecrowlsscribblepad.blogspot.com/2007/07/james-berardinelli.html
	7	mikecrowlsscribblepad.blogspot.com/2009_07_01_archive.html
	6	mikecrowlsscribblepad.blogspot.com/2011/08/single-parents-are-brilliantoften.html
	6	mikecrowlsscribblepad.blogspot.com/2011/08/further-learning.html
	6	mikecrowlsscribblepad.blogspot.com/search
	6	mikecrowlsscribblepad.blogspot.com/2008_08_01_archive.html
	5	mikecrowlsscribblepad.blogspot.com/2011/05/shadowlands-review.html
	5	mikecrowlsscribblepad.blogspot.com/2010/11/moustache-less.html
	5	mikecrowlsscribblepad.blogspot.com/2011/06/gottage.html
	5	mikecrowlsscribblepad.blogspot.com/2010/04/random-thoughts-on-zirka-circus.html
	5	mikecrowlsscribblepad.blogspot.com/2011/08/eliot-app.html
	4	mikecrowlsscribblepad.blogspot.com/p/geocitiesathensforum4657.html

Monday, March 08, 2010

Getting emotional

Being a person who finds tears arising in all manner of situations, I was naturally drawn to this piece by Frederick Buechner, which I found on Tim Keel's blog (unfortunately he doesn't tell us where it comes from.)

"You never know what may cause them. The sight of the Atlantic Ocean can do it, or a piece of music, or a face you've never seen before. A pair of somebody's old shoes can do it...You can never be sure. But of this you can be sure. Whenever you find tears in your eyes, especially unexpected tears, it is well to pay the closest attention. They are not only telling you something about the secret of who you are, but more often than not God is speaking to you through them of the mystery of where you have come from and is summoning you to where, if your soul is to be saved, you should go next."

Substitute the Pacific Ocean for the Atlantic or a photograph of my now deceased mother holding one of my sleeping grandchildren as a tiny baby for the old shoes, or a sloppy movie (in fact, not it doesn't even have to be sloppy) for the piece of music (not that I never get emotional about music), and you have a picture of what might cause me to be emotional any place any time.

Saturday, February 13, 2010

Buechner on Marriage

I've been reading Frederick Buechner's Whistling in the Dark again, after a break of several years. It’s an alphabetised collection of thoughts on various topics. Though I might add some of them here (and maybe on my other ‘quote’ blog, The Daily Writer).

Here’s the one on marriage:

They say they will love, comfort, honour each other to the end of their days. They say they will cherish each other and be faithful to each other always. They say they will do these things not just when they feel like it but even – for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health – when they don’t feel like it at all. In other words, the vows they make at a marriage could hardly be more extravagant. They give away their freedom. They take on themselves each other’s burdens. They bind their lives together in ways that are even more painful to unbind emotionally, humanly, than they are to unbind legally. The question is: what do they get in return?

They get each other in return. Assuming they have any success at all in keeping their rash, quixotic promises, they never have to face the world quite alone again. There will always be the other to talk to, to listen to. If they’re lucky, even after the first passion passes, they still have a kindness and patience to depend on, a chance to be patient and kind. There is still someone to get through the night with, to wake into the new day beside. If they have children, they can give them, as well as each other, roots and wings. If they don’t have children, they each become each other’s child.

They both still have their lives apart as well as a life together. They both still have their separate ways to find. But a marriage made in Heaven is one where a man and a woman become more richly themselves together than the chances are either of them could ever have managed to become alone. When Jesus changed the water into wine at the wedding in Cana, perhaps it was a way of saying more or less the same thing.

Tuesday, February 02, 2010

Buechner on Art

Some lines from Frederick Buechner's Whistling in the Dark: a doubter's dictionary - from the section, 'Art.'

Literature, painting, music - the most basic lesson that all art teaches us is to stop, look and listen to life on this planet, including our own lives, as a vastly richer, deeper, more mysterious business than most of the time it ever occurs to us to suspect as we bumble along from day to day on automatic pilot. In a world that for the most part steers clear of the whole idea of holiness, art is one of the few places left where we can speak to each other of holy things.

Sunday, March 08, 2009

Re-reading Soul Survivor

I've been re-reading Philip Yancey's Soul Survivor, and enjoying it as much as the previous time I read it. This time, I've just been looking for the most part at his chapters on writers: Chesterton, Annie Dillard, Frederick Buechner, Robert Coles, Tolstoy and Dostoevsky.
I want to read these writers all over again - apart from Coles, whom I had never heard of before Yancey introduced him. But I'd like to read him.
Not that I've read everything by these authors, not by any means. I've begun War and Peace twice and failed to make it very far (perhaps I was spoilt by the movie with Audrey Hepburn and co), but it's a book I'd like to get into some time. Apart from that, I've never even opened anything else by him. I've read some Dostoevsky, mostly back when I was a lot younger. And at a time when I probably didn't appreciate him for what he is. He definitely needs to go back on the list again. I read Crime and Punishment, The Brothers Karamazov (struggling through the Russian names to such a degree that I wrote them down when they first appeared so I could figure out who was who!), and perhaps one other. I've started others, but I think I wasn't ready for them at the time.
Dillard and Buechner are two more authors I'd like to read more of than I have. It's years since I read Dillard's great book, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, but I remember finding it a wonder. I couldn't tell you off the top of my head what I've read of Buechner's, except that I know I have read several of his books. (Dillard's site, by the way, has a front page that is quite disarming. She says, amongst other things: Here is some information for scholars. I’ve posted this web-page in defense; a crook bought the name and printed dirty pictures, then offered to sell it to me. I bit. In the course of that I learned the web is full of misinformation. This is a corrective.) Dillard doesn't always appeal: I didn't much enjoy her Writer's Life. In fact, I think I gave up on it.
And then there's Chesterton, whom I have read a great deal of. I also have a reasonable number of his innumerable books on my shelves. He's not always easy to read: Chesterton can burble along at a rate of knots making you think he's saying something of value when in fact he's just being Chesterton on a roll. And then suddenly out of the blue he'll turn something upside down and a whole world opens up. To read all of Chesterton would be an indulgence, I suspect. He's always great, but not always great to read. Even some of his best books have their downtime. But when he's on a rolll, no one can match him. In fact, few authors can match him even when he's not on a roll! He's like Dickens. There's an awful lot of him, and a case could be made for everything being absolutely superb. It's not, but it's a world that no one else has ever come close to creating.
To go from these masters to the book I'm presently reading to review is like coming down off the top of the mountain. The book is by John Cairney, who, if I'm not mistaken, is the husband of a cousin of one of my oldest friends. Cairney and his wife were both actors, and it looks as though he may still be.
Anyway, Cairney has written this strange book called flashback forward (no capital letters on the cover). If the blurb hadn't told me that something unusual was going to happen at some

point, I don't think I would have persisted with it. It takes a 100 pages for the odd thing to happen, and suddenly the story goes from being a fairly ordinary account of a family moving from Scotland to New Zealand in the late 19th century. The main character, Tom, is not particularly engaging.
And then Tom experiences the volcanic eruption that destroyed the Pink and White Terraces, and the book splits in two. Tom eventually goes back to Scotland and we next read of him as a 60-year-old or so. Tom number two wakes up after the Napier earthquake in 1931, 45 years after his previous disaster experience, and is still an 18-year-old. That's where I'm at currently, and certainly this part of the book has proved to be more effectively written than the earlier stuff, which could have been vastly abridged. No doubt more on it in due course.

Mike Crowl's Random Notes

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