IVP - Strangely Dim

Favorites & Other Ephemera

Because I'm lazy, and because one of my commenters raised such an insightful question, I thought I'd use said question as a springboard for another Strangely Dim entry. Read on and comment often.

2e writes:

So, I'd be lying to say I didn't add this blog to my favorites. But I guess I'm confused: is it more of an insult, now, to add you to my favorites or not to?

Excellent point, 2e! I think I'd say that adding a site to your favorites is always complimentary but often ephemeral. Maybe it's because so much web-surfing is whimsical to begin with; you're likely to find Strangely Dim, for example, only after stumbling onto the InterVarsity Press website. Maybe I need to ask a new question, one I now recall I originally heard from Margaret Feinberg:

What websites are must-see for you, that you'd return to regularly. And to build on that question: what makes these sites so consistently compelling?

I'll accept family tree sites, your weblog, whatever you can subsequently explain your compulsion for. I'll even allow posts about internet gambling as long as you're not just some lame spammer and as long as you're willing to tell the world (or the five of us) that you have a gambling addiction--in which case, if you send me a dollar there's a chance I might send you two dollars back.

Hey, it's worth a shot.

To Favorites or Not to Favorites?

Today at lunch I decided to visit all my favorites--not my favorite coworkers, in case you're reading this and wondering why you were left out, but rather the web pages I've assigned to my "favorites" folder. The problem is, most of these "favorites" I'm largely ambivalent about, and some I haven't visited in more than a year.

It's just so easy to assign the term favorite to whatever tickles your fancy at any given moment. You click on "favorites," then--just in case you forgot how you felt about this particular page--you click on "add to favorites." I have subcategories of favorites--favorite blogs, favorite music sites, favorite research pages, favorite online magazines, and so on and so on. I can go to any of my favorites at virtually any time, virtually without any effort. One click and I'm there. Still, I treat my favorites like I treat my cousins, which is best described as "unfavorably."

It's nothing personal. I like my cousins quite a lot, and something about these pages got me sufficiently effusive about them that I was willing to declare them highly favored in the first place. But online relationships, like any relationships really, are notoriously difficult to maintain. (See the run of comments to "The Vanishing Breed of the Attendant" at Loud Time for insights into that one.)

My fickle favoritism leaves my computer looking something like a coffee table or end table, cluttered with books, magazines and Bibles that seem important for me to have within arm's reach but which only infrequently come off the table and into more direct contact with my brain. I want to be the guy who has read A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius and Paul's Idea of Community and the like. I want to be the guy who is in the thick of the Emergent conversation. I want to be the smart guy, the edgy guy, the go-to guy. I suppose I want to be the favorite. But all too often the spirit is willing to declare something important, favorite, but the flesh is too weak to follow through.

So today I deleted a blog from my favorites--a site maintained by a well-known author I've never read. She's no longer my faux-favorite. I'll probably forget all about it, though, and add her back in the next time I surf by. It's so easy that it'd be impolite not to.

This Friday Brought to You By . . .

Fridays at InterVarsity Press used to be casual. And in a sense, I suppose, they still are. But ever since we announced our new imprint strategy, Friday has taken on a new look. To celebrate our new identity as a publisher of multiple imprints, InterVarsity Press (never hereafter to be referred to as IVP) has been handing out shirts like there's no tomorrow.

Shirts are a key element of any branding strategy, from the look of things. My brother works for a major corporation, and it seems that every time a senior executive sneezes, tens of thousands of branded t-shirts come shooting out his or her nose. God bless them--after all, who doesn't like a t-shirt? My brother didn't have to go clothes shopping for the first year of his employment there. The employees get free duds, the corporation gets free advertising: everybody's happy.

So it's no surprise that InterVarsity Press would cough up a lot of shirts during the branding year, even though in terms of size, we're small and my brother's company is triple-XL. Really, we're like grasshoppers to them. But now, with all our swanky new shirts, at least we look nice!

On any given Friday, these days, you'll see employees of IVP-I-mean-InterVarsity Press wearing branded t-shirts, long sleeve tees, hoodies, button-downs or oxfords. Beyond clothing, you'll see my coworkers toting branded totebags, slurping coffee out of branded coffee mugs, attaching keys to branded keychains, writing letters on branded paper using branded pens. If I were to attempt to count the number of IVP-I-mean-InterVarsity Press logos decorating my office alone, my heart, soul, mind and strength would all give out on me before I finished.

There are two forces at work here, I suppose. One is the assertion of InterVarsity Press. "We are here!" we proclaim. "Notice us! Embrace our vision! Buy our stuff!" That's a defensible effort for an organization to make: we exist for a particular set of reasons, and those reasons are better fulfilled when we are in view of our audience.

The other force, I think, is the assertion of the employees (and authors and perhaps even our audience): "We are with you! You are with us!" I, for one, draw strength from my associations: I am bolder, for example, in a room full of Alpha males when I can say, "I'm with X" and reasonably expect them to know what "X" is. Similarly, I am more likely to invite someone to my church than tell them about Jesus all by my lonesome.

In a sense, then, it's a shame that my faith tradition doesn't include uniforms. Everybody knows a nun is a nun by looking at her habit, but nobody knows I'm a Christian by looking at my boot-cut jeans and IVP-I-mean-InterVarsity Press hooded sweatshirt.

Nevertheless, we are promised association: "I am with you always." And we are promised identification: "Everyone will recognize that you are my disciples . . . when they see the love you have for each other."

Try to fit that on a t-shirt.