"Puerile" --The New Yorker

The Big Time?

The Blender of Love received a two paragraph review in The New Yorker’s Romance Issue. In mentioning the review to other people I summarize its take on The Blender as "good but adolescent" I suppose that's a fair opinion for it to have. After all, The Blender was started when I was an adolescent, and sometimes it shows. (Also, I was playing with voices and attitudes in last month's Ramble and may have come across a little lowbrow.) Beyond that, however, is the issue of maturity and the ideals of romance- after all, the Blender is pretty closely tied to the heart strings of the people whose work appears in it, myself included.

I have a lot of unanswered questions, and asking questions is what this site has always been about: Can unrequited love ever be mature? Do 'mature' relationships imply a kind of sensible dullness? Demand co-dependence? Insist on piercing introspection? Unparalleled unselfishness? Can you jumpstart the maturing process? Kill it? Is asking questions such as these inherently immature? I’m not always sure, but I’m going to ask until I find out.

There are also some intriguing issues about the Web as a whole, where a small site with a small but growing following can get this kind of attention. The Web is an interesting medium when it acts as a leveler, bringing little, not- even- shoestring budget productions on par with sites by established organizations. As one of the standard bearers of American literature and culture, The New Yorker is helping to legitimize the Web as a medium, in a way that fanzines and pirate radio can only dream of.

For what it’s worth, I let myself believe the "You may be ashamed to read it" refers to the ‘raunchiness’, rather than entirely the literary worth. I’ve acted accordingly and put up a fair warning for Blender readers.

I’ve always loved The New Yorker, at first for the cartoons, and later for its general attitude and history. The Blender now feels like a legitimate, if tiny, blip on the American culture scene. Hopefully, as I go through my maturing process the Blender will follow.
        --Kirk, Keeper
        of the Blender
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