The Valve

I think it was Maud Newton, last week, who had a link to The Valve, which is a new blog.

Now The Valve, I have to say, ain't gonna do it for everyone. In fact, I am not sure it does it for me. But here's what it says about itself:

'The Valve is a literary weblog dedicated to the proposition that the function of the little magazine can follow this form. We mean to foster debate and circulation of ideas in literary studies and contiguous academic areas.'

See what I mean? This isn't going to fill every reader with wild enthusiasm, now is it?

What I think the blurb means it that The Valve is a blog which is going to try to do what most small literary magazines do: i.e., presumably, publish essays, criticism, the occasional short story, and perhaps some poetry.

Fortunately, if you read the opening article in full, or at any rate dip into it, it becomes apparent that the author, John Holbo, is an amiable sort of fellow, with at least a modicum of common sense. He has some interesting things to say about university presses -- and I used to run one once, so I have views on the subject. And he also has the virtue of at least suspecting that not all is well within academia.

For instance, he estimates that there are 30,000 academics at work in the humanities. But he points out that 'no one has a clear (or even unclear) sense of what work in the humanities presently needs approximately 30,000 hands to complete.'

So the guy is capable of rational thought. Furthermore, he, or one of his colleagues, has had the good sense to include the GOB on their blogroll, so it would be ungracious to do other than reciprocate.