In his blog Pen Paper Pause – Sketched Thought, which I found thanks to Lisa from Lucky Dip, Richard Watkins writes about his physical blog in which he put up his sketches in real places and update them once a week.

What are the differences between blogging and letter writing? Beside the obvious speed and distribution, I think in blogging we are losing some of the intimacy of letter writing.

Not only we are losing the hand writing, but the personal and private notion that this is a text meant to be shared by two specific people.

Although blogging still represent the thoughts and experience of its writer, it is written with the knowledge that it will be read by many people, and is not directed to a specific person, as we will not write the same letter to two different people and will not use the same subjects and language.

The blog is more like a letter in a bottle, we cannot be sure who will find it and what they will do with it. Good thing we are not on a deserted island, although, sitting in front of the computer might fill like that sometimes.

After saying all this, I cannot ignore the benefits of blogging, hey, I’m blogging right now.

So I started thinking of Richard’s way of bringing blogging and real communication closer. Although he dose not know who reads his post, he knows at least where they are read. And the reader can check his newly hand drawn illustration, or at least “hand copied” and personally hanged.

And then I started seeing it around me in other forms and formats.

Here is a “Real Life Blog” I saw when visiting on a farm house in Karamea, NZ:

“Posts” were scattered  around the house:

Here is another real life blog:

This notebook is located at the beginning of Mt. Somers track (South  Island, NZ). Trackers write down when they left and there route so there will be some way of finding out if someone is missing. “Double click” on the cover will uncover posts with dates and names of travelers, impressions and recommendations, and also a post about a lost camera.

And last, but not least, the old and familiar family blog:

The fridge door.

D.