New Medium, Same Great Taste

It's been suggested on more than one occasion that as a body of work the St. John's Hoops e-mails are not as bad as, say, the typical issue of Us Weekly or Teen. It's even been suggested once or twice that they should be collected together somehow, perhaps in a book, or serialized in The Atlantic Monthly.

Of course I'm flattered, but the reasons this has never happened are many. (The Atlantic Monthly, for example, now returns all my letters unopened.) Chief among them is that in writing the weekly dispatch I've never desired to appeal to people outside our band of playmates and the few dozen non-players who've asked to be added to the mailing list over the years.

Still, I've always been a completist. And, as it would to any writer, the thought of having all my scribbles collected together at least suggests the possibility of immortality.

But this is the twenty-first century! The age of OnStar and hybrid SUVs and cell phones that get satellite TV! Books are for old people, the printed word for Luddites. And so with the fanfare that in decades past accompanied the introduction of the tail fin and color TV and the Wonder Bra I introduce the St. John's Hoops weblog!

That's right. Today St. John's Hoops becomes part of the blog phenomenon. For those who don't know -- and you really should be a little embarrassed -- a blog is a web site on which an individual publishes content and to which others in the group are able to post replies. Think highly interactive web site catering to the special interests of a select group. Like Ralph Nader's web site, but without the panhandling.

The St. John's Hoops blog is located at http://stjohnshoops.blogspot.com. On the site you'll see St. John's Hoops e-mails going back to May of this year, and every week I'll be adding more from the archives.

Within the next 24 hours everyone on this mailing list will receive an e-mail from the blog's host (blogger.com) inviting you to create a user ID and password so you can post to the blog. I respectfully request that you use your first and last name as your user ID so everyone knows who's posting. Save your JiggyBoy216 handle for America Online.

What will happen to this weekly e-mail? Frankly, I don't know. One way or another I'll still notify you every week whether we're playing or not. If you don't hear from me just check the site.

Thanks, everyone, for your kind words and insightful and hilarious replies to my e-mails over the years. What started as a simple "Yo! Gym's open tonight. Play?" in 1994 has evolved into one of my favorite weekly to-dos. And for the record: We are playing this Wednesday at our usual time: 6:30 p.m. Please let me know if you will or will not be there.