The general and the specific

Of all the blogs I've checked out, and it's not really all that many, one that sticks in my brain if not my bookmarks is one where a woman, amongst other stuff, described her commute home in the DC suburbs. Like so. "Did it again today. I meant to get off 495 and Jensen's Corner Rd., but I forgot about the construction on the offramp and I had to go all the way down to the Smithson Ave exit. I got forced into the westbound lane and had to make a U-turn via the WalMart parking lot, where I was backed up for 5 light cycles. Then it started to rain."

On the one hand, I have no idea what she's talking about, those specifics of time and place. On the other hand, I'm right there with her, cursing fate as 25 minutes of the precious post-work day are eaten up by one moment of lapsed attention and a whole lot of civil engineering. When you get this effect, the blog rises to the level of great realism, the great realistic novel, where the utterly particular is conveyed with the proper tone and nods to the reader so that it rises to the level of the universal. Or, at least, it's universal to anyone close enough in experience to the narrator to get it.

Good documentaries can achieve the same effect, though they tend to be marred, ironically, by excess didacticism, with affectations of cinema verite undercut by preaching to the converted agendas. Errol Morris does it well, at times.