Walt Whitman’s poem “Sparkles from the Wheel” beautifully captures the pleasure and exhilaration of watching work in progress:<\/p>\n
1
\nWHERE the city’s ceaseless crowd moves on, the live-long day,
\nWithdrawn, I join a group of children watching – ?\u009dI pause aside with them.
\nBy the curb, toward the edge of the flagging,
\nA knife-grinder works at his wheel, sharpening a great knife;
\nBending over, he carefully holds it to the stone – ?\u009dby foot and knee,
\nWith measur’d tread, he turns rapidly – ?\u009dAs he presses with light but firm hand,
\nForth issue, then, in copious golden jets,
\nSparkles from the wheel.
\n2
\nThe scene, and all its belongings – ?\u009dhow they seize and affect me!
\nThe sad, sharp-chinn’d old man, with worn clothes, and broad shoulder-band of leather;
\nMyself, effusing and fluid – ?\u009da phantom curiously floating – ?\u009dnow here absorb’d and arrested;
\nThe group, (an unminded point, set in a vast surrounding;)
\nThe attentive, quiet children – ?\u009dthe loud, proud, restive base of the streets;
\nThe low, hoarse purr of the whirling stone – ?\u009dthe light-press’d blade,
\nDiffusing, dropping, sideways-darting, in tiny showers of gold,
\nSparkles from the wheel.<\/p><\/blockquote>\nI was reminded of this the other day while reading a brief report in Library Journal<\/i> on Siva’s recent cross-blog argument<\/a> with Michigan University Librarian Paul Courant about Google book digitization contracts. These sorts of exchanges are not new in themselves, but blogs have made it possible for them to occur much more spontaneously and, in Siva’s case, to put them visibly in the context of a larger intellectual project. It’s a nice snapshot of the sort of moment that can happen along the way when the writing process is made more transparent -?\u009d seeing an argument crystallize or a position get clarified. And there’s a special kind of pleasure and exhilaration that comes from reading this way, seeing Siva sharpening his knife -?\u009d or argument -?\u009d and the rhetorical sparks that fly off the screen. Here’s that Library Journal<\/i> bit:<\/p>\n