Al--

so intriguing to see you spin out here the ideas you began to play with last month, to learn how much the theater has had an impact on your philosophy, and to watch you engage increasingly in the world of technology.

There is much rich exploration going on in this paper, as you think aloud about the different performances that all of us are conducting, in meatspace and cyberspace. Of particular interest to me is the paradox you explore between the "inhibition that goes on in blogging," and the ways that blogs, functioning as masks, can reveal rather than conceal, as they strip away the social self to allow other selves to be revealed. As you say, "What the social mask discourages, the cyber-mask can find a community for." That's actually a spot I'd like to talk with you more about: how much is this project about fitting in with social norms (as Miller and Shephard say), how much about expanding or breaking them?

Along these lines, I especially appreciated the insight you had into my own blogging practice--how it began as an exercise in taking on a mask in meatspace (traveling in countries where I didn't know the language, culture or my way around) and ended in creating an on-line character who gave me comfort when my "physical self couldn't find a place for the person I like to be." Touche!

I was also especially struck by your coming so close to--but then ducking--the claim that "egocentric speech" is a prelude to blogging. That's an idea I'd like to hear you spin out some more.

Another new and intriguing new idea for me here is your notion that the distinction between lying and acting might productively be located not in the performer's intention, but in audience perspective. A good argument here for learning more genre theory: how to pick up on the clues, and so assure a proper uptake!