Blogaversary

As of today, I have been doing this blog for 10 years. I don't know if there is much to say about it. I set up a blog (not this one) in the first place to see if I could write for a blog, see if posting stuff online a couple times a week made sense. I'd been interacting with people online for years by then - started at work back around 1990-91, tried out Prodigy, Compuserve, AOL about the same time (early 91), settled into AOL by 93-94, and stayed there. Message boards - I found a couple groups I really liked - a writers group first, some movie groups later, and found that very satisfying. But by 2004 or so, AOL was starting to lose its appeal. The folders my buddies hung out in were shut down; we started up somewhere else, but were invaded by trolls, racists and fools, and the decent people slowly drained away. Meanwhile, I had been reading the internet since the WWW began - Mosaic opened up the world. I read whatever I could find through the years - personal web pages; online magazines; sites like Slate and Suck and Salon and Word; and finally, in the early 00s, blogs. I don't remember exactly where I started - maybe links out from Slate or Salon, maybe somewhere else - but I started finding blogs...and as AOL got boring, I decided to try blogging. That was in 2003, actually - it already seemed a bit passé, and I wasn't sure if I wanted to do it or not - so I set about trying it, but almost in private. Opting out of search engines, things like that. And - decided the process worked - but wasn't really all that enthused about unleashing my experiments on the world... So The Listening Ear was born, to start clean, a little more publicly.

Even so, I didn't really chase readers - it was still more an exercise in writing and posting for itself, than for an audience. At the beginning, it looked more like a normal blog, I think. All politics, all the time for a while - with the odd bit of culture blogging, occasional geek posts, and eventually - in the same post! - getting to what would be the staples of the blog (and were the staples of what I argued about on AOL for many years) - films and music. Still - it was mostly politics at first, until 2005, when I started working in a few more film posts - the kinds of things I would have posted on AOL in the past... But AOL was dead - and so I started putting that stuff here. And started seeing the advantages of doing things like that on a blog. Starting with a series of posts on Busby Berkeley, in May and June - a combination of notes from a film festival, and a long essay on Berkeley's style, much of it (to be honest) derived from an essay I'd written for a class a couple years before that... After that, this became a film blog - which it has remained, more or less - though this year, you'd never know it. I've given myself over completely to history - anniversaries and such - and music.

But mainly, this has been a film blog. Film blogging started to get me something like an audience - and I started making connections to other bloggers. Those were the days of the blogathons - there were so many, I put up a page to keep track of them - I participated in a few. I made connections, there, and managed, in my modest and somewhat uncommitted way, to interact with the film blogosphere. It was a very satisfying time - which is reflected in the content at this blog. I posted a lot, from 05-08, most of it film related (though music got in there too, in a more ritualized way, maybe), a good deal of it related to film-writing on other blogs. Blogathons - Harry Tuttle's Contemplative Cinema blogathons and site; the Film of the Month Club , and so on. I made connections - from old AOL cronies, like Joseph B. and Evan Waters; academic oriented film bloggers, like Girish; and other film bloggers, like Edward Copeland, Ed Howard and Joel Bocko. People have come and gone since then - though I am happy to still have a few connections in the world. These days mainly, Wonders in the Dark - which remains a great site, varied and enthusiastic.

So - the next 10 years? Good lord. Who knows. This year - expect more Civil War and WWI, bands of the month - and hopefully some films. (Definitely in relation to Wonders in the Dark's Romance Countdown, going on all summer.) The next month or so - mostly soccer... I've always intended this to be a place I can write about whatever popped into my head - an assortment of observations - the soup of culture, I called it back when I started. Hardy Boys, Captain Beefheart and Imamura my guiding lights, so to speak... probably ought to have Bruce Catton, Carl Yastrzemski and Charles Schulz up there somewhere too. Anyway - on we go.

UPDATE: One thing I hope to manage in the next 10 years is to learn to read a calendar. The anniversary of the birth of this humble blog is June 17, not June 16 - unfortunately, I suppose, as I could then celebrate its anniversaries with Joyce quotes. Hoopsa, boyaboy, hoops! But alas - the date is tomorrow.

Welcome to August Friday 10

Well - I managed to blow two blog deadlines this week - both a new director of the month for July, and a band of the month for August. I shoudl cite (though not blame) Wonders in the Dark's upcoming Western poll, as that consumed my attention at the beginning of the week (and for much of the last month or so) - but not really... The director is done, and will be up as soon as it is seemly (to not step on this post - or more truthfully, to not get stepped on by this post.) The Band of the month - it was a bad idea to call that the first Friday of the month - not if I am going to turn the director posts into something at the end of every month. So second Friday! that's the plan!

And today? nothing much. I did see a concert last week - a bunch of kids playing in Cambridge - the son of some friends of mine played his first "real" gig, in a real club - that was fun... Otherwise? We're random today:

1. Arthur "Big Daddy" Crupup - My Baby Left Me
2. REM - A Perfect Circle
3. Atoms for Peace - Unless
4. David Sylvain - The Good Son
5. Wire - Clay
6. Danielson - This Day is a Loaf
7. Tragically Hip - We'll Go Too
8. Scissor Sisters - She's My Man
9. Yo La Tengo - Return to Hot Chicken
10. Sigur Rus - Rafstraumur

So for Video? Why not David Sylvain?



And - in the spirit of randomness - this is what came up on top in YouTube when I searched for Rafstraumur... wait - what? maybe for the Scissor Sisters, but this came up for Sigur Rus?



Not that anyone really regrets KC and the Sunshine Band... anyway, I guess that will put an end to any artiness I might be pushing. I suppose the Scissor Sisters wouldn't go wrong right now...



And finally - leave you with an iphone picture of the show I saw, nice and blurry.

Atomworld Annoyances

I'm afraid my blogging ambitions, however modest they might be, have taken another hit. The long delay since my last post is the result of a simple weekend visit to the kinfolk, but now I've heard the news that I shall have to move house... I've known it was coming, the place has been on the market - but nothing had been happening, and then suddenly it did. So I have to stop procrastinating and find a place to live.

Anyway - that's a time consuming and anxiety ridden process, so I fear my already sporadic blogging will become - what's more sporadic than sporadic? At least at the end of it, I should be able to get a cat - a time honored source of blog filler.

Housekeeping Post Ho Hum

Nothing special to say this Saturday night. Stayed in all day, writing about poetry. This again. Distracting me from writing about Bad Influence - I have a post lurking, half finished, though still scattered across 2-3 notebooks and a couple computer files. My usual method. About doubles, ambiguity, and evidence - what counts as evidence in demonstrating something is real in a work of fiction? I hope that's what it's about.

Between worrying about Dylan Thomas, I have been poking about various bits of my online real estate, making tweaks. Spent an hour or so this morning trying to rationalize Google Reader. Figure out a good way to handle the sheer flood of information that comes in there. It's a strange balance: there is no way to read everything that comes through - and I suppose a lot of the blogs I subscribe to, there's no reason to read every post - but every blog I subscribe to comes across once or twice a week (if they post that often) with something worth reading. How do I catch that, without being swamped by the sheer volume? while giving the time I'd like to to the blogs I consistently like? I've been using RSS most of the last year and I can't say I've figured it out yet. This evening, I have turned to a simpler task - trying to spruce up this blog. Not much to do - I'm happy with my Imamura/Hardy Boys/Captain Beefheart theme, I see no reason to change. So add a couple blogs on the blogroll, drop a couple that aren't much updated, attend to some housekeeping. No one will notice.

What else? I think I shall write up a 2009 Resolutions post - though I think I'll post it on Film & Discussion. We're showing life over there! I miss the give and take.... A 20 Actresses post? I posted a list in comments there - I've been meaning to do the thing proper here, pix and all, but... hopeless!

Maybe some bloggage? a link or two? The new year is starting out well at the HFA - Alexander Mackendrick this weekend; Yousef Chahine, Max Ophuls, Paul Shrader, Albert Serra, William Friedkin coming up - the live ones all in attendance, also Laura Mulvey and Ken Jacobs and more... I still intend to write something more about the Oshima series last December - it was bloody magnificent, though it made for an exceedingly hectic month. Add it to the list....

Oh yeah - another episode of Left Behind: The Movie at Slacktivist. Good stuff!

Good night.

I Return, Sort of

Let me try this. It has been a long week. A good friend of mine lost his father (who I also vbery much liked) last week, and that has had all my attention. It certainly changes how one might react to something like Heath Ledger's death - sad and disturbing as it might be, it's too remote to register when you're mourning someone yourself. Still a shame. He was young, he was good, he seemed to be on the way to something like greatness.

Otherwise, there's not a lot going on. I owe Piper a dinner with someone - I'll get back to it, someday, I swear. I had an idea - my dinner with Joe Breen? I could blame him for Eli Roth and American Pie and feed him a ration of crow and lament the taming of Warren William. That might still work, though I missed most of the series, in the end...

Larry Aydlette is gearing up for a whole month of Burt Reynolds - 29 posts in 29 days! woo hoo! [which reminds me of my neighbors, who are raising hell - there's a party going on! way too much thumping and stomping and whooping and hollaring. That's neither here nor there, but it explains the hour of this post, for it would be the acme of folly to try to sleep. Instead I'll type away while I wait for the fun to end, listening to Six Organs of Admittance in anticipation of tomorrow night: looks like the second concert I'll attend in less them three months! it's like it's 1988 all over again!]

So back to the post - don't forget - Edward Copeland is running another poll - best acting Oscar winners. I have to do that, too... I have a lot to do, actually. Hopefully, I'll get some posts up in the next few days...

Updates and Such

Okay - it's a Wednesday, with nothing going on. Friday, I hope, I can see Pierrot Le Fou, before submitting my foreign film ballot. The rest is pretty much set, but I want to know if Pierrot belongs back in the top 5-6 - it used to be there, but I haven't seen it in years - Vivre Sa Vie replaced it...

Meanwhile - I'm monkeying around with the blog design. I spent a bunch of time today trying to index some of the older posts: might as well get some metadata on everything here - no point in leaving things out there to dry... I can't say every word posted here is a gem, but I'd imagine a few things are interesting - the days of someone stumbling by accident into my Busby Berkeley posts are probably long gone, so maybe some tags could help. This is an ongoing project, I suppose.

It's also time to spiff up the design a bit. Or randomly change it, to confuse the unwary. I maybe growing tired of Johnny. We'll have to see. Maybe a David Hasselhoff tribute?



Though for now - I think I do have the ideal header image. Might take some tweaking to get the size and positioning right, but who can go wrong with a reincarnated husband?

UPDATE: Jealous husband, reincarnated as a carp, that is... And - more tweaks in the design. Bluer than ever, or a waterier blue. And a nod to the boys from whom this blog takes its name. I may not be satisfied for a day or two yet, though the general principal seems sound.

Site Updates

I wanted to mention a couple things.... I poked at the blogroll again - added a couple sites I've been reading for a while - Cinebeats; Talk to me Harry Winston (which I could have sworn I added a couple months ago... I don't pay as much attention to the mechanics of this place as I should)... and a couple new sites, from people I've known online for a long while - Mike Doc at the Bargain Matinee, and Erik at Blackstad. Some of us have been trying to talk them into blogging for years - I look forward to what they have to say...

Housekeeping and Sport

I doubt anyone will really bother to read this post. Can't blame you. Nothing to it. I've added a couple more links: I noticed that I didn't have Andy Horbal's blog listed in the blogroll, since switching to the new blogger template. I can't really explain that. Bloody blogger! yeah - blame google! Added a couple more as well. Added a label, retroactively, to a bunch of posts. "Auteurs" - I feel I must apologize for the name. It's there to connect all the posts I do about specific filmmakers - I don't intend to limit it to directors - I use the word ("auteur") mostly because it is alphabetically distinct, unlike "filmmaker" which conflicts with "film". You gotta let those autocompletes work right!

And sport - hey! Celtics win! whoo hoo! or, Oh No! They just lost Greg Oden! or something... it's trying to lose 18 straight, but it's inevitable when you lose your best three players (and by the time he got hurt, Tony Allen was their second best player). Pierce and Wally are back - they might start winning again. Though probably not too much on their west coast and Texas journeys. I think they'll maintain a nice shot at the top spot in the draft. Another 12-13 wins leaves them with 25 or so on the year - good a shot as any.

And pitchers and catchers are getting close to the time! the happiest time of the year!

Speaking of the Future...

Meanwhile, totally unrelated to that last post, and yesterday's rather wonderful election results - looks like some kind of blogger upgrade in the works. I do not pay much attention to the technical features of this blog - I take what blogger gives me, dress it up with an occasional cat



or cowboy



and go from there. Still - google has upgraded things, so we shall see what thet brings us. A brave new world of something!