Tradition of Quality

So as some of you regular readers may have noticed, I don’t have a great record of sticking to projects I set up for myself. To wit- almost four months after the final of this year’s World Cup, I still have yet to pen a review of my promised World Cup of Cinema-winning title, Carlos Saura’s Blood Wedding. Now, this isn’t entirely my fault- despite repeated attempts at writing something substantial about it, it’s just not a film that lends itself to being reviewed. After all, it’s basically rehearsal and performance footage of a flamenco ballet, which would most likely result in something that does little more than combined plot synopsis with historical context, much as a Wikipedia might. Not exactly scintillating criticism, you might agree.

Yet this isn’t exactly unprecedented in this history of the blog. After Screengrab cast me to the winds last year, I decided to keep myself regular by launching a project called Criterion Watching, which since June 2009 has had exactly two (2) installments. And the less said about my much-ballyhooed “Nobel Project,” in which I set myself the goal of reading something by every Nobel Literature laureate and reviewing it, the better.

Of course, if I was a cynical prick I’d say to hell with it and that I don’t owe my readers anything. But that’s not true. After all, a blog isn’t meant as a soapbox, nor is it a kind of one-sided communication a la Glenn Gould’s 1:0 performer-to-audience relationship. No, it’s an open line of communication between the host blogger (that’s me) and his readership, both the regulars and the folks who stumble upon the blog almost by accident. And because I value you folks, the last thing I would want to do is alienate you.

So I won’t go about setting myself any more long-term projects in the foreseeable future. After all, I’m a busy guy, and I’d prefer not to renege on any promises. Instead, I’ll make a promise that I’m fully prepared to keep. As a wholly amateur writer, I reserve the right to write about whatever I want, and nothing I don’t, and in return, I’ll do my level best to make every post worth your time. If I don’t think something I write is worthy, I won’t post it. Sure, this will no doubt mean that the content turnover will stay fairly low, but I can deal with that if it means I can keep it at a high level of quality. And in the long run, I think we’ll all be better off for it.

Thank you, as always, for reading.

~~ PBC