Announcement: Inexhaustible Documents

Next month, Ed Howard of Only the Cinema will launch a new series at his blog called Inexhaustible Documents. Modeled after The Oldest Established Really Important Film Club, Inexhaustible Documents will instead focus on music, with one blogger selecting a title each month and posting about it on his or her blog as the others discuss it in the comments.

The first edition will cover The Congos' Heart of the Congos, which is almost perfect, as reggae represents the biggest gap in my music listening. Starting May 23, you can read Ed's post on the album and join in the discussion.

Some bloggers, including yours truly, have already signed on to participate, but this is by no means a limited series. I hope this series gets a good turnout and leads to some great discussion, and that some bloggers I know and love join in the chat. So mark your calendars, and do please participate.

Announcement: Cinelogue Contributing

Good news everyone! I have been invited to be a contributing writer to an upstart online publication called Cinelogue. Begun last April, Cinelogue already has a crop of excellent writers, and I'm thrilled to have the chance to write with others. More importantly, I at last have an editor. Be still my beating heart. Let us all observe a moment of silence for the poor soul (or souls, as this may be a group effort) left to organize my ramblings. They've asked me for contributions, but don't let that dissuade you: it really is a quality site.

The editor, Mark Mesaros, was kind of enough to say I could cross-post anything I wrote for the site here, but I'd prefer simply to link to their site. Without wishing to seem presumptuous, I'd like to send traffic their way if at all possible. I will still post exclusive content here routinely, and I hope to be back up to my normal production levels soon. My first post is -- oh for the love of God, yet another piece on The Social Network, that little-known film that obviously needs my constant critical support. This time, the focus is on Fincher's development of key themes through mise-en-scène, from the use of the Old North Church in the idea of creation myths to the use of Harvard buildings to illustrate clashing modernity and tradition. I had been working on the piece for about a month, looking into some of the landmarks used and, frankly, getting distracted by other things. But I'm glad to finish it and thrilled to see it on a proper website, and I'll have more content for them soon.

So thanks again to everyone at Cinelogue, and I can't wait to start contributing in full.


(I'd also like to thank Carson Lund of Are the Hills Going to March Off? for recommending me to Mark. I've been a fan of Carson's for a while and I deeply appreciate the vote of confidence.)