This is my 232nd day of blogging in 232
days. I am not exactly on the home
stretch, however, I am beginning to contemplate what it would be like to
breathe fresh air or go away for the weekend without my laptop. My body clock now wakes me up just before my
alarm in order to post my blog—which runs at 5:30am—to my Facebook pages. I look at my friends, my stack of magazines,
the pile of bills, the barrel of trash, and even the basket of laundry as
fodder. Every object, sound-bite, speck
of dirt, or TV commercial is just an intellectual spark away from becoming a
blog topic. At this point, I think I
could write 800-1000 words on watching bananas turn brown.
I was never a big blogger or blog reader before undertaking this
enterprise. There are no hefty entry
barriers to blogging; anyone with a password and an internet connection can be
polluting cyberspace with their own “textuality” in a matter of minutes. My
motivation was not so much to jump on the blogging bandwagon as it was to force
myself into a disciplined regimen of productive writing. Taking a commitment public keeps me
honest. For me, the eye of the public’s
glaring down upon me is a relentless enforcer.
Without the persistent threat of
public humiliation and specter of its associated mockery (“neener neener!”) I would have abandoned this venture months
ago.
One of the interesting things that has happened this year is
that I have become aware of many new destinations in the blogosphere. Most of the people that initiate blogs, I
have discovered, do not contribute to them faithfully and regularly. On several occasions, I was directed to
someone’s blog only to discover that it had been months since they have posted
anything.
Then today I heard a story on NPR about a funny guy in
Denver named Lawrence Dai—a self-professed “college student with too much time
on [his] hands.” Lawrence decided to
create a rant-a-day blog based on the movie Julie and Julia, which is
based on the blog by Julie Powell, which, in turn, is based on her trying to
recreate in a single year all of Julia Child’s recipes from Mastering the Art
of French Cooking. Apparently, the
success of Julie Powell’s blog made this guy believe that he, too, could win a
book deal and a Hollywood movie contract if he could just do something every day
for a year. His effort is called the
Lawrence/Julie and Julia project, for which he watched the film Julie and
Julia every day for a year (that’s 365 times in 365 days) and, well,
blogged about it. As ideas go, it is
ridiculous, trivial, derivative, pandering, and worthless. His clear contempt for filmmaker Nora Ephron
and actress Amy Adams must have made this assignment a private sort of hell for
him. Nonetheless, he managed to create a
groundswell of hype that amounted to 1096 followers and a bit of media
attention. Unlike so many others, he did
complete his goal. There was even a
public event for his final screening where interested followers attended and watched
him blog.
The crowning jewel to Lawrence’s achievement is that his
opus attracted the attention of Julie Powell herself. Unlike the derision that Julie drew from
Julia Child, Julie went along with the spirit of Lawrence’s blog, recognizing
that it was all in fun and following it on and off throughout the year. Sadly, however, her sendoff was not without
its barbs. She referred to “the whole ‘my-year-of-whatever’
trope as the tritest cliché of blogs.”
Ouch.
Well, Julie Powell, and whoever else is listening, I stand committed to this venture. This is no ham-a-day obsession chronicled for
the benefit of agoraphobes and inmates. I am learning a lot about the craft of writing
and about myself. The fact that so many
friends have joined me in this journey honors and humbles me. I could not continue another day without everyone's
kind support.
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