May 1, 2008

Good news, bad news.

Jonathan Rosenbaum First, the good news. JonathanRosenbaum.com is up and running - and huge already, what with archives stretching back to August 1987. Jonathan Rosenbaum explains how they'll be expanding, even as he adds notes on "recent publications and upcoming events."

Now, the bad news. When I saw Ray Young's latest - and last? - entry at Flickhead, I didn't know whether or not to take it at face value: "All things must pass...I'm outta here..." And frankly, I still don't. Tim Lucas does believe Ray's signed off for good and, in an eloquent entry of his own - parts of which I sympathize with, parts of which I'd argue with - he reflects on this, on Matt Zoller Seitz's decision to leave off film criticism in favor of filmmaking, and on the future of his own Video WatchBlog: "As this world of ours continues to place all its hopes for information and community like so many eggs into this ether basket, people ought to know what I am not ashamed to admit: that, sooner or later, it becomes the secret wish of all bloggers to stop blogging."

Update, 5/2: Commenting on these goings on: Dave Kehr and Scott Macaulay.



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Posted by dwhudson at May 1, 2008 1:31 PM

Comments

Been there, done that! :) It feels really earth-shattering & scary to quit blogging, but we can always come back! If people are our friends, they will understand that we have to do what we have to do, and they will be happy when we return to the blogosphere, even as a reader. At least, that was my experience! It doesn't have to be so tortured . . . (I'm amused that I can say this now :)

Posted by: jmac at May 2, 2008 10:49 AM

I ran a (non-film) blog from 2002 to 2005, back when blogging was still fairly new and had yet to be co-opted by mainstream media, and every twit with an opinion about politics and the post-9/11 world seemed to feel the need to install Movable Type or sign up to Blogspot to express that opinion, however ill-informed it may have been or however foolish it may have made them look. It was an interesting and educational time, not always for the right reasons. The only regrets I have about having given up the blog three years ago are that 1) I didn't do so about a year earlier and 2) I tried again afterwards before realising I shouldn't have bothered. I barely even read them any more apart from a few (like this one, obviously).

I'm not sure there's any sort of blogging apocalypse on the horizon, though. Individuals have individual interests, and those change over time. It's what happened to me and I suspect it's what happened in the cases outlined above... we all just found something else we'd rather be doing instead, whether that be the positive activity of making films or the negative activity of simply not blogging.

Posted by: James Russell at May 3, 2008 1:43 AM