Mark Your Calendars. Or Not

The arrival of a blog-a-thon used to be an event. Now they're starting to feel like a Wednesday if you know what I mean. Or even a Groundhog Day eternal loop. I don't mean to be overly negative. I love blog-a-thons: fun to host, satisfying to participate in, enlightening to read... but I think something has gone awry. Eddie provides a well known easy to use 'blog-a-thon calendar' and still nobody seems to be checking with this handy resource before announcing their dates. Either that or they're not thinking about how much potential participation and readership they're losing and/or costing each other if they overlap. There's only so much time in a week. Blog-a-thons are way better if there's time to interact with the ideas being presented. Isn't that their 'whole goddamn raison d'être'?


Consider this upcoming clusterf*** of a fortnight in November.

6th-11th Pure Comedic Moments -not strictly a film blog-a-thon
7th-9th Film & Faith -great topic. Wide enough for variety but also interesting specifics
10th-11th Bob Fosse - deserves one...and all that jazz
15th-21st Akira Kurosawa - big filmographies fill a week
19th Queer Film -another broad worthwhile topic

I'd love to participate in all but at this point I'll be lucky to even find the time to read more than one all the way through. I'm not sure what the solution is other than to ignore most of them but that is a disappointing realization. After all, one of the best things about the 'thon phenom is when a topic pushes you out of your comfort zone, prodding you on to learn more about a topic you're unfamiliar with or asking you to think harder or more creatively about a topic you know and love.

December is not drowning in them... yet.

Dec 16th It's a Wonderful Life Bringing the 'thon back to its one film origin
Dec 27th- 30th Endings -the good, the bad, the ugly... get spoiled

Before you know it it'll be 2008 and StinkyLulu will host another of these --Stinky hasn't announced it yet but you know it's coming. And how fun was that back in early January? Very. I'm already curious to see who will make the "class portrait" this year, aren't you? Last year's results were surprising.