If you have been reading recent posts, this post probably isn't about what you think it's about.
Instead it's about writing for a small handful of people -- a few family members, friends, and a couple of people I don't know very well at all. I know that someone could one day decide to link to my blog and lots of people would pore over my previous postings on my loosely defined and wide-ranging "travels," but I would still feel I was writing for the same five people I picture reading this once in a while. I have just learned there's a new reader to add to my list: a local documentarian who wrote to the site where I have some film reviews posted and requested that I review his film. He didn't just say, "Say, I am a local documentary filmmaker and would like you folks at Movie Habit to review my new film." He asked for me by name.
My work at Movie Habit and on this here bit of the blogosphere often feel like tiny drops in the universe's great bucket. But it is exciting to know that the ripples I make do affect a few people out there.
Having written online for a while now, I still feel it's healthy rather than unhealthy for me to further these relationships with my tribe and with myself out here in cyberspace. These lines of communication help to keep me open and honest with all of us, too (although I find there are still taboos in person and online). But it is a nice zing, like a dash of fairy dust, to know that there's even one more person reading what I have to say for whatever reason. (Movie Habit's webmaster once sent out a reader's brief, disgruntled comment for all of us reviewers to read, prefacing the email, "He hates us! Somebody hates us!" He was so excited that someone felt that strongly about our web site.)
Speaking of films, 'tis the season of doing work I can't talk about much for a while. I just watched a film I really liked, although I don't think it will make it into the festival for which I'm on the selection committee. But it made me think deeply about preparing for that phenomenon of releasing your ideas or art and not knowing nor having any control over what impression they will make on others. How do you prepare for that?
22 July 2008
So small but so significant
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1 comment:
i love that idea, that when you become world-famous people will pore over your early blogs. it's like the letters from famous authors that go up for auction every now and then except you can't put a price on pixels on a screen, which makes things more democratic.
and I can say I knew you when and you used to read my blog (which has moved by the way)
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