17th Blogiversary

Somehow, some way, I've made it to 17 years on here. Barely. As post tallies from the last several--7 especially--years have demonstrated, my blogging has dwindled almost to nil, but this period has coincided first with my increasing university workload--I have been a department chair or acting chair now for roughly 8 years, among all of my other duties--alongside all the life itself, so blogging has taken a back seat to all else. 

From 2005 or so, during a trip to DR

When I think back on those early years, which were certainly quite full with teaching, mentoring, writing, some administration, and commuting (between New Jersey and Chicago, for ten straight years!), I fill with amazement that I blogged as frequently as I did. There were, of course, days I missed, but I believe I set for myself the task--the regimen?--of blogging at least one thing every day, with my focus on arts and culture of all kinds (and politics less so because there were, I felt, already so many great political bloggers at the time). It was another form of work, but a labor, unremunerated financially at least, but spiritually and socially to a great degree, of love.

Sometimes what emerged were just announcements for events, but other days produced reviews, translations, reportage, basic documentation, my random street photos, and so on, but it has constituted a (partial) record of my life during those years. I also think of the people I was in contact with, especially early on; the community of bloggers, some friends, some acquaintances, some of them people I'd never met in person and still haven't met in person, but whom I was--and still feel, however ghostly the links today, I am still--in dialogue with, I learned and learn from, I collaborated with, and whose influence I continue to feel, in various ways. I do miss that blogging community, those blogging communities, bloggers, readers, commenters, all--what a time that was!

In recent years I have blogged very infrequently and mostly about my own work, if at all, but I do hope to find the time to blog a bit more, and to find new possibilities for this medium, especially as the net is increasingly a walled off, highly monetized and specialized world, with entire platforms in which words in particular are a second thought. So to blogging, and the future, and I hope to make it to 20 years, and more!