If you've been following my blog for a while, you're probably aware of Zoe, who lives in New Zealand and writes the blog The Big Parade. This last weekend, Zoe was awarded the "prestigious" kreativ blogger award (the quotation marks are hers) in recognition of the creative and worthy work she has done as a blogger. If you read her work, you know she deserves it.And then Zoe passed the award along to seven more bloggers, including me, your unworthy correspondent, the Mythical Monkey. This is my first award since the last time I got a check from a federal agency in recognition of my work as a lawyer—and I had to win a $19 million case to earn that one. All I had to do for this one was watch movies and write about them, something I'd be doing anyway. It's like stealing!
But as always, I can never leave anything alone without doing a little research first—not as an act of churlish cynicism but because curiosity is one of my defining characteristics. Here are a couple of things I think I've learned:
Originally, "kreativ blogger" was a quilt block designed by a Norwegian woman named Hulda, which because I have a personal connection to the quilting community, I find quite interesting. Somewhere along the way, though, somebody decided "kreativ blogger" would be a good name for an award, slapped some chain letter-like rules on it—like forwarding the award to seven more bloggers—and started sending it around the internet.While drinking my coffee this morning, I did a little math, never one of my strong suits, and found that if every person receiving the kreativ blogger award passes the award along to seven more people who pass the award along to seven more (different) people, and on and on, etc., within twelve days every man, woman and child on the planet will have received the kreativ blogger award—which accounts for, what, half the blogs in existence?
Which is not in any way to suggest I didn't want to receive the kreativ blogger award. If I could have lobbied for it, I would have and I am genuinely touched that Zoe tagged me, especially since she knows me only through my writing and has no personal obligation to be nice to me whatsoever. And as for the fact that Zoe ranked me at the top of her list, well, all I can say to the other recipients of the award is Ha ha!
Writers may be as shy and solitary as oysters, working away day after day, year after year, in the anonymity of their dark, dank offices, but they in fact crave attention, at least attention directed at their work (the work, which after all is merely another disguise designed to deflect attention from our shy and solitary selves). Every award we receive is as precious as the Pulitzer and if you don't think it is, you're probably not a writer.Still what I am suggesting is that unless we branch out, we're going to run out of potential recipients of the kreativ blogger award in a big hurry. Thus, rather than pass the award along to Plain Chicken, The Mouth O' The Mule, Who Am Us Anyway, Clicks and Pops, Classic Movies, and all the other blogsters I read on a daily basis,
I am forwarding the award to my favorite deceased movie critics, who despite their passing continue to influence the way we think about movies. This expands the potential list of rewardees rather substantially, and if somehow they hear about the award and write about it, imagine what a story that would be!Some, you will note, are also known for accomplishments other than film criticism.
The seven:
James Agee
Bosley Crowther
Leslie Halliwell
Pauline Kael
Gene Siskel
Francois Truffaut
Robin Wood
Then apparently because the kreativ blogger award works in sevens, I am supposed to reveal seven personal things about myself—a real trick since I have spent my entire life concealing the personal, even from myself. Here they are, though, each fact somehow related to the one before it.
* I own 559 movies on DVD or Blu-Ray (not including television-related stuff or the 1600 or so movies on VHS tape I have floating around in the basement). I have arranged them on the shelf chronologically, from 1915's Les Vampires to last year's Up.
* We have only one working television in the house. It's in the family room.
* My "porn" name (first pet/street where I grew up) is "Snappy Landings." (Katie's is "Janie Colton.")
* Jane Greer is the only femme fatale in movie history I would let shoot me.
* My favorite movie to take a long nap to is The Thing From Another World.
* I wrote my first book when I was thirteen years old—125 handwritten pages. It remains unpublished.
* Don Rickles has insulted me personally.
That's it. Tomorrow, back to the lucrative business of blogging with Scarface, Part Two.
