2024: Today is Gone. Today was Fun. Tomorrow is Another One.

In 2023’s year in review post I predicted that “2024 is gonna be lit, boys.” It sure was, but mostly in good ways. My family has grown by one, my career change has proven to be a good decision, and Everything is Oll Korrect! has started showing a pulse again.

Let’s start with Everything. At the beginning of the year, I converted the site from a WordPress blog to a static site, using Hugo as my static site generator. You can read some details in these two posts, but in short, the transition went mostly smoothly. Hugo, and the nature of static sites generally, lack a few features that I did like about WP. For instance, I can’t quickly edit posts if needed, some of the themes I considered using required extra setup (that I wasn’t always able to do), and using images, especially with captions, is a bit of a nuisance. On the other hand, there’s less bloat, the site is more secure and has no plugins to update, I feel more in control of my own destiny, and most importanly, it actually works. In the twelve months before the migration, WordPress crashed five times; in the eleven months since, I’ve had 100% uptime. There are some more things I’d like to do to improve the site, like moving to a nicer theme, but they’re all very low priority. Once I get to posting more regularly, I’ll look into these other improvements.

The first proper post of the year was a review of an excellent edition of The Great Learning and The Doctrine of the Mean. I could, perhaps, have taken the opportunity to dive into the philosphy of these two foundational Confucian works, but decided to focus on the specific edition, and it works well enough as a review limited to that scope.

Next up was a review of A Treasury of Children’s Poetry. Again, it was mostly a review of that specific collection, but I did include some thoughts on children’s literature in general. Really, children’s literature has been a common theme around here for the last few years. Later in 2024, I covered the Cambridge Companion to Children’s Literature, itself a mixed bag but with some truly worthwhile material that I think I was able to highlight and discuss well. It’s probably the second-best post of the year.

This was the year I revived the Hundred Friends series, and we took the opportunity to meet Fr. Gerard Manley Hopkins and Thomas Carew. Like many posts in that series, both are on the short side but accomplish what they set out to do, and I was happy to receive some positive feedback on the Hopkins article.

For Halloween, we paid a visit to Sleepy Hollow, covering both Washington Irving’s original story and Disney’s adaptation (along with a brief discussion of “Toad of Toad Hall,” the other part of Disney’s double feature). While writing it, I was reminded of an idea that’s been in the back of my mind ever since I wrote a series on Walt Disney’s feature-length movies back in 2012, which is to cover Disney after Disney, so to speak - probably the Disney Renaissance films, or some of their movies of the ’70s and ’80s. I’m sure there’d be interest in this, and I am rewatching a lot of these movies anyway with my children.

Now, for the past few years I haven’t had time to do really thorough, in-depth posts, hence the year’s reviews of works that could’ve been more general (like The Great Learning and Treasury) focusing on particular editions rather than the broader topic they address. However, I did write one truly in-depth review, of Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. I worked longer at this than any other post for a few years now, and it could’ve been longer. The process reminded me why I write these posts, though - I began with a few general points about the musical, but the more I wrote, the more I reflected about the work, the more I noticed that seemed worth addressing and the better I understood it. Over the course of a couple weeks, Sweeney went from a work I enjoy to one of my favourite works of fiction as I grew to have a new understanding and appreciation of it. This post also received more attention than anything else I’ve written recently, so overall it was very satisfying.

What’s the plan for 2025? I would still like to switch to a different theme, but again, that’s a low priority and so only likely to happen if I end up taking a long vacation. For the most part, I’ll continue writing reviews of things as I read or watch them. As mentioned above, I may write some Disney-related posts since I’m watching those movies regularly anyway, and I’d like to continue the Hundred Friends series. Those take longer than I anticipated, but are still shorter and easier to write than reviews of entire books or films. It’s difficult to commit to a schedule, but I’m going to aim for monthly posts; I almost managed a post a month this year, so that at least is doable. If I manage to write more regularly than that, at least fortnightly, I’m batting around the idea of putting out a digital tip jar, but I’m undecided on that. Everything is very much a project I do out of passion, for my own edification and to help others appreciate works that are good and beautiful, so even asking for donations feels odd (and requiring payment is something I’d only consider for a long work, not a blog).

Since this blog is largely book-focused, some may be curious what I’ve been reading. I finished eleven books, not counting the many, many board books and picture books. You can find the full list in this LibraryThing collection. I reviewed the most notable, with the exception of Neovictorian’s Intelligence, the conclusion of a trilogy that includes the very good Sanity and the also worthwhile Reality. If you enjoyed those two, by all means read this one as well.

Now for the annual pulling back of the curtain. At this point, I’ve settled into my new career in a new town. This blog remains my principal educational project, but as a librarian I’m also doing education in a more formal way professionally (albeit in a behind-the-scenes role). The move to a new town took us farther from some family members, but closer to others, close enough that we’re more involved with our family than ever before. This was especially critical earlier this year when my third child was born; having relatives not only willing to help but able to do so because they just live across town and not, at minimum, an hour’s drive away was extremely helpful. In short, everyone in the Carroll family is healthy and happier than we’ve ever been.

Thanks to all of you for reading this year. Have a happy New Year, and may God bless you!