Up until fairly recently, if someone had asked me what the best year of my life has been so far, my answer would probably have been my senior year of college. It was covered with an air of beautiful melancholy due my own aimlessness and non-starter romance, but though I felt I should have been a pair of ragged claws scuttling across the floors of silent seas, it was mixed with friendships, opening new hobbies, and learning new things.
What shall I render to the Lord, for all the things that he hath rendered to me? Things continue to improve here at Everything is Oll Korrect! This is the third year in a row that views have been up, and quality, if I may say so myself, has held up pretty well. I wrote forty-six posts this year, which is the most since 2012, when I had a weekly schedule.
So. The Spear-Danes in days gone by- wait, that’s a different story. Mine’s a little less exciting than that, I’m afraid.
It’s still exciting to me, though, because as of today, Everything is Oll Korrect! is ten years old. There are a few ways I considered marking the occasion, and I was originally concerned, as I usually am, not to be overly self-indulgent. However, for a once in a decade event, I’m going to set that aside, mostly, and do something that’s become rare on this web log and talk about myself.
I first heard of Xenophon and Anabasis while at college, in Bl. John Henry Newman’s great book The Idea of a University. In this particular essay, Newman gives an illustration of a poor applicant for university studies by giving a dialogue between a student and a tutor. This student does indeed stumble through the interview, able to give a basic summary of events in Anabasis but unable to answer questions about the etymology of the title and its significance, basic Greek grammar, and other such things.
The first really successful year for Everything is Oll Korrect! was back in 2012, and going into 2013 I had a lot of momentum built up with the weekly posting schedule and generally improving post quality. I had high hopes, but that year turned out to be the Agincourt of web logging (from the French perspective), and in 2014 it really came tumbling down. So even though 2015 was Everything’s best year, I was only cautiously optimistic about how 2016 would turn out.
A man is more likely to pursue his goals seriously if he makes a public commitment, and since some of my goals for this year concern this blog I thought I’d go ahead and offer this “preface” for 2016.
First, I plan to publish a new post every week, as I did from late 2011 through early 2013. This weekly schedule was difficult at times, but the routine was satisfying for me and should also, I think, give you the readers something to look forward to more regularly.
2014 was the year in which it all came tumbling down, tumbling down, tumbling down, and though I was somewhat optimistic that 2015 would be better, I assumed that the best days of this blog would remain in 2012.
In fact, this was, by far, the best year ever for Everything is Oll Korrect! If 2013 was Agincourt from the French perspective, 2015 was Agincourt from the English. Not only in terms of the quantity of posts, but also, if I may say so myself, the quality (though this was a bit more uneven than in the past, because of the large number of books I set myself to review).
Today, I’ve published a new project, On the Origin of Fire..., which will collect essays I’ve written that are either too long or off-topic for this blog. Yes, blog title aside, not quite everything is oll korrect for here.
Right now, the main attraction is my Commentary on Dante’s Monarchia. I hope you’ll enjoy reading it. Further updates will be announced on my twitter account, and on this blog, as well.
So, if 2013 was the Agincourt of weblogging, 2014 was The Battle of Little Bighorn.
Not that I feel too sorry for myself - I had thought early in the year that I’d rather spend time on other things than web logging, though I did expect to get up more than ten posts. At least most of them turned out fairly well, including a couple retrospectives, one on serial experiments lain and another on Neon Genesis Evangelion.
That’s Agincourt from the French perspective, as last year’s success turned out to be shorter-lived than I expected.
Well, maybe “Agincourt” is an exaggeration, but it’s been a lousy year for me on all fronts. Leaving aside personal stuff, post quality was less even than I’d like, and update consistency fell apart in the second half of the year. I do seem to have gotten back on track now, though, and there were some good points throughout the year, so here’s the highlight reel for Everything Is Oll Korrect!