Yes, there is wind left in my soul, though I am growing old. If you’re wondering about the lack of updates, it comes down to what I talked about last May. I’m working full time, going to grad school part-time, and through May had an internship at a local library, as well, and am still volunteering there once per week. Of course, I also have hobbies outside of blogging that I enjoy keeping up with.
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. There have been ups and downs since then but with little real progress until last year, and though my various projects are still in progress I’ve done enough in 2018 that I can say that, for the first time in years, I have a reasonable sense of optimism about my future. I’ll start this year-in-review by talking about Everything is Oll Korrect!, then end it with some personal notes.
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. There’s also a major change up ahead for me personally, but we’ll get to that.
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. Now, much of Everything’s history is in the year-end reviews in the last section of the index page, which cover 2011 on. Before that, the whole blog was something of a mess, but I suppose we can take a moment to run through it quickly.
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. What struck me, though, was that Newman assumed that even a poor student will have read Anabasis, among other works from the Classical world, and have some basic knowledge of Greek and Latin. Indeed, in the printed essay, Newman does not even transliterate Greek words; he merely assumes that anyone reading would know the Greek alphabet.
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. To start, this will likely be every Tuesday, though that will be subject to change depending on how my schedule changes during the year. If possible I’ll try to post multiple times in a week, so subscribing to the RSS feed may be a good idea if you just cannot stand the thought of missing out, but for now I’ll only guarantee that one Tuesday post (or your money back!).
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). Views are also up over 50% over last year, which had been marginally the best ever in terms of views. Everything is still far from being a high-traffic blog, but I can at least say with a straight face that I have a readership of some kind.
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. Speaking of Evangelion, I also wrote about the January theatrical release of Evangelion 3.0, which still hasn’t come out on glorious blu-rei. I also shared my thoughts on the other big anime theatrical release this year, The Wind Rises, which has come out on home video; based on my re-watch of the film on blu-ray, I think these early impressions still stand.