Legends in our own minds

Postings on your favorite blogs will probably continue to be light and fluffy over the weekend as your favorite bloggers continue to celebrate the various holidays and nurse their hangovers.  I'm not talking not talking about me.  I've never had a hangover and I might have more time to write over the next few days than I've had in a month.  So it won't be me whose insights you'll be missing.  But plenty of others will be MIA.  Fret not, however;  now is your time to catch up, renew old internet acquaintanceships, and discover new and exciting daily reads.

Modest Jon Swift, the last honest conservative in America, has posted his year-end round up of the best of the best chosen by the best themselves, which is to say the gracious and generous Mr Swift has turned over his blog to an army of egoists, including yours truly, in order to let us puff our own genius.  Lots of good stuff there, because we really are geniuses.

And at newcritics, our indomitable and indefatiguable leader, Dirty Tom Watson, has taken some precious time away from his bold new business adventure to post a Newcritics Year in Review.   Movies!  TV!  Music!  Broadway!  You name the media and the venue, and odds are, one of us newlycritical types was all over it like a cheap suit.

Tom forgot to mention it, because he doesn't know about it yet---Sorry about that, boss---but there are some exciting times ahead this spring for newcritics. 

Wednesday Night at the Movies will return, although possibly not on Wednesday nights, as soon as we can rope in a host or hostess and he or she comes up with a topic.  Suggestions much appreciated, for a topic and a patsy to do the hosting.

And sometime this spring PBS will be broadcasting the BBC's recent adaptation of Charles Dickens' Little Dorrit, one of my favorites.  The adaptation stars Matthew Macfadyen, who played Darcy to Keira Knightley's Elizabeth in the most recent movie version of Pride & Prejudice.  I expect to be blogging it episode by episode.  Not live-blogging, mind you.  But immediate post-game summary-style blogging.  I hope to be helped out in this by the Self-Styled Siren who has just finished reading the novel and is no doubt full up to the back teeth with thoughts and insights.

There's no homework, by the way.  You don't have to have read the book to join in, though it never hurts to read Dickens.

At any rate, diving into the newcritics Year in Review is a good way to good addicted to the site so you'll be there and ready for our late winter and spring spectaculars.

Comments

[Tom W.]

Thanks Sir Lancelot for your kind words, both here and over at my place - Lord, your lads look big cutting down that tree! (We, alas, sacrificed our cards to the general cutback this year).

I'm very bullish on newcritics for '09 actually - the times demand it! And it's a great salve for the trials of middle age (our own and our country's), I find - hope you do too...

Little Dorritt - yeah! Had I photographed our Christmas village like you did in Mannionville, you'd have locked on to the Dickens theme straight off...

[Janelle Dvorak]

Already watched "Little Dorrit" courtesy of some English friends--I think you'll like it. Matthew Macfadyen and Tom Courtenay are brilliant.

[Campaspe]

I am, in fact, dying to discuss Little Dorrit or anything else about Dickens at the drop of a stovepipe hat, as well you know, so yeah, I'll be there.

Happy New Year to all the little Mannions in Mannionville!