Pierre Fournier, the mastermind behind the wonderfully obsessive Frankensteinia blog, kindly wrote the other day to inform me that I'd been chosen as one of his five tag-ees for the Dardos blogging Award. I'm not sure where the Dardos Award originated because I'm pretty far down the line of recipients, as far as I can tell, but here's the legend behind it:"The Dardos Award is given for recognition of cultural, ethical, literary, and personal values transmitted in the form of creative and original writing. These stamps were created with the intention of promoting fraternization between bloggers, a way of showing affection and gratitude for work that adds value to the Web.
"The rules are: 1) Accept the award by posting it on your blog along with the name of the person that has granted the award and a link to his/her blog. 2) Pass the award to another 5 blogs that are worthy of this acknowledgement, remembering to contact each of them to let them know they have been selected for this award."
I thank Pierre for his thoughtful consideration, as expressed here, which moves me on to Condition #2. I can't guarantee that any of these bloggers haven't already been recognized by Dardos and the spreaders of its happy contagion, but the object of this exercise is to help get the word out about people doing quality blogging. With that in mind, I hearby Dardose...
Stephen R. Bissette's Myrant. Even if there was a tin cup attached to his blog, Steve would give you way, way more than your money's worth. An unpredictable mixture of personal diary, sketchpad, auction house and burning Bush screeds, it also presents some of the most insightful essays on horror and cult cinema found anywhere online. In addition to everything else he does, I blame him for inspiring me to start Video WatchBlog.
Glenn Kenny's Some Came Running. Glenn says His Lovely Wife is a fan of mine, so it's the least I can do. Just kidding. This infectiously readable blog was set up overnight in response to Glenn's sudden firing as PREMIERE's film blogger sometime near the outset of the Great Film Critics Massacre of 2008, and I've been part of his daily audience ever since. I was about to blog in memory of Kathleen Byron the other day, till I saw this and realized I couldn't possibly improve on it. Here he proves himself a master of saying a lot in very few words -- must be that PREMIERE training. Plus he loves import discs and other filmo-fetishistic weirdness. And when Glenn writes about music, I'm always gasterflabbed by how many other interests we have in common. The only non-VW contributor among my choices, though not by conscious design.
Maitland McDonagh's Miss FlickChick. Maitland, the author of MOVIE LUST, FILMMAKING ON THE FRINGE, THE 50 MOST EROTIC FILMS OF ALL TIME and the ever popular BROKEN MIRRORS/BROKEN MINDS: THE DARK DREAMS OF DARIO ARGENTO -- was another casualty of the Massacre, forfeiting her position as TV GUIDE's senior movies editor after 13 years of solid service. Since last October, she's been steadily blogging, mostly about scary movies, always in her uniquely smart, uniquely alluring way. Even her account of a day trip to the Bronx Zoo captured something of her trademark vibe: "Suffice it to say that the highlight of my day was having a hissing cockroach crawl across my hand and hiss in my ear."
Richard Harland Smith of Movie Morlocks. For my money, RHS is, hands-down, one of the most talented and original writers about genre film working today -- and sometimes he actually does this for my money. In a saner world, he'd have a lucrative job as one of the nation's leading opinion-makers. As it is, he's one of a revolving group of bloggers at TCM's Movie Morlocks, and his remarkably candid, personal reading of THE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING MAN is a recent advertisement of his uncompromising ability.
Sam Umland's 60x50. I often think I need to stop visiting the film blogs I frequent and start tracking down more music blogs. Sam explains that his 60x50 is "an experiment in invention and discovery, inspired by an observation made by William Stafford in WRITING THE AUSTRALIAN CRAWL. The purpose of this blog is to demonstrate Stafford's insight that a writer 'is someone who has found a process that will bring about new things he would not have thought of if he had not started to say them.'" Prompted randomly by the date on the calendar, Sam not only writes short thematic essays on popular music, but excavates meaning from obtuse rock lyrics, explores commonly misheard lyrics, and is always coming up with something insightful and rewarding.
Just click on the italicized blog titles, and you'll be taken right there.
