September at Screen Savour

To readers:

I'm not sure I could have asked for a better first month of blogging. After many weeks of fluctuating page-views, I seem to have found a core audience and my traffic has evened out to consistent levels of readership. I'm a member of a great blog community, and I've had links posted on websites ranging from other personal blogs to the IMDb. As of yesterday, the total word count of my reviews climbed over 25,000. Let me take this moment to say thanks to all.

So what's on deck for September? Mostly silent cinema. By the end of the month I hope to have posted reviews for the eight films Charles Chaplin made at United Artists, most of which are widely considered his masterpieces – films like The Gold Rush, City Lights, and Modern Times. I'm also looking forward to delving into the filmography of Buster Keaton, the short and feature-length films he produced and directed between 1920 and 1929. It is my hope that I will be able to publish more selections from the National Film Registry, including Casablanca, Dr. Strangelove, and Star Wars.

But there will also be a slowdown, despite how counterintuitive that sounds with respect to the previous paragraph. Posting everyday is surprisingly taxing – very rewarding but relentlessly taxing, particularly now that I am teaching full-time and attending classes full-time and still trying to find time to workshop fiction and poetry, be with my wife, and walk my dog. There will not be posts every day in September; it will be more likely every other day or every three days. I must pull back to accommodate my schedule. But fear not: I'll be toiling away behind the scenes, preparing for Hitchcock Month this October.

Thanks again,
– T.S.