blog1979

Daniel Dugas found an old journal in a box and he’s putting parts of it up. 25 years ago he took a trip around Canada and the U.S.A. starting and ending in Moncton, New Brunswick. He obsessively wrote in a journal during the trip. If he did this today he’d be posting to a blog with a cell phone and a laptop. What’s neat about how he’s doing it now is that the entries are going live 25 years after the fact in blog1979. The other cool thing is that it’s not just a documentation, but he’s got links as well. In his first entry he mentions the 375th anniversary of the arrival of the Acadians in this part of the world (New Brunswick and Nova Scotia) and when I read that I thought about the Congrès Mondial Acadien, which is all over the place here in Wolfville and Grand Pré and he helpfully links to it. It’s a link from the past into the present. Sometimes we’re obsessed with things that are live or wireless (guess where I’m blogging from!, etc.). This project shows that you don’t have to put something up right away. It also makes me feel better about the boxes of stuff that I have laying around… maybe they’ll be useful someday. I should have a look at them soon. But for now I’m looking forward to following Daniel’s chronologically offset adventures.

June 28, 2004 , ,

Fahrenheit 9/11

Michael Moore gets a bit better with each film. Fahrenheit 9/11 continues his series of quirky political documentaries in a very timely fashion. It’s funny, moving and serious. It was also a little bit annoying at times, but overall I think that it’s a better film than Bowling for Columbine. Moore is less present in this film, which is good as the construction of the film is a bit better without someone needing to stand in for us. I can see Moore moving into the background within his films as he’s starting to become a distraction as you can’t really be a completely ordinary guy after winning an Academy Award and the Palme d’Or. What’s great about Fahrenheit 9/11 is that it solidly captures the spirit of Moore’s TV shows (TV Nation and The Awful Truth) in the blend of the timely, the political and the irreverent and captures a good chunk of the zeitgeist of the time. It’s a difficult balance with only a few exploitative parts. Political documentaries are tough as most of the time you’re either preaching to the converted or upsetting those who don’t share your view. Moore injects enough humour to carry things along without letting things get too serious, but the film definitely has a point of view and it’s a call to not reelect Mr. Bush in the upcoming U.S. election and it doesn’t pretend to be anything else. As a documentarian, it’s encouraging to see a documentary doing so well at the box office (even though the competition was a bit weak) and it will be interesting to see how it holds up against Spider-Man 2.

June 28, 2004 , , , ,

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