We went out to see "Julie and Julia" yesterday, the new movie about the lives of Julia Child - the woman who brought French cuisine to America 50 years ago, and blogger Julie Powell, who used Julia's tome "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" to add purpose and drive to her life. The movie is very good - I absolutely love ANYTHING Amy Adams is in (portraying Julie Powell), and Meryl Streep truly channels Julia Child's voice and mannerisms.The story is a compilation of 3 books - Child's cookbook as well as her book "My Life in France" describing her postwar years in France while her husband works as a diplomatic envoy, in addition to the Powell book "Julie and Julia" based on her year-long blog cooking her way through Child's cookbook. Nora Ephron as screenwriter and director does a great job combining the women's stories yet provide strong roles for the movie husbands as well.
So after thoroughly enjoying the movie, I went looking for source material, reading the original New York Times article that publicized Powell's goal of cooking her way through Child's book in a year, as well as checking out her current blog. Now we've been doing this little blog thing too for 14 months, compared to the 6 year following Julie has built up, but it was still a little depressing to look at her comment totals - two of her last 3 posts have garnered an average of over 350 comments! We're lucky to get a couple per week... Oh well, as long as we are having fun, and our sparse readership does the same!
Well ok..... Agreed Julie and Julia is a fab movie/book.
ReplyDeleteOn the issue of #of posts, the "Julie" blog actively solicits questions from the readers. Likely many of the replies are from folks who don't actually know each other except in the cyber world. Thus, more open and free dialogues.
y'all seldom reply to blog comments and more often the "anonymous" followers know each other and "choose" to remain vicarious observers.
none the less, your blog is enjoyable to read and yes, the non committal anonymous suits me just fine.
now i did fail to mention the competitive and often extremely judgmental world of amateur astronomers didn't I? far less so of professionals...
If this makes you feel any better, I've always been more of a supporter of grassroots efforts than sell-outs. In the same way, I choose to support indie bands (independent labels/bands) over major record-label artists. There's something more 'wholesome' and pleasing about the blogs/people/artists/causes that have not been institutionalized or sold out.
ReplyDeleteAs nice as it is to have 200 comments to find when you login, you have a real, personal connection with your 'sparse readers'. So your 3 comments per week are not "Cool blog." /end... they're more like "I'm so excited for... with you next week." or "I've been looking forward to hearing about --- since you mentioned it at dinner last time I saw you."
In any case, I'm a faithful reader and I look forward to hearing about your next blog-worthy adventure. ;) Seeya at work, Dean. (And it was nice seeing you here at the Lab today, Melinda!)