On This, The Occasion of The Beginning of My Second Term

It just dawned on us that this month marks the beginning of our second term as BlogDuce. It was four years ago that we started Erik's Rants and Recipes with the idea of throwing a variety of seeds on the ground and seeing which one flourished. As it happened, the ones that we most expected to flourish whithered away almost immediately: for instance, we have still not posted much at all on the aesthetics of bullfighting in relationship to music and painting, a project that we keep meaning to start. Someday.

Sure, we post on bullfighting and painting, and even some on music, but the idea of using the blog as a sounding board for rough drafts of larger works now doesn't strike me as all that interesting.

One thing that happened, and pleased us, was the online Music Theory course and analysis of selected works. If it didn't take so much time, we would like to continue it. Maybe some night with insomnia... we will see.

The Theology of Art. This was supposed to be a major part of the blog. We would write long entries for it, and never post them, because they needed to be carefully edited and thought about, because one shouldn't play with Theology carelessly. But, if we are going to put that much time into it, we better work it into longer works. So, go re-read Gilson.

Richard Nixon. Yes, Richard Nixon does have a sometimes home on this blog. We don't quite know how he gets in, but we do our best to shoo him out whenever he does.

Friday Afternoon Sermons. This is what started it all. We like a martini or two on Friday evenings. The Mohammedans sermonize on Friday afternoons. It was during Lent. No martinis during Lent, particularly on Fridays. So, why not have a Friday Afternoon Sermon, and email it to a bunch of friends, so that they could have their penance, too?

We created a scene for the sermons: a piazza on a slightly muggy afternoon, where our audience would be seated at tables, but facing us, with posters of our face behind us. They would be drinking Campari and Vermouth and Cynar. Before and after our sermons the sounds of fado and rembetika and other slightly mournful and nostalgic music would be heard.

Those who treated the sermons in less-than-respectful ways, or who said less-than-reverent things about Dear Leader would find that the fellow at the next table, the slightly overdressed man with the moustache, would lean over and say, "it is a shame how the old ladies like to gossip and chatter in the town square." He would give them a meaningful look, perhaps he would even draw his finger accross his throat.

Perhaps repeat offenders would be asked to come to the police station later, just to "have a chat with the Colonel." At the interview, the Colonel would talk about fishing, about his grandchildren, about the joys of freshly-baked bread. And then he would lean in and say very calmly, "now what was this that I heard about you muttering? You seem like a very reasonable man. Surely you weren't really muttering, were you? I would like to chalk it all up to a big misunderstanding."

You see, the Keilholtz Dictatorship is a slightly ham-fisted authoritarian regime, but it is a benevolent one, one that sees its citizens more as wayward children who need gentle, yet firm correction, rather than harsh and painful punishments.

And what did my good friends say to us? Did they thank us? Did they acknowledge the free gift of our wisdom? No, they suggested that we cut the pills in half. One of them said, "you need a blog" and she went out and designed one for us.

So, Erik's Rants and Recipes was born. It started out rather polite. It had Friday Afternoon Sermons (and an audience, with strangers, some of whom kept coming back and were no longer strangers), it had recipes, it had rants a-plenty.

One priest friend of ours said, "there are a lot of rants, but where are the recipes?" He was neither the first nor the last to point that out.

A milestone was reached this year, at the end of Our First Term, in that we added photographs.

We have, over the years, managed to scare off plenty of readers, bore others to tears, offend the rest, and yet, some of you still link to us, and, even more amazingly, keep coming back, even as there have been dry spells (what with traipsing around Northern California and all - although now that we post photographs the next traipsings should be much more interesting for the readers).

We thank you, even as we are still mystified by you, dear reader. Why, for instance, do you give nearly zero comments to carefully thought-out posts on matters of great importance, like art and music, and then try to set records on posts about Pink Popcorn? Why is it that you like to read us during working hours? Should we be worried about productivity in the modern American workplace? Are you people suckers for spam, and, if not, why do so many spammers seem to think that you are all in the market for whatever it is they are selling?

Anyway, keep coming back for more (for instance, those friggin' recipes I keep promising - what is the deal with that? Ah, yes, the pictures came out, but I spent too much time on editing something else, as well as waxing nostalgic here, so the recipe will have to wait until tomorrow. The enchiladas were very good, by the way. I ought to know, as I ate too many of them), and know that your comments are appreciated, especially if they are indignant. Nothing gets me going better than having some teenage girl whine about how "unfair" it is for me to say those, like, horrible, OMG things about Mohammedans, and if only I got to know some Mohammedans, I would understand how wrong I am!

So, what can I promise you on the Second Term? Hah! Whatever I feel like. I will continue to shoot for blogging six days a week, plus or minus, depending on events. I will continue to shoot for a mix of stuff. I will try to post more recipes (and the next step is going to be photographs of the steps). But I ain't promisin' nuttin'!

Thanks for continuing to read, and thank you for the vote (100% with 100% of all precincts reporting) for my second term.

What electoral corruption? It really is a shame how the old ladies gossip and chatter in the town square these days, no?

Posted by erik at March 6, 2007 10:38 PM