The 1,000th Post

If I had a dollar for every blogpost....

You are now reading my 1,000th blog post on Travalanche!

Or…are you? Therein lies a metaphysical conundrum, a latter-day koan, if you will. Is a blogpost that’s about itself really a blogpost? If it’s not, then I have cheated, and there have been only 999.

In my own mind the issue is resolved. Yes, I believe it is a for-real blogpost — for it is a bit of reportage, an indexical tidbit, an answer to that periodic question of former mayor Ed Koch’s: “How’m I doin’?”

Well, there’s no question that we have been numerically productive. In fact, the quantity of material here has been multiplying exponentially. In 2008 I posted all of two dozen articles, and I had launched the blog at the beginning of the year. (I thought they all needed to be overwrought masterpieces). The second year, I began to properly get my feet wet with about 150. Last year was over 400. And at roughly midway through the current year I have turned out over 400 so far again (making the projected total for 2011 something like 8-900).

But, as even I am asking, so what? One can accumulate 1,000 locusts or 1,000 stinky turds just as easily. But I think (I hope) we can assure ourselves that the large quantity hasn’t come with a concomitant dip in quality for the most part. Around 400 of these entries have been biographical essays on vaudevillians that have become a resource for thousands of researchers. The remainder of the posts have been mostly essays on other elements of theatre history, and reviews of plays, films, books and museum exhibitions, with occasional manifestos and op-ed pieces on culture and politics. The closest to fluff we’ve indulged in has been “what’s going on” type listings of cultural events (only occasionally my own) and a couple of dozen cartoon doodles.Like the Hebrew National hot dog, Travalanche has no “filler”.

At any rate, this is my last post before the holiday weekend. Have a great 4th! I’ll be continuing to post throughout the weekend, of course, but I’ll be very disappointed if you spend the holiday indoors reading blogs. Go out and play some badminton!