It’s #CyberMonday once again and so this backward looking Neo-Luddite feels obligated to engage as best he can in the catch-as-catch-can world of e-commerce. As you can see from the above photograph, which was taken by a bear, your correspondent does most of his insane thinking in the wilderness, far, far, from all machines (except the device with which this picture was taken, to which he is tethered 24/7 like the cyborgian organ that it is).
I have been cooking up big things for 2019, some of them to do with this very blog. Next year will mark the tenth anniversary of my Stars of Vaudeville series, the content stream which inaugurated Travalanche as you now know it. (Prior to that I had posted a few theatre reviews here, nothing more. Most of them have now been removed). The true Travalanche Avalanche started in 2009. Since then we’ve added too many new content streams to name, and most of them, including the vaudeville one, remain active, constantly being added to. Indeed, as time has rolled on, and the vaudeville performers I write about it become more obscure, I’ve had to work harder on original research, making that particular stream arguably more interesting in certain ways! So that’s one way Travalanche has improved over the years. I hope you’ve noticed other improvements as well. I’ve posted more in-depth think pieces, and more pieces about a broader range of topics than ever. The most muscular content stream at the moment has to do with television from the 1970s and early ’80s, spurred on by recent access to a cache of old TV Guides from a period that happens to coincide with my peak, formative TV watching years. This stream will be extended at least through the middle of next year. And readership has gone through the roof. Travalanche will receive nearly a million hits in 2018 alone, nearly twice what we did last year, for a total now of nearly 3 million. Today, my George Sanders post will be my 8th Travalanche article to hit the “five figure club” — posts that have been read by 10,000 people or more. I’ve got close to 5,000 substantive posts here, with hundreds of new ones in the pipeline for 2019.
So I work hard on this blog, and the work achieves results. I spend a lot of time and energy on it, and about a year ago I decided I finally had a leg to stand on in terms of asking for a little return on this investment of time and energy. My best known book isn’t called No Applause, Just Throw Money for nothing. I receive compliments on the blog every day and I appreciate them a great deal, but on the other hand, they don’t feed the bulldog. (This is my bulldog. His name is Bonzo). So today I ask you to kick in a little, especially if you have been reading every day for a period of years. If you are one of the thousands of people who read this blog, enjoy it, and benefit from it, please consider joining my growing family of Patreon supporters. A buck a month? C’mon! That’s nothing! Even I can afford that. It’ll put the wind in my sails far in advance of the cash amount, I promise you. And, while more would certainly be even more welcome, the principle of the thing counts a great deal. And the people who join get secret surprise messages from me all year! Please join! All the details about how to do it are here.
(Travalanche) 
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