[lbo-talk] this list

magcomm magcomm at ix.netcom.com
Tue Dec 15 21:08:29 PST 2015


Dear All:

Wow - two digests in one day!

This list means a great deal to me since it is the place where I found my ideas accepted/challenged/expanded by a group of very smart people, and grew the confidence to believe that I did have something worthwhile to contribute. I had intended to go to graduate school, but the AIDS crisis intervened, and when I came out the other side, grad school did not seem a viable option. So LBO-Talk was my finishing school.

On LBO-Talk I honed my critical voice and writing style which I then used on film lists (cinema being my greatest passion), and ended up being published by a university press and known in the small coterie of film critics known as auteurists (kind of like Cousin Sebastian). I have even had the shock/pleasure of finding my work on college syllabi and quoted in other film books. So I owe LBO-Talk a great deal. Interestingly, the two film lists I became prominent on have also shut down -- a lot of critical back-and-forth occurs on Twitter now -- a development beyond my comprehension.

I am not on Facebook (when I signed up years ago my husband said I was too old to do so -- I think there might have been a jealousy thing going on LOL), so I can only speculate, but when LBO was busier, email was the essential electronic communication, and I am not sure that it is any more. I know my husband is always talking to people through Facebook or by texting -- he never emails anyone but me. So the decline of the list may be the by-product of email not being the top communication method for most people any more.

I also know that I pledged a while back to post more often, but it did not happen -- somehow the days of the great political/economic/sex threads are a memory (le sigh). But we did hash out many, many topics, and in some ways I feel that part of society has finally caught up to where we were years ago.

Maybe LBO-Talk should follow the examples of Garbo and Dietrich and exit gracefully screen left, leaving behind glittering memories (which, of course, will be restored/destroyed in 8K resolution for future audiences raised on digital images, and who do not know -- or care about -- the difference between Ultra Panavision and Todd-AO).

Brian (for old times sake) Queer Buddhist Resister



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