It was on June 4, 2004 that I entered the first post on this blog, A Shroud of Thoughts. Today is then the sixth anniversary of the blog. For the past six years I have made a minimum of three entries a week on this blog, and usually more. I have to admit that even now I am a bit surprised at how long A Shroud of Thoughts has been around. Most blogs have lifespans numbered only in weeks, if not days. This blog has been around for years.
As to the source of the blog's name, it is taken from Lord Byron's Childe Harold's Pilgrimage canto iii stanza 113, quoted below:
I have not loved the world, nor the world me;
I have not flattered its rank breath, nor bow'd
To its idolatries a patient knee,
Nor coin'd my cheek to smiles, nor cried aloud
In worship of an echo; in the crowd
They could not deem me one of such; I stood
Among them, but not of them; in a shroud
Of thoughts which were not their thoughts, and still could,
Had I not filed my mind, which thus itself subdued.
Over the years A Shroud of Thoughts has changed. I started this blog with little in the way of a plan, other than writing about things in which I am interested. Since I am primarily interested in pop culture, it was not long before I decided that A Shroud of Thoughts would be a blog about pop culture, all of pop culture. Over the years I have written about movies, TV shows, comic books, pulp magazines, video games, and many other pop culture artefacts. In the earliest days the articles tended to be brief, although over the course of time they would grow longer. It would not be long before I would do entire series of articles. I would say that within its first year, the format of A Shroud of Thoughts had become what it is now.
One more recent change is that I now incorporate more pictures in my articles and I also incorporate video as well. The pictures were an outgrowth of changes to Blogger, which made it easier to add pictures to posts. The video was an outgrowth not simply of video sharing sites like YouTube, but the fact that since this blog was started more and more Americans are accessing the Internet through broadband connections. Given that video loads much more swiftly on broadband than on dial-up, I saw no reason I should occasionally include videos on the blog.
As on past anniversaries, I am including links to what I consider my best posts in the past year. I must admit that I was a bit worried as to how many truly good posts I would have this year, as it seems that this year I have mostly been writing eulogies for those pop culture icons who have passed on. Indeed, the first half of 2010 marks the very first time in the history of A Shroud of Thoughts that the majority of posts have been eulogies. Fortunately, I was able to find more posts that I truly like than I had thought there would be! Anyhow, without further ado, here are the best posts of A Shroud of Thoughts from June 5, 2009 to June 6, 2010.
Why Die Hard is a Classic
The Week of 14 June, 2009 to 21 June, 2009 (includes "Spy Fi: The Long History of Spy Fiction" Parts One, Two, and Three)
Johnny Canuck
The Week of 5 July, 2009 to 12 July 2009 (includes "A History of Music Videos" Parts One, Two, Three, and Four)
The Week of 13 July, 2009 to 19 July, 2009 (includes "A History of Music Videos" Part Five)
The 40th Anniversary of the Apollo 11 Moon Landing
The Week of 26 July, 2009 to 2 August, 2009 (includes "The Invisible Minority: Native Americans on American Television" Parts One, Two, and Three, "North by Northwest Turns 50," and "Superman the 1948 Serial")
The Devil's Business: The Murder of Sharon Tate
Back to the Garden: The 40th Anniversary of Woodstock Part One
Back to the Garden: The 40th Anniversary of Woodstock Part Two
Two Movies About the Alamo
The Twilight Zone Turns 50
The 40th Anniversary of Monty Python's Flying Circus
The Week of Halloween
The Dean Martin Show
Grace Kelly's 80th Birthday
Why The Twilight Saga Will Not Be a Classic
Gone With the Wind Turns 70
Yuletide 2009 (includes "Humphrey Bogart's 110th Birthday" as well as holiday posts)
The Young Women Who Would be Lolita
Mama Told Me Not to Come: the Sixties Party Scene on Film
Disney's Pinocchio Turns 70
The St. Valentine's Day Massacre
Death Dos Not Take Holidays
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police
Davy Crockett: Television's First Fad
Akira Kurosawa's 100th Birthday
Batmania: How Batman Conquered America in 1966 Part One
Batmania: How Batman Conquered America in 1966 Part Two
The Easter Hare or Easter Bunny
All of Your Toys: The Monkees vs. Don Kirshner
The Adventures of Robin Hood Revisisted
The Music Man (The Movie, Not the Play)
Harvey Comic's Dark Secret
The 151st Birthday of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
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