Julie and Julia

Well go see the movie if you haven't because parts of it are just glorious.  I don't know about you, but back in the day, I became aware of "blogs" by hearing about the Julie/Julia Project.  My dad had learned to cook by starting on page one of *Mastering The Art*... and working his way through to the end.  In his case it took more than a year.

So anyway, once the book version of the blog came out I snapped it up, as this looked like the new "overnight success story" as well as the subject matter looking good.  (I started it and for some reason never finished it.) I'd looked at some delightful knitting books that had also started as blogs.  That looked like the new thing--we'll all write blogs about our cunningly particular circumstances and hordes of Internet surfers would discover us and gasp as Anais Nin reported of her readership, that we had expressed exactly their experience beyond their wildest wishes of ever having discovered a voice. No, really.

One of my thoughts upon leaving the movie was a stinging sense of shame about blogging.  As though the faster and easier we can "communicate," the less we have to actually convey, until we are down to this form of shrilly screaming into the electronic ether to hear our own tinny echoes.  Being old and cranky and familiar enough with magic tricks to not be so very easily lead about by media, I am still writing here.  I would like to engage in some conversation with people who like the stuff I like.  Since 9/11, no one can afford to hide any light that they might be able to contribute.  That is worth the risk of a few tinny echoes.

So before I completely wander off topic and into what needs to be another entry, go pick up the book.  This is one of those situations where you really do want to see the movie before you read the book.  The book will fix anything wrong with the movie, and then the movie that *you* think should have been made instead of this one will be so freakin cool to imagine that you will have a lot of fun and think many, many thoughts.  Now all this goes only for *Julie and Julia*.  I have not read *Our Years In France* yet, although I have perused *An Appetite for Life*.  I will rashly commend them to you too, just because Julia Child is that freakin cool, and just about anything connected to her has to spur a person to think and to do.