This is my 501st entry on The Modern Romantic, and it will be my last.
I began The Modern Romantic when I moved to Los Angeles, four years ago, with big plans to make it a blog about screenwriting, which is what I moved out here to do. Much like my path over the last four years, this blog has been about everything but screenwriting. Instead, I allowed it to follow my own interests, everything from politics to gay stuff to design to well, mostly myself. Some of you really liked this, some of you didn't, but on the whole, I consider it a success. I'm a sharper writer because of the site and the feedback I've received and a scattershot approach that ultimately helped me focus my interests.
In fact, it's been so successful that I've taken the best parts of it and parlayed them into more focused projects. My love of politics is now directed towards Flaming Politics, the site I run with a diverse panel of gay political junkies. The gay stuff now mostly shows up at Popnography, but also at The Advocate and Out. The personal stuff now resides on Twitter or my Facebook page, which is shamelessly easy to add, though I still ignore all vampire bites.
And if I have to explain the meaning of the name "modern romantic" one more time...
The main reason I'm ending this blog is that, rather than helping me pursue the larger projects I want to do, keeping it updated and fresh is too easy and too tempting a way to procastinate. And in fact, I was in the process of building a new blog, focused on new media, storytelling, film and journalism to replace this one, but in the course of writing this post have realized that doing so right now would be giving myself a diversion from the work I need to be working on.
Throughout my writing career, blogging has helped me immensely and I'm an ardent supporter of the medium, but with my fingers in writing scripts, editing films, directing and pushing my magazine and journalism writing to the next level, blogging right now is a distraction. I love the gratification of being able to write something and have the world see it, but, to quote a Nina Simone recording I've been listening to recently, "You'll use up everything you've got trying to give everybody what they want." I'm so excited to be working on the scripts and stories I'm doing now-- and I think you move people more through stories than through argument, critique or commentary. Also, it's the fun I want to have now.
I'll still be around, of course-- and I'll have a website where you can catch up on what I'm up to, as well as an archive of all my writing (this has been a longtime project of mine) and projects. It'll be at www.japhygrant.com, but I'll link the modernromantic.com domain there automatically when it goes live.
Most of all, I want to thank you readers. There aren't a ton of you, but I know some have been loyal followers and I hope it's been as fun following the development of this blog as it is has been putting it together. For those of you who feel cheated out on a more satisfying ending, well that's life now, isn't it?
I can't control myself. My obsession with Sarah Palin and the Triumph of Stupidity is taking over my life. I'm forcing myself away from it through leechblocks. Serenity now!
I'm totally obsessed with this Magnetic Movie from Semiconductor. I've been learning quite a bit about magnetism and string theory and all sorts of fun physics for the screenplay I am working on and came across Semiconductor's work in the process. Really interesting stuff that speaks for itself.
Here's my first video podcast (still can't say 'vlog') for Popnography. It's an interview with VGL Gay Boys, Jeffery Self and Cole Escola, who are performing their show Party n' Play at Joe's Pub this Sunday in NYC. I'll be there. Will you?
I'm one of the writers on The Advocate's current cover story "The Naked Truth" featuring artful nudes of regular LGBT folk talking about their body image. By luck (or the greediness of the other male reporters), I got four wonderful women to talk to. I was there for the shoot and it was beautiful to watch each of them get comfortable with their bodies (some more than others) and then speak so openly about the issues they've faced and the way they've come to love their bodies. I wonder if the guys talked in the same way.
What's your body image story? What body parts do you like the most and like the least? For me, I like my chest, since it's something I've worked on (as opposed to my eyes, which are pretty, but just genetics) and the thing I like the least are the love handles I can't seem to lose.
Beyond Blogging: How Twitter is Changing Journalism
Last week, I spoke at the National Lesbian & Gay Journalist's Convention, along with Shana Naomi Krochmal in a workshop on using Twitter in journalism. It was a fun and exciting overview of the techniques freelance and staff reporters can use to make Twitter work for them-- as well as the occasional Matthew Mitcham photo thrown in for dramatic effect.
I think it went pretty well and we've ben asked to do the workshop in L.A. in the near future. If you have any comments or further thoughts on twitter and journalism, or how "social media" is affecting reporting, let me know. In the meantime, you can follow me on Twitter here.
The ad campaign videos I directed for BCBG are up! You can check them out by going to www.maxazria.com and www.herveleger.com and clicking 'Collection' and then 'Video'.
These were real one-man band affairs. I shot the pieces, edited them, did all the motion graphics. Thankfully for your ears, I didn't have a hand in the music. Both were a lot of fun to shoot and I learned a lot about the fashion industry in the process. It was also a real trip working with model Amy Wesson on the Herve Leger piece.
Obsessed with the Olympics? Catch my continuing coverage of the games over on Popnography. From the lighting of the flame to why it's okay to oggle the divers, I'll be doing my impersonation of a sports writer, albeit without the needless machismo. I'm comfortable with my masulinity, thanks.
My little brother Mike and his long-time girlfriend, Jen got engaged over the weekend. Obsession with the Internets runs deep in our family, so it's not a huge surprise that their engagement already has a website and YouTube video (above) detailing the incredibly elaborate way my brother proposed, which involved, among other things, Leon Czolgosz, the assassin of John McKinley.
I'm the boring one in the family.
But seriously, how awesomely cool is that? Not just Mike's treasure hunt, but the fact that Jen was able to solve it and that Mike knew Jen well enough to know she would get it? That's real love, folks. Congrats to them both and I look forward to more mojo from them soon.
David Lynch, rejecting the revolution. I think he's right, by the way. Why waste your time watching something designed to be seen on the big screen on a tiny phone? What he misses is that you don't blame the medium. Just as filmmakers decried TV before shows like Soprano's and Six Feet Under and Lost found what's artful about the medium, so it goes with mobile media. Porting Mullholland Drive to your iPhone is a waste, but there's a great artful phone film out there-- it just hasn't been made.
New mediums are everywhere these days. They call for new ways of conceiving and telling stories. Get real.
Let's face it. School's out for summer. I'm off writing scripts, working on shoots and the next month I'll be travelling to the East Coast for conferences and family time and drinks on rooftops in Brooklyn. There's great stuff at Flaming Politics and you can read my weekly contributions to Popnography, or follow me on Twitter or browse the photo feed up above and then there's my constantly updated reading list in the sidebar so, you know- it's not like I'm going away, really. But for the time being I'm taking a blogging break. I like blogging, but I'm worried I'm producing all noise and no signal.
Now that I've written this, I'm sure I'll break my promise right away, but til September tMR is on a vacation schedule. Go fishing. Take a hike. I'll be here when you get back.
I can't control myself. My obsession with Sarah Palin and the Triumph of Stupidity is taking over my life. I'm forcing myself away from it through leechblocks. Serenity now!
