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This is the maiden entry for Blog Meridian. I have no idea where this thing will go. I'm starting this (seriously) in part because I'm taking a break from folding laundry, in part because Beethoven's 9th Symphony is playing and something about the 4th movement (the "Ode to Joy" movement) says, "Now. BLOG!" Well, okay. Also, my girlfriend has started one, though on another site. Maybe I'm feeling a bit inadequate, a bit unhip.

Should I say anything about the title of this blog? I'm curious to see if anyone will recognize what it refers to.

There's a real danger, isn't there, in taking the contents of these things a wee bit too seriously. I have not read many blogs, but most of the ones I have read either are filled with entries like, Well, I farted around AGAIN today, and we readers are supposed to celebrate that person's conquering of a new day, or they are filled with way too much angst-ridden navel-gazing that assumes that total strangers out there in cyber-land are gonna relate to those who say, There's nothing new left to feel. Hard to connect with that sentiment, too. In the case of both examples above, I wonder what motivates the blogger to blog. But then again, the same question can be extended to each of us. I suppose it's the strange combination of private diary and open book that the blog presents us with. So: we're cyber-exhibitionists building web-cams out of words. The words reveal spaces, actual or imagined (and always filtered by the conscience that produces them)--and then there are the spaces between, the things not said. Two different dimensions, touching on each other, but each its own space. But there's also a kind of intimacy this medium creates, too, that perhaps many of you have found seductive in various ways (if not, then what ARE you doing here?).

Or something like that. I'm new at even thinking about this computer stuff. I was recalling today the moment in 1979 when I saw for the first time an Apple computer--it was sitting on the desk of my high school homeroom teacher (yeah--I'm an old guy)--and the teacher said, "In 10 years, every house in America will have one of these." I didn't believe it then, and what I can't believe now is that he wasn't too far from being right. I ask my students now how many of them had even heard of e-mail 10 years ago; most of them had not. But this isn't meant to be a trip into Nostalgia Land; rather, it's to show that, 25 years ago, I could not imagine why more than a few science geeks would want their very own computer, and now here I am with MY very own computer, writing down things that total strangers might read and and might even comment on.

Oh, brave new world, that has such machines--and creatures that want to use them--in it.

As my profile says, I'm not filled with angst. Life ain't a bad gig, so long as one has work that one LOVES and one has people who love one back. So--no self/soul-mutilation going on here. What you'll probably read here are pretty ho-hum things like reviews of films (a colleague of mine at work has a large collection of movies and has been most generous in lending them to me to watch--so most of those comments will be on older, "classic" films) and music (here, I follow the Duke Ellington maxim: "If it sounds good, it IS good."). I teach college English, so there may appear here occasional comments about my students or colleagues. I should let you know, though, that I like my job very much and I at least like (if not entirely respect) my colleagues. Thus, don't expect too many Work Sucks--like posts. I have two children from a previous marriage whom I love deeply and whom I see whenever I can . . . I will try to keep Cute Kid stories to a minimum. Their mother and I get along pretty well, so you'll hear little gnashing of teeth where she is concerned. I am also involved in a Long-Term Relationship; for reasons of privacy, though--hers as well as that of the relationship--only the most mundane events from the L-TR will appear here.

So, you see, I've pretty much emptied out, in advance, the cliched expectations you may have held for this blog. But do not fear: my straitened financial circumstances force me to buy groceries at Wal-Mart to save money. Wal-Mart is a veritable moveable feast of human foibles of every sort imaginable (and many un-). I've also been following the primary season pretty closely, so I may risk an observation or two about all that.

I think that's enough for now.