Best of the blogosphere

Last year, I posted a year-end round-up of my favorite entries from my "fellow travelers." This was much easier to do in 2008 for several reasons. For one thing, there were fewer sites on my blogroll and as I myself had only been blogging for half the year, I only included entries written after July. Secondly, and perhaps more importantly (and shamefully, from the '09 perspective) I was not a very good member of the blogosphere this year. In terms of my own output - which was sporadic - but also in terms of my participation on other sites.

Certainly, I established a presence at Wonders in the Dark, enjoying the suspense of the countdowns, participating in the lively back-and-forths, and contributing my own pieces from time to time. Otherwise, however, I found myself falling away from following most other blogs with any regularity, and a lot of great writing got lost in the shuffle. Sporadically, I would pop up to read and perhaps comment on individual posts but as such my reading of whole sites was hardly comprehensive. (Since I saw few new movies in theaters this year, I also tended not to check out the applicable reviews, which also played a part in cutting off my reading.)

As a result, combing through the past year's volumes of prose, in order to select my favorite pieces from my "followers" and "fellow travelers" on The Dancing Image and The Sun's Not Yellow has proved difficult. So I've reached a compromise which I think is not only fair, but perhaps better than my original idea. Lazy, perhaps, but also honest and, honestly, more beneficial in the end. I would like to solicit your choices for your own best writing of the year, and I will link it up on my both blogs, same as last year. As a "thank you" there will be three exceptions to the rule: Sam Juliano of the aforementioned blog, Tony Dayoub of Cinema Viewfinder, and Ibetolis of Film for the Soul. All of them published some of my work this year and in return, "above the fold" so to speak (the rest of the submissions will be listed alphabetically) I will post my favorite piece of theirs that I have read (though of course they are invited to highlight their own favorites as well).

So please feel free to propose a piece below - I will also be visiting all the sites on my blogroll to solicit submissions. And, though I said no resolutions, I can say that I hope next year I will be able to repay my gratitude for your readership and thoughtful commentary with a more active presence online - I'm even hoping to set aside some time during the busy week specifically for that purpose. Until then, I hope you will consider participating in the round-up - among other things, I am looking forward to seeing the work everyone's most proud of.