Pseudopodium: putting the ‘great’ back into ‘great life if you don’t weaken’

by John Holbo on February 25, 2004

With great power comes a little responsibility. As guest timberwossname, I inform you the best lit/film/culture online journal is Pseudopodium – formerly, Bellona Times. I wandered in one night by accident, while making my drunken way home. Well, it felt more like I fell through the roof, as Indiana Jones might find himself suddenly amongst the treasures of an ancient temple. For, you see, it’s one of those serially updated personal sites/online journals that goes back so far that it’s … older than blogging. Damn, you think, running a fingertrack through the dusty HTML. Place is old. 1999; 1997, even. Crap, some of this stuff was written in 1990. Frankly, it spooked me how good – smart and winning and heartfelt and erudite. Hazlitt and Howard Hawks, Nicholas Ray and Ruskin. I felt about uncertainly in this marvelous terrain, then with increasing delight; finally I was cramming my pockets with treasure to call my own ever after. I have returned regularly and very lately entered into edifying correspondence with its ten-times admirable demiurge, Ray Davis.

Now go and don’t come back until you have read for an hour. I could tell you which are my favorites, but I want you to have your own, that you found yourself.

Here’s the song that gave my title. Hope Ray doesn’t mind me provoking you all to strain his bandwidth.

UPDATE: Just to explain the joke, the connection between the two is, via the world, ‘with a kick to it’.

{ 4 comments }

1

Steve 02.25.04 at 4:48 pm

Before it was “Bellona Times”, it was “The Hotsy-Totsy Club”, named after a grotty little bar in Albany, California. Regardless, it’s one of the hidden treasures of the web.

2

Jimmy Doyle 02.25.04 at 7:23 pm

Just read the review of Lost in Translation. Didn’t realise it was possible to miss the point of a movie by *that* wide a margin.

3

nnyhav 02.25.04 at 9:53 pm

Ray & Dan Davies in a group blog would evoke a different tune …

4

Patrick Nielsen Hayden 02.26.04 at 4:06 am

I’ve been reading Bellona Times, now Pseudopodium, for years. It’s the best thing he’s done since Waterloo Sunset.

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