1.01.2007

And I Am Telling You... StinkyLulu's New Year's Resolutions

Happy New Year, Lovely Reader.


And to kick things off, please enjoy this New Year's Firecracker of a mashup from the always inspired ultranow: Jennifer Hudson & Jennifer Holliday both singing "And I Am Telling You" (link). Or as Lu likes to call it - J-Squared. Simply must be heard...


And now to the handful of Resolutions
that StinkyLulu'd like to share:

  1. Personal Pronouns: This is the big one. As you may have noticed, there's been something of a moratorium on personal pronouns here on StinkyLulu -- an avoidance of "I" and "me" and "my" in preference for a mildly "royal" StinkyLulu. Well. That started as a style thing -- an attempt to cultivate a kind of 3rd person authorial voice -- & it seems to have run its course. So, beginning today: I will use the first person (as well as -- inevitably -- the royal Lu). May seem like a little thing, but it's a big shift for me and my writing on this blog.
  2. Snapshots of Actressing At The Edges: A few seriously smart, treasured readers have encouraged Lulu -- see, it's pretty ingrained at this point -- have encouraged me to further develop the "actressing at the edges" angle of this forum. Supporting Actress Sundays will continue as they have but I do want to try some new things. And because I'm a historian by inclination and by training, I'm reluctant to do so too much in terms of current cinematic events. So, over the next few months, I'm going to be experimenting with a few new features to see what else is to be mined from this "actressing at the edges" hook. The most prominent among these new features will likely be my "snapshots of actressing at the edges" in which I will, as frequently as I can get it together to do so, offer very short appreciations of particular performances and/or specific moments within a performance.
  3. Actressing At The ______ Edges: In another new feature, taking the place of the noble but always-thwarted "Coulda Shoulda Woulda" series, I will -- about once or twice a month -- write-up an incredible or noteworthy performance in a movie that would otherwise escape critical notice. (The inspiration for this really came from the fun I had doing my piece on Ketty Lester in Blacula -- which would be "Actressing At The Edges of Blaxploitation.") So things like "Actressing At The Splattered Edges" for a performance in a splatter movie -- or "Actressing At The Direct-To-Video Edges" or "Actressing At The Silent Edges" etcetera etcetera. But here, lovely reader, I'll absolutely need your help making a list of such performances -- so please do email me your suggestions and inspirations. The more notorious, obscure or generically marginal the better.
  4. Supporting Actress Sunday/Smackdown: Rumors of the demise of StinkyLulu's most satisfying series/feature are unfounded. However, Supporting Actress Sundays are "on hiatus" until April. (Though there may be a Smackdown on one or more of the mornings of the big award shows, if folks are interested.) I am interested, however, in tweaking the format of the Smackdown a little and need some distance to clarify how I want to do that. Doing Supporting Actress Sundays has been more gratifying than I could have ever anticipated when I started them last March. So thank you for that and Supporting Actress Sundays/Smackdowns will be back on track before you know it.
  5. Write More: Coming perilously close to the typical, doomed-to-failure "lose 20 pounds" and "exercise daily" and "learn to latch hook" kinds of resolutions, I am nonetheless publicly proclaiming here that I want to make 2007 a year where I actually do write nearly every day. Experience has shown that I am happiest in all parts of my life when I am in a solid writing routine. So. What's stopping me? A lifetime of cultivating procrastination techniques perhaps? But Lulu's sucking it up. It'll be one day at a time, to be sure, but Resolutions 1-4 are part of the plan for Resolution 5... So! Thanks in advance, lovely reader, for the support...

JEEPERS. That was a lot of "sharing"... Ack. (Part of why the "royal Lulu" rule was instituted, truth be told.) But "resolutions" bring that out, s'pose. Y'all got any similar sharing to do? Resolutions of your own? Opinions? Suggestions? Random testimonials? Do tell...

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

You know, it's so funny Stinky...I too have fought viciously against the use of the third person on my blog. I can blame it on Elizabeth Speirs, who used to do it when she was the brainiac behind Gawker (and an early ModFab inspiration). But I do think it's overly fussy when I do it, so I may try to follow your resolution myself...and resist my desire to view myself as the Queen of England.

Not that you asked directly for input on Supporting Actress, but I wanted to say that I love it, even if I don't completely understand it (which is why I've never participated). It's so much fun to read, but I can't tell if it's a competition between actresses, or an homage, or some hybrid of the two. And is it a mini-blogathon, a meme? I'd love to see maybe two things: straight homage, and then straight smackdowns - "Jennifer Hudson vs. Catherine Zeta-Jones", for example.

Anonymous said...

Great resolutions, although I'm devastated to read about the Supporting Actress Smackdown going on hiatus. I hope it comes back very soon. Anyhoo, the new features that you mention look terrific, so I'll stay tuned.

Happy new year, everyone

The Jaded Armchair Reviewer said...

APRIL?! That's so long a wait for one of my favorite features ever.

Aren't you at least going to do a feature of the Supporting Actress Smackdown Winners vs. The Academy's Winners? Or a rundown/ranking of the Smackdown winners? Maybe even your own fantasy competition among the Smackdown winners if they were all eligible in one year?

Anyways, those aside, I want to say thanks for giving attention to my favorite awards category.

And oh, you don't get enough readers!

NATHANIEL R said...

I like the suggestion of tightening the smackdown like person vs. person or something.

and good luck on your NY's resolution! they sound fun. and I'm all for writing daily. i've been happier ever since I started doing so.

StinkyLulu said...

JS: Thanks for the kind words. There's a chance that SAS will be back in March, but I'm not sure.

I will be doing SASundays for the Oscar roster during February, culminating with -- I hope -- a version of the current Smackdown (me+4 bloggers blurbing and voting on each nominee) on the Sunday morning of the Oscar broadcast. Something may happen for the Globes as well, though less elaborately...

Nat/Gabriel: I won't be doing an actual 1-on-1 smackdown anytime soon. Others are great at that (ie JoeR) but it's just not my style (&, honestly, I don't really understand how they work). If I must change the name (smackdown) for clarity/accuracy, so be it.

I'm committed to aspects of the basic SAS format. I love doing the weekly write-ups (my teaching and other research obligations prohibit doing much more than that). I love spending the month delving into a particular year in depth. I love joining up with other POVs at month's end. I like the basic template of the "smackdown" (though I'm gonna drop the 'final thoughts' piece). I'm trying to figure out a way to involve more folks as contributors but haven't determined a sane/humane mechanism. Blah blah blah. The next couple months are a time to reflect and refine...